work and I really don’t care. He can worry about watching his back and I’ll worry about mine.
“Hey, Brad. Come in here, will ya?” Dan calls me into his office. I stand up from my desk and stretch. I hate filling out paperwork. If I could, I’d make some dumb rookie do it for me so his sorry ass can be stuck at his desk all day. At this point I think I’d even go for being a meter maid if I didn’t have to fill out anymore forms.
“What’s up, Chief?” I ask as I walk into his office and plop down in one of the guest chairs.
“Is there something going on at home?” he asks slowly. The Chief is all for talking personal stuff when it’s positive but the moment things goes south, he’s out of there. I shrug my shoulders.
“Sure. Why?” I ask.
“Um,” he sits in his chair and clasps his hands together. His head is down and his shoulders are shaking. “You just look a little blue, that’s all.” And he breaks out into a full-on chuckle. This joke is clearly over my head. I have no idea what’s funny about the color blue.
“You, uh, drinkin’ at work again, Chief?” I laugh, thinking that I’m funny. He narrows his eyes at me and I sit up straighter. “Sorry,” I mutter and rub my neck. Right when Colleen and I were graduating high school, Louise got pregnant with twins but lost them pretty late in the second trimester. That was a rough time in the Frasier household. I knew it wasn’t their first miscarriage but it had hit them the hardest because she’d lost them so late.
“It’s okay, son,” the Chief says. He looks at me seriously and sighs. “You’re a husband now. I just want to know that you’re taking care of my little girl.”
“I’m trying but you know how she is,” I grumble.
“That I do,” he laughs wistfully. “She seems happier with you. I haven’t seen her so lively since she went off to that damn college. She’s been all work and no play. It’s time my girl enjoyed her life.” I smile at him.
“I want wring her stubborn neck every other minute, but she’s it for me, you know?” I say. Dan smiles at me. I gulp, a little surprised at my confession. It’s not like he didn’t know before. Like any good father, he just likes hearing it.
“Don’t think there aren’t times that I don’t want to ship Louise off somewhere tropical.” We laugh for a moment. “So things are okay? There’s nothing fishy going on that’d make you blue?” Again with the blue!
“No, sir,” I lean forward with a slight bit of confusion. “Do I look blue or something?” And he bursts out laughing again. I stand up, annoyed now because I have no idea why he keeps talking about the color blue. He waves me off and I walk back to my desk. Colleen is in my chair, playing with her phone.
“You come to feed me, pretty girl?” she looks up and smiles. I give her a kiss on the forehead. She stands up and pulls me down to her, kissing me passionately. I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her close. As the kiss heats up I can hear cheers from all around.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” James mutters in complete shock. Colleen pulls away and kisses the side of my mouth. I look around to see that we’ve attracted quite the audience.
“Before you eat baby, you might want to take one of these.” Colleen smirks and tosses me a prescription bottle. I look at the label. Viagra. Oh, she’s hilarious. The label is obviously homemade. My pharmacy prints my middle initial on the bottle and this label doesn’t have that. Yeah, Viagra my ass.
“My wife is funny,” I laugh and hold the bottle up so the boys can see it. “She thinks I need Viagra.” They all start laughing. Colleen bites her lip and stomps her foot, obviously annoyed that I’m not buying it.
“Baby,” she whines, “how do you expect us to conceive Bradley Jr. if you don’t take your little pill first? Come on, baby. Let’s have a nooner!” she says with faux enthusiasm and rubs her belly. Yeah, like this is going to embarrass me. I smile and wink at her.
“Oh, baby, that’s not how you talk in bed.” I puff my chest out because yeah, I know I’m a stud and if she wasn’t