I grimaced. “I’m not like them.”
He rolled his eyes. “I think it has a lot to do with how you’re raised. Dad would never allow us to be a bunch of dumbasses.”
That was true. My father—and even my mother—would’ve kicked our asses if we’d ever done some of the stupid shit that we heard kids are doing lately.
Chapter 13
Cool story, bro. In what chapter do you shut the fuck up?
-Perry’s secret thoughts
Perry
Meeting Banner’s brother and sister-in-law felt a whole lot like meeting the parents—at least, what I assumed it would feel like if I was meeting his parents.
Ashe, Banner’s sister-in-law, smiled at me warmly and offered me her hand.
I blinked, surprised to see her in a police uniform.
“You’re… you are a police officer?” I asked curiously.
She grinned. “Not so much anymore… or well, ever. I’m more of a detective slash criminal psychologist. I stay more at the station nowadays than I do anything else.”
She patted her belly for emphasis.
She was really pregnant. I could see how she wouldn’t want to be doing the things that officers did, that was for sure.
“That’s good,” I said as I stared at her. “Do you know what you’re having yet?”
She patted her belly again and looked over at her husband. “We’re told it’s a boy. Ford here is still holding out for a girl.”
Ford rolled his eyes. “It’s just that I don’t think I can handle a kid like you. And you damn well know that he’ll act exactly like you. There’s only so much my heart can take.”
Banner snorted. “You should’ve thought about that before you knocked her up.”
Ford threw a breadstick at Banner’s face.
Banner caught it, bit into it, and went back to perusing the menu.
I grinned then went back to looking at mine, trying to decide between the chicken alfredo and the lasagna.
“The lasagna is on special tonight,” Ashe said as she pointed toward the specials. “It’s really good. But so is the alfredo. Oh, gosh. I can’t pick either.”
“Get both and split it,” Banner suggested.
My brows went up and I looked over at Ashe. “I’m down if you are.”
She fist-pumped, causing me to snicker.
“How old are you?” Ford asked her.
Ashe stuck her tongue out at her husband. “Stuff it, Mazda.”
I blinked. “Mazda?”
“Ashe likes to come up with funny names to call Ford when she’s annoyed with him. He really doesn’t like it when she calls him Prius,” Banner murmured around another bite of bread.
“What can I get everybody?” the waitress asked as she finally came over.
“I’d like two sweet teas. An order of mozzarella sticks. A potato-whatever soup. A salad. Oh, and also I’d like the Italian sampler,” Banner said, handing her his menu.
The woman blinked.
“He just came from football practice,” Ashe tried to explain. “He’s a hungry, growing boy.”
The waitress, who didn’t look like she was much older than us, smiled. Her eyes lingered on Banner, then moved to Ford. “Are you two brothers?”
“Sisters,” Banner teased.
Ashe choked on her breadstick, and I covered my face with the menu.
“Umm, okay,” the waitress said. “What can I get you?”
This time it was directed at Ford, who completely missed everything that was going on because he was still looking at his menu. “Can you do them first? I don’t quite know what I want.”
The waitress reluctantly turned her eyes to me, and I ordered the lasagna. Ashe ordered the alfredo, leaving Ford to frantically look through the menu.
“Just get him the sampler, too.” Banner rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Ford. You get the same thing every time you go to an Italian restaurant.”
Ashe started to giggle again, making me smile right along with them.
I loved their brother dynamic they had going on.
It made me wish that I had a sibling instead of being an only child.
The rest of dinner went great, and sharing half of my meal with Ashe worked out really well, giving me the best of both worlds.
“You know, if you’d gotten the sampler, you could’ve had them both anyway, plus some chicken,” Banner pointed out when I finally pushed my plate a bit away from me indicating I was done.
I looked at the massive plate, then to him.
“I don’t have room for that amount of food in my body,” I told him. “And honestly, I’m not sure where you’re putting it all.”
Banner grinned. “I’m a growing boy.”
He sure was that.
“So, Perry,” Ford said as he sat back, having finished his meal five minutes before me. “How did you meet Banner?”
“School, dumbass,” Banner said around a mouthful of salad.
I grinned and turned my gaze back to Ford.
God, if this was what Banner was going to grow up to look like—not that he wasn’t attractive as hell already—then I’d be screwed.
“We met at school,” I replied, leaving off the ‘dumbass.’ “Though, mainly it was just that we kept running into each other. Then he found out that I walked to school most days, and then offered to start picking me up.”
“Why do you walk?” Ashe asked, twirling a noodle on her fork, looking as if she wanted to finish it but couldn’t.
“My mom works at the school, and my dad works at Eastman. They both are gone pretty early, and unless I want to ride to school with them then…” I let the words trail off, causing Ford to grin.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to get up any earlier than I had to, either,” he said. “It’s bad enough now when I get a SWAT call in the middle of the night.”
