CHAPTER TWELVE #2
“Bud”—Dad snorted, shaking his head—“you've had it bad for her for a long time, and we all fuckin' know it. And it's cool. I mean, it's an innocent crush, and she's a nice girl. But she's happy with this guy, and I'm just kinda wondering if it's time you maybe … I dunno … find another nice girl.”
I opened my mouth to speak, to lie and say I didn't have it that bad, when the very nice girl of my dreams appeared behind us. Along with the guy she was currently happy with.
“Hi!” Meg exclaimed. “There's a lot of people here.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. “My parents went a little crazy, inviting people at the last minute.”
“I feel like the whole town is stuffed between a few rooms,” she said with a laugh. “I walked in and felt like Norm on Cheers—you know what I’m talking about? My grandma watches that show all the time. Anyway, I came in and everyone was like, 'Meg!' “
I chuckled, though I had never seen an episode of Cheers and didn't have any clue who this Norm she’d mentioned was. But I got the gist of what she was saying—she was popular around here, and everyone knew her name—and I replied, “That's what happens when an entire town loves you.”
She closed her lips and offered a shy smile, and Dad jabbed his elbow into my ribs, and Jack cleared his throat and raised his chin a bit higher, and I wondered what the hell I had said to set everyone so off-kilter.
“We all fuckin’ see it,” Dad had said.
Meg knew I'd liked her once upon a time, but I hadn't mentioned as much in over a year. Did she still see it even though I tried covering it up?
Did Jack see it too?
One look into his eyes told me he did.
He offered a hand, and when I accepted, he squeezed my palm a little tighter than was necessary.
I squeezed back.
“Congratulations on graduating,” he said, giving me a smile that didn't at all reach his eyes.
Something told me it wasn't Jack's idea to come. Something told me Jack hadn't wanted to come at all.
“Thanks, man,” I replied.
“It's good to find at least a little direction in life,” he said, dropping my hand like it was a cold, wet fish and wiping his palm on the thigh of his khakis.
“What is it you do, Jack?” Dad asked, leaning against the doorframe. “I feel like Patrick must've mentioned it at some point, but I dunno. Can't seem to remember.”
I fought a smirk as Meg quietly excused herself to find her dad.
At six foot seven and six foot three, respectively, Dad and I towered over Jack and his modest five-ten.
With his crisp button-down and pressed slacks, I wondered what the hell Meg saw in him.
She was a nice girl, and, yeah, maybe I was a little rougher around the edges than what she was used to, but I was a nice guy too.
This dude … Jack … he was surface-level nice, but beneath his clean exterior, he was pompous.
He had a stick shoved so far up his ass that I was surprised he could speak with it lodged in his throat.
Everyone else seemed to like him. Seemed to think he was good for her. But, no, I disagreed.
I'd be good for her.
She'd be good for me.
“I'm an accountant at a tax firm,” Jack replied, slipping his hands into his pockets for something to do.
“It's …” He pressed his eyes shut and shook his head with a smugness that forced my urge to punch him in the face.
“It's complicated, a lot to explain. It'd probably bore the two of you if I tried.”
A low sound scraped through Dad's throat as he slowly nodded. “Ah. Must be why I didn't remember. It sounds boring.”
A smile slithered across Jack's lips. “My dad owns the firm,” he said. “I'm going to take over one day.”
“Good for you,” Dad replied. “Must be nice to have your career handed to you and not have to work toward something.”
“I dunno,” I chimed in, frowning. “Not sure that's anything to be proud of.”
“Well, hey,” Jack said, his face lighting up with a new brand of condescension, “I guess the bar was set pretty low for you, huh, Noah? When one dad's a murderer and the other is a … what? Ex-drug dealer? I think that's what I read—”
I took a step closer, crowding his space. “Bite your tongue before I wrinkle that fucking shirt of yours,” I warned from between clenched teeth.
“It's okay, Noah,” Dad said, wrapping a hand around my arm and tugging me back.
“Jack, if you're going to step foot in my house, you're going to respect the people who live in it, and that's all I'm gonna say about that.
Enjoy yourself, enjoy the food my wife and mother-in-law made, but if I hear you say one more thing about me or my family, I'll carry you out of here myself … easily. You understand?”
