Cutting Loose by Westlake Samantha

Author:Westlake, Samantha
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-06-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

* * *

“You could file a restraining order,” Eastman said, twenty-five minutes later. “That would keep her from interfering.”

I sighed, looked down into the quarter of a beer remaining in my glass. “No, that’s not going to work. Trust me, my mother has more than enough money and influence to ignore a restraining order – and it only works if I escape again to prove that she violated it.”

He looked over at me. Most might have assumed his face was still blank, but I knew him well enough to read the concern. “You think that she might have you kidnapped or abducted?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. She’d find a way to make it sound reasonable, and pretty soon I’d be locked up somewhere, getting brainwashed until I believed that I’d done all of this from a petty urge to act out, and that her grabbing me and taking me back was the kindest thing she could have done.”

I finished the rest of my beer, cast a side-eye to watch the FBI agent’s jaw work back and forth as he chewed over this revelation. I’d met him outside the bar, which turned out to be a surprisingly popular dive bar. Not what I would have expected within a couple blocks of Sawyer’s expensive and luxurious penthouse, but it kind of fit my mood. Eastman looked a bit askance when he saw the other patrons, perhaps figuring that some of them might be intimately familiar with the law, but no one gave us a second glance. Eastman paid for two beers, and we’d squeezed into a small booth towards the back, sitting shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip.

Now, I squirmed a little. “Is there something poking me?” I reached down, felt something hard bumping against my hip, tried to wrap my fingers around it.

Eastman jumped. “Whoa! That’s, uh, me.”

I looked down between us as he tugged his coat back a little. “Oh my god,” I gasped in shock. “Why do you have that out, here?”

“An agent needs to be prepared!”

“With a gun?” I looked down at the black plastic handle, back up at the man. “When you’re drinking?”

He shook his head. “It’s not a gun. It’s a Taser. I wouldn’t bring my gun out if I’m consuming alcohol.”

“Well, your Taser is poking me,” I complained.

“It’s a small booth.” Eastman looked at me, then climbed out of the booth. “Scoot over. I’ll sit on the other side.”

After some butt-wiggling from both of us, we managed to swap places. Eastman realized that his beer was now on the other side of me, and he reached his arm around my shoulders to grab it. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it felt a bit nice to have his arm around me.

“I think I need another beer,” I declared, instead of voicing this errant thought.

“Let me.” Before I could protest, he was up and heading over to the bar.

I watched him shoulder his way through the crowd around the bar. He had nice shoulders, I noted.

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