Fries Before Guys

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “I like shooting everything,” she admitted. “But my absolute favorite to shoot is a little morbid.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “I like to take photos of memorial stuff,” she said. “Like at my father’s funeral. My most shared photo on my Facebook is a picture of my father’s coffin draped in the flag. I liked taking the photos of the women getting handed the flag after their husband died. Stuff like that.”

  “Why?” I wondered.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just… I feel like it’s peaceful. That the man/woman is finally at peace. Finally away from this world of such uncertainty.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  It was a bit morbid, but also kind of sweet.

  “What’s your second favorite?” I asked.

  “Babies,” she explained. “They’re just so innocent and unused to the cruelness of the world. They have no idea what’s in store for them. And they’re so trusting of everyone. They have no idea the harm that can be done to them.”

  That I agreed with.

  I’d seen a lot over my years in the military, and even more over the last six months of being a cop for the KPD. Children were so trusting. Babies especially.

  I turned down the street that would lead to Avery’s place and started searching for her house.

  “Why is it so dark?” I asked as I tried to see into the darkness.

  “The streetlight is out,” she answered. “Been out for a couple of weeks now.”

  I grunted out a wordless reply and finally found the entrance to her driveway.

  “That’s not very safe, Avery,” I said. “You should call the city and have them…”

  “Don’t you think that I’m doing enough?!” she suddenly yelled. “I’ve been doing the best I fucking can! But Jesus Christ. It’s a streetlight. I have fucking shit water in my dad’s bathroom right now. I had to call a plumber out at three in the morning. Then I had to pay over eight hundred dollars to get it fixed only for him to tell me that it was only a matter of time before all of the plumbing underneath the house would need to be replaced.” She threw her hands up in the air. “And then, I’m getting ready to go to your sister’s wedding, and my car barely starts. But then I get all the way there only to find out that the battery is bad when I try to come home. How much is that going to cost?” She blew out a breath. “And tomorrow are my SATs, and I haven’t studied or anything. I’m barely passing my classes right now as it is because I can’t seem to find the fucking time, Derek! Having a photographic memory is useless when you can’t spare an hour to read the chapter. Or study for that matter.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  I had no idea.

  “And to make matters worse,” she continued. “I have three clients that haven’t paid me yet. That’s over eight hundred dollars that I desperately need. Yet, they’re ‘friends’ so they think it’s okay to wait. Because ‘I don’t need it.’”

  Avery immediately got out, but I stopped her retreat by calling her name before she could slam the truck door closed.

  I bailed out right after her, barely getting the truck into park before I was moving.

  As I met her around the front of my truck, I was about to tell her something, anything to get her to stay and talk to me just a little bit longer, when I heard a scrape of gravel in front of us.

  “You’re the fucking reason that I don’t have a million dollars right now!”

  Both Avery and I whipped around to see a man step into the halo my headlights made on the house.

  It took me all of a half second to process what was going on. There was a man standing with a shotgun in his hand, and it was pointed loosely at the woman at my side.

  “Avery,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “Back behind me.”

  She snorted, and not delicately.

  “Avery,” I whispered. “Please.”

  Avery didn’t move. She only stared at the man in front of her, eyes wide and surprised.

  Angry. God, she was so angry, too.

  I could see it in the way she held herself, and the way her jaw was clenched tight.

  “I could’ve had a million dollars,” he continued. “But you. You had to go and talk to my father. Tell him that you didn’t think I was responsible enough yet.”

  There was a long, silent pause as Avery and I processed that news.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Avery finally said.

  He shook the shotgun at her and laughed maniacally.

  “You don’t. Not yet. But you will,” he replied cryptically. “You’ve ruined my life, and now I’m going to ruin yours.”

  That’s when I realized that before, Avery hadn’t been angry.

  She’d been upset, yes. But I hadn’t quite seen her angry.

  “You’ve got to be joking,” Avery said with exceptional calm.

  “I’m not joking about shit,” the man hissed. “I was going to be a millionaire. We had it all planned out. We met your mom and dad, and life worked so well. Then my wife and I had this great idea. It was going to be perfect. We were going to get a million dollars when they each died. The plan wasn’t in place yet, so it all fell apart with your mom. Then we doubled our efforts with your dad. You owe me!”

  Avery looked just as confused as I felt.

  I reached forward and grabbed Avery’s wrist, hoping to calm her down. But my hand on her wrist only served to stiffen her spine even more.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Avery repeated. “You’re confusing me.”

  “I know what I’m talking about! I need that million dollars! I need it!” He shifted restlessly from foot to foot, becoming more and more agitated.

  “Avery, behind me,” I ordered.

  My heart was currently pounding out of my chest, and Avery was only getting more and more pissed the longer this went on.

  “You want to know what I really think, motherfucker?” Avery continued.

  I pulled her back until my arm was around her waist.

  But still, she didn’t stop.

