Join the Club (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 7)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  They were a weird shade of green, almost yellow. More like a green highlighter.

  The kid smiled at hearing that. “You work with my dad?”

  Since I wasn’t in uniform, it had me insanely curious how he’d guessed that. I grinned.

  “How do you know I’m not just some criminal that your dad arrested?” I teased.

  He rolled his eyes, looking exactly like I’d seen his dad do a hundred thousand times.

  “You have that tattoo.” He pointed at my left forearm.

  I looked down at the thin blue line that went through the middle of my all black and gray tattooed forearm.

  The words ‘honor,’ ‘serve,’ and ‘protect,’ were all written elegantly onto my forearm. Wings, a badge, and few other ‘officer’ related things were woven neatly in ink into my skin around the words.

  It was fuckin’ awesome, and the tattoo itself had taken many, many sessions to complete.

  “I do,” I said. “And yes, I work with your dad at Kilgore Police Department. Do you have his number? I’d like to call him. What’s your name, by the way?”

  The kid rattled off the number, and I mentally stored it as I continued to talk to the boy about the teacher.

  In the end, I realized that he’d been given much the same treatment as Asa.

  “My dad is a trash truck driver,” the second kid, Tom, said. “Your dad’s occupation is way cooler.”

  With that, he got up and left, taking his paper and turning it into a tray at the front of the room.

  “That’s why he doesn’t get the same treatment as we do,” Neal Junior, better known as Junior, said.

  I blinked. “Because your dad’s an officer?”

  He nodded. “She treats all of us like this. She hates our fathers’ occupation. And one girl whose aunt is raising her, too.”

  I felt my belly churn.

  “Tell me why you think that,” I asked, leaning against the wall next to the kid.

  Instead of calling Neal, I texted him, and he responded with he would be there immediately.

  When I heard a commotion in the hall, I patted the kid on the back. “Get your work done, buddy. Holler if you need help, okay? And you’ll get the full thirty minutes that you need.”

  Junior nodded his head and went back to his test, his face much more relaxed now.

  When I arrived back outside, it was to see Neal standing there looking worried.

  I gestured at him with a lift of my chin and motioned for him to meet me a little farther down the hall.

  Then I’d explained what I’d just heard while we watched O’Malley continue to tear into Ms. Greeley.

  Neal went stiff, then he turned without a word and walked up to the teacher.

  “So you’re the reason my kid comes home and cries every night?” he snapped.

  And that’s how the fight happened.

  ***

  Delanie

  “What on Earth is going on?” the old lady asked.

  My brows rose as I tapped my foot with impatience.

  I’d gotten here to see the principal over ten minutes ago, yet he still wasn’t back, despite the old lady’s assurances that he was on his way.

  I doubted he was.

  She hadn’t even picked up the phone to call him.

  Which had me getting even madder.

  I turned at the sound of the raised voices and wandered into the hall as I looked left and then right.

  The old lady passed right by me and started marching toward the voices, and I followed right behind her, because I decided that maybe that was where the principal was at.

  And I was right.

  Only, the principal wasn’t alone.

  He was with an older detective that I knew worked for KPD, the principal, a teacher, and Bourne.

  Bourne.

  What the hell was he doing here already?

  As I walked down the length of the hallway, I started to hear more and more until I realized what they were talking about.

  The older detective was yelling at the teacher, and he was letting her have it with both barrels.

  My eyes met Bourne’s, and I raised my brows at him in question.

  He gestured to my kid, who I could see writing something down on a desk in the corner of the STAR lab, and then at the teacher.

  Which was when I realized that the teacher must’ve been the chick that was being mean to my baby.

  I narrowed my eyes and gritted my teeth to keep myself from joining in on the verbal lashing that the detective was giving to the woman.

  “…and why would you ever think that what you’re doing is okay?” the detective growled.

  The teacher’s eyes weren’t filled with sorrow, either. They were filled with annoyance that she was getting chewed out.

  I had a feeling that she was more upset about it being done in public rather than because she’d gotten caught.

  “I’m treating your son like he deserves to be treated,” she said indignantly.

  That’s when I stepped in.

  “So a five-year-old,” I interrupted, “has done something to deserve to be treated like that?” I asked carefully. “He’s done something so horrible to you that you refuse to open his ketchup packets?” I paused. “And throw his food away? My son already suffers from stomach issues. So you’re telling me when he actually has a settled tummy for a change, you’re going to deny him his food?”

  My son had spent the last few weeks throwing up at random.

  I really didn’t think that the one time that he was actually feeling well enough to eat at school that she should’ve done that.

  No way, no how.

  The teacher had nothing to say.

  “I think that it’s best for you to gather your belongings and leave,” Principal O’Malley said softly, his eyes directed at the irate teacher. “I’ll discuss this with the school board, but as of right now, you’re on unpaid administrative leave until I can discuss what’s happened with them.”

  The teacher rolled her eyes and walked away as if her job hadn’t just been taken away from her.

