Page 30 of The Sunny Side (Rojo 2nd Generation: Rojo Police Department #3)

C LANCY

“I was terrified!” Darcy, Tansy, and our cousins Fallon and Sophie started cackling, and that irritated the shit out of me. The only person who was taking me seriously at all was Aunt Steph, but even she was smiling. “I’ve never met a woman as intimidating as Autumn Dumont.”

At that, Aunt Steph laughed so hard, she snorted. She couldn’t seem to control herself as she sputtered, “You should meet some of her friends!”

“I don’t care if she’s buddies with Aileen Wuornos, she’s terrifying!”

“Only because you’re dating her son,” Fallon choked out. “Otherwise, she’s sweet as can be.”

Sophie nodded as she tried to salvage her makeup. “A little wild and fun, but not terrifying at all.”

“I think she’s terrific,” Darcy informed me.

“How do you know her?”

“She teaches the Ashtanga yoga class I found soon after we got here,” Darcy explained.

“Is she the instructor you compared to the antichrist?”

“Well, yeah, but she’s really nice when she’s not pushing you to keep doing Tic Tocs until your spine feels like a rubber band.”

“Most people call that doom scrolling,” Fallon teased.

“It’s a yoga movement, not a social media app,” Darcy explained. “You go from forward fold to handstand and then the wheel pose, which is hard enough, but then you do it back and forth over and over.”

I took a glance around the table and laughed because everyone else looked just as confused as I was.

“Demonstration, please,” Tansy suggested. With a grin, she added, “For science.”

Darcy stood up and walked into the living room, avoiding Max and Cupcake who were on his bed near the couch.

She stretched her arms above her head and went up on her tiptoes before she suddenly bent forward and rested her hands on the floor.

She then slowly lifted her legs until she was doing a handstand.

She held that position for a few seconds before she slowly lowered her legs down, leaving her body arched.

She lifted her legs again to the handstand pose and then slowly lowered them down to their original position on the floor.

When she stood up and smiled at us, we started clapping, but she shook her head and waved us off. “One is great. Two is difficult. Autumn Dumont is a beast, and I’m almost positive she can do those all day long.”

“She’s always loved yoga. As a matter of fact, I met her while Bear was helping renovate the building for her studio.”

“How long have you known them?” I asked Aunt Steph.

“Since . . . Goodness, it’s been . . . I’m not going to count. I’m just going to say that I knew them before they had Brawley.”

“So just a year or two,” I teased.

“Maybe three.”

When Fallon sighed, I glanced over and saw that she was frowning, so I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I can feel a headache coming on. It’s no big deal.”

“Let me get you some Tylenol,” I said as I got up and walked over to the cabinet. I grabbed a couple of pills and then got her a glass of water before I gave them to her and sat back down. “There you go.”

“Wow,” Sophie said with a grin.

“What?”

“Spend a lot of time here, huh?”

“Since she and Brawley started seeing each other, they’ve spent almost every evening together, either here or at her place. They’re quite the homebodies,” Darcy remarked with a sly grin.

“I wondered why we were meeting here for coffee rather than one of your houses,” Steph mused.

“The doors to my kitchen cabinets are laid out on plastic sheeting all over the house, prepped for the base coat so they can be painted next week. Brawley and I are going to rent a paint sprayer. He said that we can get them finished in a day with that.”

“That sounds very domestic,” Fallon asserted. “Spending all your time together, doing home renovation projects . . .”

“Meeting his parents,” Sophie interrupted.

“Even the dogs are in love,” Darcy said as she looked over at Max and Cupcake who were still napping together peacefully.

“I may have just barfed a little,” Tansy said with a groan. “It’s too much.”

“I think it’s sweet. Brawley is a great guy who comes from a wonderful family. It seems like the two of you have everything required for a long-lasting relationship.”

“They’ve only been together for a month,” Sophie reminded her.

“Um, more like three weeks,” I corrected.

“He told her he loved her on Friday,” Darcy announced.

I felt myself blushing as my aunt and cousins looked at me in shock. “Technically, I said it first.”

“What was his reaction?”

“Well, shock at first. I regretted blurting it out like that, but then he said that he loves me too. I had been crying, though, so there’s the worry that he said that just to shut me up, but . . .”

“Those aren’t words that a man just throws around,” Steph argued. “Especially a good man like Brawley.”

“Why were you crying?” Sophie asked.

“He bought me a pair of boots for riding,” I explained. I felt my throat start to close as tears filled my eyes before I wailed, “I think that’s the sweetest thing any man has ever done for me.”

“Oh, good grief,” I heard Fallon mutter.

“I get why it made her cry,” Darcy said softly. “No one takes care of Clancy. She takes care of the people she loves, and we let her . . . probably too much, to be honest.”

“That’s true,” Tansy agreed as she got up and walked around the table to stop behind me. She wrapped her arms around me and rested her chin on my shoulder before she said, “He loves you, big sister. Isn’t that the sweetest thing?”

“It is,” I agreed as I sniffed back more tears. “I’m not quite sure how to take it.”

“If your father was standing here right now, I’d punch him in his smug face,” Aunt Steph announced.

When I looked up, I saw her blinking away tears of her own.

“Parents are supposed to teach their children about love - that they deserve it and how to accept it. The type of partner a young woman finds themselves attracted to is almost always based on standards formed by the relationship they have with the father figure in their life. You girls didn’t have anyone to teach you that, but now you’ll have Brawley and the way he treats Clancy as an example. ”

“And the relationship between my mom and dad,” Sophie chimed in.

Fallon laughed before she added, “And all of their friends.” She shrugged before she said, “And Brawley's friends, too, for that matter. We’ve known them our entire lives, and even though we’re closer to some than others, they’re all really good men.”

