“Looks like we’ve come to a standstill again with this case,” Aaron declared. He set the folder he’d been reading from back on his desk and looked over at me.

I threw my stress ball up again and caught it. These days I found myself playing with this thing a lot more than I liked. It was a good distraction, though, for when I was at work, and I needed it. Aria was on my mind big time, and I already knew our case had tanked because some key evidence we found two weeks ago had been thrown out as irrelvant.

I didn’t know how anyone could consider fingerprints on a bag of cocaine irrelevant, but that was the kind of shit I was up against.

There was an incongruence between the tests done at the forenscics lab here and the one in Charlotte. For this particular case we needed both tests to be conclusive.

I set the ball down and rested back against my chair.

Aaron looked over to me and frowned. “Ryan, you could say something.”

“Like what? Those guys are always one step ahead of us. I don’t know what more we can do.”

Patterson St. James was the guy we were after, but to get him we needed hard evidence. That was difficult when he had so many high officials covering his tracks. It wasn’t the officials I was concerned with because that was out of my jurisdiction and well above my pay grade; it was him I was after. I just couldn’t get my hands on him and his drug ring. We knew there was going to be a shipment of some new stuff on the street; we just didn’t know when.

“What about another stakeout? At the docks this time.”

“No, not me. You can take Wilks or someone like that.” This was me drawing the line. I’d been a damn good cop, just like my father, and my grandfather. Like him, I went over and above my duties to get the job done.

But, he drew the line too, and he didn’t put his neck out more than he had to. A stakeout would be fruitless. The last one had been, and I wouldn’t be party to another meaningless mission, one that would take me away from home again.

Aaron was good to go running around town doing God knew what. He was single and had no responsibilities.

“Is this about Aria again?” he asked.

“Everything is about Aria.”

“So, if I get a hunch that a stakeout is what we need to do, you won’t come?” He tilted his head to the side.

“Not for a hunch, man.” I shook my head.

I was serious. I needed to keep my priorities straight.

“You know you were way worse than her,” Aaron pointed out with a lopsided grin.

“And you were right there with me.” He had been. We’d gotten up to crazy shit together.

“Look at us now, though: we became cops, detectives—respectable.”

“That’s us, Aaron. She needs guidance.”

“What are you going to do when she goes to college? Follow her? Be her guide?”

I’d cross that bridge when I got there. It would be a big change for me, but I wanted her to go. I’d never gone because I had a family to take care of. I wanted her to go and have every opportunity she could get her hands on. I thought something like a business degree would suit her well because she could use it for anything.

Of course she didn’t agree, though. She didn’t agree, just like everything we spoke about.

“I still can’t believe you reported her missing. Man that was so uncool.”

“I know.” I’d had to suffer the wrath of Aria the whole weekend.

“You need to take a chill pill. You need a woman to distract you.”

“Like Mindy?” I widened my eyes at him. Mindy had been his idea, his terrible idea I’d only gone along with because of the way things had played out.

“Okay, not Mindy. How about your new neighbor?” He laughed just like he had when I’d told him the story and given him the full rundown of my weekend.

Then he’d come by to see me the previous day and had gotten a visual of Miss Mouth for himself.

“Right, of course.”

“The woman is hot.”

“Like I didn’t notice.” I frowned.

“I didn’t realize you planned on being celibate.” He smirked and straightened up.

“Asshole.” I smirked at him.

“I’m actually being serious. You need to…get laid.” He nodded with conviction, as if that was really the answer.

“I don’t need to get laid.”

“Okay, when was the last time you got some, Ryan?” A wicked smile lit up his face.

Aaron thought he had me all figured out, but he didn’t.

“Three months ago.”

He looked like he didn’t believe me. “Really? Who with, yourself?”

I narrowed my gaze. He could be such a jerk sometimes. “No.”

I was going to make him wait for an answer.

“Who was it? Come on.”

“Nah. Why do you need to know?”

“’Cause I’m your friend and you should tell me these things so I don’t worry.”

I had to laugh. Really, though, it wasn’t funny. I’d had a one-night stand with a woman I met in a bar uptown. I was having one of those days when I’d had enough. It was at the height of my problems with Aria. Suddenly the old me had come rushing back, and I’d gotten with the easiest lay who’d had her eye on me from the minute I stepped into the bar.

