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I thought I was just being flirty and giving him the answer to a trivia question, but maybe I’d mistakenly given him some sort of…signal. God, I’d been out of the dating game for so long that anything was possible.
I parked in my driveway. He parked in the one next to mine, right next to my car and I went into defense mode. I kept my keys poised and ready, like Wolverine spikes, as I got out of the car.
Sure, he was hot. But he could still be a serial killer.
He got out of the car and looked at me.
“Hi there,” he said with a nod.
“Look, I don’t know what kind of signal I was giving you back in the bar, but I wasn’t inviting you home with me. It’s nothing personal. You’re… you seem nice, I mean, but I’m not interested,” I said, shakily.
“Duly noted,” he said. He sounded amused.
“Yeah.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for him to get back into his car.
He didn’t.
“Yeah. Um, also… I’m pretty sure you can’t park there.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, definitely amused. “Are you now?”
“Yeah. Someone lives there. I think.”
He smirked. Cocky. But it was a good look on him. “Yeah, I know. I’ve seen him,” he said. His tone was light. Teasing. “He’s a pretty jacked guy, but I’m pretty sure I could take him.”
I pursed my lips. Five o’clock shadow was also pretty jacked. Broad shoulders. Narrow waist. Big arms. But not like someone who worked out in a gym all the time. More like someone who worked with his hands. Outside. Like a lumberjack.
I mean… probably. I’d never met a lumberjack in real live. Just seen them on the cover of romance novels.
“So… I’ll take my chances,” he finally said. He saluted me and started walking towards the front door of the adjoining townhome, only a few feet from mine. He wasn’t going to move his car. Because this was his driveway. And he was behind me all the way home because he lived next door.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry I assumed you were a serial killer,” I told him.
“Hey, I get it. We live in a pretty fucked up world. He offered his hand and I shook it. His hand was rough. Calloused. I liked it. “Carter Kane,” he said. And, just like that, probably-not-an-asshole-slash-five-o’clock-shadow guy had a name. Carter Kane.
“Just in case you need to tell the cops.”
I tried to think of a witty retort, but I couldn’t. “Zoe Hodgkins. Laster. Zoe Laster, now. Well, Zoe Lasteragain,actually.”
“Nice to meet you, Zoe.”
“Nice to meet you too.”
He let go of my hand and we stood there for a second in silence.
“I guess I should…” I gestured towards my front door.
“Me too,” he said. “And, you know, if you need anything, I’m right next door.”
“Right. I’ll remember that.”
I smiled, let myself inside, and locked the door behind me.
