Shallow (16 page)

I heard my aunt giggle at me. “I think you already have. Look at you. You’re actually giddy. I’ve never seen you like that about a guy.”

“I know. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight because I’m so excited about being with him tomorrow.”

“What do your parents think of him?”

I wished she hadn’t asked me that because I didn’t even want to think about what they’d say about Nick. “They haven’t met him, but I can already tell you that they wouldn't approve.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t know that”

“I do. He’s from Collinsville and that’s all they need to know for them to discredit him. He doesn’t have money or social influence so they’ll give me the thumbs down before they even meet him. You know how they are.”

“Maybe they won’t. You can’t be for sure until you try.”

“They want me to be with someone like Cooper. Never mind the fact that he’s a dickhead that gave me an ultimatum to sleep with him or hit the road. Mother never even asked me what happened. She just blamed me for him breaking up with me.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, honey. Do you want me to talk to Vivian for you?”

“Nah. Let her think I’m a total disappointment instead of a virgin. Serves her right.”

“Does this lucky young fella have a name?”

“As a matter of fact, he does. His name is Nick Hawke. Gah, I even love saying his name. Is that weird?”

I looked up from where I lay on the couch when my aunt didn’t answer and I saw that she had sat up on the edge of the chaise. “Something wrong, Tillie?”

“No, nothing’s wrong. Please, go on. I want to know everything about your Nick.”

My phone alerted me to a text and I knew it was Nick without looking.

“Got to T’s ok?”

I smiled because he was checking on me. “It’s Nick. He’s checking to make sure I got here safely.”

“Yes. Telling T about our night minus the titillating details.”

“I loved the titillating details.”

“Me 2. UR so bad.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Stoked about tom.”

“Want to have more titillating details tom?”

“Def.”
Was he kiddin’ me? Hell yeah, I wanted to have lots and lots of more titillating
details.

“Be careful. Making no more promises.”

“You promise?”
I hit send before I had a chance to back out and wondered what was wrong with me? That was basically as good as telling him I wanted to bow chicka wow wow.

“I promise no more promises.”
Oh, shit. That meant all was fair play.

“Good. See U tom at 12. Your house?”

“Yes. Until then...thinking about titillating details.”
Yeah, I bet he was thinking about titillating
details. Who was I kiddin’? I was thinking about them, too. And probably would the rest of the night.

“Ditto.”

I put my phone down and quietly squealed as I fell back against the couch again and began to spill everything I knew about Nick, including how hard I was falling for him.

≈ ≈ ≈

I felt amazingly well for someone that stayed up talking to Tillie about Nick until the sun was up. She wanted to know everything about Nick and I realized there were still so many things I didn’t know about him, so I had investigation work ahead of me today.

But I had business to tend to before I went to Nick’s. I had to see Claire.

I pulled up at her house and then walked in without knocking like I always did. I had practically spent half my childhood in this house and to knock would have felt weird.

It was a weekday so Jessie and the Deverauxs were at work. The house was quiet so I knew Claire was being a total bum and sleeping late, but that wouldn’t last because I was gettin’ her ass up. I needed girly advice.

I climbed the stairs and her door was standing wide open. Good. I wanted to scare her and I probably wouldn’t accomplish that if I had to open the door.

I tiptoed silently across the floor until I was standing at her bedside. I gave her comforter a jerk to wake her up and realized too late that she wasn’t asleep and she wasn’t in her bed alone.

Claire reached for the sheet and jerked it up to her neck. “What the hell, Payton?’

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I thought you had the covers pulled over your head to block out the sun. I didn’t know Jessie was under there with you. I thought he was at work, but don’t let me interrupt. I’m leaving.”

This was one of those rare moments when I was embarrassed. “As you were, Kimosabe.” Eww, that sounded weird and I scrambled to get out of there as fast as possible. Both of them were my best friends, but seeing the two of them
nekkid
in bed together was simply TMI for me.

I got in my car and checked the time. Eleven o’clock meant I had an hour to burn and I was fresh out of ideas so I texted Nick to see if we could get together earlier?

“Sure. Come now?”

“On my way.”

After the drive to Nick’s from Franklin, I was only 40 minutes earlier than we originally planned. I knocked a few times and he came to the door wearing the same attire he told me to wear except he had added a Vols ball cap.

He reached for my hand, pulled me inside his house and shut the door. He put his hands around my waist and pulled me close. “Girl, I’ve missed you and I’m about to mess up your lip gloss.”

He kissed me gently at first and it became increasingly hungrier with each stroke of his tongue against mine. He started walking backwards toward the couch, pulling me with him until we were in the spot where we shared our first kiss.

When he stopped kissing me, he ran his fingertips along my face. I noticed he did that a lot, like he enjoyed touching my face.

I felt the same way as him. We had been apart for too long, but I wasn’t ready to show him my hand so I put on my familiar poker face. “It’s only been ten hours since we were together.”

He squeezed me tightly and put his nose against my neck and inhaled deeply. “Ten hours, ten days, what’s the difference?”

He kissed my neck right below my ear. “Umm, I think that’s roughly nine and half days.”

He laughed softly and then whispered against my ear. “That’s my girl. Always a clever comeback. Are you ready to go?”

No. I rather do this the rest of the day. “Sure. Where are we going?”

