Page 42 of The Proposal Pact
Callum
“I Like My Privacy.” — Shrek
This is what I get for staying past my regular work hours. This is exactly what I get. I sigh, running a hand over my tired face and the three-day-old stubble.
If your day starts shitty it ends shitty, and here you are, driving out to the main square to answer a call about vandalism and loud noises after hours.
It’s been one call after another andallabout breaking quiet hours. I’m not an idiot, I know what they’re doing, but hell if I’ll break first!
It’s past midnight already, don’t these hippies ever sleep? But a minute later, I take my words back and wish these were hippies instead of the little menace dancing inside the fountain, splashingwater all over as she blasts out “It’s My Life” by Bon Jovi at the top of her lungs.
It’s almost amusing. Almost.
I’m about to call out her name when she appears around the fountain, her whole soaked-through body on full display.
Fucking hell…why is she in a white dress?
A white dress that is so see-through that I can make out the perfect shape of her small breasts and razor-sharp nipples. The cold water making them poke through the fabric.
“Sophie,” I call her name, but it comes out too hoarse for my liking and there’s zero reaction from her. I clear my throat—and thoughts—and try again louder. “Sophie!”
“Huh?” She stops singing and whips her head my way, squinting to try and see who’s calling her name.
“Sheriff Hot Asshole?”
I sigh, planting my hands on my hips. “Sophie, what the fuck are you doing in the fountain?”
“I’m in a fountain? Huh, I thought I felt wet.”
“Jesus Christ.” I run a hand over my face. The things that come out of her mouth. “How did you end up here?”
“How did I…oh! I got on a plane, then another plane, and then Gracie was there at the airport, and we did this whole romantic scene but BFF style because, ew, I’m not kissing Gracie. And then she brought me here—”
“In the fountain?” I shout, cutting off her rambling. “I mean, how did you end up in the fucking fountain?”
“Oh.” She frowns, looking down. “We went out for drinks with the girls.”
“Uh-huh.” Nodding, I wave for her to keep going. “And then?”
Those slightly blue lips from the coldness pucker in deep thought and then she sticks out her index finger right in front of her face and does thecome heremotion. I roll my eyes but step up to the edge of the fountain, trying to ignore the fact that now I can tell the exact shade of those nipples too. Great. Just great.
Sophie leans closer and whispers, “I don’t remember.”
I sigh, again, taking a step back to put a bit more distance between us.
“Let me guess, you went to Willa’s bar?”
“Yes!” She claps her hands, happy I figured it out myself.
“Okay, say no more. It all makes perfect sense now.”
“It does?”
“Oh, yeah,” I mutter slowly. “But I still have to arrest you for”—I wave in the general direction of the fountain—“this.”
“Ooo, do I get to wear handcuffs?” Sophie waggles her eyebrows, and I almost let out a groan so full of pain it would be embarrassing.
“No, no handcuffs for you.”
