Fries Before Guys

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by Vale, Lani Lynn




  Fries Before Guys

  Book 2 of The SWAT Generation 2.0 Series

  By

  Lani Lynn Vale

  Text copyright ©2020 Lani Lynn Vale

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To all of those people that love reading those ‘forbidden’ love stories like me.

  Acknowledgments

  Golden Czermak- Photographer

  Jason Estes- Model

  Ellie McLove - My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing

  Cover Me Darling- Cover Artist

  My mom- Thank you for reading this book eight million two hundred times.

  Kendra, Penney, Laura, Kathy, Mindy, Lisa, Barbara & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note:

  Blurb

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  What’s Next?

  What else is next?

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale:

  The Freebirds

  Boomtown

  Highway Don’t Care

  Another One Bites the Dust

  Last Day of My Life

  Texas Tornado

  I Don’t Dance

  The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC

  Lights To My Siren

  Halligan To My Axe

  Kevlar To My Vest

  Keys To My Cuffs

  Life To My Flight

  Charge To My Line

  Counter To My Intelligence

  Right To My Wrong

  Code 11- KPD SWAT

  Center Mass

  Double Tap

  Bang Switch

  Execution Style

  Charlie Foxtrot

  Kill Shot

  Coup De Grace

  The Uncertain Saints

  Whiskey Neat

  Jack & Coke

  Vodka On The Rocks

  Bad Apple

  Dirty Mother

  Rusty Nail

  The Kilgore Fire Series

  Shock Advised

  Flash Point

  Oxygen Deprived

  Controlled Burn

  Put Out

  I Like Big Dragons Series

  I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie

  Dragons Need Love, Too

  Oh, My Dragon

  The Dixie Warden Rejects

  Beard Mode

  Fear the Beard

  Son of a Beard

  I’m Only Here for the Beard

  The Beard Made Me Do It

  Beard Up

  For the Love of Beard

  Law & Beard

  There’s No Crying in Baseball

  Pitch Please

  Quit Your Pitchin’

  Listen, Pitch

  The Hail Raisers

  Hail No

  Go to Hail

  Burn in Hail

  What the Hail

  The Hail You Say

  Hail Mary

  The Simple Man Series

  Kinda Don’t Care

  Maybe Don’t Wanna

  Get You Some

  Ain’t Doin’ It

  Too Bad So Sad

  Bear Bottom Guardians MC

  Mess Me Up

  Talkin’ Trash

  How About No

  My Bad

  One Chance, Fancy

  It Happens

  Keep It Classy

  Snitches Get Stitches

  F-Bomb

  The Southern Gentleman Series

  Hissy Fit

  Lord Have Mercy

  KPD Motorcycle Patrol

  Hide Your Crazy

  It Wasn’t Me

  I’d Rather Not

  Make Me

  Sinners are Winners

  If You Say So

  SWAT 2.0

  Just Kidding

  Fries Before Guys

  Maybe Swearing Will Help (3-10-20)

  Ask Me If I Care (4-14-20)

  May Contain Wine (5-12-20)

  Jokes on You (6-9-20)

  Join the Club (7-14-20)

  Any Day Now (8-11-20)

  Say it Ain’t So (9-8-20)

  Officially Over It (10-13-20)

  Nobody Knows (11-3-20)

  Depends Who’s Asking (12-8-20)

  Valentine Boys

  Herd That

  Crazy Heifer

  Chute Yeah

  Get Bucked

  Author’s Note:

  If I had used this KPD premise as a whole new series, I could have happily written what I wanted, but I wanted to incorporate my Kilgore guys and their families. I love writing about the SWAT team and their families, so I may have taken some liberties with the space time continuum. Enjoy!

  Blurb

  Sometimes people come into a person’s life and make their heart skip a beat.

  Those people are called cops.

  Well, one cop in particular.

  A SWAT officer for the Kilgore Police Department, to be specific.

  The first time Avery Flynn saw Derek Roberts, she was photographing him for the first annual Kilgore Police Department SWAT calendar. He was leaned back in his squad car, shirtless, and giving her a smile that was completely between them. A smile that hinted at what he wanted to do to her later.

  When she scrounges up the courage to ask him out after the photoshoot, he laughs in her face.

  Well, screw you, too, Mr. February.

  ***

  Derek Roberts never really paid attention to the photographer.

  She was a mousy girl who dressed like a twelve-year-old. Her tight leggings, extra baggy Star Trek t-shirt denoting her a Klingon captain, and her surprisingly clean Chucks didn’t leave much of an impression.

  Now, the outfit that she was in weeks after he rebuffed her? Yeah, now that caught his attention.

