I finished my lobster rolls, and ducked out to get the pictures I needed while Kate finished scarfing the rest of it. The fresh, outside air made me realize just how stifling the smell of lobster and melted butter had become in the car. I’d need to empty a bottle of Febreze to get the smell out.
“Okay, new rule, no more bucket of lobster rolls in my car.”
Kate belched, “Okay.”
“Right. Well, I’m done here. You want me to drop you at your hotel?”
“Hey, I bought dinner, properly wined and dined you, and you’re not going to put out?”
I gave her a flat look as I pulled out of the neighborhood.
“Fine. Geez, don’t know what your aversion is to casual sex. You could really stand to get laid more often.”
I shrugged. “Is there anything else?”
The storm riders all seemed to embrace very casual relationships, and that was fine. What did I care? But it wasn’t what I was looking for out of life. Besides, since Cassie had come, I didn’t exactly want to have a revolving door of women coming and going.
“Yeah, I want to put you on retainer?”
“I’m not a gigolo.”
“Har har. I’m serious. You know your way around solving this supernatural shit, and we seem to be encountering more and more weird stuff that we don’t have answers for.”
I looked at her, and she didn’t have her telltale smirk.
“I’ve never been on retainer, before. I usually take cases as they come. So you want me to just be on-call for the storm riders, whatever their latest screw up is, I solve the problem.”
“Something like that.”
“Oh, okay. That makes things easier. Hell, no.”