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Oz coughs. “I wrote the report, Chief. I only saw two face slams. I only report two face slams.”
Alex’s brows lift. “Three times? Did he lose his tooth on the first or third?”
“First?” I say it like a question, though I already know the answer. “Pretty sure I heard it ping against the tile floor on the first.”
“And yet, you slammed him twice more…” Alex tosses the report down and lifts a hand to his face. He breathes with heavy exhales until his breath comes through his nose on a whistle, and presses his thumbs into his eye sockets until he groans. “Fuck. Okay.” He nods, as though psyching himself up for battle. “Okay. Whatever. Dude aimed at my deputy.”
“Yes, Chief.”
“He was armed and dangerous.”
“Well…” I cough. “We thought he was armed and dangerous.”
“It was actually a squirt gun.” Oz pulls the trigger and wets the crotch of X’s jeans. “Looked like the real thing in the moment, though.”
Alex drops his hands and glowers at the wet patch until he resembles a bull. A bull ready to charge. A bull ready to murder his deputy because now it looks like he wet his pants. “I love you, Oscar.”
“Aww, I love you too, X.”
“But you need to fuck off right now. Leave. Clock out. You’re off until Monday. You’re uninvited to dinner tonight.”
“What!” Oz bounds up from his chair and slams the fake gun down. “Jules is making fried chicken. You can’t uninvite me to Southern fried chicken! What kind of bullshit dictatorship is this?”
“This is me saving your life. Go home to your family. Ask Lindsi to get you some chicken on the way home. If I see you in the next twenty-four hours, I might get mad about the falsified report and the wet jeans. Then I might shoot you for real.”
Grumbling, Oz snatches his coat from the back of his chair. Swinging it on, he passes Alex with a brat-like huff, only to swing around again when Alex grabs on and hugs him. “I’m glad it was just a water gun.”
“Me too.” Finally, Oz gets serious. “I near shit my pants till Tate took him down.”
“Thank God. Go home. Give the family my apologies about the chicken loss. I’ll see you for breakfast.”
As soon as Oz clears the room and heads through front reception and out the automatic front doors, Alex turns back to me as I snatch my coat up. I try to swing around him and escape, since I should have clocked out more than two hours ago, but X grabs my collar and pulls me to a sharp stop. “Wait a sec.” He pulls me around so the hair hanging from my elastic whips in my face. “I want to talk for a second.”
“I didn’t falsify the report, Chief.” My heart races faster now than it did when I thought Oz might get shot. “I didn’t do anything today that wasn’t by the book.”
“You need to relax.” He pushes me back into my chair the way he would push Oz. Nobody here treats me like a lady. No one is super careful about my feelings or being gentle, which is exactly how I want to be treated. I’m not a woman when in uniform, but a cop. A cop to be respected. And that respect has nothing to do with what I was born with between my legs. “You did good, Tate. You assessed the situation. Nobody was hurt. Statements from witnesses mention your valor. As far as you knew, it was a real gun. You’re not in trouble.”
“I’m not?” I swallow my nerves. “Even though I probably could have cuffed him after the first slam?”
He sits on the corner of my desk and gives a small smile. “Adrenaline was running high, dude with a gun, bag of money, and smokes laying around, and your colleague was walking around with theickhands. You did good. You won’t catch heat from me about it.”
“Okay.” I stand again and snatch up my keys. “That’s great. I’m gonna go home. I need sleep so bad, my face aches.” I meet his eyes. “My face actually hurts from lack of sleep, so…”
Chuckling, he snags my wrist and pulls me back until I sit with a huff. “Do you need to talk about something?”
“What?” My pulse skitters like crazy. “No.”
“You’re so tightly wound, Lib. You’re so insanely on edge all the time. It’s like you’re waiting for me to slap you down and take your badge.”
“I don’t—I’m not…”
“You’re not your daddy,” he murmurs. Sitting forward, he presses his hands together and laces his fingers. “It would suck to have the last name of a man you don’t respect. Especially in the same field of work. It would suck being in an industry run mostly by men. But you worked for your position in my squad, Lib. You earned that badge, and you earn it every single day that you come to work. I’ve never once compared you to your father. I don’t consider all kids to be products of their parents. I don’t consider all kids to be the same in behavior. Your father was crooked, but you’re so straight you’re gonna snap. Your father brought shame to the badge. But you add shine. Every single day you wear it, you clean off some of the filth and make it shinier. So I’ll ask again; anything you wanna talk about?”
“It’s just…” I lift a hand, then let it drop. “I just…” I grunt from the frustration of knowing what I want to say, but being too scared to voice it.
But then our eyes meet, and he reminds me he’s the leader worthy of respect.
“I don’t want anyone to think I could be dirty,” I whisper. “I don’t even want it to be a thought running through their mind. It would break my damn heart to work so hard, only for residual suspicion to leak onto me.”
