Offically Over It

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  Where I would make an A, he would make an A+. Where he would hit a homerun in baseball, I would hit two in softball.

  It was a vicious cycle of us showing each other up time after time, and eventually we got to the point where we were becoming a little bit too serious about it.

  But no matter what, he always had my back and I always had his.

  It was a grudging sort of protection, but we had it for each other much the same.

  “It’s nothing,” I admitted as I looked around the room. “I have ten minutes until I can leave.”

  I’d told myself I would stay for the first half an hour just to make sure things were going well before I called it a night.

  Tomorrow I had to go to work at my real job.

  “Why do you…” He trailed off as something caught his eye a little farther into the shadows just down the wall from us.

  “What?” I asked softly.

  “Do you see that man?” he asked.

  I squinted hard and did, indeed, see the man he was talking about.

  “I do.” I paused. “Why?”

  “He’s got a gun.”

  I gasped and squinted. “How do you…”

  “Nobody move!” the man bellowed, stepping out of the shadows.

  I felt my face fall into a panicked sort of frozen shock as I stared at the gun that was aimed at the room at large.

  My eyes caught Nathan’s and I saw him slide down the length of the wall, keeping to the shadows.

  Nathan moved until he was directly behind the man with the gun and hit like the viper he was, pulling his arm back and punching the man straight in the back of the neck. At the same time he reached for the gun that the man was holding and shoved it upward so that if it did go off it wouldn’t be aimed at the multitude of people in the room.

  The gun didn’t go off.

  The man on the other side of the gunman, however, chose that moment to aim his own gun at Nathan just as the first guy fell to the floor.

  “Put your hands up!” the second gunman ordered of Nathan.

  Nathan’s face went hard as stone as he did as he was instructed.

  And that was when I showed him what my uncles and stepfather taught me how to do.

  With the guy distracted with Nathan, I followed Nathan’s earlier course and stayed to the shadows.

  Only when I was directly in front of him did I step out of the shadows, push his gun arm upward, and ram my knee into the guy’s balls so hard that the guy doubled over in pain.

  I guess I kind of expected that would incapacitate him.

  But, apparently, it wasn’t enough.

  Despite his agonizing pain, the man was able to reach out and strike me across the cheek.

  But before he could get another lick in, Nathan was there, saving me from a bullet straight to the face.

  “Easy there, killer,” Nathan said after he’d kicked the guy in the jaw. “Don’t want you to break a fingernail. Why don’t you leave this to the big boys?”

  I would’ve punched him in the jaw had my face not been throbbing so badly that I could barely think straight.

  And, to add insult to injury, Nathan got offered a freakin’ job of all things.

  Just fucking perfect.

  ***

  “How do you feel about planning a Police Officer’s Ball?” Flo asked. “Normally I do it but…” She looked at her little girl that’d just been born. “I think that I’m going to be spending a lot of time somewhere else for the time being.”

  Chapter 2

  Beer, because apparently crack is bad for you.

  -Beer mug

  Reggie

  Six weeks later

  “What do you mean I have to attend?” I asked in alarm.

  Dracon grinned at me.

  “It’ll be fine,” he said as he gestured to everyone around him. “Everyone will be on their best behavior.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s not that I’m worried about everyone and their behavior at an event like this.” I rolled my eyes. “My uncle is a cop. I know that everything will be fine. I’m more…” I licked my lips. “Listen, me and crowds don’t do well together.”

  Just the idea of having to deal with a crowd of this magnitude was giving me hives already.

  This was honestly why I worked with little people in the NICU. There weren’t a ton of people traipsing through the doors of the NICU. There were only limited people allowed. Parents of the babies, siblings of the babies, and sometimes a grandparent or two.

  And there were only so many allowed in at a single time.

  And if they asked me something, it wouldn’t be about something random. It would be about their sick child.

  Dracon sighed. “You’ll be fine. I want you to be there. You’ll be there, right?”

  It sounded more like ‘you will be there or else.’

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  In all honestly, I would’ve loved to go to it had he not been going.

  He being Nathan Cox. Nathan Cox, the star outfielder for the Shreveport Sparks for three years before retiring and becoming a stupid police officer.

  A police officer in my town.

  I’d moved away from my hometown because of him and wasn’t it just my luck that he followed me to Kilgore. Not that I believed he actively chose to follow me.

  When he’d agreed to work for the Kilgore Police Department, I knew that me being here had nothing to do with his decision. After the incident last year, the mayor had offered him a job on the spot.

  Nathan had turned it down, of course, but not for long. He’d come back a few months later and asked if that job was still available, and now look where that left me.

  I’d been doing a bang-up job at avoiding Nathan, and I wished to continue to do it, too.

  Why did I wish to do it?

  Because every time I saw him, it got harder and harder to keep my feelings hidden from the man.

  He wasn’t the clueless little boy, or the perceptive—perceptive when it came to anybody but me—young teenager anymore.

