Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 70444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
I had a cut on the inside of my mouth from my teeth connecting with the sensitive tissue. The wound had ensued from a scuffle today at work—which had prompted me to visit this bar in the first place.
I wasn’t admitting that a familiar truck had been parked in the parking lot, drawing my attention like a beacon in the darkest of storms. That hadn’t been the main reason I’d chosen this particular bar.
But it had been a deciding factor.
Originally, I’d planned on going home to my apartment that I was subletting from Kayla. Once I knew whether I wanted to stay in this place or not—which, as I stared at June across the bar, was starting to look like a mighty fine idea—I’d either rent it in my own name or look for a house.
After I had the discussion with my parents that I was moving down here permanently, that was.
They were still under the impression that I just ‘needed to get away.’ They thought I was coming back.
I wasn’t.
I wasn’t necessarily going to stay here, but I sure the hell wasn’t going home.
Especially not when my father was still so fucking disappointed in me that I didn’t join the fire department and basically become his mini-me in every way.
“What put that sour look on your face, Officer Grumpy?”
I blinked, then moved my eyes upward to find June standing beside my stool.
Her friend from the other night, Amanda I remembered her name being, was standing next to her, looking wide-eyed and wild. She swallowed convulsively and kept eyeing the exit.
What the hell?
“I was thinking about my dad, and his plans for me to follow in his footsteps,” I admitted, my eyes going back to her friend. “Are you okay?”
She jumped, startled, and nodded quickly. “Great. Fine. Couldn’t be better. Why? Should I not be?”
I blinked at her sudden burst of words. She was so nervous. Why?
My automatic sense of suspicion started to kick in, something that wasn’t just because I was a cop or that I had been in the military. It was because, at one point in time, I was a cagey person, too. I hid stuff from everyone in my younger years. I didn’t know what prompted me to do it, but it started in my teen years and then extended into my time in the military.
After I was medically discharged, I slid into this weird sort of depressed state, and I didn’t want to be around anybody—family, friend or stranger. I didn’t want to do anything. I pretty much stayed holed up in my garage apartment while I healed, and then, once I was better, I started shunning everything my father tried to offer me—like the job at the fire department in their apprenticeship program.
And when he’d tried to push me, I’d gone a step farther and found something that I knew would piss him off. Becoming a police officer was the final F-U to him for trying to force me to do something at a time when I wanted nothing to do with anything at all if it didn’t happen to end with me being back where I belonged—with my squad.
When he’d learned I’d received my certification as a law enforcement officer, he’d then pulled a few strings on the Benton Police Department and got me an interview—which had been the final nail in the coffin.
That’d also been the day of the Dixie Warden MC—the motorcycle club my father belonged to—party where Janie had tossed the carrot for me to follow her.
I’d grasped onto it with both hands and had left the next day without even a mention to my parents.
I’d left them a note and hadn’t talked to them since.
I was being childish, I knew.
But fuck, why was it so bad to want to earn a life on my own? Why did my father always have to try to dictate what I should and shouldn’t do? Last I heard, this was my life I was living, not his.
“Johnny?”
I looked over at June, who looked like she was about to get me a cold glass of water based on the concerned look taking over her face.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she pushed.
I shrugged. “Honestly? I’m not the best company right now…I’ve had a bad day.”
That bad day had started out with me having a bad day at work and had finished with me getting an email from one of the men in my squad—Barnes—and it’d gone to complete shit.
According to Barnes, they were heading back home in three weeks, and they wanted to meet me for a drink.
I wanted that, too.
But with my new job, I wouldn’t be able to go to meet them because I couldn’t leave quite yet. They’d have to come to me.
And, he’d agreed.
Only after all of that had happened had he told me about Roland.