Phoebe

I can’t believe this.

Of all the luck, he picks the rental next door to my house.

“Honey, are you working on your school stuff?”

“Yeah,” Carrie calls down from her bedroom, a note of childish reluctance in her voice.

“Good. Mommy needs a shower and then I’ll make us something good to eat, okay?”

“Okay,” she calls back. “I’m missing my shows.”

I sigh. Loudly. “They’re streaming, Carrie. You can watch them after dinner.”

“Moooooom.” She drags the word out into a lament.

“Do your math!”

As I head up the stairs, she calls back, “I hate math.”

I stop at her bedroom door and lean on the frame. “Why?”

“Well,” she shrugs, sitting at her little desk, “it’s hard.”

“Good. The things worth doing are always hard.”

“Why is it good that they’re hard?”

“I don’t know, hon. Look, it can’t be that hard. Mrs. Robinson says you’re getting top marks in math.” Carrie looks at the carpet and toys with her pencil in hand. “What is it?”

She clears her throat. “Cassidy made fun of me.”

“What?”

I step in and crouch next to her. “Why?”

“I’m good at math and stuff. She said--” Carrie starts, but stops.

“She said what?”

“She said girls aren’t good at--”

“Stop right there,” I tell her. “I don’t want to hear that. It’s bad enough you have to hear that crap from boys. You shouldn’t have to hear it from girls, too.” Carrie looks up and meets my eyes. “All your life, people are going to tell you that you can’t do this or that because you’re a girl, and you’re going to have to prove them wrong.”

“You mean like you?”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “Like me.”

“Cassidy said something else.”

“What?”

Carrie looks at her feet as she swings them under her desk chair. She’s still wearing her school shoes, sneakers that light up when her heel hits the ground.

“She said you’re a bull dyke. Her daddy says so.”

I nod, and through some miracle keep my calm, happy mom-face on and smile at her. “I’ve heard that before, honey. It just rolls off my back. Don’t let them get to you, or they won’t stop.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s just a mean thing men say about women who are too strong for them, that’s all.”

“Why?”

I let out a long, angry sigh. “I wish I knew. Finish up, huh? How much do you have?” She holds up her homework papers. “Not much at all. Let me get cleaned up and we’ll eat and watch something, all right?”

Carrie nods and turns back to her work with a huff.

I walk into my bedroom. I remove my sidearm from my duty belt, clear it, and lock it in a fingerprint-coded safe bolted down in my closet. I remove my duty belt, regular belt, and then strip off my uniform. I hang my cumbersome anti-stab vest on the rack I’ve screwed into the back wall of the closet, then pull on a loose tank top and shorts.

I walk down to my garage, step inside, and lock Carrie out.

I then proceed to beat the shit out of my punching bags. I throw myself at the heavy bag with punches and kicks until I’m covered in sweat from head to toe, then work on the speed bag, pummeling it until I’m exhausted, my arms drooping.

Then I jog upstairs and lock myself in the bathroom.

Carrie is so intent on her homework, she didn’t notice me. I start the shower and then change my mind, filling the tub with water so hot that it steams. When it’s half-full, I slip inside and let it rise around me, the heat soaking into my aching muscles.

I spent most of the day sitting on the side of the road outside town, running the speed trap. We don’t talk about this openly, but I’m expected to get five or six good tickets. Most of the time, it’s mind numbing.

No one listens to me, but I’m honestly sick of sitting there handing out chicken shit fines to people going ten over because the driving handbook says a two lane road with hard shoulders is a 50 mph zone, but it drops to thirty-five in town. The mayor refuses to have the bushes that hide the speed limit sign trimmed back.

The reason why is pretty obvious. It’s my job to give out the tickets.

I just want to forget about that, but apparently the tickets are following me home now.

Alexander Wright. Football god. It only makes it worse that my daughter adores him. Why can’t she adore a scientist or a politician or a poet laureate or something? Why him? I’d gladly buy her all the Marie Curie action figures she could stack on her desk.

I can’t get the image out him out of my head. He’s so… big.

I mean, tall. Huge. Very thick. I mean muscular. He’s a large man. I swear his arms are as big around as my whole body, and I have to walk around in stacked heel boots to reach his chest with the very top of my head. Tall men have always bothered me. My father was tall.

