Page 59 of Love Expert

“You better hurry, Detective Caster.” Molly Jenkins, ten years old, withlight brown hair and a reputation for smartass comebacks, looks me up and down with a kind of pity glowing in her gaze. “He already told me and Franky he was gonna marry Ms. Sava someday.”

“Who’s gonna marry Ms. Sava? Ramone?”

“Jeremy.”

“He’s a child!”

She shrugs. “She thinks he’s cute, and my grandpa said you keeptryingto charm her, but you suck at it.” Her lips curve into a taunting smirk. “My grandma says Jeremy’s winning this war so far.”

Fuck he is. I charge through the house and deposit Maggie’s basket in the kitchen to be dealt with later. I grab two beers from my six-pack, since I guess we’re noon-drinking now, toss the rest in the fridge, then I shove through the back door and find Maggie already comfortable in a chair beside Alana.

Worse. My son is sitting on her fucking lap.

“Hey, buddy.” I have to stay cool. Stay calm. Stay in control of this bullshit situation. So I meander down the porch stairs and onto Ramone’s grass with a slow swagger to my steps. Pulling up a chair beside Maggie’s, I look down at the pair and hook a thumb back the way I came. “Molly’s inside. Said she wants to play Battleship with you.”

“I don’t wan?—”

I grab him around the waist anyway and deposit him on his own two feet. “Poor Maggie’s legs were probably getting squashed under you, since you’re such a big boy now.” I lower into my chair and tilt a beer toward Maggie in offer. “Go inside, Jeremy. That’s where the kids are playing.”

“They are not!” He jerks a hand in Franky’s direction. He’s just a boy who wants to read andnotget roped into someone else’s shit today. “He’s outside.”

“Here.” I tap Maggie’s arm with the beer she’s yet to accept, then I grin when her eyes come to mine. “You can drink, since I’m driving. I left your picnic basket on the kitchen counter, since I didn’t know what you wanted me to do with it.”

“Um… it’s okay.” She takes the bottle and drags her sleeve down to cover her hand, all so she can twist the cap off without hurting her palm. “Thanks. I’ll go inside soon and fix the food.”

“Magnolia Sava.” Ramone drags one of the other cops from our station across his yard. “This is Hudson Jarvis. Detective.” He claps Hudson’s back and forces the guy forward. “He didn’t grow up in Plainview, so you wouldn’t have met yet. Hudson is thirty-five, single, unmarried, never married, has no baby-mama-drama, and likes to work out sometimes.”

“Dude!” I snarl. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Helping.”

“Uh…” Maggie’s face burns red with a furious blush. She sets her beer in the drink holder and climbs unsteadily to her feet. Swallowing, she offers a shaking hand. “Hi, Hudson. You can call me Maggie.”

“Maggie slept in my dad’s bed on Thursday night!” Jeremy announces.

Really.

Fucking.

Loudly.

Every single person in Ramone’s backyard, all thirty-odd people—even Franky—shuts their traps and stares like their lives depend on it.

“She was at my houseallnight and fell asleep,” Jeremy gloats, puffing his chest forward and standing as tall as his eight-year-old body can manage. “My dad carried her up to his bed and tucked her in. Also, Maggie said my dad’s new haircut is handsome.” He flashes a devious grin. “I love having Maggie as my next-door neighbor.” He lights Hudson on fire with hisdon’t-fucking-think-about-itglare. “So close, I can look out my bedroom window and see hers.”

ROUND TWENTY-THREE

MAGGIE

“What in the world?” Alana drags me across Ramone’s yard, around the pergola strung with fairy lights, past the barbecue already sizzling with lunch, and all the way to the far end of the not-yet-occupied hot tub. She wrenches me around and forces me to face her. And Fox. And Rose. And Eliza.

Oh my god.

“You slept with Billy?” Eliza hisses.

“No! I didn’t. I—” I drag my sleeves down and cover my trembling hands. To stop myself from chewing my nails all the way back to the quick. To save myself from clawing at my face, because that’s what the anxiety swirling in my belly would have me do. “I didn’t sleep with Billy! Are you insane?”

“But you slept in his bed?” Fox insists. “According to his kid.”