Kian(25)

I started to pull back, but he tugged me back against him. “Hold on.”

We heard outside the door, “Where did they go?”

Someone else answered, “Who knows? Bart and Harold are so far down. Even if they find those kids, what are they going to do? It’s not like we can hurt them. I suppose we can report her for what she tried to do. Attempted assault, right?”

“I’d like to scratch that little bitch. She was about to claw my eyes out.”

A woman laughed. “You looked like Casper. Honestly, Renee, I thought you were about to pee your stockings.”

The other woman laughed but hissed at the same time, “Shut it, Helen. That stuck-up girl works at Escape. Harold and I go in there sometimes.”

“Really?” The other woman sounded envious. “Man, oh man, I love that restaurant. We got in one time. My boss reserved the back room for a small holiday party. It was divine.”

“I know. I’m going to report this little shit. She’s going to lose her job, and Harold and I are going to get the star treatment. If they don’t, I’ll sue their establishment.”

I tensed against Jake, but he shook his head.

He mouthed down to me, Don’t.

I didn’t. What I was going to do, I had no idea, but I didn’t do it. I stayed in his arms, and I held my breath, still listening.

“Can you do that?”

“Why not? You saw her. She must’ve come from work. She still had on her employee badge.”

“Oh my God, Renee. If you follow through…well, at least take me with you.”

Both of them cracked up at that joke, and they moved on. We still waited, but we didn’t hear any others from their group for the next few minutes.

Jake slid his hand into mine and whispered into my ear, cupping the back of my head, “Follow me. We can slip into the stairs, and they still won’t see us.”

I nodded and let him pull me past the doorway and into the stairwell. If we had waited for the elevator, they could’ve seen us. We were in plain view of the glass doors, but I lived on the eighth floor, and I didn’t care about the climb.

Jake started to open the door on the second floor, and I shook my head.

“We can use the elevator here,” he said.

“I need the exercise. I have to calm down.”

He paused, studying me, and then shrugged. Letting go of the door, he fell in step behind me. “Okay.”

“You can use the elevator.”

“Nope. Where you go, I go.”

My throat swelled up, and I gripped the stair rail hard. I managed to get out, “Thank you.”

His dark eyes washed over me, warming as they did, and he noted softly, “No problem. Let’s get up there. Your balcony overlooks the street. If they’re still on the street, we can throw water balloons at them.”

I laughed, my chest feeling a little lighter. “Or rotten fruit. I’m sure Erica’s got something rotting that she hasn’t thrown out yet.”

“Or that, too.” Jake laughed from behind me.

We trekked all the way to my floor. Once we got there, neither of us was out of breath. We were silent as I unlocked my door, and we went inside. I reached for the light, but Jake held my hand.

“Let’s see if they’re down there first,” he said.

I nodded. “Good idea.”

When we got out on my balcony, we didn’t see them. Instead, it was the two of us, in the dark, alone, and the rush of our near escape had us both short of breath. Well, maybe that was just me. It probably was just me.#p#分页标题#e#

I should leave. I should turn on a light, not remain in the dark with Jake, who had saved me from a group of middle-class thirty-year-old gangster wannabes.

He asked so quietly, “Are you okay?”

My heart plunged at that one. He sounded concerned, and I hadn’t had someone feel like that about me in a long time.

Feeling my throat swell up again, I nodded. “Yeah.”

He raked a hand through his hair, grinning at me, as his eyes turned sad. He leaned against the side of the balcony and slid one hand into his pocket. He looked casual, cool, and slightly worried. “I don’t know what that was, but you might want to call your boss. Get ahead of the freight train, ya know?”

I cleared my throat and rasped out, waving off the concern, “Paul hates that couple. They always cause problems, and I was off the property. They have nothing against me. He won’t fire me.”

“You sure?”

“I am.”

“So…” Jake started as I began saying, “So…”

We stopped and laughed. It was weird. Whether he knew it or not, he’d just caught a glimpse of the real side of me. That man and woman hadn’t registered with me. The only thing I had known was the hurt and the humiliation. Edmund had terrorized me, but he’d laughed at me, just like how they had. I hadn’t endured being the butt of a joke in a long time, so I had lashed out. If Kian had been there, he would have understood.