Page 13 of My Ex-Best Friends

Just as the officer reached the car I slid myself in front of it. Smiling up at him, I did my best to look like I wasn’t going to be a giant pain in his ass. “Hi! Hello. Hey. How’s it going?”

His thick eyebrows crawled into his hairline as he looked me up and down. “Can I help you?”

I brightened my smile until my cheeks hurt. “I was just wondering…how you got a job at the police department.”

His frown stretched even farther down his face. “You want to know how I got the job at the police station?”

“Yes?”

“I applied and I met the requirements so they hired me.” He tried to look around me at the car. “Ma’am, if you could just step aside.”

“My aunt said if you give her a ticket, she’ll curse your mother!” I slapped my hand over my mouth as soon as I said it and cringed. “Oh, god. I’m sorry! She told me to say that. It wasn’t my idea. Arrest her if you want to arrest anyone. But could you wait until after she helps me get a job?”

His eyes went so wide that I could see the whites all the way around his pupils. “Your aunt is Karlene?”

I nodded. “Are you…a fan?”

“Well, hello, Officer Randy. You’re not bothering my niece, are you?” Aunt Karlene glided across the road to stand next to me. “How’s your mother?”

“No, no, ma’am. I wasn’t bothering her. You know what? I think I hear the captain calling me. I’ve gotta go.” Turning and taking off at a brisk walk, the man nearly walked into traffic.

Aunt Karlene laughed and patted my arm. “I just so happened to learn that his weekend visits with the local boy scouts troop had been cut short every weekend so he could visit a redhead named Tricia in Dallas.”

“You’re drunk on power.”

“Speaking of redheads. You weren’t going by Tricia, were you?” She touched my hair. The red ombre had been a treat to myself after getting the job with Meredith. “I like it, by the way. Did your men like it?”

Feeling spicy, I put my hands on my hips. “Don’t you already know?”

“Get in the car, Brooke. We’ll go by my house before we go see Dakota. No respectable artist would show up in that outfit.”

Of course going to find clothes at Aunt Karlene’s house meant I had to visit the goldfish she’d won at a fair fifteen years earlier and send well wishes to all of the plants surrounding us. Then, when we finally made it to her closet, I had to wait for her to touch each piece of clothing so she could decide which items wanted to go with me. I had no right to complain, though, notwhen she made sure that I left with two garbage bags full of things that I loved.

I let her dress me before we left and I stepped out onto her porch in a pair of tight denim bell bottoms, a peasant blouse that laced up the front and showed off a lot of cleavage, and platform esmeraldas that I was probably going to break my neck in. She’d insisted that I let her coat me in mascara and bronzer, swearing that I was too pale to look healthy, and then she’d slapped me on the butt and pushed me towards her car.

“I hate that I love this outfit so much.” It felt like me and after wearing a wedding dress and then someone else’s minidress, I was overjoyed to feel like myself.

“Are you going to complain the whole time?” She waited until I was buckled in to head back towards city hall. “Just let me do the talking. I know how he works.”

I started to get nervous, wondering if the guy had ever mentioned anything about projects for the town or if the feeling that we were headed towards a bank robbery was accurate. I stared at her and decided that I was just going to go with the flow. For whatever reason, no matter how much Aunt Karlene scared the shit out of me at times, things always worked out when she was involved.

“Wait in the car for fifteen minutes exactly and then come in. Not a minute earlier.”

Yep. We were robbing the poor guy. Maybe it wouldn’t be money we took, but it would be something. I just shrugged. “Sure. Why not? What am I going to find when I get inside?”

“Nothing, girl. I’m going to go in and let him have a little snack before we get down to business. The man loves to eat p-”

I screamed and slapped my hands over my ears. “No! No, no, no! That’s too much!”

She cackled. “Better give us twenty minutes, actually. He looks hungry.”

I followed her gaze to where a man stood in front of city hall in a sweater vest and khakis that stopped a good two inches above his ankles. The sun caught on the shiny plastic of a pocket protector. My mouth fell open as he licked his lips while staring Aunt Karlene down. “Huh.”

She slapped my arm. “People always discount the appetite of the nerdy guys. Not me. I know potential when I see it. Give us thirty minutes and then come in.”

I groaned. “Fine! Just go so I don’t spend all day panting in a hot car like an unloved dog.”

12

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