To some, it might look like I was being hard on him, but in reality, I was giving him some guidance in the only way I knew how. I was also hoping it’d help Evie out with what she was going through with him.
Really, though, I should have kept my nose out of it, and mentally I was kicking myself for not doing that.
Looking up at me, Cody held a plate up. “Is this clean enough?”
Making a show of checking it over, I hummed. “That’s pretty freaking perfect, man. You did good.”
It was dishes, and it was chores, but the kid’s chest puffed out.
“Thanks, Mr. Bell.” He froze and then slowly turned to face me. “Wait, did I just mess up? You’re a police officer, so am I meant to call you Officer Bell?”
“I’m a detective, but I prefer people I like just to call me Alex.”
He looked unsure about this advice, and I almost asked him what was up when he looked over at his mom like he needed her help.
Reading her son immediately, Evie walked over to join us. “I think my son’s a bit confused whether or not he comes under the category of ‘people you like.’”
Shit, I should have been more precise. “Cody absolutely comes under that category. He’s one of the coolest young men I’ve ever met.”
That wasn’t a lie. Even with his age affecting everything from his mind to his body to his hormones, the kid was awesome. When he dropped the attitude or wasn’t feeling hurt and defensive over something, he was one of the best kids I’d ever come across.
Smiling shyly at me, he went back to cleaning the dishes, and with his head bent down while he did it, I could see how red his ears were.
“Would you like to take a seat?” Evie asked, gesturing with her hand to the table.
“Nah, I’ll wait for my buddy here to finish up.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his mouth tip up in another smile and winked at his mom. She froze in place, giving me a look that was identical to the one her son had given me only moments earlier.
I was fifty-one years old and had led a life that I wasn’t entirely proud of. Granted, I’d never done anything illegal or deliberately hurt anyone, and I used my morals with everything I did. Still, I’d taken on a case that’d created a divide between me and DB for a few years because it’d meant I’d had to marry a woman who was under investigation.
It was a special case back in Houston and had involved a crime syndicate that targeted couples, breaking up their marriages and taking the divorce settlements from them. It’d even resulted in some of them committing suicide in the end, so it was a worthwhile case legally. But mentally and emotionally as well as for my son? It’d almost been too much.
Moving away from there and joining him in Piersville had been the best move for both of us.
I’d deliberately distanced myself from him out of embarrassment over the woman, Luli, but also to protect him from what the syndicate might have done in retaliation if I’d fucked the case up. After it, I’d wanted to be closer to my son, to make up for the six years I’d ended up being involved in the bullshit for, and also to heal myself.
Getting involved in something like that isn’t easy, and the toll it takes on officers is no walk in the park. I still wasn’t over it two years later, but I was working on myself and being happy, so it was getting easier with time.
Evie and Cody had moved into the house next door to mine roughly eleven months ago. She was nice and friendly, but I worked a lot and spent time with DB, his wife Tabby, and my granddaughter Sheena, so I rarely saw her. Well, no, that’s a lie, I didn’t see her that she knew of, but I definitely saw her.
With long, dark hair that reached roughly to the middle of her rib cage and a curvy figure that reminded me of something out of a burlesque show, there was no missing her. But when you got close enough to see her face clearly, it was impossible not to seek her out, even from a distance.
Her eyes were a gray color that I don’t think I’d ever seen on anyone before, and her lips were puffy and looked like they’d been made for sin. Add onto it the dusting of freckles on her nose that looked adorable on a woman who inspired dirty thoughts, and there was no forgetting Evita Edwards.
I knew she was divorced, and her family was from the town next to ours, Palmerstown. I’d even worked with her brother, Roque, who was a detective there, but that was about it. Oh, and she’d also opened a hair and beauty place in town called Delicious Divas over a year ago and ran an online channel with the other women she worked with.