Officially Over It - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,2

“What are you doing here?”

I gestured to the room at large with a sweep of my hand. “Paying off student loan debt.”

If I only had about three more of these specific types of events that paid as well as this one for the mayor did, I’d have all my student loans paid for.

I’d gone a little wild when I was in college. When I’d been offered a loan for my ‘extras’ I’d taken it. And now it was biting me on the ass.

I should’ve just been happy with my mom and stepdad paying for my tuition and getting a job to pay for all the extra stuff that I would need. Instead, I fucked around for my entire college career, racked up student loans, and had barely passed any of my classes.

Luckily, I’d wised up the last year I had there and had tugged my barely passing self out of the downward spiral I’d found myself in and gotten a job with the sweetest lady that planned events just like this one. Which had helped me get my act together, and prepare for my real-world job of being a nurse.

And I’d learned a lot from her before she’d passed away and left me the knowledge of how to continue in this world as an event planner if I so wished.

“As what? An escort?” he joked.

I reached out and slugged him in the arm. “Not funny, Nathan.”

His husky chuckle sent shivers of want down my spine.

I threw the keychain at his face, and he caught it, pocketed it, and then winked at me.

Him and his fast fucking hands.

I stepped away from him and crossed my arms over my chest, holding myself as if I’d fall apart if I didn’t.

“Sorry,” Nathan apologized, sounding like he somewhat meant it, too. “Easy to slip back into it.”

It was.

Nathan and I had spent the majority of our lives fighting like cats and dogs.

Where I would make an A, he would make an A+. Where he would hit a homerun in baseball, I would hit two in softball.

It was a vicious cycle of us showing each other up time after time, and eventually we got to the point where we were becoming a little bit too serious about it.

But no matter what, he always had my back and I always had his.

It was a grudging sort of protection, but we had it for each other much the same.

“It’s nothing,” I admitted as I looked around the room. “I have ten minutes until I can leave.”

I’d told myself I would stay for the first half an hour just to make sure things were going well before I called it a night.

Tomorrow I had to go to work at my real job.

“Why do you…” He trailed off as something caught his eye a little farther into the shadows just down the wall from us.

“What?” I asked softly.

“Do you see that man?” he asked.

I squinted hard and did, indeed, see the man he was talking about.

“I do.” I paused. “Why?”

“He’s got a gun.”

I gasped and squinted. “How do you…”

“Nobody move!” the man bellowed, stepping out of the shadows.

I felt my face fall into a panicked sort of frozen shock as I stared at the gun that was aimed at the room at large.

My eyes caught Nathan’s and I saw him slide down the length of the wall, keeping to the shadows.

Nathan moved until he was directly behind the man with the gun and hit like the viper he was, pulling his arm back and punching the man straight in the back of the neck. At the same time he reached for the gun that the man was holding and shoved it upward so that if it did go off it wouldn’t be aimed at the multitude of people in the room.

The gun didn’t go off.

The man on the other side of the gunman, however, chose that moment to aim his own gun at Nathan just as the first guy fell to the floor.

“Put your hands up!” the second gunman ordered of Nathan.

Nathan’s face went hard as stone as he did as he was instructed.

And that was when I showed him what my uncles and stepfather taught me how to do.

With the guy distracted with Nathan, I followed Nathan’s earlier course and stayed to the shadows.

Only when I was directly in front of him did I step out of the shadows, push his gun arm upward, and ram my knee into the guy’s balls so hard that the guy doubled