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“Good point,” I said, chewing my lip. “You think Cole is ready for marriage?”
“Cole is older than I am by a decade. If he’s not ready now, he’ll never be. Maybe he was just waiting for the right woman.”
“I don’t know,” I said, moving around the blockades the police had put out to keep traffic away from the Towne Square. “I love both of them. But I can’t say I have a good feeling about their relationship. They’re in that annoying phase of infatuation where they’re dancing on clouds and no one leaves dirty socks on the floor. They’re blinded by sex.”
Jack snorted. “And we don’t know what that’s like.”
“We have a lifetime of friendship behind us. They have twenty years and a whole lot of issues that haven’t come to the surface yet between them. Cole’s been through some pretty rough things on the job. He’s been shot twice. What’s she going to do the first time she has to deal with his PTSD? She’s just starting her graduate work. How’s he going to feel about the time it’s going to take her to finish? Or when she has to do a residency two thousand miles away?”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Jack said. “We’re not their parents, and it’s not our business. Unless it affects their work.”
“We’re their friends,” I said.
“Yep,” Jack said. “And friends let friends make their own choices.”
“You must be from an alien planet,” I said, shaking my head. “This is Bloody Mary. That isnotwhat friends do here. Friends hop right into the mess. You’re just scared this one is going to bereallymessy.”
Jack cut a glance my direction. “I’m not scared. Just cautious. We’ve had enough explosions in our life, and more than enough drama. We could use a break.”
“That, I agree with,” I said, satisfied. “Maybe Cole isn’t planning to propose soon. Maybe he just mentioned it in passing as part of his five-year plan.”
Jack laughed and put his arm around my shoulder, hugging me close. “I don’t know a lot of cops who have five-year plans, but we’ll go with that for now. Bethany’s apartment is up here on the left.”
“Over the candle shop?” I asked. “Good location. I bet it always smells good in her apartment.”
“These apartments aren’t cheap,” Jack said. “And there’s a waiting list to purchase. I wonder how she got one.”
“How do you know there’s a waiting list?” I asked.
“Because we own two of them,” he said. “They’re both leased and will eventually make a tidy profit.”
“No way,” I said, stopping in my tracks. “You own two apartments? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you told me, and I quote, not to tell you about all the money stuff and that I should just make you sign any financial papers without you having to read it or listen to me talk about it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I remember. I just figure you’d mention something like that in passing.”
“I have mentioned it in passing,” he said. “Your eyes usually glaze over and then you try to distract me with food or sex until I change the subject. I’ve always kind of enjoyed that our money makes you uncomfortable.”
I was fighting not to squirm under my coat. It still made me uncomfortable. Which was why I’d learned to distract with food or sex.
“Maybe we can stop by the taco place on the way home,” I said. “They stay open late and I never got dessert.”
“Are tacos considered dessert food now? Good deflection, by the way.”
“I thought I was being subtle,” I said.
“I’m not sure subtle is a word I’d use to describe you,” he said. “Sometimes a situation calls for a scalpel and sometimes it calls for a hatchet. You’re more of a hatchet.”
I thought about it for a second, trying to decide if I was going to be insulted, but I didn’t really mind the moniker. I tended to be blunt and to the point. I wasn’t the kind of person who liked to waste words with flattery or my time with conversation that didn’t mean anything.
“Thank you,” I said. “I think. And you’re a scalpel. I can appreciate that we both bring a unique skill set to the table. You’re diplomatic with the living, and I can say what I want in front of the dead without hurting their feelings.”
Jack smiled. “Your diplomacy is improving. You didn’t punch Janice Van Horn in the face last week when she asked if all the plastic surgery you’ve had was going to inhibit your ability to get pregnant naturally.”
“That’s only because I wasn’t really sure where her face was,” I said, making him laugh. “She’s had so many face-lifts her lips are on the back of her head, and they must have used her brain matter for those butt injections she got. If I’d had plastic surgery I wouldn’t still have the body of a teenage boy.”
Jack squeezed the back of my neck and leaned closer to my ear. “As someone who’s touched every inch of your body, I can assure you that you are all woman and look nothing like a teenage boy. We do have that giant mirror in the game room,” he said. “I’ll be happy to show you what you look like through my eyes.”
