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I offered a smile and took a chug. The beer definitely helped with the dryness in my mouth, but it didn’t help in dousing the growing flames inside my core.
“All right.” Sam looked around the small kitchen. “If you’re done in here, I guess I can show you my bedroom.”
Exactly what my revved-up sex drive wanted to hear right now. I had to remind myself that even though I was here with a beer in my hand and a sexy barefoot guy only inches away from me, I was working. And it didn’t matter that Hazel wasn’t paying me, I still wanted to do the damned best I could to help her.
I followed Sam to his bedroom, drinking the beer, keeping my eyes from falling to the ass that was eating up his gym shorts like a five-star meal.
He stepped into his room and opened his arms, twirling and offering a sarcastic smile.
“This is it, where the magic comes to die.”
I laughed at that, surprised at the sound. “You’ve got jokes.”
“Yup. Jokes and a crippling student loan debt. Those are about the only two things I’ve got.”
More laughter. “Well, you’ve got great taste in movies, so there’s that.” I pointed at the poster of Bridesmaids on the wall, a big blast of pink taped onto his light blue wall, just above his twin-sized bed.
“No kidding? You like Bridesmaids, too?”
It’s one of my favorite movies. “Yeah. I watch it if it’s on TV.”
Sam nodded with pursed lips, looking impressed. “I actually got that from one of my subscribers. It’s signed by Kristin Wiig, down there at the bottom.”
“Subscribers?” I asked, leaning in to check out the signature.
“Oh, I stream video games. I’m not famous or anything, but I’ve got a couple, eh, regulars? Shelly from Toronto sent me the poster after I did a rapid-fire round of questions. Apparently Kristin Wiig is her cousin? I don’t know, but I freaking love it.”
“What kind of games do you play?”
He seemed a little taken aback by the question. Like he wasn’t expecting me to dig any deeper.
“Mostly MMORPGs. They’re massi—”
“I know what they are.”
“Oh.”
Shit. I didn’t mean to be that blunt.
Sam looked down at his feet. I could feel the flames in my core firing me up. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s just…”
Before I could even start with an explanation, before I could even say my brother’s name, something hot pink and lacy caught my eye. It was coming out from under the corner of Sam’s mattress. He followed my gaze and gave a confused sound as I walked toward it, recognizing that they were a pair of panties.
“What the…” Sam looked from the panties to me, his eyes wide under the glasses. “Those can’t be… I never…”
I lifted Sam’s mattress. He took in a sharp breath of air, but I remained calm. Laid out underneath the box spring were seven pairs of panties, different colors and fabrics but all the same size and same description that Hazel had given me. These were hers. Sam had lied to me, and to Hazel.
“Detective, I don’t… I don’t know how those got there. I swear on my life, I really don’t.”
This was exactly what I’d been expecting. Even though my gut had been shouting at me to blindly trust him from the jump, I knew I would have been falling straight into his trap. I wasn’t that dumb. He could bat those long eyelashes and wring his soft hands all he wanted, but I had all the proof I needed.
So why the fuck do I still want to grab him and kiss him and tell him to calm the fuck down and that it’ll be all right?
5
Sam Clark
I could feel all the blood slowly drain from my body. My face must have been see-through. You could have probably traced all the little veins and capillaries and made a cute little art project out of my pale-as-tits face. The shock not only drained me of color, but also drained me of any mental faculties I had. My brain went haywire as I looked down at the colorful underwear, laid out as if they were all taunting me.
“I didn’t do that,” I managed to spit out past the cotton balls that now filled my throat.
Detective McSteamy currently looked from the underwear to me, a scowl on his face. I could tell he didn’t believe me, and why would he? The underwear might as well have spelled out the word “guilty” in all their lacy glory.
“Sam.” He dropped the mattress, the underwear disappearing except for the pink one that hung off the corner, as if it were trying to escape this messed-up situation. “Tell me the truth. Why are you stealing your roommate’s panties?”
“I didn’t steal them!” I started to feel desperate. It was the kind of desperation a terribly innocent person feels when the lens of suspicion turns to them.
