Center Mass

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Green was fucking green. They didn’t determine a person’s demeanor.

  I nodded and handed it over. “Yep. I didn’t want her to be without it in case she needed it again.”

  She nodded and stood, walking over to the stack of paper holders on the counter behind her. Reaching forward, she took a sheet out of the top stack and handed it to me. “This is just the standard form: When I can give it. What I give it for. Although I already know the reasons, and I know how to use it, the school needs a record just in case.”

  I nodded and started filling it out while she made herself busy across the room by opening a box that I saw was filled with paper that covered the exam tables.

  Clicking the pen closed, I stood and took her in.

  Today she was wearing her hair down.

  It was thick and glossy, reminding me of the women in the shampoo commercial that shook it out in slow, exaggerated movements.

  I hadn’t been aware that people in real life actually had hair like that.

  It was beautiful, though.

  Long and brown with reddish highlights, it reminded me of the sun shining off the lake’s surface right at sunset.

  Today, she was wearing Transformer scrubs, which made me want to laugh.

  What? Did this woman have a super hero obsession?

  Tired of having her back to me, I walked to her side and laid the paper down on the counter before saying, “Where’s Mrs. Redden?”

  I hadn’t meant it to come out sounding harsh or accusing, but it did.

  “She’s actually retiring. She’s been spending more time in the office with her sister, as of late. If you need her, I can go find her for you,” she offered, not sounding offended in the least by my harsh question.

  However her previously open body posture was now closed off, and as a cop for the last fifteen years, I knew when to back off. So I did.

  “No, honey. I’m not looking for her. I was just wondering where she was. I do have to go, though. I have a mountain of paperwork to tackle before this afternoon when school lets out,” I said heading towards the door, not understanding why she was affecting me like she was.

  “Have a good day,” she said softly.

  I turned and nodded once at her, walking out shortly after.

  I’d made it nearly all the way to the front doors when I turned back around and walked back to her office.

  I found her standing beside the counter still, but her head was hung in what looked like defeat.

  “Ms. Doherty?” I asked.

  She looked up quickly, her hand going to her chest. “Yes?”

  “Thank you for saving my girl.”

  With that I left, going straight to the department.

  ***

  Papers slammed down on my desk and I sighed, leaning back in my chair to study the asshole who’d been responsible.

  “What the fuck?” I asked.

  The blonde beauty, James if you wanted to be technical, smiled unrepentantly at me. “Got the papers in the mail today. It’s all yours.”

  I sighed and rubbed my forehead, sick and fucking tired of all the paperwork I’d been doing lately. It was nearly suffocating.

  If I’d known that being promoted to assistant chief was going to get me so much work, I’d have told the commissioner he could shove the promotion up his ass.

  It’d originally been for a short time only, but had changed quickly when the old assistant chief, Briscoe Coolidge, had a setback with his multiple sclerosis. He’d been left with no other options but to retire.

  And with me being the most experienced, I was the ‘best man’ for the job, so to speak.

  Not that I’d agree, but what-the-fuck ever.

  Now I spent my days doing fucking paperwork out the ass, patrolling when I wasn’t chained to my desk, all the while I still did my duty as the SWAT team captain.

  Then trying to spend some time with my child.

  Trying being the operative word, because the demands of my job left very little free time since we were short nearly eight full time officers.

  “You could’ve just called in telling me the results of your physical,” I said tiredly.

  He nodded and sat in the seat across from my desk. “I’m sure I could’ve. But then I couldn’t witness the expression on your face when I told you that you’re invited to a party that your sister requires your presence at. Three weeks from Saturday.”

  I grimaced. “Then why are you telling me, and not my sister?”

  “I went by to give my wife a kiss and saw your sister there. When she told me she was going to come by here next, I offered to do that for her,” he smiled jovially.

  Fucker.

  My sister, Baylee, was married to a man I was fairly sure was a murderer.

  Sebastian Mackenzie.

  I couldn’t prove it, but deep down I knew it to be true.

  However, Sebastian had been doing it to protect his sister, Shiloh, and the very man standing in front of me, who also happened to be married to Shiloh.

  That didn’t mean I was completely forgiving.

  I was a cop, through and through.

  I’d served eight years in the marines as a MP.

  When my daughter had been born, I’d gotten out and immediately found a job in my hometown as a Sherriff’s deputy.

  Once I left Lydia, I moved to Texas to be near my sister, and joined the Kilgore Police Department.

  It’d been six years since I’d moved here, and I couldn’t contemplate doing anything else.

  Well…maybe less paperwork, but other than that, I love my job.

  “How nice of you,” I said dryly.

  He grinned unrepentantly. “No problem, boss.”

  I flipped him off and shoved his papers back to the pile that was designated ‘fucking later.’

  It wasn’t labeled or anything, but everybody knew it as that. Something about me saying, ‘Put it there, I’ll get to it sometime fucking later.’

  That sounded exactly like something I wanted to do.

  “What’s on the agenda for this week?” James asked, stretching his legs out in front of him, knocking my desk in a rhythmic pattern with his foot.

