8 – Fresh, Windy, Sweet

Troy slid into the oversized booth at Mugshots next to Beckett, Cerise and Dahlia. In the other seat, Crew was all the way on the inside, already playing footsie with Dahlia, then Rogue and Mac were next, both relaxed, lounging, and sizing up the place.

Troy caught a thread of a scent and his eyes dropped closed as he savored it. It was like peppermint, spearmint, and wintermint all rolled together, blowing in his face. Sweet, windy, fresh, like what he’d scented the night before. Thoughts of sex steamrolled him, sex and something more, something so far-reaching and forever that he could not quite name it.

The sounds of the bar fell away and he took a deep breath in. There it was, the mint scent, so cool and refreshing and in need of a thaw. Troy opened his eyes, searching the inside of the bar for her, the source of the delicious scent. His wolf leaned in close. He didn’t translate what his wolf was saying, only agreed.

The minted thread of scent reached him again, new and fresh, and Troy searched the interior of the bar. She was close. The bar and grill itself was a square, with two seating sections along two outside walls, separated by an archway over the entrance. The archway was lined with pictures, “mugshots” of customers half an hour after they’d drank a drink called the “Spread ‘Em.” Troy had seen the sign explaining the images as he’d walked inside, but did not know what a Spread ‘Em was, nor care. He wasn’t drinking, he was hunting. Troy saw no female who fit the scent in the section he was sitting in, so he peered through the archway to the other side, also running his eyes over all the women at the bar. The door that divided the bar from the kitchen was to his right. A waitress with long dark braids came through it, but she was not the source.

Mac whispered something to Rogue, then stood, and left the table, heading further into the bar. A door to the right of the bar swung open, and a female walked through it, balancing trays expertly on each forearm. She was beautiful and poised and perfect, with curves that wouldn’t quit, wearing jeans, a simple dark shirt, and comfortable shoes. Black, curly, shoulder-length hair framed fine-boned features set in a controlled expression that perfectly matched her cool mint scent and made Troy’s stomach flop around in the strangest way. Four realizations struck him all at once.

She was the source of the delicious minty scent he couldn’t get enough of. She worked at Mugshots. She had a cool, ice princess vibe that he must thaw or die. She belonged with him.

Troy growled soft enough that only he could hear it, a slow idle that revved up his desire to get close to her, to see her eyes and her face, and her mouth and her body up close, to hear her voice, maybe catch her eye, to carry her on his back like she was royalty.

Mac came back to the table, but Troy didn’t even look at him. He watched the female and waited for a clear course of action to come to him.

Mac got in his line of sight, and when Troy moved over, his future wife was gone, maybe around the back of the dance floor, maybe through the door behind the bar. Troy snarled once at Mac, but let it go. She would be back.

“What bathroom am I supposed to go in?” Mac asked anyone who would listen. “The Prosecutor or the Defendant?”

Dahlia and Cerise were whispering fiercely at the end of the table, but Dahlia stopped long enough to say, “You go in the Defendant’s room, Mac. The Prosecutor is the Ladies Room, because women always nag and dudes are always coming up with excuses, that’s what my friend says. She says it’s sexist as hell but after a few drinks, nobody complains.”

Rogue shook her head. “That’s not it. The Prosecutor is the guy’s room and The Defendant is the lady’s room, because the prosecutor hands out the sentence, and the defendant just takes it.”

Troy snorted, his eyes on the other section of the bar where the female reappeared around the back, moving quickly, writing on her pad as she walked toward him, then she hooked a left and disappeared through the door to the kitchen.

Troy tracked her, loss spearing him when he couldn’t see her anymore. At that moment, nothing seemed more important than getting that female to look his way with a smile, and not her waitress smile.

But she wasn’t even going to be their waitress. The other female, the one with the braids, approached them. Troy craned to see around her. Her scent said she recognized and revered someone at the table. Troy looked at everyone to see who it was. Crew. He raised a hand to her. He held his scent close into his body so Troy couldn’t get any of it.

The waitress rapped him on the forehead with the end of her pen. “I’m right here, big guy. Let me guess, you want a beer, am I right?”

Troy tuned into her for a second. Her nametag that looked like a police badge proclaimed her to be, “Rizzoli.” She was petite, with a small smile on her face, long dark hair, loosely braided down her back, and a scent that made no sense to him. Canyon and Timber came to mind.

