Just Good Friends (Cheap Thrills Series Book 5)

by Mary B. Moore

  Her excitement was contagious, and I was grinning back at her when I leaned down to kiss her. “I’m proud of you, baby,” I murmured against her mouth before licking into it as she went to reply.

  After that, I made the way I’d tormented her up to her by making her come three times before I fell over the edge myself. The way her pussy hugged me as I moved in and out of her always tested my self-control, but by the time she’d come that last time, I was cockily patting myself on the back for a job well done.

  I was lying on my back, trying to catch my breath, when she snickered, “Now can I be released from my poor panties?”

  It took only ten seconds to decide and give her my answer. “No. I think I want to go again.”

  “Sex fiend.”

  “How many times did you come?”

  “Dirty heathen.”

  “Remind me what you screamed that last time, baby. I can’t quite remember the exact words you used,” I goaded, smiling cockily at her.

  Glaring at me, she settled back down again, until two minutes later…

  “Garrett, I need the bathroom.”

  Hell yes, I let her free. I’d seen what happened with Sheena, and there was no way I wanted to sleep in a bed that’d been peed on, especially if it could be avoided.

  Sticking her tongue out at me over her shoulder, she padded toward the bathroom, taking her time and drawing out the show I was getting of her naked ass.

  “Just remember, pretty girl, you’ve got a whole drawer full of underwear, and I’m off for the next two days.”

  Shooting me a sly grin, she pointed at the drawer my underwear was in, where I kept my handcuffs and badge when I was at home so Clyde didn’t get them. “And you have handcuffs for work.”

  Wanting to keep her off balance, but also excited to give her the gift I’d found her, I called, “Tamsin? If you look next to the sink, you’ll find the replacement for your My Little Pony toothbrush.” When she squealed with excitement, I added, “And two spares under it in the cabinet, just in case.”

  Her response had me curling up in a ball and laughing my ass off. “I’m giving you two pairs of my panties to tie me up with. Do your worst!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tamsin

  Nine days later…

  I was so nervous I swear I was going to puke as I walked into the school, stopping to sign in and get a visitor’s badge.

  Today I had Carter doing duty with me, so he was going to sit outside and wait for me. I would have felt bad about it, but when I’d asked him what was going on with Naomi as we were driving over here, he’d told me I had a booger on my face and left me in a panic trying to find a mirror while wiping my face with my hand.

  See, over the last week or so, I’d gotten to know him and Logan better because they usually seemed to be the ones watching me. I knew that Logan was a sensitive guy who had a habit of sticking his foot in his mouth, which was why he was pining over a girl he grew up with, called Bexley.

  I also found out that Carter knew Naomi’s family and had been in the same grade as her brother, who’d been killed with his wife in a car accident. I had a feeling that something had gone down between him and Naomi either before or after it, but I didn’t know what.

  Both men liked to tease and joke once they came out of their shells, so him saying that about a booger—which for the record didn’t exist, I’d like to add—was pretty much par for the course. It’d also been effective in distracting me from my nervousness at what I was about to walk into, so I guess I’d thank him when I got back out.

  And then a thought hit me—what if there was a booger and I just hadn’t been able to find it? What if it was on the tip of my nose? Or my cheek?

  Discreetly wiping both areas as I walked up to the door where the meeting was being held, the same one that I’d had a brief talk with the principal about the job in two days ago, I checked my hand and sighed with relief.

  I was just reaching out for the handle when another possibility hit me. No one is immune to the booger that gets caught in their nostril, slightly visible to everyone else but unknown to them. We’ve all been there. You go to the bathroom, wash your hands, look up, and there’s the little lurker staring at everyone.

  What if it was a peek-a-boo booger? The kind that when you breathe in disappears up, then pops back down when you exhale? And why was I giving so much time and thought to the types of boogers it was possible to suffer from?

  Fuck it, I was going to have to brave it, even if it meant a lurker was popping out to say cuckoo every time I exhaled.

  Taking a deep breath in—hidey bogey time—I knocked and opened the door, smiling at everyone as I walked in.

  After the introductions, I was given a cup of coffee and took my seat while everyone got situated and comfortable. It wasn’t awkward, they were all consulting some notes in front of them, and it gave me a moment to clear my mind of all of the jumbling thoughts so that they didn’t come pouring out in a way that would make me seem like a crazy lady when I answered a question.

  And then the worst thing that could happen happened, making my nerves explode and my stomach tip.

  A high pitched but very audible, whistling noise broke the silence as I inhaled, and everyone looked up and around the room at each other. Every time I inhaled, the fucking whistle would follow to the point I was trying to breathe through my mouth as much as I could.

  It wasn’t a peeky bogey, it was a whistling one. It was pretty much playing a rock ballad to the room.

  I wasn’t going to thank Carter when I got out, I was going to punch him in the balls for jinxing me. The big fucking rat bastard.

  Two hours later…

  I’d been in quite a few uncomfortable situations in my relatively short life.

  There was the time I got my period at school when I was wearing white shorts and caught it before it could go to hell in a Carrie basket. I still had a small mark on the very crotch of them for the rest of the day, but it could have been way worse.

