Just Good Friends (Cheap Thrills Series Book 5)

by Mary B. Moore

The expression on his face changed slightly like something had just occurred to him. Just as he opened his mouth to say something, I yelled, “Oh God, if you’re going to say we can’t stay together because of my cheesy arm, I’ll brain you with Clyde.” Not that I could lift him, but I’d try.

  When Garrett just stared at me, I decided fuck it and turned around and whistled for my boy, who came running up, tail wagging like always. Remembering to lift with the knees, I squatted and wrapped my arms around his waist and tried picking him up, but holy shit, he weighed more than I remembered, so I gave up and pointed behind me.

  “Sit, Clyde. Sit on that big shithead.”

  And he did, except he had to sit on Garrett’s thigh, seeing as how he was now kneeling on one knee on the ground, watching me with that damn smile still on his face.

  “Tamsin Waite, I didn’t plan on doing this today, so I haven’t bought a ring.” He shrugged and mumbled, “Choosing one of those is harder than a house.” Then he looked seriously up at me. “Before I ask you the question, I need to address the elephant that’s been lingering over us since we met—actually, a couple of the elephants. The first being that I can’t find any anuses in the jellyfish scar on my ankle, and after all of the attempts you’ve given it, neither can you. I have zero ass holes in the scar, so we need to lay it to rest. The second is that, after hours of internet research, it’s doubtful that the box jellyfish has fifty, sixty, or heck even ten butt holes.”

  Blowing out a breath, I nodded my head sadly. “I came to the same conclusion a while back.”

  Squeezing my left hand, he winked. “Totally perfect for me.” Then, cocking his head to the side, he said, “Which leads me to the question I want to ask. Will you marry me? I don’t have a thousand flowery words or a long speech ready for all the reasons why you should and why I’d be so perfect for you—”

  “I think you covered that when you likened us to Tony and Lars.”

  “Probably, but you deserve more. I promise to give them to you every day for the rest of our lives, though. Words like that shouldn’t just exist once and then happen every now and then. They should be proven with actions and spoken regularly, and I promise to do that.”

  I was about to answer him, not needing to think my answer through, when Clyde started growling loudly and moved closer to my side, pulling my focus off him. Looking down at my boy, I lifted my head in the direction that he was fixed on, with his teeth out, snarling in a way I’d never seen from him before.

  Garrett had just straightened from his crouch when there was a loud bang, which made him grunt and stumble slightly.

  Like he was an Olympian and that was his starting gun, Clyde shot off in the direction he was so set on while I helped Garrett steady himself.

  “What was that?” I asked him, trying to look around his chest to see where Clyde was going.

  Every time I leaned right, though, Garrett followed and then did it in the other direction when I tried that way.

  “It was a gun, baby. I need you to stay as you are.” His voice was tense, and when I looked up, he looked a bit paler than usual.

  “Are you okay? Do you think someone’s hunting on the land?”

  He didn’t get to answer because just then, the sound of engines came from the dirt road leading to where we were, just as a high pitched shrieking sound came from the wooded area where Clyde had run off to.

  “Oh, shit. What if he caught a rabbit? Do you need a permit for that?”

  Give a girl a break. I’d woken up this morning, had phenomenal sex, then I’d gone for a walk, found out I had a house skeleton waiting for me, then I’d been proposed to... If I was struggling to make sense of it all, excuse the fuck out of me.

  Recognizing the two P.V.P.D. vehicles—not that you wouldn’t, seeing as how they were black and white, had lights on the front, and honking big P.V.P.D. logos strategically placed all over—as they screeched to a halt, my eyebrows shot up when Dave, Raoul, Alex, Logan, Carter, and Alejandro jumped out of them.

  “Why did they cram so many of them into two?”

  Garrett didn’t answer, but he watched them silently as Raoul and Logan ran over to where we were, and the others ran toward where the screams were coming from.

  “Oh fuck, man,” Logan growled, leaning his head in toward the radio on his shoulder. “Ambulance needed at the scene, Naomi. Give them the co-ordinates we texted you on our way and tell them to follow the dirt path to the cleared out area. GSW right shoulder, Garrett Evans is the patient.”

