Frisk Me(17)

The network had been hard up for the type of feel-good story for the summer evenings after the featured farm in their farm-to-table, organic food series had gotten nailed on animal cruelty charges.

The higher-ups had been in a panic, and Ava had (stupidly, in hindsight) mentioned the local coverage of a hero cop video gone viral. Her boss had gone crazy for the story.

And as a reward, Ava had gotten first shot at it. This was it. Her make-or-break story. She knew it, Mihail knew it, her bosses knew it…

But Luc Moretti didn’t know it. Or perhaps more accurately, Luc Moretti didn’t care.

Ava slumped back against the car for a second before realizing it would probably get dirt all over her suit, and she jumped back before turning around and frantically trying to check out her own ass for smudges. Anchorwomen were supposed to care about these things.

Thank God Mihail wasn’t here. He’d be armed with another comment about how Gwen Garrison could wear a white gown at rush hour on the J train and walk away without so much as a speck of dirt on her.

Well Ava Sims wasn’t Gwen Garrison, and this whole fancy, polished thing was hard.

But she was determined to get used to it.

After confirming that she didn’t have brown streaks on her butt from the patrol car, Ava turned back around to see if Luc and his quick-with-a-line partner were wrapping up their 10-50-whatever so she could get in a few interview questions.

She wondered how long Lopez and Luc had been working together. She made a note in her spiral to find out.

Sawyer Lopez shared Luc’s same dramatic coloring, with dark hair and blue eyes, and she imagined the pair of them were like heartbreak on a plate for those women who liked the men in uniform thing.

Which Ava didn’t. So she kept telling herself.

She bit her nail, then jerked her hand away as she tried not to get impatient. Sitting still and waiting were so not her favorite activities. Ava pulled out her cell phone. A missed call from her sister, several Instagram updates from her brother in what looked like Vienna, and a text from Beth beginning with SOS.

Ava scanned the text from Beth. As expected, it was wedding related. All of Beth’s texts were wedding related these days, and at least half of them were SOS. Not that Ava minded. What were best friends for if not to make the appropriate soothing noises when the videographer you’d been hoping for was already booked.

Dutifully, Ava responded that the videographer was mediocre anyway, they’d find a way better one, and why don’t they meet up for happy hour tonight to discuss it?

Beth was definitely toeing the line on Bridezilla territory, but luckily Ava had found the cure: wine.

Maid of honor duty done for the time being, she put her phone away, and to prevent herself from staring—and drooling—over the way Luc Moretti looked in his uniform, Ava began running through the structure of the America’s Hero footage.

It would probably take hours of following Luc around to get even five minutes of footage. That’s how it was with stuff like this. Nobody wanted to see that cops sometimes got stuck in traffic too, so they’d resort to a montage.

Likely with a voice-over about “the side of a cop’s day-to-day you never see in the movies.”

Which was really just reporter talk for boring stuff.

Her fingernail crept up to the corner of her mouth, and she nibbled at the edge of her ring-finger nail.

It was a horrible habit. One she was determined to break. Eventually. Mihail was a champ about always batting her hand away when she got the nervous nail-biting urge, but he was nowhere to be seen today.

Ava groaned and dropped her hand as she remembered her friend. Mihail. Why hadn’t she thought to call him? How was she going to get even five minutes of footage when she’d gone and forgotten her cameraman?

It was Luc Moretti’s fault. Those damn blue eyes were distracting.

Her eyes searched for Lopez, but she didn’t see him anywhere. Then she looked for Luc and found him almost immediately. It was like he was a damned beacon for her gaze.

Her eyes narrowed just slightly. What made him tick? What caused that compelling combination of easy charm, effortless competence, and guarded mystery?

Because regardless of how boring her opening voice-over was, the real grit of the story would come from interviews.

She needed to get Luc Moretti to talk to her.

Which wasn’t likely considering she couldn’t seem to go five minutes without pissing him off, but honestly, the man was almost painfully easy to goad.

At least when it came to her.

“Hello, pretty lady.”

It was only pure shock that prevented Ava from jumping out of her skin. That, and Ava hadn’t grown up with two annoying siblings and not been in for a few nasty surprises.

Of course, her siblings hadn’t usually been, um, nude.

And they weren’t mid-forties and balding.

Mr. Indecent Exposure had found her.

And he was still very much indecent.

With her heels on, Ava was almost eye level with the half-naked guy, and she kept her eyes very, very carefully locked on his.

She’d been sort of assuming they were dealing with someone who was mentally ill, or perhaps under the influence. But up close, this guy seemed merely mischievous and perhaps not too bright.

His blue eyes were round and twinkling. This man was very aware of what he was doing, even if he was a little clueless about the consequences.