Page 32 of Creed

I gasp. “Bitch, are you saying you’re officially a doctor?!”

“A nurse practitioner, and I have to pass the exam first. But I’m so close!”

I grin. Quinn and I met freshman year of college. Two different programs and yet somehow every Tuesday and Thursday we ended up at the same coffee shop. We were inseparable after that, especially after we moved into a single-bedroom apartment that I could afford on my salary since nursing kept her so busythat she could barely work. I think those years fortified our friendship to the point that nothing can break us.

“I knew you could do it! How do you feel about it?”

She heaves a big breath. “Like it’s been a long time coming, and also like I really haven’t started yet.”

“That’s how it felt waiting until I was twenty-one to apply to the police academy. The years felt so long, then it was here, and bam…holy shit, I feel like a newbie,” I tell her with a small laugh. Maybe it felt longer because I graduated early with my degree, having done most general education credits during high school.

She snorts. “Then you complained about how easy it seemed.”

I grimace. “I was a little arrogant, wasn’t I?”

“We were young and the universe hadn’t knocked us down just yet,” she offers.

I smile, abandoning the task of trying to find my birth control. I’ll worry about it later. “I miss you. I miss living with you. Even with Creed coming by most nights, there’s a different type of silence living alone.”

Quinn gasps. “Oh my god! I thought I was being such a baby about it. I’m glad I’m not the only one. I miss you too. I’m going to come visit as soon as the semester is over!”

“Yes! Please! Let me know what days so I can make sure I’m off.” I glance out my window at the roar of a motorcycle in the distance. My heart skips a beat wondering if it’s Creed. He kind of just shows up when I’m home, and I have no idea where he parks or walks in from, but he seems to always know when I’m not at work.

“So besides getting it on with the hot biker, how’s being closer to your dad?” she asks.

I move to my bed, sitting down and wrapping my arm around my leg. “It’s…I guess it’s everything I should have expected, instead of hoping for more. We’ve only had one dinner together, and that was before I started working. He ignores me at the station and usually has one of the other deputies give me my duties. Every time I’ve tried to get him over for dinner or go to his, he blows me off. I don’t know, Quinn. Some days I feel like I uprooted my life for nothing.”

“Oh, Morgan honey. It wasn’t for nothing, even if your father doesn’t pull his head out of his ass. The experience is never a waste. I’m sure the environment is different from here in Arizona.”

I snort. “Oh yeah. The other day some drunk kept trying to catch one of the seagulls on the beach, claiming it had a message from the president for him.”

“Is that illegal?”

“It is when he swings a knife at anyone who tries to stop him.”

My best friend laughs. “I can’t imagine the characters you get at the beach.”

“Warner told me that with summer coming up soon it will get worse. There hasn’t been a year they haven’t lost someone to the cliffs or the surfing point.”

We both fall silent for a few seconds.

“That’s sad to think about.”

I nod, even if she can’t see it. “Water is dangerous. I don’t think a lot of people know how much exactly. Even with my swimming lessons from school, I’m not sure I’d be able to handle the waves when they get rough. I’ll leave it to the Coast Guard.”

“Ooh, Coast Guard. So fancy, working with the big guns.”

I smile at her teasing, knowing there was a time I heavily debated going into the federal job. “What about you? You ask Doctor McHotty on a date?”

“No, I overheard one of the nurses say hemakes rounds. As in, takes a woman out, fucks her, and disappears,” she says. “I can’t blame the man, I do the same. But you know I’ve been thinking about wanting something a bit more serious.”

“Maybe you have to look somewhere you normally wouldn’t?”

“Like a biker bar?” she quips.

I shake my head with a laugh. “Maybe? I don’t know. I haven’t met anyone else in the club to know for sure.”

“Hmm. Maybe I can come back and we ask for Creed to take us?” It’s not a bad idea, but how can I ask him when I’m hiding him from the rest of the town? Quinn and her logic are going to get me in trouble.