That would not be happening between us. It couldn’t. She not only deserved better than a flawed grump, but also—as observed last night with Jennings—the optics were bad.
I busied myself with making breakfast, which, since I didn’t cook very often, meant I was having a simple bagel.
I heard the bathroom door open and her bedroom door close, and images of her in just a towel filled my mind.
Focus.
With my mind distracted, I grabbed the bagel to spread the cream cheese but forgot I had just pulled it out of the toaster. I dropped not only the bagel slice on the floor, but the knife with the cream cheese spread already on it as well—directly onto my favorite flannel shirt.
I pulled it off and tried wiping the spread off, but I just ended up making a bigger mess. Giving up on the shirt, I threw it onto the far kitchen counter for now. I turned to put another bagel in the toaster just as Iris came into the kitchen.
“Do you want a bagel?” I asked her, looking up to see her eyes on my now bare chest.
She didn’t respond, either because she hadn’t heard me, or because she was too focused on my shirtless body. I watched in real time as the heat in her eyes grew darker,which caused my own lust to grow too, knowing she was enjoying what she saw.
If she kept looking at me like that, whatever morals I still had would be gone.
“Iris,” I said a little louder, hoping to get her attention.
“What? Uh…sorry. Did you say something?” she asked, her eyes now on mine, but her cheeks started to turn pink.
“I asked if you wanted a bagel.”
“Oh, umm, sure,” she said, looking down at the counter now and avoiding eye contact with me.
Seconds later, a phone buzzed on the counter, followed by Iris’s voice.
“Hello, this is Iris,” she said and then paused. “Oh, hi, Officer Clarkson.”
I turned to look at her to make sure what Clarkson was telling her wasn’t going to upset her, but she mostly just responded with “uh-huhs” and “okays” and a few “thank yous.”
“Okay, well, thank you for calling,” she said and hung up the phone as I put a plate in front of her.
“I don’t know what you like on your bagel, but I have cream cheese or butter,” I told her as I set both options down on the counter.
“Thanks,” she said, seemingly deflated.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she answered, nodding as though she was trying to shake the worry out. “Umm, he said I can goback to my place today, that they’re all done for now, but they may need to come back if they missed something.”
“That’s good,” I told her, assuming she’d be happy about this news.
“Yeah, totally. Definitely. Yes,” she said, nodding again as if saying it out loud multiple times would make her believe it.
“Do you work today?” I asked, something I probably should have asked her last night.
“No,” she said. “Unless there’s some kind of special event or we’re short-staffed, I usually just work Monday through Friday.
“Okay, well, even though it’s a Saturday, I have to run into the office for a few minutes this morning to sign some paperwork,” I said, deciding not to give her the specific details that the papers I would be signing were to have more patrols and barricades put up around where the body had been found now that someone was escalating things. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just swing by and take care of that, and then I can take you over to your place.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “My leasing office emailed and offered to change the locks and add a few more security features for me. I’m guessing because he doesn’t want word spreading that we’d had a break-in at our complex. This should give him enough time to do that.”
If not, I would offer to add some securityfeatures as well.
“Good. I can take a look at all of it for you when we get there,” I told her.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling up at me. “Can we bring Sarge with us?”
