I didn’t know exactly what was going on there, but there was definitely something between Jude and the sheriff. I would have thought that it was all Jude having a crush on the sheriff, but now I thought maybe it went both ways. For whatever reason, the sheriff liked Jude, even if he found him annoying as heck sometimes. He could have arrested Jude, fined him, and made his life a living hell. Instead, he usually just returned him home and sent him off with warnings. At this point, I almost felt like Jude could kill someone in front of him and he’d just roll his eyes and be on his way.
I really hoped Jude didn’t resort to that, however. Asking your crush out on a date would probably work better than committing a felony.
We all shuffled into the house, including Josh and Wilder. I sat on the couch and Corbin sat next to me, and the sheriff sat on the coffee table facing us. Jude sort of hovered next to him, and he still looked kind of aggravated, which I didn’t understand. He acted like the guys would hurt the sheriff or something, and I knew that wasn’t true. And he’d never been the jealous type before. Whatever the case, his face made it clear he wasn’t leaving.
Dexter, Toby, Josh, Wilder, and Thea all stood around the kitchen, and everyone stared at me. Or actually, everyone stared at the sheriff.
It was kind of creepy.
“You guys, it’s fine. I’m sure he just wants to talk about the whole saving the guy’s life thing,” I said.
“You’ve saved a lot of lives, Sebbie—which one do you mean this time?” Josh asked.
Ohhh, that was kinda snarky for Josh. I wanted to turn around and give Josh a little golf clap for being that sassy to a law enforcement agent.
The sheriff didn’t look upset, though. “Sheriff McAllen from the next county over called and filled me in on what happened, and I wanted to check in. There’s no trouble or anything.”
I felt like the mood in the room relaxed a bit, then Toby piped in, “So do you often work between county lines with other departments, or is there a lot of interdepartmental animosity?”
I turned around, and sure enough, Toby had a pad and a pen out. I looked back at the sheriff and just rolled my eyes at Toby’s writer’s brain.
“I think I can answer questions on my own, you guys. It’s fine,” I told them. I grabbed onto Corbin’s hand, though, because I didn’t want him to think that meant thatheshould leave.
He seemed to take the hint, because he turned to look at Dexter and then Josh and Wilder. (Any look at Toby would have been lost on him, since he was busy writing stuff down.)
“Ok, we’ll head out. You call us if you need anything,” Wilder said. He walked by and put a hand on my shoulder, which was sort of nice, in, like, a fatherly kind of way. Josh gave my shoulder a squeeze as he walked by, too. Aww, they were so cute together. Dexter was leading Toby out, and he looked up long enough to say, “Drinks soon!” before they all walked out the door.
Thea followed behind them. “Not my circus,” she muttered, waving a hand at Jude and the sheriff.
“Bye, bestie!” I yelled out. “We’ll catch up and watch a bunch of 80s movies soon! Maybe we can give each other perms!”
I heard her snort of amusement, and then the door shut, and it was just Jude, Corbin, the sheriff, and me.
The sheriff looked over at Jude, who was still standing next to him and sort of hovering over him. Jude crossed his arms.
“My house, Walrus,” he mumbled.
The sheriff sighed and looked at me.
“Oh!” I said, realizing he was probably trying to respect my privacy. “I don’t mind if Corbin and Jude stay. I wouldn’t mind if they all stayed, but then Toby would ask a million questions, and Josh would get upset on my behalf because he’s a good friend like that, and I'd have to tease Thea about being besties, so we’d never stay on course. You’re just lucky the rest of the crew wasn’t here, or else you’d have to hear a diatribe on pumpkin spice while getting stared down by Aiden’s big ass dog, Fluffy.”
Corbin snorted a little laugh next to me, and I turned and smiled at him. Aww, I could make him laugh. He smiled at me, squeezing my hand again. Then I looked back at the sheriff.
“So, yeah, I don’t really remember what happened. Must have been low blood sugar or something, because it’s all kind of hazy. I left the shop because I didn’t feel well, and then I happened upon that house and must have heard yelling or something.” I shrugged.
The sheriff just stared at me. I could feel Corbin getting tense again.
“What exactly did you have questions about, or were you just checking in to see if Sebbie was doing alright?” Corbin asked.
“A little of both,” the sheriff admitted. “Have you had medical issues like that before?” he asked.
Awww, he was concerned about me. That was super sweet. I mean, I didn’t really know him that well, aside from his antics with Jude. He seemed like a really nice guy, though.
“I was sick a fair amount as a kid. Not like colds and stuff—I almost never got sick with that stuff. I’d sort of lose track of time, and I passed out a time or two. I was tired a lot, too. But I grew out of it, and we figured it was just being a kid or whatever.”
I’d had a fair number of health incidents as a child, but they weren’t regular or anything. They just sometimes randomly happened. My pediatrician had thought maybe I had some kind of sleep disorder, but we’d never gotten around to doing a sleep study, because it would go away and I’d be fine for stretches of time. And scheduling any pediatric specialty stuff was a nightmare—like, what good was an appointment a year away gonna do?
Anyway, it hadn’t really interfered with my life. My mom just told me I was a lucid dreamer, and that seemed to be enough explanation for her. And she said sometimes kids got tired, got random pains, or randomly felt dizzy or disoriented. It didn’tinterfere with my life and it wasn’t debilitating. She told me it was just “growing pains” and I was fine, and that she’d know if there was something wrong with me.
