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“Lock yourself in the storeroom until the police get here, okay?”
The girl’s eyes were huge, but she agreed and scurried away.
Vincent waited until I heard the door lock, and then he stepped over the men, both bleeding on the floor. The one who’d punched the cabinet predictably had gashes and glass stuck in his arm and across his knuckles. They bled profusely while he howled. His friend lay beneath him, unconscious either from when his friend’s head had collided with his or when they’d both gone down like a sack of potatoes. He’d hit the floor with a sickening thud, but he was still breathing. His chest rose and fell rhythmically.
Vincent grabbed my hand, no asking for permission this time, and towed me to the parking lot and into his car. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Fine. Jesus Christ, that guy was an asshole!”
Vincent nodded, shoving his key in the ignition.
I put my hand on his arm. “Wait. We should stay. The police will want a statement.”
Vincent shook his head, pulling out of the parking lot and getting us onto the road. “I can’t.”
“Why not? You got an outstanding warrant out for your arrest?”
Vincent glanced at me, then back at the road. “That seemed more like a third-date conversation. I would have told you before the third-date sex. I swear.”
I couldn’t help it. I burst into laughter.
Vincent looked at me like I was crazy. “Are you having a mental breakdown? I don’t think laughter is the correct response right now. Shouldn’t you be screaming hysterically? Or trying to escape the man who just admitted to being wanted by the police?”
But I already trusted Vincent. Warrant or not, nothing was going to change my opinion of him, or the safety I felt when he was around. I shook my head. “My brother and his best friend have both been arrested at least twice. My mother did a one-year stint for prostitution when I was eleven. My stepfather is currently still in jail. My old neighbors when I lived at the trailer park had a meth lab… I’m not Providence born and bred. Your warrants don’t scare me. But just out of interest, what’s it for?”
Vincent put his foot down on the accelerator, leaving the ice-cream parlor behind us. “I dismissed myself from jail. Without permission.”
I gaped at him. “You escaped? How is that even possible?”
“Is it supposed to be hard?”
I sniggered, but then I sobered. “Come work for me.”
Vincent frowned. “What?”
“Come work for me at my bar. Do security. I want to feel safe there. And I feel safe when you’re around. I know you like kids—”
“I like you more.”
I warmed all over. “So is that a yes?”
He nodded solemnly. “It’s a yes.”