At least, the poster Carrie has is age appropriate. It’s just him in his football pads with a sappy grin on his face, like a trading card scaled up. I was nervous about her having a picture of a man on her wall, but she still seems innocent of that. I wonder what he’d think if he knew that his picture was next to Princess Sparkle Twilight or whatever that My Little Pony thing is.

That puts a smile on my face. There are, ah, other pictures of him, though.

He must have a good trainer. When I picture a linebacker, I picture a guy with a gut hanging over the top of whatever you call those football pants, but Alexander Wright is a different sort of animal. He’s solid muscle from head to toe, and damn me, even when I was very angrily writing his citation, I was picturing him with his shirt off.

After I had the honor of writing him up for a gross traffic violation, Howard, the other cop on my shift, bought a giant beefcake poster of Alexander and hung it in the locker room.

The Sylvester Police Department’s locker room is basically unisex. I lock the boys out when I need to use it. I’m the only woman on the force, and let’s face it, the force is the three guys and the chief, Bill Ames… and me.

God, I need a hot bath. I let it drain a bit and turn the water on to get more heat soaking into my body. Carrie is probably totally engrossed in her homework. So this is my mommy time. I take it where I can find it.

When I close my eyes, I can see that beefcake poster, but now I’ve seen the real thing, so I can picture him breathing, moving, turning his head to look at me.

I’m not a robot. He’s hot.

He doesn’t have that squashed face a lot of footballers have, either. Less Incredible Hulk and more suave seducer with full lips, a strong chin, and large piercing eyes, a slate gray color.

Deep down, I admit I felt a little something when he propositioned me, a little flutter in my stomach. He’s so big, and it’s been a long time since anyone has looked at me in that way. I can’t tell if he was just saying it to get a rise out of me or actually hitting on me. Even the ambiguity is more than I get around here. Everyone in town just treats me like the Butch Lady Cop.

It must be the vest I have to wear. I’m not generously endowed, but it leaves me completely flat. I’m not that bad looking, am I?

In the mirror, I see a woman pushing thirty with dark circles around her eyes from lack of sleep, a sour resting bitchface, stringy unkempt ginger hair, and outrageous freckles.

It would be nice to be looked at by a man the way women look at Alexander Wright. Half the women in the courtroom were eye fucking him, and he didn’t even seem to notice. Then again, half of that half were meth heads there on some summons. Probably beneath his notice.

He did keep looking at me, though.

The fantasy creeps up on me almost before I realize it.

The locker room is all mine, the boys are locked out so I can change. I turn around, and it’s not a beefcake poster that someone bought at Spencer’s Gifts anymore. It’s the real deal standing in all his throbbing, manly glory. Acres of muscle flexing and bunching as he moves, shining with a coating of sweat clinging to his skin in big droplets, begging to be licked off.

I press against the lockers, feeling the cold metal against my bare back. Only then do I realize I’m topless, stripped to the waist. As he towers over me, his gaze meets mine, and I can feel him thinking about looking lower, raking my half naked body with his eyes. It sends a shiver down my legs and a hot flush rising between my thighs, and I move to fold my arms and cover myself.

He stops me and looks down, drinking in the sight of my body as he presses my hands to the lockers. His breath is hot on my cheeks.

“I was wondering what you were hiding under that uniform.”

“Nothing much,” I choke out. My throat has gone dry.

He leans toward me, his body arched hungrily, heavy muscles still slick with sweat. “I don’t think so. I like what I see.”

“W-what’s that?”

“Mmmm. You’ve got nice lips. I’d like to see them wrapped around my cock.”

Back in the real world, I slip my hand between my legs and a finger inside my body. I shiver at the sensation. My mommy time has been sparse lately.

“Like I would,” I tell him in my fantasy.

“I bet you would. One look and you’ll be begging to suck my cock. ‘Oh please, sir, let me swallow your load.’”

I shudder as my finger works inside me. I have to keep quiet, can’t let myself be overheard. I press my lips tightly shut…

…And imagine Alexander Wright pushing his skintight pants down. I knew he was packing a monster down there from the outline, but when his cock bursts free, I gasp at the size and jerk to grab hold, but his hands keep mine pinned to the lockers.

