Page 14 of Wicked Games We Play

I had already been moving amongst the station when he rumbled my name, but I still stopped at the coffeepot on the way to his office, deciding to lessen the blow by bringing him a cup too.

“Door open or shut, Chief?” I asked, toeing the door with my boot in preparation for closing it.

“Shut, Whitlock. This is a conversation best said in private.”

Fuck.

I nudged the door to close behind me, leaning my hip into it to ensure that it wouldn’t float back open.

Approaching the Chief’s desk, I sat the coffee I brought for him down next to a stack of papers. “What can I do for you, Wes?”

Behind closed doors, Wes and I were actually pretty close friends. He took me under his wing when I first joined the department and had become my mentor.

“The Sinners have a new business deal going, and I want to get ahead of it. Find out what they’re doing, and why. I trust that you’re the man for the job?” He rustled the papers in front of him, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose as he looked through the stack.

Wes was a ruggedly handsome man, but blind as a bat without his glasses on or contacts in, which ironically only made the women flock to him more. He had never married, “married to his job” he would say, but I knew the truth. Despite having dated some absolutely stunning women, none of them had what it takes to be married to the Chief of Police. It wasn’t a title that was for the faint of heart.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Surveillance, mostly. Do some digging. Figure out what they’re up to this time and who they’re working with.” I nodded along as he spoke, making a mental checklist of everything I would need to do. “We may end up needing to push this into an undercover op down the road. They’re spiraling.” My eyes snapped to his, assessing him closely.

“How would we even achieve something like that? The Sinners know every single one of us. We practically work alongside of them, Chief.” My voice was a little rougher than I had intended, and I braced myself for Wes’s temper to boil. Instead, he looked at me calmly, how a father would explain something to his son, despite me only being ten or so years younger than him.

“Well, we could never infiltrate from their end, but if we can figure out who they’re working with and what type of business we’re dealing with, we could send someone in on that side of things. To keep a watchful eye.” His eyebrow raised, and a smile pulled, giving the illusion of crow’s feet by his eyes. “Any interest in that, Whitlock? Going undercover?”

Did I want to go undercover? Not particularly. I was doing my own recon mission in my personal life by trying to figure out how to make my girl actually want to be my girl. That was something that was proving to take time and dedication. Going on an undercover detail wouldn’t be beneficial to me at all in terms of my personal life. Career-wise though… well, my heart jumped at just the idea of this sort of operation.

“Possibly, Chief. Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it, but first let me see what I can dig up. Do we have a deadline?”

“Just as quickly as you can find something. Obviously the Sinners are more help to the department than a hinderance at this point anyway, but they’re still technically criminals and we arestilla police department. We can only turn a blind eye for so long. So let’s see what we can find and build a case. Slowly, but let’s still start.” Wes reached for the coffee I had brought him and took a sip, before tossing his head back and downing the entire cup as though it was a smooth shot of vodka. He slammed the paper cup back to the table, squishing it in his hand as he did so.

“Sounds good, boss,” I told him while standing from my chair. He nodded as I made my way to the door.

Closing it behind me on my way out, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, immediately pulling up Lily’s contact and opening a new text message. Our previous messages appeared, flooding my phone with our banter and bringing a smile to my face. I typed out a message and hit send before slipping the phone back into my pocket and going about my work day.

CHAPTEREIGHT

Noah: Let me take you out tomorrow night.

Such a simple request, yet one that had my stomach in knots. With butterflies or trepidation, I was unsure, but the thought of going on a date with Noah, anactualdate, had me feeling antsy. Yet, it also felt exhilarating and I couldn’t help but want to explore the feeling. I thought back to a conversation earlier in the week with Alana, mulling over her perspective on my love life.

Alana knew everything about my history with Noah and everything that’d been happening between us. She knew my hesitations and fears, and knew no matter how hard I tried, he always ended up back in my mind. Alana said she was team Lily when it came to exploring what I wanted to do with my life, but she also thought I should explore my feelings about Noah a little more.Slowly. Dip my toe in the water, not dive in headfirst.

On my own terms.

At least that was half of her advice. The other half of her advice was to go on a few other dates as well, but so far my SparksFly account was as dusty as my attic.

Maybe this was one step in the right direction.

Still, it took me hours of going back and forth with a decision before I finally texted him back. The sun had set hours ago and the loneliness of another night in an empty house had set in.

Me:What did you have in mind?

I stared down at my phone, tempted to put it down and walk away to distract myself, but I couldn’t. I stared at the screen the entire time, waiting for a response. It took about two minutes before the three little dots popped up at the bottom of my screen, showing me he was texting back. Without breaking my stare at the screen, I moved to my couch and plopped down into the center before propping my feet on the ottoman.

Noah: You tell me. Would you rather have Mexican or Italian?

Me: Italian, but I’d rather stay in. So, my place or yours?

---