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I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “He didn’t kill her.”
“Okay. Cat-maimer Kerr, then?”
“Yeah.” Why did agreeing with that statement make me feel guilty? He had maimed Izzy. Drew had seen him do it. Just because Kerr was secretly nice to Izzy and gave her cuddles in his living room didn’t mean anything had changed. I blinked a little too hard, hoping the gesture would clear my mind. “We’ve ended up becoming Christmas lights competition rivals. He entered just to spite me and copied my fairy lights. So I copied his reindeer. Then he copied my Santa, and so I went over last night to burst his Santa, then thought better of it, but then I got distracted and fell over and accidentally ended up bursting the Santa anyway.” I stopped, breathing a little heavily after my word vomit.
Aisha was wide-eyed as she stared at me. “That is the most batshit thing I have ever heard you say. And that’s saying something.”
I groaned, rubbing my temples with my fingertips. “I feel terrible. I’m a vandal, Aisha. Call the police and turn me in.”
She reached over to grab my hand. “It was just an accident. You didn’t mean to do it.” She paused. “Not in the end, anyway.”
I let out a pained noise.
“Does he know it was you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to fess up?”
“I think so.”
“Well, there you go. Nothing to worry about. Go over there later and admit what happened and you’ll feel better.”
My spirits lifted as I further pondered the idea of coming clean.
Aisha grinned. “And then you can shag him senseless to make it up to him and take your mind off arsehole Drew at the same time.”
“Hey!” I said, shaking off Aisha’s hand as she cackled. “Enough of that. You’ll make me too nauseated to eat.”
However, the thought of seducing Kerr was anything but nauseating. It made my pulse quicken and my skin prickle with heat. But thinking of anyone except Drew in that way still caused me to feel a teeny bit disloyal. Which, I now realized . . . was ridiculous. Drew had been with another woman for months.
Aisha continued to laugh as the server brought our sandwiches, then the cheeky cow finally shut up long enough to eat her food. I watched her, thinking for the millionth time how lucky I was to have my sister still with me.
“You’re doing it again,” Aisha said, not even looking at me.
“Doing what?” I said, turning my attention back to my food.
“Looking at me with that sappy expression on your face.”
“No, I’m not,” I said, unconvincingly.
Aisha finished the last bite of her sandwich and lifted her latte glass. “The time for worrying about me has long past, Baji. Time to concentrate on you. You sacrificed far too much when you were with Drew.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Time to start putting yourself first.”
A lump formed in my throat, my eyes burning with emotion. Had I sacrificed too much when I was with Drew? This wasn’t something my family and friends had mentioned when we were together. Or had they, but it fell on deaf ears?
I wanted to ask more, yet suspected I wasn’t ready to hear the answer. So I just made a kind of strangled noise and squeezed my little sister’s hand instead.
13
Kerr
I CLOSED THE door to the back office, crossing my arms and raising my eyebrows at Ranjeeta. “What have you told Stacey? She appears to have stopped making those sighing noises and fluttering her lashes at me, but now she keeps giving me these sympathetic looks and patting my arm.”
Ranjeeta was clearly having trouble keeping the smirk off her face. She looked as if she were about to have a stroke. “You asked me to take care of her little crush on you. So I did.” She bit her lip—in an effort, I suspected, to stop herself from laughing.
I took a seat, eyeing her with a suspicious air. “Ranjeeta. What did you tell her?”
She shrugged. “Just the truth. That you and Aileen split.” She coughed into her hand. “And the reason for your split was for her safety because you are, in fact, living under a secret identity as part of a witness protection program.” She started tidying the files on the desk in front of her, hiding her face from me.
