“Awake but not yet operational,” she admits, sitting down at the table and taking the mug into her hands. I bring her the creamer from her fridge, my smile growing as she hums in approval as she takes a sip.
I grab a thermos and pour myself some coffee. Olivia perks up once she realizes I’m about to leave. She frowns, clearly disappointed, and boy, do I like this look on her—not that she’s sad, just that she is disappointed to be away from me.
In the past, when I’ve spent the night here in her guest room, she’s normally still in bed when I wake up to go to work. On the rare occasion that she’s awake, she waves me goodbye without a second glance. Today, she stands up and wraps theblanket around me, muttering into my shirt that she doesn’t want me to leave.
Me too, Liv. Me too.
“I can come over after work, if you’d like?” I tip her chin up until she looks up at me.
“I would.” A shy smile takes over her face.
I look down at her lips, not caring that there is a bit of drool crusted down the side of her chin, and say, “I like that I can kiss you now.”
“Me too,” she whispers, placing her hands on either side of my face and tugging me toward her.
LIV
Wren really did break my dishwasher. RIP Rinse Charming, the best coworker I’ve ever known.
Remind me to never trust her alone in my house ever again.
I baked Ms. Johnson a sourdough bread shaped as a gnome. Do you think if I gift it to her, she’ll finally be my friend?
*Photo of her smiling next to her gnome bread*
Well, that could have gone better with Ms. Johnson. Instead of saying thank you, she told me to quit stealing her customers . I made sure to shove the gnome bread, who I named Breadly Cooper by the way, into the ground next to her other creepy gnomes.
“Who’s got you tied to your phone today?” Rick asks.
I look over at him, clicking my phone off quickly so he can’tsee the stream of texts from Olivia on my screen, and eye him curiously. “Nobody.”
“Uh-huh. I don’t thinknobodymakes that stupid grin spread across your face like that,” he adds, poking my chest with his stubby finger.
I return my attention to the window, pretending to scope the area outside of the police car, since we’re supposed to be patrolling and all, but my heart isn’t into work today. I left my heart with a spunky redhead this morning, who—by the feel of my phone’s vibrations—is still blowing me up.
“You gonna check that?” Rick questions, a laugh hidden behind his words.
“Nah.” I shrug my shoulders, trying to look unfazed, when it’s silently killing me knowing Olivia is messaging me, and I haven’t had time to reply back to her. I don’t want her to think I’m ignoring her.
“Oh, look, there's Olivia,” he says, and my head whips so fast toward where he’s pointing there's a pop in my neck, and I wince in pain. Rick lets out a belly-shaking laugh as he sees my expression once I realize Olivia is not really there. “You should see your face.”
“You should see what my fist feels like,” I grumble and slump down into my seat.
He raises one bushy eyebrow as he asks, “So, when did things change between you two?”
“I don’t?—”
“I’m not stupid. I could tell the second you walked through those doors this morning that something good happened to you. And with how much you’ve been smiling down at your phone, where I saw Olivia’s name on the screen, I put two and two together.”
“You’re the nosiest partner I’ve ever had.”
Rick laughs again, and I find it challenging to hold back my smile. I turn in my seat and decide to fill him in on everything that happened over the weekend, including the talk that I wasable to have with my father and the information he gave to me about the criminals we can finally try to put away.
He listens quietly, focusing his attention on driving, nodding his head or giving me a hum of approval from time to time. Once I’m finished, I sit back in my seat and release an exhale, thankful to have that off my chest.
“Sounds like one heck of a weekend,” he finally says, a grin lifting up his mustache.
“Yeah. It was.”
