Officially Over It (SWAT Generation 2.0 10)

It was hard to get myself out of the habit, especially now that we’d been married for years.

She was mine and nobody else’s. That wasn’t going to change. Ever if I had my choice.

We may not ever be together, but we sure the fuck wouldn’t be with anyone else.

The sound of a car pulling in and not driving away had me looking up to spot a familiar truck pulling into the driveway.

Travis, Reggie’s stepfather.

He spotted me right away as he put his big ass tow truck into park.

Going back to the screw that I was putting into the door, I waited for Travis to climb the rickety ass steps.

Only, he stopped when he saw the drug dealer.

“Go the fuck away,” Travis ordered.

The drug dealer grinned. “Public property, man.”

“I’m about to call in a couple of favors, man,” Travis snarked right back. “And get your stupid ass evicted.”

The drug dealer puffed up his chest in response. “I don’t even live here.”

Travis’s eyes came up to meet mine.

I reached for my mic and called in a loiterer.

“10-4,” dispatch acknowledged.

Another unit would be here soon to move him along.

If he didn’t live here, there was no reason in hell that he should be here. Especially for that amount of time.

“Where do you live?” Travis asked, crossing his beefy arms over his chest.

Being a tow truck driver for years, Travis made his muscles the old-fashioned way.

I’d always fuckin’ envied his bulk.

Though, now that I was older, my bulk stayed now, too. I didn’t just resemble some lanky teenager looking to play pro-ball.

I was an adult with an adult body.

“I don’t have to answer to you, motherfucker.” The drug dealer shifted from foot to foot, looking nervous.

I finished screwing in the last couple of screws and set the screw gun down in the open doorway of Reggie’s apartment.

“No,” I agreed as I came down the stairs, a little less calm now. “But you do have to answer me.”

The dealer’s eyes flicked to me then back to Travis.

I knew he was about to run.

“You run, make sure you don’t come back here or it’ll give us reasonable cause.” I stopped midway down the steps. “And I don’t particularly like the fact that you’re dealing out here next to my wife’s place.”

The guy looked as if he wanted to argue, but then the cruiser pulled in, and the dealer’s eyes went wide.

Taking one last look at his spot where he’d been the majority of the morning, he took off through the cars and disappeared behind the apartments.

Dax Tremaine got out of his car and looked at me curiously. “Want me to follow him?”

I shook my head. “No. Unfortunately, he didn’t do anything bad enough that he can be arrested for… yet.”

He gave a salute and got back into his patrol vehicle.

I turned my attention back to Travis, surprised when he didn’t look openly hostile upon me announcing that I was married to his daughter.

“What’s up?” I asked.

He gestured toward the open door at my back.

“Nice tactic there with telling him Reggie is your wife. He’ll hopefully rethink coming back,” he said, so far from the truth that I wanted to laugh. I didn’t. But barely. “I got a call from one of the residents that I have looking out for Reggie’s place. She said there was some man here working on her door. And since I was already in the area delivering a repo, I thought I’d run by and see if it was anyone that was supposed to be here doing maintenance,” he drawled.

I grimaced and started back up the steps.

“I heard that her place was broken into last night,” I said. “I already replaced the back lock, put a couple of window alarms on her windows, and put a new knob on this door. I’m working on a deadbolt now.”

“Her place was broken into?” he barked. “When?”

“Last night, apparently,” I answered. “I didn’t hear about it until this morning. And if the furniture that was by the door was any indication, instead of calling either one of us, she just shoved a big chair and a hutch against the front door and went about her night.”

Travis cursed underneath his breath.

“I’ll talk to her,” he grumbled sounding angry.

“I have to go drop these keys off.” I paused. “You can come with me.”

Travis’ eyes gleamed. “Does she know that you’re here right now?”

Our parents didn’t know that we were married.

Our parents also didn’t know that, eight years ago, I’d sold my soul to be able to keep her close to me, in any capacity at all.

What they also didn’t know was that I was in love with the girl that would rather set me on fire than ever marry me.

“No,” I admitted. “I don’t expect it to be a pleasant experience.”

Travis threw his head back and burst out laughing. “I’ll go. This should be fun.”