A Girl's Best Friend by Crystal Jordan

panic—of dread—wound through him when she spoke again. “It’s just a matter of time until something happens to you, too, isn’t it? You’re not invincible. We have to cope with that, not just you.” She shoved a hand through her hair. Hair he’d wound his fingers through just the night before. How had things gone from such a bright promise to this ?
    His breath hissed out as the painful truth rocketed through him. Something in him shriveled and died. His lips felt numb, like they didn’t want to form the words. “You can’t handle it. I thought since we’ve known each other so long, it would be different with you. But it’s not.”
    “I was just worried, and you need to see that it’s okay for me to be worried about you.” She hugged her arms around herself. “Worrying doesn’t make me weak, Tyrone. It doesn’t have anything to do with handling or not handling your job, it means I care . But you don’t even see that, do you? You’re so wrapped up in all the shit Sherona put you through that you’re blowing this out of proportion.”
    “But it’s just a matter of time until something happens to me, right? You don’t trust me to take care of myself, to carry out my duties safely. I’m not some Rambo jackass, Lorna. I’m a trained professional.” He rubbed the back of his neck, just wanting this over with. His mind still spun from the events of the day, his friend being shot, the floor of the bank splattered with Brandon’s blood. No one on SWAT liked to think about the dangers of the job. It made them sloppy. It made them scared. Fear could focus an officer, hone his senses to the sharpness of blades, but if he thought too long about how badly he could be injured and what getting hurt would do to his family…well, he was done. That was when burnout happened. When an officer was so torn up over the stress of his job and how that stress affected the people he loved, then it was time to retire and become a desk jockey. And Tyrone wasn’t ready for that. He was good at his work, he liked it.
    Maybe it wasn’t meant to happen for him—finding someone. He’d made that decision when things had gone south with Sherona, but Lorna had given him hope. She’d known him before he was SWAT, had been his friend since then…he’d assumed she could deal with it, that she had been dealing with it for years. Now she wanted to get pissed about him being an adrenaline junkie? Now she wanted to call him insensitive? It was just like Sherona. Things went just fine and then suddenly his job made him an asshole. It was too much the same, he couldn’t even think beyond that. The same. And over way too soon. Lorna didn’t even see that, though. She wanted to claim he was overreacting. He didn’t think so. He snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. “And am I really blowing this out of proportion ? Then why have you been running since this morning? Let’s be real, Lorna. You don’t want to be with me because I’m SWAT.”
    Those tears welled in her eyes again, threatening to spill over. Frustration settled over her face like a mask. “It’s nothing like that, Tyrone. I’m not the girl for you. We’re just friends, and I’m—you know what I look like!”
    He jerked his chin to the side. No way was he letting her get away with that. “Yeah, I do know. And you’re the only one who has a problem with it. You’re using that as a lame excuse. We both know what’s going on here.”
    She shook her head so hard her hair flew around her in a burnished cloud. Her arms folded tighter around herself. “It’s easy to overlook stuff when the sex is good, but we both know you’ll end up with someone who looks like Sherona. Not one who acts like her, but one who looks that good.”
    “You’re not even hearing what I’m saying.” His fingers reached out to close around her bicep.
    She shook her head again. “You’re the one who’s not listening.”
    “Why did you even agree to sleep with me in the