“You like it when the man takes charge, don’t you? Must be hard on you, having the weight of the world on your shoulders all the time, isn’t it?”

I look down and keep staring at his enormous member. It’s as big as the rest of him, and the sight digs a hollowness in my body, a void that needs filling. I can feel my uniform sticking to my body.

In my fantasy, I skip panties under my uniform.

One of his huge hands holds both my wrists, freeing the other.

Alexander’s finger taps my chin, then trails down my throat, between my breasts. My nipples start to ache, and I twist, trying to brush my breasts against his finger, but he teases me, moving it so it’s always in the very middle. Then he runs it along my ribs, and I burst out in giggles.

“Oh, the badass cop lady is ticklish,” he chides me.

“A little.”

“I wonder what happens if I tickle this.”

In real life, my duty belt is too tight for it to work, but he shoves his hand down my pants and his palm rubs my clit. My whole body jerks and my mouth falls open. His finger slowly pushes inside me.

In the tub, my second finger enters my body, and I rub my clit faster, pretending my two fingers are one of his.

I jerk against the lockers and ride his hand. “You want more than a finger, don’t you?”

I nod, my jaw too stiff to speak. I have to stop from moaning, I have to stop from moaning…

He leans in, his finger still buried deeply in my body, his palm grinding against my throbbing, needy clit. “You want my cock. Say it.”

“I want your cock,” I repeat in a harsh whisper.

“Louder.”

“I can’t, someone will hear.”

“Louder.”

“Please, I can’t, just fuck me.”

“I’ll fuck you ‘til you scream on one condition. You swallow it.”

“Yes, anything--”

He grabs me and spins me around hard, pushes me against the lockers, and rips my uniform trousers right down the seam on the seat. I thrust my body out and I feel his great big throbbing cock--

“MOM! I’M HUNGRY!”

Oh, damn it to hell. I drag my aching, shuddering, totally unsatisfied body out of the now tepid tub and sit on the edge. “Can you throw something in the microwave?”

“I don’t wanna. I want food!”

Shivering, I wrap myself in a towel and pull on my robe. Ugh, my legs are shaking and I feel worse now than I did when I got in the tub.

You know what? I’ll take that. I can do better than fantasizing about some meathead douchebag with a god complex. I could fantasize about…

I’m bad at this.

“Mom!”

“Okay, honey,” I shout in my mom voice. “I’ll be right there.”

Carrie is placated when she sees me put on a skillet of hamburger. Tonight’s magnificent board of fare will be a Cheesy Beef, her favorite. As I stand over the browning beef in my bathrobe, I can’t help but smile at her. My daughter, so smart and beautiful and perfect. The light of my life.

My ring feels heavy on my hand where it digs into my left finger. Every time I look at it, I remember she’ll never know him. To Carrie, her father isn’t even a memory.

I see some of him in her every day. His ears, his eyes, his jawline. She looks more like him than me, as much as my mother insists otherwise. I walk over and pat her head.

“What’s the matter, Mom?”

“Nothing, honey. Call me if the Cheesy Beef bursts into flame. I need to put on my jammy jams.”

“Mom,” she moans. Apparently, she’s too old for words like jammy jams to be uttered in her presence. I smile and ruffle her soft blond hair and trudge upstairs. I know I’ve arrived in this world when the height of my pleasure is putting on a long, oversized T-shirt and a pair of cotton shorts.

The beef is ready by the time I get downstairs. I drain it, mix up the rest of the boxed ingredients, and put a lid on it. Carrie likes to stir it, and I’m more than happy to let her. I sink into our couch next to where she sits and let my head drift back into it. I’m too sleepy to be hungry.

Carrie turns off the cartoon she was watching and starts flipping channels. She stops on Alexander Wright.

“Remote,” I demand, holding out my hand.

“Mom,” she protests.

“Remote,” I growl, but amiably.

The announcer starts to say something. I don’t get the context but they’re talking about this legal troubles here. The voiceover is accompanied by Alexander at some function with a long legged, strutting model in an evening gown that’s more of a nightgown, if you ask me. I flip the channel quickly, surfing until I land on CNN.

