Chapter 4 .3
I called Sarah at noon, “What’s she doing?”
“She’s in bed.”
“Still?”
“Mm hm.” She sounded judgmental. “Red eyes. Won’t talk.”
“I’ll be home at six to pick her up and take her out. Make sure she’s ready. I’ve called over to Donna’s for a dress and shoes and things for her. Help her, yeah?”
“Yes, Sir.” Her reply was laced with sarcasm.
I hung up. Fucking Sarah thought she had a right to interfere. I waved at the barista to bring me a refill.
Ms. Martinez, Sarah, was standing over me, telling me I had to get up and get dressed. She had a garment bag draped over her arm and was holding two department store bags, too.
“You and Tommy have a date tonight.” She beamed at me. “I’ve run you a bath. Go bathe, shave your legs and underarms, and shampoo and then I’ll help you get ready with your hair and make-up. I’ll get some teabags to get the puffiness out of those eyes. I saw the dress and it looks like he’s taking you somewhere nice! It’s from a shop owned by a friend of the family and you’re going to look so gorgeous, Chiquita.” She clapped her hands together.
Was she for fricking real?
She left the room and I slowly got to my feet. I got a head rush before I practically stumbled into the bathroom. I couldn’t sit in the bath. It was hot. Too hot for my sore ass and it’d definitely make my scraped-up knees hurt, too. Just as I was about to climb in the shower stall, she rushed into the bathroom and stopped in her tracks when she saw my naked rear end.
“Do you mind?” I breathed, grabbing a towel and covering myself.
Her face contorted. “Who did that to you? Was that – ” She stopped and her hand covered her mouth.
I didn’t answer her. I got into the stall and shut the door. She left in a huff. Rule number two was to keep my mouth shut and I didn’t need another punishment.
I couldn’t seem to feel clean. At all. No amount of soap and running water could erase what he’d done to my body and my mind in the past few days.
After my shower, Sarah blow dried my hair and then put it in hot rollers and put makeup on my face. She cleaned the now chipping red nail polish off my fingers and toes and then did a French manicure on both. Then she threaded my eyebrows like a pro, all without talking to me, with her lips in a tight line.
The results were as professional-looking as any salon I’d ever been to. Not that I’d been to many. Not that I cared about looking good for Tommy. I was in a red slip dress and kitten heeled black sandals that were thankfully not nearly as high as the fuck-me shoes I’d worn to grad. I didn’t wanna look good for him; I wanted to be invisible to him. I wished I was in a burlap sack and rain boots so he wouldn’t even look twice at me.
Sarah had given me some aloe gel with lidocaine to spread on my backside and my rug burn so that it’d help numb me. She hadn’t asked any more questions, but her lips were pursed tight when she’d passed me the bottle of gel, and said, “For your…” She motioned to her own behind and said nothing else.
When I was ready, she beamed, “You’re pretty as a picture.” Sarah glanced at her wristwatch. “Okay, he’ll be here soon. Something to drink first?”
I shook my head at her. I didn’t have any desire to go out on a date with this guy. How could I be in public and pretend to be okay with all of this? I wondered, idly, if he’d update me on the situation with my dad, with Rose and Cal. All day yesterday I’d worried about all of them but today I was pretty numb about even that. I was mad at myself, mad for responding to him sexually. I didn’t want to think about it, yet I couldn’t stop thinking I might be some kind of mutant. Was I just in shock from everything that had happened in the past few days? Was it all self-preservation?
I started to think that all this was all my fault. Karmic justice. I’d always been drawn to romance novels where the hero was roguish, I’d loved the part in Gone with the Wind where Rhett carried Scarlett up to bed against her will and she was all happy in the morning.
I’d even once had a kind of dark fantasy and I’d beat myself up for it afterwards. I’d been touching myself, imagining the drummer of my favorite band but it wasn’t all romance in the fantasy. As I’d touched myself my fantasy morphed from him and me in his dressing room having rough hair-pulling sex against the wall to the whole band coming in, holding me down while they took turns. That was the hardest I’d made myself come, ever, and after that, maybe the guilt over that fantasy was why I’d always stopped touching myself when I started to come, culling the orgasm or something.
I’d never wanted to let my mind go there after that. I’d told myself that it was so wrong to even fantasize about when that was the sort of thing that happened to real women, women who’d be broken after something like that. Was I a mutant for responding to that sort of behavior? Now I was imprisoned in a sexually abusive forced relationship. Maybe it served me right.
