“Root beer,” he ordered.
I nodded and turned to the next.
The other man who’d been in the house last night.
He looked much like his brother, and it did have to be brother, now that I was getting a better look at him through non-sleepy eyes.
“And you?” I asked.
The corner of his lips kicked up into a smile as he replied with, “Coke.”
“Coke, as in Coca-Cola?” I clarified.
He nodded. “A coke is a coke.”
Whatever.
I turned to the next man. His eyes were dark and all-consuming. He was the least threatening of the group, but I knew him to be just as deadly as the next.
It was all in the eyes.
You didn’t judge a man by his appearance. Appearances could be deceiving.
You judged them by their eyes, and what you could see in their eyes.
And his had death written all over them.
“You?” I asked.
And so it went until I got to the last man. The man whose name I’d woken up moaning as I masturbated in my sleep.
And by the looks of it, the fucker must’ve heard it.
I didn’t flinch, though.
I wouldn’t.
I’d seen and heard too much, experienced more than the average twenty-year-old woman would ever experience, to be embarrassed.
Shit happened, and you either got over it, or it’d consume you.
Life was unpredictable like that.
“And you?” I asked finally, not showing even a hint of weakness.
He took a really long moment to answer.
So long that I started to shift from foot to foot as he watched me.
It’d been the reaction he’d been searching for, because he answered shortly after with a smile tipping up the corner of his lips. “Unsweetened tea. No lemon.”
I nodded and turned to go, but his words halted me in my tracks. “I might need some of your honey. To sweeten up the tea, of course.”
Mother. Fucker.
“She’s not going to remember any of those,” one of them whispered.
Not soft enough, though, because I heard. And I vowed that I wouldn’t screw up one single thing the entire time.
Some vow that was, though.
It was all the stupid red head’s fault.
Did red hair make you turn into the devil or something?
Had I done something to challenge him?
Because he was acting like I was his rival, and it should be me who was offended. He’d been the one keeping me up all night! It wasn’t like what I said was a hanging offense or anything!
It all started when I brought out the honey. The honey he’d asked for.
After setting all of their drinks down on the table in front of them, ones I’d gotten right, might I add, I asked them if they were ready to order.
They said no.
So I left, giving them five minutes while I attended to my other tables.
I had a table that was being unusually rowdy, but I let them be, knowing it was better to ignore it rather than confront them about it.
“Yeah, we’d like a couple of refills. Please feel free to bring us some of your honey, too,” the young man jeered.
I barely contained the urge to roll my eyes.
The kids were probably still in high school by the looks of their clothes, and hair. They also didn’t have much muscle to them, either.
“Alright, I’ll bring y’all a couple of refills. Do y’all want them in to-go cups?” I asked as I started to step away.
They all focused on my boobs, and I wanted to scream at them. However, that didn’t bring in the tips, so I would do what I had to do. Even if I had to endure them looking at my boobs.
It was all harmless for now.
If another table complained, then I would intervene. However, they were keeping it rather quiet, only getting rowdy when I was around, so I left them to it.
Only, when I got back from bringing them refills, none of the men would look at me, or even acknowledge me.
I turned startled eyes to the men one table over, the men I assumed were responsible for the change and saw them looking only at each other. I knew, though, that I had their attention. Just knew it.
I narrowed my eyes on the redhead, drawing his attention from whatever he was discussing with the men.
He raised his brow in silent invitation, and I narrowed my eyes at him. I didn’t rise to the goad, though. Little did he know that I knew how to handle hardheaded men who thought they knew what I needed.
I walked over to their table and stopped on the opposite side of the table this time, the one furthest away from Officer Lachlan Downy.
“Have y’all decided on what to order?” I asked, moving from foot to foot.
It was a nervous tell of mine, but they might not know it. At least I hoped, but I could tell from the small smiles on all of their faces that they knew I was uncomfortable.
So I shored up my spine and stopped moving, waiting patiently for them to go through their order.
Once again, I didn’t write anything down, and I heard them say the same exact thing as I left. “She’s never going to remember all of that.”
I just laughed as I walked into the kitchen, up to the notepad beside the grill, and pressed play on my watch.
Their orders were all played back to me, one by one, and I wrote it word for word down onto the paper.
I snorted, surprised that none of the ‘observant’ cops at that table had known what I’d done.
Then again, I’d been doing it for a month now and not one customer had noticed yet.
I handed the paper over to Vinnie and barely contained the dry heave that threatened to boil out of my throat when Vinnie took it but made sure to touch my hand even though I’d just barely been holding on to the ticket as it was.
He was very touchy, and I was fairly sure he liked to change my orders and make them wrong just so I’d come back to the back to see him.
Hence why I got the watch, so he knew I’d written the order down correctly, and couldn’t use that excuse anymore.
I’d gotten hip on what he was doing shortly after I’d gotten my fifth order wrong.
