Page 5 of Kill Me Again: Psychics

“And I suppose he told you that?”

I winced. He had. He’d made a big thing of having been on the streets for months without having fallen that far. His words. I would never have been so judgmental. I’d told him it was admirable he’d found other ways of getting by, especially with looks like his.

In retrospect, it had perhaps been a little naïve. Especially considering he’d crawled into my bed within a week of me letting him stay. Maybe it was the bed he’d liked all along, and he’d just bided his time until he could get his hands on it.

“How far did you go?”

I met my sister’s nosey question with a raised eyebrow. “What do you want—details?”

She frowned. “No. I just…” I hitched the eyebrow higher. “Just tell me you didn’t fall in love with him.”

“He was here for two months.”

“You can fall in love with someone after two minutes. Time has nothing to do with it.”

I rolled my eyes. For Verity and her husband, it had been love at first sight, and unfortunately, that was the yardstick she used to measure every other relationship. “Not everyone is like you and Wayne.”

“Well, he certainly never robbed me.”

I didn’t respond. My tea was finally cool enough that I could lift the mug with both hands and drink.

“I can give you some mugs.”

“Thank you.”

“I can’t give you a bed.”

“I’ll buy another.”

When I put my mug down, Verity grabbed my hands. I tried to tug them free, but her grip was mountain-climber strong, only surpassed by her tenacity. I gave in and met her gaze, her eyes the same shade of brown as my own. “I hope you realize,” she said, “that what I’m about to say comes from a place of great love. You’re my brother, and I hate seeing you taken advantage of. But you have to realize you put yourself in these situations.”

“So I was just supposed to leave Carl on the streets?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “If the alternative was him robbing you blind, then yes. You’re forty years old, nearly forty-one.”

“I’ll call the undertaker tomorrow and have him measure me for a coffin,” I said dryly.

“Not my point.” She sighed. “I want to see you happy, but these young, pretty boys you keep hooking up with that don’t have a penny to their name aren’t the way to go about it. You need someone age-appropriate. Someone with a stable job.”

“Let me guess. You have someone in mind.”

She released my hands, and I quickly tucked them away on my lap before she changed her mind. “Well, Wayne has this friend.” I braced myself for what was to come. “He’s roughly your age.” I made a sarcastic tick in the air, but it didn’t slow Verity any. “He’s an undertaker, so he has a steady income and job security.”

I laughed. “I was joking about contacting an undertaker.”

She pressed on. “He has a two-bedroom house in Highgate and drives a Porsche.”

“Ooh. A Porsche,” I said, with mock enthusiasm. “What color?”

Her brow furrowed. “Yellow.”

“Yellow! All the colors in the world he could choose from, and he goes for yellow.”

“The color is hardly the key thing here. He’s a nice guy. You might really hit it off.”

“Maybe.” I doubted it. He sounded incredibly boring, and I had an inkling that Verity’s roughly your age would put him closer to fifty than forty.

“Will you go on a date with him?”