  Too bad that happens when he’s trying to save her from what’s sure to be death thanks to an unhinged native Texan who’s convinced she was the reason he lost his last chance at a million dollars.

  When he tries to save her, she tells him she’d rather take a cattle prod to the forehead than go anywhere with him.

  Challenge. Accepted.

  Prologue

  I really don’t mind getting older. But my body is taking it badly.

  -Coffee Cup

  Derek

  I don’t want to do a fucking picture for a calendar, Dad.

  Those had been the words that I’d said to my father, the chief of police, two weeks ago.

  Yet here I found myself, get
ting myself photographed, in a motherfuckin’ bed.

  Or, at least, there was a fucking bed in the room.

  “I am not getting in that bed,” I said to no one in particular.

  Dax, who was coming out of the room as I was going in it, rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry. I got in the bed. I’m sure she’ll make you do something else… like get naked in the shower.”

  I snorted. “I’m not doing that, either.”

  “Don’t get too excited,” a soft, feminine voice said from somewhere in the room. “I’d planned on a totally different look for Mr. February.”

  Dax slapped me on the shoulder and shut the door behind him as he left, leaving me giddy to see the owner of that voice.

  Except, when I finally got a good look at the lone figure sitting on the bed, her back to me, my excitement deflated.

  Because on the bed was Avery Flynn.

  A teenager.

  The nineteen-year-old photographer who was doing this photoshoot today for free.

  That wasn’t to say that she wasn’t very talented. She was.

  But she was also in high school and dressed—as well as acted—like a nerd.

  Avery Flynn was well known to the officers of Kilgore Police Department. But not because she was bad or anything—at least not to my knowledge.

  The reason for her notoriety was that Avery Flynn was a cop’s kid.

  A cop’s kid times two.

  Her mother, Rhonda Flynn, had been killed while heading home from a shift by a drunk driver. She’d died after two harrowing days on life support.

  She would’ve died the first day, but Rhonda had always been a helper. A person of quality and life. And Avery had decided that Rhonda’s viable organs needed to be donated.

  It’d taken her twenty-four hours to convince Rader, her father, to donate.

  Rhonda had saved eight lives in the following days. Her heart, kidneys, lungs, liver, small bowel, and pancreas had all been donated to seven different people. The heart even to a young man right here in Kilgore, Texas.

  A young man who had been the boyfriend of a town mean girl who didn’t like the attention that Avery got from the young man after his surgery. The young girl had then set out to make Avery’s life a living hell before she’d filed a restraining order against her, forcing the girl to stay five hundred feet away from Avery at all times.

  Which was tough seeing as they both went to the same high school.

  Avery’s father hadn’t been around for the bullying. But it hadn’t mattered.

  When Kilgore had lost one of its own, the town had rallied around his only child, making sure that the case was taken on pro bono by the lawyers. Then going even further to attend each and every trial day. Sometimes the judge would look into his courtroom and see more than half of the seats occupied by an officer.

  So yes, to say Avery Flynn was loved by the cops of this city would be an understatement.

  Which was why I looked at her and immediately dismissed her.

  She was a cute girl, but cuteness only got you so far.

  And she was still in high school.

  So yeah, I was staying very far away from that.

  I was so caught up in what I was thinking—Avery to be specific—that I didn’t pay attention to the girl who was no longer sitting on the bed.

  “Ready?”

  I blinked, looking down at the woman—no, teenager—who was staring at me.

  She reminded me of one of those nerdy anime chicks. The ones that were fabricated and staged.

  She had on a pair of black leggings that fit her shapely legs like a glove. They came to a stop right below her calves, exposing about four inches of milky white skin before her black Chucks with red skulls printed on them came into view.

  I had to admit, the skulls were pretty cute. Even if a bit childish.

  And why the hell was I having a problem looking away from her ankle bones? Ankle bones weren’t sexy… at least they hadn’t been before Avery.

  “I’m thinking we’ll go outside to the cruiser for your shoot,” she said, startling me out of the contemplation of her ankle bones.

  I reluctantly slipped my way back up her body, pausing slightly on her t-shirt.

  It was black like her leggings but had bold white lettering that said ‘Klingon Captain’ on it.

  The shirt was so fucking baggy that I couldn’t make out a single thing.

  Not the shape of her waist, or the curve of her breasts. Hell, I could almost make out her collarbone, though. Her shirt was very nearly hanging off of one shoulder. But her long, thick black hair was blocking it from my view.

  Long black hair that was falling in waves around a beautiful face. Perfect, kissable lips.

  “Is that okay, Mr. Roberts?” Avery asked.

