Chapter 29

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

LAINEY

Conversation with Nicole

I'm in with Emma.

We're gonna get shots together tomorrow tonight.

Does she know this?

She will.

What's up with you? Did you bang the thief yet? Damien and I have a bet running.

Sometimes I dislike you.

Is that a yes or a no?

Mrs. Rosings got us an opening at Anthony's house on Thursday night.

You're avoiding the question. Cold. You should want me to win because if I come out ahead we're BOTH winners.

Has Damien gotten anywhere?

A big fat nope. But he's working on an angle.

I stick my phone in my pocket and leave the bathroom in Jake Jeffries's old apartment, feeling unsettled by that.

He's working on an angle.

It suggests Damien's on the cusp of finding something. Possibly something complicated. But I shake it off as I step into the living room, where Jake's waiting for me with a grin. "You ready to make that motherfucker pay?"

We brought the banner with us when we left Marshall this morning, so we follow his former girlfriend's directions to where he keeps his very expensive motorcycle, and then string it around the bike, adding plenty of fancy bows for flair. Then we hide in the trees by the parking lot so we can watch while the motherfucker himself find it.

We film his attempts to destroy it for his ex's social media, nearly pissing ourselves from holding in laughter when he trips over the banner, then tries to rip it in half five times without getting anywhere, and finally stomps on it before dropping his lighter onto it—at which point a cop rolls by and gives him a citation.

As we pick our way out of the trees, heading back toward my car, parked with the others in the lot, Jake glances at me, a smile on his face. I say, "You're going to tell a story about today, aren't you? With your drawings."

"Maybe so," he says as we approach the car, "but the garage won't be in it. That was just for us."

"Us…and Joy. Joy definitely saw your dick. It was a whole thing."

He laughs easily, his shoulders shaking with it, and then wraps an arm around me, and I feel…

I'm happy, but it's a happiness edged in teeth, because it's a happiness that can't stay.

We pick up a pizza and a tin of sardines for Professor X, and we go back to the house and change into comfy clothes and watch Matchmaking Small Town America while we compete to come up with the best slogan for the Love Fixers.

Love got you down? Call the Love Fixers, and turn that frown upside down.

Want to see him cry? So do we.

We're barely paying attention to what's on the TV, but one of the guys on the show who was introduced as a New Yorker doesn't seem to know anything about the subway system—or to understand that the Statue of Liberty is on an island. Jake snorts and says, "He's not from New York City so much as he showed up on a bus six weeks ago for an audition and never left."

" You're from New York," I say in wonder, because I can tell. It's there in the way he's saying it. In the knowing roll of his eyes.

It's kind of magical to think he was there the whole time I was—that we were living our lives in parallel. Maybe going to the same bagel shops or bodegas.

Part of me feels like I would have noticed him, as if it would be impossible not to, but there are millions of people who live in New York, and his would have just been another attractive face in the crowd.

Jake studies me for a second before nodding and running a hand down my calf, settling it on my ankle. "Sure, but I'm telling you that. I'm not telling Nicole and Damien."

Which means I'm not supposed to tell them either.

"They'll find out," I warn. Then, thinking about what Nicole said earlier, I add, "They might already be finding out. It would be better to just tell them."

He thinks this through before saying, "Probably. But if I did the smart thing all the time, I definitely wouldn't have met you . So maybe I should keep being stupid and hope for the best."

Maybe this says something about the company I keep, but it's one of the best compliments I've ever gotten from a man.

"What do you miss most about the city?" I ask as New York Man mouths off on the TV.

His mouth lifts up. "I'd kill someone for a bagel, maybe. But right now? Nothing. I'm exactly where I want to be, when I want to be." He kisses my hair. "With the person I want to be with."

"That's a good thing," I say, trying not to show him how much his answer means to me. "Because you still can't leave."

