Fireball (Cheap Thrills 1)

This might sound like everything was going right because we had the answers we needed, but it was everyone else who was acting like an asshole now that we’d put those assholes away. Hurst Townsend had decided for some reason he was my new agony aunt and relationship guidance counselor in one package. Every day, he’d text me with ideas on how to win Tabby back around, links to florists and those fruit bouquet places online, links to Cosmopolitan articles, questions on how I was feeling, offers to go grab a drink…it was insane.

Ellis was holding himself back, struggling with not being able to check on Jose and Olivia. I knew nothing had happened between them, but it appeared that she’d been on his radar in a big way long before he’d shown up on hers. I’d gone to see him for some new ink yesterday, and he’d said about four words to me throughout the whole time he’d been working on me. This wasn’t like him, and when I’d asked if he’d spoken to her at all, he’d shut down completely and focused on what he was doing.

Then there was Dad. I gave not one shit was Luli was doing or saying, but I did still care about him. I hated the predicament he’d gotten himself into and the fact that he hadn’t been able to cut himself free from her, and because of it all his silence was unnerving. I couldn’t go to him without giving shit away though, especially when I wasn’t open to even hearing about dropping the charges against Rita.

Throwing my pen across my desk in frustration, I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes for a minute. As if the Devil’s ass hole was watching me, a knock on the door of my office ruined that plan only seconds later. Expecting to see Rory or one of the guys, I was confused when Hurst stuck his head around it.

“You got a sec?” he asked, not waiting for a response before he walked in leaving it open behind him.

He was a great guy, and I had a lot of time for him, but right now I didn’t have it in me to spill my deepest darkest feelings to him, or listen to how if his grandsons could do it then I could do it.

“Look, Hurst, I appreciate you…”

“Well now, that’s nice to hear and all,” he interrupted. “But I’m not here for some ‘Brotherhood of the Testicles and Taints’ meeting.”

Just hearing the word taints shouldn’t make me think about Tabby, but the last time I’d heard the word her sister had been saying it to her about me, so it didn’t get the normal smile or laugh it would have.

Apparently, Hurst assumed my grimace was because of the name of the brotherhood, because he nodded and sat down in the seat in front of my desk. “Yup, apparently that shit exists. Anyway, I came to talk to you about the shit that happened. I didn’t realize the story behind your dad’s marriage, and once I heard, I got a friend of mine to do some digging. You might remember Ben from when all the shit with Adam, Scarlett, and Tuck went down.”

Who could forget him? The man’s name was Ben Bakake for Christ’s sake.

Sighing, I reached for a new pen and started fiddling with it. “Yup, couldn’t forget a name like that.”

“True story,” he snorted, and then yelled, “Alex!” over his shoulder, making me jump and my new pen go flying out of my hand.

“Son,” a familiar voice rumbled from the doorway, and I looked up to see my dad standing in it.

I’d inherited a fair bit of my mom including her hair color, but I’d also gotten an equal amount of my dad’s genes too, including the color of my eyes. Given what he’d gone through over the last five years, I’d expected him to have aged since I’d last seen him, but the man in front of me look younger than he had before. He also had a twinkle in his eyes as he made his way toward my desk.

Getting up, I walked around to meet him, catching him up in a hug. Him and Mom had met and had me early in life, even before he’d joined the police at the age of nineteen, and now at fifty he still had a physique not far from my own. For the last three years since I’d moved here I’d told myself repeatedly that I hadn’t intentionally cut him off, that I’d had to do it for his sake and safety, but hugging him now I knew that was a lie. A really big, bad, fucking lie. Some of it might be down to that reason, but a large part had been because I was hurt and disappointed in the choices he’d made and how my life had been made a living hell by Rita and Luli because of it.