  I tuned out what followed it, instead looking Garrett over to see if I could find what he was talking about.

  Come on, Tamsin, you’ve watched enough television. What the fuck is a GSW again?

  His eyes were fixed on Raoul, though, not giving a shit about what was going on around him.

  “Sounds like your boy caught the asshole,” his brother told him with a strained grin. “Why don’t you sit down on the ground, man. It’ll be easier for you.”

  He was holding himself so stiffly that I was inclined to agree.

  “Not until you have him. He might get to Tamsin.”

  My eyes widened at him using my real name out in public. It’d been agreed that no one would ever do it, and in fact, everyone who knew what it was stuck to Zuri anyway.

  “Oh, dear God,” one of the guys in the woods yelled. “Clyde, here, puppy, puppy.”

  Raoul had looked over his shoulder when the first yell went out, but as the voice that I recognized as Carter’s yelled the last bit, he turned back to us, his lips twitching. “Think he’ll realize the dog won’t budge at that command?”

  “Alex, man, do something. He’s chewing him like a bone!”

  I heard Alex shout something, but then, more clearly, he yelled, “No, he’s pissed. Gjorka, I’d drop whatever you’ve got on you that he’s picking up, or he’ll just keep going.”

  “Oops, that might be my fault,” I whispered. “I was told not to play tug-of-war with him in case it mixed his commands up.”

  Garrett huffed out a laugh and groaned. “That’s not it, pretty girl. He can smell a gun or weapon on him, so until Gjorka throws it to the side, he’s going to keep biting him.”

  The name sank in. Gjorka was here. Here. He had my dog.

  I only got two steps into running in that direction, zero thoughts for my own welfare in my mind as I focused on saving the dog who was protecting me when Raoul caught me. “No, that’s not how it goes. Right now, my brother’s holding on by the skin of his teeth—”

  “Teeth don’t have skin, they have enamel,” I snapped. “Now let me go.”

  Spinning me around and showing me a clearly anxious Garrett, Raoul growled, “Look at him, Tamsin. He’s your focus right now, and he needs to stay your focus. The ambulance isn’t here yet, but when they come, we’re going to need you to stay right beside him and keep him calm while we deal with the asshole in the woods. Can you do that?”

  Something was strange about how Garrett was standing. He hadn’t moved since he’d flinched earlier, and his body was so stiff it was a wonder he could even blink. Pushing against Raoul’s arms, I moved in close to him and gently rubbed my thumb on the bristle on his chin.

  “Are you okay?”

  A whistle behind him almost had him turning around, but when he tried, he clenched his eyes shut and groaned.

  “That’s some hole you’ve got there, Captain,” Dave noted. “Bleeding good and proper, too. Just to let you know that you’re in the first ambulance when it comes, but we’ve called a second one for the dude bleeding out of his calf in the woods. Once he’s loaded up, Carter’s accompanying him for treatment—or amputation, either or—and Dad’s taking Clyde back to his for a steak dinner to reward him.”

  Not taking my eyes off Garrett’s, I managed to get out, “Don’t give him a sauce, just steak and potatoes, or he’ll shit everywhere.” Then, slowly, I moved around his body and looked at his back.

  This time it was my turn to heave. I hadn’t thought
that black would show up blood as clearly as that, but on his left shoulder was a hole in his black hoodie, with blood soaking the fabric visibly.

  “You’ve been shot.”

  Logan cleared his throat, chuckling, “Are we sure she should be working with kids? It doesn’t seem like she’s—” he stopped, then coughed. “I’ll be quiet.”

  Fear like I hadn’t felt in two years since that day near the water hit me hard. This was worse than that. The fear I felt for my own life was nothing in comparison to how I felt about the prospect of losing Garrett.

  I’d been scared for two years—scared for myself, scared for my parents, but I felt like I was suffocating with it right now.

  Moving back in front of him, I felt a tear trail down my cheek as he watched me watching him. “How are you still standing?”

