July
Chapter One
Dylan
Backyard barbecues would never bethe same, and it was a goddamn shame.Meat, beer, and good friends were always a winning combination.
But this?
This had no business being called a barbecue.This should have just been labeled what it was—an experiment in torture.
The burgers smelled good, but there was no beer, and other than my kid, Hunter, there wasn’t a friendly face in sight.
And the Alexanders had a big backyard, filled with a lot of people.
Hunter spotted me from across the yard and came running, crashing into me with enough energy to slosh the lemonade someone had forced into my hand.
“Dad, you’re here!Did you see?Caleb has a trampoline!”And just like that he was gone again, already halfway back across the grass.
But considering he was busy turning eleven today, I was happy he’d noticed me at all.Fuck, I was shocked as hell to have been invited in the first place.
I didn’t really know the Alexanders, except for Eric.But he was dating Hunter’s mother, so we weren’t exactly friends.
This party had been a choice between two kinds of losing.
Skip it, and I’d confirm every bad thing they already thought about me.I’d be the asshole who didn’t want to spend time with his kid.The guy still carrying a torch for his ex.The deadbeat who couldn’t get his shit together.
Show up, and I’d be the guy nobody knew what to do with.The outcast who forgot everyone’s names.The one they’d all hoped wouldn’t accept the invitation.
Either way, I was the loser.
So I forced myself through the door.For Hunter.Because no matter what it cost me, I wanted to be part of his life.To prove myself worthy of my son.
I watched him jump on the trampoline, his laugh ringing out across the yard, while I shrugged off the stares of judgmental strangers.
Fuck ‘em.
“It’s Dylan, right?”Eric’s brother-in-law ambled up to me, a look of curiosity on his face.
“Yeah, hi…” What the hell was his name?
Instead of filling in the blank for me, he rocked back on his heels with the bored restlessness of a man who’d run out of people to talk to.“How’s life in law enforcement treating you?”
Great.Small talk.Annoying as fuck, especially from a guy just as out of place here as I was.
He’d been hanging around the edges of the party, neglected and forlorn.Even his own wife, Celeste, had studiously ignored him.He was a loser.
We were now a loser party of two.
“Work’s fine,” I said, aiming for congenial, but sounding more like a bitter fucking ass.“I’ve been thinking about moving from the local force to Provincial.”
“You’re applying to the O.P.P.?”a sweet, lilting voice asked from behind me.
Jamie.
Her presence made me both excited and sick at the same time.The fact that she’d managed to sneak up on me, when every one of my senses was wired to track her, proved just how far out of my element I really was.
Eric was right beside her, of course.He still didn’t trust me alone with her.Not that I blamed him.