“Right back at you. I’ll let you get back to the naked ninety-year-old.”
“I’ll touch base tonight after I talk to Piper.”
“I’ll be here,” she says. “Stay safe.”
I disconnect and frown at my phone. That was…weird. She seemed to have more to say, but evidently not over the phone. The idea that more than a sincere apology happened between Chloe and Bodhi creates a knot of unease in my gut. My mind skips down that trail so fast, I’m envisioning Chloe wanting to see me to tell me that what we have isn’t real and that she wants to give her soul mate or twin flame or whatever the hell Bodhi called it another shot.
Which would literally fucking kill me.
Maybe it is better if she doesn’t call me at work, because now I’m seriously distracted.
I return to the porch and find Mr. Duffy asleep in his rocking chair. I wake him and escort him into the house, my mood now in the basement.
Four hours later, I’ve convinced myself everything with Chloe is fine and find myself back at Duffy’s place. His nap evidently gave him enough energy to head out into the yard again.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Duffy,” I tell him, “you can’t mow the lawn naked.”
“I’m on my own damn property. Last time I looked, this was still a free country.”
He’s toggling between angry and repentant. Since I threatened to take him to jail, he’s keeping the blanket I pulled from the trunk over his lap. Which is good, because I don’t want to head to jail, even though I’m nearing the end of my shift. I heard dispatch send my coworker and the lone female officer on the WPD to a suspicious-person report about four or five minutes ago. If this turns into something good, I want to be there.
“You’ve got to put on pants—even if it’s just boxer shorts—when you’re in your yard where the neighbors can see you,” I tell Duffy for about the sixth time today.
“My neighbors need to mind their own goddamned business.”
His granddaughter's Honda pulls to the curb. Mandy stands and shoots an exasperated glare across the roof. “Grandpa, I can’t keep doing this. You want me to lose my job?”
Mandy is a waitress at a restaurant in the next town, and she and I warmed the sheets a couple of times months ago. She’s a beauty, no doubt. Her long hair is still flame in the dusky light of sunset. Creamy skin, freckles, and she’s feisty too. But I’m so damn crazy about Chloe, I don’t feel the slightest pull toward any other woman. And that only brings back our strange conversation earlier in the day.
“Sorry,” I tell her when Mandy steps up beside me. “I wouldn’t have called, but he refuses to go inside.”
“This is my own goddamned property. The Declaration of Independence says life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are basic human rights. I want my basic human rights.”
Mandy sighs, rubs her forehead, then drops her hand and looks up at me, giving my biceps an affectionate squeeze. “I’m the one who’s sorry. Thank you for calling me instead of taking him in.”
“No problem. At least there won’t be if you can convince him to go inside.”
“Oh, he’ll get inside, all right.” She crosses her arms and gives her grandfather a menacing scowl. “You get in that house by the count of ten, or I’m canceling your cable.”
“What? You can’t—”
“One, two, three—”
Her grandfather blusters. “Fine. I’ll call David. I’ll sue the city.”
He tosses the blanket to the ground and stands.
Mandy makes a sound in her throat—half groan, half laugh—and rubs her temples with both hands. “With the blanket, Grandpa.”
Grumbling, her grandfather swipes the blanket from the ground, but instead of wrapping it around his waist, he just carries it as he stomps back inside, slamming the door.
I laugh and shake my head. “You’ve got your hands full with that one.”
“No joke. I’ll get your blanket.”
“You go ahead and keep it.” I cue the mic on my shoulder to tell dispatch I’m done here. “613 10-24.”
“Copy, 613,” the dispatcher responds to my status.