“Yup,” I grunted. “He calls himself my best friend but then had me out here running laps with him over and over until he said yes. I complained, but it felt good as hell to have my best friend back. Almost as good as it felt to have his sister in my arms as my new fiancée.”
The truth was, Corey and I talked about a lot of things since the night he saved me. Turned out, he already suspected something was up between Jocelyn and me. I admitted to having a thing for her for a long time, and eventually he came around, once he realized I was serious about marrying her.
Jocelyn laughed as I brought her in for a kiss.
Minutes later, we were surrounded by cheers and applause as we entered the station kitchen.
“They knew about this?” Jocelyn asked, ducking from the streamers and glitter falling around us.
Laughing, I nodded. “Can’t keep a secret around these guys.”
One by one, the rest of my squad came up to congratulate us.
“Thanks, Lieutenant,” I said to Carter, who was recently promoted. “For everything.”
He nodded and smirked, pulling his wife into his side. “You’re still going to get shit for all that mess you talked about us. You know that, right?”
I glanced over at Jocelyn in my arms. “She’s worth it.”
“That’s so sweet,” Hallease gushed with stars in her eyes, staring at Jocelyn and me.
“You’re more than welcome to have your reception at Charlie’s once it reopens,” Angela told us, shifting baby Ara from one side to the other.
“We’ll think about that.”
“Congratulations,” Marjorie Maynard, a former client of Jocelyn’s, said, hugging her. Her new husband, Kelvin, fist-bumped me and congratulated us both.
“I told you,” he said to Jocelyn.
She laughed and hugged me tighter. “You were right,” she said to him but stared up at me.
She’d told me about the conversation between her and Kelvin the night of the gala.
“Let’s cut the cake,” Sean demanded. “I’m hungry.”
He handed me the knife. I held it up over the cake but then paused, looking down at a smiling Jocelyn. Turning to my right, I held out the knife. “Here, Hunter. You cut the cake.”
His eyebrows nearly touched his hairline as he looked around the massive table. “Me?”
“Sure, why not? You just finished your Rookie training,” I said. “You’re celebrating too.”
“Go on,” Carter yelled from the other end of the table.
“Somebody cut it. Shit,” Sean griped, causing a few of us to chuckle.
Hunter shrugged and took the knife from me. I squeezed my hold on Jocelyn’s hand.
“The hell,” Hunter whispered when the knife refused to descend into the cake.
“What’s the matter?” Corey asked.
“It won’t… it won’t…” He pressed harder into the cake, and nothing happened.
“Don’t tell me you make it off rookie status but can’t manage to cut a cake,” I insisted.
“It won’t cut,” he said, looking up with total bafflement on his face.
The entire room burst into laughter.
