Page 9
CHAPTER SIX
DAYTON
“Yo, Chief, you got a body back there?”
I spun around to find Anthony staring at me with his brow raised.
He was one of the few crew members willing to be so casual with me, only because we’d worked together in the city.
He’d moved to the East Coast a few years ago but had come back this way to help his sister after she had kids and her husband was deployed.
It was nice to see a familiar face. It was nice that someone wasn’t treating me like they weren’t sure if I was a bomb waiting to go off. I knew it would take time before the crew knew me well enough to relax, but it was the one thing I hated most about starting with a new team.
Glancing into the SUV, I rolled my eyes and turned back to Tony. “Laundry. Heading over to my parents’ place.”
“Wait. You still take that shit to your mom?”
I flushed. I was a grown adult who had a very nice washer and dryer in my house, but yeah, I still took my laundry to my parents’.
It was at my mom’s insistence, of course.
She had always hyper-fixated on making sure all her kids got equal treatment.
She’d been doing more for Dahlia since she was the only one with kids, so now she was trying to make up for it with Dax and me by cooking us meals twice a month and doing our laundry.
As much as I knew how it looked, I didn’t turn her down.
My schedule was better, but it was still chaos compared to someone with a nine-to-five, and Dax was the same.
He owned his mechanic shop and was still getting on his feet, so he was getting by on a skeleton crew until he was in the black.
And it was harder for him because he was Deaf, and the moment people realized that, they usually left to find someone else—who were often more expensive and less skilled than Dax.
But he wasn’t the kind of guy who ever gave up, so letting our mom baby us a little bit was something we both indulged in.
“She also made me cookies this week,” I told him with a sniff.
“Oh fuck, I miss Mama Adams’s cookies,” Tony groaned. “Save me some?”
“If you’re a good boy,” I said with a wink.
He burst into laughter. “It’s a good thing I’m married, Chief, or I’d be climbing your sweet biceps like the tree you pulled your cat out of.”
“Dude,” came another voice. We both spun to see Orrin, the newest rookie on the team, staring at us with wide eyes.
He looked younger than he was—twenty-five, but he could easily pass for a teenager if he didn’t shave.
He had a mop of dark hair and icy gray-blue eyes. “Is that…I mean…is that a joke?”
Tony shrugged. “Mostly. I had a huge crush on Dayton when we first met, but I got over it when I realized he got bad farts after eating burritos, and that’s his favorite food.”
Orrin’s cheeks flushed. “Oh.”
“Does the fact that we’re both bisexual offend you?
” I asked. I kept my tone careful. I wasn’t here to intimidate any of my crew, but I wouldn’t stand for any of that toxic bullshit in my station.
Most people assumed it never happened in the Bay Area, but I’d come across it too many times in my career.
I preferred to educate than get nasty back, but I also wasn’t going to take any shit.
“No,” Orrin said in a rush. “N-no. No, I just didn’t…I mean.” He took a fortifying breath. “Sorry. I didn’t know that could be okay.”
Tony gave me a pointed look and walked off as I stepped close to Orrin. There was a beat of silence, and I could feel the tension coming off him in waves. I knew what he wanted to say, but I wouldn’t push him.
“This is a good place to be, Orrin. No matter how you feel or who you are. You know that, right?”
Orrin swallowed heavily. He’d been here for a few months before Captain Grant retired, so he pre-dated me at the station, and I was starting to wonder if maybe things had been rough before I showed up.
“My dad told me not to apply for this job,” he finally said quietly. “He said it was…that it was no place for a guy like me.”
“That doesn’t sound very kind,” I said.
“He’s not a bad guy,” Orrin said very quickly. “He just worries. He also grew up in rural Arkansas, so…” He trailed off with a laugh. “I was born and raised here, but I got beat up a lot in school.”
I was a little surprised. Orrin wasn’t a tall guy, but he was bulky as hell. I’d seen him deadlifting at the gym more than I would ever attempt, and he barely broke a sweat. “You got beat up?”
He snorted. “Trash-canned every day between third and fourth periods. But my junior year, my PE teacher realized I was strong, so he had the office change my schedule to weight lifting, and I got good at it. Really good. They stopped trying to push me around after that.”
I couldn’t help a small laugh, clapping my hand on his shoulder.
“You’re amazing. And for what it’s worth, you never have to tell anyone here anything personal.