That’s when I got the watch, just so he could hear me getting the order, and then writing it down correctly.
I also made sure to check the order before I took it out there. There was nothing like being made to look stupid in front of customers.
“Is it pretty busy out there, Mem?” Vinnie asked.
I wanted to smack him.
I wasn’t really fond of nicknames, and every chance he got he used one with me.
After correcting him for the tenth time, I stopped trying, knowing it wouldn’t make a difference.
“Just the usual lunch crowd,” I said as I backed through the door.
I didn’t hear Vinnie’s reply, and couldn’t say that I was unhappy about it.
He really did creep me out, and I couldn’t wait to have my degree finished so I could get the hell out of here.
“Oh, you had two tables come in while you were in there,” Jessica said as she flipped the page.
I growled low in my throat and went to greet two of my regulars, taking their drink orders before I went to the next table.
Although I was busy, Downy still occupied all of my thoughts.
I kept chastising myself. He was a cop, and cops were not to be trusted according to my daddy. That was only because Daddy was a cop himself and had been for nearly forty years. But he knew how cops thought. Knew what they knew. He was them.
His name was Byron “Stone” Conner, and I loved him desperately. However, I didn’t love that he didn’t have any boundaries when it came to my life. Hence, why I’d moved here, and why he didn’t know how hard it was for me to get by.
Daddy was a part of The Dixie Wardens MC. His charter was in Alabama, about a four-hour drive
from the state line due East.
I’d grown up in the motorcycle club life.
I’d dealt with their shit for twenty years. The constant, silent presence at my back.
When he finally started to try to control what I did with my life, wanting me to go down a different path than what I was on, I started to pull away.
I moved out, found my own place and lived my life.
I still spoke with my dad once a week. Still saw him on holidays and birthdays. But he didn’t run my life anymore. I had friends who didn’t know my daddy was a cop or president of a motorcycle club. It’d come up eventually, but right now… right now I was happy and living my life. Even if I had to do it by living a little lean.
Mom, well Mom was just that… my mom.
She was first-generation Chinese American and an all-around badass. She had to be to deal with my daddy.
She was also the one who taught me to always be nice and respectful… something I’d do if it killed me.
Most of the time, that was.
There was always a first time for everything.
And when I went to the empty table after the rowdy inhabitants left it, I was mad enough to spit nails.
Here’s your tip: Maybe you should tell your boyfriend that he can shove his badge up his ass. Maybe if he hadn’t threatened to shove my plate up my ass, face up, you’d be getting a tip right now.
I whirled and faced the man who’d just cost me money and glared.
He caught the glare the moment I turned, and his eyes narrowed on the check that was in my hand. When he made to stand, I shoved the flimsy paper in my hand into my back pocket and turned around.
“Jessica,” I said making my way up to the bar. “The men at the back table are through. The only ones left are the ones in the front reading their newspapers, but they’ve been taken care of as well. If it’s okay, I’ll take my break now.”
Jessica waved her hand. “Sure thing, doll.”
Lord fucking save me from hard-headed men.
Chapter 4
Alphas. Men who don’t listen to a word you say. Do what they want. And expect you to deal with it.
-Fact of Life
Downy
“I think you pissed her off,” Luke said dryly.
I turned to our captain, my best friend, and glared. “Did I ask you what you thought?”
The man thought he was so fuckin’ smart now that he was married. Little did he know he wasn’t. “You want to go for a round later tonight?”
He laughed. “We can go for a round right now.”
I shoved him in the shoulder with my own and downed the rest of my drink.
“No can do. I have to meet the contractors who are putting in my floor, then I have to go to… shit,” I said as my beeper went off. “Mother fucker!”
We all stood, throwing down cash as we always did.
However, seeing the greedy woman’s eyes at the front who hadn’t done a thing the entire time we’d been here had me gathering the cash and shoving it into my pocket.
“What are you doing?” Nico asked as we started walking out.
“Girl at the counter’s looking kinda greedy. I’ll give it to her when I get home tonight,” I said as I shoved it all in my pocket.
As we were leaving, I saw Memphis sitting on the car that was normally in the parking lot of our apartment building when I got home from work.
I actually thought it didn’t work, so it was a surprise to see it out of its spot. As well as having a hot little woman on it laying back against the glass as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
She was still in her armor.
Today she was wearing black shorts that came to a stop just under her knees, a royal blue shirt that said The Angry Goose on it, and hot pink Toms.
Her hair was down today. Long and silky down to her lower back.
She was wearing a pair of sunglasses over her eyes, but I knew they were on me the moment I got out to the parking lot.
I walked to my truck, keeping my eyes on the lot in front of me, every cell in my body very much aware of the cute little Asian girl trying her damnedest to keep her own off of me.
Oh, this would be fun.
***
Six hours later I found myself just getting home.
