Page 196 of Back in the Saddle

When we arrived, Harlow bounced up to me with ponytail swinging in an exuberant way that made me worry Eric and I weren’t doing stakeouts right.

Harlow asked after Jeff and Javi, though I was pretty sure she was more interested in Javi.

I gave her the expected response that they were both not in a good place, and she told me to tell them they were in her thoughts (and I was pretty sure she was keener I get that message to Javi).

After that, they took off.

I took first watch.

While I did, Eric lounged in the camp chair with his long legs stretched out and elevated, his boots resting on the edge of the window (hot), and he sipped coffee (also somehow hot, then again, I thought everything he did was hot).

Sometimes we chatted.

I learned Eric’s family never got another puppy after the one that died in the wreck with his mom, and Savannah didn’t like animals, so after the dog Eric had when he met her sadly passed, he didn’t get another one. I also learned he’d never had a cat. And last, I learned his favorite color was blue.

On the other hand, Eric had learned I took my photos with my phone, I’d never had a pet at all, and I confirmed my favorite non-color was black, my second favorite one was white, and I didn’t have a favorite actual color, but if forced to pick one under threat of torture, I’d pick red.

Through this, all was quiet on the camp front, and I fell asleep after my third shift of watching, so Eric did the whole final hour (was my guy the greatest, or what?).

He took me home. We had another quickie. It was a good one. So I was passed out before he even left my room to go to work (I mean, how does the man do it? He’s a machine).

Which brought me to now.

“Ugh,” I grunted as I hauled myself out of bed.

I pulled on my stretchy cotton nightie, my undies, hit the bathroom and loaded up my toothbrush. I was going at my teeth while heading into the kitchen to fire up the Nespresso when I screamed, jolted, my toothbrush went flying across the bar only to land on the floor in the living room, still vibrating and sending specks of toothpaste everywhere.

Javi, Jeff and Clarice, who were all standing in my living room, stared at the toothbrush.

I stared at them.

Then, mouth full of foam, I shouted, “What the fuck!”

They all looked at me. Jeff was laughing. Javi was smiling. Clarice put her hands on her hips like I’d personally wasted her entire morning.

I went to the kitchen sink, rinsed, spat, grabbed a towel to dab my mouth then headed to the living room to retrieve my toothbrush.

I turned it off, slammed it down on the coffee table, and instead of asking if any of them had heard of a telephone or knew how to ring a buzzer, I asked a more pertinent question of my brother.

“Are you okay?”

He pulled me into a tight hug.

“Man, I needed that laugh,” he whispered in my ear.

Oh.

Well then.

Whatever.

Jeff let me go, and I was about to ask Javi how he was doing when Clarice butted in.

“You sleep late.”

“Excuse me, but I was up at three fifteen to go stake out a homeless camp.”

“Your man has been at work for the last two hours,” she pointed out.

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