9. Callum
Callum
“I Like My Privacy.” — Shrek
T his is what I get for staying past my regular work hours. This is exactly what I get. I sigh, running a hand over my tired face and the three-day-old stubble.
If your day starts shitty it ends shitty, and here you are, driving out to the main square to answer a call about vandalism and loud noises after hours.
It’s been one call after another and all about breaking quiet hours. I’m not an idiot, I know what they’re doing, but hell if I’ll break first!
It’s past midnight already, don’t these hippies ever sleep? But a minute later, I take my words back and wish these were hippies instead of the little menace dancing inside the fountain, splashing water all over as she blasts out “It’s My Life” by Bon Jovi at the top of her lungs.
It’s almost amusing. Almost.
I’m about to call out her name when she appears around the fountain, her whole soaked-through body on full display.
Fucking hell …why is she in a white dress?
A white dress that is so see-through that I can make out the perfect shape of her small breasts and razor-sharp nipples. The cold water making them poke through the fabric.
“Sophie,” I call her name, but it comes out too hoarse for my liking and there’s zero reaction from her. I clear my throat—and thoughts—and try again louder. “Sophie!”
“Huh?” She stops singing and whips her head my way, squinting to try and see who’s calling her name.
“Sheriff Hot Asshole?”
I sigh, planting my hands on my hips. “Sophie, what the fuck are you doing in the fountain?”
“I’m in a fountain? Huh, I thought I felt wet.”
“Jesus Christ.” I run a hand over my face. The things that come out of her mouth. “How did you end up here?”
“How did I…oh! I got on a plane, then another plane, and then Gracie was there at the airport, and we did this whole romantic scene but BFF style because, ew, I’m not kissing Gracie. And then she brought me here—”
“In the fountain?” I shout, cutting off her rambling. “I mean, how did you end up in the fucking fountain?”
“Oh.” She frowns, looking down. “We went out for drinks with the girls.”
“Uh-huh.” Nodding, I wave for her to keep going. “And then?”
Those slightly blue lips from the coldness pucker in deep thought and then she sticks out her index finger right in front of her face and does the come here motion.
I roll my eyes but step up to the edge of the fountain, trying to ignore the fact that now I can tell the exact shade of those nipples too. Great. Just great.
Sophie leans closer and whispers, “I don’t remember. ”
I sigh, again, taking a step back to put a bit more distance between us.
“Let me guess, you went to Willa’s bar?”
“Yes!” She claps her hands, happy I figured it out myself.
“Okay, say no more. It all makes perfect sense now.”
“It does?”
“Oh, yeah,” I mutter slowly. “But I still have to arrest you for”—I wave in the general direction of the fountain—“this.”
“Ooo, do I get to wear handcuffs?” Sophie waggles her eyebrows, and I almost let out a groan so full of pain it would be embarrassing.
“No, no handcuffs for you.”
Sophie pouts. “But I can be a very bad girl. I need handcuffs.”
That strangled noise I’m trying to hold back? Yeah, it comes out, and I bite my fist in frustration. “Sophie,” I grit out. “Just…get in the car!”
I look at her and see a grin so wide it must hurt. “Why are you smiling right now?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” she coos, and I feel my molars grind to dust from the pressure I’m exerting on them.
Sophie manages to get out of the fountain, and I watch her stumble to the front passenger door. “The back one, Sophie,” I tell her, and she slumps.
“Oh, dang it. Again?” When I don’t say anything, just cross my arms and give her the look , she rolls those brown eyes at me and opens the back door, falling into the seat with her ass in the air.
Baby blue with bowties on them.
That’s our panties of the day.
“It’s very boring in here,” Sophie pouts from behind the bars where I put her not two minutes ago.
“That would make sense seeing as it’s a holding cell in the police station.”
“I don’t like boring. ”
“You don’t say,” I muse, sighing off on the report I was working on before I got the call.
There is a split second of precious silence and then she starts singing “Wannabe” by Spicy Girls…with moves and all…
Forgetting the report I had waiting for me, I sit and watch this little menace slash Duracell Bunny on crack through the bars.
For the next hour she proceeds to sing every ’90s hit she knows. From Backstreet Boys to Whitney Houston, bellowing “I will Always Love You” at the top of her lungs.
I’m not sure if I want to cry or laugh at this point, but one thing’s for certain…I’ve never met anyone like this girl.
“You go, girl.” Marsha claps and whistles as Sophie finishes her concert.
“Thank you.” She tries to curtsy, but nearly falls on her face in the process.
My body is out of the chair and next to her, reaching for her arms through the bars before I can process it.
