“I’d like to think I have a little more respect for the sanctity—” Suddenly she stopped me.
“Do. Not. Sleep. With. Shelly,” she said, punctuating each word with a glare.
“I have no plans to.” I threw up my hands. Why were we having this conversation?
“Malcolm didn’t have plans to, either. But then he did.” She turned to stare straight ahead.
“Not recently, right?” I didn’t know about that part of their history.
“No. Before we started dating.” She pointed a finger at me. “You. Will. Not. Sleep. With. Her.” Her finger jabbed with every word. I felt each one all the way to my soul.
She didn’t have to worry. I had no plans to sleep with Shelly. That bitch was more than a little unhinged and everyone knew it. Hell, even Shelly knew it. The funny thing about it,
though, was that she embraced it. She didn’t apologize. She just was…well, she was Shelly. That was all she was and all she’d ever be.
It didn’t matter that Shelly was beautiful and smart and that she kicked ass. The bitch was completely unpredictable, and I had enough unpredictability in my life already.
Chapter 4
Clark
When the service was over and Mason and Lynn’s new baby boy had been dedicated to God and all that jazz, everyone was invited back to their house for a small party. I stood in front of the punch bowl, filling my cup, wishing it had liquor in it. But I had to work later, no matter what, and liquor and guns didn’t exactly go hand in hand.
“Thanks for coming today, Clark,” Mason, the baby’s father, said as he stepped up next to me.
“Thanks for inviting me.” I lifted the cup to my lips.
“Did you fuck Shelly at the back of the church?” Mason suddenly blurted out, turning to face me, his arms crossed over his chest as he glowered at me.
“Why does everybody keep asking me that?” I muttered, more to myself than to Mason.
“Because Shelly came out of the back of the church looking like she’d just been tumbled in the sheets.” He began to tick items off on his fingers. “Her cheeks were flushed. The hem of her dress was tucked into her panties, and her hair was all over the place.”
“Hmm,” I said noncommittally.
His eyes grew wider. “You didn’t!”
I laughed. Because, well, his indignation was amusing. “No, I didn’t.”
“Then what happened?”
“Your wife sent me to find Shelly. That’s all. I went and got her and delivered her to her sister’s side. That’s it. Nothing else.”
“You’re sure?”
I said the same thing I’d said to Aubrey. “I think I’d know if I fucked her.”
“I know she’s really pretty,” he began, using his psychiatrist’s voice on me. “But she has mental health issues that are still undefined.”
“I know that.”
“She’d eat you up and spit you out.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“So why did she look so disheveled?”
“She had just changed clothes.” I shrugged my shoulders.