Page 84 of Outside The Wire

“I bet you do. I hope you know it’s because of the two of you that I no longer feel safe anywhere in that shop. Everywhere I look, I’m afraid I’ll get sex cooties.”

“Sex cooties? Is that even a thing?”

“Oh, it’s a thing, alright. And I’ll have you know that I demanded she unsexify the place, and I really doubt she did that.”

“How does one unsexify a store?” I asked, genuinely curious about how someone would go about something like that.

“There has to be some service you could call. Like a special cleaner or something.”

“You know, once upon a time, I actually could recommend someone like that to you.”

“Really?”

I nodded, remembering the cleaners we would call after a job went awry. They were great at cleaning up blood and any other messes that we needed taken care of to keep forensics from placing us or any victims at the scene of the crime.

“You’ve needed someplace unsexified before?” she gasped. “What aren’t you telling Holly?” She slugged me hard in the arm for good measure.

“Ow. It’s nothing like that. And stop hitting me.”

“I hit you once, you big baby.”

“Once is enough. You shouldn’t be hitting anyone.”

“Maybe you deserved it.”

“Really? I deserved to be punched?”

“For being a douchenozzle? You bet.”

That made me pause. “What exactly is a douchenozzle?”

“It’s a— you know what? It doesn’t matter.”

I chuckled, turning down the street to Holly’s parents’ subdivision. “You don’t know the answer.”

“Hey, it’s just one of those words kids nowadays are using.”

“Kids nowadays, huh?”

“Well, no normal person says these things,” she sighed, rolling her eyes.

“Noelle, are you admitting that you’re getting old?”

She glared at me, crossing her arms over her chest. As I parked outside the house, I checked out the dwellings. It looked perfectly normal. I wasn’t sure what Holly was so worried about. Sure, her dad might be a little eccentric, but weren’t we all?

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out.

Chase.

“Who is it?”

“Uh…nobody.”

“Nobody is calling?” Noelle said, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Nobody important,” I said, shoving my phone back in my pocket. “I’m here to see my girlfriend and meet her parents. I would be an idiot to take a phone call from anyone right now. That would send the wrong signal.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Well played, but don’t think I’m not onto you.”

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