  Nathan Cox was all man. He had a head on his shoulders that was filled with smarts, and he knew me better than anyone. At least, that was until it came to my feelings about him.

  And sooner or later, he was going to find out that I fucking loved him.

  That I would do absolutely anything for him, even take out my heart and hand it to him if he asked.

  Nathan didn’t understand the depth of my feelings, and I seriously wanted to keep it that way.

  “The area police departments will be here in about three hours or so,” I found myself saying. “If you want me to attend, I have to go home and change.”

  I had nothing to wear.

  I’d honestly thought when Dracon brought up attending it’d been a joke.

  Now I see that I should’ve been more observant.

  “Go. I’ll hold down the fort. And you hired enough people that should be able to handle it in your absence for an hour,” he said.

  And I had.

  Thanks to a rather large fund from the ten majoring counties for this event specifically, the entire thing was paid for and very well staffed.

  When I’d given them half their budget back yesterday, Dracon had grinned his fool head off.

  Apparently in the past that hadn’t happened, and the event had sucked.

  I hoped that this event was great for them considering I talked up a good game.

  Oh, God.

  I was going to have to see Nathan tonight.

  I could feel it.

  Sadly, I was correct.

  ***

  “Are you sure that I look okay?” I asked Sierra.

  “You look great,” my hair stylist/good friend/emergency dress shopper said.

  I looked at my hair that was freshly dyed a beautiful shade of auburn. She’d styled my hair in loose waves
that came up to around my ears with a wand, and she’d only burned me once.

  My hair looked so beautiful against the blush-colored dress and the porcelain white of my skin.

  I looked over at Sierra with her much more deeply tanned skin and frowned. “Why does this color look good on me? I would’ve thought it’d look terrible. I’m so ghostly white.”

  Sierra snorted. “You’re not that white. Your skin is milky and smooth. I wish that mine looked this good when I didn’t have a tan.”

  I snorted and looked at myself one more time in the mirror before walking to my jewelry box on my hutch next to the door.

  “Thank you for doing my hair and finding this dress for me on such short notice,” I said. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you today.”

  Sierra came up beside me and pointed at a pair of earrings in the box.

  “That set,” she said. “Just studs. I think it’ll look perfect.”

  I swallowed hard at the diamond studs that she’d pointed out, remembering a day years ago when I’d gotten them.

  They look good in your ears, honey. It makes me want to nibble on your throat, run my tongue along the shell of your ear.

  “Umm, I don’t usually wear those,” I admitted.

  And I didn’t.

  They were too freakin’ expensive to wear out of the house.

  At least, in my honest opinion.

  After finding the receipt in my bag—along with a marriage license—I’d nearly shit myself.

  They’d been eight thousand dollars.

  Honestly, thinking back, I was surprised that my new husband’s card had gone through for that much money. Didn’t they have a daily limit? I was fairly sure mine was fifteen hundred or something to that nature.

  “Nonsense,” Sierra said. “These. They’re perfect.”

  I reluctantly allowed myself to pick them up and put them in my ears for the first time since I’d put them there the day after I’d been given them.

  I swallowed hard at the memories it evoked, then shoved them down deep into the box labeled ‘Nathan - STAY FAR AWAY.’

  “Wow, what a beautiful ring,” Sierra said on a gasp. “Where’d you get that monster?”

  That ‘monster’ was my wedding ring. The piece of jewelry that I would never, ever wear again.

  “Umm,” I started to say, but the alarm on my phone went off, indicating it was time for me to leave or I’d be well past fashionably late and into rude territory.

  “Shoot, you need to go,” Sierra said, backing away.

  I gave my wedding ring one last long look before carefully shutting the box, and the idea that things could be different, with it.

  I walked right up to Sierra and gave her a hug.

  “Thank you so much,” I whispered. “I really, really appreciate it.”

  Sierra patted my hand and walked with me outside, her face a mask of disgust when a few wolf whistles rent the air.

  “I can’t believe you live here,” she said in disgust.

  I wished I didn’t have to.

  But when you were a dumbass when you were a teenager and racked up your student loan debt, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  “Hopefully I only have to do it for a few more years,” I admitted.

  My gaze lit on the man that was lingering close to my car, likely smoking a joint like he always was.

  “Who’s that?” she murmured.

  I felt more than saw the man she was talking about.

  He really, really gave me the creeps.

  He also fancied himself a big time badass when in reality he was just a creepy drug dealer that nearly always got his way.

  “Can you hold on for just one more second?” I asked. “I forgot something inside.”

  I wasn’t sure what made me do it, but I had this irrational fear all of a sudden that I should go inside and move a few of my more expensive things to my car.

  I wasn’t sure why, but I usually tried to follow my gut.

  And my gut was screaming at me to take my shit with me this time.

  Based on where I lived, with the scum of Kilgore who paid much more attention to doing drugs than doing a job, I usually tried to follow my instincts.

  Sadly, my instincts were screaming at me to go grab my computer and my jewelry box. So that was what I did.