She stepped out of the house looking gorgeous. Her long, dark hair fell in soft waves today and she wore a sexy little red dress with thin straps over her bare shoulders. She had bare legs, heeled sandals, and when she got into the passenger seat of my car, my hand instantly travelled up her leg, under her dress.
She squirmed, red-faced.
“Don’t be shy. Kiss me.” I leaned over.
She sat stiffly in the seat and wouldn’t look in my direction.
Earl and Sarah were standing on the front steps, eyes on us.
I gritted my teeth and squeezed her leg a little then whispered, “Kiss me, Athena. My staff are watching.” I glanced at her knees, they were both rug-burnt and scabbed over. I felt myself get hard, remembering her on her knees on my bedroom floor.
She flashed a look of confusion at me and then glanced at Earl and Sarah, then back at me.
“You actually want everyone to think I’m okay with all of this?” The challenge in her eyes got me harder. Her full lips were bright red and glossy, like raspberries. Juicy-looking raspberries.
“They know I’m a prisoner here. No one expects me to kiss you.”
“Kiss me.” I leaned in, “Kiss me now and make it good.” I caressed her cheek gently. “Don’t disappoint me.”
She swallowed hard, got a supremely sour look on her face, then leaned over, raked her fingers through my hair and dragged my mouth to hers. She plunged her tongue into my mouth and she was obviously trying for shock value. She let out a little gasp as my hand travelled up further until I cupped her between the legs.
“Good girl,” I smirked and then let go of her and turned the ignition.
She’d summoned courage and had tried to shock me, but I’d turned the tables on her. I suppressed the urge to bust up laughing.
She seemed to withdraw into herself as I drove to the restaurant. She needed help to snap out of it.
“Your things from the foster home have been brought in. They’re in the basement. You can head down tomorrow and look through them and decide what you need to keep.”
Her breath caught. “Okay.”
I knew by her face that she wanted to ask me questions. She didn’t. She just sat there, hands folded in her lap, staring ahead.
“Your foster parents have been debriefed,” I offered.
Her head snapped to my direction. “They know the truth?”
“As much as they need to know. They know that you’ve moved in with me. They know who I am and they know not to ask questions.”
She swallowed hard. “Please tell me that you haven’t threatened them.”
“They’ve been cautioned against contacting you or anyone else about the matter.”
She looked lost in thought for the rest of the drive. She hadn’t asked me about her father, the piece of shit. Maybe she knew enough to know he wasn’t worth the trouble of asking. I hadn’t done anything about him yet. I was quietly having him tailed by my private eye and looking into his past first. I wanted to know what my father’s beef was. Then I’d decide what to do about him.
I pulled into the restaurant parking lot and turned the car off. “There’s something else.”
He was staring at me, looking like he was considering what he’d say next.
“What?” I whispered, feeling dread spread through me.
“I want to compromise with you about tonight. Have a nice evening together.”
I waited for him to continue. He scratched his jaw, looking like he was pondering something.
Finally, he spoke. “Tonight, I want you to look at this as if it’s just a date. Just two people having dinner. Get to know me. Try to be open-minded about enjoying the evening.”
I gave him a yeah right look.
“I mean it. I’ll reward your obedience.”
His eyes were flirty. I didn’t want flirty. But he rewards obedience, he punishes defiance. I had been punished already and knew that to be true, for sure. This guy loved mind games, that much was obvious. Making me snuggle in exchange for not getting raped, offering me vanilla sex if I complied, raping me, restraining me, and now making me pretend to be on a date and be happy about it?
I swallowed hard, “How will I be rewarded?”
He looked thoughtful for a second. “We’ll see.”
I thought back to our first night together. He wanted me to pretend to be happy about lying in his arms in order to have him not touch me sexually. This seemed like it was a lot like that. But it was probably a trick, too, because when I’d woken up the next morning, he was doing sexual things to me anyway, taking advantage of the fact that my guard was down. What was his trick this time?
“Why would I trust you after you tricked me that first night?”
“Whoa, that wasn’t a trick. I kept my word. I didn’t fuck you that night. In the morning you were rubbing your sweet body all over me and I just responded. I’m just a red-blooded man.”
I rolled my eyes. He was so full of it. As if I’d rub all over him.
