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Wondering who in the world would be visiting me already, I walk out of the living room and down the hallway. I open the door and see the only person I could've wanted to see there.
Hailey stands on my porch with a suitcase the size of Texas on one side of her and three bottles of wine on the other side. She's staring at her phone, brows furrowed, looking every bit as lost as I'm sure she feels.
"Hailey? What are you doing here?"
"Oh, thank god! I was worried I drove nine hours and ended up in the middle of nowhere outside some stranger's house." I rush towards her and envelop her in a huge hug. My five-nine height to her five-two makes it so I feel Amazonian next to her, but at this moment, all I'm thinking about is that my best friend is standing on my porch.
"I can't believe you're standing here. What's going on? Why are you here?"
"You know I couldn't let you move to Nowhere, USA all by yourself, so I took a couple of weeks off from the many weeks I've accumulated and decided to come and help you get settled."
"This is amazing. I'm so glad you're here."
"Well, with you gone, I didn't have much to do at work, and it took all of two minutes for me to realize I missed you way too much to not come and spend time with you. Now, show me this adorable house that's stolen you away from me." I lean down and pick up the wine bottles and nod my head towards the house.
"Do you think you brought enough wine?"
"I was still worried you’d gotten yourself into a mess, and I figured if it was awful we could drink until we forgot how bad it was. Right now, I think we can use them to celebrate because this house is beautiful." I walk her into the living room and she leaves her suitcase by the entryway.
“Did you get robbed or something? Where’s all of your stuff?”
“No, I didn’t get robbed.” I chuckle. “You know what my apartment looked like, it was tiny, and now all of my stuff feels small because none of it fits here.” Hailey looks at me and gasps, eyes wide and a smile growing across her face. “Do you know what this means?”
“No, what does this mean?” I ask, slightly worried about her response.
“It means we get to go shopping.” She squeals, making me laugh.
“Of course it does. Actually, there is a furniture store in town that looked promising. Do you want to go check it out? We can also look into getting furniture for the guest room since you’re going to be staying for a while.”
“A brilliant idea since I’m not about to sleep on a couch. That’s a little too rough for me.”
“Then let’s go find you a bed,” I say as I grab my purse and lead her back out to my car.
3
COOPER
“Hey, Coop, I’m headed out. I’ll see you later?” Todd, my best friend and deputy chief asks, peeking his head around my door.
“Yeah, I’ll be heading out here soon. I’ll see you at Donna’s,” I respond, referencing our favorite bar. It’s been around since before I can remember, and it’s pretty much the only place to go on a Friday night to get a drink.
This will be the first weekend I’ve had off in a while and I’m taking full advantage of the time. Being the police chief of Sonoma, my days usually only consist of paperwork and patrolling the streets for reckless teenagers thinking they’re invincible, but these past few weeks have been rough.
One of the neighboring towns has had a string of breaking and enterings, or B and Es, and the most recent ones have resulted in huge amounts of damage. To help out, my deputies and I have been lending them a hand with their crime scenes on top of running extra patrols in Sonoma to ensure everyone is kept safe.
We haven't had any issues so far, but it would be fool-hardy to think our town is safe. The worst part is, we're nowhere near being able to solve these crimes. I'm doing what I can to help, but since it's not my town, there isn't much I can do except lend a hand when needed and hope the perp doesn't try anything in Sonoma.
I pack up my stuff, lock my office, and walk down the hallway to the lobby. It's a small station with a few offices, a bullpen, and a main waiting area. We have a few cells in the back but we don't normally need to use them.
There's only been a few times I've had to put someone back there. Once because a fight broke out at Donna's over a bad bet during a football game. I put the guys in the cells to cool off and sent them home the next morning.
Another time, a college kid decided to streak across the football field during homecoming. We caught him before he made it all the way onto the field, and we just put him in there to scare him. The dude freaked out, so we didn’t keep him in there for too long.
We still have a good laugh about it every now and then.
I wave to the deputies in the break room who are getting ready for the night shift and walk out the front door to my truck. Driving towards my house, I stay alert of my surroundings. Sometimes it feels like I’m always on guard, and it can be exhausting.
Growing up, I was the rule follower. I liked the control it gave me, and it drove me nuts when my little brother, Levi, would rope me into one of his schemes. I was always the one who got in trouble when we got caught, but eventually, I learned to stop going along with his antics.
