Page 45 of How To Plot a Payback

“The walk-on-the-side-closest-to-traffic-in-case-you-must-sacrifice-yourself-to-the-stray-vehicle-jumping-the-curb-toward-the-damsel-in-distress thing.” She squints at me and announces, “You risked your life for me.”

“No,” I reply instantly, shaking my head. “Force of habit. That’s all.”

“You risked your life for me. You’ve been my hero today now, not just once but twice. Look at you!” she says, with a swat on my shoulder as though I should be quite proud. “And it’s only nine.”

“It’s 7:52,” I retort. “I did no such thing.”

“It’s behind us now. You’ve done it, and you can’t take it back,” she says happily. “And humble to boot.”

“I am not being humble,” I reply curtly, stepping around a woman with a rolled-up yoga mat in her arms.

Lavender gets blocked momentarily by pedestrians, and against my will, I wait while she catches up. But I need to make this point very clear. There’s something about her that makes me want to make this point very clear.

“I do this with everyone, I can assure you.”

“You do this with your guy chums?” she says. “Swap places when your mates get too close to the road?”

I frown even deeper. “No. That’d be ridiculous.”

“Girlfriend then?”

The reference to Delilah on her lips strikes like a viper. For a moment my feet halt, and I feel I must catch my breath.

Meanwhile, there Lavender stands, the wrecking ball to our relationship herself. Cocking her brow as her own feet slow. Looking at me with that playful and completely oblivious tilt of her lips.

“Former girlfriend,” I say, resuming my pace. “Yes.”

I flip over my wrist to check my watch, and the cats in the crate give a disgruntled meow at the jostling.

“So what is this about you being the Cat Man?”

They say that good befalls those who show kindness to others. Well, I can tell you now, that is a lie.

“The cats aren’t mine. They belong to my neighbor, who has a stray-cat-picking-up problem,” I say, flicking my gaze at her. “Kind of like you.”

“She sounds lovely,” Lavender says.

“Until someone else has to take over the problem, sure. She’s all roses and sunshine. You would like her, I’m sure.”

I frown as I slow to a stop at my car. Some idiot driver parallel parked far too close to my bumper, making it impossible to get Miles and the cats into the cargo area. And thanks to my neighbors, the back seat is full.

I’ll just have to do my best to inch the car forward.

I set the crate down and drop Miles’s leash with the command to stay, then step off the curb.

“Finn.”

I can hear Lavender calling out to me as I dodge traffic and pointedly ignore her as I hurry around to the driver’s side. I slide inside, turn the ignition key, and with laser focus tap the gas pedal to move forward a good three inches.

Lavender’s still standing on the sidewalk, massive puppy stretched across her body, when I walk back to survey the clearance. The gargantuan black SUV parked behind me looms ominously despite my three-inch advance.

My chest is starting to pinch at this point, and I can practically feel my pulse ticking along with the seconds on my watch. I’m just going to have to put Miles in the back seat. Which will mean moving two boxes full of paperbacks, two old blankets, and a chair that all need to be dropped off at Goodwill—another task gifted from several neighbors.

I’m just throwing the back door open and heaving my first box onto the sidewalk when I hear a beep beep from the parked SUV. I look up.

There is Lavender behind the wheel, slowly rolling the car in reverse. The fluffy black, brown, and white dog’s head peeks over the wheel.

Of course.