Olivia (16 page)

She shook her head. Clete definitely did not look like that. Clete was hot. He wasn’t hot-hot, but he was cute-hot, kinda like a best friend’s brother you would crush on in high school. Hot, but not intimidating. And he was big. Not like giant-big—he wasn’t overly tall. He was broad-big. Not fat. Broad. Like maybe he had more than his fair share of muscles. Which, based on Olivia’s experience from sleeping with a wrestler in high school once, he more than likely had a teeny, weenie weenie. She had to stop herself from peeking under the table to try and check.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“I turned the big three-O last Saturday.”

“You’re old.”

“Ancient.” He smiled.

Yeah, he was hot. His fingers were kinda thick, too. She liked thick fingers on men. There was nothing worse than holding hands with a guy who had girl-hands.

She sipped her coffee and shuddered. Seven packets of sugar and a healthy dose of creamer later, she asked, “Where do you live?”

“Why?”

“You said you were on your way home and Riverwalk’s kinda not on the way to anywhere. So either you live in your cruiser, or you were lying to me,” she said.

His eyebrows knitted together. “You’re pretty observant.”

She tapped her temple with her finger. “Mind like a steel trap.”

He was blonde. Kind of a dirty blonde, like his hair couldn’t decide if it wanted to be blonde or brown. It was thick and looked soft. She wanted to touch it. Her hand came up to do exactly that, and she quickly clinched it into a fist to stop it from reaching across the table.

“I live in South,” he said. “Off of Lincoln Drive.”

“Apartment or house?”

“House.”

“Own or rent?”

“Own.”

“Were you dropped on your head as a baby or something?” she asked.

Clete’s face betrayed his confusion from her question. He would make a horrible poker player. His overtly-honest face was probably why he was driving a squad car and wasn’t a detective.

“Why would you willingly choose to buy a house in South?” she clarified.

“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked, still confused.

“Never mind.” She sighed. If he was too stupid to figure it out, she wasn’t going to waste time explaining it to him. Clete would be a Souther for life, just like Kenny.

He wasn’t nearly as hot anymore.

The waitress came to the table with their food. She set an omelet with vegetables in it in front of Clete. Olivia wrinkled her nose. Peppers—
yuck
. Olivia had been smart and ordered pancakes, and she dove into them with gusto. They ate in relative silence, except for the occasional questions Olivia peppered Clete with. She learned his parents were still married, his mom a teacher and his dad a welder. His sister was older than he was, also a teacher, and lived in Denver with her husband and three little boys. He was divorced, shared custody with his ex of his seven-year-old daughter, and he had sole custody of a dog named Juicy Fruit.

“What’s your daughter’s name?” Olivia asked when she finally pushed her plate away. Clete had been finished eating for quite some time. He sat back in the booth, relaxed in posture, almost serene as he patiently waited for her to finish, as if he had all the time in the world.

“Allison.”

“Let me guess, you call her Allie?”

He smiled. “I do.”

“I could tell.”

“How?”

“I can see it in your eyes when you talk about her that she’s an Allie.”

The smile stayed on his face but his eyebrows knitted again as he tried to figure out Olivia. She got that look from people a lot. Most gave up trying to figure her out after about five minutes. Clete seemed more determined than most, which is why she asked him her next question.

“Why would a man tell a woman he was gay if he wasn’t?”

The smile fell off of Clete’s face and his brow furrowed deeper. “I have no idea. Why?”

“Well, I don’t have a clue, that’s why I asked you.”

“Did someone lie to you about being gay?” Clete guessed.

She shrugged.

“Well,” he said slowly as he took a deep breath. “If he really, truly is not gay, but he told you he was, I hate to say it, but it was probably to keep you at arm’s length.”

“That’s what I figured.” Olivia swirled her fork in the left-over syrup coating her plate.

“Do you know for a fact that he’s straight?”

“Yep.” She sighed. “I have proof.”

“What kind of proof?”

“A whole big, fat binder full of proof. I haven’t looked at it all yet, but it doesn’t matter. I saw and heard enough to know the truth. And, the truth is, he lied to me.”

“I’m sorry, Olivia,” Clete said. And he did look truly sorry.