“Lemonade,” Troy rasped carefully.

Rizzoli raised her eyebrows but nodded.

“Only tea for me, thanks,” Cerise said. Dahlia snorted loudly. The scents from that side of the table went haywire and Troy stopped thinking about the female he was tracking long enough to look that way. The others gave their orders and the waitress left the table.

Dahlia waited till Rizzoli was gone, then raised her hands and spread them out toward Cerise, the strangest look on her face. Her scent said she was pissed as hell, but she knew she had no right to be, but she couldn’t help it. She almost snarled her words. “And there it is,” she said. “She’s pregnant, everyone. You all are surprised, right?”

No one said a word. Crew put his hands on his head and looked down, then reached across the table for Dahlia’s hand. Beckett leaned back and nodded his head. “Finally,” he drawled in the relative silence. “Y’all two just get it out.”

Cerise pointed her finger at Dahlia in a harsh way Troy had never seen from her before. “The only reason we didn’t tell anyone was because of how upset you’ve been. We’re not hiding it.”

Mac was still standing and Rogue made to join him, pulling him away from the table. She didn’t stick around for sister drama most of the time. Mac stopped her from pulling him away for a second and leaned back to the table and said, “Congratulations Beckett, you finally figured out what hole it goes in.”

Beckett raised his arms up and carefully threaded his fingers behind his head, addressing Mac. “You must still be figuring it out. Need a hint?”

Mac turned to Rogue. “I miss Bruin.” Rogue rolled her eyes and pulled him away.

Troy ignored them all and stood up. He had a female to woo.

***

Reed rushed into the back and turned around quickly, peeking through the scratched window on the in-door that she knew mostly hid her. It mostly hid the view out, too, but she could see a little. She could see that big guy’s frame, the one with the lumberjack yoga body and the bad boy sideburns and the questionable mustache that she still found attractive.

He’d been staring at her.

His attention had been a physical weight that made her feel hot and thick and slow and clumsy, like she was walking through molasses.

Sage pushed in through the door, her face set in evil amusement. When she saw Reed she stopped in the hallway and pointed at her, then back out the door, pointing right at him.

“Magnum P.I. wants in your panties, bad,” Sage said, grinning.

Reed shook her head. Deny, deny, deny. “Nah. He must think he knows me, that’s all.”

“You did notice,” Sage said, her voice low. “He’s got you so naked with his eyes, how can you even pretend he’s not practically, I don’t know… marking you.” Sage peeked out the window they could barely see out of, getting in Reed’s way. “He’s sexy as hell, Reed, and he’s not going to take no without a fight, I know that type. You should just give in right now. Throw away that one rule and take him in the back and s─”

Reed clapped her hand over Sage’s mouth. “Don’t you say it you─”

Sage clapped her own hand over Reed’s mouth. “Don’t you say it either,” she said, her eyes sparkling, her words muffled by Reed’s hand.

Sage pulled away, and they both turned to look back out the window.

“Where’s my mace?” Reed said softly.

Sage nodded sagely. “Going to fight. It can be fun that way, too.”

“No, Sage,” Reed said bluntly, gathering courage, convincing herself of her words with her words. “Seriously, he’s dangerous and he needs to stay away from me, thank you. Guys like that, savagely handsome guys who make women’s eggs spontaneously release inside their bodies, just like, ‘pop, pop, pop,’ when they walk by, those are the kind of guys I don’t mess with.”

Sage gave her a smile and headed away from the door, toward the order counter. Reed followed.

“Plus, he’s a cop, right?” Sage said, her tone a mystery. “And you don’t date cops. That’s rule number twelve or thirteen.”

It was actually rule number twenty-four, only made up after she’d started working at Mugshots. “That’s right, I don’t date cops, unlike you. I swear you don’t even need the money and you’re only here to bag a husband.”

Sage wiggled her nose and pulled her free arm up like a paw, hopping a couple short hops down the hallway to the kitchen window. “That’s me, the ultimate badge bunny. You know it’s my purpose in life to marry someone who really knows how to cuff ‘em and stuff ‘em.”

Sage stopped hopping, but her expression didn’t change. “Did you see what he was wearing?” she said, emptying, then loading her tray at the window. Reed did the same, shaking her head. Sage elbowed her. “An actual Hawaiian shirt. It had canoes on it. Canoes, Reed!”

