"You keep right on believing it," he answered.
With that, he shifted her so that her legs were draped over one arm and his other supported her back and carried her into the house.
ChapterTwenty-One
It was nearly midnight before everything was straightened out at Clay’s. Between cleaning up the mess Larry made when he broke into the house and giving statements to the police, it took hours to handle it all.
Detective Cullen came by to talk to Dylan and Clay. He assured her that Larry would get the help he needed and be kept away from her.
When the house was finally secure and empty, Clay turned to Dylan. “Don’t go to work tomorrow, babe. Call in sick or whatever.”
Dylan was too tired to get her back up over him telling her what to do. “Too late. I already texted Gloria and told her what was going on. She got a couple of part-timers to help cover my shift tomorrow.”
“Wanna go to bed?” he asked.
She shook her head. No, she wasn’t ready to go to bed. She was exhausted down to the bone, but the thought of closing her eyes filled her with anxiety. She knew that she would have nightmares if she fell asleep.
“Let’s eat something and have some hot chocolate. And you can tell me about Larry.”
Dylan released a harsh laugh. “This is going to be difficult to believe but there’s not a lot I can tell you about Larry.”
Clay shot her a disbelieving look.
“I know, but it’s true,” she said, following him into the kitchen.
She sat on one of the stools at the counter and watched as he put together a snack plate that consisted of cheese, crackers, olives, salami, and cookies. She smiled when he set it in front of her.
“This looks so pretty,” she said.
“You say that like it surprises you,” he grumped as he pulled out the ingredients for hot chocolate.
“I guess it shouldn’t,” she said. “You’re an artist after all.”
Clay scoffed. “Artist?”
“You make beautiful things out of wood,” she pointed out. “It’s not just functional, it’s art.”
He didn’t say anything, but he did make a grumbling sound beneath his breath. She watched as he warmed milk in a pan and added sugar, chocolate, and a tiny pinch of salt.
Once the chocolate was ready, he poured it into two mugs and brought it around the counter. After Clay put her cup in front of her and sat down, Dylan sighed and wrapped her hands around the mug.
“So…Larry?” he asked, taking a drink of his hot cocoa.
She grimaced. “It’s weird, so just listen before you ask a million questions, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I told you that I did some of the human dating apps before I joined Mystical Matchmakers.”
He nodded.
Dylan struggled to find the right words, her silence stretching on for so long that Clay put a hand on her arm.
“Just tell me what happened,” he murmured.
She took a deep breath and jumped right in. “I met him on one of these human dating apps and his profile was great. We liked a lot of the same things and he seemed so witty. We chatted for nearly a month before we decided to meet in person.” She paused. “I really liked him at this point. I thought his hesitation to meet me meant that he was really looking for a partner. Not just a fuck buddy.”
Dylan sighed after a moment of thought. “But from the moment we met, we just didn’t click in person. He didn’t laugh at my jokes, or even latch on to my references of our jokes online. He was just…different in person. He was jittery and constantly looking around like he couldn’t wait to leave. I agreed to a second date, thinking maybe he was just nervous.” She shook her head. “It was worse. A lot worse. He started asking me really personal, invasive questions like how many men I’d slept with and did I believe inobeying my husbandand a bunch of other stuff. It made me uncomfortable. At the end of the evening, I told him that he seemed like a nice man but I didn’t feel like we were clicking. He seemed to take it well and I never heard from him again until last month.”
