I shook my head. “‘Fraid not.”
He grunted. “If you plan on staying here for longer than a month, I might teach you a few things to help me out. I can’t tell you how many times people want a specific bolt or a hubcap. Random shit all the time. If you can get it, that’d make my life easier. The impound lot is starting to take up quite a bit of my time.”
“What is it you do with the impound lot?” I questioned.
“Over there, I scan through the vehicles that are brought in either through police investigations or for banks that repossessed them. I log all the contents. With the repos, I set the personal belongings aside and shelf them for when someone comes to pick the shit up. For the investigations, I go through and pull out all the shit after I take photos. Log what’s in there. Take fingerprints just in case. Shit like that.”
“Did I ever tell you that I have a degree in criminal justice and forensic science?”
His ears perked up. “You’re shitting me.”
I shook my head. “Nope. I started taking classes in forensic science and took a few criminal justice classes so I could graduate with dual degrees. It’s just that…nobody will hire me because of my past…I didn’t give that much thought.”
He stared at me so long that I started to squirm. It felt like his eyes were penetrating my brain and getting right to the root of the problem.
“I’m not going to say that this will work out,” he paused. “But if you stay and prove to be trustworthy, I have no reason to doubt that you can actually help me on that end of operations. Honestly, I wasn’t the best of kids either. I had to steal a lot of shit to get food when I was younger. Then, when I married Beatrice, I didn’t get much better. Not until the military, whipped my ass straight. Now I run this place, and I have more than I ever thought I’d have…and there’s no reason I can’t return that favor. If this works out, and you stay, prove to me that you’re worthwhile…we can explore other options for you.”
I felt my heart soar.
Knowing that I had a possible opportunity to utilize my degree? That was freakin’ wonderful.
I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity.
“They do require a background check, though. You’ll have to pass a federal background check and be vetted by the chief. Now that the old douchebag’s not here anymore, I don’t see why that won’t work out.”
The old douchebag being my uncle.
And Coke was right. He was a douchebag.
“I’ll do anything.”
He winked. “Let’s do this then.”
Chapter 7
Hotel Hostel has just been refurbished. We offer special rates for anyone who has an outstanding warrant. Come check it out!
-Hostel PD FB Page
Johnny
“Do you know how to work Facebook?”
I looked over at Tyler Cree, my boss, and blinked. “I think it’s fairly self-explanatory,” I admitted. “But I don’t have much experience with it.”
He blinked. “I thought all young kids had Facebook. I actually need someone who knows how to use it.”
I shrugged. “I’m not really all that young, to be honest. And, more so, I don’t really do Facebook. I have one, but I haven’t been on it in well over four years or so. Why?”
“I have a page for the Hostel Police Department. I was wondering if you’d take it over, and make sure that it’s not anything inappropriate.” He paused and looked at me.
“What kinds of things would you want me to put on there?” I questioned. “I guess I’ll need the password…or I think you can add me as an admin…shit. I haven’t been on Facebook in forever. Why me?”
He looked at me like I was dumb.
“Because you’re the newest employee…and the youngest. You got the short end of the shit stick. Sorry.”
With that, Tyler left, but he tossed a few more parting words over his shoulder. “I’ll add you…once I figure out how.”
By noon he’d figured out how, and I was now the brand-new administrator of the Hostel Police Department’s Facebook page. We had seventeen likes.
I rolled my eyes and took a cursory glance at the page, and then went farther to see who was crazy enough to like the page in the first place.
My eyes caught on a specific name, and I got distracted.
June Carter Common.
Age twenty-six. Graduated with a degree in criminal science. Lives in Hostel, Texas. Graduated from Hostel High School. Works at Coke Salvage.
My grin grew wide as I read that.
I’d intended to confront her on her lies, but the last two times I’d seen her, I’d either been at work, or out on a not-date with Reagan. Each time had been too busy for me to say a word, let alone have a conversation about how rude it was to put someone’s number down for a job without giving that person a heads up.
I could’ve totally been a different kind of man and let Coke Solomon know that she was a lying little shit…and honestly, she at least owed me an explanation.
And that opportunity for that explanation came a few hours later as I was sitting down for lunch in the Taco Shop.
It was quiet since lunch had been over long ago, so when the door opened moments after I arrived and ordered, my eyes went there automatically. Though, that also might have been due to the years of training I had to be aware of my surroundings at all times.
And damn, how fucking glad I was that I’d been paying attention, because seeing someone like June walking into the Taco Shop in jeans and a little white t-shirt? Yeah, I’d remember the way she looked for the rest of my life.
Her hair was long and ran down to the tiny brown belt that circled her waist. It was a curling mass of perfection that I wanted to sink my fingers into and see if it was as soft as it looked.
Her large hoop earrings peeked out from the long locks, and I found myself grinning.