  Sighing, I finally put the pen down, that’d been in my hands for over four hours, and looked at him.

  “We have to go to the schools tomorrow,” I said, not that he didn’t already know this. “And have a talk about ‘school safety,’ at all of the Kilgore campuses. The superintendent says he wants to be prepared after the incident last week.”

  The ‘incident’ I was speaking of was of an old man with dementia trying to go to lunch. He’d thought he was eleven again, and he’d tried valiantly to get into the school, but a teacher had called the police, and the campus had been locked down.

  When we’d gotten there, I understood completely what had alarmed the teacher. Let’s just say that the man hadn’t aged well, and it was true what they said about your balls sagging with age.

  “Who all signed up to go?” James asked.

  “Nico refused. Downy has to be in court tomorrow. But the rest of us are a go,” I said.

  It wasn’t that much of a surprise to me, either, that Nico had refused to go.

  Nico was definitely the loner of the group.

  A very quiet, laid back man. He had a heart of steel and a will of iron.

  Nothing shook the man.

  Nico was the exact opposite of Downy, my best friend.

  Downy was talkative, friendly, and open- most of the time. He could talk with anybody, anywhere.

  He had a gift and he didn’t waste it.

  Downy started classes to become a hostage negotiator upon my request because he was so good at it.

  He had the perfect ability to get nearly anyone to talk.

  “Nico would’ve scared everyone anyway with his devilish looks and glare that could make even a woman’s balls shrivel up,” James quipped as he stood, cracking his knuckles and making me wince.

  “Leaving already?” I asked.<
br />
  I’d tried to sound saddened by the idea, but it came out sounding more hopeful, causing James to laugh.

  “Yeah, man. I’ve got to go get some work done in the garage today. I bought a new bike. You should try it out,” James offered.

  James always offered.

  I just wasn’t a motorcycle person.

  I was a hot rod type of person.

  I liked a motor that was so loud your eardrums threatened to burst.

  I liked the feel of a throaty engine vibrating the entire car around me.

  I liked the feel of the stick shift underneath my hand as I waited to throw it down and give it all it had.

  Currently, I was working on an old GTO.

  It needed a lot of work, but in my spare time, that was what I did for fun.

  I’d just dropped the motor in last week, and planned to get the tranny in this week.

  It was going to be fucking sweet.

  “I don’t want to try it out. I like my skin covering my bones, thank you very much,” I said as I stood. “Now get the fuck out so I can finish this shit and go home.”

  He saluted me, using his middle finger, before turning to leave.

  “Take it easy,” he said as he exited.

  “Will do,” I nodded, then closed the door behind him.

  Turning back to my papers, I sighed long and loud before getting back to work.

  One thing stayed on my mind the entire afternoon, though.

  Reese Doherty in her stupid superhero scrubs.

  Chapter 3

  Is it just me, or does Frozen suck just as bad the 299th time as it did the 33rd?

  -Reese’s secret thoughts

  Reese

  “Rowen Diane Doherty, if you don’t go get your freakin’ shoes on, I’ll take that stupid princess doll away from you and rip her legs off,” I fumed.

  Okay, so maybe that sounded harsh, but it was time to go. Ten minutes ago.

  Rowen was a five year old terror that had a princess complex.

  How she got that princess complex, I didn’t know, but she had it. And I didn’t like it one bit.

  “Is daddy coming to get me this weekend?” Rowen asked as she walked slower than molasses to her room.

  I clenched my eyes tightly shut in a vain attempt to hold onto my patience.

  I’d been doing fairly well holding on, too.

  Then she had to go and mention the sperm donor, and all nice, peaceful thoughts I’d been trying to keep in my head left in a fuckin’ rush.

  Rowen’s father was an asshole. He didn’t give a shit about his kid unless I was trying to collect child support. Then he’d show up in her life, buy her things, and act like he liked her.

  Just enough to show the judge that he ‘helped’ where he could, then he’d leave again until the next time I tried to get more money. And by more money, I meant no money at all. The man didn’t pay child support. The bad thing was that he worked in the oil field and he made good money.

  This was a process that we did every six months to a year, since I’d had Rowen, and one I’m sure we’d continue for the next thirteen years until she turned eighteen.

  Weston Bryant was a charmer.

  He had a smooth tongue, and could talk the pants off of any woman in the country. Which was what he’d done to me.

  He’d been my first.

  I’d been a twenty four year old, inexperienced, sheltered girl who didn’t see the bad in anyone.

  I didn’t realize what I was getting into when I accepted that date with Weston.

  I knew what I left that date with, though.

  My daughter.

  Although the best thing that had ever happened to me, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that having her had been anything but easy.

  I’d been in the middle of nursing school at the time, and thank God my due date fell on the summer break, or I wouldn’t have graduated.

  The last five years had been challenging, but I had a very good thing that came out of it all, and she kept me getting up every morning. Kept a smile on my face. Kept me going when all I wanted to do was lay down for a single freakin’ nap!

