Page 78 of The True Garza

He fires up the engine. “No one told you to come out here sulking in the car like a toddler.”

I open my mouth to tell him off, then decide the better approach is to just ignore him. Because he’s good at this, getting under my skin.Of courseI’m sulking. What he did to me is sulk worthy. Is there an age limit on when people are allowed to sulk without being seen as “childish”?

“She’s so mad about not getting dicked,” he mumbles to himself as he pulls out of the driveway. “Is that all I am to you, detective? A piece of dick-shaped meat?”

Rather than going left toward the gates, he turns right. “Did you get yourself off?”

I tried. “Yes.”

As if he somehowknowsit’s a lie, he looks over at me and grins.

That grin. That damn grin. Such an effective weapon against my defenses. What chance doesanywoman stand when he wields that knee-crippling grin at them?

When he pulls to a stop at the house in the cul-de-sac and honks the horn, I ask, “Why are you stopping here?”

Before he can respond, his phone rings, and he answers it with the tap of a button on the steering wheel.

A raspy female voice fills the vehicle with, “Why are you honking outside instead of busting in unannounced like you always do?”

“’Cause I’m on the move. C’mere a sec.”

She mutters something in Spanish and hangs up.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“Answering your question.”

Huh?

A minute later, the pretty woman from earlier comes out of the house with a frown, shuffling lazily down the walkway. “I swear to God, True, you better not be disturbing my rest day for some nonsense.”

True leans back in his seat to give her a full view of me. “This is London. She wants to know if we’re fucking.”

Oh. My. God. I’m going tokillhim.

Eyebrows raised, the woman looks from him to me, then to him, then to me again, and mouths, “Oh.” And then she smiles.

Why is she so annoyingly pretty? And why is she smiling at me when I so rudely flipped her off this morning?

“Him?Dios,no,” she says to me. “The hotter, sexier, grumpier version of him? Very muchyes.”

And it’sthen,because my brain is a jerk,that I remember where I’ve seen her. In the Red Cage parking lot with herhusband, Trent. Who’s name one of my colleagues told me is Lexi. The same damn name that showed up on his phone screen just now when she called.

I’m such an idiot. Too mortified to respond.

And whywouldn’tthe twins live a block apart from each other?

“You’re a dick for putting her on the spot like this,” she tells True, punching his arm.

“Women never believe anything I say,” he replies, “and I want this one to believe me.” He hits the gas pedal just enough so the vehicle jerks. “Anyway, talk later. Gonna head to Mom’s after I drop off London, so don’t expect her today.”

“Okay.” She yawns and waves him off. “Bring a tub of pistachio ice cream back for me.”

“No prob.” He drives off, then asks me, “Happy?”

At this point, I’ve given up. I…I can’t even…. “You’re…theworst.”

Eight minutes later,we’re in a retirement community. We were almost out of Santa Monica when his phone alarm went off, at which he berated himself for “forgetting” and then promptly made a U-turn.