Page 12 of Champagne & Handcuffs
Over the last few years, we’d all became best friends. It sucked that I only got to see them during the summer, but during the school year, we’d keep in touch with phone calls after school or even chat onAOL. I was going to miss them. Now that I’d graduated from high school, this would be my last summer to spend time with them. I was going to start community college, get my prereqs for the academy, and then become a cop. I’d probably still come down for a week or two in the summer, but I had to get a job too. Money, freedom, and chicks (at least my current girlfriend back in D.C.) while I passed the time until I needed to hit it hard to become a police officer.
That was the plan.
But now as I watched Cat walk in the door of my grandma’s trailer, she was no longer a little girl. I was eighteen, and she was fifteen. The little girl I left last fall didn’t seem to exist anymore. Her beautiful brown eyes stood out with blackened lashes. Lips I wanted to taste shined with a shimmery pink gloss. God, her tanned legs went on for miles in her short shorts, and I was staring at her like she was the first girl I’d ever seen. She was, for sure, the most beautiful.
Snap out of it, dipshit! Fucking perv.
“Why are you staring at me?” Cat frowned.
My green eyes flicked up to her chocolate ones. “I’m not staring at you,” I lied.
“Whatever. Are you going to give me a hello hug or are you too good for that since you’re an adult now?”
And then there was that little fact. Since I was legally an adult, I couldn’t even kiss—
Wait.
I wanted to kiss Cat?No!I only had that thought because I was missing my girlfriend back home. Yeah, that was it. I mean, how would it look for a guy who was going to be a cop, to be charged with statutory rape? It wouldn’t look good at all. In fact, I would be fucked. I had to wait three years until I was twenty-one before I could even apply to become a cop in D.C. and that wait was going to be torture. No way was I going to mess up my fate by kissing some girl.
Except Cat wasn’t some girl. She was Cat. My Kitty Cat.
“I’m waiting for you to walk over here and give me one,” I teased.
Cat walked toward where I sat on the velvet couch with burnt orange roses and went to punch me in the arm. I caught her fist in my hand. “Why are you trying to hit me?”
“You deserve it.”
“Joss-a-lyn,” Bryce called from down the hall. “I got poop on my hand.”
“Doody calls.” I laughed.
Joss groaned and went to wipe her brother’s shit. It was then that I realized I was still holding Cat’s fist in my hand as she stood in front of me. I looked down at our joined hands and then up to her eyes. She didn’t pull away, and neither did I. Instead, I pulled her on top of me and gave her the hug we both wanted.
What I needed.
“I’ve missed you, Kitty Cat,” I spoke into her hair that smelled like flowers.
“I’ve missed you too, 5-0.” She’d given me that nickname the first time she learned I was going to be a cop.
“You kids going to the movies?”
Cat pulled off of me, standing while I still sat on the couch. My gaze moved to Grandma to answer her.
“Yeah. Just waiting on Bryce to finish shitting.”
Grandma tsked. “Seth! Watch your mouth.”
“Is that not what he was screaming about?” I turned and looked at Cat for confirmation.
“Yeah, Mrs. McKenna. Joss is wiping his butt now.”
Grandma took a seat in her olive green recliner. “Good. That means while y’all are at the movies, I won’t have any accidents to clean up.”
Can I just say that my grandma is the best? I mean, Cruella gets knocked up and then pawns her baby on the neighbor? Grandma and Joss have been taking care of that boy ever since he was born.
Joss and Bryce walked down the hall from the bathroom, and Bryce immediately ran to the controller of thePlayStation 2I’d brought with me from home. He had no idea what he was doing while he drove around a city in a car that he’dstolen. I, on the other hand, knew that he could pick up hookers if he wanted to.Grand Theft AutoIIIwas everything I couldn’t be. The premise of the game was to complete missions, but really it was fun to steal cars, beat some fuckers up, and run over hookers.
I knew Bryce was too young for the game, but he enjoyed it, and it wasn’t as though a video game was going to shape his future. He was five or some shit, and I was certain he had no idea what he was doing besides running shit over with the car. I felt bad for the kid. Joss and Grandma were trying their hardest to raise him, but that wasn’t supposed to be their job.