  “No, baby. Daddy’s not coming over this weekend. But if you’re good and you go get your shoes on, I’ll take you to see the new movie you’ve been wanting to see,” I bribed her.

  She came out of her room looking skeptically at me. “Promise?”

  I nodded. “Absolutely.”

  She gave me that look. The one where you feel like a shitty parent.

  The one where she knows that you’re probably lying, but she’ll have hope anyway.

  I was going to hell.

  ***

  The next day I found myself at the movie theater with a room full of screaming children excited to see the newest Disney movie.

  I wasn’t a fan of animated movies.

  I also wasn’t a fan of theaters.

  But I’d do just about anything for my daughter, even sit in a theater with kids who wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

  Didn’t these parents know how to tell their kids to be quiet?

  Surely they wouldn’t let them do that throughout the entire movie…right?

  But when thirty minutes went by and the couple in front of us continued to let their kids fight and run around the entire fucking theater, I was about out of tolerance.

  I hadn’t realized that anybody could be so rude.

  I’d just about made my mind up to say something when a big man, two rows in front of us, stood and walked down the aisle.

  He walked calmly up the main row; I thought that he was just going to the restroom, but he stopped on the row that the parents were busy playing on their phones.

  Sounds and all.

  “’Scuse me,” a familiar voice rumbled.

  The cop.

  What was his name? Luke?

  Yeah, that was it. Luke Roberts.

  He had to be seeing the movie with his daughter, because why the hell else would a man like him be watching a Disney movie?

  “Sir, ma’am. I’m going to have to ask you to make your children behave, or I’ll have to ask you to leave,” Luke said softly.

  I wanted to stand up and applaud. Would that be rude?

  Rowen didn’t even notice, being on the other side of me. She was enraptured with the fat blobby robot on the screen, not bothered in the least by the kids, nor the man.

  Turning my face away from my child, I watched as the asshole father stood up, bowing up his chest.

  The man was big, I’ll give him that. But he wasn’t the same caliber as Luke.

  The two were like night and day.

  Where Luke was fit, the man was large. Where Luke was intimidating and authoritative, the man came off as a jerk who used his size to get his way.

  A particularly bright part in the movie lit the theater, showing me Luke’s amusement at the man’s show of attempted intimidation.

  When the man got up and got face to face with Luke, I turned in my seat more fully to get the full effect, tossing a piece of popcorn into my mouth in excitement.

  Now this was what I was talking about. I was an action kind of girl. I didn’t like movies where there was nothing exploding and no shirtless guys.

  Now the scene in front of me I knew wasn’t going to escalate much past raised voices, but it was better than nothing.

  “Listen here, boy. I’ll have you know that I paid for my tickets just like the rest of these folks. I want to sit here and enjoy the movie,” the man yelled.

  “You want to enjoy the movie? How about you tell those,” he pointed to the kids. “To sit down.”

  The man’s two fighting kids slipped in between the seat and Luke’s legs.

  Then Luke lost his patience. “Sit.”

  They followed direction instantly, sitting down and staring at the movie with quivering chins.

  It was as if that was the first time they’d ever heard a reprimand before; although, it probably was.

  The mother stood in outrage, but Luke�
��s glare had her quickly sitting down.

  Which caused me to snicker, making Luke’s eyes turn toward me.

  His glare showed me he wasn’t as amused as I was, but he winked at me, eyes flicking down to Rowen before he turned back to the man in front of him.

  Who was absolutely livid.

  “I’m going to call the cops on you,” the man snarled.

  Luke’s lips tilted up into a slow grin. “Go on, make my day.”

  Turns out that the man didn’t have to, because in the next moment the show was stopped, the lights turned on, and two cops came striding down the theater’s main aisle.

  They were in uniform.

  Just not the standard black uniform with yellow writing that most cops wore. These men wore black cargo-type pants, a black shirt with KPD on it in large yellow letters.

  Large gun belts were strapped around their waists. They had a walkie talkie that was strapped on to the belt that had a wire connected to a hand held device that clipped to their shoulders.

  Their badges, worn around their necks, were big, gold, and shiny.

  The taller of the two was a red head.

  Big and brawny.

  I bet he could pull off a kilt very nicely. I could visualize him perfectly playing a bag pipe and his kilt floating up to reveal his nicely muscled ass.

  He had a beard, as did the other man. Must be a thing, because now that I thought about it, Luke did, too.

  The other man was Mexican American. He was tall, but only about six foot or so. His eyes were dark, taking in the theater in a quick efficient way that only someone that was experienced would.

  I’d found that since I’d started being in the presence of my sister’s boyfriend’s motorcycle club, The Dixie Wardens, that all of those men took in a room much the same way.

  Most of them had military backgrounds, and quite a few were cops. There was just a certain aura about them that fairly screamed ‘Cop!’

  They passed my row, both of them looking at me before dismissing me completely, eyes on the scene in front of us.

  “Well, the police are here,” Luke drawled. “What now?”

  By now the man had the attention of the entire theater, instead of the back four rows, and you could tell he was losing steam.