Damaged Goods (Don't Call Me Hero Book 2) (20 page)

Her hand fell to my hip. It was a reassuring gesture. “I think you overestimate how much of a mastery other people have on being an adult.”

“Yeah, but I’m sure other people have more in their fridge than ketchup and bread,” I pointed out.

“Nothing a little grocery shopping can’t remedy,” she pacified.

“So, pizza?”

Julia curled her lip. “Don’t make me regret this arrangement already, Miss Miller.”

We compromised and ordered Chinese even though Julia complained about elevated sodium levels the entire time. She made me promise I’d go grocery shopping the next day. We cuddled on the couch and watched mindless television after dinner. At the end of the evening, she lay in my bed, reading a book.

“I’m gonna get ready for bed,” I announced. “Do you need the bathroom before I jump in there?”

“No, dear,” she said, turning a page, “I’m fine.”

With one more lingering look at the woman in my bed, I shut the bathroom door behind me. I almost felt like pinching myself. A few short months ago, Julia and I had been engaged in an elaborate dance that tiptoed the line between flirtation and deception. Now she was in my bed wearing a tank top and yoga pants.

I grabbed my toothbrush out of the plastic cup that sat on the sink. It hadn’t escaped my notice that the bathroom looked more crowded than usual. Julia’s blue toothbrush had multiplied. The limited counter space around the sink was populated with beauty products, some of which I didn’t even recognize. A second towel hung from the horizontal bar on the wall. I opened a drawer in the vanity and found a hairbrush, hairdryer, and flatiron. I hadn’t even unpacked my own hairdryer. The medicine cabinet now housed a second tube of toothpaste and various perfumes and lotions. Julia had only been inhabiting my apartment for a few hours and yet she probably had more things in the apartment than I did. I wasn’t covetous about my space, but this was going to take some getting used to.

When I left the bathroom, the lights were out in the bedroom, and the space on the bed that Julia had previously occupied was now empty.

“Julia?” I called out.

The floorboards creaked when she returned to the room. She’d retired her book for the evening and had changed out of the clothes she’d been wearing earlier.

Her black satin robe hit just above her upper thighs. She might as well have not been wearing a robe at all for as little as it covered. What little material existed had fallen open in the front to reveal the scalloped lace of a black bra beneath.

I practically salivated at the sight of her, and all misgivings about her overtaking the bathroom were banished from my head. “I think I’m going to enjoy us living together.”

She twirled the ends of the sash cinched around her waist. “I was hoping you’d say that,” she smiled.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“How about you drive today, Miller?”

I stopped abruptly on our morning walk from roll call to the parking garage. “Are you serious?”

“No,” Mendez grinned.

I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be funny and failing, or if he was simply being more of a jerk than usual. Either way, I ignored him and walked to the passenger side of car 432.

Once our car was in service, Mendez rolled down all the car windows. His left arm took its place on the window’s ledge of the driver side door. Then he gave me a new directive: “Tell me what you see.”

Part of field training integrated a kind of oral exam that included verbal observations. When the typical driver pulled up to an intersection, they might notice the crisscrossing streets or maybe even a few street signs and buildings. When a police officer stopped at a red light he or she needed to notice far more. The color t-shirt a man was wearing. Did the woman at the corner have brown hair or blonde? Did the black vehicle in the rearview mirror have a front license plate, and if so, what letters and numbers marked the plate?

I settled back into the passenger seat. My gun leather creaked with the movement. “Caucasian male, medium build, facial hair, smoking a cigarette on the corner. Dog leash in his left hand. Two juveniles, one male with a red bicycle, the other male with a skateboard. Black female, approximately in her sixties, waiting for the bus.”

This continued for a few minutes while we patrolled our section of the city. Mendez drove in silence while I verbally recorded every person and vehicle I saw.

A few yards away from our vehicle, a young woman waved her arms in the air. She looked like she’d just rolled out of bed. Her blonde hair was up in a messy bun and she wore a long, oversized t-shirt with black leggings. Her mouth moved without sound. The car windows were down, but her voice was lost over the sound of the police radio.

“Caucasian woman, medium build, early to mid-twenties, flagging us down.”

I glanced over at my FTO when I realized he wasn’t slowing down. His eyes had glazed over with disinterest while I’d been doing my field observation. “Mendez,” I barked. “Mendez, stop the car.”

My partner finally jerked to attention. My head snapped forward when he slammed on the breaks. “Jesus, man,” I grumbled. I rubbed at the back of my neck. “Thanks for the whiplash.”

Mendez ignored me and hung even farther out the open car window while the vehicle continued to run. “What seems to be the problem?”

“My car. It’s been stolen.”

“Just now?”

“No. I parked it here last night, but I took a cab home because I’d had a couple of drinks.” The young woman’s voice pitched to a higher, more panicked register. “I tried to do the right thing, and how do I get repaid? My car gets stolen.”

“And you’re positive you parked it here?” Mendez asked. “Have you checked the adjacent streets?”

“I’m positive it was this street. I remember that big church,” she said, pointing to a red brick Lutheran church on the corner.  

Mendez grabbed a clipboard filled with blank police reports from under the car’s center console. Even in the digital age, we still hand-wrote our initial reports, probably because most cops were still of an age where even flip-phones and pagers seemed like advanced technology. Only later were the reports entered into a computer database.

