“Is this true, ma’am?”
I only just stopped myself from banging my head on the wall when he asked that.
Finally dropping her hands, the woman crossed them over her chest and huffed, “No, it’s not true. My name’s Ashley Wilkes, and Hayden’s my brother. I moved in here three days ago to live in that apartment,” she pointed up at the annex over the garage. “I was just trying to get into my home.”
Frowning, I looked at her again and winced when I realized the reason she looked so familiar was because she looked like her brother.
Shit!
“Where are your keys, ma’am?” the officer asked as both of them closed the distance between us.
“On the table by the front door. I forgot them this morning, and the front door locks automatically so I couldn’t go back in to get them. I was also running late, and Hayden said to just climb up this thing,” she shook the trellis and sighed when the piece of wood she was holding came away in her hand.
Yup, that sounded like something he’d say.
“Do you mind if we corroborate this with Mr. Wilkes?”
Looking around, I saw I’d dropped my phone on the ground when she’d landed on me, so I moved to pick it up, pulling up Hayden’s details as I straightened.
Putting the phone on speaker, we waited for him to answer.
“Miss me already? If you need me to tell you how to play a real man’s game, I’ve got ten minutes to spare,” the smart ass said as he answered.
“You wish,” I snorted. “A real man makes contact with the opposite team and doesn’t cry when he gets hit, you pussy. And that’s not why I’m calling. There’s two police officers waiting for confirmation that the woman who was trying to break into your house is your sister.”
The woman sighed when he burst out laughing.
“Put me on FaceTime and I’ll double check,” he wheezed. Hitting the screen, I pointed the camera at her and did my best not to laugh at the glare she was shooting at my phone. “Hmm, she’s got the same colored hair, but it’s hard to be sure with it being so dark.”
Being the helpful guy that he was, the officer with the torch shone it straight at her face, making her screw it up in response.
“Ah, there she is. Yeah, I think that’s her. It’s the scrunched face that did it seeing as how she’s always pissed.”
And what did she do to that? She shot him the bird. “Must you always be such an awkward asshole?”
“Yup! And you look like shit. You should try smiling more, you know.”
“And you should try arsenic,” she snapped.
Seeing that this was going to end up in a sibling war, I cut the video on it and returned to just speakerphone. “So, you’re confirming it’s definitely her?”
“I guess,” he sighed. “But if the police arrest her, make sure you get it on video. If you’d listened to what I told you when you rang me this morning, there’s a keypad entrance to the back door, Ash. Maybe try that instead of breaking in.”
And with that, he hung up leaving three out of the four of us snickering. The one that wasn’t was the small redhead who was muttering about disowning her brother and football players with too much time on their hands.
“Well,” one of the officers said in a tone that sounded vaguely disappointed. “I guess we can leave you to it.”
Flashing them a grin, I took a step back in the direction of my house. “Thanks for coming, officers. We appreciate it.”
Apparently, that wasn’t actually the case, or, at least, Ashley wasn’t exactly grateful to me.
“If you want to arrest him for wasting your time, I’ll stand witness.”
Both men laughed, and just walked back to their vehicle, leaving me behind with the woman who looked like she was trying to kill me with her eyes. Sadly, I was immune to that look seeing as how my ex had used it on me constantly for the last three months before we broke-up.
So, I just grinned widely at her and raised my hand. “Nice meeting you.”
I was fairly certain that through her hiss she called me an asshole, but who knew?Chapter 2AshleyMy co-worker, Demi, was excitedly chattering about meeting the Seahawks players as we laid out our stuff in the room we’d been assigned to do the measurements and alterations in.
Outwardly I smiled at her and nodded, but inside I winced. I had an issue with football players seeing as how my dad was one and had apparently cheated on my mom every chance he could. A lot of his teammates had been the same, so I had zero trust and respect for them. That might sound a bit harsh, but I’d seen the devastation and hurt their actions caused to not just their wives, but their kids as well.