Chapter Fifteen
Dan
I wasn’t normally dumb.
In the past, I’d been salutatorian of my high school class and graduated UGA with honors. Twice.
But I’d been a little stupid when it came to me and Lila. Anybody with good common sense would have had a what-the-future-looks-like conversation.
I hadn’t.
Instead, I’d dived into her, figuring we were on the same path.
Now I knew we weren’t – well, kinda, because she hadn’t dumped me so she was at least thinking about a future with me in it – I had to be smarter. Couldn’t assume. Had to be straight up about my feelings and intentions.
And I had to be steady.
Everything my father hadn’t been.
My head felt better, and the nose splint was gone. A week after I’d gotten my ass handed to me, I was back at work, but not in my car yet. Dix had me on a desk, answering non-emergency calls and taking reports.
I was bored out of my freaking skull.
Although the work was tedious, I stayed busy enough I couldn’t overthink. Really, I had nothing to overthink. I couldn’t control how Lila felt about me. All I could do was decide I was in for the long haul, be smarter from this point, and do right by her.
Maybe prepare myself if she decided I wasn't for her. That would hurt, but maybe I’d see it coming – unlike getting a chair to the face.
“Hey.” Dix dropped into the vinyl chair adjacent to the olive-green metal desk that had probably seen World War II. The chair with its squash yellow upholstery wasn’t much newer. My chief gestured at his nose. “Look a little better there. How you feeling?”
“Like I’m tired of explaining to Mrs. Milson that she lives in the county and we can’t help her.
” I lifted my chin in greeting. From the mirror in the men’s room, I knew I looked more human, with the swelling subsiding and the bruises shifting from mottled purple to more yellow and green. “What’s up?”
Dix stretched his legs out and crossed one ankle over the other. “So Dougherty County PD is doing this new thing, putting an investigator in the car with a patrol officer.”
I nodded. Josh and I had talked about it over lunch earlier in the week, after he’d come back from a joint training exercise with DCPD I’d missed because Jim Ed Reese was a piece of shit. He was still in a patrol car over in Haynes County, too. “You thinking about it?”
“Thinking about piloting with you and Vic.”
I darted a quick look at him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. She’d make a hell of an investigator.” Dix shrugged, gaze steady on my face, measuring. “And it would give you some exposure to investigations.”
Leaning back in my chair, I turned the idea over. Sharing a car with Vic wouldn’t be awful. She was smart, and I could learn from her.
“You didn’t know the answer yet when you interviewed, but now you’d have some time.” Dix pulled my attention back to him. “What are you thinking career-wise?”
I paused, bottle of water halfway to my mouth, and shrugged. A hint of heat touched my face. “I don’t know. Might depend on Lila.”
“Yeah?” Dix lifted both brows, still watching me. “You’re serious about her.”
“I am. I like patrol work. But if we go the distance . . .” I wasn’t thinking about the alternative to that. “I have to consider her.”
“I get that.” Dix scuffed his palm along his jaw and shifted to his feet. He clapped me on the shoulder. “And you’ve got time. Don’t have to know everything today.”
The day crawled by, and my eagerness to see Lila made it slower.
We’d taken some space after that conversation the night after I’d been injured.
I didn’t want her to feel crowded, and I meant what I said – I needed her to think about us.
Normally, we didn’t live in each other’s pockets, either, so going two or three days without seeing each other was normal.
This time, we’d stretched that to six, although we’d texted and Facetimed like normal.
Tonight, Chuck and Deanne had invited us for dinner. Not exactly a hot date night – hell, I couldn’t even consider this a date. But I was ready to see her, to be close to her.
And if nerves sat like a lump in my gut, that was my problem. I would not make it hers.
Once I finally made it home, I showered, although I’d done jack squat at work to actually need a shower, and pulled on jeans and a gray t-shirt.
That lump of nerves shifted to a buzz of anticipation as I made the drive over to pick her up.
My phone sat in the console, screen dark, and I scowled.
I still felt weird since Allison “found“ it in the ER. Didn’t like her touching my stuff, and I was damn glad she hadn’t been my nurse that night.
At least she’d left me alone about Nicole. And I hadn’t seen Nicole in days, either.
That didn’t bother me at all, considering the last time I’d helped her, I’d ended up with a concussion and my face busted up.
I strode to the door and knocked, gaze trailing over the front of the house. Really didn’t like how high those shrubs were against the windows. If she was okay with it, I’d ask Shane if he cared if I cut them. Her landlord had been a few years ahead of me in school, and he was an okay guy.
