Chapter 4

"You did what?" I ask, slamming my hand on the desk between Chase and me. I grip the desk. If I don't, I'll punch the grin off his face.

"I ate it."

"It was in the trash."

"Yeah, but there was nothing else in the trash. It wasn't like there were used tissues or a stiff sock in there. It was still in the plastic case. I just pulled it out, took it home, and ate it after dinner. Slept like a fucking baby. You should try her stuff, man."

"I would never. We can't take drugs. We're the drug task force. What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I was thinking I wanted that cupcake the same legal way you went home and had a Bud Light."

"We haven't spent the last several years of our lives fighting Bud Light."

"Don't we always kind of fight Bud Light every time we pull over someone we think is drunk?" he asks, the grin still nailed onto his face.

I curl my lip. "We don't do that very often unless it's obvious. We aren't beat cops. We're the drug task force. We fight drugs. We don't swoon over their chocolatey goodness."

"Oh, it was fucking good. You should try it. Where did you say she parks? Because I have half a mind to go find this woman, pick her up in my arms, and take her to my man lair to make love to her. I'll keep her there, treating her like a princess forever, and let her bake all manner of things for me. I bet she's good at pie. Does she have pie?"

"I don't fucking know."

"I can imagine her rolling back and forth over the dough, her blond hair…" He trails off and looks at the wall behind me. "You said she was blond, right?"

"Strawberry blond," I grunt.

"I can see her rolling out that dough with her strawberry blond hair down." He stands in front of his desk, thrusts his hips like he's got a woman bent over the desk, and pretends he's rolling dough with a rolling pin. "The sun glistening off the crown of her head like she's a drug angel of the Lord."

"You're a foul human."

"When she's bad and adds too much cannabutter, I'll smack her rosy, little bottom like the naughty girl she is," he says, swatting the air and biting his lip. A female officer walks by and blushes, but he ignores her. "No jail for her. Only spankings with Daddy's bare hand. If she's blond, she probably has pale skin that'll show a red handprint on her ass, huh?"

I look down and will my burgeoning erection to go away at the thought of spanking Lorelei's ass. Not that I've seen her ass, but I've definitely imagined it. In the shower last night. In my bed this morning. I even got a boner while I was pushing the shopping cart around the grocery store and saw the bakery section.

I don't want to think about Chase's hand on her ass, though. Only my hand.

Fuck, this is a disaster. I shouldn't have gone back there. What was I trying to prove?

I'll also never admit that she was right. We have a huge meth issue, even in the suburbs, and I'm measuring her weed permit infractions when it's legal now. Logically, I know this, but I had to prove a point. All I ended up doing is fining a woman I really want to ask to dinner.

And fuck, I wanted to put my index finger out and pull up the fabric of her t-shirt over that bra strap so no other man could see it. The urge was so strong that I had to grip that fucking ticket pad or my hands would be all over her. Nothing like getting fired for using my position to assault a hot pot baker.

I put my head in my hands just as Chase walks off for another cup of coffee, laughing to himself. Why did I go back to her truck? What did I hope would happen? That she'd smile at me, and she'd be toothless? That she'd come out of the truck barefoot with feet riddled in bunions? Not that women with multiple bunions aren't worth a jerk-off session, but it would have helped the frequency to which I've touched myself to Lorelei since I saw her Friday night. My dick has a mild chafe, and I'm about ready to take a page out of my mother's book and dip into the Crisco.

Shit! I forgot to call Mom.

I hammer out her number on the work line, and it rings twice before she picks up. "How's my baby boy?" she coos. It doesn't matter that I'm thirty-three. My mother still thinks of me as four years old.

"Hi, Mom. How was your weekend since I saw you Saturday?"

"I'm feeling a little low."

"Nausea?"

She makes a humming sound. "It's much worse this time around. I hate complaining, though. How was your Saturday and Sunday?"

What do I say? That I went to a movie by myself on Sunday and did a couple drives by a house we're watching for work? That I went to Costco for a hotdog for dinner and thought about how nice it would be to have someone to take to a nice dinner or even cook for more than one person?

Mom talks to me about a recipe she's trying and invites me by for Friday after work, and I hang up after promising to replace her library books before I come over. I get through my workday, do my best to ignore the fuckface across the desk from me, and drive home under the speed limit. It's this thing I do when I have a bad day. I drive five miles under the speed limit and watch as everyone else slows down, not wanting to pass the cop. It gives me a tickle. Even though I don't have a beat cop cruiser, the black sedan with lights in the windshield looks official enough that people know they don't want to be pulled over by me.

