Page 87 of Ewan

I shrug again.

“He helped with our Christmas party. And he also lives not far from me.”

I don’t actually know that.

She crosses her arms over her chest.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you knew him when he walked into the restaurant?”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

“You didn’t want to go to his table initially. Besides, he left early. Did he come back for you? To pick you up?”

Oh, crap.

I suck in a long breath and struggle to come up with a hard-to-believe, convoluted story.

“I didn’t want to talk to him in the beginning because the man annoyed the fuck out of me.”

“How?” she asks, amused again.

“He can be a nag.”

I don’t know if this is going to fly. Ewan, a nag? He can be anything but a nag?

“What was he nagging you about?”

I sigh.

“We were talking about my working out regimen, and he insisted I needed to drink protein shakes, blah, blah, blah. I don’t like protein shakes. So that was one thing we disagreed on. And there were other topics as well.”

“Does he have a kid in school?”

“Not that I know of. No, I don’t think so. But someone in his family might have a kid in our school. Frankly, I didn’t want to know. He returned last night because he was convinced I’d getmugged if I walked home alone in the middle of the night. Me? Mugged? There was no way something like that would happen to me, but he insisted, so I said yes. That’s all.”

Finally, we’ve reached the end of this.

Her eyes don’t move away from my face.

“Okay. I’ll go now. Miss Scholz hates it when I stay with Mousy in front of the building.”

I avoid her eyes when her hand comes to my arm, stopping me from pulling away from her.

“He’s a mobster, Scarlet.”

I'm convinced I'm not hearing right.

“A what?”

I laugh.

Not a muscle moves on her face.

“What are you talking about?”

“Yes, he is,” she says. “We were surprised to see him and his men in the restaurant last night. There’s bad blood between him and the family who owns the restaurant.”

Ewan, a mobster?

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