Page List


Font:  

ave Rex a pretzel, and I gave Potts a bottle of water. I turned the television on and gave him the remote.

“I have work to do in my bedroom,” I said. “Don’t move off the couch. If you decide to go home, leave me a note.”

“I’m not going home. I’m here forever.”

“You’re a nut.”

“I know,” Potts said. “I can’t help it.”

I closed my bedroom door and flopped onto my bed. I didn’t have work to do. I needed a nap before I tackled the Morelli-Gabriela connection.

Grandma called at 5:45 PM.

“Your mother made too much spaghetti,” she said. “Do you want to come to dinner?”

I cracked my door and looked out. Potts was still there.

“Is your mother expecting you to be home for dinner?” I asked him.

“No, I told her I was working the night shift.”

“Can I bring a friend?” I asked Grandma.

“You can bring an army. Your mother was hitting the hooch, and next thing, poof, we got two weeks’ worth of pasta.”

* * *

“This is getting serious,” Potts said from the backseat of the Buick. “You’re taking me to meet your parents. Do they know about us?”

I cut my eyes to the rearview mirror and glanced at him. “What’s to know?”

“That I protect you. That we’re life partners.”

“We aren’t life partners. I bailed you out of jail and now I can’t get rid of you.”

“Good thing, too. I already kept you from getting shot, and then I took a syringe in the thigh for you.”

This is why I don’t keep a loaded gun. I might have been tempted to shoot one of us.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Grandma was waiting at the door when I arrived with Potts.

“You remember George Potts,” I said to Grandma. “You met him at the Mole Hole.”

“I’m her bodyguard,” Potts said. “It’s my life’s work to protect her. And we might eventually be a couple.”

I kicked Potts in the shin.

“Ow!” he said. “Why did you do that? I have thin skin and my blood vessels are very close to the surface. I’m going to have a bruise. I might even get a hematoma.”

“It was an accident,” I said. “It was an involuntary action. And I didn’t kick you hard.”

“I’m very sensitive to pain because of my PTSD.”

“PTSD is serious,” Grandma said. “Where were you stationed?”

“Newark,” Potts said.


Tags: Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum Mystery