Johnny’s mouth twitched. “Yeah? What happened there, by the way?”
Taylor took a long slurp of Coke, then grimaced. “Ugh, they’ve given me diet. Disgusting.”
“Tay?”
“Oh, just… you know. Not really feeling it.”
Johnny let out a breath. “Why not?”
Taylor paused, half a pancake hanging out of his mouth. Inhaling through his nose, he closed the food carton and rested both hands on top of it.
Why hadn’t he been feeling it? She was hot and nice, and up until stepping into Theo’s kitchen she’d seemed like she was up for it. Except, his cockdefinitelyhadn’t been.
He shrugged. “Dunno. I was more worried about you, I think.”
Johnny looked surprised at that, but carried on staring at the road.
Taylor was about to crack on with the hash browns when his phone started ringing and Isla’s name popped up on the car’s multimedia display. He and Johnny glanced at each other, because a call from the sergeant at 6:30 am was never a good sign.
“Sargie,” Taylor said, voice only cracking a little as he pressed answer.
“Oh, you’re actually up.” She sounded mildly surprised.
“Of course we are,” he replied, forcing himself to sound chipper.
It was unnecessary, because he and Isla had had a nice long chat about all his little ‘quirks’ the day before, and she had assured him that so long as he put on a friendly face to the public he could be as weird as he liked around her and the team.
Well, that was easier said than done.
“Good,” she said, letting out a long sigh. She sounded exhausted. “Would you and John-Paul mind coming in early? We’ve got reports of someone on the roof of Turtle Doves. The fire brigade are on their way with the lift, but they’re refusing to engage in case the kid jumps.”
“Kid?” Taylor said, dropping his Coke into the cup holder and sitting up straight.
“Yeah. Smoking weed. They’ve barricaded the door so the care staff can’t get to the roof.”
Johnny sighed and raked a hand over his face. He gave Taylor a look that said,You aren’t getting out of our little talk, you know?
To which Taylor narrowed his eyes and said, “We’re on our way, Sarge.”
CHAPTER 14
ROOF EXTRACTION
Taylor
By the timethey reached the station and dragged their kits on, Amil was so wound up Taylor thought he was about to have a brain aneurysm.
“Why do you always take so fucking long to arrive?” he said, looking the two of them up and down with so much disdain it was like they’d just taken a shit in his locker.
Taylor scoffed, checking his phone. “Dude, it isn’t even eight. Untwist your knickers.” His gaze slid to Johnny. “Amil isn’t a morning person. Can you tell?”
Amil stamped a foot. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”
Taylor grinned and ruffled his hair. “Yeah, yeah. Good morning to you too.”
“There he is,” Wendy said, giving Johnny’s arm a quick squeeze as she glided through the door. “Going to need a touch-up later, baby-cakes,” she grinned, waving her hand in front of Taylor. “Got another date.” Her nails were chipped to shit.
“What the hell have you been doing, Wend?”
