Joke's on You (SWAT Generation 2.0 6)

I still texted him quite a bit, there just wasn’t as much ‘hanging out’ in our future.

Opening the text up, I read it.

Kerrie: Dinner Saturday night?

My reply?

Dillan: Can’t. I have a date with Booth!

Kerrie’s reply was almost instant.

Kerrie: You’re joking.

Dillan: Not at all.

Kerrie: I don’t think that’s a good idea.

I sent him the smiley face then the shrugging emoticon and plugged my phone into the charger.

After finishing up my nightly routine, I crawled into bed, then picked my phone up one last time.

This time, there were multiple text messages.

But only one held my attention.

Booth Pena: Saturday night. I’ll pick you up. Wear those jeans that have the hole in the left butt cheek pocket.

I felt my face flush.

I knew the jeans that he was talking about instantly, and it practically burned me alive to know that Booth noticed them on me.

I’d actually torn those jeans in his presence.

He’d been picking Asa up from me for the weekend, and I’d been helping him get Asa’s new cot Booth had bought at the Army Navy Store into his truck. His place hadn’t been completely furnished yet, so Booth had purchased it for his place. Only, Asa loved it so much that he’d taken it with him back and forth for almost a year before Booth had finally broken down and gotten him another one.

I’d been climbing into the back of Booth’s truck when my pants had caught on the side of his truck bed.

The denim, already stressed by my use since high school, and possibly straining already due to them being just a bit too small, had parted like warm butter.

I’d patched them to the best of my ability because I loved them so much, but still wore them.

Apparently, Booth had noticed.

I texted the number back.

Dillan: Sure thing. Do you know where I live? :P

I then went to bed and ignored all the other text messages from Kerrie.

He could just wait until the morning.

I had way more exciting things to think about that night. Kerrie’s cautionary words would only make me worry.

And I didn’t want to worry about Booth.

Not anymore.

I wanted to embrace what he threw at me.

Because Booth was nearly taken from me today, and I had no idea until right then that I was suppressing my feelings for him so hard.

Well, that ended tonight.

Finally slipping into sleep, I did it with an excited smile on my face.Chapter 4

More money. More puppies.

-T-shirt

Dillan

I blinked in surprise at seeing the kennels being cleaned out by Bourne.

“Umm,” I said as I stared at the man. “What are you doing here?”

My day had been long, and awful.

Not only had I started the day out with very little sleep—I’d stayed awake and daydreamed about a certain bruised up man—but my day had gotten worse from there.

The first person to get their donuts had complained that they weren’t ‘as cute’ as she thought they were going to be. Of course, she’d posted this to the Donut Place’s company page, meaning everyone who followed me saw them.

When I got a look at the picture she posted, it’d been obvious to me that they’d been dropped at some point, smashing the cute little flag—the theme was American flags due to it being so close to the Fourth of July—and making it appear to be just a rather large, mushy mess.

Another customer had written on my wall saying that my calendar that I had hanging on the wall—the SWAT calendar that Booth just so happened to be on the cover of that month—was ‘inappropriate’ in a family environment.

Thankfully, in both instances, my customers had come to my aid, protecting me with their words.

One lady had called the SWAT calendar complainer out, stating that it was for charity and if she didn’t like it, she didn’t have to actually go in to buy the donuts. She could go through the drive-through, and from there you couldn’t see the calendar.

Needless to say, there’d been a war from there, and I’d had to delete the post due to all the negative words that had been said on it.

Kerrie had then stopped by, pissed off that I’d been ignoring him.

I hadn’t seen him in weeks, since his last impromptu visit, and the first thing out of his mouth was that I should ‘really rethink going on a date with Booth.’

In front of my customers.

He also had to point out that ‘Booth had a baby with my sister,’ making it sound like I was a homewrecker or something in front of about half of my customers.

The customers hadn’t actually left, but they’d definitely been curious.

After getting rid of Kerrie—thankfully he had to go to work—I’d explained to my customers that I was seeing a man that I’d always had a crush on, and that it was complicated.

They’d known the story, though.

Everyone in Kilgore knew the damn story.