Jack's eyes lingered on mine for a moment before lifting to Dad's. Then, reluctantly, he nodded.
“Good,” Dad replied. “Find your girlfriend and get yourself a plate.”
Jack slunk away in search of Meg. Possessive fury wrapped its cold, icy fingers around my throat as I clenched my fists at my sides.
“You know how I said you should find another nice girl?” Dad murmured, lifting his cup to his lips.
“Mmhmm,” I replied, afraid to say anything more. Afraid I wouldn't find the control to not throw a string of curses after Jack, who was apparently a jackass.
“I take that back,” he said, his voice muffled. “She needs to open her fucking eyes and notice what’s right in front of her.”
And what Dad meant by that, I wasn't sure. I didn't ask for clarification—if he was talking about Jack's shitty personality beneath his clean, shiny exterior … or if he was referring to me.
But I hoped he meant me.
I really, really hoped he meant me.
***
I started work at the RCPD that following week, as Patrick had promised, and my first role as a police officer was to sit at a desk in the front office and answer the phones.
Being a secretary wasn't exactly what I’d had in mind when I said I wanted to be Batman, but, hey, it was a start, and it was a better step in the right direction than getting stoned every weeknight and looking for trouble.
Plus, I was down the hall from Meg.
“Mason, what the hell are you reading?” Officer Mike, one of the cops who'd been here the night of Seth’s attack on us, asked as he walked in from his lunch break.
I turned the book I was holding over to look at the cartoon illustration on the cover.
“You can't read?” I asked, raising a brow. “It's called Kiss and Don’t Tell. Clearly says it right here—see?” I ran my finger over the words and read them again, slower than before.
“Yeah, wise guy. I can read, thanks,” he muttered with a smirk. “Why are you reading that? Looks like one of those smut books my wife reads.”
“Because it is,” I replied, opening the book back up to the page I was on. “Not bad though. It's pretty funny.”
He took a seat at his desk and snickered a bit. “Wouldn't have pegged you as someone who read girlie books.”
“I don't usually,” I muttered, diving back into the book.
“Decided you needed a change of pace from, what? Little Women? Pride and Prejudice?” He laughed like he'd just made the cleverest joke.
“It was given to me,” I muttered absent-mindedly, starting to read again.
“By who?”
“A friend,” I grumbled, growing exceedingly more annoyed the longer he talked when I was obviously trying to get some reading done in between calls.
Which didn't happen often, it seemed.
Not much went down in small towns, where crime was as foreign of a concept as a biblical-level flood sweeping over the earth.
Not impossible, but … unlikely.
“Oh, a friend, huh?” He laughed again, slumping into his office chair and opening a drawer to dig into his candy stash. “I bet I can guess what kinda friend that is.”
“Bet you can't,” I muttered.
“Any woman who wants a guy to read a book like that is hoping he gets some ideas,” he went on as he dug through the pile of chocolate bars and lollipops. “So, I hope you're taking notes because—”
The door opened, and in walked Sergeant Kinney, accompanied by his daughter, her curls pulled back into a bouncy ponytail.
Her shift on the emergency hotline was about to begin, and I quickly tucked my bookmark—a receipt from Black & Brewed—between the pages and stuffed the book into my desk before straightening my back and attempting to look busy.
Officer Mike narrowed his suspicious eyes at me before following my gaze. When he saw Meg, he pursed and twisted his lips to the side, slowly nodded his head, and waggled a finger at me before dipping that hand back into the candy drawer.
“Say no more, young Mason.”
“Look who's here!” Meg exclaimed, heading over to my desk with a grin plastered on her face.
Her lips were painted a rosy pink. It was a different color from what she usually wore. It was deeper in shade. Less glossy. Softer-looking.
I needed to stop staring at her mouth, but, damn, I liked that color. I liked it on her.
“How do you like being a working man?” she asked, oblivious to my silent critique of her choice in lipstick as she picked up the shiny new plaque with my name on it and turned it over in her hand.
“Uh …” I cleared my throat and gave my head a quick shake. “It's good. A little slow, but, you know …”
Patrick chuckled. “Get used to it, kid. Why do you think I harass my wife all day at work? Not much to do around here.”
