Page 81 of All Bets Are Off

Together, the three of us leave the building through the front door, stepping out into the Las Vegas air. We have been in there for so long that day has turned to night, and it’s late. After eleven. I don’t know what I’m more pissed about—getting arrested or missing all the buff strippers at Magic Mike Live.

“Welcome back to civilization!” a voice calls out. It’s John, and he strides straight over to us, fist bumping with Tyler. “You owe me a thousand bucks for your bail, by the way.”

On the street behind him, there’s Addy, Hailey . . . And Jameson. They all look exhausted, like they haven’t been back to the hotel yet, either. Addy still has lines of mascara smeared down her cheeks from hours ago, and Hailey’s hair has been scraped back into a messy bun. Quite frankly, we all look like shit—except Jameson, who still somehow looks like a Greek god.

“I am so glad to see you guys,” I say with a heavy sigh of relief, making my way over. I gravitate to Addy first, pulling her into a grateful hug. “Thank you for bailing us out. Please tell me you didn’t call Mom and Dad.”

“I bailed Theo out. Not you,” Addy says with a laugh, and I lean back from the hug, furrowing my brows at her in confusion. She rolls her eyes in Jameson’s direction and says, “Thank him.”

Jameson stands at the foot of the jail steps, in those gorgeous linen trousers and shirt I tore off him earlier, and his green eyes are bright and comforting as they connect with mine. My heart thumps in my chest as I look at him, mostly because I did not expect him to be out here waiting for me, let alone paying my bail. I’m starting to think the risk I took with him was one hundred percent worth it.

As Theo encompasses Hailey in his arms behind me, I descend the steps toward Jameson with a bashful smile on my lips. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be long gone.”

“Long gone?” he repeats, a teasing smirk toying at the corners of his mouth. “No way. It’s not Vegas until you’ve spent five hours camped out in a Starbucks with strangers trying to figure out how to post bail for the girl who tried to rob you two days earlier. You know, now that I think about it . . . You were always destined for jail this weekend, Evie.”

I groan and shove my plastic bag of belongings into his chest. “Don’t even joke. I am so embarrassed.”

“Don’t be. Everyone gets arrested at least once in college. I was,” he says with a shrug. He unties the bag and reaches inside for my purse and my phone, handing them to me and then tossing the empty bag into a trash can next to us.

I raise an intrigued eyebrow at him, because I remember the threat he’d made to Michael Montgomery on the phone. “I thought you said you couldn’t fight. That you didn’t have any arrest warrants.”

“Yeah, because I wasn’t arrested for battery—it was a DUI back when I was twenty.” I gasp and swat his arm playfully as his cheeks blush ever so slightly, but I’m just glad he’s not making a big deal out of this. Part of me expected him to run a mile.

“So I haven’t scared you off? That exam-cheating, watch-stealing, shin-assaulting girl from Florida—you still like her?”

“I definitely questioned what the hell I’d gotten myself involved in at several points today,” Jameson says, rubbing a hand over the stubble of his jaw as he pretends to think, and then a smile gradually creeps onto his face. “But yes, I still like that girl. A lot.”

I lower my voice to a whisper and scoot up closer to him, our bodies almost touching as I tilt my chin up to look at him with a flirtatious gaze. “And you didn’t just bail her out of jail because she slept with you earlier?”

“Well, it would have been rude not to bail her out of jail after she slept with me earlier,” he counters, then grins. “Evie, I bailed you out of jail because I’m hoping that despite us flying home to different states in”—he glances at the silver Rolex on his wrist—“eight hours’ time, there will still be some way for us to keep in touch.”

“Well, can I stay in your room again tonight and we’ll figure it out together?” I whisper.

“Only if you kiss me,” he murmurs. “I bailed you out of jail, after all.”

Without hesitation, I stretch up on my tiptoes and press my lips to his. Today has been chaos, but Jameson’s still here, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I run my fingers through his dark hair as his hands clasp my waist. The kiss feels like heaven.

“Can everyone stop making out?” I hear John mutter.

Jameson and I break apart. We glance over at the others, and Hailey and Theo are also embracing, sheepishly pulling away from each other. We burst into laughter, and I think we all needed some humor to lighten the mood.

Addy’s shaking her head, holding her purse in front of her face. I realize only then that there’s no sign of Connor. I suppose he didn’t have anyone to wait for.

I step away from Jameson—I will continue that kiss the second we get back to the hotel—and cross to my sister instead. “Addy, what’s going to happen to Liam? Are you just leaving him in there?”

“Sort of,” she says, nervously gnawing the inside of her cheek. I’ve never seen her look so imperfect before, but she kind of pulls off the wild-weekend-in-Vegas look in a way only Adelaide Sinclair could. “I’m going to bail him out in the morning.”

“But you guys are on the same flight home as us, right?” I ask, looking mostly at Theo for confirmation. I’m certain we’re all flying home together, and it’s an early flight. Liam won’t make it out of jail in time—though I don’t know why that even concerns me. He can rot in there for all I care.

“Yeah. The eight a.m. Miami flight,” Theo confirms, his hand slipping into Hailey’s.

I look back at Addy. “Won’t Liam miss the flight then?”

“Don’t worry. I’m taking care of it,” Addy says with a peculiar, cryptic curl of her lips. “But for now, can we please get back to the hotel? No offense, Hailey, but this is the worst bachelorette party ever and I cannot wait to go home.”

34

Adelaide