“Good thing we’ll never have to worry aboutthat, eh?”
She watches me over the rim of her coffee mug, her eyes dipping down to my chest once more. It feels like a new game, one where I don’t understand the rules. Whilst she’s preoccupied with my uniform, I take the opportunity to watch the column of her neck, the roll of her throat when she swallows. The warmth of the café is making me sweat. The proximity of Katie, when I haven’t been alone with her in nearly a decade, is making my knee bounce up and down. What the hell are we going to talk about?
“Yeah, good thing.”
???
We work for a few hours, passing each other different papers once we’re finished. We have a basic background on Connor Maddox. Not much more than what I was told in the sergeant major’s office this morning.
Daisy, a blonde-haired, short little thing from behind the counter, who stared a little too long at my uniform earlier, saunters over, offering me another coffee on the house to thank me for my service. She completely blanks Katie, which causes her to pout her lips together, her eyes refusing to watch my conversation with Daisy unfold.
Daisy’s face pales as her eyes scan over thecrime scene photos. I quickly try to put them away, forgetting that blood and guts aren’t usually what people see in their day-to-day.
“You should put those away. Someone else might see.”
“Sorry, Daisy, I’ll put them in my bag,” I say with a small smile. A light flush spreads over her cheeks, and she gives me a small nod before returning behind the counter.
“Sorry, Daisy,”Katie mimics, pulling a face.
“Oh, I’m sorry, are you jealous?”
“Pfft. No more than you were of Anthony.” She still refuses to look at me, instead focusing her unmoving eyes on the report in front of her.
“Anthon—oh, yes. Detective Biceps. How long has that been going on, anyway?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she says stiffly, pulling out another crime scene photo, I’m sure just to spite Daisy.
“Uh huh. And the reason he looked like he wanted to bark at me after tattooing his name on your forehead was because you’re just friends?”
Daisy returns before she can respond, handing me a slip of blank receipt paper. It has her name and number. A heart over the “I” in Daisy in place of a dot. She’s cute, but not for me. I like my women a little less demure, with a bit of a stronger stomach.
“This is for you.” She smiles before turning to Katie and scowling. “I did ask you to hide those photos. We have other patrons who won’t wantto see those.”
“You’re right,” Katie says sweetly, reaching out to place her hand over mine. “Honey, shall we go home now? If we leave now, we can fit in a quickie before we pick up the kids from school.”
The warmth from her palm is no match for the cold, sharp tone of her voice. Sickly sweet, she’s not a good actor, because even as she grips her nails into my palm, her face is contorted as if she’s smelled something awful.
I laugh, playing along if only to keep her hand on mine a little longer. “Three ways aren’t really our thing, Daisy. The wife gets a little possessive if you know what I mean.” I wink at her, and she scurries off, a red flush creeping across her cheeks.
The second her back is turned, Katie drops my hand and starts packing away the case files, muttering under her breath about having to find a new café now, as she’ll never be able to return here.
“If you had just come back to mine as I offered on the way over here, you wouldn’t have had to lose your favorite café,” I chuckle, clenching my now-empty hand into a tight fist.
“And have to deal with moldy towels and sweaty gym socks. No thanks. I know how you lived in college.”
Katie wouldn’t know this, as we rarely see each other outside of dinner club, but believe it or not, I am a fully grown adult now, and I'm inthe army. There’s no way I’d get away with that in basic training. Besides, living like a frat boy loses its appeal after a year or two of college. “I’m house-trained, I promise.”
She ignores me. “We’re done for the day. I take it you can Uber home?”
“I’m good.”
As we leave the café, I wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her close to me as we walk past Daisy. I lean down, brushing my lips over the shell of her ear.
“You know, if you wanted to hold my hand, you could have just said so. You didn’t need to embarrass the poor girl.”
Katie juts out her chin, her lips parting for a split second before they close again into a flat line. I don’t miss the way her eyes dart down at my uniform one last time before she spits her venom.
“She’ll live. Now get off me.” She shoves at my side, digging her perfectly manicured nails in between my ribs before setting off down the road to her car.
