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The white lettering that designated him a KPD officer was stained red, and I had a feeling that it wouldn’t come out. Not with any amount of scrubbing.
“Thanks,” he said, sounding surprised.
“You look like you needed it,” I muttered, walking around him to the door that led into the ER.
He smiled sadly.
“‘Preciate it,” he muttered, staring at the coffee like it was the answer to all of life’s questions.
Seeing him like that made me remember the last time he’d done that.
It’d been at a SWAT meeting that’d turned into an impromptu party when I’d shown up with a box full of tamales from my mother.***Two years ago
“Holy crap that man’s freakin’ hot!” I said to my best friend in the whole wide world.
Georgia was freakin’ beautiful. Just as beautiful now as she had been when she’d left.
And I’d missed the absolute crap out of her.
Georgia smiled over at me.
“Which one?” She asked cheekily.
I knew that was right.
They were all overly hot.
Except my brother. He was just my brother, and eww. That was just wrong to think of that… on so many levels I couldn’t even list them all.
“Everyone but Nico. He’s ugly,” I told her.
She gave me a roll of her eyes. “Your brother is beautiful, and you damn well know it.”
I shrugged.
“I was talking about Michael,” I stated, watching as he leaned forward on his chair and laced his fingers between his knees.
Georgia rolled her eyes.
“Why are you always going for the bad ones?” She asked, forcing a beer in my hand.
I blinked.
“I don’t like beer,” I said, extending my hand to her, as well as the bottle.
She gave me a pointed look. “Go take it to him. He asked for it.”
Butterflies started to churn in my belly, and I smiled at my best friend. “I love you, you know.”
Georgia’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “Don’t make me cry. Take it to him before I do.”
Sticking out my tongue, I walked across the space separating Georgia and me from the men.
I knew he’d clocked me from the moment I left Georgia.
He wasn’t so much as watching me, as he was aware of me.
When I arrived at his side, he turned his face up to me and looked at me, not smiling.
“Your beer?” I offered it to him.
He took it from me carefully. So carefully that he didn’t touch a single piece of my skin in the transfer.
“Thanks,” he muttered, smiling half-heartedly. “’Preciate it.”
I had seen him before. Noticed him at SWAT events. Watched him while visiting my brother. That was the night I became aware of him.
That I became obsessed with him.
That was the night that my world changed, and I wished upon a star, while standing under the star-lit sky with Michael next to me.
Hours after handing him that beer, he told me about his ex-wife. About his job. About how his wife blamed him for not wanting kids, as for why she’d cheated on him.
That was the night I fell in love with him.
Head over boot heels.***“Do you need some clothes?” I asked softly.
He shook his head. “No. I’m gonna go straight to the station and change into my workout gear. Thanks for the offer, though.”
Smiling, I punched in the code that would get me through the door, but stopped when Michael called my name.
“Nikki?”
I turned to find him staring at me.
His eyes full of pain.
“You…you want to catch dinner and a movie this week?” He asked hopefully.
I blinked, then a small smile split my face. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”
He nodded, turned, and walked out of the building. Not once glancing back.
And there I was left in the hallway, practically bouncing on my toes in excitement.
Then I turned around, and the smile slowly fell from my face when I saw Joslin standing there, her eyes full of fire.
Choosing to ignore her, I walked past her with a muttered, “Excuse me.”
But I knew that wouldn’t be the end of it.
Not even close.Chapter 3Friday. My second favorite F word.
-Coffee Cup
Michael
Needless to say, I was very late showing up to my mother’s party.
By over an hour.
I was wearing a white t-shirt and black jeans that had so many holes in them that they could technically qualify as shorts.
And my tattoos were showing.
Something my mother was definitely not going to like.
But it couldn’t be helped.
I could either go home and change, and make her happy because I was covering my tattoos and be later. Or I could be late-ish and come uncovered.
It was a lose-lose situation, and I really could care less at this point.
I wanted to have this dinner about as much as I wanted my nuts cut off.
Alas, I loved the hell out of my mom, and would suffer greatly for her happiness.
Kind of like having to share a fucking dinner with my ex. She was the worst mistake of my life, yet my mother refused to tell her to fuck off.
Pulling up to my parent’s house, I got out and dropped to my feet.
I drove a jacked up Ford F-150, much to my parent’s consternation.
We were a car family, pure and simple.
Or at least they were, not me.
I loved my truck.
I could get it dirty and not worry about the interior because that was what trucks were for.
Shoving the keys into my pocket and turning to grab the pie I’d had in my truck since this morning, the coffee cup that I’d downed the moment I got into my cruiser fell to the floor.
My eyes lit on it, and I smiled, thinking about how Nikki had given it to me.
She knew me well.
Or as well as I let her know me.
She knew me better than my entire family, and she’d only ascertained the information in about ten total meetings.
She’d gotten more from me in one night than Joslin had gotten from me in a year and a half.
“About time you showed up,” my brother, Dean, said lazily from the glider in the middle of my parent’s yard.
Bending down, I picked up my coffee cup and placed it gently into the cup holder of my truck before gripping the pie and slamming the door.
