Sneak peek at The Love Bandits!

Lainey

Both of my parents are con artists.

Badcon artists.

But if wishing for status they weren't born into and money they didn't earn were an art, they'd be Matisse and Rodin. Sometimes they get little wins, though, like the time my mother acquired a rich lady's wallet when I was ten. I helped her cut her hair to better match the photo on the license, and we snuck into the woman's private club for an afternoon of bliss. Ordered food and charged it to her account, swam and got massages, and then booked it before anyone could notice.

I might have only been ten, but I wasn't stupid. I knew it was wrong, and my mother definitely did. It also felt really, really good—like we were playing a game and winning, and no one else even knew about it. I don't think we've ever enjoyed each other's company more than we did on that afternoon.

When we left, my mother had a glimmer in her eyes and a bounce in her step. She was happy, which I wasn't used to seeing, and I felt some of her shine rubbing off on me. I remember thinking, So this is what it feels like to be rich.

My mom brought me home, to our cramped fourth-floor walk-up on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. And once we were sitting on the couch, directly in front of the fan, because it was hot as the seventh circle of hell outside, she leaned in close and said, "That's going to be our little secret, Elaine. Don't even tell your father."

"Can we do it again?" I asked, because acting rich had felt pretty damn good, and I wanted more.

She laughed so hard, she threw her head back.

"Not as Marjorie Eccles," she finally answered with a wink, wrapping her arm around my narrow shoulders. "But she's not the only one who doesn"t know how to hold onto her handbag."

That was news to me, because I'd thought she'd found it lying on the sidewalk. A feeling of misgiving pricked at me—finders keepers was one thing, but snatching a handbag was a real crime.

"You really nabbed her purse?" I ask.

She shrugged and leaned toward the fan like she wanted it to swallow her. "You know stealing is wrong, Elaine, but she needed someone to teach her the golden rule. I saw her kick a homeless man's hat, and the money he was collecting scattered everywhere. Who would do a thing like that?"

"Did you give the cash in the bag to him?" I ask, getting caught up in the picture she was drawing.

Robin Hood was my favorite story—taking from the rich and giving to the poor. I wanted to be like him when I grew up, but when I'd said that to my best friend, Claire, she'd bitten her lip and said, "But you can do that in a legal way. Like, maybe you could become a civil rights lawyer."

"That sounds like a lot of work,"I'd replied. It went without saying that it sounded like boring work.

"Probably," she'd said thoughtfully, "but learning how to steal from people without getting caught would be hard too."

But apparently I already had a thief in the house, so maybe it wouldn't be impossible to become Robin Hood.

I watched my mother expectantly as she sighed and leaned in even closer to the fan. "Well?" I prodded.

"Of course I did, Lainey," she said without flinching.

She said it so seriously, without any hitch in her voice. Then again, she'd always been a good liar. So I—

"Is there any point to this story?" asks my business partner, Nicole, kicking back in her chair. Her pink hair is a pop of bright color beneath the low lighting.

We're sitting at a round table in the kitchen of a cabin in Marshall, NC, drinking beers. My best friend—Claire, of the well-intentioned advice—inherited this place with Nicole from their biological father. Due to some strange stipulations of his will, they both had to live here for a month, and since Claire is the closest thing to a sibling I've ever had, I followed her here.

It didn't hurt that my life in New York City had fallen apart.

But that was a few months ago. Claire recently moved in with her boyfriend, who lives next door, and Nicole doesn't stay here much because she and her husband own a house in Asheville. So I'm the last woman standing, living in this cabin that I've lucked my way into, owned by two people who don't charge me rent.

My parents taught me well.

Nicole came over to discuss the new business venture we're working on together, The Love Fixers, services for people who have been screwed over by love. It's a work in progress, because I have to balance it with a part-time job working as a personal assistant for an older rich woman who dislikes me, and Nicole is a private investigator who keeps unpredictable hours.

Claire is basically here as our cheerleader, giving us what little energy she has left after waking up at four a.m. to get ready for the morning rush at her bakery.

