Page 52 of Pocketful of Us

22

Presley

There was a general rule of thumb one should follow when locking their newly acquainted lover in a coat room; make sure said lover doesn’t have access to the internet.

"Yeah, that's right, you big-dicked devil, I have a fully charged iPhone with 4G connection," I grumbled bitterly.

Using my one free hand, I dug said phone out of my pocket and furiously hunted for a remedy to the most inconvenient of predicaments.

Scrolling through a stream of different how-to-escape-the-clutches-of-evil YouTube videos, I hit the jackpot.

All I needed was a paperclip.

I was locked in a freakingcoat closet.

Where the hell was I going to find a paper clip?

Yodeling in despair – yeah, I went there – I rummaged through the pockets of random coats and jackets and could have cried outhallelujahwhen I found a bobby pin in one of Mrs. Capaldi's Chanel coats.

A freaking bobby pin!

"Oh, thank you, Jesus," I strangled out, heaving in relief. "And thank you, Olivia Capaldi, you homophobic ice-queen, for your vibrant attention to detail when it comes to your glorious, albeit unnaturally colored, locks!"

Dutifully following the instructions of some creepy dude that vaguely resembled Gonzalez on a YouTube video, I picked at the handcuff. I did every damn thing the big, hairy bastard on the other side of the screen instructed and...nothing happened.

Nada.

Nil.

Zilch.

"Fuck my life," I wept, tossing my phone across the small space, only to immediately regret my actions. "Ah crap!"

Not thinking twice about it, I dove towards my phone with my full weight and felt the wall give way behind me. Crashing to the floor, I was buried under a mountain of coats. "Holy shit," I breathed, wide-eyed. "Either I've gotten freakishly strong in the past twenty minutes, or the walls of this house need some serious renovation."

Renovation, Pres.

Definitely renovation.

Scrambling to my feet, I moved for the door, only to halt when I noticed my hand was still cuffed to the damn railing.

Sweet mother of Madonna.

Trying and failing to wedge my wrist free, I muttered, "to hell with it," and took the damn railing and all of its fixings with me.

Screw creeping out quietly; I came tumbling out of the closet.

Not wasting another minute, I tightened the buckle of my belt with my free hand, pushed my glasses up my nose, and then hauled ass for the front door, with the metal railing still dangling from my bound wrist.

Freezing in the doorway when I heard that seductive devil accent, I sprinted behind the old Grandfather clock and crouched down out of sight.

"Relax. Giacobbe is doing exactly what I told him to do," Seth told the man beside him as they strolled through the Capaldis foyer like they both owned the damn place. "Like the loyal dog he is."

I recognized the man with Seth as head of Cal's Dillon's long-running. security team. Lance something or other. The creepy Italian dude who used to follow Romi around when we were kids.

Jesus.

It all made sense now.

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