“I’m a cool mom,” I contradicted. “If I was a good mom, Ethan would eat broccoli.”

Merry chuckled.

I smiled.

He flipped on his blinker.

I started paying attention to where we were going and I was surprised as Merry slowed to pull into an apartment complex that I’d driven by hundreds of times since moving to the ’burg but never really noticed simply because it wasn’t the kind of place you noticed.

It wasn’t a disaster, but it wasn’t very nice either. There were far worse places to live, and I knew this because I’d lived in them.

It just didn’t seem like a place Merry would live.

He had a nice truck. He wore nice suits. He had a Harley. I also heard he had a boat. And it wasn’t only when he’d heard his ex-wife was marrying someone else that he ordered a shot of expensive whisky (though, he didn’t normally order several of them).

So he had good stuff and he liked good stuff.

Then again, he was a cop and everyone knew they didn’t get paid millions to put their asses on the line to solve crime.

Maybe to get his suits, his Harley, and his whisky, he needed to sacrifice other things.

This I could absolutely see.

He drove through the complex and I noticed his truck was by far the best vehicle of any.

And as he drove us through the complex, I was thinking that I didn’t like this for Merry. I preferred to think of him in a home with a yard and a deck where he could barbeque, with decent cars in the drives of the houses around him, no one coming close to even thinking they could have a wild party that got loud and stayed loud.

I figured in this place, wild parties happened every weekend, even if a cop lived amongst them.

He parked. He got out. I opened the door and was almost out before he got to me, took my hand, and helped me the rest of the way.

He cleared me from the truck and slammed my door, beeping the locks, then guiding me to some stairs.

He was quiet. He seemed mellow.

I was mellow and that all had to do with good food, champagne, and Merry.

But as we walked, it started to wear off.

I was a sure thing. He knew I was a sure thing.

That didn’t bother me.

But the last time we went at each other, I’d been out of my head drunk.

I’d liked it.

He’d liked it.

But still, we’d both been slaughtered.

I was not a girl who had too many hang-ups about sex. I went for it. I let the spirit move me. Sometimes I got good back. Sometimes who I was with didn’t work for me.

Right then, the only sex I’d had in years was a shitfaced session with Merry and, before that, fucked-up sex with Denny Lowe. But never, not ever had I been with someone who’d meant something (except Merry).