“And thank you to you, too.” She smiles at me. “You can let go of me now. I’m stable.”
“I highly doubt it.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, she rips her hand out of my grip and gives me the dirtiest look I’ve ever witnessed. “What?”
“I am perfectly stable, thank you very much! You and Vassar can both go to hell.”
“Who’s Vassar?” There’s something in my voice I don’t recognize but I squash it down, waiting for her response.
“Marsha! These men don’t deserve my songs! I’m gonna sing one for you,” she says and before I can protest or step away to shelter my ears she starts singing “Smooth Operator” by Sade.
Feeling unreasonably irked that she didn’t answer my question, I walk back over to my spot and sit, keeping my eyes on the little menace who’s now dancing all over the cell, too.
I don’t like feeling off-kilter. I haven’t for a long, long time. Even all the local crazies haven’t managed to do that. Piss me off? Hell, yes! Feel this burn in my chest? Never.
Until a week ago when I first met this firecracker .
Still must be that indigestion. I am getting up there in years.
“From where did you fall onto my head, huh?” I ask Sophie when she’s finally done singing and receives another standing ovation from Marsha.
“New York. Well, Greece, originally, but I’ve lived the majority of my life in New York.”
Surprised she actually answered my question, I lift one eyebrow, watching her small frame on the bench. Greek, huh? That explains her golden skin and fiery attitude, I guess.
“I thought I had to buy you a drink to get any information out of you?”
Sophie waves me off. “We’ve moved onto the next level already. Come on, Shrek, keep up.” My lips twitch in amusement that I mask with chin rub. The feeling slightly foreign on my face.
“Shrek?”
“Yeah, with all the layers like an onion, you know?” She waves her hand around.
“Uh-huh. And what level are we on now?”
“Oh my gosh,” Sophie shrieks out of nowhere, jolting from her spot in the cell.
“What? What it is?” My whole body is on alarm instantly. Is she hurt? Did I miss an injury when taking her out of that fountain?
“I remember why I was in the fountain,” she whisper-shouts dramatically, clutching the bars with her small fingers, those brown eyes wide saucers.
I slump back in my seat, running my tongue over my teeth and pondering at exactly which point in my life did I piss God off this much?
Because not only did he send this little menace into my life to wreak havoc, but somehow, he made me care about her…
what the fuck? …I nearly jumped out of my own skin when she shrieked.
“And?”
“I was hungry.”
“Sooo, you went looking for food in the fountain?”
“No, I went looking for the best grilled cheese Loverly Cave has to offer and then rub it in Vassar’s stupid face.” There she goes with that name again .
The burn returns.
“But then I remembered that I wanted to go swimming after the bar, but Luke wouldn’t let us. The ocean was too far. The fountain, right there.”
“Who’s Vassar?” The words come out more like a whip rather than a question.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Marsha’s raised eyebrow at my sharp tone. Don’t look at me like that, Marsha. I have fucking indigestion.
“Relax, Sheriff Hot Asshole. He’s just my older brother, so I won’t actually kill him and you won’t have to arrest me again, but you know what? You should totally arrest Vas! He’s the reason I’m in here.”
“In Loverly Cave?”
“No, in this prison.”
“You’re not in prison yet.”
“I don’t like that ‘yet’ in there.”
“You were saying something about Vassar being at fault before.”
“Oh, yeah, so like I was saying, it’s all his fault because he made me drink. Well, not literally, but he was being an ass and I needed to unwind. Hence, the drinks.”
“I’m afraid to ask what he dared say to you?”
“He accused me of being an unstable child! Can you believe that?” she shrieks.
I look over the epitome of unstable tiny menace, damp from taking a swim at the fountain, but since I already have enough problems on my plate and she’s not one of them, I say, “Nope, can’t believe it.”
“See, you get it! So what I left my job and moved across the country? He can suck it! I’m an adult! I’m a stable adult. I’m not the child he thinks I am. He wants me to prove it? Oh, I’ll show him! I’ll show him real good!”
“May I ask how? Just so I can be prepared ahead of time.”
She looks to be deep in thought for a moment as if she’s solving a world-class problem right now and then she says, “I don’t know yet. But I’ll show him! ”
“Uh-huh.” I tilt my head up. “You know, maybe he just cares about you? He’s older, I assume? Hell, if you asked my sister she’d call me the pinnacle of overbearing. Not that I am! But…yeah.”
Marsha snorts from her spot and I shoot her a look.
I have no idea where I was going with that or why I even started this conversation in the first place. Why the fuck do I care?