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The man from the shop’s eyebrows shoot higher. “You had a kid with you too?”
I nod, frowning.
He frowns at me for a moment. “You should have called me sooner.”
“You…?” I ask, tilting my head.
But he’s already moving on from me. He steps toward Mrs. Randall, who’s still yelling her head off about prostitutes and wicked people. As he approaches her, he whips a badge from his pocket. “Ma’am, my name is Sheriff Donavan.”
At that, Jason and I exchange a single, shocked glance.
“I’m going to have to ask you to come with me,” the sheriff continues. “For questioning about a hit and run. This is a very serious offence; I hope you realize.”
“I…” Mrs. Randall’s mouth drops open, then snaps shut again. She tries a couple more times, without managing to get a word out.
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” the sheriff says, with a hint of a grim smile on his mouth. “You have the right to remain silent, so I’d suggest utilizing it…” He waves her toward his car, and all of us, Jason, me and everyone else who’d been present at the ice cream stand, watch in growing shock as the sheriff leads Mrs. Randall over to his squad car. After he sits her down in the car, he steps back to tell me that he’s going to have forensics check the scrapes on her car against mine, and that he’ll need me to stop by the sheriff’s office at some point to give my testimony about the whole event, which I assure him I’m more than happy to do.
“I assume you’ll want to press charges?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow at me.
I glance past him, to the back of the squad car, where Mrs. Randall is pressed up against the glass, scowling at both of us, her eyes darting from Jason to me and back as though she can’t quite decide who she ought to be more furious with. I can feel a small smile spreading across my face. I think about Angel, and Jason’s fruitless court case in trying to vindicate her. “Oh, yes,” I reply. “I will most certainly be pressing charges.”
I feel his hand slide around mine, and he squeezes my fingers in silent thanks. I squeeze back in quiet reassurance. We both watch, amid a scattered smattering of applause from the gathered crowd, who even in just a few minutes of listening to her ranting had managed to take our side over Mrs. Randall’s, as the sheriff climbs back into his car and drives away with her in the backseat.
Only after they’re gone do I let Jason tug me gently back toward his car. Once there, safely ensconced inside it, away from the staring crowd, he wraps his arms around me tightly, and holds me to his chest, not letting go. I lean my head against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart, a little elevated after all that excitement, but no wonder.
“Thank you,” he says, and his voice is already deep, but with my ear pressed against his chest, it seems sonorous, ringing throughout my whole body as he speaks. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am for you right now.”
I lean my head back to smile up at him. “It’s only right,” I say. “She’s done terrible things. Not only did she hurt your sister, and hurt you, but she put lives in danger.”
He shakes his head. “I still can’t believe, even after everything she did to us, that she could be so selfish and blind as to run an innocent person off the road.”
“She’s clearly not well,” I point out. “And she’s a menace at school too. Probably miserable in her marriage, miserable in her whole approach to life…”
“They’ll never let her keep teaching now,” he says, and I can’t help sighing with relief.
“Becca will be happy about that,” I say. “She never liked her. Said she was too angry and mean a person.”
Jason chuckles. “Kids can be so damn smart, can’t they?”
I lean my head back against his chest once more. “They really can.”
He huffs out a sigh into my hair. “You know what wasn’t smart, though…?” He waits to elaborate until I tilt my head back to meet his gaze, curious. When I do, he runs a hand through my hair, frowning at me. “Lying to you, Naomi.”
I bite the inside of my lip. “Well, you didn’t lie, exactly…”
“But I didn’t tell you the whole truth, which is just as bad.” He shakes his head. “I was worried if I told you too much, about the bathroom and my sister and all, that you’d get freaked out. That you’d call things off between us, just when we were getting started.” He grimaces. “I just hope you can forgive me for it.” His expression turns pleading. “I meant it when I said I care about you, Naomi. A lot. More than I’ve ever cared for anyone this quickly. I hope you can give me a chance, a real chance, to find out if this thing between us is real.”
