"You're just sick of everyone on the platoon calling you Baby Face."

At twenty-seven, Elijah was only two years younger than Jackson, but there was no denying which one of them looked younger. Not that the veneer of extreme youth stopped Elijah from drawing female attention like a magnet.

He was well over six feet tall and had the muscle to match. Despite his words, he spent more time lifting weights and hitting the beach than dating. No matter how much sun he got, his light brown skin stayed smooth and flawless, hence the Baby Face moniker.

Jackson didn't envy Elijah's college kid look, but his ability to tolerate the sun well was a different story. As a strawberry blond, Jackson had to lather on sunscreen every spring and let a tan build naturally on the exposed areas of his skin before he was safe from easy burning. Island living was rough on skin as fair as his, and it'd been a pain in the a.s.s back when he'd been working construction.

"Rogers is the one who started that Baby Face c.r.a.p," Elijah said, "and she's just jealous. Spent too much time lying out on the beach trying to tan that lily-white skin and got those premature crow's feet."

Elijah and Rogers had had a rivalry going on ever since the academy. Jackson had gone through it with the two of them and had witnessed the root of it all: the moment Elijah had accidentally hit Rogers in the calf with a Taser.

No matter how profusely he'd apologized, she'd never forgiven him.

"The other day, she asked me what kind of moisturizer you use," Jackson said. "I told her I didn't know, and she offered to slip me a twenty if I went through your bathroom drawer and reported back to her."

"Seriously?" Elijah met Jackson's eyes over his beer bottle.

"No."

Elijah succ.u.mbed to rough laughter that was at odds with his pretty-boy face. When it faded, the air of joviality died with it.

"Heard you brought in Sanders today." Elijah bounced his bottle cap on the table's gla.s.s surface.

"Yeah."

Elijah's hazel eyes went dark as he frowned. "He really beating up on his wife?"

Jackson shot his best friend a hard look. Elijah knew he wouldn't have brought him in if he hadn't been sure. "He hit her twice in the stomach. She just had a baby, too."

"s.h.i.t."

He nodded. "Sanders looked like he was about to s.h.i.t bricks when he realized I was going to charge him."

Jackson knew very well there were officers who wouldn't have. So did Elijah. It was illegal for anyone with a domestic violence conviction to possess a gun if Sanders was convicted, he wouldn't be able to keep his job.

"Hey, it's the thin blue line, not the black and blue wall of silence," Elijah said. "f.u.c.k anyone who thinks otherwise."

"There are too many people who think otherwise." Integrity was one thing. Loyalty was another. Putting cuffs on someone who was supposed to have your back felt like having your moral compa.s.s torn in two.

"Someone's gotta be the change."

"You sound like a motivational poster."

More laughter. "I bet Sanders was p.i.s.sed when you brought him in."

"Yeah, he seemed sure I'd regret arresting him. He even threw a punch."

"It land?"

"No. He was either drunk or hungover clumsy."

"You charge him for a.s.saulting you and resisting arrest?"

"No. It'd be my word against his, and that was a can of worms I didn't want to open. Figured I'll get enough s.h.i.t over arresting him in the first place."

"Well, the charges for what he did to his wife are there. And he can say what he wants that s.h.i.t would never fly with the lieutenant."

"I know." Anyone under their lieutenant's charge knew she'd never turn a blind eye to actions like Sanders'. "But she's not the one out on the streets who's supposed to have my back, and Sanders isn't in our platoon anyway."

"So you don't have to deal with Sanders or any of his buddies. Not unless you have to arrest him again, anyway."

"f.u.c.k that. Someone else can take the call." He said it, but he didn't mean it. He'd do it all over again if he had to. Letting someone else take the call might mean letting Sanders get away with it.

Elijah nodded, and silence filled their shared apartment.

"You sticking around tonight?" Elijah asked after a while.

"Yeah. Why?" He had work the next morning. All he wanted to do was grab a shower and some food and zone out in front of the TV with the AC cranked high before going to bed.

"I'm thinking of ordering in some Thai. You were MIA last night, and I had to finish off a pizza by myself."

"I thought you were into cooking healthy instead of ordering in. That phase over already?"

"You know I only cook on my days off. I'd been making big batches of food to last through the week, but I didn't have time this week since I ended up getting called in for overtime on my last day off."

"So, a whole pizza really milking it for all it's worth, huh?"

Elijah shrugged. "They were having a special a large one topping for eight bucks. Not like I was going to pa.s.s that up, especially with what we get paid. And you're one to talk, anyway all you cook is bacon."

"I buy those fresh rotisserie chickens from the deli that's almost cooking."

Elijah gave him a look of disbelief. "No, it's not."

"Well, whatever. I'm up for Thai. No plans tonight."

"Last night not go so well?"

"What do you mean?"

"I saw the receipt from the florist on the counter. You went on a date, and you came home early."

Jackson rolled his eyes. "You trying to make detective?"

"Hey, you left it lying out."