  Then there was the time I ran into the glass door of our cafeteria, thinking they were open. Ironically, I’d been checking out a guy in the reflection of them who was watching my ass as I ran, and I’d ended up getting a concussion in front of most of the school.

  There was also the time I shut the door of a cab with my long skirt stuck in it. I’d been heading to meet my mom at a gorgeous boujie café in downtown New York and had gotten distracted by how beautiful the buildings were, all decorated for Easter. The skirt had one of those elasticated waistbands, and I’d figured if I was going to consume a lot of cake, cookies, and sweet stuff, it would stretch nicely, and I’d avoid a muffin type overhang.

  Sadly, I never found out if that was the case because the taxi drove off, I got pulled off balance and onto my hands and knees on the road. I’d been dragged fifteen feet down the road as the skirt made its way down my legs and off into the wide-open world.

  I’d ended up spending the day in the ER getting cuts and scrapes cleaned out and bandaged up. Sadly, the story also made it into the news thanks to passersby and their fucking, fucking cell phones.

  I’d also sneezed while I was having a cavity filled. Doesn’t sound too bad? Think about it—the dentist’s face was right in front of my mouth while he filled in the cavity. He was drilling away when one of those sneezes that totally takes you by surprise came flying out of me. It was so bad I never went back to him.

  I could go on, but then there’s Gjorka and everything he was doing. That was pretty uncomfortable. So was driving across the country with people I didn’t know, checking into seedy motels, and getting a wink from the person at the desk. Then some guy knocking on your door in the middle of the night at said motel because he got the wrong room and not being disappointed about the fact that you weren’t the one he’d paid for.

  But I swear, nothing beats the awkwardness and discomfort of sitting in a room with a booger in your nose singing Yankee Doodle Dandy to the other occupants.

  A
nd did Carter apologize for jinxing me when I told him? When I described the absolute torment of hearing nothing but silence but then forgetting I was meant to breathe in through my mouth and there being a piercing whistling noise, did he feel bad?

  Did he hell! He laughed so hard, he pulled up onto the sidewalk and got out, an irritating roaring laugh coming out of him as he braced on the hood of the car.

  I was looking at all of the buttons, trying to figure out which one would turn on the siren when one of the other P.V.P.D. vehicles pulled up in front of us, and Logan of all people got out. I was hoping for Dave or Raoul, who were more serious, or maybe even Garrett, who might take pity on me and be sympathetic. But no, it was him.

  I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could see expressions and read them better than words in a book. I saw the confusion on Logan’s face as he said something to Carter, I noticed him frown when Carter replied. I then watched his eyebrows go so high that the chunk of hair that’d fallen down at the front hung lower than where they ended up, and I also saw his eyes shoot over to where I was and how he ignored the glare that I shot him.

  But I swear I must’ve blinked and missed the moment that any self-control he had disappeared as Carter’s hand started making little exploding motions as he held it against his nose, and Logan threw his head back, and a burst of laughter belted out of him.

  The only thing I could think was—in that position, it would be karma if a bird shit in his mouth.

  Just when I didn’t think that it could get any worse, another car pulled up in front of Logans and out got Canon. This time, I just covered my face with my hands and left them to it, hoping and praying for a flock of birds to fly over them and all get diarrhea at the same time.

  A group of crows was called a murder, right? How perfect would that be?

  Then a deep bellowing laugh joined the others, and I peeked through my fingers and saw Canon bent over with his hands braced on his thighs.

  Really, my torment hadn’t been that funny, if you don’t count how horrified I was when it sounded like the booger was playing Another One Bites The Dust when I laughed at something one of the people in the meeting had said. It hadn’t just been me who’d thought it either, because one of the guys had asked the principal if the music class was learning to play the flute and how awesome it was that the music included Queen when all he’d had was classical stuff in his as a kid.

  Fuck my life.

  Drawing in a deep breath, I regained control of my embarrassment. Seeing as how I had zero control over anything else in my life, at least I could do that.

  I needed to get home and eat something to make myself feel better. Saltines, cheddar, and pickle slices sounded good about now and were relatively guilt-free comfort food that I could make with one hand. So, I reached over and put my hand on the horn, scaring the shit out of all three of them, who jumped and spun to glare at me at the same time.

  Unfortunately, I put my right hand down on what I thought was just part of the stand for the computer to go on, not realizing that it had buttons on it, too. Because of the cast, I couldn’t feel what was under it until something clicked softly, and a brrrr-ing noise blasted out, making them jump even higher.

  Did you know it was an offense to do that in a police vehicle? I didn’t. Just as well Carter wasn’t Dave and I wasn’t Tabby, because she’d spent more hours in the cells than even the most prolific Piersville lawbreakers, and he’d totally have carted her in for that.

  Then again, that was life foreplay for him, and Carter told me as he drove me home that they knew just to look the other way when he brought her in. That didn’t mean I didn’t get a verbal warning for doing it, though.

  However, I’m fairly certain all three of them soiled their undies, and Logan got shit on by a bird as he walked back to his car. He’d just started to lower his ass into the seat when something hit his shoulder, and he started yelling for napkins and holy water.

