I Can’t Even: The Carter Brothers

Chapter 1

I need to lose weight. I know how to lose weight, but I don’t want to do the things I need to do to lose the weight, but I still want to lose weight. You know what I mean?

—Text from Ellodie to her mom

ELLODIE

I groaned, let my head fall back to rest against the very well-worn fabric of my headrest, and contemplated parking and walking the rest of the way home.

But then, the thought of having to make the hike back to my car at five in the morning sounded even less appealing.

I narrowed my eyes, glaring hard at the orange and white blockade in front of me.

A freakin’ parade.

Of all things.

In the middle of the damn evening rush hour traffic.

Sure, I’d seen the signs for the parade all over the neighborhood. Knew that roads would be blocked off for a majority of the evening, but I’d forgotten.

I mean, I had zero time to be thinking about blockades and how I was going to get home when I was struggling to keep my head above water.

The one and only good thing about going back to school to get my nurse anesthetist license was this time around, I wasn’t eating RamenNoodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Now, I had money in the bank.

But also, I was working a full-time job at the hospital while going back to school, doing clinicals where needed, and ultimately running myself ragged.

So yeah, remembering that a freakin’ parade, of all things, was going to be blocking every single way home was really the last thing on my mind.

I looked over at the seat next to me where I had a textbook denting the cushion. I considered picking up the massive beast, but ultimately decided against it.

I needed a break.

I’d been studying on and off throughout my shift, and to be completely honest, I was freakin’ tired.

The last thing I wanted to do was pick it up and continue to go through it.

I felt like my head was about to explode.

Picking up my phone instead, I started to mindlessly search through Facebook, then Instagram, followed by TikTok. It was thirty-five minutes later when I realized that not only did I have to eat something before I died, but I also had to pee.

And since I wasn’t at work, I didn’t tend to deny that urge if I felt it.

Glancing around the neighborhood I’d been parked outside of for the last hour as I watched parade floats pass between buildings in the distance, I spotted a CrispyChicken sign, and felt my heartrate pick up.

Growing up in a small, middle of nowhere town, not far from the Arkansas/Louisiana/Texas line, there was one singular place that had food. The gas station, that happened to have a fast-food chain, CrispyChicken, in it.

CrispyChicken was a delicacy for the Solaire family.

My dad, Harvey, and my mom, Hall, were both fifth generation farmers. My dad grew up farming soybean, sunflowers, and peanuts, while my mom harvested corn, cotton, and feed grains.

Together, they’d joined two of the biggest farms in the area and formed one huge conglomerate that lived, breathed, and died agriculture.

Truthfully, I could count on two hands the number of times we went out to a fancy restaurant.

ButCrispyChicken?

Man, that was my jam when I was a kid.

And a crispito did sound good…

Getting out of my car, I locked the doors, then hurried toward the gas station. I noticed that the line of cars beside me didn’t look any happier than I did to be stuck out here waiting on a parade to finish.

Getting to the gas station, I went inside, and immediately was taken back ten years to my childhood.

CrispyChicken sandwiches, crispitos, the sweet butter biscuits… Yum!

I ordered two crispitos, four biscuits, and a hunk of pizza, then grabbed a chicken sandwich for good measure. While she was taking care of that, I hit up the bathroom.

It was as I was walking back to my waiting food that I spotted my guilty pleasure—BajaBlastMountainDew—and snatched that up, too.

The cashier rang me up, and I was heading back to my car not long after.

And, because it was hot as balls in my car, and I didn’t have enough gas to be running it for more than another ten minutes—because Jesus, I hated getting gas—I sat on the hood of my car and ate.

Simultaneously, I went back to my social media hopping.

When the sweat from the backs of my thighs forced me to slide down the hood of my car, I got a better purchase, then pushed myself backward until I was leaning on the glass of the windshield.

I looked around, noticing that others were doing much the same, and went back to eating and scrolling.

It was just as I was about to take a bite of my last crispito when something caused me to pause.

A post from the DallasPoliceDepartment.

Being a nurse, I found myself in contact with quite a few police officers and firefighters, so I followed both of their official social media pages.

My finger moved before I could ask it to, and I was left staring at an aerial view of city streets as a high-speed chase was happening.

I scanned the comments, finding myself intrigued enough to continue to stay on the video.

-Dude’s flying. Don’t they know that we are trying to get home? We don’t want to deal with no bullshit high speed chase.

-Police officer in front of him is right on his ass. He’s like glue!

-Wow, did anyone see the cop’s face that was in front?

-Whoa, hottie alert.

-Umm, officer. When you’re done with that high-speed chase, I’m breaking the law at…

-Holy cow… I wonder what his cuffs feel like.

-All you thirsty bitches need to get off this page and let us adults enjoy the way that officer is playing that 4-Runner like a fiddle.

I laughed at that.

Thirsty bitches indeed.

I went back to the video feed to see if I could get a good look at the guy’s face.

