by Mari Carr
Sunnie pursed her lips, trying not to laugh as her dad referred to them with the video’s descriptors. Now that she knew Landon wasn’t in trouble, she could relax. “He’s never going to live this down, is he?”
Dad grinned. “Probably not. The recording was uploaded by the reporter doing the ride-along.”
“Yeah. I figured as much.”
“So at least the captain had that guy to rake over the coals. The reporter got his ass handed to him this morning.”
“Good. Is Landon still at work?”
Dad shook his head. “No. I sent him home, suggested he lay low for the rest of the day. These viral things have to run their course. Hopefully, it will have blown over by tomorrow. So far, no one seems to have figured out who you are…outside of here and the precinct, anyway. The captain has threatened to fire anyone who leaks your name to the press.”
Sunnie laughed. “I bet he did.”
She got a sense her dad was waiting for her to mention the video, to offer some insight into the kiss, but she didn’t know what to say.
Mom came out of the kitchen. “There’s my star,” she said, giving Sunnie a kiss on the cheek.
“Very funny, Mom.”
“Hey, I can think of worse things than being called a sexy nurse.”
Dad shook his head. “Riley. This isn’t exactly a great thing. You should have seen the crowd outside the station. If they find out Sunnie’s the nurse, God only knows what kind of mess you’ll have outside the pub.”
“We’ve dealt with the press plenty of times before, Aaron,” Pop Pop said, reassuring Dad they’d be fine and it would all blow over soon enough.
Dad took his coffee back to the kitchen, walking with Mom, who needed to continue preparing the day’s specials.
Sunnie hung out with Pop Pop, joining him for a late breakfast. Padraig found an Ellen repeat for them on the TV, so they sat in silence watching it as they ate.
She’d just finished her meal when her phone pinged.
It was a text from Landon. The first in a week.
You okay, sexy nurse?
She giggled, flashing the screen to Pop Pop, who chuckled.
Yeah. How are you holding up, hot cop?
Scored a day off.
I heard, she texted back. Perks of fame.
He sent back the eye-rolling emoji, and she laughed again. Then another text came through.
Would like to talk to you soon
Ok
Text you later
K
Sunnie placed her phone on the counter and looked at the TV, not hearing or seeing anything.
“What does your young man say, lass?”
She glanced over at her grandfather. “This is Landon we’re talking about, Pop Pop. He’s not my young man. God, he’s practically my brother.”
Pop Pop studied her, his gaze almost piercing, but he didn’t correct her. Instead, he gave an unconvinced, “Mmm-hmm.”
“What?” she pressed.
“Watch the video again, Sunnie.”
She frowned and picked up her phone.
He placed his hand over hers. “Not now. When you’re alone and not worried about schooling your face for my benefit or anyone else’s. Watch the video when there’s no one around.”
“I already saw it.”
Pop Pop grinned. “And like ninety-nine-point-nine percent of humanity would do, I’ll wager you were looking at yourself. Watch it again. And look at Landon’s face.”
She tried to recall what she’d seen of him the first time she’d watched the video…and realized Pop Pop was right. She’d been looking at herself. Apart from the kiss and the body language of the two of them, she hadn’t really looked at Landon.
What the hell had Pop Pop seen?
And did she really want to know?
Chapter Seven
“Mail call, Romeo.”
Landon sighed, but didn’t look up from the report he was filling in on his laptop. At least, not until his partner—and so-called friend—Miguel upended a sack of mail bigger than Santa’s on his desk, the surface overflowing with letters.
“What the fuck?”
“Fan mail,” Miguel said with a grin that told him his partner was getting too much pleasure from this.
Landon picked up a letter, peering at the feminine handwriting. “Jesus,” he muttered. He’d had to shut down his work email four days earlier when the mailbox filled up within sixteen hours. It was wreaking havoc on his ability to do his job effectively.
Apparently, the lonely hearts weren’t deterred by his lack of email and had decided to go old school. Legit love letters.
It had been a week since the video of him kissing Sunnie and carrying her toward the police car had gone viral. And instead of the hubbub dying down, it had only grown worse. Sunnie’s name had been leaked by a patient at Johns Hopkins, who’d recognized her as his nurse. So now, not only was there a crowd gathered daily outside the police station, but around Pat’s Pub as well.
Funny enough, the pub was faring better than the police station. Of course, the Collins family had been dealing with fan mobs for decades. After all, Sky Mitchell, singer of The Universe—a band whose record sales put them on par with The Beatles, the Eagles, and the Stones—was married to Sunnie’s aunt. Then they’d had those tabloid-chaser skills tested again last year when Teagan’s daughter, Ailis, started dating Hunter Maxwell, a huge up-and-comer on the music scene.
The problem with Sunnie’s name becoming public meant the scrutiny on both of them was now intense. He didn’t dare go to the pub because of all the eyes watching. The last thing they needed was a bunch of yahoos fighting to get close enough to snag a photo or bombard them with personal questions.
He wanted to protect her privacy as much as he could, but he hated that he hadn’t seen her since the morning after the attack. He’d stayed away after the mugging thinking a break might bring him some clarity about the kisses…and about his newfound feelings for her.
