Fireball (Cheap Thrills #1)(8)
A big smile crossed my face, making Logan do a double take. I wasn’t a miserable guy, but I didn’t normally smile like this, so it was a rare sight for him. Not that I cared about what he was doing or thinking at that moment, because Tabitha Newton had just given me the best idea.
Tabby
Two hours later…
“You can’t keep me in here,” I shouted through the door of the cell I’d been put in. “I’m innocent.” When no one replied, I added, “I’ll buy you a new one?”
“Yeah, baby. I’m innocent and I’ll buy you whatever you want,” a sickly sweet voice called from the cell next to mine. “I’ll give you whatever you want too.”
Something told me she wasn’t talking about trash cans…
Just then, I heard a door closing at the end of the hallway, followed by the slow heavy footsteps of someone walking toward me.
“Yeah, papi. Come to Rita! You know you want me,” the voice cooed this time.
Oh, that bitch was in the room right next door. I could dig through these walls with a spoon and strangle her and no one would ever know - I’d seen it on a tv show once. Not that I had a spoon, and I doubted the studs in my ears would do the job quickly enough.
“No, and don’t make me make that call,” came the sheriff’s response in a pissed off growl.
Maybe she had a husband? If that was the case, I wouldn’t be above begging the penis face headed my way to make that call and give him Larry’s current address. Well, at least I would if I knew it.
Ignoring her response and all the sexual favors they included, he continued on until he got to me, opening the little slidey door thingy and grinning when he saw me. “Have you changed your mind yet?”
The big shit stain. He’d come back into the interrogation room he’d been holding me in earlier – against my will – and had just said “whoops” and then asked me out. After all of that, he’d flipping asked me out on a date. When I just looked at him like he was crazy and had said no, he’d told me we could do this the easy way or the hard way.
I had no idea what the easy way would have entailed, but the hard way was me ending up in here, next door to genital warts Rita.
“No.”
Eyes sparkling with amusement, he sighed and shook his head. “Tabitha, Tabitha, Tabitha. I don’t think you’re thinking properly.”
“Isn’t this an abuse of your power or something?” I snapped, stomping over to lean against a wall. The support gave me the extra ‘laser out of eyes’ power that I needed to melt him through the door. I was as fierce as the color of my hair, people just underestimated me when they saw me. He’d learn!
“You know you can abuse me with your power cuando, papi,” Rita Slutita squealed, getting both our attentions.
“If her name’s Wang, why is she talking like she’s Spanish?” Which she had been ever since I’d been brought back here.
Everything was “Ay, papi,” this, and “Mm, muy caliente, sexy papi,” that. Now that I thought about it, I had to wonder if she only knew how to say those two things in Spanish? Maybe she’d learned pickup lines in different languages so she didn’t miss out on a guy because of a language barrier? It’d been disturbing enough before I knew who it was, now I was considering therapy, anger management, and was just plain confused.
Not answering, Sheriff Bell raised his eyebrows like he was waiting. When I just watched him back, he chuckled and shook his head. “What’s the answer, Tabitha?”
Walking over to the door, I raised up onto my tiptoes and growled, “It’s Tabby, and it’s not happening.”
“Have it your way,” he snorted, and then closed the little slidey thing again.
For a second I assumed he’d admitted defeat and was trying to avoid a lawsuit from me for abuse of power or whatever it was that he was doing, but when I heard his footsteps heading back down the way he’d come I realized he was leaving me here.
The sound of his laughter was audible over the echoing of my foot hitting the door in the small room.
Oh, I was going to kick his ass. Granted, it would have to be in a way that wouldn’t get me arrested, if that was even possible, but I was totally kicking his ass.
Chapter Three
Tabby
Two days later…
“Oh my God,” Jose howled, holding the side of her huge baby bump. “I started panicking when I couldn’t get through to you, and when you said you’d been detained, I thought you meant you’d gotten caught up doing stuff. I had no idea you were being held on suspicion of breaking and entering, damaging police property, and refusing to go out with Sheriff Bell.”
Refusing to even acknowledge her and her betraying ways, I dug back into the box I was unpacking and took the paper off another dish.
The sheriff had ended up holding me in that place until the next morning when I’d told him through clenched teeth that I’d go out with him. Was I pressing charges or reporting him? No. Why? Our police went through enough as it was, and this didn’t warrant reporting him or causing him grief in my mind. I mean, if it had been someone else I’d have been laughing too. But I was holding a grudge, and I was a mean grudge holder.