“Not great since I was sandwiched between a firefighter and the world’s funniest woman,” Agent Nate Duran said.
My face flushed as Principal Cruz gave me an assessing glance. “Funnier than Maya Rudolph?” she said. “Funnier than Jean Smart?”
“Never,” I said at the exact same time Nate said, “Absolutely.”
“Thanks for coming, Nate,” Principal Cruz said. “And you too, Ms.Turner.”
“Anytime, sis. I always like it when you owe me one.” Nate gently backed into the cross-bar of the school’s front door, which he held open for me.
As we walked toward my car, our breath steamed. Nate was a fed, and there was a dead guy in my trunk. I couldn’t tell if the feeling gripping me was pure panic—or panic mixed with a thrill that Nate clearly wanted to keep chatting. A hot guy who thought I was funny—now that was my kryptonite.
“Your sister seems cool,” I said.
“Now?” he said. “Sure. But when we were kids, did she trick me into drinking toilet water? Sure did.”
I could not stop laughing around this guy. I liked that he seemed a little bit unhinged, in the best possible way.
“My sister,” he said, “she has a theory that straight single guys ‘go off’ by their mid-forties.”
“What do you mean, ‘go off’?” I said.
“Like milk turning bad. According to her, if you’re a man, one day you’re tasty and viable as a romantic partner. And the next you’re spoiled, no longer fit for consumption by nice normal women.”
“Sounds about right,” I said. “Since I moved back to Idaho I’ve beenon exactly two dates. One guy ate fried catfish with his hands and licked every single one of his fingers between bites. The other just wanted to show me instructional TikTok videos he’d made about how to detonate a grenade. ‘Pull the pin! Throw! Duck below a bale of hay!’”
“Yikes!” Nate said. “Were they both mid-forties or older?”
“Can confirm,” I said.
“My sister’s other theory is that the going-off process might be sped up by repeat exposure to the kind of people who illegally stockpile weapons. Like maybe your grenade guy. Or the kind of folks I’m around for work. She thinks normal wholesome stuff is good for me.” He leaned back against my trunk. A very attractive, very single, very child-free federal agent was literally inches from the corpse in my car.
“My niece is playing soccer on this team called the Saber-Toothed Turtles,” he continued. “My brother-in-law is usually assistant coach, but he’s taking some professional development classes at night until March. So I’ve been recruited.”
“Wow! Any chance you want to sit in on PTA meetings for me too?”
“Not a chance.”
“Does your sister think you might meet an eligible divorcée at Saber-Toothed Turtle practice?” I asked, edging toward the driver’s side of my car. I normally would be doing internal cartwheels over this banter, but panic had a vice grip on my chest—I had to get him away from my trunk.
He shrugged and took another step toward me. “She probably thinks spending time around a nice single mom would slow down my ‘going-off’ process. Anyway, kids ages seven to nine are welcome.” He paused and looked at the ground, then back up at me. “Any chance your girls want to play some soccer?”
In lady porn (aka contemporary romance novels), eligible men always go weak in the knees for disheveled moms in yoga pants. But in real life, super-hot employed guys do not trip all over themselves for a chance tosee single mothers of twins again. But how to explain this sense Nate and I had been best friends or lovers in a previous life? Living in LA had made me woo-woo, but not woo-woo enough to believe that.
I shrugged. “I have to ask them. Phoebe is fierce. But Alice unfortunately inherited my utter lack of hand-eye coordination.”
“You don’t use your hands in soccer,” he said. “So she’s good.”
I laughed. “I’ll think about it. Can I ask you something? I mean, do I— Do we know each other from somewhere?”
“I probably just have one of those faces. Besides, I’d remember you.” He paused. Was he blushing? “Soccer practice is Thursday at three thirty. At the indoor soccer fields over by Fort Boise.”
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe.”
He looked right into my eyes. It was sexy and a little unnerving. “It was nice to meet you,Ms.Turner,” he said. Even I could tell he was flirting.
“Nice to meet you,AgentDuran.”
Flustered, probably by a whiff of his pheromones, I tried to hit the unlock button on my key fob, but heard the trunk pop open instead. I dove to slam it shut, blood rushing so hard into my head I felt like my eardrums might blow. Hurrying back around to the driver’s side, I unlocked the door for real this time. But before I could climb in, Agent Duran said, “Knock, knock.”
