3. Sutton
Sutton
Now
U nrest burrowed into my bones, and I found myself patrolling the streets of Pippen Creek rather than slaving away behind my desk on paperwork that made my eyes as dry as the Sahara.
It hadn’t rained for weeks, and the hot August air caused the atmosphere to feel like a desert rather than a valley surrounded by thousands of trees and the mountains beyond that had been home for my entire life.
Change was coming. I could sense it?—
My cell rang, and I pulled my cruiser into The Market’s parking lot to answer.
“Jamie,” I said, a grin stretching my lips.
“I bought him a ring,” my son said by way of a greeting.
I barked a laugh, not surprised in the least. “When are you going to propose?” I asked, my heart lighter than it had been in months since he’d moved in with his best friend turned boyfriend.
“After the party,” Jamie stated even though his voice hinted at a lack of surety.
Jamie graduated from the police academy tomorrow, and I looked forward to my son joining the force and working under my command starting next week.
We were a small band of brothers, just me, Babs, who was finally contemplating retirement, and two other officers.
Jamie would be the perfect addition to the station.
Same as when my son was a young boy, he’d done drive alongs with me when he’d returned home last summer after a knee injury ended his short NFL career.
He’d been devastated over the loss of his dreams but had gotten together with Chaz, who he’d always been in love with.
A solid win as far as I was concerned. He and Chaz were attached at the hip, and I couldn’t have been happier for my son.
I told him as such, and his sigh radiated happiness over the line.
“He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, Dad. A couple of years ago, I never could have imagined the life I have now, but I’m so goddamned thankful.”
“Same.” I smiled and waved at Georgie Ellis, who was loading groceries into the delivery van. “I’m excited to see you at your desk on Monday morning.”
“I have to get through tomorrow and the rest of the weekend first.” Jamie released another heavy exhale. “I’m scared.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’ve earned that badge, and there’s no chance in hell Chaz will say no. I’m proud of you, son.” I swallowed hard as tears stung my eyes.
“Thanks for believing in me,” Jamie said, his tone low too. “For pushing me to enter the academy—for always having my back.”
“Always will , too,” I promised.
“What are you up to?”
“Patrolling.”
Jamie snickered. “Bored, huh?”
I chuckled. My son knew me well. “Tired of paperwork.”
After promising to see him at graduation tomorrow, I hung up and turned onto Pippen Street to continue my attempts to make the day pass faster even though I only had the promise of a quiet house waiting for me at the end of my shift.
Loneliness had settled in after Jamie had moved out, but I wasn’t about to tell him.
That afternoon of patrolling didn’t offer me the usual sense of fulfillment in knowing I did a damned good job of keeping my people safe, but at least no need arose that caused me to flick on my siren.
My wanderings led me southwest, and I slowed as I approached the abandoned house I thought of more often than not.
Rich Riley had passed three years earlier, and although Jimmy hadn’t returned for the cremation and burial he’d arranged from Boston, the boy had yet to sell the place.
According to Town Hall, the taxes were paid every year, and I wondered about his plans for the property.
The house and land had been in disrepair over a decade earlier and had only gotten worse with every passing season.
While the one-story home could be rehabbed and inhabited, I doubted Jimmy had any intentions of doing so. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since that night I’d turned down the offer of a blow job and shut the door in his face.
I pulled to a stop, eyeing the sagging stoop where Jimmy had huddled all those years ago when we’d first exchanged words.
Tall grass had taken over the stone walkway that used to lead to the porch we’d sat atop countless times after that September afternoon.
Even more clapboards hung in disarray, and the lone shutter that had hung on for dear life now lay beneath curtained windows hiding whatever filth had piled up inside.
Why didn’t he just sell the place and be done with it? Why cling to a building that housed his childhood trauma?
I’d often wondered if telling Jimmy taking care of his dad was a real-man thing to do had pushed him toward defending his abuser when DHHS had come knocking. Guilt lay heavy on my heart since that day, and I expected it would continue to haunt me to the grave.
Exhaling heavily, I drove away, turning my focus on the other houses amidst the trees as sunshine warmed my arm through the cruiser’s open window. While this wasn’t the best side of Pippen Creek, the residents received the same care and thoughts from their chief.
I didn’t allow discrimination. Couldn’t see a man’s wealth or lack thereof shaping who they were. Our residents had chosen the Live Free or Die state, and I’d committed myself to making sure those I was responsible for could do just that.
Twice on my way back downtown, I rolled to a stop and leaned out the window to check in with people enjoying the too-warm day.
I scanned every house and business, watched couples and moms with strollers meandering down sidewalks as I cruised past, proud of how our town ran like a well-oiled machine.
There hadn’t been any major trouble in decades, only skirmishes here and there and a few fender benders to cause a blip in our mundane lives.
But something hovered on the horizon, a similar sense to the one I’d felt all those years ago while sitting beside a filthy kid who had called himself a worm.
Pulling into the station’s lot, my mind turned toward the manipulative terror who somehow continued to live rent-free in my head.
Jimmy had always been too thin and gaunt, tiny compared to me and my son who’d passed him in size not long after that first call out to their property.
I’d taken to bagging up clothing Jamie had outgrown and secretly leaving them on the Riley porch while on the night shift.
Every few weeks, I’d ordered staples from The Market for the Ellis family to deliver anonymously.
Rich might have been an asshole, but he’d never turned the gifts away.
Jimmy had been fourteen the first time I’d let him sleep off drunkenness at the station. While the right choice according to the books would have been for me to call his dad, I’d let the kid sack out on the same small cot Rich sprawled across on a monthly basis.
While Jimmy was tougher than most of the other kids in Pippen Creek’s tiny school system, it was the fact he’d tended toward feminine that had gotten him into trouble.
But things had changed since those days.