  I deflated. “I was hoping she’d put up more of a fight,” I murmured.

  The detective turned to look at me for the first time, and he grinned.

  “I got her a few good ones. Don’t worry,” he said. “And this won’t be the end of this.”

  “Do you think it’s because y’all are both cops?” I asked him curiously.

  Bourne stiffened beside me.

  “I don’t think that’s it,” O’Malley said. “There are other students in this school that have police officer parents.”

  “But do any of them come to this particular class?” the detective asked.

  “Probably not,” Bourne murmured just as Asa came walking out of the lab. “Hey, buddy. You ready to go to the book fair?”

  Asa nodded and skipped to me, throwing his arms around my leg. “I’m ready!”

  Grinning, I ran my hand over his hair, smoothing it down even though I knew it wouldn’t stay. “Can Uncle Bourne take you to the fair? That way Mommy can talk to the principal?”

  He shrugged as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Thirty minutes later, the detective, I learned was called Neal, and I were talking outside the hallway of the book fair.

  “Are you seeing anybody?” he asked.

  We’d bonded over our son’s predicaments, and I’d found that I quite liked him a lot.

  Though, just sayin’, not anywhere near as much as Bourne.

  But, since that was a scab that I shouldn’t pick at, I opened my mouth to say ‘no’ but never got the chance.

  “You ready, baby?” Bourne asked.

  I blinked at his use of ‘baby’ and was just about to call him on it when Asa stepped out with his massive bag of crap that he likely didn’t need, and that Bourne probably spent a couple hundred bucks on.

  He then promptly spilled it on
the floor.

  Grinning, I hurried over to help him clean it up.

  Once it was all packed nicely in the bag, I walked back over to the two men with Asa’s hand in mine.

  I smiled at Neal, but the one he returned didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Well, it was nice talking to y’all,” Neal said. “I’ll see you at the station, Bourne. Nice to meet you, Delanie.”

  Then he was gone, leaving me standing there in confusion.

  I looked over to Bourne to see if he’d noticed his abrupt departure only to see him glaring at Neal’s back.

  “Everything okay?” I asked curiously.

  Bourne shrugged, his eyes going to Asa.

  “You ready to go back to class, little man?” he asked.

  Asa pouted. “Do I have to?”

  Bourne grinned, making my heart skip a beat.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Your mommy and I are driving to Austin. I didn’t forget that I’m going to get you those cookies that you like, though.”

  Bourne had made this trip before because of his tattoo artist—who he planned on seeing while I was in meetings this week—living in Austin. Meaning he’d frequently stopped by the cookie place right next door and brought Asa some cookies home.

  He’d done this multiple times now, and I honestly couldn’t wait to try the cookies myself.

  Apparently, the guy that did the tattooing had a back door into the cookie place because his wife owned it. And when Bourne was there, he always got hot cookies.

  And I loved hot cookies straight from the oven.

  “Fine.” Asa’s shoulders slumped. “But they better be the good ones.”

  Bourne laughed and held his hand out for the bags.

  “We’ll drop this off in your room. Your daddy can pick it up when he gets you off the bus later,” Bourne said.

  Asa handed it over but made sure to stop him and dig through the bag for a giant pencil with a banana eraser on it.

  I looked at Bourne with raised eyebrows.

  He shrugged at my look. “Hey, he asked.”

  I rolled my eyes, causing him to smirk at me.

  “Give me a hug, baby boy,” I ordered, holding my arms out.

  Asa threw himself into them, and I hugged him to me tightly before smothering his face with kisses, causing him to giggle.

  “Mom!” he whined.

  I hated when he called me mom. I missed the days when he called me mommy.

  “Love you,” I said. “Like a little pig.”

  “Love you little. Love you big,” Asa chirped.

  I let him go, and then Bourne swooped in and picked him up, returning him back to his classroom.

  I watched from the end of the hallway as Bourne walked with him, easily carrying him on the crook of his arm as if he weighed nothing.

  I couldn’t hold him like that anymore.

  The most I could handle was holding him on my back and hoping that he didn’t want to ride far.

  Bourne looked as if he was holding a bag of flour instead of a fifty-pound kid.

  “You got a good one there.”

  I looked over at Principal O’Malley.

  “Which one?” I teased.

  “Both, dear,” O’Malley said. “Both.”

  ***

  We arrived at the hotel in Austin hours after we were originally intending due to all of the traffic.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Bourne said as he looked up at the hotel.

  There were people everywhere.

  Bikers, more accurately.

  “There’s a rally this weekend,” someone answered.

  It was an older man with salt and pepper hair.

  The little nametag on his MC cut read ‘Big Papa.’

  I smiled at him. “Like a motorcycle rally?”

  He nodded. “And there’s also a huge marathon. There are runners and bikers everywhere.”

  My brows lifted. “Wow. I had no clue.”

  The big man shrugged and walked to a beautiful woman that was talking on her cell phone a few yards away.

  Bourne caught both of our bags in his hand, bleeped the locks on his truck, and gestured for me to go in front of him inside.