Just past dusk, Claire and Declan stop by to ask about the cookie basket, and Jake tells them how it all went down in a way that has even Declan in hysterics. Storytelling is one of his talents, but a voice in my head whispers that it's convenient to be a good storyteller if you're also a liar. The two go hand in hand. But I shake the voice off like it's a wasp I'd rather not be stung by and suggest we all have a drink around the firepit.

Declan lights a fire, and we drink and laugh, our chairs turned to face the mountains in the distance—soft, rolling lines still visible as darker pieces of night. The weather's a little crisp again but not cold—the perfect weather for sitting outside and enjoying the mountain air—and as Jake gives me a look, I feel a different kind of want.

It could be like this. My whole life could be like this if he stayed.

But he's not going to, and I should be smarter than to want what's never going to be mine. I need to dig my feet into that bedrock of truth and live there.

"Can I check the closet in my old room?" Claire asks out of nowhere. "I think I left my comfiest shoes behind."

I admire the way she says this with a straight face, when both she and I know she's wearing her comfiest shoes—the one she always praises for at least five minutes whenever she has them on. Honestly, I would have wanted to get the goods from her too.

As soon as we get through the back door leading into the kitchen, she pushes it shut and turns to me, her eyes shining. "Something happened between you two, didn't it? I can tell. You decided to go for it."

I think about what Jake said about wanting the garage to be just for us.

I do too, but that doesn't mean I can't confirm something happened. Claire's my oldest friend, my person.

So I grin at her. "Maybe, but if you tell Nicole, you're dead to me. She has this bet going with Damien about…" I taper off because Claire has a guilty look on her face. " No ."

She covers her mouth with her hand, then speaks through her splayed fingers. "I'm sorry. I didn't…you know Nicole. It's really hard to say no to her, and we were both rooting for you to have some fun. Damien's more protective. He insisted we come out here every night to check on you, not that I wasn't one hundred percent planning on doing that anyway, and…" She sighs and lowers her hand, worrying at the pocket of her pants.

Laughter gushes out of me, and I push her arm. "Who are you, and what have you done to my best friend?"

"I'm sorry. My sister's been a bad influence. I'm ashamed of myself."

I wrap her into a hug, still laughing, and she hugs me back hard before I pull away. "I'm not mad. But I still don't want you to tell Nicole. Let's keep her on her toes. What's the prize for guessing correctly?"

"The winner has to wear a Bronuts costume of the loser's design and dance outside the bakery in it for an hour. Damien will basically be bankrolling my theoretical future child's education if he does it."

Because he'd be a hot man dressed up like a baked good. The tourists will show up in droves.

"But it would really torment Nicole if she had to do it," I put in.

Claire and I both laugh at the mental image, before she shakes her head. "It's too bad you had to go and sleep with him."

I laugh and give her arm another shove. "I regret nothing."

She jumps up and down on her feet and actually claps her hands, as if my sex life is a boy band concert. "Oh my God. You confirmed it! I want to know everything. Did you…" She moves her hand in a yada-yada gesture.

" Yes ," I say, seeing movement through the glass in the door—Jake and Declan, coming back toward the house. "But seriously don't tell her," I continue in an undertone. "Let's let her sweat a little. She'd never admit it, but she's worried she'll be the one wearing those balls."

"Okay," Claire says, her eyes shining as she glances past me through the glass. She reaches out and squeezes my hand. "I'm glad you're having fun, Lainey. You deserve it."

She doesn't ask if it's more than fun, because Claire probably can't imagine I'd ever want more with a thief—a man who has made his living on the wrong side of the law. She's known me as the Lainey who zeroed in on the first rich, handsome, and connected man who crossed my path in college.

A part of me wishes she'd see what I haven't said, even if she'd only reach the same conclusion I have—that I can only live in the moment with him, because that's all we're ever going to get.

Claire and Declan head out to help Rosie pack, but they leave the fire blazing in the pit, so Jake and I stay out there until it's late, the sky painted entirely black.

We talk about the Love Fixers and Matchmaking Small Town America . We discuss our favorite Thai takeout places in New York, argue about the best place to get bagels, and have a stirring debate about which subway line is the least reliable.

