Page 30 of Daddy's Little Librarian
Yes, it did. He didn’t correct her, he just passed her pajamas through the bathroom door and then went to change out of his boson uniform. He put on a comfortable pair of sweats and a t-shirt, something he wouldn’t mind sleeping in as he bedded down again on her floor, and all the while pretended that he was perfectly fine and did not have a semi-stiff ‘cannon’ rising to the mental image of her getting naked just down the hall from him.
He liked her too, he thought, and headed downstairs to put both their phones on the charger. He then got the mail, answered a text from Grams when she notified him that the police had been by asking for him.
Did they have a warrant, he texted.
They did not.
Did you tell them where I am?
I did not, Grams replied, punctuating it with three frowny face emojis.
Go ahead and tell them. I’m not running from anyone. In fact, he’d welcome the chance to ask why they’d be on him this fast after one accidental run in with Krissy, and yet Scotti was sleeping in a slashed bed, and no one was even taking her seriously.
Scotti had her hair in pigtails when she came downstairs, holding onto Bat Bear by the arm. “There’s a car in the driveway,” she called, bringing attention to the splash of light as it brightened the tiny window in the front door.
“Get down,” he told her, jogging back out of the kitchen toward the front door again.
She dropped and sat on the stairs, watching as he peeked outside.
“Dominos,” he said, reading the brightly lit sign across the top of the car.
“Woot!” she said and scrambled back up again. “Pizza’s here.”
“When the hell did you order a pizza?” he called as she scrambled up the stairs to fetch her purse again.
“When you were checking the house,” she answered. “I was hungry. I hope you like Hawaiian and mushrooms.”
His exasperated sigh was cut short by the ringing of the doorbell. If it weren’t for the fact that she was cute, cheerful, spritely, and growing on him, he’d be tempted to throttle her for bringing someone to the house without warning him first.
“I love Hawaiian,” he muttered to no one in particular.
Scotti came running back down the stairs with her wallet in hand, and he stood by, waiting while she paid the delivery driver. Closing the door, she ignored his censuring frown and carried the pizza and a two-liter bottle of pop past him to the dining room.
“Yo ho ho,” she sang under her breath, pigtails swinging, and dropped her load on the table.
“Plates,” he said as she opened the box.
“Pizza boxes are plates you don’t have to wash,” she replied and pulled out a hot slice. She was eating on it before he crossed the threshold from the dining room to the kitchen. He got two plates and two cups and returned just as she was sitting down, humming and chewing and swinging her feet.
“So,” she said, before taking another bite. “Do you miss being a cop?”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” he told her, distributing the plates and laying hers under her hands, whether she wanted to use it or not. “And yes, sometimes I do.”
“I bet you were good at it,” she said, between chews. “Plus, you know… handcuffs.”
He almost fumbled the two-liter, laughing instead of opening it. “Police issue handcuffs are not to be used in the bedroom,” he told her, only semi-sternly and poured them both some pop. Fortunately, he noticed the label before he killed his tastebuds on the first sip. “You got diet?”
“I’m wassing my fig-ur,” she said, sucking air around a mouthful of hot cheese and pineapple.
That made two of them. He’d been watching her figure pretty much all day. Of course, he hadn’t yet found anything wrong with it, but he kept that particular observation to himself and helped himself to water from the tap.
“All right,” he said, selecting a hot slice of pizza from the box. “You know my sad story. Tell me all about you and the groundhog.”
“Mm,” she gave a rueful chuckle, sucking tomato sauce off her thumb. “What’s to tell? I was young, he was there, it was good for a while and then it was over. And, actually, I even knew it was over before I knew about the affair. All that did was help me get my head right about packing up and leaving.”
They ate for a while in silence. She had two slices of the Hawaiian pizza, and he ate the rest. To be fair, he left the last piece sitting in the box, politely giving her a chance to claim it for herself right up until she started humming that pirate birthday song again. He finished off the pizza with a clear conscience after that.
“Knock it off,” he told her.
