Page 60 of Sirens
He let out a chuckle, shaking his head at the small-town fervor. The scene was a living, breathing embodiment of “quirky”—the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a feel-good flick where the biggest scandal involved Grandma’s famous pie recipes.
A late-winter mist had given way to a vibrant blue canvas with fluffy clouds scattered about like cotton balls. The sunshinewas golden and warm against the cool, crisp air. The charming Victorian buildings lined the streets, their colorful façades and ornate details a perfect backdrop to the adorable drama.
Damn, this was better than a No Point Shakespeare Company’s production ofA Comedy of Errors.
With a heavy sigh, Trent leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes for the space of a centering breath, realizing some of the ever-present tension in his shoulders was absent. Damn, but last night had been something else. His lips curled at the memory of Maggie’s soft moans, the taste of her skin, the way she’d clung to him like ivy. He’d had to use every bit of his willpower to peel himself from bed and show up for his shift.
Days like this, he almost looked forward to. Nothing this hilarious ever happened in Albuquerque.
For a small town, they sure did have strong opinions about changes in infrastructure. The retirees who showed up to these kinds of protests had little else to do on a Sunday morning.
Trent parked amid the chaos and climbed out of his cruiser, scanning the crowd for any signs of violence. Thankfully, other than a few heated arguments and insults being hurled, nothing seemed out of control.
His ears were bombarded with the cacophony of discord as he wedged his way through the throngs of agitated townsfolk. Other officers had parked in the bank parking lot down the way to keep a distant eye on what had been a peaceful protest until Myrtle Le Grande showed up with a one-ton truck full of her stock in trade.
On this, day two of the protest, the seventy-something local queer icon and manure maven had backed her truck up to the side of the anti-traffic-circle warriors and jettisoned a large pile of excrement onto the walkway. As the deputy in charge on shift, it was his responsibility to de-escalate the situation.
Myrtle leaned on a big shovel next to a knee-high—well, thigh high for her—pile of dung that smelled so ripe his eyes began to water.
“Well, if it isn’t Deputy Delish in the flesh,” she greeted him with a knowing smile.
“Keep it in your pants, Myrtle,” Trent quipped before turning to address several red-faced elderly with their bloomers in a bunch.
At their helm was the mighty Miss Janet, one of the local Christian soldiers who always seemed to be in charge of these debacles.
“We told her to keep her BS out of here, and look what she did!” Janet screeched.
“Hey, screw you, Janet, this is not your basic bitch bullshit. It’s mostly llama dung, compost, and some horse urine to balance the pH!”
Trent put a staying hand on Myrtle’s painfully thin shoulder. “This is now a contaminated area,” he announced loud enough for the few dozen pink-cheeked stoplight enthusiasts. “You’ll all need to get back while we contain the mess and get it cleaned up.”
Myrtle made an obscene gesture of triumph. “That’s what I’m talking about, McGarvey—you clear out these holy rollers and their boring signs! Shoo!” To his chagrin, she lifted her metal shovel and waved it at the encroaching conservative coven.
Trent whirled on her, doing his best not to loom over an old woman who came up to his nipples. “Myrtle…this is a serious offense. Rest that shovel on the ground or I’ll be forced to take it.”
“Your face says you’re pissed, but those dreamy eyes are all afterglow,” she teased, nudging him with her elbow, though she put the shovel’s metal head back on the concrete. “Finally pulled our Maggie, eh? You sly fox.”
“Mind out of the gutter, would you? I’m on duty.” But the smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth betrayed him. It was true: he felt lighter than usual, despite the weight of his uniform and the morning’s coffee yet to kick in.
“Sure, sure.” She winked, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Heard she’s quite the handful.”
“More than a handful,” he muttered, scanning past another cluster of residents, “and nowhere to be seen.”
The truth was, Trent was begrudgingly fond of the chaos Maggie brought with her—it stirred something deep within him, something he thought he had packed away when he left Albuquerque behind. But damn if it didn’t make his job harder, especially when he found himself tiptoeing to the line of his own ethical no man’s land.
Shaking his head, he realized something devastating in real time.
He was a goner.
Like, this was cause for some concern.
“Hiya, Myrtle.” Local mechanic and ex-con Gabe Kelly sauntered over with his fiancée, Gemma, a stunning brunette with a sleek ponytail and a bangin’ power suit.
“Gabe, Lyra, tell these Jesus freaks what you think of the church at large!” Myrtle yelled, pointing the fully automatic kill clip that was the ex-Catholic Bostonian’s vocabulary. He’d spray these old folks with four-letter bullets, shrug his shoulders, and eat a giant sandwich while watching the carnage play out.
Lyra McKendrick, Gemma’s twin and Gabe’s future sister-in-law, had turned up for the protest, and if anyone had Myrtle’s back, and vice versa, it was these two. Gemma, Trent remembered, had a pathological avoidance of all forms of conflict, while Lyra prided herself on wading into the middle with her righteous indignation and a mean case of ASD savantsyndrome. Think what you want about Lyra—she was usually just as correct as she was abrasive.
“Don’t you dare,” Trent warned, though whether it was to Myrtle, Lyra, or Gabe, he wasn’t sure.