We do not talk about Thursday, or what will happen if and when we locate the necklace.

We do not talk about the text messages he gets every morning from his brother's captor.

And when our words run out, he keeps looking at me, studying me by the warm light of the fire.

"Why are you staring at me?" I ask.

He smiles and shakes his head. "I can't seem to stop looking at you. You're gorgeous."

My breath catches, but I'm already feeling exposed in a way I'm not used to. With Todd, I was unhappy, but I never felt like he could truly break me—only bend me until I fit a different image. So I clear my throat and say, "If you tell me I look even better than the view, I'm going to throttle you."

"You can throttle me if you'd like," he says with a slow, lazy grin that stirs something in me. "In fact, I was just wondering if you'd ever had sex by a campfire before. That seems like the kind of thing that would do it for my little exhibitionist."

"My best friend lives next door."

His smile spreads wider. "You've assured me they have new windows, and they already did their nightly check-in for Nicole and Damien. So there's nothing holding us back."

"You knew?" I ask, laughing, getting up from my chair, pushed up next to his, and climbing into his lap. He slides his hand up the back of my long-sleeved shirt, his eyes softening once his flesh is pressed to mine—as if he needs this as much as I do.

"I don't blame them," he says, expertly unlatching my bra before sliding his hands around to the front to cup me. "I like that they're concerned for you. You should have someone out here who's worried about you."

I don't tell him that I'd like that someone to be him—I decide I'd prefer to show him.

It turns out sex outside does do it for me. Although I have a sinking suspicion that it's Jake Not-Jeffries who's the real secret to my sudden ability to orgasm on command.

He stays in my room that night. The three of us do—Jake, me, and Professor X, who falls asleep on top of Jake, not that I blame her.

To my surprise, he's awake before I am, sketching in his book at the kitchen table. When I come down to the kitchen, I glance over his shoulder and grin when I see that he's drawing the cookie bouquet. He and I are in the scene too, wearing the costumes from the picture he sketched for the door yesterday.

"You have a gift," I say, leaning down to press a kiss to his head. He drops the colored pencil and grabs my hand, pulling me into his lap.

"A gift for making you come."

I'm laughing as he kisses me, his hand lifting into my hair to cup the back of my head. He pulls away slightly, smiling at me. "I made some precious, precious coffee."

"Oh, thank God," I say, in no hurry to get up. I look into his eyes, taking in the layering of colors, like in one of his pictures. He's achingly beautiful. Maybe that's why I decide to ask, "Are you ready for Thursday night?"

A corner of his mouth lifts. "You know me. I live for breaking and entering." Then he shrugs and wraps an arm around my waist, pulling my closer. "My brother's better at picking locks. That's kind of his thing. If lock-picking were a class, I'd probably get a B-. Maybe a C+. But we'll muddle through."

I'm confused by this. Surely, a professional thief should be able to get through a lock, any lock. I pull back a little, turning to look him in the eye again. "Maybe you picked the wrong career plan."

He gives me an inscrutable look, his hand flexing around my hip. "If you make them like you enough, they'll open the door for you."

From the way he says it, it's meant as a warning. But if so, it's been delivered too late. I've opened the door for him—I've propped it with a metal anchor.

We eat breakfast; I leave for my day job.

When I come home, he's waiting for me, his pen tapping against my desk. Professor X is curled up on his lap. "Are you ready, Love Fixer?" he asks with a grin. "We've got some work to do."

And my heart gives a funny little lurch as I grin at him and say, "Thank God. I figured I'd just come home and rest like a normal person. It's a good thing I have you to save me from being boring."

"I knew you'd see things my way," he says, picking up Professor X and setting her down gently. Then he lifts me up by the waist and swings me around before kissing me, and my heart gives another sickening lurch.

We help a woman pack up her things while her crappy, cheater of an ex is at a concert. We make a cookie delivery. We call up a woman's ex, and Jake pretends to be her new boyfriend and tells him in no uncertain terms to back off.

