Just Kidding (SWAT Generation 2.0 #1)(23)

My guess was that he’d look better.

***

I arrived at the apartment complex with a sense of worry.

I had a feeling that I literally was about to be told no.

There was no way in hell that these duplexes didn’t have a waiting list a mile and a half long.

They were way too nice.

In fact, nice didn’t even cover it.

Each duplex pair was a little bit different from the next. The yard was rather spacious, and the builders hadn’t skimped even a little bit on anything.

The wood was real, genuine wood. Nothing was wrapped with wood to make it look real but still stay on the cheap side. Nope, there were real cedar beams running this way and that.

Hell, even the office was beautiful.

Getting out of my car with a dejectedness that made my face look like a child pouting, I made my way inside the most beautiful office I’d ever seen.

When I arrived inside, a stunning woman with flowing raven waves cascading down her back looked up and smiled.

“Hello.” She waved.

I immediately allowed my hand to trail down my bald head, hating the way her hair was so perfect.

Mine used to be that perfect…

“Do you happen to be Rowen?”

I blinked, surprised.

“Ummm, yes?” I said. “How did you know?”

The beautiful raven-haired beauty smiled wider, displaying perfectly straight white teeth.

She grinned and pointed at a note on her desk.

“My name is Hastings,” she said. “My mom, who co-owns these duplexes with my dad, had a note on the desk to be on the lookout for you. Apparently, your brother stopped by to talk to her? And then I just got a call from my mom again that you were coming here to take a look at our duplexes. Apparently, an old friend of my dad’s called and said that you were on your way. I’m supposed to show you our available unit.”

My mouth fell open.

“I can see you’re surprised,” she giggled. “Trust me, we don’t usually do this. But when a cop’s kid, or a cop’s brother, or a cop’s girlfriend needs a place to stay, we usually make accommodations. See, Dad was on the force for twenty years before he retired. He was tired, though, and decided to retire and do something that didn’t take quite so much concentration… and look where that got him. Electrocuted.”

I blinked quickly a couple of times before shaking my head.

“Uhhh,” I said. “Who is your dad?”

“Baker Hughes,” she answered. “Do you know him?”

I shook my head.

“I might know his face,” I admitted, staring as she moved around the edge of the desk.

Just as she was about to make it there, she stopped, backed up, then deliberately knocked a cup of pencils off the edge of the desk.

She stared at them, then dropped down to her haunches and began picking them up.

I stared, wide-eyed.

Once she had them all up and in the perfect order, and I say perfect because she separated the greens from the yellows. The yellows from the blues. The blues from the reds—she set the cup gently back on the corner of the desk and stood up, smiling weakly at me.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m a bit of a mess.”

I waved her concern away.

“I think everyone is in some way, shape or form,” I told her.

She snorted.

“I have Tourette’s,” she admitted. “I just… I can’t help myself.” She paused. “But I guess knocking a cup of pencils off a desk is better than shouting out curse words.”

My eyes widened. “Do you do that? Shout out curse words?”

She looked miserable as she nodded. “I do.”

I stayed silent, hoping that she would say more.

“The Tourette’s was worse when I was a child,” she said as she gestured for me to follow her. “As I’ve grown into an adult, my tics have gotten a lot better. I experience vocal tics and fine motor tics. The vocal tics only come about when I’m under extreme stress. The fine motor ones are usually just me clenching my jaw, or blinking rapidly. Sometimes I have these urges to knock shit off things I walk past. Most of the time I can handle it, and ignore it, but there are times when I don’t bother to control the impulse. It’s not going to harm me in any way to knock a cup of pencils off. You know?”

I blinked in surprise.

“That’s true,” I said. “I’ve never known anyone with Tourette’s before. You definitely don’t fit the bill of what I had pictured in my mind.”

She grinned at me and I grinned back.

“I have a slight case of OCD—obsessive-compulsive disorder—but again, that’s gotten a lot better with age, too,” she continued as she led the way down a narrow walkway to what I assumed was the vacant duplex. “And normally a stranger wouldn’t even see my tics at all, but when I get stressed—such as my dad getting electrocuted and being hospitalized—my symptoms seem to get worse. And I can’t control or hide them as well.”

I felt for her.

I really did.

The next few minutes she went over the rules and regulations of the duplex. How if you had a complaint to please submit it to the office. Don’t confront my neighbors, etc.

“We don’t mow your yards,” she said. “We do have a lawn service that mows the one in front of the office, so we can add you to the rotation but that’s gonna be like fifteen bucks a week.” She paused in front of a duplex.