Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 84871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Amusement dances on Sloane’s usually stoic face and I can’t look away.
She’s so fucking beautiful.
“I guess you got this,” she says, reaching over to ruffle my hair. “Stay out of trouble, kid.”
And just like that, I’m reminded again of what I am to Sloane Thurman.
Her best friend’s son.
That’s all I’ll ever be.
Sloane
A stifled yawn manages to escape and earn me a chuff of laughter from one of the detectives who’s taken up residence at the coffee machine.
“Late night, Thurman?”
Detective Ethan Montgomery spends more time yapping his jaws than doing actual police work. I give him a tight smile, pushing past him to make my own cup of sludge.
“Aww,” Montgomery teases, “I see how it is. Ignore your best friend in the whole world then.”
As if I’d ever willingly hang out with that douchebag outside of work.
Andre Bishop, another detective, playfully punches Montgomery in his side and saves me from a response. “You wound me, bro. I thought I was your bestie.”
I leave the two knuckleheads to sort out their bromance once my coffee is filled to the brim with enough cream and sugar to mask the tarry taste. One of these days, I’m going to spend my hard-earned money and buy this department a real coffee machine. Maybe even one that wasn’t born in the late ’70s.
The station is filled with the usual crew this morning. Even our new chief of police, Hiroshi Tanaka, is hard at it already in a meeting with what looks like the mayor. Tanaka is your typical COP—a suit-wearing top brass who schmoozes with the upper echelon of Park Mountain, Washington. We snagged him from Seattle and supposedly, he’s the best of the best.
If he was so great, why’d he leave his cushy job in a big city then?
“You know, Sloane, if you keep glaring at the chief all the time like that, he’s going to give you one of the shitty shifts,” my friend and patrol partner, Aisha Patel, says with amusement. “What’s your beef with Tanaka anyway? He’s kind of cute.”
I grimace at the realization I’m so transparent. If only I could learn to control this resting bitch face I have. “He’s married.”
Aisha shrugs. “So am I. Can’t blame a girl for looking.”
Bringing my steamy paper cup to my lips, I swallow down some of the bitter excuse for coffee, needing caffeine to jump-start my internal engine. You’d think someone like me, who grew up in the diner my mom worked at, drinking their own version of shit coffee, I’d not be so particular.
But I am.
I’m a snob who knows all the great local spots to grab the best coffee.
“Are you finished?” I ask, setting my cup down on my tiny desk. “I’d like to hit the streets early today. Being here in the station is making my skin crawl.”
Aisha sighs heavily before plopping down in her seat across from me. In the mornings, we spend about a half hour catching up on paperwork before we cruise around, doing our part to keep the streets safe.
Since it’s been fairly quiet this week, my report completion goes quickly. In record time, I’m hustling Aisha along so we can get out of the station that reeks of chauvinism and Old Spice.
Once I’m behind the wheel of my cruiser, I finally relax. Patrolling the town of Park Mountain eases something that’s always been locked up inside of me. I like being able to do my part to clean the delinquents off our streets.
People like my dad.
Aisha fiddles with the dials of the air conditioner while I take us to Main Street. My thoughts drift to when I was ten years old, living in the run-down, crime-ridden neighborhood of Walter Oaks. It was when I really began to realize my family sucked and I didn’t want anything to do with them. It’s also the year I met Jamie Park—Booker before she married—and discovered there were other people like me.
Good people.
Nice people.
People who didn’t scam the system, get into whatever trouble they could find, or hurt others because they could.
“We’re getting out of here one day. I promise.”
Me and Jamie had a pact. As soon as we were old enough, we’d run away to some better town and start a new, happy life together as roommates. It was a solid plan until she got involved with the Parks.
Aisha rambles about her toddlers and how they can’t keep out of the dirt of her potted plants. This is the norm for her. She tells me all about her wonderful husband and kids to fill the silent squad car and I listen, wondering how I came to be almost forty and never having thought of marriage or kids.
My mind drifts back to my best friend. Though we’re worlds apart these days—me, a cop who makes mediocre pay, and Jamie, a stay-at-home wife and mother who’s treated like a queen—we’re still as close as two women can be.