Two weeks. He hadn’t seen her in two weeks and all he’d done was think about her nonstop.
Sunnie had been like a sister to him for most of his life, but ever since that drunken kiss at April Fools, the blinders had fallen off. Now he wanted to do a fairly long list of dirty, dirty things with her that would have both Finn and Aaron kicking his ass.
The time away hadn’t helped. Not even a little bit.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with all this?” Landon asked.
Miguel started opening some of the letters, reading them aloud to the other cops.
Mandy, the dispatcher, walked by laughing. “It’s just like Sleepless in Seattle.”
Sadly, Landon knew that movie all too well. It was his mother’s favorite.
“Hey, Landon,” Miguel said. “If you’re not going to call,” his partner glanced at the signature of the letter he was reading, “Ashley, you mind if I do?”
Landon stood up and ripped the letter out of Miguel’s hand. “This isn’t a joke, man.”
“If you can’t laugh at this,” Miguel said, pointing to the mountain of letters, “you’re going to be in trouble.”
“This was supposed to blow over in a day or two.”
“That was the captain’s estimate. And Aaron’s. I could have told you fifteen minutes of fame in this climate can last a few weeks, maybe months. You and Sunnie are serious YouTube superstars. When those top-of-the-charts shows start counting down the most viral videos in history, you two are going to rank right up there with ‘Charlie Bit Me’ and ‘Evolution of Dance’.”
“Shit.” Landon had hit his limit. Between the women following him everywhere, proposing everything from marriage to kinky sex acts he’d had to look up on Urban Dictionary, and the requests for interviews and photo shoots, he was running on very little sleep and less patience.
Miguel kept sifting through the letters. His eyes lit up. “Ooh la la. One from a dude. You gotta give me this one. You’re straight.”
Miguel liked to br
ag that he straddled every line. Half-black, half-Hispanic. Bisexual. The guy said he could tick every minority box out there, and he loved it.
“Take the letter. Take them all. This is getting on my nerves.”
“Look on the bright side,” Miguel said, leaning on the edge of his desk. “Everyone has forgotten about the bumper sticker.”
Landon scowled. “You know what? Let’s go back to that. I prefer the bumper sticker jokes.”
Miguel’s eyes widened. “Damn man. Never thought I’d hear you ask for that.”
He and Finn had had a practical joke war running since junior year of high school, and currently, Finn was one up.
The son of a bitch had slapped a bumper sticker on his car of a weed plant with the words “Fuck the Cops.” Landon hadn’t noticed it, but the state police had, and they’d pulled him over for going five measly miles over the speed limit. When they’d run his license and discovered he was a cop too, they’d pointed out the bumper sticker, amused to find out it was a prank.
They’d managed to tell enough fellow officers that the story got back to this precinct. For the past few months, Landon had been barraged with marijuana brochures, flyers, and other weed-themed knickknacks from the other cops, who had shown no signs of letting the joke die. Until now.
Cops were like dogs with a bone when they got ahold of shit like this.
The fucking reporter had added background music to the video of him with Sunnie. If he never heard Faith Hill’s “This Kiss” again, it would be too soon.
Some wiseass—he suspected Miguel—kept changing Landon’s ringtone to the song, and someone had decorated the men’s stalls in the bathroom with memes created from screenshots from the video and lyrics from the song. No matter how many times he tore them down, they kept going up.
Or at least they had—until Aaron found them and put a stop to it once and for all.
“Did I convince you to do that calendar thing yet?” Miguel asked.
Landon shook his head. A photographer who was putting together a sexy blue-collar calendar had approached him. She’d rounded up beefcake firefighters, construction workers, fishermen, and coal miners from all over the country. She had asked him to represent the cops. “They want me to pose shirtless, Miguel, with my gun belt unhooked. I’d feel like a jackass.”
“Yeah, but…she’s giving you December. Bet you could convince her to let you lie on a bearskin rug in front of a fire.”
“You’re hilarious. It’s not happening. I’ll do the basketball game.”
Miguel was unimpressed. “You do that every year, asshole.”
Each year, the firefighters and the cops played a charity game to raise money for cancer research. Sunnie was an oncology nurse, and she’d shared stories about the patients on her floor, what they went through, how brave they were. It was a cause he could definitely get behind.
“Just ask the calendar photographer to give your portion of the proceeds to a charity of your choice. Start using your fame for good.”
Miguel should have been the one to go viral. He had the right personality for it. Hell, so did Sunnie. Finn said she was getting a kick out of her time in the spotlight, posing for pictures and even going so far as to sing “This Kiss” at the pub’s monthly karaoke night. Landon had been relieved—and sorry—he’d missed it.
“I’ll think about it,” he said at last, just to get Miguel off his back about it for a little while longer.
Mandy looked up from her desk, her hand over the microphone part of her headset. “Landon, I swear to God, I’ve got someone from Ellen on the phone asking if you and Sunnie would want to make an appearance.”
Landon leaned back in his chair, defeated, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “Fuck.”
“Landon?” Mandy called out. “What should I say?”
“Tell them no!” he yelled back, his heated response enough to reduce the noisy room to silence.
