Chapter Two
EMIL FLEXEDhis fingers as much as he could and grimaced. Both hands were achy today, and he couldn’t remember what he’d done to deserve it. Normally, after five years, they only hurt after he’d strained them, and sometimes with severe changes in the barometric pressure.
Shrugging mentally, he changed the song on his playlist to something more upbeat to combat the pain and continued the walk toward the Sheriff’s Station. He had a thing he needed to show his dad, and he hoped to catch him at his workplace, because by the time the workday was over for the sheriff, Emil would be too exhausted to deal with people, even his family.
Because it was early June, everywhere started to look greener, and the businesses along the road crossing town had flowers in the pots they’d hauled outside in the last week or so. Emil waved at Mrs. Miller who waved back, but didn’t make long eye contact and definitely didn’t cross the road to her. He had a mission, after all.
He rounded the corner and saw two of Dad’s deputies smoking in the staff parking lot. Quickly, he switched off the music and steeled himself just a little bit.
“Hey, Emil,” Jason said, nodding at him.
“Hi. Is my dad around?” he asked, avoiding looking the other deputy, Mark, in the eye. He didn’t like Mark much, not when he knew the guy was homophobic as fuck. Sadly, he was also really good at his job and never crossed the lines of being outright hostile toward Emil. If he’d been blatantly rude or obvious to anyone, his dad would’ve gotten rid of him by now.
“Yeah, he’s inside.” Jason dropped his cigarette butt and ground it down with his heel, then picked it up and tossed it in the tin can by the employee entrance to the building. “You can come through here.” He went up the few stairs and pushed the door open.
Emil hoped his dad didn’t know the guys propped the door open for their smoke breaks. It was supposed to be closed and locked at all times.
“Sure,” he murmured and went in, then followed Jason through the back hallway to the bull pen door and went in while Jason walked on to the locker room.
All through his life, Emil had been inside this station enough times to know the layout with his eyes closed. At first, his dad had been a deputy, but then, by the time Emil was thirteen, he’d been elected sheriff and then reelected each time it came up to vote. Nobody local or even anyone from Mercer would go up against Sheriff Kalle Newman because they knew they’d lose.
Sure, there’d been the odd outsider who had seen that a spot was open and they’d come in and tried to campaign, and then soon they’d run off with their tails between their legs. Yeah, Emil was proud of his dad being the guy he was, even if sometimes it affected their personal relationship.
“Hey, Emil,” the only female deputy, Erin Peters, said brightly from her desk.
“Hey, E. How’s it going?” Emil couldn’t help but to smile at her. She was the sister of his shrink, Evy, and the women couldn’t be more different if they’d tried. Emil liked them both, though.
“It’s okay. Been a good week so far,” she said and seemingly without realizing, reached a hand to rap her knuckles on the wooden desk.
“Dad in?” Emil asked, even though he could see him inside his office through the slits of the blinds.
“Yeah, go on in.”
Someone walked in through the front doors of the station, and Erin went to the front desk to greet them while Emil quickly made his way to the office door. He knocked and slipped inside before whomever it was that had come in could notice him or demand his dad’s time.
“Hey, son, what’s up?”
“Hi, Dad. Uh, I found something online and I need to talk about it?” Emil went to sit in the visitor’s chair and hated how his words had sounded like a question.
Luckily his dad ignored it. “Sure, what is it?” he asked, closing the folder he’d been going through and looking at Emil expectantly.
Emil dug out the printed papers from his messenger bag and took in a deep breath. He held them out for his father to take and leaned back, forcing himself to relax.
“So, you know how the physio guy said splints might help, but, like, I didn’t like the ones I got back then?” He’d hated the bulky things, and he’d hated the less bulky ones, too. “I… I talked with Evy, and I think part of it was that I….” He trailed off and sighed, looking at anywhere but his dad or his own hands.
Dad said nothing, he just looked through the silver finger splints and the price list too. Kalle Newman was great at interrogating people, and Emil wasn’t new to his silence tactics.
“I know they’re expensive, and I’d likely need at least four or five, depending on—but I think they’re—” He just couldn’t make himself say it out loud.
“They’re beautiful,” his dad broke the sudden silence. “They would certainly look a lot nicer than the old ones. I can see you actually wearing these,” he murmured.
Emil blinked rapidly to get his emotions under control but couldn’t help the tears.
“Y-yeah,” he said quietly, then swallowed against the feelings bubbling up in his chest.
“Why don’t you contact them and get two different ones for the two fingers you think need it the most. When we see if you like them and if they help, we’ll decide on getting more, okay?”
The expression on his dad’s face was gentle and kind as he held out the papers.