She wasn’t wearing makeup. She was in cowboy boots—worn cowboy boots that looked like she actually rode a horse in them—and looked like the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen before.
Hell, Reagan had been dressed much nicer than that the night before, and don’t get me wrong, she was quite beautiful. But comparing her to June? It was like night and day to me.
Honestly, both women looked quite similar as far as size/body structure/feature wise. But where Reagan was quiet and cool, June was blunt and had a perpetually bad attitude.
How did I know that she had a bad attitude? I’d been asking around about her.
Everyone knew who she was, and very few of them had anything good to say about her. Whether it came to her father and mother, her lack of a job, or her refusal to go with the flow, I wasn’t really sure what made her hated by so many.
I hadn’t really wanted to pry, because I wanted her to tell me her problems on her own, and in her own time. Meaning that every time some person in town said something about her, I took it, absorbed it, and then dismissed it as false.
Sure, some of the things that they said she did could be true…but I didn’t believe that June was in cahoots with her parents—drug dealers with long rap sheets and many busts under their belts.
Her father was now donating his time to the federal penitentiary system in Huntsville, and her mother was holding down the proverbial fort.
I just couldn’t see June actually helping with that like they said she did.
She wasn’t the type of person.
I bit my lip and looked away, clearly torn between whether to approach her or act like I hadn’t noticed her.
I went with ignoring her.
I looked down at my phone, at the blank status update that was just as blank now as it had been five minutes ago when I’d opened Facebook up to make the post, and I wondered what a police department would put there.
I mean, I had ideas. I just wasn’t sure that it was appropriate to say ‘Don’t be a cocksucker. Get off your phone and pay attention to the road.’
My
mouth quirked. I’m fairly sure that Tyler Cree would gut me with a fucking spoon if I did that.
I looked out the window of the Taco Shop at the road, and my eyes caught on the car that was in the process of making a left hand turn out of the parking lot but wasn’t using a turn signal.
I typed out the status, then posted it once I’d read over it for errors. There weren’t any that I could see, at least none that were glaringly obvious. Then again, grammar had never been my strong suit.
The only reason I’d passed during my senior year had been because of my ex. She’d done my homework for me and had written my essays. The only thing I did on my own was just barely pass the tests. Well, that and sweet talk Mrs. Boone into grading the entire class on a curve because she wanted her favorite student to pass.
My mind went on alert when June walked up to my table and stood directly next to it, staring at me with a mixture of hostility and acceptance.
“How long do you think you’ll be on your phone?” she asked. “And do you mind if I sit with you?”
I gestured to the open seat across from me. “By all means.”
She sat down, her drink in one hand, and her phone in the other, and stared.
“What?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I just thought you’d start in on the questions immediately. I guess it’s kind of surprising that you didn’t blurt them out like everyone else in this town would. Or stare at me like I’m an extraterrestrial lifeform the minute I walk in the door.”
I had stared at her, but it hadn’t been in anything other than appreciation.
“My momma taught me not to be a rude little shit,” I admitted. “Though, those manners didn’t come until I was well into my teen years. I was an awful child.”
June’s lips kicked up at the corner. “I was a great little girl. It was kind of opposite for me. I didn’t start going bad until I hit thirteen.”
My brows went up. “I just can’t see how you were ever bad. You have this whole ‘innocent’ vibe about you.”
She blushed, and I wondered about it. She was a beautiful woman…she had to know that.
She was so flustered that instead of saying another word, she placed her phone on the table and swiped it open.
“Are you on break?” she questioned, not looking at me.
My lips kicked up at one corner. “Yeah. I am.”
I stared at her while she scrolled through something on her phone. Periodically, she’d glance up quickly, catch me staring, and then look back down at her phone. Each time she did this, her cheeks would get redder and redder.
Just when I was about to tease her even more, she surprised me by throwing her head back and laughing.
Just the sight of her joy had my gut clenching with something perilously close to need.
I looked down at my crotch. My dick hadn’t worked right since I’d gotten back and recuperated enough to finally take an interest in the female species again. But nobody had done it for me.
Not until today. Not until her.
Holy. Shit.
Just seeing her head back laughing had sent my cock up to full mast.
Why now?
Because the sight of June’s head thrown back, her throat muscles working with her laughter and her mouth open wide to let it out, fueled an image in my mind of what she’d look like with my dick buried in her throat. Oh yeah, I could see it vividly.
“Oh, God.” She snickered, her head falling forward once again as she wiped the hilarity from her eyes with the back of her hand. “Look at this,” she ordered, showing me her phone.
She showed me Hostel PD’s Facebook page, and I found my heart lightening.
I grinned. “It was good, wasn’t it?”
She rolled her eyes. “I wish everyone had this same mindset.” She shook her head as laughter crossed over her face once again. “They have this invention. It’s called a turn signal.”
Hearing the words that I’d just typed into the status update for the page had my smile growing once again.