“You know the really shitty thing? He passed me up for this little tramp with a huge bubble ass. You know how fat she’s gonna be in ten years? She’s gonna need her own fucking zip code, that’s how fat she’s gonna be.” Olivia laughed.

Clete’s eyebrows knitted together again but he didn’t look nearly as amused with her as he had a moment before. “Are you ready to go home?”

Olivia shrugged and slid out of the booth. She didn’t want to go, but whatever.

They rode to South in silence until Olivia had to direct him to her trailer. He laughed when he saw it in all its 1950’s glory, and he was so damn cute in the faint, green glow of the dashboard lights with his perfect, white teeth and crinkles around his eyes, that Olivia couldn’t stop herself before she leaned into him, puckering with her eyes closed.

Her lips hit skin, and it took her a full second to realize she was kissing his palm instead of his lips. Her eyes opened as he gently pushed her away from his face, back to her side of the squad car.

“Olivia,” Clete said softly when she pouted. “Can I give you some advice?”

“No.”

“For one thing, you are a very intriguing person. I really enjoyed spending time with you tonight, and that’s rare for me. I’ve seen it all and heard it all, but you, Olivia, are like a breath of fresh air.”

Her heart melted and she puckered up again as she lunged for him, but he squished her lips together. “Please stop trying to kiss me, and listen.”

“Ok,” she muttered as best she could because he was still pinching her lips.

“Do me a favor and stop cursing so much in idle conversation. It makes you sound foolish, and you’re not a fool.”

Olivia frowned. She didn’t curse. What the fuck was he talking about?

“And never draw conclusions about someone or something until you’ve investigated every lead and combed through every shred of relevant evidence at your disposal.” He let go of her lips then reached across her to open the door. “Good night, Olivia. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

Stunned and speechless, Olivia got out of the car. What the hell was he blabbering about evidence and investigations? Did he think she was a cop or something? What an idiot.

And to think she was about to kiss him!

Chapter Eight

Besides being an awesome husband and an amazing father, Kenny Waters was also a mechanical genius, and he proved it yet again when Olivia’s engine cranked to life the next morning in the Riverwalk Park parking lot.

“I love you!” Olivia threw herself into his arms and peppered his face with kisses. “You’re my hero, Kenny.”

“Aw, it was nothin,” he said with a blush.

Olivia extracted herself from Kenny and reached for her wallet. “How much do I owe you?”

“Just pay me back for the new battery and it’s all good.” Kenny wiped his hands on a dirty rag and tucked it into his back pocket. “Nice move with the cop last night, by the way.”

“What move?” Olivia asked.

She leaned on her car to write a check and then stopped. What was she doing? She had no money in her account. Shit, she couldn’t give Kenny a check that would bounce. He wasn’t the power company… or Walmart…

“Hey, Kenny, how about I take you to Walmart? Buy you some diapers or somethin’.”

Kenny was always buying diapers. He had three kids in them now that he had his new baby—another girl, of course. That made four little girls in all. The oldest had recently turned five. She was the only one out of diapers. The three-year-old was being stubborn.

“You can wait and pay me on Friday,” Kenny said.

“You’re a peach.” She tossed the checkbook into her purse. “Now, tell me what move you’re talking about.”

In a voice that sounded exactly like her, Kenny pantomimed a perfect reenactment of Olivia’s moon job of the dickwad officer. “Kiss… my… ass!”

“You fucker.” She swatted at him as he belly-laughed and dodged away from her jabs. “How did you hear about that?”

“I saw it first hand, Sweetheart.
Nice
.”

She jabbed at him again. “Why didn’t you come to my rescue?”

“You were holdin’ your own pretty good. You didn’t need my help. At least not until that po-ass pulled out his stick.”

“Look at this shit.” She pulled up her pant leg to show Kenny the deep, purple bruise the size of a softball behind her knee. “It freakin’ hurt, you asshole.”

“Holy
fuck
, Liv!” Kenny knelt for a better look. “He did that to you?”

“Way to have my back, Kenny G.”

“Hey, I’m sorry, girl.” 

“Ah, it’s ok.” She let the pant leg slide back down. “I’ve done worse to myself just getting the mail. I bruise easy.”

“You gotta sue that mo-fo. That’s some police bru-tal-a-tee,” he said with a swagger, pulling out his inner gangsta.