  I was bummed that the retribution had only been felt by him when Carter deserved more. But that’s where my baby came into it and showed me how amazing he truly was.

  Like Garrett, Carter insisted on taking his work boots off in the house, except he took his off at the door before he even went in. He also did a walk around the house to make sure it was all clear and safe.

  That’s where my baby got payback for his momma. We would discover later that whenever Garrett had gone to the store, he’d only focused on buying food for Clyde, not on what a change in diet would do to his stomach if he changed brands. Apparently, most dogs and cats needed to have a food change done gradually, and Garrett had been doing it each time. It wasn’t about what was the cheapest, he’d gone for the one that had a display up that caught his attention when it outlined precisely how good for our boy it was going to be.

  In fact, this morning, I’d opened another new bag, kind of liking how plain the packaging was, but how formal and professional it looked, and how perfectly sized the kibble was when I poured some out for Clyde. That meant that while we’d been away, the poor guy’s stomach had had time to process the change in diet, and his ass had reacted in the only way it knew how.

  So, with only socks on his feet, Carter had stepped right into a massive pile of shit.

  “What the fuck is tha— Is that shit?” he snapped, hitting the light to make sure.

  I could have told him from the smell alone that the likelihood of it being shit was pretty much near one hundred percent, but instead I leaned against the wall and watched him lift his foot up and then gag.

  “Jesus Christ, why would he— I can’t,” he said, heaving after it.

  “You might want to go and wash that off in the bathroom. Normally he does it in the shower there, but it seems like today he was feeling more like sharing it with us.”

  Glaring at me over his shoulder—something which was made hilarious by the dry heave that came out of him as he did it—he started hopping toward the bathroom in the hallway while I moved to the kitchen to pick up my cleaning stuff. I’d found a clothes peg in a drawer last week, and instead of throwing it away, I’d added it to the ‘shit shoveling kit’. Because I was smart, I popped it on my nose before I went back over to the mess.

  It was just as I’d bent down with some paper towels to pick up the smushed mess that I heard Carter yell, “Oh, fucking hell. It went through the fabric. I’ve got shit between my toes.”

  I didn’t want to risk breathing in a mouthful of shit air, so I didn’t laugh like I wanted to. Again, you only make mistakes like that once.

  The sound of something hitting something else followed, and then the unmistakable sounds of someone puking came loudly down the hallway. It lasted for as long as it took for me to pick up, do the first wipe down of the floor, and then start on the next round—all the while dodging Clyde’s excited attempts to lick my face—for the toilet to flush and the shower to turn on.

  Throughout it all, I wondered what karma Bond was going to get.

  And all because of a whistling booger.

  Life continued like that for a couple of months. I had a babysitter every day, but I went about life almost like a normal person. I had a couple of down days where I really wanted to reach out to my parents, mainly Dad’s birthday and then their anniversary, but I kept myself busy with the course I was doing and then starting up the class at the high school.

  I’d had my cast taken off the day before I’d started, so I didn’t look like a dick trying to write with my left hand on the dry erase board in the room. The kids were great and seemed to be absorbed in the information I was giving them.

  Well, they were like that after the first week. For that first week, I had to keep repeating what the goal of the class was.

  I wasn’t there to psychoanalyze them. I wasn’t there to do anything other than help them understand what psychology was all about. There were techniques they could use if things felt too much, which I outlined briefly to begin with, and I also did what I set out to do—help them to sep
arate what they felt was the reality of everything in life with social media from the actual realities of life.

  I also had to continually answer a question that drove me nuts.

  “Miss Hadid, so you do psychology, right?”

  “No, I studied it at college. I’m not a psychologist or therapist.”

  “Okay, okay,” one of the kids waved away that answer, not at all interested in what I was saying. “So, tell me what I’m thinking right now.”

  It was like they’d initially been dubious of what I was doing for them and thought I was there to read their brains to tell their parents and the principal all of their secrets.

  This was where the definition of what psychology was had gone over their heads completely, and I went home after that first week and outlined a new approach. The next Monday, I’d gone in and jumped straight into the new plan, and bang, they dropped all of the walls, and out came kids who were like sponges.

  I’d also learned a lot from them, and a lot of it was terrifying. A majority of them genuinely felt connections to the games they were playing and the videos they were watching, and it was shaping how they approached life. I’m not talking about shooting—although the possibility of it was something that ate away at me—I’m talking about how they spoke to their friends and the people they were gaming with online.

  What was really right, and what was really wrong? They didn’t have the answer to it, it just depended on the day.

  A lengthy discussion with the guy leading the course at the hospital, John Tafferty, proved vital, and having him as a mentor made more sense. I paid close attention to how he approached things when he came in and spoke to them about some of the issues that’d come up and the feedback he gave me after meeting with students.

  One thing kept coming up that needed to be dealt with, and that was helping them understand that the words that they were using had power. It might sound simple, but it wasn’t. Why? Well, they figured that other people on the video they’d been watching when the word or term they were saying was used hadn’t reacted badly to them, so why would anyone else?