“Yeah, until someone's psycho bio dad decides to break down the door,” I muttered jokingly, making light of my past because if you couldn’t laugh, what the hell else did you have? Depression? Addiction? A futile battle with psychosis?
Patrick shook his head, looking unamused. “Not funny, Noah. Come on. You know your parents don't like you jokin' around like that.”
“Yeah? Well, guess what. They're not here,” I pointed out. “And right now, you're not my dad's buddy. You're—”
“Your boss,” he said, smirking as he clapped a hand against my shoulder. “And I say, knock it off with that talk. We can get ya on the streets soon, if ya want, but I'm tellin' ya, there's more to do here than there is out there.”
“More bad guys out there,” I countered, turning my attention back to Meg, who was watching me now with a knowing smile tugging at those rosy lips.
“Trust me, kiddo,” Officer Mike said as he tore open a Milky Way, “there ain't no bad guys out there. And we like to keep it that way.”
He doesn't know that, I caught myself thinking.
But didn't he though? He'd been at the job for as long as I was aware.
Hell, I didn't know how old Sergeant Kinney was, but I was pretty sure Officer Mike was even older.
I was the new kid. The young blood. Maybe I'd been sold a pipe dream of stopping the evildoers when I applied to fucking River Canyon instead of Hartford or New Haven, where the activity would be more abundant.
What the hell difference was I going to make in a place like this?
“Don't listen to him,” Meg said quietly. “He has no idea. He hasn't moved from that desk in his entire career.”
“I heard that, missy,” Officer Mike said.
She ignored him with a dismissive wave of her hand. “If you want to get out on the street, you will, and I promise, there's stuff out there for you to do.”
I nodded because, of all people, she and her dad would know, wouldn't they? She picked up the calls, and she sent her dad to save lives. It was what they did, that dynamic duo, and it was their footsteps I wanted to follow in.
“You're growing a beard,” she commented, unexpectedly changing the subject.
“Huh?” I raised my brows, like I had no idea what she was talking about, when it suddenly hit me, and I rubbed my palm against my chin.
“O-oh, right. Yeah, I thought it'd be a nice change. I feel kinda like a, uh … a kid trying to look like a grown-up, but … you know …” I shrugged, laying both hands in my lap and swiveling a bit in my chair.
Her gaze lingered on my jaw, my mouth, before she nodded. “No, it is. A nice change, I mean. It looks good.”
I couldn't help but grin. “Yeah? You think so?”
She nodded, tightening her hold on that gigantic tote bag she always carried. “I do.”
“I guess I'm keeping it then,” I replied, continuing to swivel from side to side while wondering what the hell was going on and why she was still standing there and how I could force facial hair to grow faster.
Her eyes danced across my face for a moment before they dropped to my chest and the badge I now proudly wore. Then she nodded, seemingly to herself, before touching her fingertips to the edge of my desk.
“I'll see you later, okay?”
“You know where to find me,” I said, tipping my head and smiling.
Her hands wrapped tightly around the straps of her bag. “Right back at ya.”
“Maybe we’ll do lunch together,” I boldly added before she could walk away, “if you don’t have other plans.”
Slowly, she began to nod. “That’d be nice.”
Then she did walk away, holding her head down as she rushed past the other officers—including her father, who watched her hurry down the hallway to her office with the other two 911 operators they kept on hand.
When she was gone, Patrick's eyes lingered on the empty hall for a moment before looking back at me. And where I expected him to look angry, maybe even territorial, he only raised a brow as he wandered over.
“Mason,” he said in a commanding tone, planting both hands on the edge of my desk and leaning forward.
I cleared my throat and straightened in my chair as I looked up into his looming face. “Yes, sir?”
“If ya wanted to work the streets, why didn't ya say so?”
I shrugged. “I figured I'd just … do whatever you told me to do.”
He nodded slowly, keeping his eyes on mine. “All right. Tomorrow mornin', instead of sittin' here, you're comin' with me. Sound good?”
A rush of excitement pulsed through my limbs, and I resisted the urge to jump up and pump my fist in the air. Instead, I nodded. “Sounds good.”
He offered a single curt nod before turning away and heading toward his own office down the hall, leaving me to smirk at the back of Officer Mike’s head.
Some guys choose to sit at a desk, I thought. But I'm choosing to save lives.