Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
I looked back over at Steel to find him grinning.
“So you got one when you broke up?”
I shook my head. “No. I got one the next week, thinking I’d show Matt. I did. He got really, really pissed. Then he tried to take it back. Since my name was the only one on the note, they wouldn’t do anything without my say so. Pissed him off greatly, and I think ultimately that was the first fork in the road that led him to start cheating on me.”
I was also upside-down on the note, and probably would be for the foreseeable future.
Steel had nothing to say to that, so I chose to continue.
“It came with two keys. A black key, and a red key,” I told him.
I knew he’d ask. It never took them long.
“And what’s the difference?”
“The difference is that the black key is just the normal key. With it, it drives like the next step down model would. But the red key is the—well—key.” I grinned.
“And what does the red key do?” He came to a stop beside my car and touched the Hellcat symbol on the driver’s side door, dropping down onto his haunches to do it.
“The red key is what turns the supercharger on,” I explained. “And I haven’t ever ridden with it before. I’m literally nervous that if I get the red key out, I’ll get a ticket for going a hundred and fifty on the highway.”
Steel burst out laughing. “Oh, darlin’.”
I grinned and popped the trunk, gesturing for Steel to take the booster seat.
Once he had it, he walked with it to his cruiser and opened the back door.
I grinned as I saw him strap it onto the seat with the tethers.
“You do that often?” I questioned.
“Every fucking Tuesday,” he answered. “I’m the car seat expert at the precinct. Since I’m certified and the other guys aren’t, I’m usually the one that runs out there to check it if I’m there. There are a few others that are certified throughout the PD, but most of the time they just tell whomever it is to come back when I’m there.”
I smiled. “That’s actually kind of cute.”
He shot me a look that clearly said what he thought of me saying he was ‘cute.’
But he was. In his uniform, even it being slightly wrinkled from his day (or night, technically, depending on which way you looked at it) he was very cute.
Sexy.
Very sexy.
So sexy that sometimes I thought about him when I got my shower.
Yeah…I couldn’t wait for the kids to go to school.
“Thank you again for taking them,” I said just as the front door burst open, the door handle hitting the wall with Cody’s exuberance to ride in a ‘real life police car.’
Steel’s eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled. “Not a problem, since I’m already going over there anyway.”
And then he had my kids packed in his cruiser, and moments later I had the house to myself.
I walked back inside and got a couple hours of sleep, but not before I took my shower.
Where my magical shower head was.
My magical shower head that I was now calling Steel.
Temporarily.
For now.
Not.
I was such a fucking liar.
***
It was a nearly six hours later in town that I saw Sean, Steel’s son.
I’d just picked Conleigh and Cody up early from school to get their flu shots, and I was standing in the middle of the doctor’s office parking lot.
“Conleigh, take Cody inside and get yourselves signed in,” I ordered.
Conleigh did as she was instructed, taking Cody by the hand and disappearing inside without another word.
I then turned all my attention to Sean.
He was big and intimidating just like his father, but with him holding his daughter while she slept and drooled down the back of his motorcycle vest—or cut I was told earlier by my daughter—he didn’t seem as threatening.
It was with Steel’s words bouncing around in my brain that I got the courage to approach.
Today I was using my cane, and I moved a little slower than I would’ve liked, because before I’d even gotten halfway there, he was on the move again.
“Hey, Sean!”
Sean turned, saw me, and then furrowed his brows.
Sean knew me because he’d denied me a job about a month and a half ago.
He almost looked worried as I approached.
“Yeah?”
I could tell he still felt poorly for not passing me a couple of months ago when I’d gone to retest to continue working PRN—or as needed—with the local ambulance service.
Yet, I knew it wasn’t his fault.
I knew it, he knew it, but he still felt bad.
Which then, in turn, caused me to feel bad.
“I’m not here to say anything about you not allowing me to keep my job,” I blurted.
He looked relieved to hear that.
“I’m here to ask you if you knew that your father worked without a bullet proof vest on.”