Page 106 of Hot Cops

“My cousin is playing for the firefighters. I got here halfway through first half. Thought that was you sitting across the court.”

Her family and Landon had nicknamed him Naked Ned one night after they’d all gone club-hopping together. Ned had come back to the apartment with her, the two of them turning in early. At some point, Ned—sans clothes—had decided to venture to the kitchen for a snack. Finn, Landon, Colm and Padraig had still been awake. Apparently, Ned hadn’t felt any compunction in having a conversation with the four of them, his balls swinging in the breeze. The chat had ended when Sunnie had come out, spotted him, and asked why the hell he was naked.

The nickname stuck, but Ned was gone before dawn the next morning.

“Yeah, I’m here cheering for my dad’s team.”

The buzzer sounded to announce the end of halftime. Sunnie looked over her shoulder to find Landon staring at her. Miguel slapped him on the shoulder to grab his attention, and Landon took his spot on the court as she and Ned walked to the sidelines.

“It’s good to see you,” Ned said, his gaze sliding up and down. It took everything Sunnie had not to roll her eyes at his ogling.

Guys and cheerleaders. So typical.

“You too.” She endured a few minutes of small talk as Ned chatted about his job, hinting strongly that he was newly single again.

“Sunnie!”

She turned at the sound of her dad calling her name. She spotted him standing on the sidelines, hands on his hips, scowling. Then he jerked his head toward the court where Landon was playing…badly. One eye on the basket, the other on her. A quick glance at the scoreboard told her the cops were now down by six.

“Duty calls,” she said to Ned, grateful for the chance to get away from him.

“Maybe we can?—”

“We can’t,” she said, heading him off at the pass. “I’m dating Landon.”

She saw the look of surprise on his face and tamped down her annoyance that Ned seemed to consider that relationship so unlikely.

Sunnie sat next to Yvonne, who said, “If looks could kill, Ned would be a chalk outline on the floor right now.”

“Very funny,” Sunnie murmured, secretly pleased to think Landon was jealous.

She shoved that pleasure away when she realized that was actually a bad thing.

Jesus.

She was twenty kinds of fucked-up right now.

With her safely back on the cops’ side of the gym, Ned on the other, Landon turned on the heat, nailing back-to-back three pointers in the last quarter to propel his team to victory.

Dad had appointed Landon team captain, though neither of them was sure if that was a nod to Hot Cop, or as punishment for all the shit that viral video caused. As a result, a reporter from the newspaper, there to write about the game, pulled him aside as the rest of the team headed to the locker room.

Sunnie hung back with her family, chatting for a little while as the crowd thinned. When it looked like the interview was wrapping up, she started to approach him.

Two other women beat her there. Sunnie hadn’t noticed them hovering on the sidelines, but it was clear they were part of the Hot Cop fan club.

“You got a ride, Sunnie?” Dad asked.

She’d come with Yvonne, but her cousin had left right after the third quarter because she was waiting tables at the pub tonight and needed to shower.

“Yeah,” she lied. “Landon is bringing me home.”

Dad glanced at Landon chatting with the two women and gave her a curious look. She was relieved when—rather than question her about it—he simply nodded and said goodbye.

She walked toward Landon and the women, surprised that, rather than trying to get away from them—as he had every other overzealous groupie who’d approached him since they’d started to pretend date—he was actually taking part in the conversation.

Sunnie saw red when he smiled at the very pretty blonde, laughing at something she said.

“You ready to go, Landon?” Sunnie asked, grasping his hand and tucking herself close to his side. He’d told her she was going to be a jealous girlfriend, part of her job description when he had proposed this plan. She dismissed the other women with barely a glance, intent on pulling him away.

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