It is exhilarating .

And five minutes after we pull into the driveway of the cabin, Claire and Declan come over with dessert.

Jake grins at me. "Look, honey, your friends just happened to come over again. Who would have thought?"

But he doesn't act like he minds, and I definitely don't mind. It feels strangely right to have them here. Like this might become a habit I'll depend upon if I'm not careful.

By mutual silent agreement, he sleeps in my room again that night.

When Jake's phone buzzes the next morning, I groan and bury my face under my pillow. It's much too comfortable next to him for me to want to deal with the day yet. Still, I can't help glancing at him as he checks the message, his brow furrowed.

"Your girlfriend?" I joke. Or at least I'm mostly joking. There's still so much we don't know about each other's histories, so much we haven't said. In some ways, I feel closer to Jake than I've ever felt to a man, and in others…

I don't know his last name.

I don't know his last name .

"No, it's Roark," he says with a sigh, flashing me the screen. I see a few texts from a number coded ASSHOLE. Based on the text he just received, his brother has just over a week left before he faces his consequences. "He wants to keep me on my toes."

"Prick."

He nods, tapping the side of his phone, but there's something melancholy about him. "I guess he is. You know…I didn't used to think so. I used to think of him as…not a father, but close. It's been one of those hard truths."

There's something vulnerable and sweet about his expression, and my heart gives another of its lurches. I lean in and kiss him softly, marveling over the fact that he's here, in my bed. That I want him here. That my bed would have felt empty and cold if he'd left in the night.

At Smith House, Mrs. Rosings is practically humming with nervous energy. She spends the whole morning talking my ear off, and then sits beside me all afternoon while I package the wedding favors for a wedding she hopes will never happen. With favors like these—brown goat milk soap that smells like the inside of a barn and looks like excrement—I'm guessing the guests would prefer it that way too.

My phone rings at around three.

It's Damien's number, and my heart instantly starts racing.

He was looking into Jake's story, and he's found something. He knows something.

Part of me doesn't want to answer.

Part of me has been waiting for this like a child sitting by the Christmas tree at the end of November, waiting for Santa to come.

Mrs. Rosings glowers at me as the phone buzzes on the table beside the gargantuan stack of horrible gifts. "It's that boy, isn't it? He's already keeping tabs on you."

I shake my head. "It's my roommate."

She waves for me to go, and I answer Damien's call as I head toward the front door.

"It's about time," Nicole says as soon as I click on.

"Nicole?"

"I conferenced in both of you," Damien says. "I had an interesting morning."

"Where are you, anyway?" I ask.

"I'm in Connecticut. I found the old man with the watch. He never declared it stolen, but it's definitely him."

My pulse pounds faster as I step out into the crisp but sunny day. I make my way to one of the rocking chairs and lower into it.

"How'd you find him?" I say softly.

"Jake said it was registered with the Sons of the American Revolution. There were only a few possibilities, so I followed up on all of them. This guy recognized Jake's photo."

The same one Cleo showed me a few weeks ago—the one she must have taken while he was falling down drunk, a thought that makes me sick.

"You're killing it with the dramatic timing, hot stuff," Nicole says. "But it's way too early for this shit."

"It's nearly four o'clock," I say, the words dry in my mouth. Three hours. Jake and I have three hours until we're supposed to break into Anthony's house.

"Yeah, you try waking up at four after going shot for shot with that woman."

Damn. I've seen Nicole drink, so Emma Rosings Smith must be some kind of machine. But I have to admit I don't really care about Emma Rosings Smith or her ability to drink Nicole under the table, or even what Nicole might have learned from her, because I have no doubt Damien called us for a reason.

Still, part of me doesn't want to hear it.

"Did you get anything from her?" I ask, my voice distant, as if it's someone else's.

She snorts. "No. Only that she doesn't want her brother to get married either. If they let people take objections at the ceremony, it'll be longer than one of your stories about your mother."

