Page 42 of Love at First Sighting

El

This is the least subtle Man in Black I’ve ever seen.

Massive Piss Man follows me down a line of boutique stores, workout studios, and mattress stores on Ventura Boulevard, never letting me get more than ten steps away from him, even in the rain. If he’s trying to be stealthy, he’s failing.

It’s not the first time I’ve been followed, not by a long shot.

I had a clingy fan who figured out where I lived a few years ago, and he’d show up outside the apartment with my favorite bagels every day.

I never ate them, out of fear they’d be poisoned, and eventually he lost interest when I dyed my hair from blond to my natural brown.

However, this agent could kick my ass, and I’m not that confident in my skills, even after the fistfighting lesson Carter gave me. I’m going to have to play this smart because I can’t play it hard.

If I can get to my car, then I can get the hell out of here.

I clutch the pepper spray in my bag and hustle quicker.

I’m parked behind the strip mall, and it’ll require a walk through a short alleyway to get there.

That alley is where it could all go south.

I peer over my shoulder. Massive Piss Man is closing in, and the second he sees an opportunity, he’s going to take it.

I make a sharp turn down the alley and move as quickly as I can. Not quick enough. Massive Piss Man picks up speed, and before I can come up with a better plan, he snatches my bag strap and yanks me close to him. When we collide, pain rattles up my spine and I drop the pepper spray.

“Fuck you!” I shout.

“No, fuck you ,” he yells back.

I reach inside my bag and grasp my Well water bottle. When I hurled it at the craft the night this all began, it took it down immediately. I hope it has the same impact on people’s faces. Massive Piss Man tries to turn me around, so I pivot and smash the blue bottle into the side of his head.

Blood spurts on the ground and he clutches his nose.

“Dammit—” he begins, but I whack him again. This time, he drops to his knees. I might hear the crack of aluminum against bone in my nightmares, but right now, it feels like a dream.

“Stop following me, asshole!”

I break into a full sprint, but he’s gotten back to his feet and is barreling toward me as I dive into the car.

I think smart and reach for the tiny sample-size hand sanitizer spritzer I have in my cupholder.

When he’s close enough, I unleash hell and 92 percent isopropyl alcohol on this motherfucker.

With him down, I turn the car on, and my car Bluetooth syncs up.

The last thing I was listening to was my “Queen Carly Rae” playlist, and “Call Me Maybe” blasts through the speakers.

My pursuer is up again, rushing toward his Crown Vic, and I figure the best chance I have at getting rid of him is a real, authentic LA car chase.

I can do this. Despite Carter always gripping the safety handle in my car, I’m a good driver and have a sponsorship history with SafeWheel auto insurance to prove it.

“Let’s do this, Carly Rae,” I say to myself as I peel out of my parking spot.

Massive Piss Man’s car screeches behind me as we pull onto Ventura.

Rain pelts the roof of the car as I manage to avoid three lights in a row and begin driving toward the PIS offices.

If that’s where Carter is, and he’s coming for me, I hope he can intercept me at some point.

Los Angeles is full of car chases, despite also being full of endless traffic. I hit said traffic as “Run Away with Me” plays on my speakers. I am clearly running nowhere, Carly.

My phone rings again, and I put Carter on speakerphone.

“Hi! I’m doing a car chase,” I tell him.

“You’re doing a what ?” he sputters out. “Jesus, El, send me your location.”

I do as he asks and let him track me. “Okay, that’s where I’m at. The big guy—”

“Brad. That’s Brad.”

Brad! Who Carter hates and says clips his nails at his desk! It all makes so much sense. “Of fucking course it’s Brad.”

“El, I’m going to come find you. Where are you headed?”

“Toward the office.”

“Okay,” he pants. Panic is rife in all his words. “I’m coming. Don’t worry.”

Carter doesn’t drive in the rain. Carter doesn’t drive recklessly. Yet he’s not hesitating to race to me.

“I’m not worried. I know you’re on your way. I’ll be okay, too.”

There’s a moment of silence, punctuated with Carter sucking in a small breath. “El, I…”

Traffic clears up and I know what he’s about to say. But I don’t want to do this here. Not now.

