Page 15 of Sweet Like a Psycho (Secrets of Suburbi 2)

I tucked a dreadlock behind Zeke’s ear. “You know my friend who brought us doughnuts earlier? Well…he brought dinner for us too.”

Zeke’s eyes grew round. “More doughnuts for dinner?”

“No, not doughnuts.” Honestly I didn’t know if that was true. He may have brought doughnuts for dinner. He was a cop after all. It may have been the only thing he ever ate for all I knew. “I don’t know what he brought, we’ll have to see when he brings it in.”

“Doughnuts!” Zeke took off toward the front door.

Abandoning my lame attempt at cleaning up my house, I followed my son.

Zeke threw open the door and yelled “doughnuts” to a very confused looking Detective Reed.

He looked at me and then back at my son.

I assumed he knew I had a kid. I had told him I didn’t live alone. And he had known my name without me offering the information. He had clearly done some digging on me. But the way he was looking at Zeke made me think he wasn’t very good at his job. Because he sincerely looked surprised. Or maybe I had this all wrong. Maybe he wasn’t digging at all. And this was a real date.

Which meant that letting him come in was a terrible, awful idea. I put my hand on Zeke’s shoulder and stared at Detective Reed. I was about to tell him to go when he crouched down in front of my son.

“You know,” he said. “I didn’t bring doughnuts this time, but I did bring dessert. How about we eat dinner first and then you can have that?”

“Or…we could have dessert first.” Zeke looked at him hopefully.

“Or we could have dinner first.”

Zeke sighed. “Fine. But we have to get away from the lava fast or else we won’t be able to eat anything because we’ll be dead. Hurry, your feet are burning!” Zeke started to hop from foot to foot like his feet were on fire.

“You better hurry! Or the lava will get you!” I grabbed the take-out bags from Detective Reed’s hands and watched Zeke pull him toward our family room.

Zeke looked so happy. It made me realize just how much I was failing as a mother. He never had friends over. It was always just the two of us. I knew some of the kids at school picked on him, but did he not have any friends? Or was he just embarrassed to have them come here? Or maybe his friends’ parents wouldn’t allow their children to come play here. All three options stung.

His laughter drifting from the family room eased some of the pain in my chest. We were happy just the two of us. We had been playing hot lava all day and laughing just as much as he and Detective Reed were. And I was a trooper because I felt like I was five seconds away from passing out.

I set the table for three, which was a first in this house. I tried to ignore the warning bells in my head. There was a detective in my home. One that seemed dead set on tying me to a crime I didn’t commit. So why did I feel excited? It had just been too long since I had been around a single man. That was all. But it didn’t stop me from tidying up the kitchen just a bit more.

I started to remove the take-out containers from the bags Detective Reed had brought. My fingers wrapped around a bottle and I pulled it out. It was just a simple bottle of Nyquil, but when I looked down at it, I felt the oddest sensation overcome me. My whole body felt warm, but it wasn’t from my fever. He brought me Nyquil? I felt tears prickle the corners of my eyes. This morning Zeke had offered to make me pancakes. And now a complete stranger had brought me medicine for my cold? I wasn’t sure I had ever felt more loved in my entire life. I immediately shook away the thought. Love? Detective Reed was just trying to butter me up. But my mind couldn’t convince the rest of me. I felt…cared for.

“I thought you’d appreciate that more than a bottle of wine tonight.”

I looked up to see Detective Reed leaning against the doorjamb. His shirt was a little off-center and his hair was askew. Zeke had probably jumped on him at some point during the game. And his cheeks were slightly rosy either from how cold it was in here or because he had been running around. He had also ditched his shoes somewhere because he was in his socks. He looked so comfortable and at home. I had never seen a more handsome sight.

“Yeah. Thanks.” I cleared my throat because the words had come out weird and squeaky. “Thank you, Detective Reed, I…”

“Tucker.” He smiled, making his appearance that much more handsome. “I’m off duty.”

“Tucker. Right.” I looked back down at the bottle. “I really appreciate this.” It was sweet and thoughtful. I sneezed.

“Bless you. There’s actually a box of tissues in there too.”

My knight in shining armor. I grabbed one of the tissues and blew my nose. When I lowered the tissue, Tucker’s smile looked even bigger. “What?” I touched my face, worried that I had just trailed snot everywhere.

“You have a little grease spot right there.” He tapped his right cheek.

I grabbed another tissue and mimicked him, wiping off my left cheek.

He laughed. “No, opposite.”

I could feel my face turning red as I wiped off the correct cheek. There was a lot of black residue on the tissue for it just being a tiny spot. My whole cheek was probably covered in grease. I continued to wipe it. “Is it gone yet?”

“Yeah. You got it.” He cleared his throat and looked around the room. “Is your furnace in the basement? Just point me in the right direction, I should probably get started on it so you don’t have to sit here shivering while you’re sick.”

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