“Why have you both been pepper sprayed?” I asked.

  “Part of training for law enforcement. That way if it gets on you in the line of duty, then you will be better prepared.” Laurel took my chin and tilted my face up to look at it in the moonlight. “But we wash it off five minutes later. You didn’t.”

  “No, he was more focused on the kidnapping.”

  The gunfire ramped up and then a call went over the radio. “Got him. Suspect is down.”

  I started to stand, but Laurel pulled me back down. “Wait a second.”

  Michelson started talking into his radio. After a second, he tapped Laurel’s shoulder. “Okay. We’re clear.”

  Laurel led me away from the SUV surrounded by glass to the other SUV with only a little broken glass. She opened the back and directed me to sit. She dug through some of the gear until she found a first aid kit.

  “There should be wipes in here that neutralize the pepper spray. Just give me a sec.”

  “It’s okay. He washed my eyes and face with soap and water. It helped a lot.”

  “He did?”

  “I saw you guys moving in so I bitched to distract him. He did it to shut me up.”

  “Nice.” She grinned. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  “Everywhere, I think. It all hurts.”

  “You’re such a baby.”

  “I know.” I stretched my hands. Henry’s blood had dried. It looked black in the moonlight. “Can I wash my hands?”

  “Probably not yet. You’re evidence.”

  “Oh, good. I always wanted to be important. That sounds very important.”

  “You’re important to me.”

  I pulled her close and kissed her. “Yeah, I noticed.”

  She smiled and kissed me again. “Okay, stay here. I’m going to get clearance for us to leave.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  When we walked in, the house was much louder than expected.

  “No, you little shit. That’s not cool,” Lance shouted.

  “Or is it?” Lane asked.

  “No, Lane. It’s very much not cool,” Seth said.

  Laurel looked at me. “So, you’ve still got Mario Kart hooked up?”

  “You know it’s the only game I own.”

  “But why would you only own one game?”

  “It’s the most perfect game. Why mess with perfection?”

  “Right.”

  “Cash? Laurel? Is that you?” Lane called.

  We rounded the corner as Lane vaulted off the couch. She stopped suddenly when she saw me. “What the fuck?”

  “The blood isn’t mine. Mostly.” I put my hands up.

  “What’s wrong with your face?”

  Lance and Seth came around the couch. “That’s got to hurt, man,” Lance said.

  “She got pepper sprayed,” Laurel told Lane.

  “Are you okay?” Lane asked.

  “Yeah, totally.” I looked at Lance and Seth and tried to find a polite way to ask what they were doing in my house, but I came up empty. “Uh, what are you guys doing here?”

  “Babysitting duty.” Lance clapped his hand on Lane’s shoulder.

  “Big sis didn’t think we should leave her alone with kidnappers running around,” Seth said.

  Lane rolled her eyes. “Which is silly.”

  “Really? How would you protect yourself if Henry had shown up?” Laurel asked.

  Lane grinned at me. “Fluid mechanics.”

  “Okay, well I don’t know anything about fluid mechanics, but I still don’t think your scientific knowledge would help you fight off Henry,” Laurel said.

  “She’s talking about the textbook she hit him with last time,” I said.

  “Oh.”

  “And obviously I can take care of myself. And Cash. Because I already did it once.” Lane gave her siblings a withering stare.

  “It doesn’t matter. Brewer is in custody,” Laurel said.

  “My dude.” Lance fist-bumped Laurel complete with an explosion noise. In moments like this, I was shocked that Lance was the tolerable brother. Somehow reminding myself Logan was worse didn’t help.

  “It’s too early for you to be this much you,” Laurel said.

  Lance scoffed. “It’s after eight. I’m just hitting my stride.”

  “Yeah, but we’ve been up all night.”

  The front door opened behind us and Andy strolled in with Nickels in her carrier. “Hey, Cash, next time you’re in a safe house so you don’t die, maybe don’t escape and get kidnapped.” She set Nickels on the floor and hugged me.

  “You’re so smart. Next time, I’ll run my plans by you.”

  “Where’s your mom?” Laurel asked.

  Andy hugged Laurel. “I don’t know. Still unloading the car, I guess.”

  “You little punk. Go back out and help her.” I nodded at the door.

  “We got it.” Seth pulled Lance toward the door.

  I sat on the floor and opened Nickels’s carrier. “Hello, my darling. How was your vacation with Andy?”

  Nickels walked out, headbutted me, sneezed, and ran down the hall.

  “Wow. That reunion was the stuff fairy tales are made of,” Laurel said.

  “My life is basically a fairy tale, so yeah.”

  “Hey, Cash. Why are you covered in blood?” Andy poked at my crusty T-shirt.

  “I stabbed Henry.”