"I wasn't on a date."

"Treating yourself to a fresh-cut bouquet?"

"The flowers were for an old friend. Figured I owed her something."

"Why?"

"Caught her flying over the bridge yesterday and wrote her a ticket."

For a second, Elijah stared, his eyes narrowing to laser focus. Then he burst into laughter.

Jackson frowned.

"You're f.u.c.king serious, aren't you?"

Elijah didn't wait for Jackson to answer. "No wonder you didn't get any. You dug your own grave, man."

"I didn't know it was her when I pulled her over."

Elijah shook his head. "Only you, I swear. Do yourself a favor and don't waste any more money trying to get back in that chick's good graces. It's not gonna happen. Only hope you have of seeing her again is in court."

Jackson shifted in his chair, irritation chafing at him.

"We go way back. She's not petty enough to get her panties in a bunch over a ticket."

"You honestly believe that, don't you? You're gonna end up old and alone."

"At least I'll have you for company, Casanova."

"Say what you want. If I meet someone I think would make a better roommate than you, you can be d.a.m.n sure I won't write her a ticket."

Jackson pushed back his chair. "I'm grabbing a shower."

"If you use all the hot water because you're in there fantasizing about that woman, I'm gonna be p.i.s.sed. She's out of your reach."

"I used to think so," he said, heading down the hall, "but I was wrong." He paused by the bathroom door. "You should see her. She could've had anyone still could."

"Calder," Elijah called before Jackson could shut the bathroom door, "you're the biggest idiot I know."

Jackson didn't say so, but he was starting to think the same thing.

"Well," Keira said, "this is a first."

Belle looked to her boss, the unflappable Director of Admissions, Keira Moseley. She stood with her hands on her curvy hips, her strawberry blonde curls bobbing as she shook her head.

"I'd certainly hope so." Belle stared at the surprise that'd been waiting for them in the office when they'd unlocked the doors a minute ago. "What should we do call campus security?"

Keira had already turned on her heel and was marching toward the phone at the reception desk. It was currently Zackary's post, although he hadn't arrived yet.

"We've got a situation here," Keira said into the receiver after punching in a few numbers. "Someone made it into the office overnight and left us a little gift."

It wasn't so little, actually. The d.i.l.d.o standing at attention in the center of the round waiting table outside Keira and Belle's individual offices didn't seem far shy of a foot long. Made of bright kelly green rubber molded in an anatomically correct shape, it looked garish even intimidating.

"I get that some people get upset when they're not accepted," Belle said, "but how the h.e.l.l did they get past the locks?"

The only people who had keys to the admissions office were Keira, Belle and the college's janitorial and security staff. Anyone else would've had to steal a key or pick the lock.

"Like I said, this is a first. Your guess is as good as mine."

Belle's gaze drifted toward her office. "I hope they didn't leave us any other surprises."

"Don't go looking we'll have security inspect. People are nuts these days; they might've left something a lot worse than this."

Zackary walked in at that very moment. "Morning, gu What the h.e.l.l?"

Belle turned to see him standing frozen by the reception desk, a backpack sagging off of one shoulder. "I'm, uh, still scheduled to work this morning, right?"

"We had a visitor." Keira said it as if she were reporting on the weather. "Security is on the way."

Belle bit her lip before she could laugh.

When two campus security officers arrived, their purposeful stride faltered as they walked through the office door.

The older one, a fifty-ish man with a grey mustache, was the first to recover. "Is this the, uh, object left by whoever broke in?"

"Yes," Keira said, "and they either had a key or picked the lock. The door was just as I left it last night when I got here this morning I unlocked it myself."

The mustached man frowned and approached the rubber phallus as if it were a venomous snake that might strike if he got too close.

The urge to laugh grew stronger, and Belle buried an eyetooth in her lower lip.

It really wasn't funny that someone had somehow entered the locked office and left something lewd for them to find. But the way people were reacting to it was definitely amusing.

After a few seconds of frowning at the "surprise," the security officer turned his gaze on his partner and the office staff. "Right, well, since someone entered the locked office, I'm going to err on the side of caution and treat this as more than a prank. I'll have a police officer come by and make a report. n.o.body move the, uh, object."

"We won't," Keira said, her expression betraying no hint of humor.

"Stanley, stay here while I make the call."

The younger security officer nodded and took up a post near the door.

"For G.o.d's sake," Keira said after his partner stepped out of the room, "shut the door. I don't want students coming in here and snapping pictures of our little exhibit."

"This is a health sciences school," Zackary said as he stepped forward, pushing the door shut, "I'm sure all the students here are, uh, familiar with human anatomy."

Keira side-eyed the oversized s.e.x toy. "Human. Sure."

The remaining security officer helped them inspect their offices. There was no telling whether their visitor had unlocked and relocked them too, but nothing was amiss.

Even the Charleston police officer who filed a report on the incident concluded that the toy seemed to be the only sign that anyone had entered the office after hours.