Page 75 of Pallas & Kawehi

His soft puffs of laughter against her shoulder made her hold him even tighter.

"That's why I love you, Kawehi."

TWELVE

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA

Nick Carter pulled his Chevy Camaro into his assigned parking spot at the Palm Court apartment complex. Smiling, he turned the rear-view mirror so that he could look at his hair. Yeah. He looked good.

With a nod, he turned off the car and flung the door open to get out.

"Hey! Watch it, asshole!"

Nick looked out and saw a man standing just outside of the reach of his car door.

The man was thin and barely taller than the Honda CRV he was standing beside.

Knowing that he was in uniform and cut a pretty imposing figure in it, Nick stepped out of the car and took a step toward the man. "Hey, idiot." Nick smiled and lifted an eyebrow. "Why don't you watch where you're going?"

The man took a half-step back and lowered his gaze to the side a little.

Yeah, he knew what was what.

"What? No comment? You're just going to back down?"

The man waved a hand at him. "Ah, go ahead and push people around. You might be in a uniform, but you're still an asshole." He walked off in another direction, turning to give Nick a glare as he went.

Nick glowered at him. It was complete bullshit.

Locking his car, Nick headed to the stairs and just before he used his key-fob to access the stairwell, he felt something like... He felt like someone was staring at him.

Like he was being watched.

He nearly fumbled and lost his keys, but barely managed to get the door open before he slid through the littlest opening that he could manage and jogged up the stairs.

Nick felt a drop of sweat slide down the back of his neck as he yanked open the door to the second-floor landing.

Thankfully, they'd found an apartment with a door less than ten feet from the stairs.

He juggled the keys in his hand and managed to separate the front door key, but stopped short of the door when it lurched open in front of him.

"Charmaine! What-"

"I've been standing inside the door watching for you."

"You were watching for me? What?"

She rolled her eyes. "I can track the car since you put that airtag on it. Like you'd go anywhere without your car."

Yeah. He'd put the airtag on the car worried about someone stealing his baby. "I spent good money on that car, Char. Of course I'd tag it."

She gave him a look with one eyebrow raised and her hand on her hip. "I should think you'd be worried about me more than your car."

Nick shook his head. "Babe, we spend a fortune on this apartment so you can have the best security protecting you, right?"

Charmaine looked away, her eyes rolling. "You mean my daddy spends a fortune on this apartment to make sure I'm okay."

Nick had to work to keep himself from biting back at her. Every time she was upset, she liked to take digs at him. Her daddy wasn't any better than he was. Sure, he had a country club membership and golfed at least three days a week, but that didn't make her folks any better than he was.

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