I press my lips together, quiet for a long moment as I debate. Then I take a deep breath. “I’ll forgive you,” I tell him, and he lets out a whoop of relief. But I lift a hand and press it to his mouth, silencing him, even though I can’t help grinning a little at his obvious excitement. “On one condition,” I add, with a pointed glare.
He pulls back from my hand just far enough to free his mouth, also grinning at me. “Anything, Naomi,” he promises. “Just name it and I’ll do it.”
I lick my lips, and glance from him, out the window, and back again. Then I lean in, and whisper in his ear exactly what he needs to do if he wants me to truly forgive him.
15
We cross the hotel lobby hand in hand. The concierge smiles as we pass. I don’t doubt he’s seen Jason in here, coming to meet me, often enough now that it doesn’t give him much of a pause. Still, I can feel his eyes following us as we head past the elevators in the lobby, toward the far end instead. Where the single stall handicap bathroom sits.
Outside of it, we hesitate, and I check back over our shoulders, letting go of Jason’s hand as I do. He flashes me a quick, sly grin. “Join me in a minute.” Without another word, he opens the bathroom and slips into it.
I linger, waiting until a tipsy couple stagger past, on their way from the bar back up to their room, no doubt. They catch my eye on the way, and I offer them a broad smile, wishing them a good night.
“You too,” the woman calls back, giggling. I resist the urge to tell her not to worry on that count. I definitely will.
The moment the elevator doors close behind them, and I’m alone in the hallway once more, I step back up to the bathroom door and slip inside, with one final peek over my shoulder. I barely have time to close the stall door behind me before Jason catches my waist and pins me against it, kissing me hard. I slide my arms up around his neck, grinning into our kiss.
“Have I mentioned yet tonight how gorgeous you look?” he whispers against my lips when we break our kiss, backing just far enough apart to stare up at one another.
“You might have mentioned it once or twice,” I answer with a grin.
“Not nearly enough times, then,” he says, and leans back toward me, but I stop him with a single finger pressed against his lips.
“Ah, ah. Not until we finish what we came here to do, remember?” I arch an eyebrow, and his smile widens.
“You do realize that playing hard to get is only going to make me harder when I do get you, right?” He steps back from me, though, and turns around to take a handful of paper towels from the sink.
“That’s kind of the point,” I reply with a laugh as I step aside from the doorway. Sure enough, it’s still there. I guess the maids didn’t notice it or hadn’t had enough time to clean it away themselves.
For a good time, call Angel. 555-565-0240.
The line that started it all. As grateful as I am to those fateful words for introducing me to one of the kindest, sexiest men I know, it’s time we ended this thing once and for all. No more calls are going to go to his phone anymore. And no new bathroom scrawls with his number on them are likely to be popping up anytime soon. Not with Mrs. Randall dealing with the police fallout from my accusations. I have no doubt the forensics team will find the paint on her car matches the scratches on mine. When they do, she’ll be facing at the very least huge fines, and poss
ibly probation or even a couple months of jail time, depending on how good of a lawyer I manage to find.
And from the sounds of it, Jason has the perfect one on hold for me. His old lawyer from the case with Angel. A man who’s already very pissed off at Mrs. Randall, and willing to press charges against her for all she’s worth.
So, she’s going to be a little too busy to keep trying to get some kind of sick, twisted revenge against Jason and Angel anymore.
Which just leaves us this one last loose end to clean up.
“You sure you don’t want to keep it around a few more days for posterity?” Jason jokes. I slap his shoulder, and he winks at me. “Kidding. Believe me, nobody’s more relieved than I am to have this mess behind me.” With that, he adds a few dollops of soap to the paper towels and sets about scrubbing the wall clean. I watch as his number, then his sister’s name, and finally the words For a good time blur into a smear of black paint against the white stall door.
He scrubs hard until all that’s legible is good time, barely there, in smeared ink. Then I stop him, one hand on his bicep, because he’s done enough. The maids will take the rest off the wall with better cleaners than we’ll find in this bathroom stall right now. As long as nobody can find his sister’s name or number from this anymore, our work here is finished.
