Hypothetically

The knocking on my front door was about as annoying as the mystery smell sneaking up through my floorboards. Both persisted enough for me to acknowledge that I hadn't paid attention to anything the past few days, and I felt like I had missed something important. For instance, the smell didn't bother me quite as much as the front-page news article claiming that the Tri-State Killer Caught in the Pig Pen. That news was unsettling enough to cause me to mope around the house and forget to leave it altogether.
                  Did I remember to submit my food order?
                  Dread washed over me as I swung the door open and saw officers scattered in my front yard. 
Indeed, I forgot to submit my food delivery.
                  When I made eye contact with the officer at the door, his grim face made me sigh. I had already grown weary of the situation, with nosy county officials and neighbors poking their heads out of their houses.
                  The last thing I wanted to start the day with was hearing on the news how the neighbors knew I was bad news even though I never talked to them. I couldn't help the sense of dread that hit my stomach like a pound of bricks; my smile became stuck in place, and if I so much as moved, I feared it would crack in half and reveal the horrible truths behind it. I took in the scene before me, cleared my throat, readjusted my smile, and commanded myself to act normal.
                  To act normally like everyone else.
                  I surely overlooked something.
                  "What can I help you with?" I realized my voice sounded strange; even to my ears, it sounded strained. Shit, I bemoan. The officer's eyebrow shot up while his hand was on his gun and another holding paperwork in a file that caused my stomach to drop.
                  "We have a warrant to search your property."
                  Double shit.
                  "Under what grounds?" I lift my brows, folding my arms, killing some time.
                  “There's a smell." He deadpanned.
                  "The dumps not too far from here, so maybe—" I point.
                  "It's not the dump." He thrust the paper toward me.
                  I looked down at the paperwork before looking up at the officer, who motioned me off the porch. I followed him, muttering as I went.
                  "Who would kill someone and stash the body under their own house? Such a rookie move." I snort as I look through the paperwork. "That wouldn't be my MO."
                  "What would be your MO?" The officer stared at me, and then my eyes snapped up to his. I noticed his long fingers wrapped around his gun's hilt.
                  "I mean, after being an avid murder podcast listener, this wouldn't be it." I swallowed, waving my hand toward my house as a dog was led around my property, almost instantly signaling the source of the smell under my porch, and I stood still, papers hanging off my fingertips, my smile falling.
                  Oh no.
                  "Uh, sir? We found a body."
                  Was I being framed?
--
                  The Handcuffs jingled as they moved me down the central holding cell block. There were drunks slumped against the wall sleeping off their overnight benders, a group of men in various shades of white wife beaters and bruises existed in the bigger cell, and as we moved past a lone person, I came to take up residence in the one next to them. He looked over at me, and his baby blue eyes spelled trouble; every red flag waved precariously as his lips tipped upward in a grin. The officer mumbled some instructions before taking off my cuffs, locking me in, leaving me standing in the middle of the small cell, and rubbing my wrists. My eyes dart over to the good-looking male staring at me, eyes shining as if we met on the street instead of in a neighboring jail cell.
                  "What are you in for?" His voice sounded amused.
                  "Being wrongly accused of hiding a body under my house." I sighed and sank to the grimy bench that had seen better days. "You?"
                  "Being wrongly accused of being a serial killer." He turned and jingled his cuffs at me. "They're afraid of me."
                  "Huh." I eyed him, wondering why he was so chatty.
                  "They got it all wrong, you see," he leaned back and tilted his head, looking over at me, "this would never be my MO."
                  "What would be your MO?"
                  "Not taking my victims to the pig farm a town over." He said nonchalantly. "Hypothetically, mine would be more along the lines of hiding bodies under random people's houses so the trail goes cold after they think they got their killer."
                  "Hypothetically," I murmured dryly. The coincidence is not lost on me.
                  "Hypothetically." he grinned.
                  "Well, hypothetically, mine would be taking the bodies to the pig farm a county over since pigs eat everything. I wouldn't have to worry about trace evidence popping up mysteriously." I find I'm still rubbing my wrist where the cuffs dug in, and I glance at him. "Since I would wash and donate clothing to homeless shelters."
                  "Small world: two hypothetical killers in adjoining cells, in the same jail, on the same day.”
                  "Who would have thunk?" we sat silently for a moment before he looked around his cell, then mine, before leaning over, cuffs jingling as he whispered.
                  "What's your address?"
                  "Why would I give you my address?" I frown at him.
                  "I'm just a curious bloke, possibly stuck in here for ten-plus years." He lifts a single shoulder in a sort of half-shrug. "It's not like I'm getting out anytime soon to check and see if you were telling the truth to a stranger in the jail cell."
                  That sounded like a personal problem to me, but, I liked a challenge.
                  "I live off of Sunshine Ave," I said, watching his smile fall.
                  "Oh." he breathed.
                  "Oh, what?"
                  "That was me," he lowers his voice, "hypothetically."
                  "Well, the pig farm was me, so we're even." I kept my head leaned back but could feel his eyes on me.
                  "Hypothetically."
                  "Well, color me impressed," his smile returned to being cheeky, or so it sounded, "a woman after my own heart."
                  "Why do they always think serial killers are always men? And that women can only kill one person, hysterically, and then only hide them under their house like we're not smarter than that." I point toward him and murmur. "Dick move, by the way."
                  "Hey, I did what I had to do." he feigned afront. 
                  "Still rude," I grumble, sliding down the wall a little and folding my arms over my chest.
                  "Hey," his voice inquires over the sound of one perfectly hissed punta a couple of cells over, "if we ever get out, would you like to? I don't know—"
                  "Fuck no," I snort, not even giving him a chance to finish his sentence, "you're a walking red flag."
                  "And you're not?" he had the nerve to look affronted as I looked over to him and his alluring blue eyes, "and how do you even know I was going to ask you out?"
                  "Oh no, I am," I lift the toes of my dirt-caked shoes and examine them, "but you're a man; men only think about one thing." I pause.
                  "Not murder?" he asked.
                  "Intercourse," we speak over each other, and I manage to frown at him as he shrugs.
                  "I work alone." I sighed. 
                  "Me too, but if we're being honest, I was more or less thinking of asking you out on a date."
                  "Are you a self-proclaimed good guy? Because I don't date good guys."
                  "I'm in a jail cell," he blinked at me, speaking slowly, "next to your jail cell. I think we have both bypassed the being good people bit and went straight to seeing the worst sides of each other right off the bat. Which would save us months of wondering what the other could do to emotionally or mentally wreck the other."
                  "That's a good point," I roll my neck side to side before shrugging, "that's saying if we got off the hook for the murders."
                  "Was that a yes?" he perked up.
                  "I guess we'll see, due to inconveniences.”
                  "Brandon!" the name echoes throughout the cells. Everyone turns to look toward the door, and the blue-eyed villain next door stands up, chains jangling.
                  "Yeah?"
                  "You've been bailed out."
                  "Well, I'll be damned; I guess I'll meet you at your house." he turns his grin on me as I roll my eyes.
                  "If only I were so lucky." I watch as he's escorted out in a verbal cloud of hoots and hollers from the gang of bruised wife-beaters. 
                  As he paused at the door, he turned his gaze on me, winking, before disappearing. I'm left wondering if we were both mentally sane enough to date or if we were enough of a problem alone.