Page 8 of Every Heartbeat After

“I’m saying exactly that,” I deadpan.

He’s poking at my defenses, the same way he does when we bring someone in for an interrogation. Tomas might be jovial on the surface, but he’s a damn good sheriff. An even better boss. When he’s not giving me hell about women, that is.

“I have it on good authority that you drove away from the Horseshoe Inn with hearts blocking your vision.” He removes the toothpick from his mouth and tosses it into the bin beside my desk. “That true, Llewellyn?”

“What have I told you about listening to Marcy Davis?” The owner of the inn is nine parts gossip to one part truth. So what if this time she was on to something?

“That I should only do it when it aligns with a theory I already had.” My boss’s eyes narrow to judgmental slits. “You dug your own grave, so spill.”

“She’s a beautiful woman. I’m not blind.” I lean back in my chair, folding my hands behind my head. “So what?”

“So what?” Tomas rests his chin on steepled fingers, sheer glee rippling the tan skin on his face. “So you, my man, never get defensive about a beautiful woman. But suddenly you’re keeping your mouth shut about this one? And she’s related to Gary? This is a gold mine of opportunity to rib you for the rest of your days.”

I force my gaze to harden, the way it does when I’m dealing with the more unsavory folks we run into on occasion. “It’s nothing, okay? And shouldn’t you be going home?”

He slaps the top of the cubicle and rises to his full height, glancing toward the door and then back to me. “Yes. I’m actually just supposed to mention to you that you need to schedule some PTO. Alice is on my ass about it.”

Alice, his secretary and resident busybody, is on everyone’s ass. I’m tempted to say,Welcome to the club.

“You know I don’t have anywhere to go. Can’t I donate it to someone else?”

A line forms between his dark brows. “Why not visit your parents? They’re still living, right? I’m sure they’d love to see you.”

My parentsarestill living. Whether or not they’d love to see me is another topic altogether. I haven’t been home since the divorce finalized. We talk on the phone occasionally, mostly for holidays I’d forget exist if it weren’t for all my coworkers requesting off. But I can’t bring myself to make the trip to Mississippi. Can’t face the disappointment on my parents’ faces when they talk to the son who was supposed to make them proud but ended up divorced and miserable all the same.

“I’m good, Tomas. Promise. Just let it roll over if I can’t donate it.”

“That’s the thing. You’ve accumulated too many hours by not taking them, and they can’t risk you cashing them all in at once.” He shakes his head, one eyebrow lifted. “You might be the first person in the history of this department to go their whole tenure without using a single personal day. Don’t you go to the doctor?”

I wave a hand down my meticulously pressed uniform. “Healthy as a horse. Why would I need to?”

“Because you need a life.” He sucks on his teeth—a habit of his when a perp gets too stubborn or one of his deputies toes the line of his patience. “Just please make some plans. We’re budgeting for this coming fiscal year, and you’ve got to take at least ten days before next July. That’s not a request, either, Rookie.”

I salute him. It’s half serious, half please-get-off-my-ass.

If Tomas can tell that I’m just brushing him off, he doesn’t show it. “Night, Kit. Let me know if anything gets too crazy.”

I grin up at him. “Not a chance. Get some rest. Hug your wife. Maybe even your kids, if you’re so inclined.”

He snorts, completely tired of my shit. Then he’s gone, taking long strides toward the exit, abandoning me and the rest of the empty desks. He opens the door to the department, allowing in a fleeting ray of evening sunlight before it closes and I’m left in the quiet.

I fucking hate night shift.

Too much time to be left to my own thoughts, my own devices. In a half hour or so, I’ll pile into my cruiser and roam the roads. Jamie will be here shortly to man the phones, once he drops his kids off at their mom’s. The county is quiet at night, so long as the patrons at Dooley’s—a dive bar in the next town over—keep their shit together. I’ll have nothing to do but stew on Tess’s bright green gaze, so attuned to every word, every move I made.

And now, the thought of visiting my parents to boot.

It’s not that I don’t miss them. I do. Terribly. But my brother has always been the fuckup. The drug addict. In and out of rehab, sucking them dry of an already meager retirement fund. I was supposed to be the golden child. College graduate. Military veteran. Happily married, with two-point-five kids and a white picket fence on the horizon.

Except one long deployment and a fucking affair swept that all out to sea in an instant.

How do you face your parents after that? I haven’t figured it out yet, so I just don’t. Face them, that is. Not to mention if I go home, I have to somehow smile and nod while they talk about Gage like his last rehab stay cured him; meanwhile he and I both know he still hits me up for money every few months under the guise of keeping the lights on at whatever run-down rental he’s camping out in at the time. A part of me is certain he uses the cash to fund his addiction, yet I can’t bring myself to ignore his calls. To let him fail. Not when I’ve seen how much it devastates our parents when he does.

Tess is another problem for which I have no solution.

It was one car ride. A simple conversation. It shouldn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things. Only I still feel her presence like she’s curled up beside me, despite her insistence that she wasn’t tired. I still see her when I close my eyes, no matter how much I wish I didn’t.

It’s stupid, I’ll admit. But the only thing I can think to do is call Zoey.

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