As a teenager he’d lain awake so many nights listening to Taylor’s sleeping breaths, wishing he could just crawl into bed with him.
He wished he could tell his younger self about this moment, that one day they’d be curled together, hot and clammy, with no more secrets between them.
“Night,” Taylor whispered, kissing Johnny’s shoulder.
“Night,” he replied, already on the brink of sleep.
“My cock is fucking killing me.”
CHAPTER 27
GEAR UP
Taylor
Isla tookJohnny into the ID room—which was actually just a storage cupboard on the second-floor landing—where she set him up with a laptop and a cup of tea so he could stare at pictures of his potential attackers. She’d tried to make Taylor do it as well, but he’d nearly thrown the computer out of the window when their shitty little faces popped up on the screen.
Both he and Amil were pacing badly as they waited for Wendy to get back from the Magistrates’ Court, and he was pretty sure warrant hearings shouldn’t take so fucking long. People in curly white wigs were paid far too much to just sign a bit of fucking paper.
Isla got fed up and sent them both out to check on the hedgehogs, which were not doing so well in the sweltering British heat. “There you go, sweetheart,” Taylor said, placing some fresh water and a dish of cat food inside one of the hedgehog hotels. Reggie, who was one of the fattest hedgehogs Taylor had ever seen, looked up at him gratefully.
They did the rounds twice, checking on Jill on their way through, and creepy china cats aside, he found they didn’t evenneed an excuse to stop by for a glass of lemonade. She was happy to see them and utterly mortified by what had happened with the Love Dust, because as it turned out, her ‘gardener’ was actually a drug dealer from Liverpool who’d invited himself in one day and just never left.
Apparently, Jill’s poor fuchsias had never looked so unruly, so Amil dug some shears out of her shed and began hacking at them. Poor fuckers looked even worse afterwards.
Taylor still wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t an ex-drug dealer, because she did have a suspiciously large stash of strawberry sherbet that he was certain would go down nicely if cut with some cocaine.
When they returned to the station, Johnny was back in the report-writing room with Wendy sitting across from him looking very pleased with herself.
“Got it,” she said, waving a piece of paper above her head.
Taylor unzipped his stab vest. “The warrant?”
“Yep.AndFalkington have agreed to help us with the raid.”
Humming, Taylor hung his utility belt over the back of a chair and gave her a thumbs up. “Still got it, Wend.”
She pretended to brush something off her shoulder. “Of course I do. Nearly seventy-five and still charming the pants off magistrates.”
“Seventy-fucking-five?” Amil scoffed, his mouth hanging open. “Jesus, Wendy. We knew you were old, but notthatold.”
“Oh, piss off. I’ve still got the libido of an emperor penguin. Speaking of which…” She slid the papers onto Amil’s desk before resting an arm on Johnny’s shoulder. “Still up for our date?”
Johnny opened his mouth, but Wendy pressed a finger to his lips. “Now, I know you two are athing,but before you think about letting me down gently you should know that I’ve just bought a new dress that makes my baps look absolutely sensational.”
Johnny coughed, glancing at Taylor.
“Hell yeah, girl,” Taylor replied, tapping the desk with his knuckles. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world, would we, JP?”
Johnny scowled, then talk turned to Wendy’s tits, and how her ex-wife had talked her out of getting a boob job for her sixtieth birthday. “I made a whole PowerPoint presentation and everything,” she said, gesturing towards her chest. “But she just kept saying I’m perfect the way I am.”
Taylor crossed his arms and rested a foot against the desk. “Did you never just think maybe she was right?”
Wendy waved the comment away. “Oh please, who wants these wrinkly old Spaniel ears swinging in their face? Not me.”
Thankfully, Isla chose that moment to come clattering into the report-writing room. “A little help!” she said, dropping a circular riot shield onto the floor. Taylor had to stick his foot out to stop it rolling into the kitchen.
Isla huffed as she plopped a black tactical helmet into Taylor’s lap, and another into Johnny’s. That was followed by thethunkof a bright red battering ram dropping onto the desk—aka sixteen kilos of pure steel.