“I’m trusting you,” he said, touching my hair, twirling a curl with his index finger. “I’m taking you out in public with me when you could make a scene, when you could try to run away from me. I think you know that it’d be very stupid to do either. I think you know you’re lucky that you’re not still tied to my bed. I’m trusting that you won’t do anything stupid. Compromise. I’m trusting you. You give me some of that back.”
I backed away, not wanting him to touch me and hating that this was a veiled warning for me to not try to get away tonight. It had occurred to me, of course it had. I could sneak out the bathroom window. I could hope someone else was in the bathroom and tell someone in the bathroom that they needed to call the cops. But I hadn’t hatched a real plan because I didn’t know how to do it without putting Dad and the Crenshaws at risk.
What choice did I have about this little game, though? He was repeatedly letting me know he was in charge, and I didn’t feel like I had much choice in the role I’d play.
I’d had fleeting thoughts in the past about joining the community theatre. Maybe I could just look at this night as being in a play, playing a role. Couldn’t I? Could I pull it off? I wasn’t sure if I was capable.
“I don’t like to talk consequences, Tia, because it’s usually not necessary. Most people who know me know what they put at stake when they cross me. But maybe you and I should have that conversation. Just this once.”
“We don’t need to have that conversation,” I said, not wanting him to make it impossible for me to play this role tonight. But by the look in his eyes, I think he wanted to scare me. And he was. Every hair on my body was at attention.
“Let’s just say this, then. Let’s just say that all you hold dear is at stake with me, Tia. Now, tomorrow, twenty years from now. Always. I don’t forget debts and won’t forgive betrayal. Capeche?”
This was going to be a fun experiment. I’d get to see what she was made of. Could she be convincing, or would it take some work to get her to be as perfect outside of the bedroom as she was in it?
Now she seemed like she was trying to mentally prepare herself as we sat parked while I checked my voicemail messages. When I got out of the car and reached to open her door, I held an index finger up, signaling her to wait while I walked around and opened the door for her. She got out of the car and looked up at me.
“Chivalry should be shot dead and pissed on.” She flashed a look of disgust at me.
“And why is that?” I was taken aback.
“Because it’s one of the things that keeps women oppressed.”
I was a little shocked at her comment and her brashness.
She flashed a smile at me. “This is me. The real me.”
I laughed, a big open-mouthed laugh. She looked embarrassed.
“Well, I guess I’m an old-fashioned guy. I’ll be oppressing you every chance I get. Opening the door for you is something you should look on as a gift, my treating you like a queen. My queen.”
Her face was red. I kissed her on the temple and held my arm out. She hesitantly took it.
The ma?tre d greeted me excitedly. “Mr. Tommy, so nice to see you!”
“Augustus, this is Tia.”
He lamented for nearly thirty seconds about how gorgeous she was and how nice it was to meet her. Yeah, she was beautiful, but he was laying it on a bit thick.
I gave him a look. He pulled himself together and kissed her hand and led us to a table, then immediately brought over a bottle of red wine and poured glasses for us. A waiter brought bread to the table and menus were presented. He spoke to me in Italian about the specials prepared for the evening. When they were gone I leaned over and reached for her hand and skimmed my thumb across her knuckles. She didn’t pull away and her face revealed nothing but a warm-looking smile. I returned the smile, giving her a look that showed I was pleased with her.
We were sitting across the table from one another at a really romantic Italian restaurant with red and white checkered tablecloths, soft lighting, candles, and I’d decided to try to pretend that I was on a date with the guy from the ice cream parlor.
I figured it’d be the only way I could pull off the feat of acting like I was happy or even open-minded about being in his company. I didn’t think I could pull off acting like I was happy to be sitting here with Tommy Ferrano, the guy who had done all those awful things to me, so I tried, instead, to rewind the clock in my head and pretend that the gorgeous hunk from the ice cream parlor hadn’t morphed into the sadistic criminal who’d threatened to sell me into slavery.
I decided that this wasn’t the guy holding me for some ransom that could never be paid. This wasn’t the guy who’d spanked me, getting off on my pain, who’d tricked me into sex and then forced sex on me. This man didn’t tie me to his bed and screw me, making me cry from embarrassment at responding to him. I tried my hardest to rewind my brain to when I first saw him.
