“So we’ll go somewhere else and you can give them your real name and insurance cards.”
He grimaced. “Sweetheart, I’m a private eye. We don’t have group insurance. It would cost me an arm and a leg.”
I sighed. I understood that. I had shitty insurance, too. I bandaged him up as best I could and said, “Well, this place is teeming with med students. Why don’t we find you one that will make a house call?”
“I’m fine,” he said between gritted teeth.
“Just stay put.”
I headed next door to Trevor’s apartment. He surely knew a med student or two. I knocked on his door, and he answered quickly. He was even sober.
“Hey, neighbor. What’s up?”
“Hey, Trevor. Sorry to bother you so late.”
He wrinkled his forehead. “Late? It’s not even midnight.”
For me, it was horribly late, but I lived on adult time now. When I was his age, I would only have been starting my homework at this time of night. “Oh, right. Anyway, I came over because I need some help.”
“Name it.”
“Do you know any med students?”
“Sure. I have a couple of buddies who are med students. Why?”
I hesitated. “My friend needs some stitches, and needs them done quietly. Would any of your friends be cool with that?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll call my buddy Ryan.”
“You’re a lifesaver. Just come on over when he gets here.”
I went back to Ryder, who had peeled back my bandage and was surveying his wound in the mirror over the bathroom sink. “You’re in luck. I have a med student on his way.”
“Aw, it’s sweet how much you care about me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I feel guilty that you got hurt because of me, that’s all. And speaking of which, what did you mean when you said I wouldn’t have to worry about Johnny anymore? You didn’t kill him, did you?” I asked uneasily.
Ryder chuckled, replacing the bandage. “No, I didn’t kill him. I knocked him out.” He turned around to face me and grinned devilishly. “And I might have planted an illegal firearm on him and called the cops.”
Shaking my head, I walked back into my bedroom. I sank down on my bed. This was a little more than I could take.
He came and sat next to me. “You’ll have to quit being so squeamish if you’re going to hang around with me.”
“That’s just it. I don’t want to hang around with you.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
Grinning wolfishly, he said, “You invited me into your bed.”
I glared at him. “Not exactly.”
“I’m in it, aren’t I?”
“You’re on it. And only because I don’t have any other furniture.”
Wrinkling his brow, he turned to me. “Why is that?”
“You don’t need to know all of my secrets.”
“Touché. It’s just that I’ve never met a woman who doesn’t have a ton of crap packed into her house. You people collect crap.”
My eyebrows shot up. “ ‘You people’?”
“Women.”
I rested my chin on my hands forlornly. “I used to have crap.”
“What happened to it?”
“If you must know, my dickhead fiancé stole all of my crap and all the money from my café and left me. Pathetic, right? Now do you still want to hang around with me?”
His face softened. “Sorry. I didn’t know. What kind of a guy steals all of a woman’s crap?”
I was saved from answering that question by a knock at my door. I hurried to open it and found Trevor with another tall, skinny guy.
“Juliet, this is Ryan Hart. He’s a second year med student at Vandy. Ryan, my neighbor Juliet.”
I shook hands with him. He looked vaguely familiar. “Nice to meet you, Ryan.”
“Same here. Wait, don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“Dude, I’ve told you that line doesn’t work,” Trevor interjected. “And besides, she just moved here a few days ago.”
Ryan chuckled. “Sorry, but it wasn’t a line. You look very familiar, that’s all. Where did you move here from?”
“Liberty, Indiana.”
“No way!” Ryan exclaimed. “I’m from there.”
I felt bad about making small talk while Ryder was bleeding out. “Small world. Now, about why you’re here…” I glanced nervously back toward my bedroom.
“I hear I have my first suture patient tonight?”
Oh, that didn’t sound promising, but it would be funny to find out if big, tough Ryder would freak over being a human guinea pig. “Yes, he’s back there. Now, you’re cool with keeping this quiet, right?”
