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Zeke put an arm around Mimi and guided her toward his cruiser. “Hey! Are you just gonna let him take me off like this?” she called out to her friends.
“Yes!” Shea and Pilar called back. They both looked extremely pleased with themselves, as well as extremely drunk.
“Some friends you are,” Mimi muttered. She stumbled once on the way to the car. Zeke briefly thought of putting her in the back seat, but he was positive she wouldn’t appreciate it come tomorrow morning when she remembered what went down. Of course, he’d never seen Mimi this drunk before, so he wasn’t quite sure whether she’d remember it or not. It wasn’t like her to lose control. Not like this.
He helped her into the front seat of the cruiser and strapped on her seatbelt. “Don’t touch any of the buttons,” he warned.
Her blue eyes flared. “Oh!” She sat up straight, like she suddenly realized where she was. “You’re taking me home in the police car! I’ve always wanted to ride in the front seat of your police car.”
He got behind the wheel and picked up the radio to check back in with dispatch. “Ellie, I’m taking my break now so I’ll be off for the next thirty minutes.”
“Roger that, Chief.”
“Help!” Mimi shouted. “I’m being kidnapped!” Then her head slumped over like she’d fallen asleep. What the hell had she had to drink?
“Is that Mrs. Chief yelling in the background?” Ellie asked. “Is she all right? She doesn’t sound like herself.”
“Everything’s fine, Ellie,” Zeke said.
“Um, okay. If you say so, Chief. Over and out.”
The rest of the drive home was thankfully uneventful. He pulled into the driveway to the house he no longer lived in, and killed the car lights. Mimi let out a small sigh. She blinked, then glanced around.
“Where are we?” she asked, genuinely confused.
“Home.”
She pushed a strand of dark hair out of her face. Sitting here in his cruiser with her hair all mussed up, wearing jeans and sneakers, she looked more like a teenager than a thirty-five-year-old mother of two.
“I…you drove me home?”
“Yep.” He glanced at the house. Claire’s bedroom light was still on. “Looks like you girls had quite a party back there.”
“We were…celebrating.”
A muscle on the side of his jaw clenched. Celebrating what? Their separation? “What’s the occasion?” he asked carefully.
“How we…no, how I’m going to get Billy Beans for the Spring Into Summer festival.” She hiccupped.
Zeke hid a smile. There was no other woman on the planet who could possibly look this damn cute and be so out of it at the same time.
“You mean, Billy Brenton?”
“Yeah! That’s who I’m going to get. I’m going to show up that Bruce Barnum and Bailey, all right.” Somehow, she managed to unclip her seat belt on her own. She turned to stare at him like she hadn’t seen him before. “Hey! Who called you?”
“Shea did. Remember?”
“Oh…yeah. I’m mad at her.”
“Don’t be. You’re in no condition to drive.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Can I ask you a question?”
&nb
sp; “Sure.”
“Are you…let me see if I can say this right… Slytherin’ Cindy’s Hufflepuff?”
