“Then don’t.” He signaled and made a turn. “You take an art class?”
I looked down at my sketchbooks, which must have given it away. “I do. It’s continuing education, but I like it.”
“You an artist?”
I ran my thumb along the edge of my book. “I’m a graphic designer at an ad agency.” Junior graphic designer.
“But also an artist.”
“When I’m not being a graphic designer, I suppose. Do you do anything other than being a mechanic?”
“I drive,” he said.
I stared at him, wondering if he was joking. “Drive what?”
“Whatever needs driving,” he said. “Sometimes it’s goods. Sometimes it’s a person. I take it where it needs to go.”
“I don’t follow,” I said, confused. “Like an Uber?”
That made him laugh again, but he wasn’t laughing at me. He seemed to be laughing more at himself. “Maybe a little like an Uber,” he said, “but a fuck of a lot more shady.”
I wondered if that was the reason he was gone at night sometimes. I’d wondered if he had gone to see a woman. “What exactly do you drive, then?”
Devon shrugged. “If someone pays me, I don’t ask.”
“Dead bodies?”
“No.” He completely killed the reassurance of this statement by adding, “Not yet.”
Oh, my god. My sexy neighbor was some kind of gangster. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked him. “I could be a cop.”
The look he gave me was wry, taking in my bedraggled hair and my wet notebooks. “I don’t think you’re a cop.”
“Fine. But maybe my dad is a cop.” He wasn’t; he’d been a washed-up actor, like my mom. “Maybe my boyfriend is a cop.”
“You don’t have a boyfriend,” Devon said. “Unless he’s invisible.”
My jaw dropped. He’d been watching me? I hadn’t noticed. I tried to summon some outrage, but I’d been watching him, too. I’d been drawing him. “Maybe it’s a long-distance relationship,” I argued, unwilling to admit that he somehow already knew everything about me.
“Maybe,” he said. “So we’ve been talking for ten minutes, and I’ve already admitted I’m a criminal and you’ve admitted you have cyber sex.”
“I do not have cyber sex,” I nearly shouted, shocked. The corner of his mouth twitched. Since he’d been so blunt, I tried shocking him in return. “Well, I never see women coming and going from your place, so maybe it’s you that does the internet sex thing.”
“I don’t have internet sex.” His voice was low, gruff. “I have the old-fashioned, one-handed kind. Alone.”
The silence was deafening.
“You’re the strangest person I’ve ever met,” I said.
“Likewise.” He made a turn, the car slowed, and I realized we were in the parking lot of Shady Oaks. He turned off the engine, and we could hear the rain beating on the roof of the car, spattering on the windshield. I felt off-balance, but I also felt electric, like I’d just woken up. I didn’t exactly trust the man next to me, yet I didn’t get out of the car. I didn’t quite want the ride to be over yet.
And there was no ignoring the warm, persistent pulse I felt between my legs.
He didn’t seem in a hurry either. But he put out his hand, palm up, and said, “Give me your car key.”
“You don’t—”
“Give me your key, Olivia.”