What if I could be here in this nice restaurant with the gorgeous guy from the ice cream parlor who’d given me an outrageous tip, who’d flirted with me, who’d winked at me with some unspoken promise? That’d be nice. That unspoken promise wasn’t going to be a nightmare. This was just a date. My loved ones hadn’t been threatened, my future hadn’t been stolen, and I wasn’t being forced to sleep in the bed and the arms of a criminal. I wasn’t being forced into anything. Thinking like this was the only way I figured I could pull it off.
“Mind if I order for you?” he asked me, caressing the back of my hand with his thumb.
There was light in his eyes, not darkness, making it easier for me to pretend.
“Sure,” I said, “Just no shellfish. I’m highly allergic.”
He nodded, then he spoke Italian to the waiter.
“I heard you’re half Italian. You speak it?” he asked after the order was taken.
“No, my mom was Italian, but she never taught me. She only spoke it in the house when she was yelling at my dad or using it to keep some secret from me talking on the phone. We never understood her, but knew when she spoke Italian someone was either about to get something good or get in trouble.” I laughed a little, and then I knew my face sobered, thinking about her, about my dad.
“I ordered us the lasagna. The lasagna here is to die for.” Tommy tried to change the subject. “The only lasagna better was my mother’s. She never passed the recipe on before she died, but my sister Tessa does pretty good.”
“I think my mom was the only Italian woman in the world who couldn’t cook,” I said, smiling, but Dad could cook. Between Dad and Rose, I’d learned to cook, too.
Dad had shown me how to make meals seemingly from nothing. When the fridge and pantry had been nearly bare at times he’d come up with gourmet concoctions. I’d watch and had started to make suggestions for spices or additions to the meals based on what I could find in the cupboard or freezer. We joked that we could make anything taste gourmet with a little of Dad’s secret spice blend.
The waiter brought warm bread and an antipasto platter. It smelled mouth-watering and for the first time in days I was actually hungry. It all tasted as good as it smelled, “Oh, this is so good!” I exclaimed and Tommy looked happy. He kind of smiled like ice cream parlor guy, looking insanely attractive. He wore jeans but with a black button-down dress shirt today under a blazer and the top few buttons were down. I could see a little of his chest. There was a thick silver chain on his neck with a crucifix of about two inches long on it. I felt a pang in my gut, reminding me that it was just wishful thinking that this wasn’t what I was pretending it was, that this wasn’t a real date with that guy that I’d daydreamed about.
After it was over, he wouldn’t walk me to my door at my new apartment and kiss me goodnight before we’d go our separate ways. If only. If only after tonight I could dream about our second date. I’d call my friends and we’d talk about the date for hours. If only…
Watching her eat was a beautiful thing. Sarah had complained that she’d barely eaten anything since arriving. She was talkative, too; nothing too in-depth, but we conversed about the food, the restaurant, and the mood was light. She seemed carefree.
But then staring into her dessert, she started to take on the look of someone with the weight of the world on her shoulders.
My phone rang just before I delved into my dessert. I answered.
“Tommy! We’ve got a huge problem. Huge!” It was Luciana, my sister.
“Is it the baby?” I exclaimed into the phone. Tia looked up at me from her tiramisu.
“No; we have a big problem because I’ve just heard the news, news that did not come from you. You’re engaged! I’m going to punch you in the nuts for letting me find out from someone else. How could you?”
I let out a little huff. “Seriously, Luc?”
“Yes, seriously! Q’uest que fuck, Tommy?”
“It’s not official yet so no nut-punching, all right? I’m not alone. Tia and I are out for dinner. I’ll call you later.”
“Bring her Sunday for dinner to Pop’s. We need to meet her. I’ve got Tess here. She agrees.”
“That was already part of the plan,” I answered. “Gotta go.”
Tia was looking at me curiously. I shrugged. “My sisters just found out about you. They’re anxious to meet you. Sunday there’s dinner at my Pop’s. We’re expected. You get to have the whole Ferrano experience all at once.” I rolled my eyes.
Her eyes widened fractionally, then she said, “Tell me about them.”
“Well, there’s Contessa - Tessa, she’s, ah, 22, has two boys, aged one and almost three. There’s Dario - Dare, you met him, he’s 24 and single, then there’s Luciana, Luc, she’s 22 also. She and Tess are like 10 months apart, and she’s pregnant with her third. She has two-year-old twin girls.”
“Uncle Tommy? You’re the oldest?”
