Bad Girl Reputation (Avalon Bay #2)(25)

The old me wouldn’t have been caught dead in this place. Which I suppose is the point. I’m stepping out of the long shadow my past has cast over my life. Harrison is certainly living up to his part of this plot. A bit shy and reserved in comparison, but sweet and funny in a nineties family sitcom sort of way. And although I can’t muster up any sexual attraction to him, perhaps that’s a good thing. Evan and I were all but defined by our rabid sexual chemistry. It ruled us.

But if I’m going to be serious about this good girl turn, maybe I need a good boy to match.

“Anyway,” he says once we’ve ordered our meals, after going off on a tangent about why he can’t eat mussels anymore. “I feel like I’m being rude, doing all the talking. I tend to ramble sometimes.”

“No, you’re fine,” I assure him. I’d much rather not have the conversation focus on me. “Tell me, what’s the weirdest call you’ve gone out on?”

Harrison ponders, staring into his glass of wine while spinning it in little circles on the table by the base. “Well, there was this one. Second week on the job. I’ve still got a babysitter, this guy Mitchum, who, if you picture a disgruntled math teacher with a gun, is pretty much spot-on. From the second we meet, his personality is he wants me dead.”

I snort out a too-loud laugh that disturbs the tables nearby and has me hiding behind my napkin.

“I’m serious,” Harrison insists. “I don’t know what it was, but I walked into the boss’s office before my first shift, and Mitchum was standing there looking at me like I’d knocked up his daughter.”

I can’t imagine anyone being put off by Harrison’s first impression. Then again, I’ve never been too fond of the cops in this town, so maybe that’s all the explanation there needs to be.

“We get called out to this house in Belfield,” he continues. “Dispatch says a couple of neighbors are having some kind of dispute. So we arrive on scene to find two older fellas jawing at each other in the front yard. Mitchum and I separate them to get their stories and figure out real quick they both started hitting the bottle early that day. They were arguing over a mower or a mailbox, depending on which one of them tells it. Nothing especially interesting, but they’ve both got rifles they’re waving around, and somebody let a few shots off.”

I’m trying to anticipate where this story is headed when Harrison shakes his head at me, as if to say, don’t even try.

“Mitchum asks the one guy, why don’t you put the gun away? He tells us he only got his gun because his neighbor got his own. And the other neighbor says he only got his gun after the other guy put the gator on his roof.”

“What?” I bark out another disturbing noise that disrupts the entire restaurant, though now I’m too preoccupied to feel contrite. “Like a real alligator?”

“This fella’s been trying to shoot the thing down, if you can believe that. Pumping rounds into his own roof, the walls, wherever. We can’t be sure they’re even all accounted for—thank goodness we never got any reports of stray bullets.”

“How’d he get it up there in the first place?” I demand.

“Turns out the guy works for the phone company. He’s out driving to a job when he finds this gator in the middle of the road. On his lunch break he decides to drive the cherry picker home and drop that poor animal up there, though I can’t for the life of me imagine the mechanics of that situation. Turns out they’d had a run-in that morning which precipitated the retaliation.”

“I almost have to admire the guy,” I admit. “I’ve never had a grudge that warranted a biblical plague. I guess I need to find a better class of nemesis.”

“But get this. Mitchum, sweet guy that he is, tells me I have to climb up there and get the gator down.”

“No way.”

“Now remember, it’s my first shift on the street, and if this guy goes back to the station and says I can’t hack it, I could be banished behind a desk for good. So I don’t have much of a choice. Still, I ask, shouldn’t we get animal control out there instead? And he tells me, sorry, kid, the dog catchers only work on the ground.”

“Wow.” I’m honestly stunned. Not that I didn’t know cops were bastards, but that’s some cold shit right there. Talk about friendly fire. “What’d you do?”

“The short version,” he says with the haunted stare of a man who’s seen things, “involves a ladder, a ribeye, some rope, and about four hours to get that thing down.”

“Damn, Harrison, you’re my hero. Here’s to protecting and serving,” I say, clinking my wineglass with his.

We make it halfway through our entrées before he tires of dominating the conversation and once again tries to turn it on me. This time, the topic being my mother.

“I’m sorry again,” he says. “This must still be a difficult time. With moving back and all.”

His consolatory tone reminds me that I’m still putting on an act, playing a part I’ve written of the person I should be: the grieving daughter, still mourning her dear mother. Wallpapering a better story over our absent relationship, because it sounds good.

Which is something I’ve never had to do with Evan.

Fuck. Despite my best efforts, thoughts of him creep in through the seams. He’s the only person who understands my darkest thoughts, who doesn’t judge or try to dissect me. He understands that the empty place where everyone else holds their mothers in their hearts doesn’t make me a bad person. For all our failings, Evan never needed me to be anyone but myself.