Page 6 of Griz's Edge

“Sounds good,” Blow mutters, pulls out his phone, and smirks. “Storm needs me to get to the house. Seems the boys are all down for their afternoon naps, and she’s ready to have some adult time, as she’s put it.”

“No offense, Prez, I don’t need to hear about Storm wanting some adult time. I know it’s her way of telling you to get home and fuck her.” Nines snorts.

“At least my ol’ lady knows what to do with her free time.” Blow chuckles and shoves his phone back into his pocket. “I’m outta here. See y’all tomorrow.”

Leaving Blow’s office ahead of him and Nines, I make my way to my room while sending a text to both Shiner and Surge. Shiner was the closest thing I had to a best friend, and he’d been the one I told first about what was happening with the raid and my ex. He made sure to have my back, and I appreciated that when I brought the whole situation to Blow’s attention.

Wanting to get out of here and get to the farm to help them, I take a quick shower and do my best to shove thoughts andeverything else out of my head. It’s total bullshit with that stupid bullshit protective order I was served. I mean, what the fuck is Hattie thinking? Is this her way of fucking with me for breaking things off with her? I hadn’t even seen her, and I changed my number just after to keep her from being able to contact me.

I didn’t want her to have any way of contacting me. I probably could’ve just blocked her number, but changing it ensured she couldn’t get a hold of me, period.

Hopefully, Markus will be able to get this shit handled without me having to deal with anything else. I don’t want to have to go in front of a judge and tell him that I’m being accused of something I didn’t do. Judges seem to always have a way of siding with the alleged victim and not with the actual wronged person.

Shaking the thought away, I shut the water off, get out, dry off, dress, and get my shit together. Time for me to get to the farm and get done what needs to be done. I don’t have time to think about bitches and the headaches they come with. That includes a certain red-haired beauty that I still need the name of.

CHAPTER THREE

MARLEY

“Hey, Marley, were you able to serve those papers yesterday?”

I twist around to see the sheriff’s deputy, Riggs, coming in my direction.

Inwardly, I groan. Outwardly, I paste a smile in place. “Yep. Easy peasy. I was able to get everyone served without a problem.”

“That’s good,” Riggs remarks, smirking. “Makes things easier on us when we ain’t gotta be out there serving papers all the damn time. Ya know what I mean?”

“I get what you mean.” It’s all I can do not to roll my eyes at the jerk. He’s the kind of guy that always seems to get on my nerves. He’s got that ‘Pretty Lady’ mentality. The one where he thinks women shouldn’t have jobs and that they should be seen, not heard. He also likes to believe that he’s got more important things he could be doing rather than serving papers to people.

“You got plans for this weekend?”

Of course, he’d ask that. He’s been asking that for the last month and a half. Thankfully, I hadn’t had to lie to him. I did have plans. I’ve been fixing up the little house I was renting. Notthat it needed a lot of work, I just wanted to give it a feel for home. It’s a beautiful little place that the landlords let me paint and fix up how I wanted.

Unfortunately, I can’t lie worth a dingdong, and I didn’t have any other plans this weekend except for going to my grandma’s house Sunday for dinner. She’s deemed Sundays for family dinner since I moved to town. Sometimes we go out together somewhere. Other times we eat at the house.

It means I have nothing to tell him I’m doing.

“Nothing yet. I’m still up in the air, debating on what I’m doing,” I tell him, clear my throat, and give him what I hope is a lie he won’t see through. “I think my folks are planning to come, but they haven’t confirmed it just yet.”

That is definitely not happening. My mom doesn’t come to town more than a couple times a year, and it’s not near any of those times.

“Well, you wanna grab some dinner Friday night with me over at the diner?”

And there’s the question I didn’t wanna have to answer.

“Let me get back to you,” I lie. God, I hate lying. “I need to find out from the folks first.”

Please don’t see through the lie.

I’m a horrible liar. My dad claims I don’t have a poker face worth a monkey’s butt.

Riggs nods and gives a grin. “You let me know as soon as you find out.”

“I’ll do that.” It’s all I can do to give him a smile, nod, and wave as I start down the stairs of the courthouse. All I want to do is get away from the man. What’s sad about it all is he’s actually not hard on the eyes. It’s just his demeanor that makes it all a big fat ‘NO’ when it comes to going out with him.

Getting to my car, I unlock it and climb in without being stopped again. I was done for the day, and I didn’t have anythingelse to do. Since moving to town, I haven’t really made any friends yet. Which is fine, but it sucks when I go out to dinner to get something to eat. There’s not anyone to talk to.

A lot of the time, I end up talking to my best friend back home on the phone a couple times a week for hours. Usually, she’s filling me in on the latest news, and I’ve got to give it to her, she’s always got the latest gossip for me. You’d think there wasn’t much for her to tell me about what’s going on, but she’s always finding something to be able to fill me in on.

---