“Don’t make this a goodbye. We’re going to be fine and I’ll see you soon.”

Before he can argue, I hang up and rev my engine.

I weave through cars, nearly skidding on puddles, but Brad follows me into whatever danger I lead him toward.

I pull off the freeway and onto side streets.

Brad flashes his high beams at me, making it impossible to see anything , especially in the rain . I crank the aptly named “Drive.”

Brad speeds so close he could give my car a smog check.

A car pulls in front of me and I slam on my brakes.

Fuck. Brad’s bumper collides with mine and I jolt forward but keep driving.

As I gain speed again after the light, another car revs its engine and gains on us. Then it does something I don’t expect.

It sideswipes Brad’s car.

When it speeds forward and pulls up alongside me, I recognize the square black shape of Carter’s Plymouth.

I can only imagine how panicked he is, trying to drive safely because it’s so ingrained in him, but as he rolls down the window, there’s no fear in his eyes, just determination. I roll mine down, too.

“We gotta get rid of him,” Carter shouts over the roar of engines and rain.

“Agreed!” I look down at the several Hydro Flasks on the floor of my car. “I have an idea.”

Carter nods and rolls up his window. His engine rumbles over “Cut to the Feeling,” and he gains some distance between himself and Brad.

We weave back down onto straight roads and residential streets, and Brad’s car pulls up alongside Carter’s.

Then Brad raises a gun and fires it into the other lane.

This looks like something right out of Angel City Noir , where they’re using blanks, but I know this is real.

Their guns are real, and Carter is being shot at.

Bullets ricochet off Carter’s side window, leaving a spidery crack in the glass.

One more hit and it might shatter, and he’ll be vulnerable all over again.

Carter weaves around a car in front of him and speeds away from Brad, allowing me an in to get right next to him.

I paw beside me in the front seat and hunt for something I can throw at Brad’s car.

I grip one of my water bottles by the handle and open my window.

With a single harsh toss, it flies through the air and strikes Brad’s front windshield with a deafening aluminum dong .

A cascading crack spreads through the window.

I reach back over and grab another bottle and hurl it at his car again. Another crack ripples across his back windshield, and I calculate that with another bottle, I can break the window entirely. I throw a third one at the car. If we’re on the news, I’d kill to know what the commentary is.

The window shatters and Brad weaves. He notices he’s losing his target and speeds up, too. I rev my engine and my car glides across the road. I ram the front edge of my car into the other PIS car. We’re getting closer to the station and I need to make sure Brad doesn’t make it there with us.

I speed up to drive beside him. He rolls down his window and the silver barrel of a gun emerges from the darkened front seat.

Shit. I sincerely did not think this through.

He cocks the weapon, and his focus is on his aim, not on the road.

He doesn’t see the way Carter brakes hard with a screech of his tires.

He backs up, sharp and tight, to take space on Brad’s other side.

A gun barrel emerges from his window, and Carter fires before Brad can.

The front windshield shatters into tempered glass fragments that fly into my passenger seat. The gunshot sends Brad into a panic as Carter speeds up again and crosses in front of him.

I’ve never been shot at before. The danger here is so real, and as much as I don’t like being part of it, I can’t let Carter face it alone, either.

I tail both of them, and as we turn a corner, I pull into the other lane and swing a wide loop to hit Brad from the side.

His car slams into a fire hydrant and more glass shatters.

Carter jerks to a stop. The front bumper of my car is bent to shit, but nothing’s on fire.

Car alarms blare and I might have to go to the chiropractor, but Brad isn’t going anywhere.

I pull up beside Carter and parallel park in a spot with the spare time I have. It doesn’t look like we’ve attracted any news helicopters yet , so we’re lucky to not have the extra eyes on us. But backup can’t be far behind Brad. I dive out of the car and into the rain.

“El!” Carter shouts over the car alarms, the spraying water, and the underappreciated Carly Rae classic “Boy Problems.” He’s stepped out of the car, gun resting on the roof so he can aim while I cross the street to reach him.

Brad’s still working his way out of his car, whose door is bashed in and bent out of shape.

Carter pulls me behind the body of his car and gets on his knees with me.

“Jesus, thank god you’re okay,” he breathes. “Thank god you’re okay.”