"Well?" Nicole says, lifting her eyebrows and rocking some more.

Claire, who's sitting at the table with us, shoots her a look. "Of course there's a point. She's getting to it. It's called dramatic timing."

"Thank you for the encouragement," I say with a smile.

Nicole rolls her eyes. "You're not a kindergarten teacher, Claire. You don't have to give out participation rewards."

"I know where she's going with it," Claire says with a nod.

"So you've been bored by it before," Nicole replies, but there's a hint of amusement to her mouth.

"You know you want know what happens next," I say.

She waves her hand, which is as much of a go-ahead as I'm likely to get.

"I went looking for Marjorie Eccles," I say. "It wasn't hard. My mom had hidden the purse and the wallet. She was probably planning to destroy them—"

"Or keep them as a souvenir like a serial killer," Nicole says.

"Maybe," I say with a shrug. "Anyway, I went to the address on her license and returned the rest of her stuff. Pretended I'd found it thrown out on the sidewalk."

"Like if a mugger had tossed it after taking the good stuff," Nicole says with a nod of approval.

"Well, yeah," I say, "which is basically what happened. Anyway, I took it to her building, and she came down to get it. She told me I was a good citizen and the sweetest little girl she'd ever seen. And then she gave me fifty bucks."

"Did you give it to your mother?" Nicole asks.

I give her a flat look.

"So you're not entirely stupid."

"Hopefully not. Anyway, it turns out Marjorie was on the board of a charity geared toward ending homelessness."

"One kicked hat at a time," Nicole says with a glimmer in her eyes.

"My mother was lying."

Claire shrugs and nods at the same time, her expression sympathetic. She knows my mother's a liar. She's been to a dozen MLM parties for everything from shitty makeup to shitty tinctures, and my God, my mother acts like every bad product she decides to peddle is going to end world hunger. Her hustle is so dedicated it's almost admirable.

"Maybe," Nicole says. "Probably. But you're na?ve if you think being on the board of that charity means she's never kicked over any hats. Besides…you took advantage of her too."

I nod. "Good people get taken advantage of. They get fucked over by people who don't mean well, like my mother, and even people who do, like me."

"Your point?" she asks, rocking in her chair again.

"Women like Marjorie need our help. I also have a lot of karma points to build, and sending out glitter bombs and ‘fuck you very much' cookies isn't going to do it. We've been thinking too small."

"I'm proud of those cookies," Claire interjects, tapping the table with her finger. "My sugar cookie recipe is to die for."

I give her a sympathetic look. "Claire, do you really think someone who gets a cookie that says ‘fuck you very much' from their ex is going to eat it?"

She visibly deflates. "Well, crap. It feels like I've wasted a lot of effort. I should just be frosting graham crackers."

"But it's the effort that goes into it that really sends the message home," Nicole says, which is her version of a sisterly pat on the back. She picks up her beer and swigs it, then shifts her attention to me. "So, let's have it. There's something you want to do, and it's dangerous, and for some reason, you think you need my blessing."

"You're my business partner." Meaning she's the one who's bankrolled this thing, in as much as it's needed to be bankrolled. Right now all we have a vague website, an LLC, and this house as our office. But I'm not my parents' child for nothing—I can think big, even if I can't achieve big. In my head, I can see it growing into a real business, one with employees and salary and maybe even a bonafide snack room.

"Which means I trust you," Nicole continues.

This penetrates more deeply than she probably meant for it to. I want to be a person who's trustworthy, but I was raised by parents who taught me to lie and manipulate. To climb social ladders and then destroy them so no one could follow me up. And, I'll be honest, sometimes I fall into that behavior without even realizing it's happening.

Maybe I told the story, in part, as a warning.

Don't trust me.

And here she is, saying she does.

First, Nicole told me she believed in my idea for the Love Fixers and wanted to help me make a go of it, and now, in her own way, she's saying she believes in me.

Which gives me pause, because I have to wonder: did I manipulate my way here? Was I dishonest without realizing it?

It's fucking exhausting to have to constantly second guess yourself.

