Page 60 of Remy

Of all the fucking ways to die, I will not be taken out by a senior citizen.

“Lady, I’m no threat.” I chance a glance around my raised hand, blinding myself with the flashlight the old crow has lasered on my eyeballs. “Olivia had a hard day. I wanted to check on her.”

“By snooping around her house? You don’t think I’ve been watching? That I haven’t seen you spying on her from your car for over an hour?”

A light flicks on from Ollie’s laundry, a familiar silhouette approaching the sheer curtains covering the glass door. She pulls the material aside, a fucking goddess in light pink winter pajamas with her hair loose and wavy around her cheeks. She squints against the glow and lowers her gaze, her attention snagging on the grip I have on my gun.

Horror bleeds into her features.

“Lesley,” she yells through the door, quickly unlocking it and pulling it wide. “It’s okay. I know him.”

The old bat averts the flashlight’s beam to my chest. “Did you also know he’s been prowling around your yard like a peeping tom?”

“I wasn’t prowling,” I snarl.

“It’s okay,” Ollie repeats, stepping close to discreetly glide her hand beneath my coat, her warm touch attempting to ply my grip from the gun. “I know him. We, ahh…” She winces. “We’re friends.”

“Friends?” the fossil asks, dubious as fuck.

“Yes.” Ollie’s fingers dig under my palm. “This is, ahh… the guy I told you about. The one from the bar.”

I raise a brow, my homicidal mood interrupted.

She told her neighbor about me?

All I get in return is a pointed glance, the stare pleading.

“The handsome one?” Lesley trains the light back on my face. “Who curled your toes but never gave you his number?”

Ollie winces.

She did tell the old witch about me.

The knowledge has an unhealthy amount of blood rushing to my dick.

I grin through my squint, releasing my gun to grasp her wrist and drag her into me. I use the proximity as a silent threat but also to keep her warm. Those pajamas can’t be giving her much protection from the cold, and her thin socks are an invitation for frostbite.

“I never said he curled my toes.” Ollie places her palms against my chest, attempting to maintain distance. “Could you please turn off the flashlight before we’re permanently blinded?”

The crone harrumphs, the illumination vanishing with a soft click. “So why didn’t you give her your number?”

“Lesley,” Ollie chastises.

“For good reason.” I stare down at her, my fingers itching to guide the unruly locks of her hair behind her ears. I’m not sure if she’s showered, but she’s removed the remnants of her makeup, her skin now flawlessly dewy. “I didn’t give her my number because my life is problematic.”

I hold her gaze, hating how her eyes harden.

“Yet now you’re here?” Lesley questions.

“Yes.” I keep the bitterness from my tone. “Now I’m here.”

“…snooping around her house,” she adds.

For fuck’s sake. This living history lesson isn’t going to let up.

“I told you I wasn’t snooping.” I turn my attention over the fence, the squinted eyes of the old relic meeting mine.

She can’t be a day under three hundred and seventy-five, her skin like crinkled wrapping paper, her grey hair pulled back into a thin pony.

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