Monkey Wrench (Cheap Thrills 8)

“You gave me a new perspective when it felt like there wasn’t any way out of how I was feeling and what I was going through. Now I’m a police officer who helps people, and I deal with kids and adults who’ve gone through what we both went through. I feel like I can help them like you helped me.”

“Carter,” she said softly, another tear escaping.

“You’ve given me more than I’ll ever be able to repay you for, but mostly, you’ve given me you and Shanti. Please don’t think you’re not the person who gets me through dark, impossible moments because you are.”

Throwing her arms around my neck, she burst into tears as she almost choked me. I knew there was nothing I could say that’d make her stop, and sometimes it was easier just to cry and let all of the emotions out that way, so I just rolled us to our sides and held her.

When she was done, the sobs reduced to sniffles, she moved her head away from me. In the light, she’d have a red nose, red eyes, and she’d look a hot mess, but she’d also look beautiful. In the dark, she just looked like my world.

“Do you know if we can buy shares in Blow Pops?”

The question was so unexpected and out of the blue that it took a moment to sink in. “You want to buy shares in Blow Pops?”

“Hell yeah, I do. I don’t know how much they’ll cost, but I want to buy some every month.”

Bursting out laughing, I pulled her head back against my chest, chuckling into the top of her hair as I kissed it. “We’ll look into it tomorrow.”

And yes, we did buy some shares in the company that makes Blow Pops. It was sentimental, it was probably ridiculous, but it was our history.

FOURTEEN

Naomi

Ten days later…

Shanti was finally back at school after her last checkup, where they’d changed her cast after taking her stitches out, and I should have been at work, but I’d caught a bad head cold and was sure I was dying.

Dave hadn’t wanted it spreading around the department, especially with Tabby only days away from having the baby, so he’d ordered me to stay at home.

Because she had the same cold, Jacinda had come over, and we were lying out on the couch, both snuggling under blankets, with a smorgasbord of medications on the coffee table while we watched something on the television.

“My sister says she’s the hottest woman in the world,” she said, nodding at the woman on the screen. “I don’t know if I’d say the hottest, but she’s definitely hot.”

She’d insisted on us watching Chicago ER, and I wasn’t sure if it was my kind of thing. All of the body parts, blood, more body parts, gruesome injuries, and illnesses were making my stomach turn.

“Why couldn’t we watch something nice?” I rasped, wincing at how sore my throat was.

“This is nice. It’s got love stories woven through it.”

“I meant something without the blood.” Just then, a guy was wheeled in who looked like he’d been chargrilled. “Holy shit.”

Pulling the blanket over my head, I willed away the nausea. It was on a wing and a prayer, but I hated cleaning up puke, and I also hated throwing up. I was in Hell.

“Yeah, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” I felt her move, and then she said, “Okay, you can come out. We’ll just watch this.”

I didn’t know the name of the movie or recognize any of the actors on the screen, but there were funny moments, and it wasn’t boring, so I came out of hiding to watch it until I zoned out and was almost asleep.

“Hey, I saw an ad for a new vibrator, and it kind of scared me. It’s eleven inches long and has the classic pearls inside for when you make it rotate, but on the outside, it had these bumps. It wasn’t until I zoomed in for a close-up that I saw how prominent they were, but when the pearls are swirling around inside, these bumps apparently stimulate the inside of the vagina.”

I looked down my body at where her head was and just blinked. How we’d gone from a funny movie to vibrators, I couldn’t say, but this was the way with Jacinda. Usually, it was to stop her from thinking about something negative from her past or something that was a trigger for her.

“Wouldn’t that look like genital warts?”

Weakly, she raised her hand and pointed at me. “Great minds think alike. It also had a thing to put up the butt, and the clit stimulator had small bumps on it, too.”

Where was she going with this story?

“So, did you get it?”

She shook her head. “No, but it intrigued me because it reminded me of one of those medieval spiked clubs. Can you imagine someone breaking in and hitting them with it?”