Sighing, I take a swig of my beer and pull my phone out, then scroll to the email, pulling it up. I've already told Claire about it, but I didn't want to play show and tell with Nicole until I'd done a little ground work. I'm not embarrassed to admit that I want to impress her.

I slide the phone over to her.

"Assume I'm illiterate," she says, squinting at it before sliding it back. Based on the way she was looking at it, Claire's far-sightedness is probably hereditary.

Nicole would die before admitting she needs reading glasses.

"The client went to a party with her boyfriend," I say, "and later that night, they fought and broke up. But she left her heirloom heart pendant necklace in his apartment. And, get this, he won't give it back. He claims it's not there, but she knows exactly where she left it. He's lying."

"Why are you so sure of that?" Nicole asks shrewdly, watching me.

"It's worth a lot of money," I say, "and it has sentimental value for the client." I think of the Yankees bat I stole from my ex-fiancé, Todd, which has a place of dishonor in my closet. He used to talk about that bat at parties for so long people's eyes would glaze over, but he'd keep going for at least another two minutes because he wanted to make sure to establish his dominance—it was his privilege to bore them while talking about his privilege.

"He wanted to take something that would hurt her," I continue, "because she hurt him."

It's probably hypocritical for me to care about her emotional pain and not Todd's, but I didn't find a stash of vanilla sex emails exchanged between her and her childhood sweetheart.

"Why'd she break up with him?" Claire asks.

"Was it porn?" Nicole interjects with fresh interest. "Let me guess, she found out he was into some really bleak shit."

I roll my eyes. "She broke up with him because she suspected he was a cheater, one of those guys who wanted to have his cake and eat it too."

"That's such a dumb saying," Nicole says. "Who the fuck would buy a cake but not want to eat it?"

"The ‘fuck you very much' cookie people," Claire says sadly, and I can't help but laugh.

"My point is," I say, waving my hand. "She didn't trust him, and he couldn't come up with a good explanation for his behavior. So she decided to cut her losses, and now he's holding her necklace hostage, which proves his unworthiness. Someone needs to step in and deal with this jerk, this absolute waste of humanity. I'm going to get that necklace back for her, and I'm going to make him regret the day he was born."

"And it will be therapeutic," Claire says sadly, giving Nicole a significant look that probably flies right over her head. "Because Todd was a cheater."

"That has nothing to do with this," I insist.

Another lie, although this time everyone knows I'm lying. Still, I have to admit there's a lot Claire doesn't know about the Todd situation…things I would prefer not to tell her.

"I don't care," Nicole says flippantly. "Sounds fun. I like a good heist. I'm in."

"We could get into trouble," I admit. "The business could get into trouble."

We set it up as an LLC, but I'm pretty sure ‘limited liability' doesn't cover stealing stuff for people.

"I wouldn't want to do it if that weren't a possibility," she says. "Did you run a background check on this woman?"

Nicole showed me how to do it, so I took that step on my own, wanting to prove that I could follow instructions.

"I did. And I met with her too."

"Here?" Nicole asks, raising her eyebrows.

"Starbucks."

Cleo's a little woman, with long black hair and big brown eyes, more Bambi than Disney princess, and I instantly felt an urge to protect her. I mean, what monster would want to inflict emotional damage on Bambi?

One who deserves to have his fortress stormed.

"Good," Nicole says after I tell her a bit about the meeting. "Let her know it's a go. We're in."

"Good," I repeat, feeling a smile slide across my face. I feel a rush, not entirely unlike what I felt like when my mother and I left the private club that day.

"You know," Nicole ruminates, "the best way to get close to him is probably to pretend you're interested in his dick."

I shrug, grinning at them. "Hello, therapy."

"I feel the need to point out that actual therapy would be less dangerous and more dignified than trying to get revenge on a stranger," Claire says.

"Probably," Nicole says with a smirk. "But I'm guessing she'll never know. And the therapist will be spared thirty-minute long stories about her mother."

I shake my head at her, then lift my bottle toward the ceiling and say, "Jake Langston, I'm coming for you. You hear me? I'm coming for you."