Her trash can still sat next to the garage, too, and pickup was tomorrow–
“Hey!” Her breathless greeting slid over me. One step forward, and I dropped a kiss on her lips. She gripped the edge of the door, not quite looking at me. We’d been awkward like this all week over FaceTime, too, but it made sense.
We weren’t where we were, and neither of us quite knew this new place yet.
“I’m running late.” She gestured at the hot rollers still in her blonde hair. “Give me just a couple of minutes.”
I caught her wrist – man, her skin was so damn soft – and tugged her back to me, the warmth of her along my chest and belly.
I lowered my head to kiss her for real, toying with her bottom lip, letting my other hand rest just above her ass at the small of her back.
She melted into me, opening her mouth to kiss me back.
Lifting my head, I smiled and gently touched the tip of my nose to the side of hers. “I never mind waiting for you, baby.”
She froze, and my stomach tightened up again before she patted my chest. “Five minutes.”
That meant ten, but who cared? Not Chuck and Deanne, whose invitation had been along the lines of seven-ish.
She bustled away, and I caught the door. “Hey, I’m taking your can to the road.”
Smiling at her muffled thank you, I closed the door behind me and grabbed the receptacle and wheeled it out to the curb. On the way back, I glanced over her car. Tires looked good, but she’d need wiper blades soon. I made a mental note to pick those up from O’Reilly’s.
When I walked in, she stood in the living room, putting in her earrings. “You’re the best.”
I snorted. “You’re only saying that because you’d forget and it’d still be sitting there next week.”
“Absolutely I’d forget.” She grinned, eyes bright with humor. She was so damn pretty, and when she smiled, my heart always made this weird thump against my chest wall.
“You ready?”
With an affirmative hum, she pressed the bakery box from the coffee table into my hands and picked up a bunch of flowers. She pointed at the box. “Do Chuck and Deanne like those?”
“Chuck eats anything that won’t eat him first.” I peered through the cellophane at the chocolate-and-pecan cookies. “But these are Deanne’s favorite.”
“Oh, good.” With a sweet smile, she tucked her arm through mine, untangling long enough to lock the front door. I helped her into the truck and stood in the door until she fastened her seatbelt. With the box of cookies on the back seat, I jogged around to the driver’s side.
She fiddled with the edge of the seatbelt while I backed out of the drive, and I caught the look she flicked at me beneath her lashes. The awkwardness surrounded us again, and I hoped we wouldn’t be this way long.
I shifted to drive. “How was your day?”
“It was good.” She rubbed her thumb along the belt edge again. “I locked down the Calhoun Regional sales.”
“All right.” She’d been working on that account for weeks. I squeezed her knee, like I would have before.
“What about you?”
“I’m still answering the phone and bored.” I slanted a smile at her. “Dix is thinking about pairing me with Vic, like an investigator and patrol partnership.”
“Oh. Okay. That sounds interesting.” With her hands now twined together in her lap, she glanced sideways at me once more. “Are you interested in that?”
“Investigations? I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t plan to be a cop at first, but I like it.” Braking for the stop sign, I cleared my throat. “Where I go with it might depend on us.”
This time, her look at me was straight-on and wide-eyed. “On us?”
“Well, yeah.” I waited for an SUV to fly by too fast for the road then turned left. “If we end up long term, you have plans, and I’d fit my career around those.”
“Wait.” She turned sideways in her seat. “You’d fit around my career.”
I shrugged. “Cops are needed everywhere. I might be choosy about what department, but yeah, I could go anywhere. Haven’t decided about going GBI or GSP yet, so I might just stay on the road somewhere.”
“You’d move for me.” She spoke slowly, like she tried to wrap her head around the idea.
“Yeah, baby.” I shot her a sidelong grin. She didn’t get it. At all. “I’d move for you.”
“Really.”
One corner of my mouth quirked. I was grateful smiling no longer hurt like a son of a bitch. “Really.”
“So like if I got a promotion or an Atlanta sales route, you’d want to be where I was.”
“I would.” I lifted my thumb from the wheel in punctuation. “Might want to commute out to a smaller department or something if we were in Atlanta, but yeah. I’d want to be where you were.”
“Do you want to be married?” Her gaze lay on my face like a weight, as serious as her voice. “To have kids?”
“You proposing?”
“Dan.”
A chuckle worked up from my throat. “See, this is the talk we should have had. Yeah, eventually, I want to be married. I’m okay either way with kids. How about you?”