French isn’t placid, but he doesn’t resist. He unleashes a constant stream of profanity, promising to fuck and/or kill various relatives of ours. We don’t pay him any attention. He’s lost and he knows it. The knowledge just hasn’t made its way from his brain to his mouth.
Everything else is pretty much just procedure. We read him his rights and lead him to Ricky’s cruiser where Lopez does his best to impersonate some hotshot Hollywood cop.
Rookies. Gotta love ‘em.
When it’s all said and done, Thompson and I enjoy a much lower quality but much more satisfying cup of coffee at the station.
“Think he’ll do time?” Thompson asks.
“If he’s lucky,” I say. “He’s been careless. Most likely he’ll be dead before he ever stands trial.”
“Shame,” Thompson says in a voice that makes it clear that it isn’t. “Well, what can you do?”
I shrug, down the last of my coffee and say, “Well, I have a dinner engagement, so I’ll leave you boys to it.”
“Oh yeah? Tell her I say hi,” Thompson says.
I stare quickly at him a moment before it occurs to me he can’t know that it’s Mack I’m going to see and he’s only offering me a generic ribbing, one cop to another.
“I would, but I don’t want to put her out of the mood,” I say.
“You better tell her I say hi, then,” he says, “So she can close her eyes and imagine a real man fucking her.”
“Fuck you,” I say genially.
“Fuck you too,” he replies just as genially.
Then I head to Mackenzie’s place.
Chapter 7
McKenzie
When he actually shows up, I feel like the wind is knocked out of me. It’s like an emotional slingshot, I guess. What I mean is it’s like my emotions are stretched so far in one direction and then they snap back when he actually arrives, and I realize he’s not just discarding me.
I hate feeling so relieved when Grant actually shows up. I hate the way my mind works, how I actually let myself believe that somehow the whole thing is a setup, that he just lets his normal, male horniness make him give in to baser desires and then immediately tries to find a way to get rid of me. I hate it.
So, when I see him on the porch, I’m already on the verge of tears. He steps in and the moment the door is closed, I rush to him and start crying like a stupid baby. He holds me and whispers softly. I don’t really hear the words. I’m too relieved. Eventually, I pay attention to what he says and realize he’s trying to tell me he’s okay.
He thinks I’m worried about him getting hurt in the line of duty!
I pull back and shake my head, wiping away tears with the back of my hand. “No, no,” I say, “I… With Dad being a cop, that’s always somewhere in the background but that’s not why I’m crying.”
“What’s wrong, Mack?” he asks.
“I thought you weren’t coming back.”
“You just said that wasn’t it,” he says with a frown. “You’re not making any sense.”
“No. I mean, I thought you wouldn’t…” I can’t form the words and just end up staring at the floor in front of me.
There is a pretty damned significant and pretty damned uncomfortable silence. Then, I feel his hand on my chin. He lifts my face so I have to look at him. His expression is strange. It’s like a combination of stern and unyielding but also soft and reassuring. I can’t understand how any man, even Grant, can manage to convey those opposite things at the same time.
“Are you saying you thought I wouldn’t want to come back to you?” I still have tears evidently because as I nod, one rolls down my cheek. “Use words, Mack!” he says sternly.
I gasp at his tone, and I don’t know how I can be both thrilled and frightened at his voice. “Yes,” I say, “I thought you were just getting rid of me.”
“You knew your father called, though,” he says, “Did you think I arranged for that call or something?”