Love in the Time of Serial Killers(5)

Was it because I was jealous? My last relationship couldn’t even really be called one. I’d hooked up with a guy I’d had a crush on since our first-year bibliography class, a truly beautiful blond-haired Adonis who’d been a Beowulf scholar (my first fucking sign), who’d given me a few nights of lackluster booty calls (another sign, I supposed) before ghosting me entirely.

But that had hurt my pride, not my heart. And I think it was that phrase that had burrowed deep, like a splinter—my whole heart. Had I ever given anyone or anything that much of myself? Did I even want to?

“Are you going to eat the egg whites?” Conner asked, his fork already poised over my plate.

A petty part of me wanted to say yes, but he knew I ordered eggs sunny side up only to dip my toast in the yolks and then ignore the rest. He used to call it the Eye Gouge Special.

I pushed my plate toward him. “You could at least wait until I’m done eating,” I said as he started cutting the whites away from the yolks and sliding them over to his plate.

“But then they wouldn’t be as hot, Pheebs,” he said, his eyebrows wagging.

“So,” I said, “when are you going to propose?”

“It’s not about when so much as how,” Conner said around a bite of egg.

I waited for him to finish, then twirled my hand in a circle to prompt him when he didn’t. “Okay . . . so how are you planning to propose?”

“I don’t know!” Conner said. “That’s why I haven’t figured out when. It has to be epic, like, viral-video, clickbait-headlines-about-how-you-won’t-believe-what-happened-next type of epic.”

It seemed to me that the fastest way to guarantee that kind of response was to have something go epically wrong, but I didn’t say that.

“A rose petal path leading her to some significant location,” I suggested.

“Amateur hour.”

“Get one of the divers at the aquarium to hold a sign.”

Conner gave me a rueful smile. “Shani hates turtles.”

“Skywriting.”

“I looked into it,” he said. “Too expensive.”

Obviously, this was not my forte. I’d never proposed to anyone, much less been proposed to. I’d never even come close. And the idea of putting yourself out there that publicly, or having someone else put you on the spot for that public of a response . . . I’d rather watch the absolute darkest episode of 48 Hours than that kind of horror. The “Nightmare in Napa” one, where the killer turned out to be the now-husband of the victims’ roommate, the very same guy who’d given a sympathetic interview to 48 Hours before they knew it was him.

“Wait.” I finally caught up to what Conner had said. “Shani hates turtles? Not sharks or jellyfish or eels, but turtles?”

“They don’t have bodies inside their shells,” he said, “their bodies are their shells. Freaks her out.”

“Got it.” I blinked away that information before moving on to the actual topic we were supposed to be discussing. “Anyway, like I said, I’ve been in contact with the real estate agent. She said there’s no way we can get the house perfect in time, so we should just clean it, spruce it up as much as we can, and prepare to sell for under market. We have to be careful not to sink too much money into it, too, because there won’t be a lot left over after Dad’s other debts are paid off.”

Conner’s brows knitted together. “What other debts?”

“A credit card that seemed to be mostly for Home Shopping Network purchases.” I paused. “Your student loans.”

“Ah,” Conner said. “Right.”

It killed me a little that he registered no guilt or chagrin over that at all. When our parents divorced, it turned out that their deal with each other was to take over all finances for the child in their full-time custody. So while our mom had refused to pay a cent toward my education, telling me I was eighteen and should start thinking of my own self-sufficiency, our dad had cosigned for Conner’s undergraduate studies.

“Which reminds me,” I said, “I have to finish my dissertation this summer so I can defend in the fall. I won’t have funding if I push it any further than that. I know you have your new job, so I’m not expecting you to come over every day or anything . . . but I really need you to carve out time on your weekends to help out. Okay?”

“Of course, Dr. Walsh,” Conner said. “What’s your dissertation about?”

I took a big gulp of my coffee, which had gone cold. “Not a doctor yet. And it’s about true crime as a genre,” I said, my pat explanation for when I didn’t really want to get into it more specifically. “The relationship between author and subject, our fascination with serial killers as a culture. That kind of thing.”

“Cheerful,” Conner said. “You gonna finish that waffle?”

I forked another bite into my mouth. “Back off, bro. The rest of this is mine.”



* * *





?THE QUESTION OF what to do about that behemoth of a writing desk reared its ugly head again once we got home. It was still sitting there, next to the front door. I guessed I should be relieved that the Midnight Mover didn’t extend his services to breaking and entering.

There was a nook in the living room, the perfect size for putting a piano if we’d been that kind of family, but instead my dad had thrown an old leather chair there and piled it high with stuff. I convinced Conner to help me move the chair to the middle of the living room and then shove the writing desk into the nook.