“I take offense at that,” the officer insisted. “But I understand you must be under strain, so I’ll let it go for now. Now, sir, if you’ll stop being contrary and listen to reason, I’m sure you’ll understand—”
“What I understand is that you’d better not touch a single blade of grass onanyone’s property before I get there!” I fumed, dragging my suitcase past the check-in desk. “Understand?”
“Lord a’mercy, we got us a geyser!” a voice in the background yelled. “The end-times are upon us!”
A geyser?
“Mr. Goodman, I need you to get here as soon as possible. This has become an emergency situation.”
“I understand. I’ll get a cab—”
There was a squelching, static sound, like the officer was covering the phone, and his voice was muffled as he yelled, “Tell Jerry we need to bring in the boats! Evacuate, evacuate!Move, move, move!” To me, he added, “Cab won’t be fast enough. We’ve got an officer in an unmarked vehicle detailed to the airport. He’ll meet you out front in thirty seconds and get you here in half the time. He’ll be in a white van outside door number three.”
“Yeah, fine,” I agreed in a growl as my feet hit the sidewalk out front. “Remember, not a single blade of grass!”
I dragged my suitcase out the sliding doors and found a white passenger van with all its windows open parked at the curb. I hesitated, but the side door slid open and a guy in a baseball hat called me by name. “Rafael Goodman? Officer Rainesent sent me. Hustle it up. You can stow your stuff back here.”
I hefted my little suitcase into the cargo area and quickly hopped into the passenger’s seat.
“Belt,” the driver barked even before my door was closed. And then while I was still distracted buckling the damn thing, he pulled out into traffic.
“Fastest route to my place at this hour will be 75 South.” I straightened and scooped both hands through my hair. “Tamiami Trail’s gonna be backed up for hours yet—”
The driver snorted. “Figures you’d tell a police officer the fastest way to get to your house. Rafe Goodman, control freak of America.”
I blinked in confusion for exactly one second before turning my head to find gold-record-selling liar and all-around troublemaker Jay fucking Rollins, smirking at me in profile.
He turned his head toward me, and the smirk became a grin. “Gotcha.”
How was it possible for a human to feel both shocked and furious and simultaneously, bizarrely settled just from staring at another person’s face?
I didn’t understand it at all, and therefore, I didn’tlikeit at all.
“What the fuck is going on here?” I demanded.
Jay handed me a greasy, paper-wrapped sandwich. “Breakfast biscuit? Helps a nervous stomach, I promise.”
“Hey there, Mr. Goodman!” a disembodied voice asked over the van’s speakers. “Rafe. Can I call you Rafe? I feel like we’re already friends.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Officer Oak… Rainesent, was it?”
“Er… you can just call me Oak. Rain Scent is the flavor of the candle my sister left burning on my desk,” he corrected a little bit sheepishly, “since she says my office smells like a locker room. Nice to meet you.”
“Wish I could say the same.” I ground my molars together and unwrapped the biscuit. Itdidsmell kinda good.
“I happen to have some excellent news for you!” Oak said cheerfully. “Your house is not, to the best of my knowledge, actually sinking into a cesspool of sewage! Congratulations! I, for one, think we should all take a minute to appreciate that happy circumstance, don’t you? A man never appreciates what he has until shit’s more than half a foot high and rising, am I right?”
“You’re hilarious,” I bit out. “Jay Don, if making me late for my flight is your way of… Honestly, I have no clue what you’re attempting to achieve here, but I promise you, it’s not working. I thought when we said goodbye yesterday that was more or less forever.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t get rid of me that easily.” Jay followed signs for the highway—exactly the route I’d told him not to take, which totally figured. “Look, I was planning to fly back to Wyoming today, and when I got to the airport, I saw you.” He darted a sideways glance at me. “From a distance.”
“You saw me in the airport.” Lovely. I wondered if that was before or after I’d tossed my cookies. I folded my arms over my chest, only slightly mortified.
“You looked… nervous,” he decided, which was as good a euphemism for shit-scared as I’d ever heard. “And that’s when I remembered, about the, um…” He cleared his throat and said with genuine sympathy, “The crash, and how you were always afraid of flying after that.”
If there was a worse thing than having your mortal enemy know your weakness, it was having your mortal enemypity youfor your weakness.
“I was handling it just fine,” I gritted out, taking a giant bite of biscuit.