"Damien?" I ask.

"Jake told you the old man offered to give him the watch, and he turned him down."

"Yeah," I say, my heart thumping. "And then the guy who kidnapped his brother sent someone else to steal it."

"That didn't happen," he says, his tone regretful. "I'm sorry, Lainey, I liked the guy too, but he's been straight up lying to you."

"What did this older gentleman tell you?" I ask stiffly, trying to sound like all of the fears that have been chasing me haven't just bitten down and I'm not metaphorically bleeding out here on Mrs. Rosings's front porch.

Jake's a liar.

He's been lying to me from the start.

Chasing around those thoughts is another one: don't I deserve it? Isn't this exactly what I deserve for the lies I myself have told?

"Dale. His name's Dale. I showed him that photo of Jake," Damien says, "and he knew him as Jack Ryerson. He said he met Jack at an AA meeting—"

Shit, pretending to be an alcoholic to dupe an old man is bad. Really bad. The hits keep coming, slapping me in the face and telling me I've been a fool.

"And they got along great. Dale invited him over for lunch, thinking maybe he'd be his sponsor, and they got close. So he offered him the watch as a sign that he believed in him and his ability to get clean. I guess Jack said no the first time he offered, but a couple of days later, he came over and told him he'd given it some thought and it would be an insult to say no to a gesture like that. So he took the pocket watch and then disappeared. The guy never saw him again. He seemed pretty torn up about it, to be honest. He was worried about him. Thought maybe he'd done something self-destructive."

I feel pretty torn up inside too.

My mind rewinds through everything, pausing at what Jake said to me this morning: if you make them like you enough, they'll open the door for you.

From what Jake told me the other day, Dale's gesture had changed him. It made him realize that what he'd been doing was wrong—and decide that he couldn't do it anymore.

What else has he lied about?

Does he even have a brother?

Was there something stolen or dangerous in that bag I took for him?

My heart feels like it's chomping its way out of my chest—a Pac-Man heart—and I feel a sharper understanding than ever before of what it is to feel like a fool, a dupe, a patsy.

Worse: I should have known better.

I knew who he was: he'd told me. But I'd let myself think I was different—that I was the person he'd decided to be himself with. That thought was as seductive as the way he looked at me, the way he touched me…the way he made me feel like there was a special connection between us.

Of course he was good at making people feel special. He'd made Dale feel special too—right up until he'd taken his most prized and sentimental possession.

But then I think of those text messages from ASSHOLE. I think of the countdown. Whatever else he's lying about, I believe that Jake really is in trouble, and he'll be in deeper trouble if he doesn't get the necklace.

"Have you found out his last name?" I ask tightly, my whole body quaking.

"Not yet. The new cover name should help. I've got two names to follow—"

"He's from New York City," I say, my heart beating fast. Because even now I feel like I'm betraying him, sharing something he'd wanted me to keep to myself. "Although obviously that doesn't narrow it down. He told me his first name's definitely Jake, and that he either uses Jake or something close to it whenever he's on a job, which matches with him going by Jack in Connecticut."

"That will help," Damien says, "but Lainey, you shouldn't be alone with this guy, and you definitely shouldn't break into that house with him. Put him off. If he gets that necklace, he'll take it and run. We'll never see him again. You don't want to be on the hook for that if it comes out that you helped him."

Nicole groans, then says, "Fine. I'm coming back from Charlotte. I'll break into the suit's house with you, Lainey. We've got this. No problem."

"No," Damien says sharply. "Wait for me. I'm on a five o'clock flight. I'll be home this evening."

But not early enough to coincide with the Halloween play.

Maybe I'm a fool, a dupe, and a patsy, but I'm not going to lie down and let my friends solve this for me. I'm a woman who handles her own damn problems. I'm going to confront Jake

Whatever-The-Fuck-His-Last-Name-Is. And I'm going to do it tonight.

I will find out what's real and what's not.

And until I know?

I'll be damned if I let him take that necklace.