Olivia made a face. “No way. My luck the judge would throw
my
ass in jail for biting him. Just forget about it.”

 “If that other cop hadn’t swooped down like Batman, I’d’a been all over that punk. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Olivia agreed, but then a synapse in her brain misfired. “Wait… Huh?”

“That cop that came outta nowhere! It’s like he had some kinda Spidey-sense for a damsel in distress or somethin’. One minute it’s just you and the one asshole cop and the next that other one comes screamin’ in all pissed and just
unloads
on that guy. I wish I’d ‘a had a camera. I’d ‘a put that shit on YouTube.”

“He beat him up?” Olivia asked in disbelief.

“Fuck, yeah,” Kenny said. “He got you in the car and just
POW!
Laid that other cop flat out on his
ass
. It was the shit, man. Coolest thing I ever seen in my life.”

“He was a pretty cool guy.” Olivia blushed as she thought about Clete in the dashboard lights.

“Awww.” Kenny laughed. “You got that face, Liver! You’re crushin’ on the po-po.”

“I am not,” Olivia denied.

But she was. Kinda. Just a little. Batman was hot.

“Don’t turn all stalker on him like you always do.” Kenny laughed again as Olivia’s blush deepened.  

Olivia didn’t turn stalker on Officer Cletus Wade, but she did drive by his house a few times. It’s not like she had anything better to do anyway. Clete lived in a little bungalow with faded, clapboard siding and a fenced-in backyard. Judging from the piles of lumber and stacks of shingles in the side yard, he was doing some work on it, but she couldn’t tell what. She always drove by at night, in the cover of darkness, and street lights were few and far between in South. It was like the city wanted dark and scary corners for murders and rapists to hide out in, and they kept making more by claiming “budget issues” and “lack of funds” for not replacing burned out street lights. But Olivia knew it was bullshit. There was always enough money to replace the burned out lights in Northside.

On a typical night, after Olivia drove past Clete’s house six or seven times, she would park a block away and then walk back to his house to peek in the windows. Usually he was up, watching crappy television (never porn) or surfing the internet. (Again, amazingly, never porn. What was this guy, Eugene’s long-lost brother or something?) Sometimes by the time she got there he was asleep on the sofa. He was cute when he slept, kinda sprawled out all over the place like a little kid. From what she could tell he wasn’t a drooler, but he did occasionally get a sleep-woody. And it was impressive. No teeny, weenie weenie on him. Thank goodness.

She never caught sight of his daughter, Allison, but she did peek in the little girl’s bedroom window. It was a cute room, done in a retro-styling of bright oranges and reds, and every single wall was covered in posters and magazine pictures of some boy band. Magic Marker hearts were drawn around the face of one of the boys. Olivia smiled at that. She had a similar crush on a celebrity once, but she outgrew it. Allie would too someday. And then she would enter the real world of manipulation and disappointment and jealousy and rage, and she would know what it truly meant to be in love.

One night during her surveillance, Clete wasn’t home and Olivia knew he wouldn’t be home for a long time. He, along with every other cop in Juliette, was busy running up and down the highway, wrangling pigs that had escaped an overturned stock trailer. Olivia, along with every other criminal in Juliette, was feeling a little brazen from the lack of supervision. She scaled the six-foot privacy fence into Clete’s backyard and landed smack in the middle of his landscaping, on top of a little, purple-leafed tree.

She broke a bunch of branches on her way down and cursed like crazy as she tried to stick them back on, but her efforts were futile. The branches kept falling back off. She gave up with a sigh and tossed them on the ground. No point in trying to hide them. The damage was pretty obvious.

A quick look around the backyard was all it took for Olivia to fall in love. Not with Clete. With his yard. It was
a-ma-zing!
Everything was brand-new and shiny. The patio was made up of little bricks that looked like aged cobblestones, and it had built-in benches and planters, and a place to grill on a shiny, new, stainless-steel Weber. The grill was so big Clete could roast a hog on that thing and still have room for a few slabs of ribs. There was a pond and a waterfall, and little bushes and trees that looked young and freshly-planted, and landscape lights. They weren’t turned on, but Olivia could imagine they were probably really cool when they were lit.