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Since then, Vance and Banner hadn’t gotten along. Not for lack of Banner’s trying, anyway.
He’d made a sincere effort before he’d realized that things just weren’t going to get better. They were getting worse.
“Vance,” Ashe stated.
Luke grunted. “I keep expecting to hear that your brother is suspended.”
I laughed then, because I did, too.
Ashe was grinning by the time we left.
“Bye, Uncle Luke,” Ashe said, waving at him.
He held out his arms and Ashe didn’t even hesitate.
“You’re allowed to give me hugs,” he grumbled.
Ashe shrugged as she pulled back.
“I don’t want to tarnish your reputation.” She paused. “Or get shit when I didn’t do anything to deserve it.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that giving you hugs and shit means that people will pay attention,” she answered. “And everybody already thinks that you’ve given me the moon because I’m your niece. I don’t really want to give you a hug and reinforce that fact.”
Luke frowned. “They don’t think that.”
Ashe snorted and walked to the passenger seat of my cruiser. “Whatever you say, Uncle Luke.”
With that, she got inside and slammed the door.
Luke turned his gaze toward me.
“They don’t think that, do they?” he asked me.
I raised a brow at him.
“You gave her an office, put her in with the detectives when you normally have to have at least five years of both experience and tenure in the force.” I paused. “She works only during the day. She has the best shifts. What do you think?”
Luke groaned and scrubbed his face.
“I’m thinking that I need to address it before it gets any worse,” he admitted. “But I gave her all that because I really want her to work at Kilgore. I’m lucky she said yes.” He tilted his head. “But I have a feeling that all the things I gave her aren’t really what’s keeping her here.”
The words ‘you are’ hung in the air.
He may not have said them, but he didn’t really need to.
Not when he knew I knew.
“I…” I didn’t know what to say.
“Just know that she’s got a lot of people on her side,” he said softly. Menacingly. “And I may like you, kid, but I don’t like you that much.”
With that, he walked away and got into his own cruiser, leaving me alone in my thoughts.
I must’ve been there for a while, thinking, because Ashe began to impatiently knock on the glass.
Blinking and tilting my head to stare at her through the windshield, I saw that she was annoyed with waiting.
It didn’t take me long to get into the vehicle after that.
Sensing that I wasn’t really in the mood to talk, she kept silent and still as I drove us home.
When I pulled up to my place instead of hers, she didn’t say a word.
“You hungry?” I asked curiously.
She nodded. “I am. I skipped lunch.”
I frowned.
“Why didn’t you tell me you hadn’t eaten?” I asked.
She looked at me with a brow raised. “Because it didn’t matter?”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t have eaten in front of you had you told me. I would’ve gotten you something. All you had to do was ask.”
She cursed under her breath and got out of the car, not bothering to reply to my words.
Which pissed me off, and I wasn’t sure why.
I got out of the cruiser, locking it up, and followed her to the house.
“What would you have made me do if I’d asked?” she wondered. “Would you have made me go out to some fake double date?”
Just as I was fitting the key into the lock, Ashe’s stomach growled again, pissing me off even more.
I looked at her as I opened the lock and threw open the door.
“There are no conditions when it comes to me and making sure you have what you need,” I told her bluntly. “If you’re hungry, tell me. I’ll get you something to eat. If you’re tired, tell me. I’ll find a way to get you somewhere to sleep. If you—”
She interrupted me.
“If I’m horny?”Chapter 12
I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.
-Ashe’s secret thoughts
Ashe
“If I’m horny?”
I literally couldn’t believe those words had just come out of my mouth.
I hadn’t meant to say them.
Honestly, I’d meant to say something else. Interrupt him and tell him that it wasn’t that big of a deal.
Yet, those words hadn’t come out of my mouth.
What had was the exact opposite of what I’d intended to say.
My question hung in the air for all of twenty seconds before I just couldn’t handle it anymore.
I had to know.
I had to see if he was as deep as I was.
Bypassing him, I started to strip out of my uniform.
At first, it looked like I was just getting comfortable.
But as my boots came off, followed by my gun belt, then my uniform shirt, followed shortly by my Kevlar vest, my breathing started to pick up.