Reed shook her head and laughed. It didn’t matter, because she would stay far away from him and his shirt. She would never see the canoes.

Sage was on a roll. “And that mustache. You have to have a rule about mustaches, right? You have one about everything else. No mustaches over 3/4s of an inch, or without accompanying beard or goatee. Please tell me that’s a rule.”

Reed ignored Sage gathering her food quickly and preparing to leave, but Sage’s whispered “Speak of the devil,” made her look up.

Reed’s heart pounded harder and she checked the alcove, knowing what she would see, but it was empty. She looked the other way and saw him.

He stood there behind the counter that divided the back of the bar from the setup area, his eyes on her and her alone. He’d come through the back hallway, looking for her. Reed glanced away quickly. Up close, he looked even more like the kind of guy who would press her every button and then invent a couple of new buttons she didn’t even know she had.

He was probably looking for Sage, she told herself. Not her. She was too strait-laced, too buttoned up for most of these cops to give her the time of day.

In her heart, she knew she was lying.

“I’m out,” she said under her breath, then she turned and headed for the door behind the bar, leaving him to Sage.

She would avoid him till her last breath, that’s how convinced she was that he would be bad for her. She made her decision and rushed out the other door.

***

Troy put his hand up, about to call out to her, the female he must talk to, but she moved too quickly for him, her scent disturbed and broiling around her.

Rizzoli approached him, heading him off. Too late, he realized the female didn’t want anything to do with him, and the thought almost made him stagger. He regrouped as quickly as possible, which wasn’t nearly quick enough.

Rizzoli stopped in front of him. “You need some help?” she said brightly, her slight smile never wavering.

He nodded his head at the door the female had just gone out. He lifted his chin. He had no words. He wanted to ask a million things, who was she, where did she live, was she single, what was her name, when was her birthday, how could he get her to love him? He said nothing, only stared at a door that was still lightly swinging.

Rizzoli poked him on the chest with her pen. “Look Tom, can I call you Tom? Of course I can. You didn’t need anything, did you? You were coming back here to say hi to Benson, am I right? That’s Olivia Benson.” Troy recognized the name from Law and Order. He nodded. Now Rizzoli made sense, too.

“I’m telling you, you’re not going to get anywhere with her, so you should just give up the thought. You’ll be happier. She’ll be less stressed. It will be good for everyone.”

He still stared at the door, thinking maybe she would come back through it.

“She’s so beautiful,” he said slowly, softly, sincerely, unable to help himself.

Rizzoli raised her eyebrows like she had when he’d ordered lemonade, then nodded. “Sure. How ‘bout you, big guy, what’s your story?”

“Story?” Troy growled. “I would slay demons for her.”

Rizzoli cocked her head to the side, her smile widening. “A caveman, huh? What about saber-tooth tigers, would you slay any of them for her?”

Troy wrenched his hands in front of his chest, snapping his wrists and clenching his fists, like he was popping the head off a beast. “With my bare hands,” he growled.

Rizzoli only stared at him with that small smile on her face, while he wracked his every brain cell to think of ways to get that female to talk to him. Rizzoli finally poked him in the chest again, but when she spoke, her voice was softer, her smile kind. “Look Tom, you seem genuine, so I’ll be straight with you. She’s not what you would call emotionally available, but I think you should give it a try anyway. You would be good for her. So here’s a secret.” She looked around, then leaned in close, like she was going to whisper, but when she spoke, her voice was normal. “In fact, here’s two secrets for the price of one. Benson isn’t her real name, and never get her flowers. I mean it. Don’t get all man-stupid and think I only mean don’t get her white flowers, or ugly flowers.” Her voice dropped and she poked him in the chest with her pen a few more times. “Don’t get her flowers.”

“Got it,” Troy said. “Tell her my name?”

Rizzoli studied him quizzically, but nodded.

“It’s Troy Burbank.” He stumbled over his next words. “Tell her I could provide for her.”

Her expression didn’t change, but her scent said she was highly amused.

Troy grimaced, knowing he’d fucked that up. Damn, what had happened to his game? He nodded to Rizzoli and headed back the way he had come, already forming a new plan, glad when he realized he knew exactly how to get her to talk to him.