  “Because he’s not gone right now, and I don’t trust him not to shoot again. At least this way, if anyone tries, they have to go through me first.”

  Moving closer to our sides with his back facing the woods, Raoul added, “And me. He already got you, so he’s got to take me on this time.”

  “Uh,” Dave drawled, moving in on the other side. “Didn’t want to feel left out, so I’ll take this side, but just to say he’s in cuffs over there and not getting out. Your dog’s seen to that. Also, just to say,” he snickered, “once notice was put out by some people, Gjorka’s friends scattered, so he’s working solo now. Apparently, people don’t see much use in being your friend when you’ve got no money to pay them because everything’s been seized. They also don’t much like it when the CIA gets involved and helps out the FBI.”

  Very slowly and wincing the whole way, Garrett turned his head to look at Dave. “Are you serious?”

  “Sure am. Found out at the same time Hurst said he saw Gjorka. Old fool wanted to hunt him down, but we said we’d come and help you out.”

  Then, from the trees, we heard Carter yell, “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Okay, out you come.”

  Looking up at the sky, Raoul sighed. “Guess he didn’t listen.”

  It was as we were driving to the hospital that I leaned over Garrett. “I never got to give you an answer.”

  Groaning as we hit a bump, he clenched his eyes shut. “To what?”

  “Ma’am, I need you to sit back so I can—” the paramedic tried to nudge me out of the way, and all of the stress caught up with me.

  “I know what you’re trying to do, but I’m trying to tell the man I love that I’m saying yes to his fucking proposal!” I screeched. “He took a bullet for me before I could say it, so don’t think I’m saying yes out of pity because he’s injured. Could you give me a fucking second to say yes?”

  I felt like shit as soon as I did it, but judging by the laughter coming from him and the guy driving like a dickhead, they didn’t take any offense.

  “Go ahead!”

  Taking a calming breath, I smiled softly and looked back down at him, only to see Garrett laughing so hard he was crying. “Is it the laughter or the fact I’m saying yes making you cry? Swear to God, Evans, if you’re crying because you’re sad I’m accepting your proposal, I’m going to kill you.”

  “It’s you screeching in a paramedic's face that you’re saying yes to a proposal and assuring him it’s not because I got shot that’s making me laugh,” he wheezed, groaning. “And it’s the pain that’s making me cry, I swear.”

  Leaning back to sit my ass down, I shook my head and nodded at the paramedic to do his thing.

  Holy shit, how was this my life? Seriously, I’d gone from being a dull little student and daughter of an NYPD detective who was overprotective to the max, to a woman on the lam from a psycho, then engaged to a crazy former USAF captain, with a dog who took down a psycho and chewed on him, to… to… to…

  “My life is whacked,” I announced unnecessarily to Garrett and the paramedic.

  Not looking up from what he was doing, the paramedic replied, “At least it’ll never be boring. There’s a lot worse that could happen than having a whacked life.”

  Looking at me out of the corner of his eye, Garrett rasped, “Happiest day of my life meeting you, pretty girl. I wish I’d caught that box jellyfish when it stung me so I could give it a steak dinner, too.”

  The paramedic frowned down at him. “You got stung by a box jellyfish? Dude, so did I!”

  Even though he was weak and it was clearly costing him, my fiancé exchanged box jellyfish war stories with the guy, even going as far as to tell him about the meme that’d brought us together.

  Totally whacked.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Garrett

  Waking up was never easy, and if everyone was honest, we all took that extra five minutes in the super comfy spot we’d somehow found the second the alarm went off. Thanks to my military career and being a police officer, I’d been woken up for immediate action on many occasions, so I appreciated those five minutes more than most.

  So, when I felt sleep lifting, I stubbornly kept my eyes shut and willed my brain to shut the fuck up. I also willed the pain in my right shoulder to do the same—annoying bastard. The last time I’d felt something like this, I’d ended up rolling onto Tamsin’s phone during the night, where she’d left it on the bed because she’d fallen asleep watching something on it. The time before that, it’d been the burns I’d gotten in Raqqa. They’d been mean bitches, and I still felt ghost pains in the area two years later.

