“Follow me,” I say, moving through my dark house, flipping on every switch as I go.
My stark white kitchen is at the back of my cookie-cutter house. After having been in Nick’s, I’m less than thrilled with my layout. There’s nothing open about it, with the exception of the great room that we built on five years ago.
I pull a pen and paper out of my one and only junk drawer and hand them to him, motioning for him to take a seat at the white granite-topped island. He nods, taking the closest barstool while I lean against the opposite countertop.
“Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
I bite on my lower lip, trying to recall the events in my room. “I don’t remember word for word. Something about him being there because I called him.”
His eyes raise to meet mine. “Did you call someone? Anyone?”
My nose scrunches. “No. It’s the middle of the night, Nick. Why on earth would I call a strange man?”
I’m not about to admit that I kinda, sorta did call out to a man tonight, but he’s not alive, and also that might be the reason I’m in this mess.
Out of habit, I lift myself up to sit on the countertop, a position I often took while watching Garrett cook.
Nick’s eyes stray, and his cheeks redden. I’m not sure if it’s from my tone or something else entirely. The more I focus on his reaction, the deeper down the well my thoughts fall.
“Out with it,” I demand, knowing there is something he doesn’t want to say.
He blows out a breath. “Listen, it’s none of my business. It’s just—you were out tonight with your friends and, well, I’m just doing my job, asking all the questions I’d normally ask.”
“What is it you’re asking me exactly?” I rub at my temples, trying to stave off the building headache.
“Well... I—”
“Oh, just say it! Did I make a booty call to a random guy?” My hands fly up. “No. Not to a man or woman or anyone. No calls were made. I’m forty! I’m not doing... that.”
His eyes widen and his hand flies up, motioning for me to calm down. “I-I wasn’t insinuating that.”
“It sure seemed like it.”
His head shakes back and forth and his eyes close as he appears to be composing himself. “I’m sorry. I just... never mind. There was no call. Moving on,” he says, shuffling the papers as though he’d love to hide behind them.So would I, buddy. “What else did he say?”
My arms cross over my chest and my head falls back into the white cabinet behind me. “He said he wasn’t there to kill me or... ravish.” My eyes avert from Nick’s, and the words stumble out of my mouth before I have a chance to rephrase the stranger’s less-than-kind rebuttal.
Nick coughs, fist coming to his mouth, and I roll my eyes, jumping down from the counter, feeling fidgety.
“He said that... exactly?”
“Well... no. Just that he wasn’t there to hurt me. It wasimplied. Apparently forty-year-olds are not, in fact, worthy of being ravished.”
“The intruder implied that Mrs.Mann would not be ravished,” Nick says under his breath as he scribbles on his sheet of paper.
“Are you quite done?” I ask, a little too prickly.
“For what it’s worth, I wholly disagree,” he offers, and I shoot him a look of annoyance.
Not quite sure what comes over me, I decide to mess with the detective, placing my elbows on the island and leaning over it, head tilting to the side.
“So you’re saying you’d ravish me?”
He chokes on air. “I’m simply saying I don’t agree that forty-year-olds are not ravishable.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Is that even a word?”
His head shakes in surrender. “Doesn’t matter. I will be ravishing no one.”
