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“What kind of kills do you do?”

“We kill the kind of men that feed off the world, like roaches. It’s not the kill that gets me, it’s the chase. Now I’ve got a question for you. Why do you have the red x’s on your calendar?”

She rolls her eyes to the side and back again. “You really didn’t have any right to go through my stuff.”

“You’re telling me you’ve never opened anyone’s drawers before?”

She shuffles her feet and glances up at me. “I would never talk about it.”

“So, I’m an asshole for telling you I went through your things?”

She pauses, deciding whether or not this adds up, then finally says, “The marks are days that Aaron and I had sex.”

“You’ve only had sex once this month? Damn… I thought that’s what relationships were for.”

She raises her brows as though I’ve gotten that one wrong. “I’m pretty sure they’re for more than sex, but yeah, it’s actually worse than that. There’s only one ‘x’ on that calendar in the lastthreemonths, and the sex we did have was really underwhelming. We had countless discussions about it, but they always ended in arguments.”

My eyes widen. “Forgive me, but I’d gather it’d be a fucking travesty to have a woman like you next to me every night and not…” I blow out a breath, catching myself before I saysomething stupid. “I gather that’s why you’ve got the romance books and the gummy worm?”

“Gummy worm?”

“Sorry,” I clear my throat, “the rubber cock.”

“Oh my God!” Her cheeks blaze and she spins away. “You’re insane.”

“A little, yeah. Still though, why haven’t you taken it out of the package?”

“I’m not talking about this with a complete stranger!”

“You clearly want an adventure. This is adventurous, right?”

“Change the subject!”

I don’t want to change the subject. I like her squirming and uncomfortable. I like the rosy cheeks and the way her nipples have hardened beneath the thin flannel. She’s so damn cute, but I pretend to be a gentleman. “Okay, what’s in the notebook?”

She glances down at the small, pink, spiral-ringed book in her hands. “My friend Sienna told me the shop could use a facelift. So, I’m brainstorming how I can make things more personal. She thinks I need to make people feel like they need a record every week. I think I’d do that by giving them an experience.”

“Interesting.” I tilt my head back, trying to shift from thoughts of her on that thick dildo to thoughts of her redecorating the shop. It’s a surprisingly difficult transition. “That’s smart. What’s the connection with records? How’d you start all this?”

“Really?” She narrows her gaze. “You want to know the answer to this boring question.”

“Is it a boring question?”

“For a guy like you? Yeah.”

“What does that mean, a guy like me?”

“It means… a guy like you. A sharp-shooting, snooping, sex-talking weirdo. A guy like that doesn’t want to hear about my emotional connection to records.”

“I’m a complicated man, baby girl. Tell me the story.”

She stares toward me for a long moment, her lips parting slightly like she’s about to speak, but she doesn’t, not right away. She exhales like she’s settling into her words. “My grandma left me her collection when she passed. There were over four hundred records. I used to spend days at her house after school baking and listening with her. She loved the album covers, and she’d display them like art on her living room wall.”

“Grandma had style.”

“Sure did! I kept every record she left me and started collecting my own as a way to keep her memory alive. Soon I had so many records I didn’t know what to do with them. I made a decent living off resale on eBay, then decided I’d try my chances in a brick and mortar. Turns out… should’ve stuck with eBay.”

“So you’realreadytaking risks.”