  The instinct to shift my ass slightly to try and get the phone out from under me took over, but the shooting pain that took over the area in question was enough to have me going from saying ‘fuck no’ to waking up, to ‘that isn’t a phone’.

  It felt like someone was stabbing me with a hot poker, and it was bad enough that my eyes shot open as I rolled all the way onto my back, groaning and reaching across with my right hand to touch the area carefully. What followed was an unpleasant medley of pains and sharp stabs.

  The shoulder that was already trying to kill me protested even more, and the hand that was covering it now made it feel worse. It felt like it’d been dislocated, and just to add to it, something sharp was tugging in my right hand.

  “What the fuck?” I was sure that was me speaking, but it sounded slurred and rough like I’d been out drinking all night. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that, so maybe I’d drunk too much and fallen down?

  “Don’t do that, you’ll fuck up your IV,” the female voice that meant the world to me admonished, gently pulling my hand away from the pain.

  I probably should’ve done that myself, but having that much assault your body at once confused the shit out of your common sense.

  “They got the bullet out of your shoulder, Garrett, but it did some damage—like bullet’s do, duh—and is all bruised.” The duh made me smile slightly because that was just Tamsin’s personality perfectly, even when she was telling you that you’d been shot.

  “The doctor said they were going to do some binding stuff just to give it time to heal. They only just brought you through from recovery about twenty-five minutes ago, so I think they’ll be coming in any minute to do it.”

  Blinking against the harsh light shining on me from the window, I realized I was in a room I didn’t recognize.

  And it fucking stank.

  “Don’t be mean. This is what a clean hospital should smell like.”

  I’d said that bit out loud, then.

  “Yeah, you did. A lot of patients do that after an anesthetic. It’s kind of funnier when it’s not someone you care about, though.”

  I wasn’t sure what we’d gotten up to the night before, none of my memories were making sense. Then again, it didn’t feel like my brain was making a whole lot of sense in general. Whenever I tried to take control of it and say something, ask something, or even move my limbs, nothing happened.

  “You’re on a lot of pain medication, but the good news is that your tattoo worked, and they didn’t give you a volatile anesthetic. Don’t get me wrong
, for the surgery they had to do, they worried that you’d wake up without it, but in the end you were okay. That doesn’t mean you’re not hopped up on some serious pain medications, though, my guy. Your body has to be feeling like cooked spaghetti and your brain like a colander.”

  Pretty much! Well, apart from my side and shoulder, obviously.

  Tamsin’s nervous chattering struck a chord with me, but her descriptions were pretty spot on.

  The sound of something squeaking broke the brief silence, and then a voice I didn’t recognize spoke. “He’s awake? Damn, I thought he’d sleep for at least another couple of hours after all of that. How is he?”

  “Not saying much, well unless it’s what he’s thinking, but he knows from the pain not to move again.”

  This time, a different squeak, the sound of shoes on a shiny floor, followed, getting closer to where I was lying staring at the ceiling tiles above me. I’d never understood how they did these ceilings.

  Did the metal skeleton for it come that way and they attached it, or did they have to get long strips and crisscross them? If that was the case, did some chump stand there with a ruler making sure they got the dimensions just right? And why didn’t they just put a regular ceiling in?

  “Well, I can answer one of those questions. Having the tiles makes it easier for them to lift to get to the wiring above it. In buildings like offices and hospitals, there’s always something they need to get to, so it just makes it more user friendly for them to get the job done,” the male voice said, just as a face with dark curls surrounding it appeared next to me. “Yeah, inherited them from my mother. I used to hate them when I was younger because all the girls pulled them or wanted to touch them, but now the women love them.”

  Frowning, I turned to find Tamsin again, hoping she’d introduce me to the guy. I knew way too much about his hair and not one damn thing about who the shit he was.

  When I saw how pale she was, the dark shadows under her eyes, and the tear tracks down her cheeks, though, my focus shifted off him completely.