I had been like that before I met Olivia, and I’d gone off the rails when she died. I wasn’t going to commit to living like a priest or anything, but I didn’t think random hookups were a good way for me to live. It set a bad example for Aria, particularly now that she’d jumped on the comparison train.

I stood up, deciding it was time to grab lunch. With the window open, the aroma from the deli called to me. I would have to trek into town because Mindy would be there and I doubted she’d forget her encounter with Aria any time soon.

“You’re seriously not going to tell me?” Aaron winced.

I shook my head and pulled my jacket on.

“If you’re not interested in your neighbor, can I hit on her? Did you see the body on that woman?”

I didn’t answer. Best not to. It wasn’t my call.

I’d seen her, admired from afar, and that was all I’d be doing. I’d keep my distance, staying far away from her and the famous boyfriend.

It would have been easier to keep my distance if she hadn’t come crashing into me as I reached for a jar of olives in the world foods section at the supermarket.

I actually had to catch her and steady her so she wouldn’t fall over.

She’d come at me backward, dropping her bag and a pineapple. Miss Mouth went to say thanks but stopped midsentence when she saw it was me.

“God, why?” She pouted, and those lips grabbed my attention just like they had on Friday. It was the way she pursed them together when she frowned. It was such a sexy expression, except she wasn’t trying to be sexy.

“You’re welcome,” I stated, smirking.

“Thanks for saving me from falling.” She lifted her shoulder into a slight shrug. “I just have to wonder what sort of joke the universe is playing on me this month.” She tucked a strand of her golden hair behind her ear and leaned down to pick up her bag.

I grabbed the pineapple. “The universe plays different jokes on you each month?”

“No, just several this month. Why else would I run into you twice within a few days?” She stood up and placed the bag over her shoulder.

“We’re neighbors, so I think we’re bound to see each other at some point.” I nodded slowly for effect.

“No, not like this. Also, where I come from, neighbor has a different meaning. The new ones aren’t made to feel like lepers on their first day in the neighborhood.”

Lepers? I was certain I hadn’t been that bad…or maybe I had. This whole tension with Aria was throwing me off my game and making me do things I wouldn’t normally do. Since that tension had been around for a while, my misadventures were probably habitual now.

“I was just doing my job.” Perhaps I should have taken the opportunity to apologize.

She looked me up and down, and her pretty face contorted into another grimace, this time drawing my attention to the sharp bone structure of her face. With her hair pulled back into a ponytail, the focus was all on her high cheekbones, exotic and sharp, like a runway model, and those glossy pink lips sparkling the way they were just lured me to stare. The baby pink sheen on them matched her silky top, which slid a little off her elegant shoulders.

“Suspecting I was high on drugs was doing your job?” She gave me a piercing look and stared at me with those large blue eyes.

“I, um, never said you were high on drugs.”

“You didn’t have to—your accusations were pretty clear.”

Again, she was right. I actually felt nervous and a little uneasy.

I didn’t usually get like that around women. Just once…one time that I could remember, one woman: Olivia, who I was suddenly thinking about again. Perhaps it was because when we’d first met, I hadn’t been able to figure her out either.

Like Brooke. She had this dainty appearance, but there was nothing dainty about her. The confidence in her was very evident. She was the kind of no-nonsense woman that attracted me.

“So, did my story all pan out?” She shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “I never heard back.”

“Yup, all clear. That boyfriend of yours worked everything out, even paid for the railing to be fixed.” That’s what Captain Hawkins had said that morning.

She looked amused and something sparkled in her eyes. “Boyfriend? How cute. You assumed Noah was my boyfriend?”

“Isn’t he?”

“Noah’s my best friend, if you must know.”

“Your best friend’s a guy? Isn’t that a little awkward?”

“Questions, questions. I think you already know enough about me, detective. Knowing too much is never a good thing.”

Classy and sassy, and…interesting, enough to make me want to know more about her.

“So is not knowing enough.” Our conversation felt like a game.

“You know enough, but if there’s more to know you have eight months to find out.”

“Eight months—you’re only here for eight months? Is it for work?”

She smiled, revealing a little dimple in her left cheek. “Detective, I think that’s enough Brooke 101 for today. Can I have my pineapple back please?”

I handed it to her. When she took it, she gave me a playful one-shoulder shrug and sauntered away.

Yup. Classy and sassy, and interesting.

But also trouble—definitely trouble.

My eyes went straight to her ass in that little skirt she wore and stayed there until she turned the corner at the end of the aisle.