  I made sure to take the carousel door, causing him to sigh and follow me.

  Grinning at him as we walked up to the concierge desk, I missed the first part of the woman’s comment as I arrived at her desk.

  “…reservation?” she chirped.

  I pulled out my phone then started to sort through my emails, finding the reservation number.

  After showing it to her, she started typing at her computer and frowning.

  I started to worry when she began taking longer than I thought was needed.

  “Is there something wrong?” Bourne asked.

  The chick looked worried as she said, “Umm, there seems to be a mix up with your rooms. The one we have you booked in for the night was just booked out to another person.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Do you have the other room she booked still available?” Bourne asked.

  She started typing some more.

  “It shows here that you missed check-in time by a couple of hours. On our paperwork, we say that we’ll re-book your room if you don’t let us know that you’re going to be late,” she said nervously.

  “No,” Bourne said. “I’ve already been charged on my credit card. I know this because I was looking at my bank statement while getting gas. And we did call. An hour and a half ago, actually. We even did the key card thing through your app. They said to come to the front desk for our room number.”

  The woman’s face went a little red, then she turned to look at a man that was talking at the end of the counter.

  “Umm, Mr. Jacobs?” she called. “Can I have your help over here?”

  Five minutes later we were told much the same thing.

  “We only have one other room left for the night. That’s the penthouse honeymooner suite. It’s an extra thousand dollars a night,” he said. “I can call around at other hotels and…”

  “Don’t bother,” the same man as earlier said as he walked up beside us, slapping his hand down on the counter. “They’re all booked because of the rally. You got our room clean yet?”

  The guy looked upset as he nodded his head. “Yes, sir. We do. The man at the end of the counter can help you.”

  Big Papa walked off, and I turned to look at the manager with a frown. “We didn’t give our rooms away. I’m here for a work conference. I can’t go anywhere else. It’s too hard to get back into the city by eight in the morning.”

  “I can…”

  “You can give us the honeymoon suite,” Bourne suggested. “For the price of the two rooms that you charged us for, it should cover it just fine. And if it doesn’t, I suppose maybe you should just eat that cost since you gave our rooms away after we’d checked in.”

  I could tell that the man didn’t want to at all.

  But by the look on his face, he knew he had no choice.

  But then a woman who’d been standing behind us chirped up with, “That sounds fair.”

  I looked over my shoulder to see a rather large, scarred man with a tiny pixie-like woman standing at her side. They didn’t look like they matched at all. Him a big, hulking giant who looked like he ate little pixies like her for dinner.

  I smiled at her and looked back at the manager, waiting patiently.

  He sighed and started to type out on the computer, and only as he was handing us one set of keycards did I realize what had just happened.

  We’d been put in a room together, for three days, and I couldn’t control myself around Bourne Pena. Especially not when he smelled so damn good.

  And there’d only be one bed.

  One. Single. Bed.

  What the fuck was I thinking?

  Bourne turned around and headed in the direction of the elevators, and I was forced to follow or get bowle
d down by the big guy behind me.

  As we arrived at the elevators, I asked, “What floor are we on?”

  Since he had both key cards for the door, he flipped the little booklet open that the man had written our room number down on and said, “Fifteenth floor.”

  I frowned. “What number on the fifteenth floor?”

  His eyes met mine. “The entire fifteenth floor. It says to swipe your keycard in the elevator to be allowed to that particular floor.”

  The elevator doors opened, revealing what had to be runners since they were all dressed in lycra-like outfits and tennis shoes.

  They poured out, bouncing and laughing with their companions, and I walked in, feeling dread roll down my spine with every single step that I took.

  When I turned around at the back of the elevator and looked at him, it was to see him waving the keycard in the middle of a card reader-type thing and pressing the button for the fifteenth floor.

  The elevator’s door closed, and I was closed in with Bourne.

  I only thought his smell was yummy when we were in large spaces.

  Closing me up in a small, confined one? I realized I didn’t even have the tip of the iceberg.

  God, he smelled like leather, coffee, chocolate, and pine. I wouldn’t think those four things would go well together, but I’d have been wrong.

  He smelled to die for.

  I wanted to lean into him and bury my face in his neck.

  The elevator doors opened and Bourne walked out, giving me an amazing view of his backside.

  I wanted to reach out and touch it, but I refrained, knowing that we wouldn’t get anything accomplished with me maiming him.

  Plus, he seemed like he’d worked me out of his system.

  As if he had used me, tasted me, felt me, fucked me… and then decided that that was enough.

  I hadn’t seen him get hard all damn day, and trust me, I’d been looking.

  All the while, I’d sat on my side of the truck and crossed my legs, pressing them together to help alleviate the ache.

  The moment we stepped into the fifteenth floor’s entryway that led to the doors to get you to the room, I knew that things were about to get interesting.

  He didn’t stop and admire the beautiful area around him, though.

  No, he walked right up to the doors, swiped his card, and walked through the door.