  My eyes finally met hers. Eyes that I’d been avoiding since I knew they were so fucking pretty.

  This was the real reference to anime, in my opinion.

  Avery’s eyes were so fucking blue—an intense blue that just rocked you when you looked into them—that they reminded me of those girls on anime. Where their single most defining features were their eyes.

  Eyes that were slightly covered up by large, black-framed glasses that looked as if they took up her entire face.

  And then there was the dusting of freckles right underneath those big, beautiful blue eyes.

  “Derek?” she pushed. “Are you okay?”

  I blinked, snapping out of my thoughts.

  “Yeah, outside is fine,” I finally settled on, trying to get my shit straight.

  I couldn’t be having these kinds of thoughts about a woman this young.

  I certainly couldn’t be having these thoughts about a woman that was still in high school. I know there weren’t that many years between us, but just the idea that she was only a senior made me feel old.

  “Where do you want me?” I asked curiously.

  “Do you have a police cruiser?” She finally looked up.

  My breath caught once again as I caught sight of her eyes.

  “I do,” I said, surprised that my voice had come out sounding so even.

  “Then that’s what we’re going to take your photo in,” she said, going back to her camera. “I just have to switch out the lens.”

  I nodded but didn’t reply, too busy berating my body for doing things that it shouldn’t be doing for a nineteen-year-old.

  “How’s your dad?” she asked conversationally.

  And that was a very good way to get my mind out of the gutter and back to the matter at hand.

  “My dad’s good,” I said. “Going on a cruise in a few months. So I’d say he’s stressed seeing as he’s trying to figure out how to delegate tasks while he’s gone. But what he does is too much for one person to do, so he’s struggling with it.”

  Avery snorted. “Your dad works too much. And he should already be delegating a lot of those things without having to take a vacation.”

  My sentiments exactly.

  “I agree.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  Avery got her lens switched out and gestured for the door.

  I followed her, then had to take over because she stopped and looked confused.

  “This way,” I said, leading her out the back door.

  I nodded at the two men that were at the back door smoking.

  Avery, on the other hand, started to cough.

  “Oh, God.” She coughed again, waving her hand in front of her face. “That’s awful.”

  Both officers froze as they saw her.

  “Officer Morre.” She tilted her head, looking at the officer on the left. “I didn’t realize you started smoking again. Didn’t your wife say you quit?”

  Officer Morre winced. “I only do it upon occasion.”

  Avery raised a brow at Morre. “Is that right?”

  Morre immediately dumped his cigarette onto the ground and stomped it out with his boot.
/>   Officer Tuscon, the man on Avery’s right, snickered.

  “And you,” she said. “Tuscon, is it?”

  Tuscon nodded, his smile slipping away.

  “Don’t you have a pregnant wife at home?”

  Tuscon nodded. “Four months.”

  “Hmm,” Avery said. “Did you hear about that little baby, she was three years old, that got lung cancer? From secondhand smoke?”

  Tuscon froze.

  “It’s not just you anymore, my man.” Avery patted him on the shoulder. “Gotta think about that.”

  Avery followed me down the steps and to the front of my cruiser, and I couldn’t help it. I had to ask.

  ***

  Avery

  Holy. Shit.

  I was standing next to Derek Roberts, and I was about to take his photo.

  How was this my life?

  “Did you have someone close to you die of lung cancer or something?” Derek asked, looking at me curiously.

  I shook my head.

  “No,” I admitted. “I just like to spread my ‘it’s not good to smoke’ vibes everywhere. Plus, Morre’s wife, Natalie, has a family history of lung cancer. He should be doing better than he is with that hanging over his head.”

  Derek grunted.

  “Did you really know a three-year-old that got lung cancer?” he pushed.

  I snorted. “No. I didn’t know them. I only read about it on the internet.”

  He grunted again, making me think he didn’t like that I’d told the men that smoking was bad.

  Smoking was bad.

  It wasn’t my fault if they didn’t like to hear the dangers associated with it.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked, and the vibe I was getting from him was a whole lot more formal now.

  “I want you to get in your cruiser and act natural.” I paused. “With your shirt off.”

  He lifted a brow at me, making my heart race.

  “Do you honestly think it’s ‘natural’ for me to be in my cruiser shirtless?” he wondered.

  I looked at him.

  “I’m just doing what I was told to do,” I said. “If you don’t want to take off your shirt, fine. Not my business. I was just told to make you take your shirt off and make it look ‘hot’ but ‘tasteful.’ Those are direct quotes from the man in charge. So completely up to you, you’ll still look good with all of your clothes on, but Dax, who was before you? He was able to do it shirtless in the bed. Just sayin’.”

 

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