Page 122 of Female Fantasy
My treasure trove.
“It was all them,” I say.
This time, it’s the officer’s turn to raise his brows. “It looks like you landed quite a few punches yourself. Don’t sell yourself short—you incapacitated your attacker and distracted the woman long enough to free your man. And your friend Angel told me that you were the one to make the rescue call.”
I bite my lip. “That is true,” I admit. “But I blame my career as a copywriter for my thumb’s stellar muscle memory. Apparently, I don’t need to see to type an SOS.”
The officer grins. “Well, Ms…”
“Saboonchi.”
“Right. Well, Ms. Saboochy—”
He butchers it.
But I let it slide.
Just this once.
“—it sounds to me like you saved yourself.”
I smile up at him, straightening my shoulders under the blanket. “Thank you, sir.”
“Of course,” he says, his face turning as red as the sirens. “What brought you to New York, anyway? You have a Connecticut license.”
“Looking for true love,” I tell him.
“Did you find it?”
“I think so.” I bite my lip, studying Nico. “But not in the place I expected.”
He clears his throat and turns his attention back to his partner and the man in cuffs. “Okay, no more funny business. There are a lot of people who can’t wait to sit you down and ask you some questions. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney…”
As he tells M.C. “the Shrug” Lester his rights, Lester locks eyes with me one more time. He holds up his wrists with a crooked grin. The playful fire in his eyes hasn’t dulled a bit. And as he lowers his body into the cop car, joining a gobsmacked Clarisse and Thomas, he doesn’t once break eye contact with me. A silent promise that he’ll see me again.
Even if only in my dreams.
A shiver runs through my body like an electrical current.
And off in the distance, I swear I hear a siren call.
You have fulfilled your destiny, a voice says inside my head.Do not waste it.
Wasn’t planning on it.
“What the hell was that all about?” Nico asks as he takes a seat next to me on the curb. Across the street, his mother has joined Angel, Roy, and Kalli, who appears to be reading something aloud from her phone. I close my eyes and say a silent prayer that it isn’t an excerpt from my latest fic.
“Oh, you know.” I look up into the pools of his eyes and get momentarily distracted. How did I ever think they were gray? They’re so obviously the lightest, truest blue. “The NYPD was just thanking me for my great act of heroism. I thought about chewing them out for their history with stop-and-frisks, but I’m pretty sure Angel already read them the riot act, so…”
Nico leans forward and tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear.
I momentarily forget how to breathe.
“You are a hero, Joon,” he says. “You saved my life, do you realize that?”
“I’m sure we can come up with some kind of repayment plan,” I try to joke, but it comes out all weak and strangled.
“Seriously. Thank you, Joonie. You were amazing. Like Merriah, but better. You never needed a Ryke or a Ryan Mare or”—he swallows—“even me. You’ve always been the smartest, most badass person I know. Maybe now you can finally believe that, too.”