Carrie watches excitedly, even if most of the politics stuff flies over her head. I spoon up the food and we clean out the skillet a plate at a time, Carrie sitting cross-legged next to me on the couch.

When she’s full, and too full for ice cream, she yawns and her head ends up leaning against me. I gently nudge her to wake her and start asking her questions about what we’re watching. If I let her zonk out at eight at night, she’ll be awake at three in the morning.

When it’s almost ten, I have to push her upstairs to her bedroom. She crawls into bed, and I fight the urge to let her stay up a little longer like she wants, forcing myself to surrender a bit more of a day with my child that will never come again.

Once she’s tucked in and the light is out, I pull her door half shut and flop onto my bed. I’m fortunate enough to pull day shift at work. Bill loves to remind me that if they fire me they don’t meet the quota, so I get what he calls preferential treatment. I can get up with Carrie unless I’m called to cover a shift.

Okay, I need to clock out of reality. I grab my e-reader and open a book. I’m halfway through a Vanessa Waltz novel, Dirty Prince. The premise is a little odd, but it’s a really fun book and it gets my motor revved up.

As soon as I try to take care of things, the prince in the book morphs into Alexander, and I set it aside for a moment, then keep reading it for the plot.

I end up waking to my alarm with the e-reader lying on my chest and drool on my cheek. At least I remembered to set it. I guess I should be happy I didn’t dream about my jackass neighbor.

I’m dressed and geared up before Carrie is awake. After I rouse her from sleep, she plods down the stairs, yawning and droopy until she gets some Pop Tart and milk in her. By the time she climbs into the Tahoe to ride to school, she’s wide awake and chattering excitedly about the school day.

I give her a pat on the head and send her off, then drive to work. When I arrive, Bill is the only one in the station. “Once more into the breach,” he says, looking up from his newspaper.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Good job on the tickets yesterday. Keep it up.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“You’re a superstar now.”

“What?”

“Look.” He holds out the newspaper. I walk over and my jaw drops.

What am I doing on the front page?

He’s not reading the Sylvester Register, our weekly small-town mostly-a-joke newspaper. It’s freaking USA Today. My picture is on the front page next to Alexander’s.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“Story about you busting Broadside.” I shudder at that stupid nickname. Broadside. Because Corsairs are pirate ships and pirate ships have cannons.

It’s not funny if you have to explain it.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Nothing negative,” he says, in a sarcastic tone. “It really shows off your investigative prowess. The FBI will be knocking down your door in no time at all, I’m sure. When do you finish your degree again?”

“I’m working on it.”

Taking a class here and there has not exactly sped me toward my criminal justice degree. I frown when I think about it. I need to schedule the upcoming semester and it’s going to be hard. They want me to take a morning class on Saturday. That means day care for Carrie. I can’t send her off to my sister like I do for emergencies, not every week for eight weeks. I can afford it but…

I only get so much time. As I tie my hair back tightly, Bill looks up.

“On a serious note, doll face. No interviews, got it?”

“Yeah. No comment, yada yada. Our counsel will respond to any inquiries.”

He snorts. “Our counsel. Like we can afford a counsel. We can’t afford a new coffee pot. I hope you did everything by the book. We’re up shit creek if Broadside decides to sue us.”

“Can we stop using his affectionate nickname? It’s getting irritating.”

Bill snorts. “Whatever.”

At least he didn’t call me doll face again. I have to tolerate all these people treating me like a joke if I want to keep my job. I really need to get that degree. Once I have that plus four years’ experience at the department here, I can apply for a better one.

I shake all that out of my head and get set up.

Setting up consists of the same daily routine. I drive to the spot half a mile past the speed limit sign, back into a well-worn patch of grass, set up the radar gun, open up the computer, and sit there.

And sit there.

And sit there.

And sit there some more.

Traffic picks up around eleven a.m. I get my first speeder not long after that. He races past me going sixty in a thirty five. That’s a good one.

I pull out after him and flip on my lights. He weaves to the shoulder and I pull up behind him, angled in case he decides to peel out and run for it.

I approach from the passenger’s side with my sidearm unsnapped. I can’t be too careful. Doesn’t matter what they think of me.

