Page 13 of Heat Wave
Chapter Eleven
Oakley
Did Waylon…just call me baby?
“I’m going to keep you safe, Oakley. And I’m going to find out who did this. I promise.”
What do I even say after that?
“She can’t stay with you, Waylon.”
Yeah, what Terry said. Why though?
“She can and she will. I might be the reason she’s in danger.”
I frown at him for even suggesting something like that. Why would he think he’s the cause of any of this? It just…makes me mad that he would think that. “What? Why? How?”
“Yeah, why would you be the reason she’s in danger, Waylon?” Terry backs me up on what a ridiculous notion it is to even think he might be the reason someone broke into my house and…did what they did.
“Everyone in town thinks we’re together.” I can’t tell which one of us he’s answering because he keeps looking at me, but it seems like it might be aimed at Terry. “Nan has a bet goingon when she’s going to pop my kid out, Terry. We’re looking through all my arrests to make sure nothing is turning up there.”
Terry’s mouth falls into a surprised circle, and all I can do is gasp…which, by the way, the last time I did that, things didn’t turn out like I expected them to. He…kissed me.
“Oh shit, you don’t think...someone could be out to get Oakley because they think she’s…with you?”
“I can’t be certain, but until I'm sure, Oakley is staying with me.”
“I can’t stay with you. You…you’re…you.” His eyebrows rise high on his forehead, and I realize how what I said might sound. “No, that’s not…”
“She can’t stay with you twenty-four/seven, Waylon. She can’t go to work with you for crying out loud. She can’t…”
“You and Mom can help keep her safe during the day, but at night she needs to be with me.”
I take him by the face and turn him so he’s looking at me again. “But what about…girlfriends or…?”
“Booty calls?”
“Yes, thank you, Terry. Booty calls. What about those? I can’t stay with you while you have booty calls come over?”
His eyes drill into me, causing me to squirm in his lap. “How many ‘booty calls’ do you think I participate in?”
“I don’t know. I…you’re hot. You know you are. I’m sure you have women who…why can’t I just stay with Terry?”
“Because if this is someone I’ve arrested or pissed off somehow, they need to think we are together to catch them, sweetheart.”
“Why?” I would have eventually gotten around to asking that, but Terry beats me to it.
“Because if they are doing this because they think me and Oakley are together,” he jostles me in his lap and I become very aware of the fact his hands are cupping my ass, “I want them to know she is protected, and I have no problem using my gun to keep her that way. And if it’s not about me and for some reason someone has fabricated a reason to harm her…well, the ending is the same, isn’t it, beautiful?”
He winks at me, and a blush creeps up my neck and spreads across my cheeks. He winked at me AND kissed me. And called me baby. What the hell is going on?
“And she has to come home with me so we can sell the story that we’re together.”
“Sell the story?” Wait. Is he…did he do all of these things, the kiss, the cutesy nicknames, having me on his lap just so he can ‘sell the story’? “You want people to think we are together?”
“Is that such a hardship for you?”
“Are you using her as bait? Are you using my best friend like a fucking cheap piece of bait?”
