I pick the phone up before it rings out, and bring it to my ear. “You’ve got Officer Tate. What’s your emergency?”
“Hey there, darlin’.” Drake’s exaggerated drawl makes me smile and sit back so my chair squeaks and groans. “I heard your station is empty today but for your pretty backside and seventeen boxes of Girl Scout cookies.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me of the cookies. I’m trying my damnedest not to eat the cardboard.”
“Youhangry, baby girl?” He lets out a gentle grunt, as though reclining in a chair. “I just deep-throated a footlong sub, so my hunger is under control, but then I heard about the cookies, so now I’m thinking maybe I could get on board for an afternoon date.”
I chuckle and kick my feet up onto the desk. Just like sulking, this isn’t me either. I don’t sit at work and gossip with my feet kicked up. But I’ve been staring at Griffin logos all day, and I’m done with that. I can’t cope. “If you touch X’s cookies, there’ll be hell to pay. He knows how many are out there, and he’s been known to shoot for less.”
Drake barks out a laugh that helps loosen the knots strangling my heart. “Your CO runs a tight ship, Tate. What’s new with your life? I haven’t heard from you all week.”
“We normally speak once every few months,” I argue. “Literally. We call, we make plans, then we move on with our lives. We don’t chitchat like school girls.”
“Ouch,” he mock-hisses. “You treat me like I’m just meat. Am I nothing more than a hole to stick it into?”
I want to maintain my bad mood, but I just can’t. You can’t be around Drake and be in a bad mood at the same time. It’s just not possible.
“Yes. You’re a juicy steak and nothing more. What do you want?”
“Cookies?”
“No.” I glance up when our young receptionist wanders through with a stack of paperwork that needs to be filed.
Tiffany and I aren’t friends. I don’t have a problem with her, but we’re definitely not from the same circles. She’s younger than me by a few years, she’s a partier, a flirt, and content filing papers and answering phones all day.
She’s beautiful, and when Drake makes sexual grunts in my ear, my lips pull up into a smug grin as I follow her with my eyes all the way to the file room and the door closes behind her.
“Are you even listening to me, woman?”
“Yeah. So I had this idea.”
He pauses what I’m certain is a rant, and instead bites at my bait. “What idea?”
“This chick I work with. You know our receptionist?”
“Tiffany? Yeah, she’s hot.”
I snicker. “I might put in a good word for you. Set you guys up. She’s adorable, and I bet you could make her cry the best kind of tears.”
He chuckles and makes me picture his broad chest bouncing. I don’t know if he’s on duty or at home, but in my head, he’s sitting on a dark brown recliner with his feet up and a beer sitting on his stomach.
“Babe…” His fake drawl turns to the tone he uses in the bedroom. No longer fake, no longer silly. “Why are you trying to set me up? We don’t do that, remember? We do uncomplicated, we do cool people, plus, Tiffany and I already fucked.”
I shoot up tall. “What?”
He snorts. “That wassolast year. Catch up. But just in case you were wondering; let’s say we’ve got a scale. A one on this scale being a lame lay, and ten being TNT in my brain – Tiffany is like…” he hesitates. Considers. “I dunno. A six?”
“You are despicable! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What? You were just trying to set us up. Now you’re saying it’s disgusting? Hypocrite, much?”
“No, I’m not saying you and her are disgusting, I’m saying your scales are disgusting. Remind me again why I speak to you?”
He gives an audible shrug and sips something; a beer, an energy drink. It could go either way. “You’re a solid nine, by the way. In case you were wondering.”
“You asshole!” I hiss. “How dare you put me on your scales. And where the hell is my final point? I should come over there and beat you with a damn baseball bat, you jerk.”
“You’re solid in bed, babe. Like, seriously, you rock my world. But–”