The lock sounded as it clicked into place and then she said, “Happy?”
“Immensely,” I purred. “Have a good day, Hasty Cake.”
She laughed. “That name is funny.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
I wasn’t really sure if it was or not, but I liked it.
“Bye.”
I hung up and pocketed my phone before jogging to my bike.
I was officially late.
Luckily, my cousin came out of the door of his own duplex at the same time, and I realized I wasn’t the only one late.
I gave him a chin lift and he got on his bike about the same time as I did mine.
We rode together into town and parked right next to each other at the station.
My eyes went to a familiar vehicle in the parking lot, and I narrowed my eyes.
“What is he doing here?” I grumbled, seeing the man that had ‘East Texas Police Academy’ on his door.
“Hopefully, just collecting his last paycheck,” Louis said as he watched the man talk outside by his car to a couple of cops.
Patman caught us looking and his smile fell off his face.
“I hope he fuckin’ croaks,” I grumbled to myself, turning to go inside.
There was silence for a few seconds as we walked into the bullpen and past all of the people that filled it.
When we arrived in the SWAT training room where our lockers were located, Louis finally asked what I was sure had been on his mind since last night.
“So you knocked a girl up.”
I looked over at him out of the corner of my eye.
“Maybe,” I admitted.
Yeah.
“That’s the girl you were telling us about,” he said. “At the Back Porch last week. The one that’s been gone a month. The one that you like.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. He’d already connected all the right dots.
“She’s the manager for all of our duplexes,” he continued. “Is that all she does?”
I shook my head. “No, she’s an author. I think the manager thing is on the side. More of a favor to her parents. Her sister is a nurse.”
“Interesting.” He looked at me, eyes gleaming. “You smell like flowers.”
I looked over at my cousin and flipped him the bird. “That’s because I’m wearing Hastings’ deodorant.”
He blinked. “Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to go all the way home to get mine and have to leave her place any earlier than I did,” I said. “You’ve never worn Calloway’s deodorant?”
He shook his head as if the thought offended him. “No.”
I snorted and suited up for the day.
Except, the first half of my morning would be filled with paperwork and reports.
Hence the coming in about two hours earlier than I wanted to.
Only to find Patman’s ass at the station.
Asshole.
I gritted my teeth and started to work on my paperwork.
I was about two reports in when we were interrupted about twenty minutes later.
“What the fuck is Patman doing here?”
At Dax’s angry words, I got up and walked out of the SWAT area to find him standing in the middle of the bullpen, bullshitting as if he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Obviously asking for a death wish,” Louis grumbled as he came to stand beside me.
“What did he do now?” Ford asked from beside me.
Ford’s woman, Ashe, had gone through her own bout of trouble with Patman. But, where Patman had hurt my girl, he hadn’t been able to touch Ford’s. Ashe trained in mixed martial arts—at least she had before she’d been pregnant—and Patman had tried to pull some bullshit on her during police academy. She’d caught on rather quickly and had shown him up, and he hadn’t liked it very much.
I’d thought that after Ford had given him a very stern talking to, along with Luke, that Patman would cool it.
Obviously, he hadn’t if yesterday’s actions were anything to go by.
I turned on my heel and went back to my desk.
I needed to get back to my paperwork. I was fuming all over again when I thought about the smile on Patman’s face from just a few moments ago when he’d come in like nothing was wrong.
I think, had Patman not been too smug of a bastard, I would’ve been okay.
I think, had he stayed in the main room, away from me, I would’ve been able to make it through the day without fucking him up.
But he didn’t know when to leave well enough alone.
And obviously he’d thought Luke was fucking joking when he said to stay away from the station.
But, obviously Patman had no clue.
He thought his senior status at the station meant something.
That ‘senior officer’ status took a flying leap out the window when he’d decided to try to hurt Ashe. Now he was nothing at the police station because he’d been relieved of his duties. Now all he did was teach at the police academy. Though, when the new recruits for the PD came into the station, he tagged along as an advisor in a special capacity. He wasn’t allowed to teach any hand-to-hand contact. Which was something we obviously should’ve paid attention to last night.