But if people are giving you shit, I want to know about it.
That is not how I’m going to run this place.
This will be somewhere I can bring my partner, no matter their gender. ”
Orrin looked at me, opened his mouth, then shut it. He wasn’t ready, and that was okay. But at least he knew now he didn’t have to stay silent.
“Listen, I gotta run, but I’ll see you Friday.”
He nodded and walked back toward the truck as I climbed into the SUV and headed down the road. The radio went off a few times, but I ignored it since I was officially off shift and only on call if it required a supervisor and the two officers below me were busy.
It sounded cliché, but I wasn’t like most battalion chiefs. A lot of them truly did earn their reputation of being the smarmy assholes who answered every call and sped through lights to show up where they weren’t needed or wanted, so long as it wouldn’t be actual work.
I hadn’t aged into this job after spending years breaking my back and was now looking for something cushy.
I’d applied for it because I felt at home in the role.
I’d always been a natural leader and wanted to help my team grow in all the ways they needed to.
And I wanted to support them in all the ways they wanted to be supported.
It helped on long, lonely days when I wanted someone to care for.
Someone to need me. Maybe someone who wanted to care for me right back when things got rough.
I wasn’t actively looking or anything. It never worked out for me when I did, but I was hoping that maybe the universe would surprise me one day with the one person it decided was absolutely perfect for who I was.
I was in a better mood by the time I pulled into my parents’ driveway.
They lived in a nice little ranch-style home to accommodate my mom’s bad hips.
It was a rare floor plan for the area, and it had a very seventies vibe that reminded me of my childhood visiting my grandparents.
Dahlia kept calling it the Brady Bunch house until my mom got her feelings hurt, and after that, she only used it in the siblings group chat.
The driveway was surprisingly empty, so I pulled alongside my dad’s Vespa and grabbed my laundry bag from the back.
I punched in the door code before hitting the doorbell three times in quick succession to let whoever was inside know it was me.
We each had our own flashing lights code, though Dax was the asshole who always forgot, and I swear he was going to be the reason for their heart attacks one of these days.
Heading to the right, I dropped my bag on the washer, then made my way through the house.
It was quiet and still, so I slipped through the kitchen and found the back door cracked open.
Unsurprisingly, I could see my dad a few yards down the grass with his ass in the air, fixing something near his chicken coop fence.
That was his newest hobby—chickens. He’d seen some Instagram reel with these adorable chickens with feathery poofs on their heads and immediately bought a dozen eggs to hatch.
Only three did the first year, but now he had nine—no roosters, which Mom insisted.
She didn’t want to be run out of the neighborhood by the angry hearing people who were woken up by crowing at the ass crack of dawn.
And Dad was fine with what he got. His girls, he called them. They each had little collars with bows, and he was always taking photos and signing to them like they were his other grandkids.
I was halfway to him when Rizz came hurtling around from the bushes. He barked twice at me, then ran to Dad and nudged his arm. Dad turned his head, and his face broke out into a huge smile as he climbed to his feet and brushed the dirt off his jeans.
“Hey!” he said loudly, opening his arms for me.
I was several inches taller than him, but he always made me feel small and safe when he hugged me. ‘Do-do?’ I signed, staring at the hole he was digging.
He scoffed. ‘Nothing. Just reinforcing the fence. Dolly keeps getting out, and Betty and Rita are encouraging her.’
I rolled my eyes, laughing. ‘Want some help?’
He looked me up and down, then waved me off. ‘Go. Sit. You look tired.’
‘Thanks,’ I signed with a heavy eye roll.
He gave my cheek a sharp pat before shoving me toward one of his sun loungers. There was a big glass of iced tea in the cupholder, and I took a sip, grimacing at the sweetness. I had no idea who’d turned my parents on to sweet tea, but I wanted to maim them for it. The shit was disgusting.
‘Give me five minutes,’ Dad said, then turned his back to me, dropping onto the grass.
When Rizz realized he was back off duty, he trotted up and jumped onto the lounger, immediately sniffing me all over.
He’d been a little more curious now that I had Knives, and I was debating when I should bring her over to introduce them.
I didn’t think she’d be thrilled about an overly enthusiastic corgi, but I wanted her to eventually be desensitized to strangers.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9 (Reading here)
- Page 10
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- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
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- Page 17
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- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
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- Page 26
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- Page 39
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- Page 42