Two managers later and now we’d been saddled with Rebecca, who seemed quite keen on passing us off yet again.
“What are these for, anyway?” Avery folded the size chart back in half again, leaning forward briefly to toss it back onto the glass display counter.
His champagne glass sat half full on the edge of the counter, untouched since the first hour. Mine was much the same, only a few sips taken to gather the quality of alcohol these people were willing to shelve out on their highest paying customers and using it to gauge what kind of sales tactics would eventually be used.
The lounge was darkly lit with only the table in front of us having a decent amount of light in order to show off whatever optimal cut of the stones caught the light with the best.
Refraction. Clarity. Cut. Weight. Color. All important in making the decision on what to buy to guarantee whatever I was taking home today wasn’t a complete rip-offandwould fit the piece that was being created for them. None of which I had any expertise in.
I sighed, folding back into my chair. A headache bloomed along my brow bone, spidering across where I had a thumb pressed into my left temple. “I already told you.”
“You didn’t.” He relaxed back in his chair, too, legs spreading wide while he relaxed. “All you said was that you had some list you needed to buy. I thought we were going grocery shopping.
I peeled my eyes open slowly. “Why in the world would I take you grocery shopping, Avery. I order that shit straight to my house.”
He shrugged at me. “First time for everything.” And then he gestured to the room. “Case in point.”
In the back of my mind, I was beginning to regret not telling him to fuck off when he’d wound up on my doorstep early this morning, demanding I come to the gym with him. A new hobby he’d taken up with busy season hitting at Carmichael’s mechanic shop.
Cold weather brought everyone in for a quick tune up to last throughout the next few months of bad weather. This area certainly wasn’t as bad at the ones closer to the mountains. But our snowfall wasn’t for the faint of heart.
How often did Terran experience a true snowfall in the city?
Not the light dusting that our entire state got off and on until spring but a well, and true, snowstorm that trapped everyone inside for at least a full day before our small towns could unbury us with their two plows.
I’d have to ask him.
He’d be out on the roads by then, patrolling between counties. Inclement weather needed to be taken seriously, regardless of how confident getting behind the wheel felt. Rain wasn’t the same as a flurry. Getting caught in something like that without the experience of knowing how to safely navigate through it would end horribly.
He wasn’t about to wind up in my ER again after a nasty wreck trying to get somewhere and catching a spot of black ice hidden under fresh powder.
He’d learn how to drive his cruiser well before the first big storm hit. I’d make sure of it.
Sneaking my phone out of my pocket, I pulled up a fresh web browser. “The cops in the area. What kind of model do they drive?”
Avery paused. “Why?”
I hated repeating myself. “What kind of cars do the precincts have? Dodge Chargers?”
I could feel his eyes on me, staring holes into the side of my head while he wore some predictably twisted up expression of confusion. “It depends.”
I held back a sigh, looking up from my phone. “On?”
He shrugged. “What the officer needs it for. They do drive Chargers, yes, but many of them drive SUVs, too. Others drive the sedans. It will depend on precinct funding and what they’re allotted for their fleet.”
Leave it to Avery to bust out the car facts he’d osmosis-ed from his partner the second he got a chance to. Then again, invaluable information when deciding on what car to purchase and have shipped to my house. A sedan was practical and most often used by the cops I saw cruising around town.
Easy to learn in and take for a spin in Palmerston High’s parking lot after the first storm of the season hit and cancelled classes for the day.
Wait a second.
My thumb hovered over the ‘more inventory’ option, pausing.
What the fuck was I doing?
Was I actually considering purchasing a practice car for Terran like he was my teenaged son learning how to drive for the first time?
That man was a grown adult and could learn on his own time how to navigate a winter advisory. It wasn’t my job to teach him, nor had he asked me to.