Miller and Foster had gone straight home, but I’d gone to meet my contractor who’d agreed to come later in the day.
Luckily, the ‘hold-off’ that’d been suspected had actually been a man holding a woman hostage with a sausage.
Yes, you heard correctly. A sausage.
After James, the sniper on the SWAT team, let us know what it was, the rest of the op was easy.
We went in, arrested the suspect, ridiculously easily, and got home within an hour.
That was the majority of SWAT calls. But there were always the ones that weren’t stupid, like being held at ‘gunpoint’ not with a sausage. There were ones that could literally mean life or death.
Death of yourself. Death of another living person.
That’s what I loved about SWAT, though.
Unpredictability.
It was what I wanted to do… who I wanted to be.
I made it up the stairs to find the hallway dark still.
Mocha’s claws clicked on the wooden floor underneath our feet and kept clicking even after I stopped at our door.
She didn’t go far, though, stopping about halfway between my place and my neighbor’s place.
“Kind of weird to be hanging out in a darkened hallway,” I mused as I put the key into the door on the first try.
“You jipped me a tip today,” Memphis said from the darkness. “In fact, it was two tips.”
I snorted and pushed the door open, hitting the lights just inside the door.
The lone light hanging in the entranceway burned bright, illuminating a small part of the hallway, and only the tips of Memphis’ boots.
I turned and studied what I could see of her.
She wasn’t in the same clothes she’d been wearing earlier at the diner, but a pair of worn looking jeans, a long-sleeved white t-shirt, and boots.
“Do you ever wear comfortable pants?” I asked.
She crossed her arms over her chest, and though I couldn’t see her face, I knew she was glaring at me.
The woman was good at glaring.
“Yes. When I’m at home,” she conceded.
I shook my head. “You are at home.”
“True, but I’m not inside my home. I was going to go for a walk,” she explained.
“How old are you? You act like you’re some fifty-year-old prude,” I said in exasperation.
She smiled. “Twenty.”
I blinked. Twenty?
What the fuck?
My dick was hot for a twenty-fucking-year-old?
What the fuck?
I really needed to get my head on straight. Jesus, I was fourteen years older than her.
I should be stepping far, far away from her. Not encouraging this.
But God did I want her.
I couldn’t help myself.
I took my keys and shoved them back in my pocket, waving at Miller who was on my couch and closed the door. “Let’s do it.”
“Let’s do what?” she asked.
I found her hand in the darkness and urged her toward the stairs.
“Why are you going on a walk in the middle of the night?” I asked.
I could hear her boots click on each step, the dogs’ collars jingle, and the slightly elevated breathing of not just Memphis, but me as well.
“It’s eleven o’clock. Not the middle of the night. And we live in an apartment; I can’t just let Peter outside to do his business by himself. Not with how everyone’s dogs are disappearing lately,” she explained
I agreed.
She’d never get the dog back. There’d been a rash of dog thefts lately. Especially, the bigger ones. “No, I don’t
think it’d be a good idea,” I agreed.
“Did you have anything to do with the investigation into the humane society’s break-in last week?” she asked as we stepped outside.
I shook my head. “No. I’m not a detective. Although, I’ve been asked to patrol the area a little more heavily while I’m on watch.”
She hummed in understanding. “That’s the way my father is, too. I ask him how such and such investigation is, going and he shrugs. He just says, ‘Baby, I’m not a detective. That’s not in my job description.’”
I looked at her sharply. “Your dad is a cop?”
She nodded. “Yes. He’s in Alabama, though. Mooresville, to be exact.”
I was surprised, to be honest. The ‘fuck the cops’ vibe she’d been giving off during the class the other day must’ve just been special for me. How nice of her.
“How long has he been a cop?” I asked.
“Years. I think he gets his forty-year pin next year.” She pursed her lips. “Or maybe the year after. I can’t really tell you, to be truthful.”
I nodded. “They all seem to bleed from one year to the next once you’ve been doing it that long. Does he just not want to move up to detective or something?”
She shook her head. “My daddy’s a wild child at heart. He likes set hours, and he’s very fixed in his ways. Plus, he likes his personal time. He and my mom go all over the United States on short vacations throughout the year.”
I understood that completely. “Set hours would be nice.”
Just thinking about today and how I’d had to reschedule with the contractor was only one such instance when having predictable hours would’ve been more convenient.
Our shoulders bumped as we both stepped over a crack in the uneven walkway, causing her to look at me, and me to look at her.
“Sorry,” I muttered, trying as inconspicuously as I could to move my dick into a better position.
It was getting hard to walk with a semi-stiffy. Especially since I’d been fighting a losing battle with it all day long. I needed a good lay, and from the vibes pouring off of Memphis, I wouldn’t be getting it from her.
Not yet, anyway.
“Shouldn’t your dog be on a leash or something?” she asked suddenly.
Code 11- KPD SWAT Box Set Page 44
