Walking up to the group of men gathered around the photo of the officer that was getting a pat on the shoulder from Reggie for something he’d done last night, I came to a stop with my hands on my hips.
“I’d kindly like you to take down that photo of my wife.”
The officer who’d obviously hung the damn thing up whirled around in shock.
“We didn’t mean anything by it,” he stuttered.
My brows rose. “You didn’t?”
I was laying it on thick, but who was I kidding?
On paper she might be technically mine, but reality? She might as well be the goddamn sun. So far away, and so fucking untouchable.
It was again one of those subjects that we could think about but never speak about out loud.
“Why would someone like you let his wife live in a place like that?” another officer, the one that was actually in the photo, asked.
My brows rose at the anger that I saw on his face.
Was he pissed at me because of something I had no control over?
“Because we’re estranged,” I admitted. “And she likes to be independent. I also don’t control her. If she wants to live there, there’s no way in hell that I’m going to convince her not to do it. Why do you think we’re estranged?”
All of those were fucking true.
But I had no clue where Reggie lived.
The less I knew about her, the less my stupid fucking heart wouldn’t start beating for her all over again.
Now, though, the niggling had been planted.
I had to know where she lived.
“Take the photo down,” I ordered. “And next time, make sure that you don’t hang a picture of someone’s wife up in the locker room and ogle it.”
The cop swallowed.
He was young. About twenty-two or so, but he looked like he was much younger than that when he looked at me as I spoke about Reggie.
As if he’d never had a strong-willed girl that challenged him before.
I grinned like a fuckin’ loon then, making him take a step back.
“If you want, you can tell her you hung her photo up in the locker room,” I said. “Maybe you’ll get an idea of what it’ll be like to find your own girl.”
Not like I had a girl, per se. But when I admitted it to myself in the dark of night that I was married to her, I had this stupid little fluttery feeling in my chest start to take off.
“I’ll just…” He took the photo down and handed it to me.
“I don’t want a photo of you with my girl,” I said, refusing to take it.
The cop looked around at the locker room that had not-so-suspiciously emptied in the time that I’d been in there.
“I’ll take it to the shredder.” He nodded his head in confirmation, as if that would make me believe him.
“You do that,” I said as I turned around to leave.
I wasn’t surprised to find half the fuckin’ SWAT team standing at the door.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re married?”
I ignored every fuckin’ one of them as I headed to my patrol car.
The first stop was the hardware store. The next was the apartments after I looked Reggie up.Chapter 5
If you’re happy and you know it, fuck off.
-Text from Reggie to Nathan
Nathan
“You can’t put those locks on the door.”
I didn’t bother to look up from the deadbolt installation I was doing.
Instead, I finished installing the bolt and started screwing it in, forgoing the pitiful screws they’d given me for two that were three inches long and would really dig in deep to the door.
“Duly noted,” I said as I leaned into the screw gun.
“It’s against the apartment’s policy. You can’t install anything that wasn’t already there or installed by maintenance,” the dealer snarked.
I looked up then to spot the asshole that’d been staring at me. He’d been by the dumpster for the last half an hour as I’d used my credit card to get into Reggie’s place.
He didn’t call the cops, though.
The sad thing was, nobody called the cops.
A strange man breaking into someone’s apartment, even one in uniform, should’ve surely caused a stir.
But not here.
“Interesting,” I said as I looked back down. “I’ll be sure to note that in my phone under ‘I don’t give a fuck.’”
The dealer shuffled, kicking the grass at his feet.
I had a feeling that my being there was cramping his style, and he couldn’t sell shit while I was there and obviously paying attention.
I’d seen over thirteen cars drive into the parking lot, make some weird sort of eye contact with the guy, only to leave just as fast as they came in.
I wasn’t fucking stupid.
I knew the guy was dealing.
And I didn’t fucking like that he was doing it so close to my girl’s place.
My girl.
My inner brain was fucking nuts.
But still, it’d been something that I’d been saying since the dawn of time.