  Running back inside, I shoved my computer into my large tote bag that I used as a purse and grabbed my jewelry box and shoved it in there as well. I did pause to slip out the diamond ring and shoved it into my pocket, though.

  Yes, my dress did have pockets.

  It was the best thing about my dress.

  I arrived back outside to see Sierra staring down at the man near my car, her eyes narrow.

  “Don’t,” I murmured as I touched her hand. “It’s not worth it.”

  “That guy just made a drug deal. Right in front of me.” She paused. “My brother’s a cop. My dad’s a cop. My uncles are cops. I can’t believe I just saw that.”

  I could.

  “Darius isn’t afraid of the cops,” I admitted. “The one and only time that I called the cops on him for what I saw, he only moved his operation more into the open so that I could see better what was happening. When the cops showed, he was long gone. But he made sure that I could see him every time from then on.”

  She sighed and walked with me down to the car, studiously ignoring the man that didn’t bother to move from his too-close position.

  “Now,” Sierra said as she got into her own car and waited for me to get into mine. Once we were both in with our windows rolled down, she said, “Take care tonight. Let me know if you need anything, and even if it’s just to talk, I’m okay with that.”

  She knew what and who I was dealing with today.

  My anxiety at having to be at a large event such as that one was already making my hands go clammy.

  But it was also seeing Nathan that had me calming down just a little bit.

  Despite my feelings on the man, and his feelings toward me, he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.

  “Thank you so much for the help, Sierra,” I said, touching my now beautifully styled hair. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

  ***

  Two hours into the event, I got my first glimpse of him.

  He was wearing a three-piece suit.

  And, he was wearing it very, very well.

  I rolled my tongue back into my mouth and tried to disappear deeper into the side of the room.

  When I next looked up, he was gone, but the imprint of himself he’d left in my brain was not gone.

  In fact, it was going to be burned into my psyche for days and weeks to come.

  I groaned and turned my eyes back in the direction of the door, my curiosity keeping my gaze firmly there.

  I wanted to know if my uncle Michael would show up.

  I hadn’t seen him for a few weeks after he’d gone on a cruise with my aunt, and I missed him.

  But I never saw him, and sadly, I looked like a total loser just sitting there on the side of the room, so I forced myself to walk around as if I had a purpose instead of being lost and bored.

  An hour after that, I got my first up close and personal view of Nathan.

  “Nathan.” I nodded my head, trying to appear as aloof and unaffected as I usually did.

  Nathan’s eyes scanned me from head to toe, and I had to beg my nipples not to show themselves off.

  It worked, but only because Nathan’s lips curled up as if what he saw displeased him.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, sounding just as unaffected as he appeared.

  Not good to see you. Not wow, you look great. Not even a hello. Just a ‘what are you doing here?’

  “I planned the event,” I said as I continued past him. “Have a good night.”

  Nathan caught my arm before I could leave.

  “Don’t be rude, Reg. Reg, this is one of my fell
ow SWAT team members, Saint.” Nathan dropped my arm as if it’d burned him.

  I glared at Nathan, then did the polite thing by offering my hand to Saint.

  He took it with a grin.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said at the same time he did.

  We both had a good chuckle at that, and I found myself scooting closer to him and away from the very unhappy man at his side.

  I could practically feel the heat rolling off of Nathan.

  “Did you know that my uncle was once called Saint? And he was on the SWAT team?” I asked curiously.

  Saint grinned. “Your uncle is Michael?”

  I nodded eagerly. “He is.”

  “Well then it’s doubly nice to finally meet you,” Saint said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” His eyes flicked to Nathan then back to me. “How do you two know each other?”

  Before I could answer that question, a commotion brought our attention to something that was happening in the kitchen.

  I turned just in time to see the cake making its way out of the kitchen heading right past me.

  Right at the same time that the entire damn thing was dumped as they tripped over me.

  Apparently, I was too short to see.

  Who knew?

  Luckily, the jerk that barely tolerated me pulled me out of the way just in time to keep the cake from falling on top of me.

  Unluckily, the cake was still ruined and the two people that hadn’t seen me had caused a thousand-dollar cake to go to waste.

  My shoulders slumped in defeat and I took that as my cue to leave.

  I didn’t care what Dracon thought, either.

  Stepping over the large pile of cake on the floor, I nodded once at Saint and didn’t once look back.

  It was only a bonus that when I got home I found out that my apartment had been broken into.

  I should’ve never gone.

  Chapter 3

  Don’t you wish your coffee was hot like me?

  -Text from Reggie to Nathan

  Reggie

  My phone rang, and I answered it with a groan.

  “Hello?” I mumbled, eyes heavy and lined with sand.

  “You’re not going to believe this.”

  My friend, Sierra, that I worked with on the NICU—neonatal intensive care unit—floor snapped her fingers at me.

  Even though I couldn’t see those fingers, I knew it was directed toward me.