“Why do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I want to know the kind of people you’re going to have coming and going in my house. It is still my house, isn’t it?”
He tossed a couple of potatoes into the sink before stowing the bag in a dark, lower drawer in one of my cabinets before glancing at me.
“It’s still your house.”
“Then who is she?”
“She works for Gray Wolf just like me, just like all the other people I’ll have coming and going out of your house these next few days.”
“Well, excuse my disbelief. But the two of you seemed awfully cozy to just be coworkers.”
“Yes, well, we’re a family at Gray Wolf. With the kind of work we do, you tend to get pretty close.”
He opened a couple of cabinets, clearly searching for something. Then he glanced at me. “Do you have a frying pan?”
I grunted, pushing away from the archway to grab a pan from the drawer under the stove. I held it out to him.
“Don’t tell me you know how to cook.”
“I can fry a steak.”
I pulled the pan back before he could grab it. “I’ll cook. I’d rather not raise my cholesterol because you believe oil is a necessary seasoning.”
He held up his hands and stepped back. “You’re the boss.”
“If I was the boss, you wouldn’t be here.”
***
Forty minutes later, the steaks cooked to perfection and the potatoes melting in my mouth, we settled in the living room on opposite ends of the couch. I watched him eat for a second, watching the muscles of his jaw move. His hair was shorter now. Like Ash, he wore it in a grown-out version of a crew cut. No more curls. But he was tan, as if he still spent a lot of time down on the beach. And those muscles in his arms suggested he took the time to work out whenever he could. I remembered the summer he and Joshua decided they were going to get ripped muscles. It hadn’t gone well. I never thought he’d try it again.
Funny how things change over time.
“Does it bother your girlfriend?”
“What?” he asked, glancing at me.
“The work you do. Protecting other women.”
“Would it bother you?”
I pushed a piece of potato around my plate, giving it some real consideration. “It would, I think.”
“Why?”
“Beyond the point that you’re placing yourself in danger for a complete stranger?”
“Beyond that.”
“Because you’re spending long hours alone with a frightened woman.” I looked at him, honestly curious to hear his answer to what I said next. “Surely you’ve had clients throw themselves at you.”
“A few,” he admitted, as he took another large bite of his steak.
“Have you ever slept with a client?”
His eyes moved over me, as he continued to chew his meat. “Are you offering?”
I could feel the heat of my blush as my eyes immediately dropped back down to my own plate. “Of course not!”
“Then why does it matter?”
“I’m just making conversation.”
“Interesting turn of conversation.”
“Do you blame me for being curious? Aren’t you curious about the people in my life?”
He lifted his plate and dug in his pants pocket for a second. Then he tossed me a piece of paper. “I know about the people in your life.”
The paper turned out to be a list of my friends in my father’s handwriting. He’d gotten most of it correct, but he’d missed a few names and added the names of a few people I hadn’t seen in a few years. But it was pretty accurate, which was a little worrisome. Did my dad really know that much about my private life? I thought I was doing a better job of keeping him out of most of it.
“I recognized some of those names right off the bat. You’re still friends with Ali and Steph?”
“Off and on. We get together a couple of times a year to brag about how great our lives are going.”
“And Tina?”
“She married Curtis. Can you believe that?”
His eyebrows rose. “I thought they hated each other.”
“They did. But then they found themselves alone together at the same university and they became inseparable. They got married two years ago and they have a little boy now.”
“Must be nice.”
I shrugged. “They seem happy.”
We were quiet for a minute, only the sound of cutlery on our plates filling the room.
“I ran into Amanda a few months ago.”
That stopped him. He didn’t move, just stared down at his plate where it was balanced on his thighs. Then he slowly began to chew again, nodding just enough so that I caught it.