Page 57 of The Dating Charade

Jett’s eyes skimmed each sticker:

KEEP HONKING, I’M RELOADING

DUE TO PRICE INCREASE IN AMMO, DON’T EXPECT A WARNING SHOT

EAT MORE POSSUM

Well, with the thirty-six-inch mud tires, he didn’t expect the bumper sticker to say EAT ORGANIC or MY DAUGHTER IS AN HONOR STUDENT AT PI BETA PHI ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.

This guy was a real piece of work.

The narrow road was completely blocked off now, turning the wreck into a logistical nightmare as officers scrambled to organize detours. If he had to guess, it’d be an hour yet before the tow truck arrived.

Jett gripped the jaws-of-life to the crushed door. The frame bent further as he began to pry it open.

With a loud clip the door yielded to him, and together with Kevin, they pulled it off. Jett reached in, extended a hand. With a truck like this, he was surprised the guy inside hadn’t swung open the door like a rocket and dragged his own body out with his two behemoth biceps.

But instead of accepting help getting out and onto the unsteady bank, a bony hand swatted his arm.

“What the [bleep] did you do to my truck!” the man roared. Only it wasn’t a man. It was the squeaky voice of a teen without a filter.

With arms skinny enough Jett questioned he could even hold a rifle, the boy pulled himself to a standing position. He yanked up the camo pants threatening to fall to his ankles. Pointed to his door.

“What the [bleepity-bleep-bleep] business do you think you have [bleepity] . . .” The teen raged on while chickens flapped around them in a white-feathered dust cloud.

Unbelievable. Twenty guys were out here wasting the day on a kid who couldn’t steer his own truck, and this was how he thanked them.

Teenagers. He didn’t know how Cassie did it.

They wasted another two hours at the site and finally made their way back to the station, hours late on a meal and starving. Not ten minutes later the alarm rang again.

As the dispatcher’s voice laid out the details over the speakers, Captain Ferraro dropped his fork. “That’s it. Bentley, when you get back, I want you to make sure those ladies haven’t planted cameras in here.” He pointed up to the corners of the ceiling. “Somehow they always know just when you’re on the clock.”

“Maybe they’re tracking your phone,” Johnson grunted, his face in a second bowl of Mac’s fire-alarm chili. “I do it on my girls. One of ’em’s twenty-two now, and she’s still not privy to it.” He lifted his gaze with a mischievous smile, a chili bean hanging on to his beard. “But I can tell you one thing. The boyfriend hates me.”

A few chuckles went around the table before the men returned to their dinners. Captain Ferraro called out as Jett, Sunny, and two others started down the stairs. “You give us so much business, Bentley, I don’t know whether to fire you or promote you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, sir,” Jett replied, pausing on the stairs.

The captain fired back, “Don’t.”

Jett pressed his lips together, followed with a muted nod.

The seat was still warm when Jett slipped into the driver’s seat. Sunny swung the passenger door of Medic 2–10 shut and switched on the lights. Then, out of nowhere, he raised a bowl of chili to his chin.

“You know,” Jett said, pulling into the street. “Ferraro will have you on dinner duty for weeks if he catches you eating on the job.”

“I have to, man. Between calls from your elderly sweethearts and your minions eating all our food, I’m whittling away to nothing. You know how much little man Drew ate yesterday for lunch?” Sunny didn’t wait for a reply. “Three hamburgers. Three. Dakota nibbles on half a chicken nugget while Drew demolishes his cheeseburger like a T-rex on steroids. Then he goes after one of mine, and I have a benevolent moment, thinking, ‘Hey, I’m a good godfather—’”

“You’re not his godfather.”

“I’ll steal his fries and let the little guy have a few bites of my one-and-a-half pounder. It’s covered in jalapeño sauce, after all. Best he can do is take a bite and start crying.”

Jett turned on the blinkers. “And that’s not what a good godfather does.”

“Sure it is. Anyway, you know what the little terror does?”

“Godfathers probably don’t call their godsons terrors.”