Ask Me If I Care (SWAT Generation 2.0 4)

She softened in my arms, her eyes going alight with humor.

“Thanks, Hayes,” she whispered, grinning at me. “I didn’t think when I came out in your shirt. I just wanted to smell you.” She paused. “And, just sayin’, but if that had been a girl at the door, you would’ve given her the best eye-porn on the planet.”

My head tilted in confusion. “I’m sorry, but why? I was wearing pants.”

“You are wearing sweatpants,” she corrected me. “Which is way different.”

If she said so.

“Hungry?” I asked, using my fingers to play with a stray curl of hair that was bunching up around her eye.

“Starving,” she said, her eyes once again heated.

I shook my head.

“We’re not going there,” I told her. “I have a limited stash of condoms. Literally, we used the only three that I had in the last week. I have to go restock before you come over again…or before I go to your place for that matter.”

She grinned at me wickedly and swung her legs around, moving until she was seated on the couch beside me.

“Let’s eat instead, then,” she grumbled.

The pout was even cuter than any look she’d given me yet, that was for sure.

Food was consumed, and eventually we got to the scary movie.

And, it turns out, Ares not only loves scary movies, but they also don’t scare her. Not even a little bit.

She’s that type that you see at the movies, watching the scary movie and smiling, all the while she pops popcorn into her mouth.

Needless to say, the movie didn’t have the desired effect that I’d been looking for, and instead of curling into me, she was practically bouncing in her seat the entire time.

I was highly amused, however, by the end of it.

“You have to be the first girl I’ve ever seen that can watch a scary movie,” I told her.

She shrugged. “My brother used to try to scare me when I was younger with them. It was either learn to love them, or let him see my fear. And that was something I wasn’t willing to do. Because he searched for my weaknesses and then took advantage of them.”

I grinned. “That’s what a brother does.”

Her smile fell.

“Speaking of brother,” she said. “Have you heard anything more about Christiny?”

I winced.

“She saw the judge yesterday,” I murmured. “She agreed to sixty days in jail in exchange for a reduced sentence. And she gave up custody of her son.”

“And Ryan?” she asked. “How’s he doing with the baby?”

“Ryan already asked me to take him,” I murmured. “But the problem with taking him is that he’s more comfortable with Ryan than he is with me. And I just can’t see how that would be a good thing for him right now. So I told Ryan that I’d help when he needed it, but that the kid was his for the foreseeable future. It makes me seem like an ogre, but I just can’t take him right now. Once the kid gets to know me, then things will be different. Ryan’s pissed at me and told me he didn’t need my help at all.”

She winced. “Ryan was always very dramatic. He’ll get over it. Unless he doesn’t convince your mother to move down here and take care of the baby.”

“Stepmother,” I corrected for her. “And I highly doubt that’ll ever happen. It didn’t happen when Christiny obviously needed it. And if it didn’t happen with her, it’s not going to happen with Ryan. She likes traveling with my dad too much.” I paused. “Elisabetta has never been very motherly. She’s more like that really cool aunt that you see on the weekends every once in a while. The one that buys you really cool stuff, lets you eat like shit, and generally doesn’t care what you do as long as you don’t fuck up her house.”

Her eyes sparkled as she leaned against the opposite armrest of the couch.

“It sounds like you have some experience in that,” she teased.

I grinned. “Ryan, Christiny and me pretty much raised ourselves once our parents got married,” I found myself telling her. “My dad is really cool and all, but he’s also a lot like Elisabetta. He doesn’t realize that having kids changes things. Or should, anyway. I think I’ve spent more of my life growing up in a police station, being taken care of by a random police officer, than I have by him.”

Her face softened at my words.

“You can have my parents,” she teased. “They’re really overprotective. And they insinuate themselves into your life and burrow in like a tick, constantly drawing information out of you that they seem to think is necessary to my survival.”

“Sounds like heaven,” I told her truthfully. “My dad cares and all, he really does. But he also doesn’t realize that he even did anything wrong.” I gestured to her half-filled bottle of Dr. Pepper. “That’s also why I rarely eat out. And when I do, I try to go healthy. Because I was raised on this shit. And a home-cooked meal means more to me than anything you could ever imagine.” I grinned then. “When you meet my grandmother, you’ll know how I was raised to be a halfway decent human being. Even talking to me nightly on the phone, she managed to shape me into something people don’t mind being around.”