“I’m fine. We did a car chase!” I say. “We did a real LA car chase!”

His eyes are wide and horrified. “You think this is cool ? None of this was safe driving, El!”

A shot rings out across the street and hits Carter’s car with a metallic ding . He grabs my arm and shoves me lower before peering over the side of the car and firing back.

“Where did you get a gun?” I ask.

“Weapons locker at the office. I’m beginning to think I didn’t actually fail my weapons test.” Another bullet ricochets off the hood of the car and Carter hisses a curse under his breath.

“Dammit. El, I need to get back to the office. I think my dad made a backup of his file and it’s down in the bunker. ”

“Okay, I’m coming with you.”

“El, no . I need to do this alone and you’ve already gotten into enough trouble.”

“Boss,” Brad bellows into his car radio. “Your boy’s intercepted her. Heading toward the office. You better hurry up.”

Carter’s expression goes blank.

“We need to go,” I tell him. “If the file’s at the office, we need to be the first ones there.”

“Fuck,” Carter groans. He looks back over the hood of his car and fires another shot as Brad charges us. One of his bullets strikes Brad in the lower leg. He lets out a sharp yowl and drops to his knees. At least he isn’t going to follow us. Not well, anyway.

Carter jumps back.

“Oh shit. Get in the car, get in the car, get in the car, oh my god,” Carter mutters as I slip into his passenger seat. There’s another shot and I duck for cover, but it ricochets off a lamppost. With a sharp screech, we’re back on the road and heading for the station.

When we pull into the parking lot, it’s empty and the rain is coming down harder. I’m hoping the rain brings traffic to a halt so we might be able to get in, find that file, and be done with this before Marcus even gets here.

“Okay,” Carter starts, stripping off his jacket.

Rain thunders on the roof of the car. “Here’s what we’re going to do.

We don’t have much time and I have to find a way into the bunker.

So we’re going to split up. I’ll head to Marcus’s office and find the override commands, and you slip in to the bunker and find the file for me.

It’s going to be in one of the employee handbooks. The 1995 one.”

“Are you sure that’s where it is?”

Carter pulls out a folded note. I don’t need to know what it says to understand. “No, but it’s one last helpful hint from my dad. I trust it. Plus, it’s the best chance we have.”

It still sounds like suicide and I don’t want to risk losing him, but it makes sense. He knows this place far better than I do, and he took the security systems down the night we banged on his desk, so I trust him .

“How do you plan to get me in?” I ask.

“I don’t know yet. There’s a button to open the bunker on his desk, but it needs a key or a badge.”

Carter leans over the console and cups the sides of my face. I hope after tonight, this’ll all be over. I want a future where he wears jeans and T-shirts and never has to want for love again. I’d trade every part of my old life to keep the person who sees and cares for all that I am.

I kiss him once, then twice, and a third time for good luck before we slip out of the car and dash toward the station.

He unlocks the front door and guides me inside.

It’s eerily quiet in here. The wire fans make pages, held down by coffee mugs, staplers, and little desk knickknacks, flutter on the desks, and the rain thumps on the old, rattling windows.

He keeps the lights off and we duck lower at each flash outside.

The office feels like stepping into a black-and-white movie, with danger lurking in all the shadows.

Carter brings me to a steel door built into the brick wall near the front of the office.

He shoves a key in and opens the door for me.

A cold chill rushes up at us, with the metallic tang of basement concrete. I can practically hear a Geiger counter clicking in the background.

“Down those stairs,” he orders. “Wait at the door. I’ll get you in.

We have a whole shelf near the back—thick books that say PIS Code of Conduct .

Start looking. I’ll get down there when I can,” he says.

If Brad’s message to Marcus made it through, we don’t have a lot of time.

I can’t imagine Marcus would let us get away with this that easily.

“If…If you find it and I’m not back yet, run. ”

“Carter…”

“I mean it. El, in case this goes—”

“No,” I say, cutting him off with sharp words. “Don’t tell me you love me. Don’t make this a goodbye like the movies. You need to come back to me.”

Carter nods slowly and tears well in his eyes. “Okay. I promise.”

I kiss him one final time before descending the darkened stairway.