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Itry not to think about the way in which I abandoned my desk and the likelihood that all the wet sticky files will dry out and attach to one another and be destroyed. I also wish that I cared more. Maybe if my day had started differently, maybe if she hadn’t called, maybe if my dick didn’t hurt so much. But all these thingsdidhappen, and I am sitting on the tube like a pathetic teenager who just skipped school to lose his virginity at his girlfriend’s house while her parents are at work.
I stand outside the coffee shop like a fucking creep, watching people walk in and out. I can pretend like I’m on the job and on alert, but I’m not. Uncertainty eats away at my edges. She’s in there somewhere, and I know I shouldn’t step foot inside that cafe.
I try to rationalise it to myself. She’s young, she was scared, and I helped. She just wants to thank me. I know this is against policy, I know that her thanks over the phone should have been enough, I know I shouldn’t be here, and I lie to myself and pretend it has nothing to do with the fact that she looks like every one of my fantasies come to life.
I pat the sweat from my forehead with a tissue I find in my pocket and comb my fingers through my hair before stepping into the busy coffee shop. The air stands heavy, pregnant with the perspiration of patrons as the sun beams into the coffee shop. I scan the place and then I see her. She’s looking up at me from her seat by the window. Her entire face lights up with a sweet smile as she waves at me. I smile back as my gaze takes a lavish tour of her tight little body squeezed into another halter top and tiny jean shorts that cover her belly button but show off her petite hourglass figure.
As I walk towards her, I am mildly aware of the crowd. It’s loud and noisy and public and part of me is relieved; this is a thank you, a non-intimate affair, in a place full of witnesses. Another part of me, the man part, the carnal savage beast that resides inside my chest and wants to tear her pussy to shreds is disappointed. I can deny it all I want, but I want her, and my ego dictates that I want her to want me too. The disappointment ploughs through me like a truck. I shrug it off. I’m probably just horny. Annie is bound to open her legs again to me sometime this century.
I strangle the thoughts as I come to the table. Amy is sitting down again, and from up here it’s easy to see her plump, perfect little tits pushed up by a purple lacy bra. I drag my eyes away and find hers, green, feline and amused.
“Hi.” She smiles at me, and suddenly she seems shy.
“Hi.” I clear my throat as tension ratchets up my spine. “Coffee?”
She shakes her head. “Can I get a raspberry and loganberry tea please?”
“Sure.” I make my way to the counter to order. Of course she doesn’t drink coffee; that’s an adult drink and she’s still a kid, I remind myself as I take our drinks to the table and set them down.
“Thanks.” She beams up at me again, and I just nod as I shift in my seat, trying to get comfortable in an uncomfortable chair. My knees brush against the round table we’re sitting at, and I push back, scraping the floor and drawing attention.Shit.
She giggles and stares at my face. I sip my coffee, ignoring the looks from around the room.
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
I tip my head and set my cup down. “I probably shouldn’t have. It’s against policy.”
“For people to thank you?”
“For potential witnesses or victims to thank us with gifts or money.” Of course, that’s the nutshell, but really we can’t get personal with them - intimate. I swallow at the slew of words that float through my head.
“Well, lucky for you I’m neither of those things, and if I’m not wrong, you just paid for our drinks, so I think we’re okay?”
A ghost of a smile touches my lips as I take her in.Not just a pretty face then. “I guess we are.”
“Great.” Her head is tilted slightly down, and she looks up at me through her fluttering eyelashes, and God it’s hard to drag my eyes away from hers.
I try and pull this back to a place where we are nothing but a police officer and a young lady who’s thanking him. I clear my throat and plant my hand on the table, my fingers tapping the plastic surface. “So, this ex of yours, he harasses you often?”
Her smile slips. “I guess he didn’t like how things ended.” She shrugs and doesn’t really answer the question, but I notice her shoulders rolling inwards. For an instant she seems to shrink, and I almost reach out for her before stopping myself and shifting in that damn chair again.
“Has he ever hurt you?”
Her face drops again, and when she looks up at me, I’ve erased her easy smile and replaced it with something else. Pain? Anger? Trauma? I can’t tell as she whispers her answer. “More than you’ll ever know.”
I let that sit between us for a while as rage starts to simmer inside me. A man hurting a woman is the lowest form of cowardice. I know that first-hand. My father showed me just what a pathetic piece of useless shit he was every time he touched my mother. For years I would sit there helpless. The cops would come and take him away, and he’d come back angrier and meaner a few days later. They failed her, the system failed her. Until I wasn’t small or weak anymore, untilhewas the small weak one and I decimated him. We don’t talk about it. She’s never forgiven me. She’s also never turned me in. No one ever came looking for him anyway.
The man in me wants to rage, but I am a cop now and there’s only one right way to help. I draw in a long breath. “Do you need any help?”
Her smile is back but it’s tight this time. “No, it’s fine.”
It doesn’t look fine. “If he comes back, if he hurts you—”
“—it’s not like that.” She looks down and bites her lower lip.
They always deny it. “But if it is, or if you’re scared, or if you need any help, you use my number, okay? Any time, day or night.”
