Crash Lights and Sirens, Book 1 by Unknown Read Free Book Online

entirely sure what he’s after with Falvey, is the flip side of things, if it’s just that he’s bored and trying to scratch an itch or if it’s something else. The night of the fire, her chin tipped up and the way she said his name? He thought maybe it was something else.
    They’re still looking at each other when Doc calls out to Taryn from across the bar, engaging in a series of exaggerated pantomimes that translate roughly to I need to pee and you should too . Falvey rolls her eyes. “Duty calls,” she tells him, sliding off her barstool. She nudges her warm thigh against his before she goes. By the time she gets back Lynette’s made herself at home beside Nick, going on about the new Italian place in Stockbridge—her husband’s out of the doghouse, apparently. Nick watches Falvey size up the situation, then follow Doc over to a table with some of the other rookies.
    So. That’s the end of that, he guesses.
    For a girl who was waiting on him she sure stays far away the rest of the night, beating Doc’s boyfriend at Buck Hunter and nursing a pint of Sam Winter, laughing like she hasn’t got a care in the breathing world. Nick can feel her though, this weird awareness of where she is in the bar at any given moment, like she’s giving off some kind of hum only he can hear. He orders another beer, minds his own business. Taryn doesn’t. At around eleven he comes out of the bathroom and finds her waiting, leaning against the wall next to the ancient pay phone like there’s no place she’d rather be.
    Nick blinks. “Hey,” he says. There’s the narrowest strip of skin showing between her waistband and her shirt. “Where you been?”
    Taryn smirks. “Like you weren’t watching.”
    Halfway between Audra’s age and his, Nick reminds himself. Still. “How d’you figure that?” he asks, leaning in to prop an arm against the wall, close but not close enough to crowd her. It’s private here, a long, dim hallway snaking around the back of the bar, but Nick feels compelled to leave room for the Holy Ghost anyway. All these stops and starts have made him cautious. “Been watching me watch?”
    Falvey tips her chin. “Just a hunch,” she supplies, shrugging with the easy grace of a person who knows she’s not wrong. Her pale cheeks are flushed, the beer or the stuffiness or both. “Anyway. Could be I need that ride now.”
    Nick isn’t ready to let her off the hook. “Could be, huh? You don’t know for sure?” He’s been waiting on her, is the truth—normally he would have left an hour ago.
    “Maybe I just didn’t want to interrupt your evening.” Falvey shrugs, uncrossing her arms and pushing off the wall like she intends to lead the way to the parking lot. Only then she stops short.
    “God, seriously, are you ever gonna make the first move?” she asks, one hundred and ten percent out of the blue. Her laugh is unexpectedly nervy. “It’s been my turn twice.”
    Nick’s eyebrows damn near hit his hairline. “Your turn—Christ, Falvey, this isn’t a game of Go Fish.”
    Taryn smirks, mirroring his expression, but underneath the clowning she looks nervous. “So? Tell me to get lost then.” She’s still standing inside the cage of his arm.
    It’s easy to make the first move when you’re as sure of the other person as Falvey is of him, Nick reminds himself. He ought to tell her that and walk away.
    He doesn’t.
    Her mouth tastes like Sam Adams and medicinal lip balm. Nick fists his hand in her messy red hair and holds on. “There you go,” he says finally, pulling back. God, she’s only been broken up with Pete a couple of weeks. “First move.”
    “Mm-hmm.” Taryn blinks at him, those green eyes taking on a gold tint in the dim light of the hallway. Nick can hear the sounds of the bar drifting around the corner, Springsteen and a spray of Jerry’s horsey laughter. “Congratulations.”
    Nick blows out an irritated sigh. He knows he got to her, the slightly labored way she’s