“I’ll take her statement,” he said. “You look around.”

Mendez turned off the car and we both exited the vehicle. While he recorded the young woman’s information, I searched the pavement for evidence that the vehicle had been stolen—broken glass that suggested a busted side window, tire marks on the pavement as if someone had tried to drive away in a hurry. Not long into the investigation, my eyes left the blacktop and I looked up.

“Hey, Mendez,” I called over to my partner. “Take a look at this.”

Mendez tucked his clipboard under his arm. He took his time coming over to me. He walked with the typical police officer swagger—wide hips, a long stride, and hands resting on his utility belt.

“What is it?”

I pointed at a small, but visible street sign that hung just above eye level.

Mendez frowned and clicked the cap on his ballpoint pen. “Ma’am, did you happen notice this no parking sign last night?”

The young woman’s eyes widened. “No parking? What?”

“This is a tow-zone during the morning commute,” he said. “You’re not allowed to park here during the hours of seven to nine. Your car wasn’t stolen. It was towed.”

“That can’t be right,” she said. “I park here all the time.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Mendez shook his head, “but if you’re positive this is where you parked, your car is probably at the city impound lot.”

“We’ll get you the number for the lot so you can double-check that your vehicle is there,” I offered.

The woman dropped her head. “I’d appreciate that. Thank you, Officers,” she said meekly.

“Do you need a ride?” I asked.

“No. I’ll be okay.”

Mendez mumbled to himself all the way back to the police car.

“Do you even
like
being a cop?” I asked him. He seemed to get an attitude at every complaint we responded to like he was being inconvenienced.

“What I don’t like are dumb people.”

“It was an honest mistake,” I defended the girl.

“There’s a no parking sign, clear as day.”

“She parked at night.”

“Whatever.”

“It’s just gonna get worse when the new semester starts.” The city would soon be flooded with a new batch of freshmen students, all living without parental oversight for the first time.

“Don’t remind me,” Mendez grumbled.

+ + +

“Honey! I’m home!”

My arms were full of grocery bags, so I shut the front door with the heel of my boot.

“Julia? Where you hiding at?” I called out. My motorcycle boots echoed on the hardwood floor.

“In the bedroom,” I heard her reply.

Julia appeared from the back of the apartment. She’d changed out of her work clothes and looked at home in a black t-shirt and grey yoga pants.

“Hey. Missed you today,” I murmured. I leaned in and pressed my mouth against her lips in what was almost a chaste kiss. Almost. I lingered long enough that I felt the beginnings of that telltale tightness in the pit of my stomach.

Julia smiled at me when I leaned back from the kiss. “How was work today?” she asked. “How was Mendez?”

“Okay and horrible.”

“What new and unusual punishment did your FTO make you suffer through today?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” I noted, “but the guy is such a crab. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who seemed to hate being a cop so much.”

“Sounds like someone needs to get laid,” she remarked.

I sputtered out a laugh. “Geez, lady. I think you’ve been spending too much time with me. I’m starting to feel like a bad influence.”

“Maybe,” she mused. “What’s in the bag?” She stood on her tiptoes to peer into the paper bag.

“Supplies,” I said vaguely, setting the grocery bag on the countertop. The contents knocked together and made a suspicious clinking noise.

Julia raised an eyebrow and waited for my explanation. Instead of using words, however, I reached into my bag of tricks and pulled out a bottle of tequila, followed by two bright limes.

“I thought you were supposed to be getting groceries,” she censured.

“And I did,” I defended myself. “Limes are a fruit, right?”

Julia frowned. “We really need to reeducate you about the food pyramid, dear.”

She picked up the tequila bottle and gave it a skeptical once over. She shook it a little and the liquid sloshed around inside. At least there wasn’t a worm at the bottom. I’d actually never seen one of those before, not even in Afghanistan, so it could very well have been an old wives’ tale. I remembered kids in middle school bragging about stealing their parents’ tequila and how they’d even eaten the worm. It had sounded like the most disgusting thing I’d ever heard of, and I’d stayed away from the stuff until I became a Marine.

“This really isn’t my style, Cassidy,” she hesitated.

“Before you met me did you ever think shacking up with a Marine would be your style?”

She continued to stare at the squat, round bottle. “You make a good point,” she said, but she still looked unconvinced.

“Trust me, this is the good stuff. High-end, one hundred percent agave. I guarantee you won’t wake up with a hangover.” I gave her a dimpled grin that I hoped she wouldn’t be able to resist.

I grabbed a cutting board from one of the lower cabinets and an oversized knife from the butcher block that sat atop the kitchen counter. The citrusy fragrance of the limes perfumed the air as I began to cut into them.

Julia uncorked the tequila bottle and held it up to her nose. A sharp cough erupted from her throat. “You really expect this to go into my stomach?” She set the bottle back down on the counter like it was a bomb she expected to explode.

My grin grew wider. “Uh huh,” I confirmed. “And
on
your stomach, too.”

She shook her head. “What are you talking about, lunatic?”

“I don’t own shot glasses,” I announced with mock-innocence as I continued to slice up the lime. “So I’ll just have to use your adorable bellybutton.”