Max couldn’t argue with that. Next door, Brooks and Diego came out of the Wallace house. Reaching into his pocket, Max pulled out a business card, handing it to Ernest. He’d never had a reason to give anyone his card before, but this seemed like a good use of one.
“My personal cell phone number is on there,” he said. “Call me if you hear anything from the Wallace house. Day or night.”
Ernest assured Max he would. “Not that I imagine I’ll have to wait too long. You might have put the fear of God into that bastard for a little while, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear the screaming and hollering start up again before long.”
Max knew the man was right, which made getting back in their SWAT vehicle to leave damn hard. But not nearly as tough as when he looked back and saw Terence gazing out the front window at them, his face a mask of anguish.
Chapter 4
“I can’t believe you didn’t call and tell me you were going to a party,” Miriam said, looking pointedly at Brandy. “You left me here sleeping in my bed without a clue. What kind of wingwoman are you?”
Brandy laughed as she reached into the fridge for another round of diet soda for the three of them. Lana had stopped by her friends’ apartment hoping to catch up with them before her date with Max that night.
“The kind that never would have tried to get you out of bed after you’d pulled a twelve-hour shift at the ER,” Brandy said, handing one of the cans to her red-haired roommate. “You would have been stumbling around like a zombie in high heels.”
Lana smiled as her two friends continued to bicker about the fact that Brandy had gone to the SWAT cookout and spent the entire night hanging out with a team full of hunky cops without mentioning it to her roommate. It didn’t help that Brandy had taken selfies with all the hot, single guys who’d been at the SWAT compound last night—and there had definitely been a lot of them. Lana swiped through the pictures on Brandy’s phone, noticing there were quite a few of her with Diego. But as Lana got further along in the photo album, she realized there were even more pictures of Brandy with a smaller guy with dark-blond hair, a trace of stubble, and a smile that never seemed to leave his face.
“Hey, Brandy. Who’s this guy with you in all these pictures?” she asked, holding the phone up so her friend could see it. “I thought you had the hots for Diego?”
Brandy stopped arguing with Miriam and walked over to the couch where Lana was sitting. Setting the two cans she was holding on the coffee table, she took the phone with a smile. “Oh, I do have the hots for Diego Miguel Martinez. God, the way that name rolls off the tongue!” Still grinning, she swiped through the pictures. “But I also have the hots for Zane and Hale and Trey,” Brandy said, showing Lana pictures of each guy as she spoke.
Lana had to admit they were all super attractive. They couldn’t compare with Max, of course, but they were nothing to turn your nose up at.
“In fact, I have the hots for pretty much the entire SWAT team—including the ones already taken by someone else,” Brandy continued. “There’s not a man on that team I wouldn’t wrap in a tortilla and eat up like a burrito.” She stopped swiping, gazing longingly at one particular photo, her dark eyes suddenly dreamy. “But then I met Chris Hughes, one of their friends, and something funny happened.”
Miriam pushed her curly, red hair behind her ear and leaned over Bandy’s shoulder to look at her phone. “He’s cute, but I don’t think I’d put him in the same class as the SWAT guys.”
Brandy shrugged. “Normally, I’d say the same thing. But there’s just something about him…maybe the way he made me laugh with that Mississippi accent of his. Whatever it was, I ended up sitting at a picnic table with him until the sun came up this morning.”
Lana lifted a brow, then looked at Miriam to see that she was just as stunned. It wasn’t that Chris wasn’t attractive—he definitely was. It was simply that Brandy had always—as in always—been a party girl. She would go for the hottest guy in the room, get what she wanted from him, and then move on. She’d never been serious about a man as long as Lana had known her—and Lana knew her since middle school.
“Wow,” Miriam said. “So I guess you’re going to see Chris again, then?”
Brandy thought a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Lana asked.
Brandy shrugged. “I’m not looking to get involved with anyone seriously, so there wouldn’t be any point in seeing him again.”
Her friend said the words lightly, but it sounded a little forced to Lana. One glance at Miriam told Lana she thought the same thing.
Throwing up her hands, Miriam flopped down on the opposite couch, popped the top on her diet soda, and looked at Lana. “Okay, how about you? Brandy said you ran into a hunk of your own last night. Please tell me you’re smart enough to hold on to him.”
Lana laughed. “Definitely. Max and I had an awesome time. We went out for pizza and ended up talking for hours. We didn’t get to my parents’ place until well after one o’clock.”
Miriam jumped up and hurried around the coffee table to sit beside Lana, her green eyes bright with excitement. “Dish on the details. And don’t leave anything out.”
Brandy sat down on the other side of Lana, a little more subdued than normal but apparently more interested in talking about Lana’s evening than her own.
“For starters, Max is extremely attractive but doesn’t seem to know it.” Lana sat back, wrapping her arms around a throw pillow and hugging it to her chest with a smile. “He’s funny and really easy to talk to. He didn’t come close to falling asleep when I told him about my organic chemistry classes. He even gets that I’m a pescatarian.”
Brandy sipped her soda. “If you guys hit it off that well, I’m surprised you didn’t go back to his place and make out.”
Lana laughed. “Oh, trust me, I wanted to. But it was late, and I didn’t want to keep Max up all night, not with the kind of work he does. We did make out on the front doorstep like a couple of teenagers, though, and that was smoking hot. If my dad hadn’t jerked open the door when he did, I’m not sure we would have stopped.”
Miriam did a double take. “Why the heck did your dad open the door? Didn’t you say it was after one in the morning? Isn’t that way past your dad’s bedtime?”
