Wrong Place, Right Time(54)

I get a little nervous over that. Does that mean he did a credit check on me too? I don’t have the best credit in the world, which is kind of embarrassing. Bouncing child support checks never helps with that situation. “I guess I passed . . .”

“Yes, you passed. And it doesn’t hurt that you had a very glowing recommendation from your sister. You’re her hero, you know. And we respect the hell out of her, so what she thinks matters to us.”

“You sure know how to make a girl blush, Lucky.” I know I sound goofy saying that, but I can’t think of how else to describe what I’m feeling. It’s been a long time since somebody slathered my family and me with compliments like this. It’s seriously flattering to be told on the day you’re laid off from one job that you’re respected so much by a new coworker, especially when it’s someone on a team of people who are consulting for the New Orleans Police Department. But it doesn’t change a lot of very important things for me.

“It’s just the truth,” he assures me.

“I did just get laid off from my job, but I’m not sure I’m up to the task of being a Bourbon Street Boy person.”

He shrugs. “It’s up to you. Thibault says you’re good for the work, and what you’ve said so far on the Blue Marine case makes sense to me, so if you do well with this job, there’s no reason why you couldn’t at least consider doing more consulting for us. If you’re worried about your kids, don’t be. When you work behind the scenes like I do, the demands are a lot less.”

“Are you saying you never go out into the field? Because I thought we were going out into the field on this job.”

“Yeah, very occasionally I go out into the field, when there’s really nobody there but me, or it’s just an easy task like wandering around a store kind of thing. But, like Dev, most of my work is done here in the warehouse.”

I busy myself with my phone for a couple seconds, checking to see if my sister has responded and hiding any reaction I might be having to hearing Dev’s name. My heart is fluttering the tiniest bit.

No luck on an answer from May. I turn my attention back to Lucky. “That must make your family happy, that you don’t do the risky stuff.” I smile at him, trying to cover the fact that I’m delving into his personal life now.

“The only family I have swims around a little bowl, so it doesn’t matter either way. But I’m not much for hand-to-hand combat anyway. I like dealing with numbers, not bad guys.” He grins again, completely fine with being a chicken poo pansy, just like I am.

My smile comes both from the general fact that I like talking to him and from the fact that what he says is completely ridiculous. “Your family swims around in a bowl?”

He shrugs and then goes to his paperwork, flipping open the folder again. He talks at the papers, like he’s maybe a little bit embarrassed about his answer. “I have a goldfish.”

I’m trying not to laugh. I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. I play along, anyway. “What’s his name?”

Lucky is smiling shyly as he looks at his papers. “Sunny.”

“Of course it’s Sunny.” I do laugh then, because he’s a grown man, but inside him obviously lives a small boy. “We have a gerbil at our house.”

Lucky turns his head to look at me. “What’s his name?”

“Harold. We keep it casual, though, and call him Harry.”

Lucky laughs. “Of course his name is Harry. What else would it be?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I was gunning for T-Rex, but the kids lobbied hard for something softer.”

Lucky chuckles, and encouraged by his response, I jump in with more details. “We inherited him from my son’s preschool classroom.”

He lifts his brows. “Adopting a classroom pet? That’s a big commitment.”

I roll my eyes. “Tell me about it. The sucker grew testicles one day, and the teacher said it was interfering in the learning process, so Harold had to go.” I pause, realizing with a start that I’ve once again over-shared. I tense up, waiting for the awkward silence to take over.

But I needn’t have worried. Lucky just keeps on rolling with the conversation. “And how exactly do testicles interfere in the learning process?”

It’s difficult to keep a straight face at this point. “Well, apparently, testicles are very distracting. The kids liked to look and point and talk about them. A lot. And I don’t know if you’ve ever spent any time around three-year-olds, but they tend to fixate on things like gerbil ’nads.”