I wondered if I’d seen him before…

But the person filming in the helicopter never got another view of the cop’s face.

A whomp-whomp-whomp had me glancing up to see a helicopter in the sky, and since it wasn’t abnormal for us to see them, I barely gave it a second glance before I went back to the video.

But then the sound of a siren—lots of sirens, actually—started to pierce through my avid fascination.

“Whoa,” I said as I watched the cop in front try to do that thing where they spin the back of your vehicle around. I’d only recently learned what a PIT maneuver was by watching my favorite TV drama, SWAT. “Almost.”

The 4-Runner went sideways momentarily but corrected itself before taking a right onto a very familiar street.

That’s when I looked up to see where I was.

Five blocks away from what I knew to be my street that the 4-Runner was on.

My apartment building whizzed past, and I gasped.

Looking up now, crispito momentarily forgotten, I started to calculate how long…

The 4-Runner came barreling around the corner, directly at me.

He’d hit a dead end.

Then the cop came around the corner, much more cautiously, yet still managed to not only keep up, but gain ground without putting anyone in danger.

That is until the 4-Runner twisted my way, seeing a gap in the barriers directly in front of me.

But before I could gasp, the cop read the situation, saw the stopped cars, and reacted with a swiftness I would’ve never thought possible.

One second, the 4-Runner was there, heading directly toward me. The next the cop directly behind him did a PIT maneuver right in front of me. The back end of the 4-Runner went spinning.

The 4-Runner promptly crashed into a light pole, and the entire thing shook directly above my head.

4-Runner guy, seeing his demise, started to get out of the car.

However, who I suspected was HotCop, rammed directly into the side of the 4-Runner, pinning the door closed with his cruiser.

That’s when the guy realized he was screwed.

HotCop got out of his cruiser, did a sliding maneuver across the hood of it, then stood up. Seconds later, he was bodily dragging 4-Runner guy out of his vehicle and slamming him to the hood of the cruiser with barely contained violence.

“You have the right to remain silent…” the cop started to read him his rights.

That’s when I caught my breath.

It’d all happened to fast.

And sweet Mary, mother of God.

The commentators on the DPD’s page were right.

The cop was hot.

Really, really, really hot.

As in, I have a fuckin’ stutter and I’m not even talking, hot.

The cop was in uniform.

He had on the cargo pants I’d seen some of them wear, but not the uniform that patrol wore.

Black tactical pants, a black t-shirt that read ‘DallasPolice’ on it, and a thick black belt that held a big gun, shiny silver cuffs, a flashlight, a taser, a cannister of mace, and a baton. And that bright gold badge.

The man’s knee went into 4-Runner’s backside, and he pinned him there using only the strength in his legs.

With his hands, he expertly cuffed the guy who was likely going to see significant time in a jail cell.

It was in that quiet lull, as the man stopped screaming about his arms hurting, that I took a loud, crunchy bite of my crispito.

The sound had the cop and the suspect both looking over at me.

I mean, my car was only a few inches away from the police cruiser.

4-Runner guy sneered.

The cop, with his mirrored Ray-Ban sunglasses, head of gorgeously delicious light brown hair, and jaw line that would make any woman—lesbian or straight—weep, grinned.

“Good job,” I said through another mouthful of delicious crispito.

The man lowered his sunglasses just enough and winked at me. “Thanks, Calamity.”

Calamity.

Why did I like that he’d given me a nickname so much? Also, why was it so hot how he continued to press the man into the hood of his wrecked car, biceps bulging, as he waited for backup to arrive.

“You need any help there?” I asked, not making a move toward them.

I could sneeze on them; they were that close.

“I’m good.” He checked me out then. “You okay?”

WasI?

I mean, my heartrate was currently at tachycardic levels, and I was fairly sure that I needed a new pair of panties… but health wise, I was definitely okay.

More than okay.

The man had brought me to life with just a grin.

“I’m good,” I said as I started to lick my fingers clean.

I couldn’t see his eyes because of the sunglasses, but I saw him tense, and it wasn’t because of the guy he was holding against the hood.

“Good,” he said with a small grin. “You might want to hop off of there, though. The streetlight looks like it’s barely hanging on.”

I got off the car with a glance up, and sure enough, the streetlamp looked like it was holding on by a thread.

I considered reaching for my BajaBlast but decided against it when a piece of glass tinkled as it fell.

I bit my lip and looked backward, wondering if I could make it, then decided I couldn’t.

There were just too many people behind us, all of them just as shocked as I was at what had just occurred.

“Leave the drink, Calamity,” he urged. “Take a seat over there on the sidewalk.”

I did as instructed, continuing to watch with avid fascination.

It was only as the barricades were being removed, and the cars were being towed away, that the hot cop left.

His car was towed.

He was picked up by another cruiser.

But his eyes hadn’t left me once since he’d left his new under arrest friend to be carted off by another couple of police officers.

And don’t think I missed the way everyone called him ‘boss.’

Or the way he filled out the seat of his cargo pants when he walked away.