Hide Your Crazy (KPD Motorcycle Patrol 1)

Nobody said a word.

“All right then. Just remember…this is your last chance. No more fuck-ups, y’all.” He stood up. “New schedules will be posted tomorrow. You’ll start this next week after the rest of the equipment arrives. Okay?”

Nobody said anything again.

“Good.” He got up and left the room.

Jonah went out right on his heels, leaving the rest of us staring at our shiny motorcycle boots and tight ass pants.

“This is a fuckin’ nightmare.”

That came from Justice as he held up the pants.

“Amen to that,” I grunted and stood. “We free to leave now?”

They all shrugged.

“Good enough answer for me,” I grumbled, standing up.

Kilgore Police Department was a fairly good size, but at this time in the evening, it was dead quiet due to shift change. The only person that was making any noise in the entire place was the 911 operator that worked in her own little room off to the side of the bullpen.

Normally there were three of them, but likely since it was shift change, the other two had taken their lunches.

“All right, Logan,” I heard called from behind me. “You try that on for us, model it, and we’ll tell you what we think.”

I gave Pace a look.

“Fuck you.”

But before we could all make the break for it that we should’ve done the moment that Captain Morgan left the room, he was back just as fast. “Oh, don’t forget. We have a team building exercise at the goddamn painting place. If I have to be there, you have to be there. And make sure someone finds fucking Jonah and tells him to be there or else. Eight o’clock, sharp. It’s also BYOB—bring your own goddamn beer. And make double damn sure that you bring your own because you’re not drinking mine.”

Pace and I shared a look. “Not it.”

The fact that we both said it at the same time was highly amusing.

“I’m not telling him,” Pace grumbled. “He’s going to shit himself at hearing we have to go to a fucking painting party.”

“Just make his nephew do it,” I suggested, looking over at the fresh-faced Baby Downy who’d been out of the police academy for all of six weeks.

He was the only one of us who’d gotten to this particular unit out of want rather than necessity.

The rest of us, Jonah, Pace, Justice, and I had all gotten here because we’d gotten into a bit of a tight spot with something or another over the last couple of months. And since we had a new therapist who felt that maybe a change of pace/scenery would benefit us, we’d all been transferred to a unit that was pretty much a precursor to being fired.

Which none of us wanted, but we didn’t really have much of a choice seeing as the goddamn therapist was the daughter of the mayor, and what that woman wanted, that woman got. Regardless of the fact that none of us had done a goddamn thing wrong other than find ourselves in that woman’s office.

“Downy looks like he would do it,” Pace agreed. “Let’s go talk to him.”

***

“Ummm,” Pace said as he stood next to me, bouncing on the prosthetic blades that acted as stand-ins for his actual feet. “Nobody is here yet.”

I nodded my head at the lot. “I’m fairly sure that Justice has been here for about twenty minutes, but he’s parked over there in the shadows because he’s too afraid he’ll see his mom who is painting right now with a couple of her friends.”

Pace squinted and tried to see into the shadows but shook his head. “I can’t see him. But that’s funny.”

“It is,” I agreed. “She’s hot as hell for an older woman, right?”

Pace looked at the woman that was laughing her ass off with a glass of wine in her hand, looking like she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. “He’ll kill you if he hears you say that about his mom. And, just sayin’, old man, but you’re not too far from her age.”

I scoffed. “I’m thirty-eight. Justice said his mom was in her fifties. That’s twelve whole years.”

Pace snorted. “Thirty-eight is old. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thirty-three is fairly old, too.”

“No, it isn’t,” he countered. “Thirty-five is old. I’m two years away from that.”

Before we could continue our argument, a motorcycle pulled up containing Lock Downy.

“Now we’re only missing Jonah.” I laughed.

We both looked at Lock, who was removing his helmet.

“Did you tell your uncle to come?” I questioned him.

Lock nodded his head. “Yep. He said he’d be here.”

And he was.

Five minutes later, he rolled up on his motorcycle that looked like it was on its last leg.

None of us said a word.

“Everybody here?” Captain Morgan called from behind us.

I looked over my shoulder at him, just now realizing that Pace and I hadn’t been alone.