“I’m not telling you until we get there.” We walked to the front door and he opened it for me and then we briefly held hands to his car. He opened the car door for me and I turned to him before I got in. “You are killing me with this secretive stuff.”

He leaned over and smiled as he gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll give you another clue. It’s not a girl thing, but the girls that like it, love it, and it’s a rush.”

That could almost be frightening. He walked around the car and I could see that he was still smiling. He got in beside me and I watched him for a minute. “That was probably the worst clue ever, so no more. I’ll find out what it is when I find out so I’m changing the subject. You’re wearing a UT cap. Are you a fan?”

He pulled out of his drive. “Yeah. Isn’t everyone from around these parts?”

“No, not really, but I’m enrolled there this fall. Funny story. My mom has been determined my entire life that I would go to her Alma Mater, so I picked UT to piss her off. Mission accomplished. She’s mad as hell and I love it.

He shook his head, but didn’t look in my direction. “Man, you don’t even see how lucky you are. I get the privilege of going to a community college and that’s with student loans.”

“There are some really great community colleges. Besides, the police academy is where you’ll learn the real stuff, right? I mean the parts about how to be a cop and stay safe?”

“Yeah. When I’m getting shot at, an education from UT isn’t what’s gonna save me.”

I wished I hadn’t brought up the part about his safety. I didn’t like the way it made me feel to think about him being in danger. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why would I not say things like that? Danger is going to be a part of my life every time I’m on the job.”

I had an uncontrollable urge to touch him. I reached for his free hand and squeezed it tightly in mine before I brought it to my mouth to kiss. I held on to his hand when he moved it to my leg and I watched him as he drove us to wherever we would be spending our afternoon while we got our rush on together.

Could I be with someone like him? I mean could I risk being with someone that enjoyed adrenalin, danger and living life on the edge the way he did? There were so many uncertain things in my head, but I was sure of one thing. I was playing my own dangerous game with him and the cost of losing was high price to pay...my heart.

16 Glocks and Ginnys

Nick

I parked by the cabin and turned off the engine. Payton looked at the old rustic building and then back at me. “What is this place?”

“It’s our hunting cabin.”

Something about that amused her. “Okay, what exactly do you think we’re gonna be hunting?”

“We’re not hunting anything.” I reached under my seat and slid my Glock 17 out. I took it out of the box and held it up for her to see. “We’re target practicing.”

“You’re crazy! Did you know that?” She shook her head. “Nope, I’m not shooting anything. Guns scare me. I’ve never even touched one.”

“You’ll love it. I promise. When you take a shot and hit a target, you get a surge of adrenalin that I don’t even know how to describe.”

“I think I prefer a Nick induced thrill like last night rather than a gun induced one.”

I liked the sound of that. “Agree to shoot with me and maybe you’ll get both kinds of rushes.”

“I won’t have a clue what to do.”

“I know.” I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’m gonna show you what to do.”

We walked behind the cabin where Dad and I had built a homemade set of multilevel beams to house our targets and I set up a line of beer bottles on each shelf. “Watch me first so you can get an idea of what to do.”

I took my stance. “Your feet should be shoulder width apart like this and square with your hips. The majority of your weight should be on the balls of your feet.”

“Now I see why you told me to wear sneakers instead of my
tall ass heels
.”

“Baby, I love you in those tall ass heels, but they weren’t gonna cut it out here in the boonies with a pistol.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe I’m a Charlie’s Angel natural.”

“I’m positive you’re an angel, but we’ll see about the natural part.” I held the Glock out away from Payton and positioned my hands around the grip. “Your left hand should be high on the pistol with both of your thumbs almost touching the side like this. Put your left thumb forward so it is in front of your right and both should be pointing at the target. Think of your left hand as the steering wheel so squeeze a little harder with it. Hold your arms out straight, but don’t completely lock them, and take aim at your target.”

I stretched my arms toward the first bottle and then took all eight of them out one by one. “Think you can do that, Angel?”

“I think I rather watch you do it.” She broke into a huge smile. “Damn, Nick, that was so hot. I don’t think I got it all. Wanna do it again for me? So I can watch your
technique
?”

“One more time and then you’re gonna give it a try.”

I had nine rounds left in the magazine so I lined up nine more bottles because that’s how confident I was in my accuracy.

Bam! Knocked all nine out perfectly. I dropped the magazine out and started reloading it. “Don’t be nervous. The worst thing you can do is miss.” I slid the magazine back in when I finished loading it and held it out for Payton.

She stared at it, but didn’t make a move to take it from me. “I’m nervous.”

“Don’t be. Come here and I’ll help you.” From behind, I wrapped my arms around her before I took her hands and placed them on the grip of my Glock. “Thumbs here and here. Squeeze more with this hand because you’ll use it to aim. Hold your arms straight out.” I noticed her feet were next to each other without any distance between them so I leaned around and put my mouth against her ear. “Spread your legs.”

She giggled as she moved her feet apart. “You are so bad.”

“I’m just trying to be a good instructor,” I said innocently.

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ve had enough practice to be an expert instructor.”

Okay. The line became hazy somewhere along the way and I wasn’t sure if we were talking about target shooting or sex. “What can I say? I’m good at what I do.”

“So far, you’ve been quite excellent at everything you’ve done.”

Hmm. I was very fond of hearing her praise.

“New shooters tend to want to go low and to the left, so lift a little and bring it a tad to the right. We’re aiming for the first bottle on the top left. Are you ready?”