No longer did we allow bullying of any sort, and homophobia, while it probably hadn’t disappeared entirely, now sat silent in the back of minds of those who refused the “wokeness” that had slowly crept into and rooted deep inside my town’s limits.
Jamie and my soon-to-be son-in-law weren’t the only queer folk in Pippen Creek.
My best friend, Dex, who worked at the fire station on the other side of the intersection was an out and proud gay man.
The owner of Scone Haven, Kelly Powell, was as well, along with the lesbian couple who owned Frenchie’s, the local bar in town.
And while I hadn’t announced my own queerness, those closest to me knew I swung both ways.
I hadn’t realized the truth about myself until that night Jimmy had wanted me to wreck his virgin hole.
I’d become obsessed with Jimmy after he’d left. I’d kept tabs on him, going so far as to hire a detective to make sure he hadn’t ended up in a ditch somewhere. Dex called me a stalker, but I reasoned my infatuation away with years of seeing Jimmy as my responsibility.
I stumbled upon a website’s page that showcased him for hire as an escort around the time he’d turned twenty-one.
The images of his trim torso and pale, smooth skin no longer marred by scratching shouldn’t have made me hard, but the suggestive poses and familiar glint in his blue eyes had fully roused that secret desire inside me.
He was stunning—and all man.
Longing to see the little liar saunter back into town and once more offer that ass many others had paid for swept over me whenever I allowed my thoughts to linger on him. Jimmy Riley had become my obsession, the man I dreamed of at night.
My dick thickened in my uniform pants, and I cleared my throat, denying myself another minute of fantasy. Lips pressed into a thin line, I shoved my cruiser’s door open and stepped out into the heat.
“I was starting to think I needed to radio in help,” Babs said when I entered the air-conditioned station.
Shrewd eyes slid over me as I ran a hand through my hair while passing her desk.
“Got a call from Georgie,” she continued, and I paused.
“He hit the Dixon’s lab while out delivering groceries and was pretty upset.
He asked for you, but I sent Officer Jones. ”
“How long ago?”
“Five minutes.”
“I’ll handle it.” I turned toward the door that had just shut behind me.
“You stop right there, Chief Sutton Forrester.” My feet paused at Bab’s order, same as they always did when she used that tone on me. “You’re a magnet to needy people, and they take advantage of your goodness and desire to help?—”
She didn’t lie. Needy people were my kryptonite.
“—but Jones has this one covered.” She set aside a file and leaned onto her desk, arms crossed and gaze probing. “You’ve got another voicemail from you know who .”
“Fuck.” I rubbed a weary hand over my beard. Darla had called out of the blue earlier in the year and persisted in begging for a chance to talk to me even though I never rang her back.
Babs was the only person besides Dex who was aware that my ex had skewed my thought processes when it came to believing a person was innocent until proven guilty. At least my suspicion made keeping my town safe easier. “Was she crying?”
“Of course she was,” Babs grumbled. “Manipulative little bitch. Are you sure I can’t tell her to fuck off next time she calls to wail about her woes?”
Heaving a heavy sigh, I shook my head.
Babs’s lips pursed, eyes narrowing. “Don’t let her use you again, Sutton—I mean it. She comes sniffing around this town again, and I’m going to have to ask you to look the other way while I pull out the three S’s.”
Shoot. Shovel. Shut up.
I couldn’t stop my lips from twitching. Babs might have twenty-plus years on me, but she was still a feisty force to be reckoned with. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
She hmphed, finally settling in her chair. “Have you told Jamie she’s been harassing you?”
“No, and I would appreciate if you wouldn’t either.”
“Fine,” she snipped, her annoyance over my shutting down her usual gossip factory spelled out across her face. “On to better things—how are you feeling about Jamie’s graduation and joining our small force?”
The satisfaction I’d felt earlier leaked back in, a hint of excitement over the change I’d been desperate for lately overshadowing the fact a voicemail from my lying ex-wife awaited me. “Can’t wait.” I stated the honest truth.
“Been missing having him around, have you?”
“More than you could imagine.”
Babs nodded, knowing eyes looking over my pristine uniform. “You did a damned fine job raising him on your own after she left. I’m proud of the both of you.”
I couldn’t keep my mind from turning toward the boy who’d had everything going against him.
“What’s the frown for?”
Erasing the furrow between my eyebrows, I tried for a grin. “Just…tired.”
Babs raised an eyebrow, calling me out on my bullshit. “Go grab a Snickers,” she suggested, and I huffed a non-happy laugh while turning toward my office, my heart aching the slightest bit.
The candy bar had become my favorite after sharing countless ones with Jimmy, and I still had a weakness for the satisfying sweetness.
Kind of like my weakness for the kid himself.
“It was a good thing Jimmy left when he did,” I muttered to myself while eyeing the phone on my desk and the blinking light that indicated a waiting voicemail that would doubtless be a woe-is-me story about the latest mess my ex-wife had gotten herself into.
Sure enough, Darla sobbed more than she managed to get words out. Something about her partner? Husband? Taking out his anger on her for their financial troubles in ways I wouldn’t usually condone.
No doubt, she’d lied to him.
Manipulated his ass in order to get what she wanted.
And now she was broke and had no place to go.
She probably lied about his abuse in order to draw on my protective instincts too.
I deleted her message, my stomach churning, jaw clenched. Stretching my neck side to side, I attempted to rid my body of tension, needing to think on anything but her.
The Snickers atop my desk called out to me, and I ripped the wrapper open, allowing my mind to fixate on the boy-turned-man who had caused me to question my sexuality.
“The shit out of his mouth was no different than hers,” I reminded myself so my walls wouldn’t crumble.
Who knew what the hell kind of trouble Jimmy would have dragged me into had he stayed and become a gorgeous man right in front of my eyes and lonely heart.