Ask Me If I Care (SWAT Generation 2.0 4)

I did not want to be here.

In fact, I wasn’t sure why I was here.

Well, that was a lie.

I knew why I was there.

I was reporting a suspected bullying to the school resource officer, and I was making my father come with me.

Though, this would’ve all been way fucking easier if the school had a permanent full-time resource officer. But, since they didn’t, they were using a couple of volunteer officers.

“Why do we have to hurry?” I whined as I ambled after my dad.

“Because I have to go pick up the cake for your mother’s birthday, and I can’t do that if I’m here,” he growled.

I gritted my teeth, wondering why I’d bothered to ask him to go with me in the first place.

Then I thought about Avery, the sweet teenager that’d been through enough this year, and I remembered why.

Spine stiffening at the reminder of how Avery had been treated by her fellow students lately, I walked proudly into the police station and followed my father through a maze of corridors to not the chief’s office, but the assistant chief’s office. My dad’s temporary office.

The real assistant chief was out for the foreseeable future, and would be until he either recovered from his heart bypass, or they found someone to replace him. Sadly for my dad, he was the frontrunner for that particular position and he knew it.

Dad and Luke, the chief of police, had been friends for years.

I’d grown up with Luke’s kids, and thought of Luke as my second dad. And Luke thought highly of my father, and he wanted the best at his back.

Needless to say, every couple of years, Dad would wiggle out from under the hat of the assistant chief position, Luke would fill it, but then something would happen and Dad would be right back where he started all over again.

I knew that it was time for Dad to admit defeat, but he wasn’t really wanting to see the writing on the wall, so to speak. He liked his free time, and I couldn’t say that I blamed him.

“I’ll go get Toomey.” Dad paused. “While you wait, I’m gonna run next door before they close and order your mother some flowers so I don’t forget. And, if I have enough time, I’m gonna run and get the cake. I’ll be back for you.”

I rolled my eyes and took a seat behind my father’s desk, making myself at home.

“Thanks, Dad,” I muttered. “Just don’t forget that I’m here and have no way home.”

Dad rolled his eyes. “There are more than enough people who’d be willing to take you home, drama queen. One of which is your brother who gets off in about twenty minutes.”

“If I go home, I’m not going to the fall fest that you want me to go to so bad.” I scrunched up my nose. “Plus, Lock smells.”

Dad rolled his eyes and walked away, leaving me to sit and wait for Toomey to arrive.

Toomey was who I assumed was the frontrunner in taking the school resource officer position, and I didn’t like him at all.

More so, I didn’t like how he treated my kids.

He was a good cop—or so I’d heard—but there was a certain type of person that could handle kids, and I didn’t think Toomey was that person.

Also, he didn’t like me.

Why didn’t he like me?

Because I turned him down for a date right after I’d broken up with Ryan, and he hadn’t appreciated my candor.

I may have been a little harsh. I’d told him no way in hell. Not even if he was the last man alive on the planet.

Sure, it’d been kind of a knee-jerk reaction on my part after being burned by Ryan, but Toomey didn’t know that. And he never gave me a chance to explain.

When he came in five minutes later, his face was a blank mask.

“I need to talk to you about a matter at the school,” I said as I gestured toward the seat on the other side of my dad’s desk.

Toomey’s eyes went dark with anger, but he sat there anyway.

“I have a student who is being bullied, and I worry about her welfare,” I said without preamble. “There was a restraining order filed against the girl that did most of the bullying, however, I think she’s pushing those boundaries and I’d like to talk to you about ways that we can fix this before it gets out of hand.”

Toomey, ever the professional, talked with me over the next ten minutes about what could and couldn’t be done in the situation.

“I’ll have a talk with the other officers that frequent the school,” he said as he stood, looking as if he wanted to run. And fast. “We’ll discuss it, and I’ll get back to you if needed.”

I highly doubted that I’d hear anything else at all.