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I belted the robe. “Right. Of course.”
“What did you think I meant?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility to think that you might want to kill him for the crime of standing on my doorstep.”
“That would be a lot of people to kill. The postman, the Amazon delivery driver…”
“Jehovah’s Witnesses, carol singers, kids trick-or-treating at Halloween,” I added.
“I don’t kill children.”
“No?” I considered introducing a scenario where a child might injure me one day, perhaps with a badly placed snowball to the face, but discounted it in case Caligo took me seriously and reconsidered his stance on children. “What does he look like?” I asked instead.
“He’s—”
“Rowan?” a voice called, presumably through the letterbox, given its clarity. “I know you hate me, but please just give me a few minutes to explain some stuff.”
“It’s Remy,” I said with a sigh. “He’s been calling, and I’ve been ignoring him. I suppose I should have guessed that would eventually lead to him turning up here.”
“Rowan?” His voice was even more insistent this time.
“I guess I’m going to have to speak to him.”
Caligo positioned himself between me and the bathroom door. “You don’t have to. You could just ignore him. Or I could kill him. Just say the word.”
I shoved past him. “I definitely do not need you to kill him.”
“He betrayed you. He―”
“Yeah, yeah… We’ve been through this before with Tyler. We don’t need a replay. If I didn’t want you to kill Tyler, I’m certainly not going to want you to kill Remy.”
“I could injure him a little.”
“No, thank you. I like my walls without blood spatter. I have better things to do than have to keep painting them.”
“I could keep him away from the walls.”
I laughed and then shook my head. “It’s very sweet of you to keep offering to commit acts of violence on my behalf, but it’s really not necessary.”
“Rowan? Please…” There was a note of desperation in Remy’s voice now.
It got through to me enough that I threw him a bone. “I’m coming. Give me a minute. I only just got out of the shower.”
I grabbed Caligo’s hand and dragged him into the bedroom. “I need you to do one thing for me, though.”
“Anything.”
“You’ve got to stop saying that. I’ll get a big head.”
“I will never stop saying it.”
“Okay, then,” I muttered. Caligo’s unfaltering adoration was still a little overwhelming at times. I could cope with it in bed, when most of it was focused on giving me pleasure, but outside of that, I either needed to get used to it or get him to dial it down a notch. “I’m going to invite Remy in.”
Caligo opened his mouth.
I got in first. “Yes, he hurt me, but sometimes even good people do bad things. I’m going to listen to what he has to say for himself, which means you can’t be here. Not visibly, anyway. Can you do that for me? Can you stay out of the way?”
“I can do that.”