“Just wait until that baby gets here,” Banner said as he groaned and leaned back in his chair, his hands on his belly. “You’ll never be able to sleep again.”
Ford grimaced.
“Maybe he’ll be a perfect little angel and he’ll sleep through the night from the moment he gets home,” I offered.
Ashe grinned swiftly at me. “I really like you. Have I told you that yet?”
I felt myself blush at her words. “Um, no. No, you haven’t.”
Ford wrapped his beefy arm around Ashe’s shoulder, and I wondered how long they’d known each other. It couldn’t have been long. They acted like they were still so in love. Didn’t that type of thing stop after they’d known each other a long time?
I mean, Jesus. Every time I saw Banner I got butterflies in my belly, and my tongue started to twist and tie.
How would I be able to function if I didn’t eventually get used to him being around me?
I mean, right now, he wasn’t exactly far away, but he wasn’t close.
Hell, he wasn’t even touching me. Yet, it was the anticipation of the touch—he did every time he reached for a new breadstick—that was getting me now.
Jesus, what was my deal?
I swallowed hard and picked up my glass of sweet tea, taking a healthy swallow of the sweet elixir before looking over to Ford.
“So you’re on the SWAT team?” I asked.
He nodded once. “Yeah, for about a year now.”
“Do you like it?” I asked. “My dad said that the old SWAT team retired.”
Ford turned his eyes toward me fully. “They retired about a year ago when we started. There are twelve members in total now, with more trying to get on it every day. But the program to get into it is pretty rigorous, and not everyone can pass the tests.”
“What makes them so hard?” I asked curiously.
“The agility test, mostly. Just things that they have to be able to do but can’t,” he answered.
“They have to do a 5K run in under twenty-three minutes. They have to be able to carry a two-hundred-po
und dummy, either by dragging or hefting it over their shoulders, for fifty yards. They have to be able to climb a rope—I think fifteen times. Then they have to be able to shoot center mass, within about I think five inches of a target’s heart—or where it would be if there was one—for two full magazines out of a police-issued weapon.” Ashe paused. “And that’s just the first of the tests. If they make it past that round, they have more stuff to do. But I never made it past that round to know for sure. Ford has yet to tell me because he doesn’t want me trying out again.”
My brows rose. “You tried out?”
She shrugged her shoulders, patting her belly. “Well, right before I became pregnant I was going to, but when I practiced the dummy drag, I knew it wasn’t happening. And I knew it would give GMC heart palpitations if I actually became a SWAT member.”
I snickered. “What made y’all come up with a time of twenty-three minutes for a 5K?”
“The local college, I think,” Ford murmured as he took a bite of his bread. “They went up to the boys football team and tested some of the running backs. For the SWAT team, you want someone that’s really in shape and can do the manual labor that may or may not be needed of them during a call. I think the twenty-three-minute time cap was just basically the mid-level time that some of them could run it in.”
I grinned. “I’m not sure if I can do a rope climb. I’ll have to give it a try. But I think I might be able to do the rest.”
Banner’s hand touched my thigh underneath the table, making a small gasp leave my throat.
“I think you have to be twenty-one to even consider being on the SWAT team,” he teased.
I felt heat hit my cheeks at his closeness.
And when I expected him to pull away from me after that little comment, he didn’t.
He stayed exactly where he was, making things clench inside of me in anticipation.
Oh, and also, those butterflies? They were now a swarm, migrating south at a lightning speed.
“You could probably do it.” I bumped him with my shoulder. “What do you want to do when you’re older?”
Ford leaned forward as if he was interested in that answer himself.
“I always assumed he was going to go to college for football,” Ashe said as she leaned back in her chair, her eyes on Banner.
Banner grinned at her. “I might. Or I might not. I’m not one hundred percent sure yet what exactly I want to do. I just know that I’m interested in becoming a police officer one day. I’m not sure when I want to do that, though. Football would be nice… but that’s not the way I see myself leaning.” He turned to stare at me. “What about you?”
I grinned. “Adoption. I want to do something with social work, or helping children get adopted.”
“Why’s that?” Ashe asked curiously.
I turned to her to answer, but before I could, Banner answered for me.
“Perry was adopted as a young girl,” he said. “Her dad told me that they drove all the way to fuckin’ Canada for her.”
“Wow,” Ashe said. “Canada? That’s a long way away. Did you know that you were adopted when you were younger?”
I snickered. “Um, yes. It was kind of hard for it not to be a secret. I’m half Asian. My biological mother was white. My mom and dad now don’t look like me. My dad is from Texas with red hair and blue eyes. And my mother is African American. Needless to say, that wasn’t a secret that they could keep.”
Ford grinned wickedly. “I would think not.”
Damn, his grin was almost as good as Banner’s.
Almost being the operative word.
“That sounds like a great job to have,” Ashe said. “I started to look into criminal psychology around your age. Though, my best friend dying was a major reason why that was the case.”
Ford leaned over and placed his lips on her temple, whispering something into her ear.