I smirked at her, feeling a twinge at my name on her lips. That might’ve been the first time she’d said it. “That’s me. Thomas Vincent Ferrano Jr. 29. The three of them are my half siblings. Pop remarried after my mother died. That marriage didn’t last though, so he got married again. That didn’t last either. Now he’s on wife number four. Lisa is the same age as Dare. She’s good friends with the girls.”
Tia winced.
“Yeah. That didn’t go over well at first. Everyone’s over it. Pop’s a real ladies’ man.”
She shuffled uneasily in her seat. I looked at her curiously.
“I’m so full,” she said, putting her fork down.
I signaled for the waiter to bring the bill. “Wanna take a walk? Walk off all these carbs?”
“Great idea.” She smiled at me. Her smile seemed genuine. She was a damn fine actress so far. This was good to know.
Not far away, I pulled into the parking lot for the beach. It was close to sunset and the weather was perfect for a stroll. As she got out of the car I grabbed her hand and held it as we walked. We got to the sand and she stopped, reached for and then held onto my shoulder, then pulled the strap off an ankle, let that shoe drop off, and then let go of me to get the other shoe off. She bent and looped the straps around her index finger to carry them and I grabbed her free hand again and kissed each of her knuckles.
She looked up at me and smiled. “Thanks for dinner, Tommy.”
My name again. Another twinge. And that smile seemed real. I felt a pang of annoyance that it seemed so real. I think I must’ve frowned at her because she swallowed hard and chewed her bottom lip, looking down. I took a few steadying breaths to push my pissed-off attitude away. I lifted my necklace out of my shirt and fingered the crucifix on it as we walked in silence. I caught a look on her face that made me realize I was squeezing her hand too tight. I loosened it and her expression softened.
A tiny fur ball of a golden retriever puppy bounded right up to her and started licking her calves. She let go of my hand and dropped to her knees, dropping her shoes and pulling the pup into her lap.
“Oh my goodness!”
The dog licked at the air, furiously, wanting to lick her face. She held him back at arm’s length but giggled. A kid, probably around ten, ran up to us with a leash in his hand and it still had the collar attached to it. Obviously, the pup had squirmed right out of his collar.
“Sorry!” the kid said. “Marley!”
“Oh, it’s okay!” Tia exclaimed. “He’s so cute; how old is he?”
The kid shrugged. The dog couldn’t be any more than eight or nine weeks old. Tia was scratching him behind both ears while he licked her arms. Her red dress was covered in wet and dry sand and she didn’t seem to care in the least.
The kid leaned over and tried to get the collar over the pup’s head, but the dog was having none of it. He took off into the water. The kid shouted at the dog and Tia laughed, calling out, “He’s a water dog, he can’t help it!”
The kid’s father came running up, out of breath. The dog had obviously gone on a good run. The guy looked at the dog swimming in the water like it was his worst nightmare come true.
“Hang on,” Tia called to him and then she lifted a thick stick up off the beach and tossed it toward the dog. It landed in the water beside the pup and he immediately swam to it and caught it between his teeth. Tia started slapping her legs, “Come here, Marley, come here! Fetch!” The dog swam toward her with the stick in his mouth.
“You’re a genius!” the kid’s father exclaimed.
“I love goldens. They can’t resist two things. Water and retrieving.”
Yeah, and he can’t resist beautiful girls. She was laughing harder, carefree. It was a beautiful sound.
I shook my head, taking it all in, a grin on my face. She flashed a smile at me and it was so gorgeous and seemed so genuine that I felt a strange pain pierce my chest.
The dog bounded toward Tia again and then shook hard, getting all of us wet. Tia squealed like she loved it. The dad went to grab the dog.
“Wait!” Tia told him. We have to let him fetch it at least once more. Can I? He’d think I was a liar if we just let you chain him without a fetch.”
The guy laughed and shrugged. My face hurt from my perma-grin. She didn’t want the dog to think she was tricking him. I shook my head at that.
“Marley, drop it!” she demanded with authority, and pointed at the ground. The pup held tight to the stick for a second and then dropped the stick in front of her and panted enthusiastically at her. She swiped it and flung it into the water and squealed with glee as the dog took off back into the water. “He’s so smart already.”
As soon as she slapped her legs, “Marley!” he swam back. The little boy took the stick from the dog and threw it into the water again and I grabbed her hand and whispered in her ear, “Let’s make our getaway.”
