Page 25 of The Proposal Pact
“Police! Make way! LCPD, step away!”
With a few bruises over my body, I finally make it to the front where I see my best friend and the chief of LCFD, Luke, holding onto Suzie Walker, while his younger brother, Alec, tries to keep Matilda away from them.
And he’s not a small guy, a professional surfer but he’s barely managing to hold onto her by her waist, her feet and arms stretching to get to Suzie. “You sleazy whore!” she yells. “You just needed someone to change your light bulbs, huh? And hang your pictures!”
“It’s not my fault, my Doug finds this more attractive,” Mrs. Walker snarks back over Luke’s shoulder, pointing to her own body and Matilda tries to tear away from Alec again.
“HerDoug. Did you all hear that?”
“Ladies! There’s enough of me for everyone!” Doug Loves decides to say, and both women turn their death glares his way as a new wave of shouting begins.
Jacob Levine, Alec’s best friend and the local Viking who couldn’t hurt a fly, rushes to step in front of Doug just in case, while trying to placate the two women. Somewhere behind me, I hear, “Should wetell them about Linda?” I turn around quickly, pointing my finger at them.
“Don’t you dare, unless you want to spend the day in the cell with these three?”
“Hey, Mr. Sheriff, I don’t want to interfere with your gossiping, but do you mind coming here and doing yourjob?” Luke shouts over the colorful curses that are flying across the circle.
Funny,I mouth, shaking my head.
The idiot knows very well I don’t gossip or participate in any of the LC’s madness, but hell if he’ll miss a chance to mess with me. Thank God, he doesn’t know about the fiasco I had last night with that Sophie girl, or I’d never hear the end of it.
Some things just never change, and in this case, I’m glad that the friendship between Luke, Griff, and me is one of those things. As soon as I joined those two back here, everything fell right back into place like we didn’t spend even a day apart.
Sure, I tried to murder Griff at first, and all three of us now have additional weight on our shoulders, and stories we’d be glad to forget, but the rest is the same.
Luke is still the grumpy asshole. Griffin is still very much in love with my sister and I…I…I guess, same can’t be said about me. Because there’s very little, if anything, left of the guy I used to be apart from my connection with them.
But that’s all thoughts for later. Or never, actually.
In normal situations, normal towns, people are usually at least somewhat afraid of law enforcement, of authority. In Loverly Cave? Nope. So, I do the only thing that will work, stepping in between the raging chaos, I stick two fingers in my mouth and let out a searing whistle, stunning them for a second.
“The next person to throw out a curse or a punch or a death threat will be banished from town workouts, karaoke nights, and monthly chakra cleaning indefinitely.”
“You can’t do that!” Mrs. Loves protests, still smacking poor Alec’s arm to let go of her, and I pierce her with my most menacing glare.
“Watch me!” I say slowly. “I’ll camp right out here every night to make sure that person doesn’t get to participate. Or better yet, I’ll keep you locked up in my cell.”
Yes, this is what my life’s been reduced to.
If only my fellow Seals could see me, using chakra cleaning as a threat.
“You can’t do that!” It’s Suzie’s turn to protest, and I turn the glare her way, but she just challenges me back.
“He can’t, but I sure as hell can,” Fanny says, appearing out of nowhere, arms crossed. I guess she already locked Linda away.
And what do you know, these two didn’t take me seriously, but when Fanny gives out the same threat, they shut up right away, almost slumping in Luke and Alec’s hold.
“Come on, shoo out of my square.” She makes the gesture with her hand for them to scramble. “You three are not welcome until you either stay away from each other’s body parts or learn to share. And Doug?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re banned from my town workouts!”
“What? Why?”
“Because you’re an idiot! Who gets the same outfits for two women you are seeing?”
“They had a buy-two-get-one free!” Mr. Loves says, and the square goes deadly quiet again.
