Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“That’s so stupid.”
“If I’m ever put in charge, I’ll change it back for you,” he promised.
“Okay, good.” I smiled at him before turning back to Pazzi. “So yeah, take this to Training”—I enunciated the word for Bodhi—“and tell them it’s busted. Make sure you fill out the paperwork or someone could really get hurt.”
It hit Pazzi suddenly, I could tell from the way his face fell. “Oh my God,” he gasped. “You were out there alone?”
“No,” Bodhi corrected him. “He had me. But you need to realize that at no time could you hear him, and he thought you were listening the whole time.”
Pazzi grabbed my shoulder, and I looked at his hand disdainfully, like it was a fungus, until Yamane reached out and moved it off me.
“It’s fine,” Bodhi consoled Pazzi. “You didn’t know, but now you do. Get the earpiece fixed. Fill out everything.”
“I will,” he promised.
Ever since Pazzi got back from rehab, earnest was the best word to describe him. He had been put on leave for drugs. I wanted to say oxycodone was the one that had caused the trouble, but I didn’t know for sure. I wasn’t one of the folks given that piece of information. Plus, it was none of my business. I never asked and he didn’t volunteer the information. I was with him for one thing and one thing only, which was to assess his fitness for duty. He had been in rehab for six months, and his partner, Sen Yamane, had been out on administrative leave for three and then sent to another district to work until Pazzi returned. Yamane had gotten himself in trouble because he didn’t report that his partner needed help. Instead, Yamane had covered for him. That was bad—because what if Pazzi had hurt someone or failed to help his partner when he was stoned—but I also sympathized with Yamane, because that’s what partners did. They looked out for one another. I couldn’t fault him for that. What I found most impressive was that our boss, Chief Deputy Sam Kage, had taken both back. He wasn’t shipping them off somewhere else; he wasn’t pushing his problem marshals off on another district. What he’d done was put Pazzi with me and Yamane with Bodhi for the last four months to make sure they were ready to be partners again and that both had learned their individual lessons.
Doyle had said that Bodhi and I were supposed to teach them to do everything by the book again. Really, that was hysterical. My partner and I operated on a loose interpretation of said book. Doyle had asked us if we understood our assignments.
“Absolutely,” I’d said, going for helpful with my tone. Bodhi told me later it came off as overly cheerful verging on sarcasm.
“Don’t be a wiseass,” Doyle warned me.
“What?” I’d looked to Bodhi for help.
He rolled his eyes before giving Doyle a huge smile that was supposed to be supportive. I told him later it came off as snide.
“You know what I mean,” Doyle groused at us. “Teach them not to be fuckups.”
“That we can do,” Bodhi assured him.
And that was what we’d done. They were ready to go back to working together, and since Yamane had gone to see Pazzi every week while he was in rehab, taking his lovely wife, Kyung Mi, with him to visit his partner, I was thinking they were solid. I had told Doyle as much even before the experiment started. But now, as we closed in on the four months, having it go to five was impossible for me. I needed my partner back. Since he now had a serious person in his life, I really only got work time with him unless I wanted to see his boyfriend—now fiancé—along with him. There was never a time when it was only me and Bodhi anymore. And while that was totally fair, and I had to wrap my brain around the fact that my best friend and partner was getting married in September, I missed it being just the two of us. Bodhi and Hayden were having a destination wedding at Hayden’s family compound on Mercer Island, an apparently stunning—from what I’d been told—nearly fifteen thousand square feet property close to Seattle. The family Bodhi was marrying into was crazy rich. I tried not to think about it or how shitty I felt all the time.
It was an old story. When my brain finally kicked in and decided that yes, I was going to take the chance of loving my best friend, even being absolutely certain he could do better…that, of course, was the moment he fell in love with someone else. For years Bodhi Callahan had been sending signals I’d have to be an idiot to have missed, and it made karmic sense that now the shoe was on the other foot and I was the one pining.