I felt an irrational urge to look away, thinking that their moment was something intensely private, and I shouldn’t be witnessing it.
Banner, not realizing the moment they were having, tossed another breadstick at Ford’s face.
“Did you tell Ashe that Mom and Dad were coming into town this weekend?” he asked.
Ford shook his head. “Haven’t had a chance.” He turned to his wife. “My parents are coming into town this weekend.”
I snickered at the look on Ashe’s face.
Banner curled his arm around the back of the booth, his fingers going to a stray lock of hair that’d escaped my ponytail.
I leaned my head more toward him and grinned when I saw the waitress walking toward us with her arms loaded down with enough dessert to feed a family of eight, not just four.
Plates were set down, and sadly Banner returned to his own side of the table.
But something weird happened.
When he was done—which was amazingly before the rest of us—he returned to his earlier position. This time, he actively started to tug my hair free of my ponytail.
I looked over at him with amusement as he tugged a bigger lock free and started to twirl it around his big finger. The funny thing was, he wasn’t even paying attention to me. It was as if he was absently doing it as he spoke at length with his brother about a SWAT call he’d gone on earlier in the week.
By the time dinner was done, I was more than ready to go home and change out of my clothes.
That, and I was tired.
Today’s game was an intense one, and I’d played the entire game. My knees were hurting, and my hip was bruised. I needed to ice it down.
But I didn’t want Banner to leave.
I wanted him to come with me.
So thirty-five minutes later, when he pulled up in front of my house, I was reluctant for him to go.
But, seeing as it was already half past nine, I didn’t have much of a choice.
Covering up my disappointment as best as I could, I got off the bike and handed him the helmet.
“Keep it,” he said. “That way when I pick you up tomorrow, you’ll have it.”
His eyes went to the porch and I turned to see my dad standing there, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
Feeling my cheeks heat, and thankful that it was dark, I tucked the helmet under my arm and leaned a bit into him.
“I’ll see you in the morning?” I asked hopefully.
His grin was swift. “Yep.”
Chapter 14
Some people should use a glue stick instead of Chapstick.
-Banner’s secret thoughts
Banner
I watched as she turned and made her way to the front porch where her father was standing.
Once she got to him, I waved and started my bike before walking it backward out of the driveway.
Once on the street, I accelerated sedately, not wanting her father to think that I drove like a bat out of hell.
I waited until I was a good five blocks away before I did any fast driving, making it the other ten minutes home in the time it took me to go the five blocks.
When I pulled into my driveway, I waved at my brother who was for some reason mowing the lawn in the dark.
Getting off the bike, I hustled up to my door and went inside, feeling restless and edgy.
I hadn’t wanted to leave her.
In all honesty, I had a million things I needed to do—a paper being one of those million things. A paper that was due in two days.
Yet, I didn’t care.
Taking a shower, I thought about nothing but the way that Perry felt up against me.
My cock was hard as granite when I finally got out of the shower, and I nearly turned around and went back inside to take care of it. But then I thought better of it seeing as it’d probably end up like the day before.
I’d come, but it hadn’t lasted long.
I felt like a randy little bastard. I’d come more since I’d met Perry than I have my entire teenage existence.
My phone vibrated on the counter, and I walked over to it with water still heavily dripping off of my body.
I grinned when I saw Perry’s name.
Reaching backward for the towel, I started to dry off with one hand while I used the other to open my phone.
What I saw made my breath hitch.
It was a photo of her in her bra and panties—though you couldn’t see anything from her hips down—but still. I could fucking see her panties.
The caption said ‘ouch.’
And I could see the bruise already forming on her hip.
But Jesus Christ. She was standing there in a bra and panties.
My dick that was already hard as fuck got even harder.
Groaning, I replied back.
Banner: That wasn’t nice.
Perry: What?
Banner: I’m a seventeen-year-old guy. Figure it out.
Perry: :P
Putting my phone down on the counter, I went to dress and decided to just do underwear for now.
Then, a thought coming at me, I sent her almost the same photo she’d just sent me.
I still had water droplets dripping down my chest, but I didn’t care.
Hitting send, I went to find a pair of sweatpants, pulled them on and went to my shelf and reluctantly pulled out the shit I would need to write my paper.
It was about an hour into the paper that I realized I’d left my phone on the counter in the bathroom.
Tired of writing the paper and thinking that I really needed to take a break anyway, I made my way to the bathroom, grinning when I saw the four texts from Perry.
Perry: Okay, now I know what you meant.
Perry: That was really mean.
Perry: You really have a lot of abs.
Perry: I think I’m…
Dying to know what she would’ve finished that sentence with, I quickly texted her back.
Banner: I think I’m…what?
It took her so long to reply that I was able to finish up the rough draft on my paper.
After hitting the final period, I felt my phone vibrate again.
Perry: I really don’t think I should answer that. I’m embarrassed that I even sent it to begin with.
Now I was really intrigued.
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