He rolls the window down and gives me an amused look. “Somebody send me a stripper? Are the cuffs part of the act?”

I keep my expression neutral. “License and registration, sir.”

“Honey--”

“Now.”

This guy--there’s at least one a day--driving a Mercedes, flying between whatever bedroom community he lives in and downtown Philly. Probably doesn’t even realize there’s a town here, that kids play on these roads. None of them care.

“All right,” he says and produces the documents.

They’re all bark, this type. He sits in the car, hands at ten and two on the wheel, wondering if I’m going to do the step out of the car routine.

One of my august colleagues would respond to sass like that. They’d make him do a sobriety test, search him, whatever they could come up with.

I’m a professional. Sassing me isn’t a crime. Speeding is. I write him up for it, hand him his ticket, and send him on his way. He says something I’m either supposed to or not supposed to hear, some wiseass remark, but I let it roll away, get back in the car, and get set up.

Traffic is sparse today. The next several cars that pass me are all obeying the speed limit. Locals or people who’ve been dinged before. You only get two kinds that speed out here, the ones that don’t know or don’t care.

I stop myself from nodding a few times.

At first, I think it’s a mirage. Here comes this news van covered with all the antenna crap on the roof. It rolls right up to me, and a woman in a pantsuit gets out, followed by a guy with a camera.

“What are you--”

“Officer Maguire,” she cuts me off, “why did you arrest Broadside Wright?”

“What? I didn’t, I cited him for a traffic…” Oh, damn it. “No comment,” I correct myself.

“Can you give us any insight on--”

“No. Comment.”

As she talks, my radar gun bleats. A speeder goes flying past. “Get out of the way,” I shout. I put the SUV in gear and start to move, only to slam my foot on the brake and stop dead when the camera guy runs in front of the car. “What are you doing?”

“Officer Maguire, how does it feel being the only woman in the Sylvester police department?”

“What? I’m not answering any questions. You need to move or I’ll place you under arrest for obstructing an officer in the course of her duties.” The camera guy does not budge. “I’m not joking.”

This is a nightmare.

If it were anyone else, I’d call for backup and get ready to pull on them if I have to. You can’t just stand in front of my cruiser while I’m trying to pursue someone committing an offense right in front of my face, yet here this jackass stands blocking my path.

I sigh and thumb the mic. “Jimmy, I need backup.”

“Yeah, Feebs. Where at?”

“My usual spot. Put a motor on it.”

About five minutes later, Jimmy rolls up. He’s older than Bill, the oldest guy on the force. He was a cop in Sylvester when I was Carrie’s age, and looks mostly the same as he did then, except for a wider belly and whiter hair.

I hate calling him in. It feels like calling my dad for help at work. He radios me before he exits his car.

“Hop out and help me on this. I want you to look like you’re taking point in case this ends up on the news. You cuff the camera guy.”

“Ten four.”

I get out and they both rush over to me. Jimmy trips his siren.

“Okay, folks,” I announce as loud as I can. “Camera and microphone on the ground, keep your hands where I can see them.”

“You heard Officer Maguire,” Jimmy adds in his professional, even tone. “Ya’ll gonna comply, now.”

The reporter and camera man look at each other a little incredulously, then realize I’m serious when I stare at them.

“Go on then,” I add.

He lowers his expensive looking camera to the ground, and Jimmy keeps an eye on the woman while I cuff her camera man. I cuff her and we put them both in the back of my Tahoe, then lock their stuff in their van.

“Radio Chief. See if he wants this impounded,” I tell Jimmy. He nods and heads back to his car. I get in with these two.

“You can’t do this,” the woman says, sharply.

“Okay, listen up. You have the right to remain silent…” I want to get smartass about reciting Miranda to them, but I keep it by the book. It’s all being recorded.

Jimmy comes up and leans on my windowsill. “Yeah, he called up Joe’s. They’re on their way out now. I’ll sit here with the property and follow him back to the impound lot.”

“Thanks, Jim.” I give him a curt nod. He nods back, and I see a hint of a smile on his face when he turns away.

Jim is the only one I know isn’t mocking me. When he smiles in my presence, we’re sharing genuine humor. I like that about him.

