Her smile told him everything he needed to know.
“I know they seem backward and dumb, but they’re not,” he said softly.
She shook her head. “I didn’t say that. I don’t think anyone’s dumb. Just different from what I’m used to. It’s not like everyone in New York is intellectual. There are plenty of weirdos walking the streets of the city. People are people wherever you go. But the weird is usually different. Although back after Hurricane Sandy, everyone thought we had superrats coming up from the tunnels. So maybe not so different.”
He liked it when she smiled unselfconsciously. “Well, I saw a video of the one with the pizza. He looked pretty super to me. You know what I’ve never once seen?”
“A rougarou?” She asked the question with a hint of expectation, almost like she hoped he would deny it.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t. “I thought I saw one once, but it was a couple of guys who’d gone mudding and taken it way too far.”
She pointed his way. “See. There. I don’t understand mudding.”
Mudding had been the entertainment of his youth. These days, he pretty much liked to stay clean. But he understood. “It’s fun. It’s like our version of an amusement ride, though we have some carnivals come through town, too. It’s even fun to get stuck and have to figure out how to get out. I don’t know. It’s kind of freeing. I could take you sometime. It would be a good way to get to know the area. Outside of the best places to arrest people. I know you’re deeply acquainted with all of those. You live on Rose, right?”
“Yeah,” she replied, her eyes on the road. “It’s not far from here. It’s a duplex. My landlady lives next door. Maybe we should rethink this. If you walk in with me . . .”
He thought he knew what she was worried about. “You live next to Darlene Cooper?”
She nodded.
“She’s one of the biggest gossips in town.” Though it wouldn’t be bad for him to be seen with Roxie. Especially if he could follow that up with more sightings around town that did not involve the gorgeous deputy putting handcuffs on him. More than once he’d seen parish gossip work its magic and suddenly two people who weren’t dating decided they might as well since no one would stop talking about them.
“She’s a nice lady, but she does like to talk.” Roxie hid a yawn behind her hand. “I could ask her to watch me. I didn’t think about her.”
“It’s six in the morning,” he pointed out because he wasn’t about to give up his chance to spend time with her. “And doesn’t she have a doctor’s appointment to get to? I have to assume that because every time I talk to her, she mentions some horrible ailment. In great detail. I know way too much about her regularity.”
That got another brilliant smile from her. “She does that when she doesn’t want to talk to someone. Usually someone she thinks is annoying.”
He was always nice to Darlene. “I am not annoying. I’m considered quite charming.”
“You flirt. A lot. You flirt like most people breathe.”
“See, this is another one of those cultural differences.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the door. “Yeah, like we don’t have players in New York. I assure you the accent might be different, but the result is the same. You tell everyone exactly what they want to hear—especially women—and a whole lot of them give you a pass on everything. You’re pretty and smooth-talking, and you get away with working less than the rest of us.”
“First of all, I do not sweet-talk my way into . . .” If he ever wanted her to look at him like someone she could actually talk to, he had to start being honest with her. “Fine. I learned at a young age that if I was charming, I didn’t have to be smart.”
A single brow rose over her eyes. “You don’t think you’re smart?”
“Come on. You don’t think I’m smart, either.”
“I’ve never said that. I’ve said you’re a douchebag player, but not that you aren’t smart.”
“I’m not a player.”
She snorted. It was wrong that he found it so cute.
“I don’t like that word. I’m not playing with people.” This was an old frustration. “I don’t tell Dixie she looks pretty to get her to give me free coffee.”
“Yet she does.”
“She does that because I take care of her cats when she goes out of town. One of them is old and needs a bunch of meds, and not all of them go into food, if you know what I mean. She’s a lot like Darlene in that way.” He wasn’t sure he could make her understand. “What you call flirting, I think of it as my way to show the people around me that I see them.”