“Sure. No problem.”
I led them back to my bedroom, where Ryder was waiting. He didn’t act nervous, but his eyes were wary. I said to him, “Um…Seth, this is Trevor, my neighbor.”
Trevor glanced at me uneasily, and I shook my head slightly, hoping he wouldn’t say anything. I hadn’t had a chance to explain to him why Ryder was claiming to be Seth Davis.
I continued, “And this is Ryan. He’s a second-year med student.”
Ryan smiled. “Hey, man, thanks for letting me practice on you.”
Ryder glared at me and said tightly, “My pleasure.”
Ryan put gloves on and got to work, getting bandages and other items from his bag. He cleaned Ryder’s wound again and studied it for a moment. “Ooh. That’s a nasty one.” He looked at me and added, “I guess I’m not supposed to ask what happened.”
“You got it,” I replied.
“Right.” He took out one of those scary, hook-shaped suture needles and threaded it. Before he stuck it through Ryder’s skin, he had me put some towels out on the bed and had Ryder lie down. “Now, I feel like I should tell you that I’ve only ever practiced on pig’s feet. You’ll be the first live being I’ve sutured. Are you down with that?”
“Just do it,” Ryder growled.
I walked over to the other side of the bed so I could see Ryder’s face. “Want me to hold your hand?” I asked, feigning concern.
“Shut up,” he said tightly, looking away so he couldn’t see what Ryan was doing to him.
Snickering, I backed away so that Ryan could work. His hands didn’t seem shaky, but I could see the deep concentration on his face. Ryder didn’t flinch, but he seemed to be clenching his jaw throughout the entire procedure. Ryan finished stitching and covered Ryder’s wound with a clean bandage.
Taking off his gloves, Ryan said, “That should do it. Clean it a couple of times a day and change the bandage. Now, if you start having any serious pain, you need to go and have it checked out. It could very possibly get infected.”
“Thanks,” Ryder said, sitting up.
“Hey, I should be thanking you, right? Now I have experience suturing a human. Too bad I can’t brag about it to my friends.” He winked at me and followed Trevor out of the room.
I stopped them at the front door and said, “Thanks so much, both of you, for helping me tonight. Ryan, can I pay you for your services?” I looked pointedly at both of them. “And your silence?”
Ryan laughed. “Nah, it was fun.”
Trevor chimed in, “If you want to repay this guy, do it in food. He can eat his weight in cookies.”
“I do like cookies,” Ryan said emphatically.
Smiling, I said, “Come down to Java Jive sometime. Anything you want is on the house. Both of you.”
“Sweet,” Ryan said, fist-bumping Trevor.
We said our goodbyes, and I went to check on Ryder. He was headed my way, shirt in hand.
I stopped him. “Don’t you need to rest for a minute? You just got shanked and then got, like, thirty stitches.” He was looking a little pale.
“It was barely a scratch. I could use a drink, though.”
I went to my refrigerator and looked inside. It was nearly empty. “I have orange ju
ice and beer.”
“Beer.”
Grabbing us both a beer, I led the way back to my bedroom. We both sat down and drank our beers in silence for a while. He was still shirtless, and I was still trying not to stare.
He looked over at me. “Did I get you out of bed?”
“What do you mean?”
“Earlier, when I knocked on your door.”
I looked down at my pajamas. Yikes. I had forgotten that I had jumped out of bed and gone straight to the door. I probably looked fabulous with no makeup, my hair in a scrunchie, my ancient Belmont tank top, clashing plaid pajama bottoms, and bare feet.
Embarrassed, I smoothed out my hair as best I could. “Yeah, I was sleeping. I probably don’t look so good right now.”
Ryder took his time looking me up and down, making me involuntarily shiver. When he got back up to my eyes, he held my gaze. “You look pretty good to me.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, but it didn’t matter, because Ryder leaned in and kissed me. It wasn’t a knee-buckler like earlier today—it was more like the kisses that “Seth” gave me on our first date. He was being gentle and sweet, very unlike Ryder.