I chuckled. “I saw a meme that said that the other day.”
She peered at me over the top of her cup. “Did you?”
“Yeah,” I grunted and gestured to the parking lot where the non-turn-signal-using man had just left. “Fucker pulled out of the parking lot, on his phone, seatbelt off, with no turn signal in sight. Thought I’d share that the turn signal was non-negotiable.”
She snorted. “That was the only thing that was non-negotiable?”
I shrugged. “I can’t make them do something. I can give them a ticket for not doing it, though.”
She snickered, then took a pull of her tea from the straw.
I’d never wanted to be a straw more in my life than I did right then.
With those lips of hers wrapped around the large red piece of plastic, I wondered what they would feel like wrapped around my dick.
I squirmed in my chair and tried to get my errant thoughts under control.
“How much time left do you have on your lunch break?” she questioned, unaware of just how, exactly, she was affecting me.
I leaned back in my chair, stuffed from the most delicious tacos I’d ever eaten, and let my leg stretch out in front of me.
My foot brushed her chair, where her feet were resting on the rails, and she jumped.
But she didn’t pull away, and I didn’t, either.
“Another twenty minutes or so,” I paused. “Why? What’s up?”
She shifted, and the hair that’d been resting behind her ear fell loose.
It took everything I had in me not to reach across the table and slide it behind her ear again.
I think she sensed that, too, because she smiled at me.
“If I see the touch coming, sometimes it’s better.” She told me. “You can do it.”
I leaned forward and hooked the hair around my finger, then pushed it back until it rested behind her ear once more.
I was right.
Her hair was like silk.
Soft and smooth, like nothing I’d ever felt before.
Then my mind finally caught on to what she said before that. If I see the touch coming, sometimes it’s better.
How was her distaste at being touched now compared to before—before me? Was it better? Was it worse? Was she indifferent to my touch?
I wanted to ask her a million questions.
But, before I could question her further, the mic at my shoulder started to blare.
“Burglary in progress at…”
“I gotta go,” I said reluctantly, then winked.
Moments later, I was gone.
But, I kept kicking myself as I walked out the door because for some reason I felt serious disquiet at knowing she had a problem that I couldn’t fix. That she flinched each time I touched her, even if it was only with the sole of my boot.
I’d probably scare the absolute shit out of her if I ever initiated anything more than a brush of our hands.
Chapter 8
Should I take it as a compliment that someone said I was fragile like a bomb and not like a flower?
-Text from June to Johnny
Johnny
Tiny wasn’t tiny.
In fact, Tiny was so far from tiny that it was comical.
I offered the big man my hand, and he looked down at me with a critical eye. “Your name is Johnny.”
I nodded.
“What’s your middle name?”
I grinned. “Not Cash. It’s Mitchell. After one of my dad’s friends who died overseas while they were deployed.”
Tiny’s eyes narrowed.
“You say you were Army?”
I curled my lip into a small smile. “Yeah.”
He grunted. “Good. Wouldn’t want to hate you based on your lack of manliness.”
I found myself grinning.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
I looked at the rows of liquor on
the wall behind his head and gestured to the one in the middle. “Scotch. Black label.”
He grunted, then reached for a glass underneath the bar and turned for the liquor bottle.
While he was busy doing that, I allowed my eyes to roam the bar, immediately halting on a familiar blonde in jeans and work boots.
My glass was set down in front of me with a clunk, and I turned back to find Tiny staring at me with anger in his eyes.
He looked at me like I was committing a sin.
“Don’t.”
I looked over at him with surprise evident in my eyes.
“Don’t? Why?” I pushed.
Tiny’s eyes were hard. “That girl has gone through more shit than you’ve likely even heard about in your life. She doesn’t need a straight-laced cop that’s going to look at her like a criminal when he hears about the things she’s done.”
“But she’s done things,” I clarified.
“Yeah. But so would a dog that was starving…if you catch my drift.” He gave me a knowing look.
My stomach sank. “Yeah, I get what you mean.”
“That girl? She’s good as gold. She’s loyal. She’s beautiful. Smart and funny. But it’s hard for men to break in there with her. She’s been burned by every single man she’s met in her life but two—me and her pops, Tennessee. Trust me when I say, don’t go there unless you’re ready to stay there.”
With that parting shot, Tiny stormed off, leaving me reeling.
I hated that she’d been burned by men. Men who should have been taking care of her and not leaving her to struggle.
Even more than I cared to admit, really.
I took a drink of my scotch and winced.
I had a cut on the inside of my mouth from my teeth connecting with the sensitive tissue. The wound had ensued from a scuffle today at work—which had prompted me to visit this bar in the first place.
I wasn’t admitting that a familiar truck had been parked in the parking lot, drawing my attention like a beacon in the darkest of storms. That hadn’t been the main reason I’d chosen this particular bar.
But it had been a deciding factor.
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