“So why are you going this way instead of asking her to let you in?”
I flick his license to the ground—just because it seems like a fitting punishment for trying to break into Bobbi’s house—and look through his wallet. Two Visas. A Master Card. Four AmExs. All of them well used. A few small bills that look more worn out than a hooker after a busy night, and I remove them as a penalty for damaging her window. Four Powerball tickets.Hoping to turn your life around?The latest jackpot is one-point-two billion. A life-altering amount of money if you can beat the odds of two or three hundred million other lottery players in the country.
Oh wait, those tickets are for previous drawings. Guess he wasn’t so lucky after all.
“Okay, so get this.” Lorcan groans. “Wait, can you lift the window up? I can’t stay like this anymore. It’s killing my back.”
I lift the window, and he slides out, landing inelegantly in the dirt. Wincing, he pushes himself up and smooths his wrinkled shirt to make himself more presentable. Not that it really works. He needs a shower.
“Thanks, man.” Lorcan straightens his back, placing his hands on his hips for support, and winces. He doesn’t seem to notice the wallet in my hand. “I’m, like, totally ready to ask her to marry me, you know?”
“You are?” I let go of his wallet and shove more bread into my mouth. That’s better than murdering this irritating Canadian guy. Unsanctioned kills are frowned upon.
“Hey, did you drop something?”
“No. You were saying?”
“What? Oh, yeah. About the proposal. I know she’s gonna say yes.”
What the hell?When did she start dating this guy? And when did her standards drop so low?
I might—possibly—acknowledge with great bitterness and reluctance that she found another man. After all, I’ve been gone for a while. But that’s only if the guy she replaced me with was God’s gift to humanity. Like, the perfect man.
Lorcan doesn’t qualify. I can spot ten things wrong with the guy just at a glance. If I spend more than a few minutes with him, I know I will be tempted to terminate him for the betterment of humanity. If nothing else, it would make me feel good about saving Bobbi from this loser.
“Did she say she loved you?” I ask, the bread suddenly tasting like dust in my mouth.
He looks at me. “Not really relevant, dude.”
What?
“I mean, I’m not sure if I’m really going to marry her. I just need a fiancée, you know?”
“You need a fiancée who might not love you? A fake fiancée?” It sounds like one of Nicholas’s romance novels. Except Lorcan doesn’t strike me as the type to read anything other than Instagram captions. If that.
“Yeah, exactly! I knew you’d get it!” His eyes go bright. “See, I need my parents to understand I’m leading a stable life here, but not so stable that they’ll want to come visit, you know?”
“Not really.” I should probably go ahead and do some enhanced interrogation to get straight answers out of this guy.
“Well, it’s pretty simple. My parents are worried that I’m in another country by myself. But if I’m settled here, with a fiancée, they won’t be ’cuz I wouldn’t be alone.”
“Why wouldn’t you want them to worry about you?”
“Look.” He gives me a don’t-be-so-naïve smile. “I don’t really want to go back home. This area has all the good shit, you know? Plentiful and cheap.”
“Good shit?”
“You know.” He tries to elbow me, but I move out of the way. He sniffles. “Mostly club stuff. You can’t find anything good at a reasonable price in Halifax.”
It finally dawns on me. A druggie.
“Bobbi doesn’t have much going for her, you know?”
“Is that so?”
“Nobody wants to date a girl that tall. And she’s, like,hard. Her body.” He lets out a just-between-us-boys laugh. “I like a soft woman. With some heavy artillery up front.” He mimes holding a pair of cantaloupes.
“You touched her?” I ask with a smile, placing my hand over the blade I carry in my pocket. It isn’t big, but plenty sharp enough to emasculate him. Knives aren’t my thing, not like Mom, but they’ll do in a pinch.
