Page 22 of Falling For You

"Fifteen reps? And a form like that? I thought cops just sat in their cars and ate donuts."

"Shut up." I punched his arm lightly and he rubbed it as if it really hurt.

"Hey! Police brutality!"

I chuckled and walked away to finish my workout.

We all wound down around the same time. The crew wiped down their stations, grabbed their towels, and started filtering toward the stairs. I packed up my things and followed. Wyatt fell into step beside me.

"I hope you don't get put off by the guys. They're just being silly as always."

"I work with men all day, Brooks. I know how the male mind works."

He looked at me. "Do you now?"

"Again, which one of us is the cop? There are only a few things in a man's mind. And it's not much."

He laughed. "I'm not going to argue with that."

He smiled at me with that annoying smile. We reached the bottom of the stairs and split off toward the locker rooms. I walked away before he could see that I smiled back.

CHAPTER 7

Birdie's Day Out

WYATT

A Saturday off didn't come around often on a 24/48 rotation. When I got one, I gave every hour of it to Birdie.

"Daddy, it goes the other way."

"Which other way?"

"The other other way. Like how Suzie's looked."

I was standing behind my daughter in the bathroom with a comb in one hand and a hair tie between my teeth, trying to recreate something Birdie had described to me three times using only the words twisty, pretty, and like a princess.

Suzie Park sat next to Birdie in class and apparently came to school yesterday with her hair in some kind of braided updo that changed Birdie's entire understanding of what hair could do. She'd been talking about it since she woke up.

"Okay." I pulled the comb through again and gathered everything to one side. "What if we do it like a⁠—"

"No, Daddy. You're pulling too hard."

"Sorry." I loosened my grip and tried again. I wrapped a section over another section like I'd seen women do at the school pickup line, and somehow ended up with a knot that looked more like a rope splice than anything that belonged on a six-year-old's head.

Birdie turned around and looked at herself in the mirror, tilting her head left, then right.

"You're so bad at this, Daddy."

I laughed. "I know. I'm sorry. Can we just do a ponytail today?"

"Okay! But can I wear the bow Barb got me?"

"That we can do."

I undid the mess, combed her hair smooth, pulled it into the ponytail I could do with my eyes closed, and clipped the bow on top.

Birdie smiled as she leaned into the mirror and saw the pink bow peeking out from the top of her head. "Thank you, Daddy." I let out a sigh of relief. After ten minutes of losing a fight with my six-year-old's hair, the ordeal was finally over.