“Fallon’s right,” Aunt Steph agreed. She took my hand before she intertwined our fingers. “I’m glad you and Brawley worked out the misunderstanding, sweetie. And I’m so happy you’ve finally found someone who recognizes your worth.”

To take the focus off myself, I joked, “Now we just have to work on Tansy and Darcy. They have the absolute worst taste in men.”

“We do not!” they argued in unison.

I rolled my eyes before I explained, “Darcy usually dates guys that would steal the copper out of her IUD if they could figure out how to get away with it, and Tansy just fosters men until they find their forever home.”

That broke the tension, and everyone had a good belly laugh for a minute, even Tansy and Darcy, who had to admit I was right. They really did have the worst taste in men. Hell, so had I until I found Brawley.

◆◆◆

brAWLEY

Zane was waiting for me as I lifted the saw blade, so I slid the piece of wood toward him as I asked, “How are you handling the kid invasion?”

“I love it,” he admitted with a grin. “Of course, I get the added bonus of having Courtney living here, too, so there’s that.”

“She’s a pistol. I like her.”

“I kind of like her too,” Zane teased. “Your girl is pretty cool. You just seem to be a good fit, you know?”

I chuckled as I measured the next piece of wood and then settled it into place. Once that piece was cut, I said, “We really are. She gets me.”

“You mean she doesn’t drag you out into public and make you people , two things you really hate.”

“I do.”

“I never understood why you would choose to work so hard to become a police officer when decent people irritate the shit out of you. Once you put the uniform on, you’ve gotta deal with the other types, and most of them irritate the shit out of everyone.”

“I don’t deal with the public much anymore.”

“Yeah, you traded in the people part of your job for a bunch of adolescents with raging hormones and a prefrontal cortex that’s still under construction. I’m not sure that’s a fair swap.”

“I like the kids.” When Zane scoffed, I said, “Okay, I like most of the kids. Some I’m not too sure about.”

“One of those kids is technically mine now,” Zane reminded me. Before I had a chance to say anything, he asked, “Should we go ahead and put these up before we cut any more?”

“One more,” I told him before I turned the saw back on.

As soon as I was done, I reached down and unplugged it, wary of power tools anywhere near children.

I’d been the nosy kid who liked to push buttons and knew how irresistible things like that could be.

“Dayton’s a good kid. Did he tell you about our competition? ”

“He told me he’s gonna kick your ass.”

“They probably will, especially since I haven’t found much time to study.”

“He told me you’re already cheating.”

“How?” I asked in outrage.

“You’re bringing in ringers.”

“Ringers? There’s no way they’re smarter than I am.”

“Who did you recruit for your team?”

“Lawson, Marley, Corey, Noble, Tay, and Colt.” I thought about it for a second before I asked, “Do you think they’re smarter than me?”

“Individually, no, but in a group? Probably.” Zane shrugged before he plugged in the nail gun.

He smiled at me when he said, “I know none of those fuckers crack a book unless someone is holding a gun to their head, and I also know that Dayton gets us to quiz him almost every night using flashcards that he has.”

“Well, shit.”

“When’s the challenge?”

“The principal scheduled it for . . .”

Zane was looking at his phone when he interrupted, “Friday morning.”

“How did you know that?”

“Dayton wants me to come cheer him on, so he had me put it in my phone.”

“You’re coming to the school?”

“Didn’t you see the flyer?”

“What flyer?”

“The one that Dayton brought home inviting family members to attend.”

“That’s great,” I muttered as I stood on the ladder to hold the board level while Zane nailed it in place. “I knew something was up when the principal asked me to have Nick get in touch with her, but I had no idea it was going to turn into a circus.”

“Seems like a good way to get the kids to see that police officers are just like them, only dumber.” I flipped him off before I took the nail gun from him to put two more into my end of the board. “Aww. Little Bear is nervous and grumpy now.”

“What do I hate more than people?”

“Canned spinach?”

“Yes, but what else? I’ll tell you what else - standing in front of a large crowd and being expected to talk. I hate that. The thought of it gives me hives.”

“You just don’t want to look stupid in front of your new girlfriend.”

“She’s more than just my girlfriend.”

“It’s like that, huh?”

“I love her.”

“Good for you. Are you gonna tell her?”

“I wasn’t because I was pretty sure she wasn’t ready to hear it yet, but she said it first on Friday.”

“How long have y’all been together?”

“About a month.”

Zane shrugged as he watched me move the ladder. “That’s not too bad. In that amount of time, you either know it’s right or know it’s wrong.”

“We had our first argument last week, and I knew then it was right.”

“I guess it went better than you expected?”

“Very much so. It kind of reminded me of how my parents argue.”

“How’s that?”

“Mom gets snippy, Dad stares at her until she explodes, and then he pulls her in for a hug and says things in her ear that calm her down.”

“My parents always argued loudly and then ran off to the bedroom before things would get suspiciously quiet.” Zane shuddered before he said, “When I figured out what they were doing to make up, I was traumatized.”

“As traumatized as we were that time we walked in on Uncle Hank and Aunt Nichole in the vet office?”

Zane cringed and shuddered again. “Yeah. Just about that traumatized.”

“Hand me that other board, man. I need to finish up here so I can go home and study.”

“I can’t wait to watch you get your ass kicked by a bunch of kids.”

“Fuck you.” I thought about it for a second before I asked, “Any chance you can get your hands on those flashcards Dayton made?”

“Nope. You know I’d do almost anything for you, brother, but he’s my boy. I’ve gotta have his back.”

“I know, but it was worth a shot.”