Page 1 of Nicks and Cuts

CHAPTER

ONE

Dante stared at his phone, debating how best to answer.

Do you have any rooms available?

It wasn’t that he didn’t have any space, as there was no one staying at the moment; it was more that he was very picky about who he allowed to stay. He only opened his house to medical professionals who were looking for short-term accommodation before they got settled into the area. While Foggy Basin didn’t have a hospital, there was one in Hartsville less than an hour out of town.

Two things bugged him about the text. The first being that it was after eight on a Thursday night, and he didn’t want to be dealing with anything or anyone after dinner.

The second thing was the lack of name. There was no introduction. No hello. No nothing. Yet this person had clearly been given his number by someone who’d stayed before or who knew, which meant that this person had been vetted to some degree.

He was tempted to ignore the message until tomorrow at a more reasonable time, like never, but perhaps eight at night was reasonable because this person had just gotten up for work or was on their break. His mother had been a nurse, so he knew all about odd hours.

Instead of answering directly, he countered their question.

Who is this?

Shannon.

The person replied as if that answered everything.

I was told you sometimes let out rooms, short term to nurses new in the area. I was hoping we could meet to discuss? I’m on a shitty shifts this week but I can swing by on Saturday when I get off work?

It was presumptuous to assume he’d be available on Saturday. Though the shitty shift did explain the late text.

Saturday was never a good day for him. That was when people came for classes.

By the end of the day, he was usually tired and done with people. He was already done with Shannon.

I’m free Saturday after 5.

He’d still be packing up and cleaning up, but if the nurse didn’t like the idea of being around a knife maker, it wasn’t going to work out anyway.

Shannon liked the message.

I’ll see you when I wake up.

Text when you’re on your way.

He added the address.

It still came up as the horse-riding school that his parents had run. These days the only horses were the ones people paid him to agist. There was also a small herd of angora goats roaming in one paddock.

A text would give him a twenty-minute warning if Shannon was in the center of town where the motel and other accommodation were. He was not going to start thinking about being at the motel a few days ago after the town’s first Pride celebration.

Another like from Shannon. She sure liked using those hearts.

He shook his head. It had been a while since anyone had stayed. It might be nice, but he was very used to his own space, and another person in the house meant running into them in the kitchen or outside.

He’d make sure the guest suite was tidy tomorrow, give it a dust and a vacuum, but he wouldn’t put sheets on the bed until he’d made up his mind.

He glanced back at the TV and realized that he missed a chunk of the movie he’d been trying to watch, as he had no idea what the characters were trying to steal. Whatever they were doing, they were doing a bad job of it as they were being chased. He spent the next fifteen minutes picking holes in the way both the thieves and the ones trying to stop them operated, both as a team and in their weapons handling skills. It was his favorite part of watching action movies.

It was much easier to comment when he wasn’t involved, and no one was going to be asking him for a detailed report on the cluster fuck.

“Oh, come on…you would have to be kissed on the dick to survive that.” He shook his head as the lead managed to walk away from an accident, with only an artful graze on his cheek that should have left him in about three different pieces, or at least unable to walk. Guess they couldn’t kill the lead; then there wouldn’t be a second or third movie.