Fireball (Cheap Thrills #1)(27)

Grinning at the glares coming from the big dog fart with a shiny badge, I yelled, “Oh yeah, the kink.”

“I could do that,” Jarrod replied simply, like I was asking him to hold a Kleenex.

Something occurred to me just then, and it threatened to burst my smug bubble. I might have just landed myself in a big pile of doggy doo-doo, so I had to ask just in case I needed to change the color of my hair, and maybe sell my new home and convince Jose to move with me.

“Hey, whatcha in for?” I asked in a voice that was so conversational and light that I hoped the sheriff didn’t know what I was thinking. But, proving he really was a jerk, half his mouth tipped up in a smile.

Big fat bull balls jerk. And those things had to be huge and ugly, because let’s face it – no testicles were attractive. I’d bumped into a bachelor party on my last night in Jersey who had been playing the ‘last chicken in Walmart’ game, which consisted of them pulling their dicks up and letting their balls hang out so it looked like a frozen chicken. FYI – I was considering adding that to my celery and kale list.

“Girl, I was at the bar and this man started hitting his woman. I was pulling him off her, and he tried breaking his glass on my head. I punched him, he was knocked out with one, and I ended up in here.”

Giving ugly wrinkled bovine testes a look to check this was the truth, I was relieved when he gave me a small nod back.

“Well, I’ll spring you outta the pen, we’ll go on the lam, and you can make us rich by narrating books with kinky shmexy times in them. You in?”

“Show me the way, girl. Show me the way,” he rumbled back, and then started singing Boyz II Men’s I’ll Make Love To You.

Sheriff douchebag kept his eyes on me the whole time, not saying a word and I was too caught up in the deep voice singing to really give a damn. Was what I’d done smart? Nope, not even slightly, but for all his faults, Dave wouldn’t let anything happen to me. And the guy really did have the perfect voice. Just then, he changed to singing Ginuwine’s Pony, including beat boxing, taking it to a whole new level. If there hadn’t been a concrete wall separating us, I’d totally be making it rain and showering him with dollar bills.

Walking closer to the opening in the door so I could hear him better, I muttered to Dave, “Holy shit, he’s good.”

Shaking his head slowly, he crossed his arms over his chest and tipped his head to the side. “Why is it that you never do anything normally?”

Still focused on the singing, I gave him the response Mom had always given me when I asked a question involving ‘normal’. “Maybe because normal is overrated?”

“It really isn’t. Normal is what laws are built on.”

Rolling my eyes at a sheriff leaning on laws, I shot back, “And what is normal, anyway? There’s no such thing. You’re better to just be you and enjoy life to the fullest.” I punctuated it by pointing at my hair and then holding my arm up reminding him of my tattoos. “Be you, and you become your normal.”

A glint appeared in his eye, and he went to say something as he took a step closer to me, but my new jail bestie Jarrod interrupted him.

“Girl, that was profound, profound I tell you. Be you, and you become your normal. Hoo dawgy, I gotta write that shit down.” There was some loud rustling, and then he yelled, “Yo, Sheriff. You write that down and pass it to me when I get outta here, k?”

Looking frustrated and like he was fighting against either laughing or walking away, Dave shouted back, “Yeah, Jarrod. I gotcha, man. You’re out in ten anyway, dude’s not pressing charges seeing as how there’s a billion witnesses saying he was beating the shit out of Tina, so he’s in deep shit as it is. Doesn’t wanna add pissing you off even more to that list, trust me.”

“S’all good, dude. I’m enjoying this shit now.” Then he directed his voice back to me, making me curious all over again what he looked like. “Girl, you a philosopher or some shit?”

“Nah, I’m an art teacher,” I chuckled, leaning my chin on the opening in the door. “I teach English too sometimes, but my passion is drawing and creating, then making art out of my thoughts.”

“Whatcha in for?”

And that’s when I spilled my whole story, starting with what had happened the day I’d arrived between Jose and Larry, and ending with a less detailed version of tonight’s events.

“So he arrested me because I won’t go out on a date with him!” I finished, adding a, “Huh,” at the end.

The deep laughter had started when I got to me fighting Larry and Rita Slutita and hadn’t stopped since. But now he was all out howling at the story.

“You arrested her to go out on a date with you?” he choked as he asked Dave who was grinning at me.

“Sure did.”

“That. Is. Awesome.” He said each word between laughs.

“Hey, what about the jail gang brother and sisterhood, Jarrod? You’re meant to be affronted for me,” I yelled, putting my chin back on the little gap in the door so he didn’t miss a word of my rant.

“I feel you, Tabby, but DB is one of the best guys around. Never known him to arrest a girl for a date, or take her sister to have a baby either. You need to go on that date with him and his handcuffs.”

Closing my eyes, I thought over what Dave had done for me since I’d gotten here, and arresting aside, he’d been pretty damn awesome, I’d grant him that. And when he’d cuffed me tonight, he’d made sure he didn’t hurt my sore wrist. But we were complete opposites, and I believed whole-heartedly in compatibility and shit like that. If you were the total opposite of someone else, where would you be compatible? Sex didn’t make for anything deep, and I didn’t do meaningless sex. I could get that from my vibrator – who’d recently received its first name. Vibrating Dave.