Page 84 of Old Habits

She hugs me and settles her head on my chest. I hold her a little tighter, too scared to release her in case the angry mob lynches her from me forever.

After a few deep breaths, she raises her head. “So, what do we do now?” she asks.

I push a strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know about you but I feel like giving George Washington a massive boner.” She leans back and furrows her brow as I do. “Okay, that’s a really weird thing to say out of context.”

Her lips twitch. “It’s not so great in context, either.”

“Yeah, let’s just forget I ever said that.”

“Done.”

“Thank you.” I take a step back and smile. “You wanna just head back to my place instead? Watch a movie, relax, and forget about all this crap?”

“Can we watch half a movie and then make out through the rest of it?”

“That was kind of implied.”

She laughs and wipes another rolling tear off her cheek. “A little bit of Netflix and Will sounds perfect right about now.”

I throw an arm around her as we head toward the exit, glancing once over my shoulder to make sure no one’s following us anymore. If they haven’t sent someone out by now, maybe they won’t at all. I’d like to think I got through to somebody in there but I can’t say how likely that is, either.

They can try to run Jovie out of town all they want.

But they’ll have to get through me first.