Page 15 of The Woman By the Lake

“I’m not asking for a lot,” I pointed out.

His attention returned to me. “Really? Because last night was a good fuckin’ time, and it woulda sucked for a lot of people, including me, if I had to kick my friends out at midnight because my neighbor has a stick up her ass.”

“I don’t have a stick up my ass,” I said hotly.

His brows rose.

“I don’t!” I declared.

“Babe?” a woman’s voice drifted from the interior of the house. “Get rid of her. She’s a drag.”

I put that in my pocket too. Not only what she said, but her entire existence, though, primarily where she woke up that morning.

“You done?” he asked me.

I was not.

“Listen, it’s very simple. At around midnight, just ask everyone to keep it down, turn the music down and switch it over to Fleetwood Mac or the Eagles or something.”

“No, woman, you listen,” he retorted. “People who live like us do it because we don’t want anyone telling us how to live. If you picked the wrong place to land, that’s on you. Don’t hang your shit on me.”

After delivering that, he did a full body scan of me that was entirely inappropriate considering not only our conversation, but that he had a woman inside he’d clearly had relations with not too long ago (as in, perhaps only hours had elapsed). It lingered on my hips, on my bust area and then on my hair before he locked eyes with me, muttered a cutting, “Nice Birks. Fuck, velvet.”

And then I had to jump out of the way when he stopped holding the storm door open and it whizzed closed.

If that wasn’t enough, he shut the inner door right in my face.

Well!

“What a dick,” I whispered to the door.

On that, I marched down the stairs and to the trail, my eyes to my Birkenstocks, my blood pressure out the roof.

And as I flicked my slides off into a cubby in my back hall, I thought, Fuck him. Those shoes are adorable.

I then went into my equally adorable kitchen and made coffee.

FOUR

Fuck Him

Riggs

Riggs pushed out of Aromacobana with a much-needed paper cup of coffee in his hand and nearly ran into Harry Moran, the county sheriff and one of Riggs’s friends since they were kids.

“Yo, brother, sorry,” he said. “Got a little loose last night, not firing on all cylinders yet.”

Harry’s lips quirked, and he replied, “Not a problem. Been a while. Back from a job?”

Riggs jerked up his chin. “Finished yesterday. Had the boys over, celebrated last night.”

Harry faked looking hurt. “You didn’t call me.”

“Not your scene,” Riggs muttered, wishing it was.

Harry needed to loosen the fuck up, and that wasn’t about his job in law enforcement. It was about him holding onto something Riggs knew it would be tough as hell to let go, but you had to do it to move on and have a life.

His friend was breathing.

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