  “Which fairy tale is that?” she asked.

  The door opened again and Robin came in. She gasped. “Oh, honey.”

  “Not my blood,” I said.

  “She stabbed Henry,” Andy said.

  Robin gave me a cautious hug. It was like she didn’t want to get blood on her or something. “That’s very heroic of you.”

  “Hey, I shot him. I’m heroic too,” Laurel said.

  “Yes, honey, of course you are.” Robin hugged her too.

  “It was only in the arm. That barely counts.” I pouted.

  “This seems important and worth debating, but can we sit down with some coffee?” Robin asked.

  Laurel groaned. “God, yes.”

  “I need a shower. You get coffee going,” I said.

  “Will do.” Laurel kissed me. “Holler if you need us.” She pushed me toward the bathroom.

  Andy’s eyes went wide at the kiss. She looked at Robin who shrugged. “Sorry, bud. I already knew.”

  I readied myself for a long conversation, but Andy just shrugged. Laurel went into the kitchen to start coffee. After I shut the bathroom door, I could hear Lance and Seth talking again. When I turned on the water, the voices dropped to a low din.

  The shower was both pleasant and unpleasant. I felt clean and refreshed, but every time I turned, the water seemed to hit something that hurt. Cool water was excellent on my face, but every bruise and cut seemed to seize. Warm water made everything throb. I cut the water and slowly toweled off. The voices had disappeared. When I dried my back, the towel came away with blood. I tried to turn and see in the mirror. It looked like the taser prong had left a nice little hole in my shoulder. I opened the bathroom door.

  “Laurel?” I called. Nothing. “Robin?”

  “They’re out back. What’s up?” Nate called back.

  I wrapped the towel around my waist and opened the door the rest of the way. “Come look at my shoulder. I’m probably dying.”

  “Bummer. I’ll miss you.” He came into the bathroom. “Ouch.”

  “I think it’s from the taser prong.”

  “Yeah. That makes sense.” He wiped away blood with a tissue. “I think it’s fine. You probably don’t need stitches or anything, but I can grab Robin if you want her to take a look at it.”

  “No. It’s cool. Just slap a Band-Aid on it.”

  “Go sit on your bed. I’ll be there in a sec.” He opened the medicine cabinet and started pulling out supplies.

  I ducked into my room and pulled on a pair of boxers. Nate followed me a second later. He cleaned my shoulder with peroxide and stuck a Band-Aid over the wound.

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Sure. You bleeding anywhere else?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’ve got an excellent shiner.”

  I pulled on a T-shirt. “I thought so, but there’s a lot going on here.” I waved my hand over my face.

  “Yeah, that’s a mess.”

  “But I’m still ruggedly handsome, right?”

  Nate leaned against my dresser and crossed his arms. “So rugged. So handsome. I can hardly stand it.”

  “Hard same,” Laurel said from the doorway. She’d changed out of her tactical gear. She was wearing chinos cuffed above her ankle and her feet were bare.

  “That’s good because I was lying,” Nate said.

  “It’s cool. I already called dibs on her.” Laurel smiled at me and I smiled back. “You two coming outside?”

  “Yeah.” Nate stood. “I got distracted from my coffee mission because Cash needed medical assistance.”

  “Everything okay?” Laurel asked.

  “Taser barb thing. It wouldn’t stop bleeding.”

  “Hot.”

  “I know.”

  “Come on. We’re all out back.” She held out her hand to me. I crossed the room to her. “You might want pants.”

  I looked down. She was right. No pants. “Pants are tools of the patriarchy.”

  “Actually, women wearing pants is a subversion of the patriarchy,” Nate said.

  “I don’t like you,” I said.

  “Yes, you do.” He punched my shoulder and left me to get dressed.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Laurel asked.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” I grabbed a pair of cutoffs.

  “Because I don’t mind checking. I mean, if you want to take your shirt off, I support you.” She was enviably stoic, but there was a whisper of a smile she couldn’t drop.

  “That’s so kind.”

  “I know.” She nodded very seriously.

  I pulled her close and stopped just shy of kissing her. “Laurel?”

  “Yes?” she asked. I held eye contact and waited until the hint of a smile fell from the corner of her mouth. “What is it?”

  I took a deep breath. “I desperately need coffee.”

  She laughed. “You’re an ass. You know that, right?”

  I kissed her. “Also, I love you. And I trust that you love me. And I’m going to need you to stay for the next fifty years or so.”

  “I don’t know. We might live longer than that.”

  “Fine. Accounting for modern medicine, I’m going to need you to stay for the next hundred years or so,” I said.

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “I’m going to have to be nice to your parents, aren’t I?”

  She shrugged. “Only as nice as I have to be to Clive.”

  “Deal.”