I come into my apartment and sit on my Ikea couch with a sigh, cracking open a beer and not even bothering to turn on the TV or remove the badge in my belt. Mom's right. I'm fucking sad. My whole life is depressing.

I stand up and cross the room to my mantle to look at the pictures and ponder what they say about my life. A picture of Mom and me at a waterpark when I was fourteen sits front and center. No dad. No siblings. It was just us from the time Dad pulled the stereotypical walk out in the ruse of going to the store for milk. I run my finger over her face in the picture. I don't know what I'd do if I lost her. I don't have any other family except for some cousins I barely know scattered across the Southwest. The cancer came back, but the doctors say it looks good for remission.

If we can just get through the horrible chemo side effects, she'll be fine.

The other pictures are depressing. My old dog, Colonel, looks up at a younger me in a rusty frame I've had since I was a kid. He died right after I graduated from the academy, and starting a new career wasn't a good time to go to the shelter and get another dog. I close my eyes and remember what it felt like to run my hands through his Australian Shepherd mix fur. I blink away the water forming in my eye and move to the next photo.

A picture of me in a tux and my high school best friend, Amanda, going to prom always makes me smile. Tears fill my eyes for real now. She died from an overdose at her first college party. Maybe that's why I hate drugs so much. She only tried it one time. That's all it took. Some people can use for years and will be fine after a good colon cleanse and a week of fresh air at a Colorado rehab center.

Others aren't so lucky, and she was one of the unlucky ones.

It was cocaine. The rumor is that it had something else in it. Who knows? Everyone else at the party that shared the same lines was fine. Her family speculated there was an underlying heart issue she didn't know about. Whatever it was, she's gone, and I wish I could hug her again before strangling her for trying that shit.

Everyone leaves my life. Sure, I've dated a few girls, but none of them made me feel anything more than mild curiosity about their favorite foods. I've experienced lust and certainly take the edge off with an attractive woman when the opportunity presents itself, not even caring when they leave the next morning. But I've never met anyone that's taken my breath away and kicked me in the ass at the same time.

So, why can't I get a drug-pushing baker out of my damn mind?

It has to be simple lust. I've barely talked to her and only seen her twice. It's probably some scientific pheromone bullshit, like what Chase believes in.

I go back to the couch and stare at the wall, hating the silence in my head more than ever. Without stopping myself, I pull my ticket pad out of my side pocket and flip to Friday's ticket. Lorelei Rogers. I say it once under my breath. My finger traces her printed name, then finds her signature where I made her sign the triplicate form. Once I moon over the curly g in her signature, I slide my eyes to her address.

I found it in the system when I prepared her ticket. I always go into a situation prepared, and I knew I'd find an infraction. There are so many rules with growers and sellers now, and it's hard to walk the tightrope and follow them all. I knew damn well I'd get her on something, and I think about her address for the first time since I wrote it.

She lives on Caldwell Avenue and only a couple of miles from me. I know the neighborhood. Middle class. Low drug activity, which is the best any neighborhood could ask for. Even in upper-class neighborhoods, there's a heroin house.

I pull my phone out and tap her address into Google Maps. When I flip to the street view, a laugh bubbles in my chest. I'm not sure why I repress it. I'm alone and can't be judged like I would be at the precinct.

There she is. The Google car drove by to take the street view picture of a modest white bungalow with petunias lining the front sidewalk. Lorelei is out front by a black mailbox and making a thumbs-up motion and smiling as the car drives past, clearly posing for the street view picture. A dog, probably the same puppy on her website, sits dutifully at her feet and watches as the car passes. Looking closer, her dog looks like a mix. A lab mixed with rottweiler?

She adopts. She's not someone that wants a certain breed and pays hundreds of dollars for a dog. Her lawn is well-maintained. Then again, most drug dealers are functional and put on a show for their neighbors. Her hair is in a high ponytail in the picture, and the urge to reach into the picture and pull the elastic band out so I can see her hair fall over her shoulders hits me like a punch to the chest.

Before I can stop myself or question what I hope to glean from the outing, my hand is turning my doorknob and searching my pocket for car keys.

A simple drive by her house can't hurt, right?