Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 85725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Excitement bursts through Jaye’s entire expression. “And that plan is better than the original.” Love and mirth overwhelm it next. “How do you keep doing that? How are you even thinking right now?”
More arrogance coats my chortles. “Can you not? Have I literally fucked your brains out?”
“I think so.”
This time we laugh together but unfortunately have it cut short by the doorbell.
“Wonder who that is,” Jaye absentmindedly ponders while sitting up to get the pajamas she didn’t spend much time in last night.
“Maybe Mrs. Tippet returning a cookie dish?”
My suggestion is met with another impressed hum. “That would make sense. She’s usually up this early to go shopping for her bird.”
“Mathew Macawnaughey.”
We both grin at the terrible pun.
Yeah, alright. It’s a little funny.
Once we’re both properly dressed, we head for the door together, hands locked as if we’re incapable of being parted for too long.
This is the first time I’ve ever been like this. Kind of worried I look too clingy. Kind of don’t fucking care.
Jaye opens the door to reveal more than one surprise. The first is the sound of shouting coming from our least favorite neighbor and the second is her father.
Dressed completely in his lieutenant’s uniform.
Hat included.
Fuck. Me. He looks like a hit man trying infiltrate a local precinct to take out a target. What? It doesn’t matter that I read a book like that last week. It doesn’t make the shit less true.
“Dad!” Jaye squeaks, body immediately flying away from mine to hug him.
“Sugar.” He uses his free hand to warmly embrace her, suspicious scowl shot my direction over her shoulder. When she pulls back, he playfully asks, “Gonna let me in? It’s cold and loud out here.”
The two of us step out of his way to allow him entry at the same time she asks, “Is that Gwenith?”
“The number one pain in the ass for the precinct every New Year’s Eve?” Lieutenant Jenkins humorously nods. “That’d be her.”
“Why’s she yelling?”
“From the sounds of it, argument with her husband.” He respectfully removes his hat from his head. “I heard what I believe to be glass shattering, so I went ahead and called it in. For everyone’s safety.”
She beams proudly up at him. “Of course, you did, Dad.”
His stare cuts to me and rather than wait for his daughter to remember I’m present or that we haven’t officially fucking met, I push my shoulders back and extend an open palm his direction. “Lieutenant Jenkins, I’m Archer Cox.”
“Charles.” He tucks the hat under his arm to shake my hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you ‘Pizza Dude’, especially considering the fact you live with my little girl.”
Our grips drop and so does my gaze to his cringing daughter. “I know I probably should’ve told you sooner, and I wanted to tell you sooner, but I didn’t want you to do the thing where you start pulling his records-”
“And what? Discover that he spent a weekend in the drunk tank after a bar fight two years ago?”
“It was warmer than the street, sir.”
His brown stare she obviously gets hers from lands on mine. “You were living on the street?”
“I was.”
“Why not with family?”
“Orphaned and never adopted, sir.”
“Friends?”
“Died in combat, sir.”
“A shelter?”
“They were at capacity, sir.”
“Can we maybe stop interrogating my boyfriend for a minute?” Jaye squeakily interjects. “You know the very thing I wanted to avoid, by not telling you sooner.” His attention snaps back to his daughter prompting her to ask, “Not that I hate unannounced visits, but why the drop by? And in your uniform?” Her hands slam themselves on her hips in disapproval. “Did you wear this just to intimidate him?!”
Honestly not intimidated. Not by his outerwear anyway. The look of rage and murder lingering just on the other side of his gaze on the other hand, has me wishing we would’ve met in a public setting. With cameras. And witnesses.
“Lucky coincidence there.” His grin is undeniably teasing. “I’ve got a charity event to attend this morning and wearing my uniform is required.” Charles shifts his hat from one side to the other. “And I didn’t drop by unannounced. I called. Twice. I also texted. Not receiving any sort of response from my daughter who is always up at this time, did have me nervous, but your mom insisted it was just the attire making me more suspicious.” He casually extends the bundled objects in his hand towards her. “This is the reason I was stopping by. You forgot it after dinner, and I knew you needed it for work.”
She winces again as she accepts the offering. “Right…The training manuals.”
He slowly nods prior to sighing, “And I know dinner last night wasn’t…the best…which is why you were in a rush to leave, which is also probably why you forgot them.”
The books become cradled to her chest in a guilty fashion.