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“I left there at eighteen. Started college. I just…I love my parents, but I don’t want to go back home.” She paused. “It’s disgusting.”
My brows rose. “What’s disgusting?”
“They just…they never stop doing it,” she whispered, leaning in so that she could tell me this like she was ashamed. “I don’t like listening to that.”
I burst out laughing, causing Linc and Conleigh to look at us from the side, and Rome and Izzy to look at us over their seats. Astrid, who had her own seat across the aisle from her parents, didn’t bother looking up from her tablet.
“You’re disgusted by your parents because they have sex?” I asked. “At least they’re still together and love each other. I can remember a time where I had to live at home, and the reason I hated it was because my mother never stopped bitching and complaining about how much work we were. Then my father beat the shit out of us because we were ‘little shitheads.’”
She flushed. “I guess when you put it like that, it makes me sound like I don’t appreciate what I have. I mean, I’m glad that my parents love each other. I’m also glad that I had a happy childhood…but do you know how embarrassing it was to have them do it while I had friends over?”
The plane’s engines started to pick up in sound, making me very aware that we were only a few seconds from taking off.
She quickly flicked her phone to airplane mode and then tucked it into the pocket in the seat in front of us.
“Any ideas on who you think burned my house down?” she asked.
That was when I realized she was trying to distract me.
It wasn’t working, but I appreciated the gesture.
“No,” I admitted. “But I do think that someone on the street had to have caught something. When I get home, if your dad hasn’t already gone door to door asking, then I’ll do it. Plus, we might’ve caught something on it earlier in the day. He might’ve slipped up.”
“He?” she pushed.
I shrugged. “I didn’t piss off any ladies lately, and neither have you that I know of.”
Her face closed down. “My dad said my almost-rapist was released last week on parole.”
My face went hard. “He won’t get to you, darlin’.”
And he wouldn’t, because I’d already set forth a series of plans to make sure.
One, I’d pulled a favor with the district judge—it helped that I helped deliver his child when I was a rookie—and made sure that a restraining order was filed before he’d even been released. Though, I supposed I should’ve mentioned a few days ago that I’d known that he was being released from jail. Bayou had informed me that it would be happening, and I’d hesitated in telling Harleigh because I didn’t want to see that look of fear on her face like I did right then.
Two, I’d had a couple of old buddies on the force make sure that they added Roan Forbes to their patrol. They’d be doing regular check-ups on him.
Then there was his parole officer, who also happened to be my parole officer.
Though, unlike me, Roan Forbes wasn’t a respected felon…though those two words were not usually heard in correlation with each other. But I was a respected felon. Nobody who knew my situation blamed me…hell, I didn’t even care. I didn’t miss an ounce of sleep at night, and wouldn’t ever.
Not when it came to protecting the weak.
Not when that man deserved what he had coming.
Three, I’d already planned on getting Harleigh to move into my place. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it…until this morning’s tragic news of her house and my garage burning down.
Now it’d be ridiculously easy to get her to stay.Chapter 15How to know she’s not wifey material: when she cooks eggs before bacon.
-Slate to some random stranger he met standing in line
Slate
“I don’t understand why anyone would think this is the happiest place on Earth,” I grumbled as I flopped face first down into the bed.
Harleigh, who’d followed me into the room looking just as worn out and exhausted, stared at me as if I’d just said something incredibly stupid.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Did you see any crying kids today?”
I turned only my head to look at her.
“Now that you mention it, no,” I admitted. “But did you see any pissed off parents?”
Her mouth twitched. “Yes.”
“I saw one kid getting a spanking by the elevators. The elevators that, by the way, take at least fifteen minutes to finally get to you. What kind of building doesn’t have any goddamn easily accessible stairs?”
Her mouth twitched. “And then there was the kid in line who decided to crawl up onto the counter and help himself to the buffet. And the kid who puked on Mickey.”