Leaning back, I broke our kiss. “I want to know something. Which guy is the persona, and which guy is the real deal? Was Seth totally an act, or can you genuinely be nice?”
He began kissing my neck, stopping only to say, “That’s a pretty deep question for this time of night, don’t you think?”
Barely able to keep my mind on topic, I replied, “Don’t try to distract me. I want to know the real you. Deep down, are you the horny professor or the badass PI?”
He put his arms around me and laid us both down on the bed. This was a monumentally bad idea—one I would probably regret—but Ryder was sexy as hell, and I wanted him. He answered, “I’m the horny badass who just took a knife for you.”
Slipping my arms around his waist, I said, “Oh yeah, I think I forgot to say thank you for saving my life today. Twice.”
He kissed me again, and this time it was another knee-buckler. Good thing I was lying down with my legs and arms wrapped around him. He murmured, “I have an idea how you can make it up to me.” His lips back on mine, he added, “Twice.”
—
Wow. Just…wow.
Ryder looked over and smiled at me. “I have to know—how did you figure out I wasn’t Seth Davis? And in only a few days? No one else has figured it out yet, and it’s been weeks.”
I rolled toward him. “I’m a pretty smart cookie.”
“Yeah, you are.” He leaned closer and gave me a quick kiss. “Now spill it.”
“I knew something was wrong with you the moment I met you.”
“There’s no way you could have known that.”
“It’s true. You were sitting at the counter at Java Jive instead of a table. That’s how I knew.”
He wrinkled his brow. “That makes no sense.”
“Look, I’ve worked in coffeehouses and bakeries and cafés for years. There are several types of people in this world, and you can tell what they’re like by how they order their coffee.”
He snorted. “You cannot determine someone’s personality through coffee.”
“Wanna bet? The introverts order coffee so quietly you can barely hear them, and then go find a table in a corner. Assholes generally make some kind of scene at the cash register, but some of them wait until they get their coffee to do it. Creepers either try to order something we don’t serve or hit on the staff. People who think they’re funny always tell some stupid joke as they’re ordering their coffee. I could go on and on.”
Brushing a lock of hair out of my eyes, he asked, “Which category did I fit into?”
“Well, because you chose to sit at the counter and be served, you’re in a special category—high maintenance.”
Ryder scoffed, “I’m high maintenance?”
“Sort of. It wears me out to be around you sometimes.” He gave me a mock disgusted look, but didn’t interrupt. “Anyway, the only kinds of people who sit at the counter are old people, cheapskates who are only there for the free refills, and sleazes who want to hit on the baristas.”
“You thought I was a sleazebag?”
“You did hit on your barista.”
He caressed my cheek with one finger. “I couldn’t help it.”
I smiled. He could be pretty sweet if he wanted to. Snuggling up next to him, I put my head on his shoulder. “Then, after we went out, I…cyberstalked you.”
“Now who’s the creeper?”
“I know, but I wanted to make sure you weren’t a criminal or married or something. Seth Davis isn’t listed on Vandy’s website as a current teacher, and I couldn’t find any kind of social media under that name that seemed like it’d be yours, either. Everyone has some sort of profile on the Internet.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s because you’re a man of mystery. Every normal person has a profile on the Internet. Besides, it was the little things that made me doubt you were a film professor.”
“What kind of things?”
“Well, your build for one. Film geeks generally don’t look like you.” I ran my hand across his washboard abs. So hot. “And when you kicked that reporter out of Java Jive, it seemed like second nature to you. You seemed more like a bouncer than a professor. Oh, and you ask a lot of questions. So I started asking around whether anyone knew you, and my neighbor happened to know the real Seth Davis and said you weren’t him. That’s when I started following you.”
He sat up, grimacing. “Wait. The kid who was just here knows I’m not Seth Davis?”