  “I think you’re a useless piece of shit…”

  “Avery,” I hissed.

  She moved then, her face turning up to me.

  “How about you go fuck yourself, Mr. February,” she suggested quite succinctly. “And while you’re doing that, I’ll save myself.”

  She did this weird, twisting move then, and suddenly gun guy was on his back and Avery was pointing a shotgun at his head.

  “Don’t move or I’ll shoot,” she ordered. “You’re on my property. I have a right to defend myself if I fear for my safety. And honestly, I’ve already been fearing for my safety since you walked up. Don’t test me.” She kicked him when he went to move. “I’m really not joking,” she continued. “And by the way, I hope that you find a really incredible roommate that likes butt stuff when you get where you’re going. And, lastly, I hope you rot in jail.”

  Was it hot? Yes.

  But I had to keep telling myself that she was nineteen.

  Nine. Teen.

  A teenager.

  Avery Flynn was a fucking teenager.

  A still-going-to-high-school teenager.

  She took a year off when her mom died.

  Still a teenager.

  She’s very mature.

  A very mature teenager.

  She was so goddamn beautiful, though.

  Like steal your breath away, doesn’t act anything like a teenager, teenager.

  What teenager did you know volunteered at the volunteer fire department? Because I didn’t know any. Not until I saw Avery at a scene not too long ago.

  “Are you going to call this in, or do you want me to do that myself, too?” Avery asked.

  I allowed my gaze to slip from the dumbass who’d shown up here with a gun and a stupid attempt to get whatever ‘million’ dollars that Avery had of his and moved it to the woma
n who was still just as breathtaking now as she was at my sister’s wedding.

  “I’ll call it in,” I murmured, slipping my phone free of my pocket and calling it in.

  Thank God for waterproof cases.

  Chapter 3

  May your year be more ‘fuck yeah’ than ‘fuck this.’

  -Avery’s secret thoughts

  Avery

  My SAT went well.

  Well, as well as could be expected under the circumstances.

  I wasn’t upset when I came out of the double doors of the local college. I knew that I’d done as well as I could.

  I also knew that, given the circumstances, I could retake them.

  But… I didn’t want to.

  In fact, I wasn’t even sure that I was going to go to college after this.

  Ever since the calendars for the SWAT team had come out, I’d been inundated with requests for a photographer.

  I had a calendar that was so jam-packed that I was almost to the point where I was swamped.

  The only thing stopping me at this point was school.

  Which was where I was headed next.

  I’d had my first four periods off due to the half-semester exams being this week.

  And since I was done a little earlier than I expected, I was going to go to the counselor’s office and see what I could accomplish about switching my schedule around.

  I already had three off periods during the day. I had one bogus class that I had to retake, and I was making such high As in the class that I really didn’t see the point in attending.

  The only thing really fucking me over was gym. I was short two athletic hours, meaning that I had to go to class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for two hours a day. Once for a math class that I flunked by a point, and once for gym class that was a fuckin’ joke.

  Tuesdays and Thursdays I had a BCIS class for my computer course that I was required to take, and another bullshit elective class in the office that was just me doing a bunch of errands.

  The other hour I spent there consisted of lunch and then me leaving at one-thirty.

  My hope was that I could switch my schedule around to have two days completely off.

  I was so caught up in what I was doing and going to say to my counselor that I didn’t pay attention to the police cruiser in front of me until a loud brrrrp had me jumping three feet in the air.

  I turned, my glare ferocious, and saw Derek laughing his ass off in the front seat of his cruiser.

  “Bitch,” I muttered darkly, hurrying down the sidewalk.

  He rolled behind me, keeping the same pace as me.

  “Get in,” he said, rolling the window down.

  I rolled my eyes and ignored him.

  “Now why would I do a thing like that?” I asked acidly.

  God.

  Derek pissed me off.

  But he was also gorgeous as hell.

  Today he was in a black polo and a black ball cap.

  And the things that ball cap did to his jawline.

  I didn’t think the thing actually did anything to his jawline, but with the cap on his head, it made his jaw the first thing that I looked at.

  “Come on,” Derek urged. “I was going to give you a ride here this morning, but by the time that I got to your place, you’d already left. How did you get here?”

  I snorted. “I called a cab.”

  He came to a stop next to me and got out.

  “I was going to give you a ride.” He came around the front of the cruiser and blocked my path. “You didn’t think I’d seriously leave you to get here on your own, right?”

  I didn’t know what to think.

  I mean, logically I knew he’d give me a ride if I’d asked him. But I hadn’t asked him.

  In fact, I’d been downright mean to him yesterday.

  “Come on,” he urged. “What time do you have to be back at your school?”

  I reluctantly looked down at my watch and crinkled my nose. “In about an hour.”

  And that was to make it in time for my class. Not to talk to the counselor.

  “Then you can come sit at lunch with me and eat a sandwich,” he suggested, latching onto my wrist.