He was the one who made me want to do this in the first place, even if I had other plans originally.

The drive to the station is short. The paperwork, however, is not. I call my sister, Grace, on my lunch break.

“Hey,” she answers.

“Hey. I need a favor.”

She sighs. “Pick Carrie up and watch her, yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“I got it. I’ll see you after work.”

“Thanks, Gee.”

“You got it, Feebs.”

I can’t rely on her forever. She’s going to be moving away, sooner or later.

I sigh and get back to work on the write-up. I swear it takes longer to describe something than the amount of time it took to actually happen.

The reporters give me a forlorn look as I pass by the holding cell with the paperwork.

“This is a gross violation of our first amendment rights,” the woman shouts.

I let it roll down my back and submit my work to the boss.

“You realize we have to let them go,” Bill says without even reading the write-up.

“Yeah.”

“Mayor’s going to crawl up my ass and lay eggs over this. He’s already pissed at you and that judge.”

“Tell him to be pissed at Wright. He’s the one who was speeding.”

He waves his hand dismissively. “Can we skip the Dirty Harry routine today, sugar? We’ve all got work to do. If you think this counts as giving out tickets, you’ve got another thing coming.”

I huff.

“Don’t get all petulant with me with your soft rosebud lips.”

I look past my boss at the shelf next to his desk. The chief of the Sylvester Police Department reads romance novels. In paperback. And keeps them on a shelf in his office. He buys a dozen at a time at the used bookstore and there’s a Sylvia Day novel sitting on his desk right now. It’s seen better times.

“Chief, I couldn’t do my job with these idiots sitting in front of me.”

He turns to face me. “Maybe you shouldn’t have arrested an internationally famous football star then. Did you think of that, Phoebe?”

It grates on me when he uses my first name. He calls everyone else by their last name. Only I get the first name treatment.

“What was I supposed to do, let him go? He should be in jail, not moving in next door to me.”

His eyebrows rise. “What?”

“Yeah, the dickhead rented the house next to mine. He’ll probably start harassing me now. I was doing the right thing.”

“I know, I know,” he says in his “humoring you” tone. “Equal justice under the law and all that. At least it was a big fine. I should give you a sticker.”

My colleague Howard once demanded an award for bringing in what he called a huge collar, that is, intercepting an old Subaru with a pound of weed in the trunk. The boss bought a sheet of stickers at the dollar store and put a gold star on Howard’s badge. Howard was not amused.

He would do the same, now, but I think he’s afraid I’ll sue him if he touches my chest.

“Right. I’m off shift in a couple hours, or did you want me to put in overtime on traffic?”

“Nah, finish up with the due diligence and go get your kid. Sylvester will survive without Officer Maguire patrolling the land on her steel horse for a few hours.”

I give him a curt not and storm past the locker room and out to the Tahoe.

Grace answers her phone on the first ring. “Feeb, you better get over here.”

“What, why?”

“I couldn’t take Carrie back to the house. I’ve been circling the block for the last--”

I toss the phone on the seat, pull out my sidearm, check the chamber, reholster it, back out, throw on my lights and sirens, and make for my home like a bat out of hell.

Since it’s about four blocks, it takes all of two minutes.

I jam up on the brakes when I see what Grace meant. My house is surrounded by news vans like the one we impounded earlier. They’re set up with broadcast towers on my lawn.

Rage seethes up my face, burning to my hairline. Yeah. I flip off the lights and siren and roll up slowly. They run up to me and I roll my window down.

“Get out of my way,” I snarl.

They just ignore me.

My chest tightens. I start to feel helpless. I’m surrounded, they’re pressing in from all sides, surrounding the car. I don’t know where Carrie is. Where’s my baby?

Suddenly, they rush away from me, crossing the neighbor’s lawn.

Oh, Alexander’s lawn.

I’ve come to think of it as “the neighbor’s” house, using a generic term since I don’t know the owners. It’s Alexander’s now, until he leaves.

Great.

That clears enough of a path for me to pull into my own driveway.

Grace must have been circling. She pulls up to the end of the driveway. I step out and run to the side of her little Beetle and pull the door open, and scoop Carrie into my arms.

“Go,” I tell Grace. “I’ll call.”