“Calm down. He’s cool. Besides, I bought his silence with free food from Java Jive. I’ve got your back.” I laced my fingers around the back of his neck and pulled him down into a kiss.
He broke away much too quickly, teasing me, “I still can’t believe you figured me out. I have to hand it to you. You’re pretty perceptive, for a waitress.”
“Shut up, Magnum.”
“You shut up.”
Chapter 16
When I woke up, a dopey grin overtaking my face as I thought of last night, I was shocked to find Ryder still in my bed. He didn’t seem like the “stay all night” type. I wasn’t complaining, though.
He was looking at me, a smile playing at his lips. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I replied, hoping he hadn’t caught me swooning.
“What are you up to today?”
“Working. I have to figure out if one of my staff is stealing money. I’m not looking forward to it.”
“You don’t know if they’re stealing or not?”
I propped my head up on my hand. “There’s no money missing, according to our reports, but one of my employees told me that she saw another pocketing cash. If she’s telling the truth, I’ve got a big problem.”
“Anything else unusual going on? I mean, a guy was murdered there this week.”
“Well, you know I told you when I ran into you at Vandy that I was returning someone’s lost credit card? It wasn’t exactly lost. I found the card in the pastry case at Java Jive, where it never should have been. Then, when I spoke to the cardholder, she said she’d never been to Java Jive, so she obviously hadn’t lost it there.”
Ryder nodded. “Sounds like you have someone stealing money and credit cards.”
“That’s not the weirdest part. The girl only has one credit card, and swears it was never lost. The other card had her name on it, but a different number. She has no idea how it could have happened.”
“Interesting. Which of your employees is stealing from you?”
Hiding a smile, I said, “I’m not at liberty to say.” I might have just slept with him, but I wasn’t about to tell him private Java Jive business. Besides, Pete would kill me if I did. Pete might kill me anyway if he found out I slept with Ryder. Twice.
“I see. So the girl you met at Vandy was the cardholder.”
“Maybe. You’re asking a lot of
questions again.”
Ignoring me, he pressed, “And does she have a name?”
“Yes.”
He was getting irritated now, which delighted me. “And what might that be?”
“Ima.”
“Ima? That’s a strange name for a college-aged girl.”
“Indeed. It’s even stranger when you put it with her last name—Notgonnatellya.”
Ryder glared at me.
This was fun. “Her name’s Ima Notgonnatellya. Get it? I’m—”
Cutting me off, he groaned, “I get it. You’re a comedic genius.”
“I try.”
“Speaking of geniuses, let’s talk about Johnny Brewer. Why did you get yourself mixed up with him?”
Flopping back down onto my pillow, I sighed. “It’s a long story.”
He slipped one arm under me and pulled me toward him so my head rested on his good shoulder. “Humor me. I have a gash on my chest that says I get to know.”
“How many times are you going to play the ‘I got knifed for you’ card? It’s getting a little tired.”
Smiling, he tilted my chin toward him so he could kiss me. “You’re grumpy in the morning. And it’s adorable.”
I laughed. Ryder was very likeable, although he wasn’t long-term boyfriend material. He was, however, good rebound material and excellent forget-about-my-other-problems material. I nestled into the warmth of his body. Being in his arms, I felt protected and safe enough that it didn’t fill me with panic to discuss that psycho Johnny Brewer.
I began, “Okay, here goes. I may have forgotten to mention to you that I’m a person of interest in Dave Hill’s murder.”
“According to one bullshit article by one sleazy reporter.”
“No, according to Detective Cromwell of the MNPD.”
Laughing, he said, “You. You are an actual person of interest in a murder. Cromwell sure has his head up his ass on this one.”
Not the reaction I was expecting. “Yes. Anyway, I didn’t do it, and I really don’t want to be arrested just because the police can’t come up with a better suspect than the person who found the body. Well, that and the fact that I had two arguments with Dave the day he died.”
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