“Uh, partner, I’m thinking I missed a memo,” I stated.

He twisted at the waist to look at me.

“You feed your cat once a day?” he asked and I stopped opposite the bar and planted my hands on my hips.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“She says two,” Creed informed me.

Shit. He spoke cat. This was not good. Gun knew all my secrets.

“Don’t let her bullshit you,” I ordered. “Though, if she’s been good, when I get home she gets five cat treats.”

“What constitutes bein’ good?”

“She’s breathing.”

He threw back his head and burst out laughing, the heady gorgeous sound of it filling the space, bouncing off the walls, slamming into me so hard, it made my legs get weak.

Therefore, I stalked to the fridge to get a beer.

“You like ziti?” Creed asked as I yanked open the fridge door.

“Yeah, I like ziti,” I answered, closed the door coming out with a beer in my hand and went on. “What I don’t like is your bag on my couch. What’s the deal?”

He continued to stir sauce as his eyes came to me. “The deal is, we got a job to do and to do it we gotta get close with zero time to find that. So we gotta find the time to find that.”

“How ‘bout I eat your ziti and we put together a puzzle and find it before you leave and find a hotel room?”

“Too late,” he replied. “Went over to meet Charlene and the kids, tell them I’m here, gonna be here awhile, I know about her situation and I’m on call if she needs anything. She seemed excited and not just ‘cause she needs the help. Apparently, she’s worried about your way of life and thinks you’re gonna die lonely. Also, her bathroom faucet is dripping. Something’s rattling in her car. And that motherfucker who left her didn’t switch the storm windows out to screens before he hauled ass, it’s hot and she can’t afford to run the air conditioning. So tomorrow, I’m gonna be busy.”

I stood completely still, staring at him and waiting while I made the superhuman effort to keep my head from exploding.

This took a while and Creed kept stirring the sauce even though his eyes didn’t leave me.

Once I ascertained my head wasn’t going to explode or, more aptly, I wasn’t going to attack and indulge in an attempt to break his neck, I whispered, “That was not cool.”

“I work and I don’t f**k around when I do. There is no cool and uncool in a job. You do what you gotta do,” he returned.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I shot back but did it still whispering.

“I disagree,” he replied.

“Explain, exactly, how that was okay.”

“This was Arizona, you’d be deep in my life. You know the shit I care about, the people that mean something to me, you’d do what you can to make certain I didn’t get taken away from any of it. That’s how it’s okay. You had a partner, his wife and kids are still a part of your life. You get me,” he told me.

“I have your back. You have my word on that so you don’t need that shit.”

“Now I have your back for more than the fact I don’t wanna see anything happen to you but it’s deeper. Way f**kin’ deeper and you know exactly how. They’d suffer and they’d suffer huge if you weren’t there in the morning. So, shit goes down, no matter what it is, I’ll bust my ass to make sure you’re there in the morning.”

Fuck.

Fuck!

He made sense. It was Asshole Invasive Sense (yes, meriting capital letters) but it was still sense.

Jesus.

I put the bottle cap edge to the counter, slammed the butt of my palm on it and the cap went flying. I ignored it and threw back a hefty pull.

When I dropped my hand, I knew he knew he’d won because he asked, “Anything on Nick?”

I gave in by answering, “Nothing except I’m shocked to find Nick Sebring is boring.” I rounded the bar, putting needed space between Creed and me. “His brother could be sitting and writing a letter and he’d be fascinating to watch. Nick. No. He’s got a desk job, works it, went home, made dinner, put on the game. That’s it.”

“So I take it tomorrow you’re switchin’ to Nair,” he surmised.

“Fuck yeah,” I confirmed, my eyes to a pile of folders on the edge of the counter that I not only didn’t put there, I had no idea what they were.

He saw what I was looking at and I knew this when he invited, “That’s everything I got on Nick, Nair and this investigation. Take it, read it, I’ll cook. When I’m done, I’ll bring you your food, we’ll eat and while we do, I’ll answer any questions you have.”

I looked up at him and said quietly, “You’re not staying here.”

“I’m not leaving,” he said quietly back.

We locked eyes.

I tried again. “There’s no reason for you to stay here.”

“Way you tell it,” he fired back instantly, “no reason for me to go either.”

Fuck.

Fuck!

I had to get back on my game. He was screwing me at every turn.

I broke eye contact, sucked back more beer, grabbed the folders and stalked through the kitchen to the back.

My house was shit. The bathroom suite was pink, put in during what I was guessing was the ‘50’s and the tub and basin had rust stains. The carpet was shag. There was wood paneling from the ‘70’s in every room and my kitchen appliances were all avocado.

I didn’t care. I made decent money but in my job, early retirement was necessary. You couldn’t carry on doing what I did for eternity. You had a brain in your head, you quit doing it before the age of fifty hit your life’s horizon. So I lived small but still content and socked back everything I could. The house was sturdy. It had personality that was mostly my mess, my cat and me, I spent very little time there and thus it worked.

It was the back room that sold me on the place.

It wasn’t a walled in patio. It also wasn’t not one. It had big windows so it seemed outside even though it was inside. Narrow, it had concrete floors I’d strewn with thick, bright, braided rugs. There was an old, slouchy, comfortable as all f**k couch that had tons of big, slouchy pillows on it. Two wicker chairs angled across from it, more slouchy pillows on those. A big upright chest at the wall to the side of the door from the kitchen that had everything you needed in it, corkscrew, bottle opener, lighters, cigs, extra ashtrays, condoms, the shelves covered with green, trailing, brightly potted plants that even I couldn’t manage to kill and I forgot to water them frequently.