Chapter 24

One day I’ll get my shit together. Today’s not that day.

-Coffee Cup

Travis

“Hey Han, do you have any quarters?” I called. “The girls are getting Kona Icee drink slushie things today at school, and I only have six dollars. They need ten to get the color changing cup.”

“In my purse!” came Hannah’s yell from our bedroom where she was getting ready to go to her new job as caretaker for an elderly woman. “At the bottom under all the junk.”

I scanned the kitchen counters for her purse and spotted it on top of the fridge of all places.

I walked to it and got it off, reveling in the weight of it, and opened the first compartment. Then the second. Finally, still not seeing any quarters, I spotted a somewhat hidden compartment and yanked it open.

Then I froze for all of two seconds before pulling out what I saw.

Walking with it to the bedroom, I held it up to show her.

“Since when do you carry a gun in your purse?” I asked in surprise.

Hannah looked over.

“Since I was twenty-one and could legally carry it without going to jail,” she answered. “My brother made me take the concealed carry class with him when I was about three days past my twenty-first birthday.”

I blinked.

Then grinned.

“That’s so fuckin’ hot,” I told her. “Why am I just now realizing this? I’ve been in love with you for a year!”

She shrugged on her scrub top and sat down on the edge of the bed to put some really colorful socks that didn’t match in the least on her feet.

“I think that’s the point of carrying concealed, so nobody knows that you have it,” she teased.

That was true.

I carried concealed, but it was kind of hard to hide something on my body when she was pressing herself against it. We’d never actually discussed my carrying—or her carrying for that matter—which was the reason I believed I didn’t know that she did until now.

“Fuck me,” I muttered. “I actually have a hard-on right now.”

She rolled her eyes, and I winked at her before walking back to the kitchen and putting her gun back in her purse. I grinned at it wickedly before searching the other side for the loose quarters.

She had twenty-eight of them.

No joke. Twenty-eight quarters and that wasn’t including the dimes, pennies, and nickels.

Once I counted out four dollars, I shoved the rest back in her purse, put it back on top of the refrigerator and split them between the two girls’ bags.

“All right, girls,” I told them where they were sitting on the couch. “I put your Ziploc bags on the counter with your names on them, just like you asked. I gotta go to work.”

Both girls immediately jumped off the couch and ran to me.

Reggie was in a pink cotton nightgown that flowed around her ankles, while Alex was in a Star Wars flannel number that I could’ve sworn I’d never seen before.

They both hit me like wrecking balls and threw their arms around my waist.

My heart swelled that much further.

“Be good at school today,” I told them. “You have early release, right?”

Both girls looked up at me and nodded.

God, this was what paradise felt like, wasn’t it?

Dropping a kiss onto both of their foreheads, I patted them on the back and said, “Gotta go. Be good for Hannah.”

Alex gave me a thumb up, and Reggie snorted. “We’re always good for Mommy.”

I grunted and turned to where TJ was lying in his swing.

Once I gave him a kiss, I walked back to the bedroom where I saw Hannah was now in her bathroom fixing her hair.

She had a piece of it in her hands, and she was running the straightening iron over it while looking at me in the mirror.

“You headed out?”

I nodded. “Got a pickup to do before eight. The bank said they’d give me an extra grand if I got it done today. Apparently, the guy was a dick to them when they called.”

She snorted. “Nice.”

I walked up to her back and tilted her head my way before laying a kiss down on the tips of her lips.

“Love you, Han.”

Her eyes went soft. “I love you, too, Trav.”

I left moments later but was only five minutes into my drive to work when I got the call.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Tate Casey is getting out next week.”

My brows rose.

“No shit?”

“No shit,” came Evander’s deep reply. “Just got the call at the office. He was let out early due to good behavior. A lady friend was the one who called. She said that he’d be by sometime soon.”

I found myself grinning.

“Hot damn.”

Evander grunted. “Thought the same fucking thing.” He paused. “You going out to the pick-up that was called in last night?”

I nodded. “Sure am. I’ll be at the garage in ten. Then I’ll leave straight from there. My hope is to get it knocked out before noon.”

Evander grunted a reply, “See you then.”

An hour later, I was standing in front of a parking garage, staring at the low clearance sign.

“Not gonna make that,” I muttered to Evander.

“Nope,” he agreed. “Guess we can go in there and try to pop the lock.”

I shrugged.

“These newer model cars, it’s possible that we won’t be able to do that. But at this point, I don’t think we have a choice unless we want to wait for him to leave. Which my sources say he hasn’t done in a week because he thinks someone’s going to ‘steal his car.’”

Evander started to chuckle.

Then I started to hear sirens.

My brows furrowed as I turned to look behind me.

We were a couple blocks away from the hospital. A mile away from the interstate. But that was all in the opposite direction of where I was hearing the sirens. They were coming from the direction of the school.

“Bet that cop is sitting outside of the school again, pulling people over left and right for going a mile over the speed limit,” Evander muttered.

“Old man Crew is a douche, but people should know not to speed,” I pointed out, and started walking toward the building.

A feeling of unease swept over me.

I thought it had to do with the pick-up we were on. Little did I know that it had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the girls that I loved with all my heart only a few short blocks away.