  “Come on.” She took her hand. “The people we actually like are outside.”

  “Isn’t your brother here?”

  “Nope. He was giving me a headache. I told him to go away.”

  “This is why I’m into you.”

  We grabbed coffee and went out back. Andy was giving Nate a tour of the progress on Gracie-Ray. Lane was sitting on the stairs watching the tour.

  Robin stood and wrapped me in a long hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “Same.”

  “Because you owe me a ton of ice cream.”

  I laughed. “I’ll buy you so much ice cream.”

  The door we’d just closed opened. Kyra and Van came out. “No one answered so we let ourselves in,” Kyra said.

  “You’d think I would lock it after getting kidnapped,” I said.

  She laughed and hugged me. “Well, you’re kind of dumb.”

  “She is, isn’t she?” Laurel asked as she hugged Kyra.

  “I think you’re smart,” Van said. “But I work with undergrads so my views might be skewed.” He held up the white pastry box he was holding. “Sustenance.”

  Andy and Nate realized breakfast had arrived and made a beeline for the porch.

  “Looks like donuts,” Robin said.

  “Donuts are sustenance.”

  “You brought donuts?” Lane turned from her perch on the stairs.

  “Don’t worry. I got you an apple fritter.” Van grinned at her. “And there’s chocolate milk in the fridge for you and Nate.”

  Nate took the stairs two at a time. “Excellent. Thanks, man.” He disappeared into the house.

  Van started distributing donuts on napkins. Andy retrieved her donut and took it back to sit on the bumper of Gracie-Ray. Laurel played it cool for all of two seconds before she went to join her. Andy jumped up and restarted the tour for Laurel.

  “You sure you’re good?” Kyra leaned against the railing next to me and bumped me with her shoulder.

  “The bar is kind of low. I’m not being kidnapped or stalked so A plus, no notes, love it.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I watched Andy shove half her donut in her mouth. Powdered sugar dusted her T-shirt as she climbed the sidestep to balance on the edge of the bed and the wheel well. She reached down to guide Laurel up next to her. She bit through the donut and started gesturing with it in her hand. More powdered sugar dropped. Laurel grinned at something Andy said.

  “I am. I’m so good,” I said.

  “You really are. I’m happy for you.”

  Andy and Laurel started laughing at something. They noticed us staring at them and it made them laugh harder. Andy started to lose her balance. She sat hard on the edge of the truck bed. Laurel joined her, still giggling.

  Van and Robin were ensconced in Adirondacks on the other side of the porch. They were deep in conversation. The door behind me opened again. Nate came out with two cartons of chocolate milk. Lane reached for it, her hands grasping comically. She tried and failed to open the carton, then handed it back to Nate. He handed her the carton he’d just opened and took the one she’d mangled.

  They were all messy idiots. But they were my messy idiots.

  Coffee and donuts turned into beer and barbecue. I should have been tired, but I wasn’t. Just content. Or I thought so until I dozed off in one of the Adirondacks in the afternoon. I woke up to Laurel shaking my shoulder. The sun was starting to drop. The sky was deep gold.

  “Hey, let’s get you to bed,” she said.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  She pulled me to my feet and led me inside. Robin and Andy called out good night as Laurel shut the door.

  In my room, Laurel sat me on the bed. I immediately lay back. She unbuttoned my shorts and yanked them down. I started to make a joke about her wanting me, but I dozed off again.

  “What are you grinning about?” she asked.

  “You want me because shorts.” It was not at all what I was trying to say. I laughed at myself.

  “Sure.” She laughed, but I was pretty sure she was laughing at me not with me.

  “Get in bed with me.” I scooted up so my head was on the pillow.

  She kicked off her shoes and stripped off her pants. She climbed in bed still grinning. I rolled over and tried to kiss her. At the last moment she pulled away. “Okay, no. I can’t do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Take you seriously.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Andy and Nate drew a mustache on you.”

  “Assholes.” I wiped my upper lip and my hand came away with a dark smudge. “You weren’t going to tell me, were you?”

  “Fuck no.”

  “Well, now you have to kiss me.” I trapped her hands and kissed her. She tried to roll away, but she was laughing too hard. When I pulled back, her upper lip had a shadow. “There. Now we’re even.”

  She flipped me and trapped my hands. “Not even close.”

  About the Author

  Award-winning author Ashley Bartlett was born and raised in California. Her life consists of reading, writing, and editing. Most of the time Ashley engages in these pursuits while sitting in front of a coffee shop with her wife.

  It’s a glamorous life.

  She is an obnoxious, sarcastic punk-ass, but her friends don’t hold that against her. She lives in Sacramento, but you can find her at ashbartlett.com.

  Blog: https://ashbartlett.wordpress.com/

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