“What is your stance on ride-alongs?” she asked, looking at his patrol car parked down the street.
“It depends on who the person is.”
“Me. Me is the person.”
“Heavily against.”
“Why?” she asked, knowing she sounded whiny, knowing she was using him to help her avoid the Alison thing.
“Because. I’m not going to let a known criminal sit in the front seat of my car.”
“Ha-ha-ha,” she said drily, “you are a clever, clever man. And fine. I’ll go off and do my actual stuff instead of forcing you to spend any more of your precious time in the presence of my adorableness.”
He let out a long breath. “Fine. Come on.”
“I can go?”
“If you promise not to mess with things.”
“I can’t promise that, Eli.”
“Why?” he asked, looking long-suffering now.
“Because if there are buttons, I may not be able to resist the urge to push them.”
“I’ll dump your ass on the roadside and leave you to hitchhike back to town.”
“No, you won’t,” she said, breezing past him. “You’re too nice.”
“I am not.”
“Sure you are,” she said, waiting by the passenger-side door of the car. “You’re so nice you’re letting me come on a ride-along.”
He opened his door and unlocked hers from that side, then got in without waiting for her. She opened the door and climbed in. There was a laptop mounted to the dash, and in the center console were all the buttons, radios and things she generally wanted to mess with, but didn’t, because the car wasn’t moving yet, and at this point he probably would still kick her out.
“That is not evidence of any particular niceness,” he said, starting the car and putting his drink in the cup holder.
“You don’t like it that I think you’re nice?”
“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” he said.
“You’re just annoyed because I have the right idea.”
He pulled the car away from the curb and onto the mostly vacant streets. It wasn’t quite lunchtime and it wasn’t peak tourist season, so the main street of Copper Ridge was quiet.
“So how did you sleep?” he asked. “Real answer this time.”
“Like a baby.”
“So you woke up every few hours crying?”
“Meh,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee.
“Or maybe just...wet and aching and wishing it was my hand between your legs instead of your own.”
She snorted, coffee spurting over the hole in the cup lid and down her chin. She lowered the cup and wiped at her face.
“What?” he asked. “Was that not a nice question?”
She was wet and throbbing now. And not just from the slight dribble of hot coffee on her chin.
“No, it was not nice. Or polite. Or gentlemanly.”
“I warned you. Good, sure. Nice, no. Also, not a gentleman.”
“I feel like I’m learning a lesson about still waters running deep. And a little dirtier than expected, to be honest.”
“Are you sad about that?”
She thought back to last night. To his much-better-than-average bedroom skills. “Uh, no. Can’t say that I am.”
“I thought you seemed to enjoy it.”
“Are we allowed to talk about this on a ride-along? Shouldn’t we be talking official sheriff’s department business?”
“We could. Do you have questions?”
“Funniest call you’ve ever gotten?”
