Chapter 7

It’s beginning to look a lot like fuck this.

-Coffee Cup

Winnie

I was walking, still without my cane, to my car where I was going to retrieve Cody’s spare booster from my trunk.

We were about halfway to the driveway when Steel’s words left his lips, nearly causing me to laugh.

“Why do you have a Hellcat?”

I looked at my car. My little act of rebellion. My Dodge Hellcat that Matt told me I didn’t need.

“I got it because I was pissed off,” I muttered, my eyes taking in the gleaming red paint, and the black racing stripe that ran down the length of it. “Two years ago, when they first came out, I told Matt how much I wanted one. He took one look at me, laughed, and then told me I couldn’t handle a car like this.”

I looked back over at Steel to find him grinning.

“So you got one when you broke up?”

I shook my head. “No. I got one the next week, thinking I’d show Matt. I did. He got really, really pissed. Then he tried to take it back. Since my name was the only one on the note, they wouldn’t do anything without my say so. Pissed him off greatly, and I think ultimately that was the first fork in the road that led him to start cheating on me.”

I was also upside-down on the note, and probably would be for the foreseeable future.

Steel had nothing to say to that, so I chose to continue.

“It came with two keys. A black key, and a red key,” I told him.

I knew he’d ask. It never took them long.

“And what’s the difference?”

“The difference is that the black key is just the normal key. With it, it drives like the next step down model would. But the red key is the—well—key.” I grinned.

“And what does the red key do?” He came to a stop beside my car and touched the Hellcat symbol on the driver’s side door, dropping down onto his haunches to do it.

“The red key is what turns the supercharger on,” I explained. “And I haven’t ever ridden with it before. I’m literally nervous that if I get the red key out, I’ll get a ticket for going a hundred and fifty on the highway.”

Steel burst out laughing. “Oh, darlin’.”

I grinned and popped the trunk, gesturing for Steel to take the booster seat.

Once he had it, he walked with it to his cruiser and opened the back door.

I grinned as I saw him strap it onto the seat with the tethers.

“You do that often?” I questioned.

“Every fucking Tuesday,” he answered. “I’m the car seat expert at the precinct. Since I’m certified and the other guys aren’t, I’m usually the one that runs out there to check it if I’m there. There are a few others that are certified throughout the PD, but most of the time they just tell whomever it is to come back when I’m there.”

I smiled. “That’s actually kind of cute.”

He shot me a look that clearly said what he thought of me saying he was ‘cute.’

But he was. In his uniform, even it being slightly wrinkled from his day (or night, technically, depending on which way you looked at it) he was very cute.

Sexy.

Very sexy.

So sexy that sometimes I thought about him when I got my shower.

Yeah…I couldn’t wait for the kids to go to school.

“Thank you again for taking them,” I said just as the front door burst open, the door handle hitting the wall with Cody’s exuberance to ride in a ‘real life police car.’

Steel’s eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled. “Not a problem, since I’m already going over there anyway.”

And then he had my kids packed in his cruiser, and moments later I had the house to myself.

I walked back inside and got a couple hours of sleep, but not before I took my shower.

Where my magical shower head was.

My magical shower head that I was now calling Steel.

Temporarily.

For now.

Not.

I was such a fucking liar.

***

It was a nearly six hours later in town that I saw Sean, Steel’s son.

I’d just picked Conleigh and Cody up early from school to get their flu shots, and I was standing in the middle of the doctor’s office parking lot.

“Conleigh, take Cody inside and get yourselves signed in,” I ordered.

Conleigh did as she was instructed, taking Cody by the hand and disappearing inside without another word.

I then turned all my attention to Sean.

He was big and intimidating just like his father, but with him holding his daughter while she slept and drooled down the back of his motorcycle vest—or cut I was told earlier by my daughter—he didn’t seem as threatening.

It was with Steel’s words bouncing around in my brain that I got the courage to approach.

Today I was using my cane, and I moved a little slower than I would’ve liked, because before I’d even gotten halfway there, he was on the move again.

“Hey, Sean!”

Sean turned, saw me, and then furrowed his brows.

Sean knew me because he’d denied me a job about a month and a half ago.

He almost looked worried as I approached.

“Yeah?”

I could tell he still felt poorly for not passing me a couple of months ago when I’d gone to retest to continue working PRN—or as needed—with the local ambulance service.

Yet, I knew it wasn’t his fault.

I knew it, he knew it, but he still felt bad.

Which then, in turn, caused me to feel bad.

“I’m not here to say anything about you not allowing me to keep my job,” I blurted.

He looked relieved to hear that.

“I’m here to ask you if you knew that your father worked without a bullet proof vest on.”

His head tilted.

“What?”

I could tell I’d surprised him with my words.

I nodded. “He told me today that he doesn’t work with a ballistic vest because the rest of his officers need to be outfitted first…and I was just wondering...last year y’all had that fundraiser for the sheriff’s department to get them. You should get them for your dad’s department.”

Sean’s mouth fell open, then he frowned.

“Honey…”

I looked up to see a woman walking toward us, a small smile on her face as she scratched her chin.

She was sizing me up as she approached.

“Hi.” I smiled, then waved. “Bye.”

Then I turned to walk away.

Women made me nervous.

Really nervous.

I was never really good at making friends, and the fact that the only one I did make really good friends with stole my husband, really made it hard for me to find any common ground with the female population.

I was two steps from the door when I heard him call my name.

I turned and looked at him from across the parking lot.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for the info. I’ll get my dad the vest.”

I gave him a thumb up, eerily happy that he’d make sure that his father was safe.

I wish I could do the same, but I just couldn’t afford it.

There were days we had to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because I couldn’t afford to buy groceries for the next four days.

A seven-hundred-dollar vest would buy me groceries for seven weeks, if not more.

“Thank you.”

Then I had my hand on the door, about to go inside.

“For what it’s worth, I really wanted to pass you,” Sean called. “I would have had Arnie not been a dick and told me not to let my soft heart get in the way of our company policy.”

I shrugged.

It still hurt, but it was what it was.

I couldn’t do anything about it now.

And that’s when I found my daughter standing there holding the door open. Listening to what was being said.

“They’re ready for us,” Conleigh said.

It was when we were in the exam room that she finally spoke.

“He didn’t pass you because of your legs?”

I nodded. “He couldn’t. I couldn’t pass the physical.”

“Isn’t that discrimination?”

“Not really, no. I couldn’t do the job that was demanded of me. I wasn’t able to pick up the stretcher without toppling over on my ass. Not much I could do about it,” I said, still feeling the humiliation of not being able to do a job that I would’ve done just fine a year and a half ago.

Conleigh grunted in reply.

I guess she doesn’t agree.