  I felt heat lick up my arm from where his whole hand engulfed half my arm and barely resisted the urge to shiver.

  “Let me go,” I ordered.

  Derek did, only after he led me to the passenger seat of his cruiser.

  “Come on,” he urged. “You know you’re hungry.”

  I wasn’t hungry.

  I was tired.

  I could eat, yes. But I would much rather take a nap than eat.

  “I’m actually more tired than hungry,” I sighed as I buckled my seatbelt and leaned my head against the door.

  “How about Subway?” he suggested.

  I wasn’t going to argue.

  In fact, I was going to rest my eyes and ignore him the entire way.

  Which was exactly what I did.

  Only, I hadn’t expected him to order food and get me to the school, all the while I was knocked the fuck out in his front seat.

  When he finally deigned to wake me, I jolted forward to find a sandwich in my lap and myself parked in the front of the school.

  I blinked blearily as I stared at the front doors of the school that was my life’s bane.

  Then sleepily turned my head to look at Derek.

  “I…” I was confused.

  “It sure doesn’t take you long to go to sleep,” he commented.

  I looked at the dashboard in front of me.

  “No,” I admitted. “I’m notorious for falling asleep. I’m a terrible navigator because I can’t seem to keep my eyes open. If I’m in a car and not driving for longer than five minutes, I’m going to be asleep. I don’t know why, either. Just something that I’ve always done.”

  He grinned. “That’s not totally a bad thing, I guess.”

  I shrugged, then looked at my watch.

  It’d been forty minutes.

  “You have enough time to eat,” he said. “Or go inside and do whatever it is one does before school.”

  “I have to go talk to the counselor,” I murmured softly. “I’m going to see if they can switch my classes around so that I’m not going to an hour of class here, and an hour of class there.”

  Derek seemed to understand, then gestured toward the sandwich. “Well take that and go then. I’ll be here tonight to pick you back up. Just be warned that it’s going to be on my bike, though.”

  “Your bike?” I asked, hand on the door handle to leave.

  “Yeah,” he confirmed. “I need to run it. And with it being so nice out today, I thought I’d take it for a ride after I dropped you off.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask for him to take me along for that ride, but then I remembered the last time that I’d asked him out. How he’d practically laughed in my face.

  So yeah, there would be no asking him to give me a ride on the back of his bike.

  “I can take the bus,” I told him honestly. “But thanks for the offer.”

  His eyes narrowed. “If you don’t meet me here after school lets out, I’ll pull every fuckin’ bus over looking for you.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Derek, I’m the first one off. By the time that you found out which bus it was that I was on, I’d already have been home for twenty minutes.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me, suddenly pissed. “I’m not letting you ride the fucking bus.”

  I snorted. “Derek, honey. You don’t have a choice in my life. You were the one to see to that.”

  With that, I waved my sandwich at him and took off, heading into the school.

  Ugh. Why did that man make me so fucking mad?

  He’d literally lost the chance to treat me like anything but a friend.

  ***

  Derek

  I’d played the system a bit and called to as
k when school let out. Then when I’d gotten there, I’d met with the school resource officer to help me find out what class Avery was in.

  Eventually when class did finally let out, I was waiting outside her classroom door for her to exit.

  She was the last one out, and where everyone else came out talking and laughing, Avery wasn’t doing either.

  And she was also all alone.

  I frowned when she didn’t first see me, following behind her as she made her way out of the school.

  Her eyes were downcast as she navigated the hallway, weaving in and out of the people there as if she didn’t want to be seen.

  The thing was, she wasn’t seen.

  It was like she was invisible.

  Today she wore a black pair of leggings, a black t-shirt that fit her but was still big, and a black pair of Keds.

  Her long black hair was up in a high ponytail and her glasses were purple.

  I didn’t know what it was about those purple glasses, but they’d driven me nuts when she was sitting in the front seat of my cruiser earlier.

  I moved through the throng of curious students as I followed behind my girl to the front doors.

  Once there, she hesitated.

  One way would lead her to the front where my bike was parked. And the other way would lead her to the back where the buses loaded.

  I could see the hesitation on her face so clearly that it made me smile.

  Finally, she turned right, which would lead her to the buses.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” I called out.

  She froze mid-step, turning around slowly to blink owlishly at me.

  Her mouth formed into a little tiny O, and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning wide.

  Her eyes narrowed at my smile and her arms crossed defiantly over her chest.

  The move put her breasts, which weren’t substantial by any means, on display. They were squeezed and pushed up, reminding me of the dress she’d had on last night.

  “What are you doing here, Roberts?” she snapped.

  I felt the kids around us start to take notice, as did she.

  She growled in frustration and turned on her heels, marching this time to the front where my bike was parked.

  She marched up to it and stopped, waiting for me to catch up.

  I wasn’t far behind when I reached around her and picked up the helmet off the seat.