I knew he’d clocked me from the moment I left Georgia.
He wasn’t so much as watching me, as he was aware of me.
When I arrived at his side, he turned his face up to me and looked at me, not smiling.
“Your beer?” I offered it to him.
He took it from me carefully. So carefully that he didn’t touch a single piece of my skin in the transfer.
“Thanks,” he muttered, smiling half-heartedly. “’Preciate it.”
I had seen him before. Noticed him at SWAT events. Watched him while visiting my brother. That was the night I became aware of him.
That I became obsessed with him.
That was the night that my world changed, and I wished upon a star, while standing under the star-lit sky with Michael next to me.
Hours after handing him that beer, he told me about his ex-wife. About his job. About how his wife blamed him for not wanting kids, as for why she’d cheated on him.
That was the night I fell in love with him.
Head over boot heels.
***
“Do you need some clothes?” I asked softly.
He shook his head. “No. I’m gonna go straight to the station and change into my workout gear. Thanks for the offer, though.”
Smiling, I punched in the code that would get me through the door, but stopped when Michael called my name.
“Nikki?”
I turned to find him staring at me.
His eyes full of pain.
“You…you want to catch dinner and a movie this week?” He asked hopefully.
I blinked, then a small smile split my face. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”
He nodded, turned, and walked out of the building. Not once glancing back.
And there I was left in the hallway, practically bouncing on my toes in excitement.
Then I turned around, and the smile slowly fell from my face when I saw Joslin standing there, her eyes full of fire.
Choosing to ignore her, I walked past her with a muttered, “Excuse me.”
But I knew that wouldn’t be the end of it.
Not even close.
Chapter 3
Friday. My second favorite F word.
-Coffee Cup
Michael
Needless to say, I was very late showing up to my mother’s party.
By over an hour.
I was wearing a white t-shirt and black jeans that had so many holes in them that they could technically qualify as shorts.
And my tattoos were showing.
Something my mother was definitely not going to like.
But it couldn’t be helped.
I could either go home and change, and make her happy because I was covering my tattoos and be later. Or I could be late-ish and come uncovered.
It was a lose-lose situation, and I really could care less at this point.
I wanted to have this dinner about as much as I wanted my nuts cut off.
Alas, I loved the hell out of my mom, and would suffer greatly for her happiness.
Kind of like having to share a fucking dinner with my ex. She was the worst mistake of my life, yet my mother refused to tell her to fuck off.
Pulling up to my parent’s house, I got out and dropped to my feet.
I drove a jacked up Ford F-150, much to my parent’s consternation.
We were a car family, pure and simple.
Or at least they were, not me.
I loved my truck.
I could get it dirty and not worry about the interior because that was what trucks were for.
Shoving the keys into my pocket and turning to grab the pie I’d had in my truck since this morning, the coffee cup that I’d downed the moment I got into my cruiser fell to the floor.
My eyes lit on it, and I smiled, thinking about how Nikki had given it to me.
She knew me well.
Or as well as I let her know me.
She knew me better than my entire family, and she’d only ascertained the information in about ten total meetings.
She’d gotten more from me in one night than Joslin had gotten from me in a year and a half.
“About time you showed up,” my brother, Dean, said lazily from the glider in the middle of my parent’s yard.
Bending down, I picked up my coffee cup and placed it gently into the cup holder of my truck before gripping the pie and slamming the door.
“Yeah,” I muttered, walking up the front walk.
“Heard about your day. Sorry man,” my brother said sincerely, blowing out a breath of smoke he’d just inhaled from his cigar.
My brother and I weren’t what you would call ‘close.’
We were family, of course, but that’s where that ended.
He was the prodigal son. The one who did everything right, while I did everything wrong.
And sometimes it was hard not to resent that.
Really hard.
“Thanks,” I muttered, opening the door once I came to it.
The first thing I noticed was that no one was in the living room where they usually were, and that I could smell dinner wafting from the kitchen.
The smell turned my stomach.
Eating was the last thing I wanted to do right then.
Not with the memory of Baby Nathan’s blood pouring out of his body as I held him on the way to the hospital.
“He’s not coming, I think we should just eat,” Joslin said huffily.
I rolled my eyes as I made my way down the darkened hallways that would lead to the kitchen and formal dining room where I assumed they were all gathered.
“He’s coming. He texted me when he was leaving the hospital,” my sister, Hannah, defended.
Hannah and I were the closest in age.
Irish twins.
She was born ten months before me, in the same year.
Me, being the baby, was the surprise that everyone still liked to point out was the accident.
“Thanks, Hannah,” I said, walking into the kitchen and placing my pie on the countertop. “I’m here, so the party may begin.”
The last was said once I was in the dining room, which meant everyone turned to watch me walk in the room.
My father and Hannah didn’t bat an eyelash at my attire.
My mother and Joslin, though, did.
Not that I cared.
Nor was I surprised.
Taking the seat to the right of my dad, and directly next to Hanna, I placed both hands in my lap and waited, like the good boy I was, for dinner to be served.
Which only happened once Dean made his way back inside from his smoke break.
All the while, I spoke with my sister about her daughter, Reggie.
Reggie was a boisterous two and a half year old that was with her ex-husband for the night.
“Reggie told me I was to ‘watch my step’ today because I was telling her what to do. Can you believe that? I bet Joshua taught her that one, too,” Hannah said snottily.
I snorted.
Needless to say, Hanna and her ex didn’t get along.
Not even a little bit.
“Actually,” I amended. “That was me. I’m sorry. I said that to her two days ago when I was watching her.”
Hannah sighed. “I guess I should be happy you didn’t teach her how to say cuss words, I suppose.”
My father snorted. “You and Michael were cussing by the time y’all were three and four. Mainly because your Uncle Paddy thought it’d be funny to teach you them. It was real exciting to slam on my breaks to avoid hitting a car and have the two of you say ‘fuck you’ and ‘what the fuck’ respectively.”
Hannah giggled while I laughed.
My mother, on the other hand, didn’t.
Apparently, she didn’t find it funny.
“Alright, we can eat now,” Joslin cooed as Dean made his way into the room, breaking the silent death glare I was getting from my mother.
Once grace was said by my father, he started to serve himself, and passed the dish around the table.