AllFreeNovel
Share Us
How was the date? Am I interrupting a steamy morning after?
I call her and she answers within seconds. “If you’re calling, it must’ve been really terrible or really great.”
I literally don’t even know how to put this situation into words. I feel bad for him, but I also barely knew him and can’t bring myself to mourn a total stranger.
“You’re staying eerily silent,” Mack says slowly. “Please say words before I start panicking and show up with my ax.”
“You have an ax?”
“Briar! The date.”
“Right.” I swallow, take a calming breath, and spit it out. “Um, he actually...died.”
“Oh my god!” Mack shouts. “You fucked him to death?”
“No! He died sometime after he left my place last night. This morning, I found his watch on my front porch, so I called his phone and a woman answered?—”
Mack gasps. “Was it his wife or his mom? I’m honestly not sure which one would be worse.”
“It was his sister.”
“Oh, good. So what happened?”
“They suspect it was an overdose.”
“Wow,” she breathes. “Like intentional or accidental?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think they know yet.” I hadn’t even thought about it. I’d just assumed it was accidental, but what if Austin killed himself? Surely he wouldn’t kill himself just because I rejected him last night. But what if he’d been dealing with shit for months, and my rejection was the final straw? My heart thunders.Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
“Have the police contacted you?”
“No,” I say slowly. “Why would they?”
“Because you might’ve been the last person to see him alive. That’s crazy. You go on a date for the first time in forever and he dies the next day.”
“Thank you for the recap,” I grumble.
“Holy shit. It feels weird to ask now, but...how was the sex?”
“We didn’t hook up.” Great. Now I have to speak ill of the dead. “The date was a dud. He groped my tits and I felt nothing. Zero chemistry. Which...I guess is for the best now.” If I had fucked him and he’d died the next day, the news would’ve been even harder to swallow.
“Just watch what you say when you talk to the police,” Mack warns.
“Why? I didn’t do anything to him.”
“You and I know that, but they don’t. They can twist your words and implicate you in ways that would make your brain hurt.”
“Is that what they did to you when you reported your ex?”
“Jameswaslaw enforcement. That’s how he got away with it for so long.” A bitter edge to her normally jovial tone. “They always take care of their own.”
“Thank you for the warning, but I don’t think I have anything to worry about,” I tell her, even as April’s skeptical words ring in my ears. “We had dinner, we came back to my place for five minutes, and I sent him home.”
“Okay. Just don’t go into too much detail. And if their questions start to make you uncomfortable, tell them you won’t speak to them anymore without a lawyer.”
“You should be my lawyer.”
“I probably could pass the bar exam with how much I’ve researched.” Before she hangs up, her tone turns serious again. “Be careful, Briar.”
