“Markland! Slade! In my office!”
Chief Bibb. Shit.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m horny,” Maddox said, yawning. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be at the brothel across the street.”
Buck blinked. “There’s a brothel across the street?”
“Well, technically, it’s a nail salon, but don’t bother, Buck. You can’t afford those nice ladies, anyway.”
Jordan
“What did I say?” Chief Bibb bellowed. “No more arguing! No more bickering! How many times do I have to repeat myself?”
I bowed my head, staring at the breadcrumbs on the floor under the chief’s desk. I didn’t bother replying because this wasn’t the first time we had debated this subject, and I hadnothing new to add. Adam, who sat in the chair next to me, looked equally uncomfortable. Why?
Chief Bibb was usually a chill guy. He was stern but fair. A bit old-fashioned, perhaps, but he got the job done, and his colleagues respected him for it. Still, whenever he got angry, his eyes would bulge in a way that reminded me of those creepy figurines everyone was buying for Halloween. It was why no one liked to see him mad, not even the prick of magnanimous proportions called Adam “The Scarface” Markland.
“What am I running here?” Chief Bibb yelled. “A kindergarten? A boarding school for girls? A circus? How old are you two imbeciles? I’ll answer that. One of you is almost thirty, and the other one is way over thirty, which means you’re too old for this shit!”
I glanced at Adam, who was staring at the wall, his face impassive. As if he felt my eyes on him, he squirmed in his seat, looking as if he’d suddenly developed a rash. Well, fuck him, because the feeling was mutual.
“One more time,” Chief Bibb threatened, pointing a finger at us. “One more incident and I will make sure that you—”
When his phone rang, he answered with a shout. “What?”
I was relieved he wasn’t glaring at me anymore, but it hardly made me feel better. When I looked at Adam, his eyes were on me.
“Stop watching me,” he growled.
“You’re the one who’s watchingme,” I said through my teeth, flinching when Chief Bibb slammed the phone down.
“There’s a robbery in progress on Sycamore Street,” he huffed. “Are you going to just sit here, or, God forbid, do something about it?”
Both Adam and I swiftly stood up, eager to escape his creepy eyes.
“Why aren’t the uniforms handling that, Chief?” I asked him, despite my better judgment.
“Because they’re not pissing me off. You two are.”
“Can I go with Buck instead?” Adam said when Chief Bibb slammed his fist on the table.
“Cut it out, Markland! You’re going with Slade, and that’s that. Keep pissing me off, and I’ll make sure you two spend every moment of every day attached to each other’s ass. After I’m done with you, you won’t know where one begins and the other one ends.”
I cringed. Adam gagged. Chief Bibb drank his green protein smoothie, and that was that.
One failed robbery later, I found myself in a car, waiting for Adam “The Scarface” Markland so that we could go home. Why Scarface? As one would expect, because of the scar that ran from his temple to his chin, straight as if someone had used a ruler to shape it. If it weren’t for that scar, you would probably call Adam Markland pretty. Not like fashion models were pretty, or sculptures from art books. He was handsome in a rugged, manly way that made him stand out in a crowd, and the scar only elevated it. Everything about him was too much. His forehead was too high, his cheeks too sharp, his hair too dark, and his eyes too blue. He was a list of imperfections, but put together, they made him look striking. So, yeah, sometimes I stared at him, but only because I couldn’t figure his face out. Other than that, he was a mountain of a man, as wide as he was tall. He had the biggest hands I’ve seen on a person, and his fists could do serious damage. How come my nose knows what his fist felt like? Because sometimes Adam Markland made me lose it. Fly off the handle. Go off the deep end… that sort of thing.
Usually, I had myself under control ninety-nine percent of the time. I rarely overreacted, and I avoided conflict of any kind. I seldom lost composure and preferred blending into thebackground. As a rule, I got along with people, but for some reason, Adam Markland hated me from the moment he met me. It was an anomaly that I couldn’t explain, and if I were being honest, something that bothered me immensely.
Why, though? Everyone liked me. Ever since I was a child, I’ve had my pick of friends. My neighbors and my teachers praised me alike, and even the girls started noticing me while I was still a clumsy, shy teen. My mother was a schoolteacher, and my father a decorated army lieutenant. They got me after five miscarriages, so to say they doted on me would be an understatement. They loved me and gave me everything a child could wish for, but more importantly, they raised me right.
After college, I decided to become a soldier, like my father. I enrolled in officer school, after which I served two tours in the Sommet province. When shrapnel hit my spine, almost crippling me, I had to consider other career options. My commanding officer suggested law enforcement, which sounded like a good idea. To say that my career took a strange turn when I ended up in the LD would be putting it mildly.
Adam “The Scarface” Markland was a jerk to me from the start. Truth be told, he was a jerk to everyone, but he would become extra mean when I was concerned. At first, I was just taking it and kept my mouth shut, but after a while, he started getting under my skin. On a few occasions when he made me lose it, punches were exchanged. I wasn’t proud of it, but he was getting on my last nerve.
Funnily enough, I didn’t even dislike him. In fact, when I first met him, I thought he was the most interesting person I’d ever met. He was grumpy and ill-humored, but in a cuddly sort of way, like a large, huggable bear. To be honest, I couldn’t stop staring at him in those early days. Everything about him fascinated me... from the way his dark hair would fall over his forehead, hiding his sky-blue eyes, to the way he would smirkafter getting lost in thought. Those smirks became my obsession, consuming my every thought, because... what could make that surly man smile?
So, yeah, he fascinated me from the start, but then he spoke, and things went downhill after that. I tried not to hate him because I was better than that, but he was wearing me down with his “weirdo, this” and “weirdo, that” shit. I tried to ignore him, which was equally impossible. Every word out of his mouth, every gaze directed at me, made me feel elated, no matter how rude he would get. Nevertheless, things would be fairly simple if it weren’t for one little, or maybe not so little, fact. The first time his sky-blue eyes found mine, Adam Markland gave me an erection.