She nods and pulls off. I make a direct line for the door. I’m not fast enough. Here they come.

“Officer Maguire,” they all say, but out of order so it sounds like a gibberish chant. The questions buffet my ears.

Carrie is a tough kid, a real tough kid. She’s smart, she’s resilient, and she’s level headed.

When she’s surrounded by strangers pointing cameras in her face, after her aunt panicked and scared her shitless, she starts wailing, and buries her face in my shoulder.

“Let me through,” I bellow, but my voice is thin and reedy.

Then the loudest voice I’ve ever heard thunders in my ears. “Everybody, move,” Alexander roars.

It’s like a freaking dinosaur descended from a flying saucer and started stomping through the crowd. Alexander takes a cameraman in front of me and picks him up, bodily, from the ground and lifts him out of my way.

“You fucking heard me,” he booms. “Get out of the way!”

I run for my front door and Alexander keeps pace with me, shoving through the crowd. I put Carrie down, not by choice, and she clings to my leg and wails while I fumble with the door.

I finally get it open, just as one of the jackasses steps onto my porch. “Broadside, are you and this cop an item?”

“What?” he snarls. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“She’s not really your type. When did you start seeing each other? After the arrest?”

“It was a citation!” I shout, “Not an arrest!”

“Get out of here,” Alexander snarls.

“I want him arrested for assault!” someone yells. It’s the guy he lifted out of the way. Great.

“Get in here,” I yell at him.

“What?”

“Inside, now.”

He looks at me for a moment as if he’s about to say something about my tone and then pushes me inside with one big hand on the small of my back.

My god, it’s like I weigh nothing at all. He’d have as hard a time lifting a doll.

He slams the door shut and I grab my belt radio. “Bill, it’s me. There’s a freaking riot on my front lawn. Send everybody.”

It crackles. “What? A riot what?”

“Just send me some backup! Get them out of my yard!”

Carrie runs around shutting all the blinds and drapes while I awkwardly stand in my living room with Alexander Wright, the guy whose multimillion-dollar career I kind of ruined. Technically, he ruined it. It’s his fault!

He looks at me. “Got anything to eat?”

“You’re joking.”

He walks past me, into my kitchen, and picks up the Cheesy Beef box from where it came to rest on top of the garbage can. “What is this? Are you feeding a kid this crap?”

“Um,” I say. “Go home. Yeah. Go home. Why are you still in my house?”

“If I go out there, I’m ending up in your holding tank again. Do we want that?”

I glance at the door. I can see the silhouette of someone aiming a camera at it. “No. I don’t. I want you gone. If I could go back in time and never give you that ticket, I’d do it right now, you better fu…” I trail off when Carrie looks at me. “You better flipping believe it.”

“Mom, language,” Carrie says.

“Are you still doing ‘language’?” Alexander says with a chuckle.

“Fine, just sit in the living room until I can get rid of you,” I tell him.

After I finish wiping Carrie’s tears and de-snotting her, she furtively creeps into the living room with him.

He looks at her, and I tense.

My God, he’s huge. When he sits on the couch, it barely comes a third of the way up his back. I swear, one of his legs is bigger than my daughter. Sitting down, he’s twice as tall as she is standing.

She gingerly sits down on the other side of the couch. I can’t help but watch this. He very pointedly doesn’t look at her.

“Hi,” she says.

Alexander glances back at me. I give him a plaintive look. She adores him. If he’s mean to her, I swear I’ll take a rolling pin to him.

“Hi,” she says, very softly.

“Hi, kid.”

“My name’s Carrie.”

“Mine’s Alexander.”

I blink a few times when he holds out his hand. He gives her the world’s most ridiculous handshake, her tiny little hand vanishing into a two-finger-and-thumb grip.

“Hi.”

“Want to watch some cartoons?”

“She has homework,” I remind her.

“Mom, it’s Broadside.”

“She can do homework later,” he says. My glare intensifies. He shrugs his huge shoulders.

Carrie’s only reply is, “Yay!” as she turns on the television.

“So how about some dinner?” he says. “I need to keep up my macros.”

“Your what?”

“I’m hungry.”

I retreat into the kitchen and lean on the counter. “You have to be kidding me,” I tell myself.