Feeling bad for his tone, he added, “Please, Mandy,” but it was too late.
“Riggs. My office.”
Landon looked up at Miguel. “Aaron was behind me listening to all that, wasn’t he?”
Miguel nodded, not bothering to wipe away his grin.
“For how long?”
“Let’s just say I think you might be doing that calendar.”
“You’re a prick, Miguel.”
“I love you too, man.”
Landon laughed, despite his annoyance. Truth was, he and Miguel had become pretty good friends in the past year since Miguel had joined the force and they’d been partnered up.
Landon walked into Aaron’s office. “I’m sorry about—”
“Shut the door, Landon.”
He turned and did as commanded, then took the chair Aaron gestured to. The two of them faced each other across Aaron’s large desk, the surface piled high with file folders and paper.
“This isn’t dying down.”
If it had been anyone other than Aaron speaking, Landon’s natural response would have been “no shit, Sherlock.” However, he’d never speak so disrespectfully to his boss and mentor.
“No,” he said, “it’s not.”
“We’re going to have to find a way to draw the line of fire away from here. This is a police station, Landon. Not the set of Big Brother.”
Landon grimaced. “I realize that.”
“I think it would be best if you took some time off until this whole thing blows over. I can’t have the dispatch line tied up with reporters, single women, the tabloids and Ellen’s people, trying to get ahold of you.”
Landon panicked. This job was his life. “Are you suspending me?” he asked in alarm.
“No. Of course not. But I looked at your file and you have a couple weeks of vacation time coming to you. Take a week of it. If you stop showing up here, maybe those reporters and women outside will get bored and start staying home too.”
Landon sighed. If he stopped showing up here, they’d just surround his apartment.
He wanted his normal life back.
“Aaron, listen, I don’t think—” he started.
“This isn’t up for debate, Landon. Shit’s getting out of hand here. Started with everyone wanting to know who hot cop was, then Sunnie’s name was leaked, now her relationship to me and the fact I’m your boss. I’m not telling either one of you to talk to the media, but your silence seems to be sparking a firestorm in terms of speculation and fairy tales. You know what I read this morning? Fucking Yahoo news is running some click-bait article about me being outraged by your ‘secret relationship’ with my daughter. I’ve been cast as the villain, working against some illicit love affair. Fuckers even found an old driver’s license photo of me. The bad one that Riley has teased me about for years, claiming I look like a seventies porn star.”
Landon couldn’t help it. He laughed. He’d seen that picture, and Riley hadn’t lied. “I’m still not sure why you thought a mustache was a good idea.”
“I’ve told all of you a million times. I lost a goddamn bet to Tris. Had to sport that fucking thing for six months. I can’t help it that’s when my license renewal came up!”
“I’m sorry about the article.” Landon hated to think about Aaron being portrayed as an asshole. Aaron was the most upright, honest man he knew. Landon spent his entire childhood wishing Aaron was his father. Even when his mother remarried, it was still Aaron he had turned to whenever he had a “guy” question he couldn’t ask his mom. Aaron had taught him and Finn how to drive, how to shave. He’d snuck them boxes of condoms when he’d found out they’d both started fooling around with girls. While his mother had—awkwardly—given him the sex talk, it was Aaron who’d answered the twelve thousand questions he’d had afterwards.
Aaron sighed and stood up, walking to the window. “I think you need to change your attitude about all of this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Miguel had a point out there. It’s time to start laughing about the whole thing. I can see you’re working yo
ur ass off, trying to do your job. I appreciate that. But the cards are stacked against you right now. So embrace it. Enjoy it. You haven’t been by the pub all week. Why not?”
“I didn’t think it was a good idea for me and Sunnie to be in the same place while those tabloid guys are hanging around. Thought I should try to protect her privacy.”
Aaron snorted. “Have you ever known my girl to shy away from a crowd? She was down in the pub last night signing autographs.”
Landon chuckled. Of course Sunnie would embrace the situation, rather than run. But the women chasing him had been tenacious.
Then he had a disquieting thought.
If he was being inundated by female attention, was she getting hit on by countless guys?
“It’s the women more than the photographers,” Landon admitted. “I swear to God, I found two of them going through my garbage outside this morning. And I had to kill my Instagram because some of the pics I was getting tagged on were…”
Aaron gave him a sympathetic nod. “Yeah. I get what you’re saying. The tabloids are one thing. The women…well, I’m afraid I’m not sure how to help single hot cop in regards to all that.”
Landon sighed—then stilled, replaying the comment.
Single hot cop.
Single.
“You are still single, aren’t you?” Aaron asked.
And there it was. Landon had waited a week for this particular shoe to drop. Aaron hadn’t mentioned the kiss until this moment.
“I, um…well…uh…”
Wow. He’d had a whole week to come up with an answer and that was all he could manage.
Aaron walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. Go to the pub, Landon. Kick back a few pints with Finn and Sunnie. Hiding from women is one thing, but hiding from your friends is another. Let Sunnie show you how it’s done. I figure the two of you are tied together by what’s happened. You need to be around someone who gets what you’re going through, and right now, that’s her.”