Free Not Looking for Love: Episode 7 (A New Adult Contemporary Romance Novel) by Lena Bourne

containers stacked about ten high. To the left and right is the same. He tries a few more alleys, with no better outcome.
    I pocket my phone. "Without a map this is a trap. Let's go see if the main road is any better."
    There are a few roads leading off it, but I fear they all lead to the same dead ends we found before.  
    "We need a map," Greg finally admits, after he manages to find the way back to the main road leading to the underpass.  
    I take off my coveralls as soon as we reach the expressway ramp. It's almost 2 PM, Gail's probably panicking by now.
    "I'll let Valdo know what we found," Greg says once we're speeding down the expressway.
    "Make sure he understands it won't be the easiest job to pull off," I mutter. Though I won't blame him if he doesn't. Not after the warning Vlado issued at the start of the last meeting.
    Greg grins at me, his cigarette balanced precariously on his bottom lip. "What? Tell him this might well be our last job? I'm not that insane."
    "It can't be our last job," I whisper, seeing tears streaming down Gail's face like she's already standing over my dead body.
    Greg's eyeing me like I said something weird, so I clear my throat and turn up the radio. The weather forecast is on, and they're forecasting thunderstorms for the rest of the week. At least we'll have the weather on our side, if Vlado decides to go ahead.
    "It might be the last one either way."  
    I could just ask him what he means right now, but Mike's warning not to do anything suspicious is a scream in my ears, and this isn’t the time to start trusting Greg completely.
    "Looks that way," I say instead, hoping even that isn't saying too much.
    My heart is rattling in my stomach again, and I'm not sure what brought the nerves on so strong this time. Maybe it's the glassy, set look in Greg’s eyes, as he scans the road in front of us.  
    "I'll come by later," he says when he drops me off in front of our building. "Tell you what Vlado says."
    I almost tell him not to, then realize I have no idea how to prevent him from meeting Gail eventually.  
    "What time?" I ask instead.
    He shrugs. "I don't know. Six, seven? I'll call."
    I probably should've mentioned Gail would be there, but it's too late now, since he's already driving away.

    Somehow I fell back asleep after Scott left and woke up at twelve to find him still gone. I called him at two, when I realized I couldn't even leave the apartment since I don’t have the keys. But the phone started ringing somewhere in the bedroom, and most of my fears returned. Unbidden. Since I'm at his place now, and he wouldn't just abandon me here. But still, I'd like a key, and an introduction to the doorman.  
    I hold on tight to the spark of anger this thoughtlessness of his brings, because the alternative is worrying that something went wrong. That he was arrested. Killed. No. I won’t worry about that. He knows what he’s doing. I’m sure he didn’t lie to me about that.
    I tried to clean a little, but he doesn’t have a vacuum. I settled for wiping down the kitchen, throwing out most of the food in the fridge, then moved on to the bathroom. Which was pretty clean, considering he only has the one bottle of kitchen spray cleaner.
    Then the lock clicked and Scott was home, and all my annoyance fled like water down the drain.  
    "You didn't have to clean. I did that like two weeks ago," he says, smiling at me and brushing a strand of hair back behind my ear.
    "I had nothing better to do." My hands are still stinging from scrubbing the bathroom, but it all becomes a distant thought as his lips find mine. His hand is reaching up under my shirt, my whole body already tingling.  
    And before I know it, I'm straddling him on the sofa, my fingers tangled up in his hair, which is so much thicker and darker than I remember, the color of ripe wheat or honey.
    I comment on it once we pause for breath, and he's just gazing at me, his eyes so deep, I swear there's a whole world in them, the one