“Bye,” she said to the guy and his kid and waved at the dog who was swimming back toward us. She actually waved bye to the dog. I shook my head.
She was walking along, a spring in her step, holding my hand, smiling. I’d somehow wound up carrying her sandals in my free hand, and the sun was setting. It was like something out of a chick flick. I had to kiss her and take full advantage of this moment right fucking now.
We were in an area with no one else around. I stopped and took in a big breath. She looked at me. Then she swallowed hard, looking freaked out.
I brushed some sand off her cheek with my thumb, then leaned down and sucked in her bottom lip. She hesitated at first, but a second after my lips touched hers, she started to melt into me. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her closer, kissing her deeply. She was responding.
The sun was setting, leaving the sky orange and pink. Birds were on the horizon, and I was filled with emotion.
“Marry me,” I said, caught up in the moment.
Stupid beach at fucking sunset. I felt like such a cliché. But clichés are clichés for a reason, I guess. She looked up at me, her jade eyes full of alarm.
“Marry me,” I repeated. “I want that ring on your finger.” I felt like the fucking Grinch who stole Christmas after his heart had grown three sizes.
She swallowed hard. She was searching her brain for a reply, and I saw fear in her eyes. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing, but she certainly didn’t want to say yes, either. For the first time, the fear on her face didn’t send a thrill up my spine and through my pants. I kissed her again, kissed her in a way that could be called claiming as much as it could be called kissing and she responded with a little moan into my mouth, and then her hands came up and her fingers wove into my hair and it felt like she was really in the kiss and in the moment with me.
But despite how convincing she was, she had to still be just acting and I was trying my damnedest to not let it piss me off and ruin this moment. But, it nagged at me. For her, this was just self-preservation. I pulled away and looked at her accusingly.
Until he said, “Marry me”, he was Ice Cream Parlor Hottie. Somehow, I’d managed to convince myself of that and it had made things not so difficult, other than a few awkward moments. I thought I was doing okay, and I did start to forget who he really was there for a bit. But then when he looked at me with that scary hunger in his eyes, he was suddenly the guy that had slapped me and scared me and tied me up, who’d threatened me and everyone I loved.
Thankfully, he’d broken the awkwardness when I didn’t answer his proposal, if you could call it a proposal, since he more demanded than asked. He broke the tension by kissing me again. The way he kissed me…wow. I’d gone weak in the knees. How could he make me feel like that one minute and fill me with hate a moment later? Then he glared at me for a second like I’d done something wrong, and before I could process it, we were walking hand in hand back toward the car. I wasn’t sure what would happen when we got back to his house. He was walking too fast and I got a stitch in my side.
He waited, looking broody while I washed the sand off my feet in a small fountain near the parking lot and then walked on the hot pavement to the car. He tossed my shoes into the back seat and got in the car and started it.
He was quiet all the way back to his house. I kept seeing his jaw muscles flexing as he drove. My heart was racing; the suspense was freaking me out.
When he pulled the car into his driveway and got out, I didn’t know whether or not to sit there and wait or get out. I reached for my shoes and then looked at him as he slammed his door.
“What, you want chivalry now?” He quirked his eyebrows up at me.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. He started to laugh. I cracked a smile, embarrassed, and then got out of the car and followed him into the house. I wasn’t sure if the laugh was cynical or if he was just teasing me. I was having trouble getting a read on him.
“What happened to you?” Sarah, standing in the front hall, looked at me like I was something the cat had dragged in. Tommy was arming the house alarm.
“Wrestling on the beach with a golden retriever puppy,” I said and shrugged. I caught my reflection in a mirror on the wall in the foyer. My hair was windblown and I was barefoot without an ounce of lipstick remaining on my mouth and my eye makeup was a little bit raccoonish. “Oh, I’m a mess!”
She smiled, looking surprised and pleased.
“No, you’re beautiful. You can punch the clock, Sarah.” Tommy said. “I don’t need anything else tonight. Where’s Earl?”
“He’s out back. I’ll tell him you’re in.” She was smiling at him with a sort of goofy grin.
“All right. I don’t need to see him; I just wanted to know if it was him on patrol. Lock the door on your way through the kitchen.”
“All right. And yes, until midnight, then Marco relieves him.” Her smile was still big.
“All right.” He looked at her strangely.