But I was looking.
It was hard not to focus all my attention on how beautiful she was, but being a police officer, I always tried to be aware of everything around me. A part of me was jealous that he got to work with her, but my cop senses told me something was off with this guy. I couldn’t put my finger on it just yet, but I knew I needed to watch him.
So, I did.
“Want another?” Reagan asked, coming over to me a few minutes later.
I looked down at the half-finished warm beer. “No, I’m good.”
“All right. Just let me know if you do.”
“Hey.” I reached out my hand and grabbed her wrist, stopping her from walking away. “What time do you get off?”
She smiled warmly at me and then cocked a hip. “Are you flirting with me, Mr. Valor?”
I smiled back, leaving my hand on her warm skin. “What if I were?”
Before she could respond, her barback bumped into her, causing my grasp to break free. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“Yeah.”
“Clumsy, ain’t he?”
Reagan chuckled. “Yeah, first night working with him too.”
Interesting.
She stepped back in front of me. “I get off in an hour. Are you sticking around?”
Hell yeah, I was. I looked at my watch and noted it was just after eleven. “Yeah, I don’t live far.”
“Oh, really?”
“Just down the block actually,” I replied.
“Then you’ll need to visit more often.”
I grinned, and my gaze moved to her left hand, which didn’t have a ring. “Already planning on it.”
I noticed the barback stopped putting glasses away for a split second as though he were listening to us. He clearly had a thing for her, and honestly, I did too. The years had treated Reagan nicely, and my body still reacted to her as though I was a horny teenager.
Judy’s was still humming with people, but as soon as twelve o’clock hit, Reagan came out from the back and walked straight to me. “Want to go somewhere quieter?”
My face widened with a smile. “Are you flirting with me, Ms. Hunter?”
She chuckled. “What if I were?”
I slid off the stool. “Then I’d say we should get out of here.”
A glass shattered behind the bar, and I glanced up to see that the barback had caused the noise. The closing bartender walked over and said to him, “Clean this up, and then you’re good to go home.” The barback nodded, glanced at us, and then walked to the back.
“Ready?” I asked.
Reagan turned to me. “Yeah. Where are we going?”
“Well, I do live right down the street,” I reminded her.
“Moving a little fast, don’t you think?” she teased. At least I presumed she was teasing. Even if we did have sex tonight, it wouldn’t be our first time together. Was that moving too fast? I wouldn’t turn her down, but I also wanted to go somewhere quiet and have her all to myself for a while so I could find out what had been going on in her life since we were teenagers.
I moved a step closer to her and whispered into her ear, “Or we can go to your car and pretend it’s like old times.”
From the first time Ethan literally ran into me in the halls at school, he’d always made my belly feel as though it was swarming with butterflies. No man, not even my ex-husband, had ever had that effect on me.
“How far away do you live?” I asked. While making out with Ethan in the back of my car made my belly dip, I didn’t think we needed to be confined to a tin box. We weren’t kids anymore.
“Just another block.”
When we were younger, the man walking next to me would always grab my hand when we’d walk side by side. But now, as we walked down the street, we were at least three feet apart.
Those three feet felt like three miles.
We hadn’t seen each other in many years, but I wanted him to touch me. I wanted to remember what it felt like to be in his arms because, when I had been there before, I’d felt safe. And even though I had no reason to feel unsafe, I wanted to remember what it felt like to know that no matter what, he’d protect me. Something about Ethan instantly put me at ease.
I hated how our relationship had ended because it was all my fault.
The phone rang in my ear as I held the receiver and waited for Ethan to answer. I didn’t want him to pick up the phone, didn’t want to hear his voice, but I had to break up with him because I’d cheated on him. I’d drunk one too many beers and kissed another guy. A guy who wasn’t my boyfriend. A guy who wasn’t my first love. A guy who wasn’t Ethan.
“Hello?” Ethan answered.
I took a deep breath before I replied, “Hi.”
“Hey, Buttercup.”
A tear ran down my cheek when I heard the term of endearment leave his lips. He always called me Buttercup because my favorite flower was buttercups, specifically the Persian ones that resembled roses.
“We need to break up,” I blurted.
“What?” he questioned.
“It’s—It’s just not working out.”
“Bullshit,” Ethan snapped.
“Please,” I begged.
“Is there someone else?”
“No.” There really wasn’t. I didn’t even remember the name of the guy I’d kissed. “It’s hard to keep up our relationship and school. It’s just not working out.” Part of that statement was true, but if I hadn’t kissed whatever-his-name-was, we wouldn’t have needed to have this conversation, and my heart wouldn’t have been ripping out of my chest and breaking in two.
“We can make it work.”
More tears ran down my face as I tried to hide the sorrow in my voice. “We can’t.”
He paused for a moment before replying, “I don’t know why the fuck you’re doing this, but one day, Reagan Hunter, you’ll regret it.”
I already did.
The closer we got to his apartment, the more I wanted to tell him what really happened to make me break up with him all those years ago, how my stupid teenage heart thought a kiss was the end of the world, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to taint the moment by bringing up the past. A past that was over two decades old.
“I’m all out of beer,” he stated as we walked through the doors of his building. Ethan nodded to the doorman, and we walked toward the elevators. “That’s actually why I went to Judy’s tonight. But I have apple juice if you’d like.”
I laughed. “Apple juice?”
He grinned and pressed the button to call the elevator. “My sons both love apple juice.”
“You have kids?”
“Two boys. You?”
“I have a daughter.”
The elevator dinged, and then the doors opened. We stepped inside, and Ethan pressed the button for his floor. “Just the one?”
I sighed and leaned against the railing as the lift ascended. “We tried for more, but it never happened.” His gaze dropped to my left hand, but before he could ask, I added, “I’m divorced now.”
“Me too.”
“Is this a normal thing for you then?”
“What’s that?” he asked as the doors opened, and we stepped out onto his floor.
“Taking a woman home from a bar.” I smiled, trying to make a joke because the situation felt weird. A part of me felt comfortable with him, but another part was nervous as though I didn’t know him at all. Even though we knew each other intimately, we really didn’t know each other anymore.
Ethan grinned. “No, it’s not a normal thing for me. I’ve dated a few women since my divorce, but work takes up a lot of my time.”
“Did you end up becoming a cop?” I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway, trying to make it seem as though I hadn’t tried to find out about him. I figured every woman had that moment, the one where curiosity took over and they typed their ex’s name in the search field on Facebook. I never found him on Facebook, but on Google I disco
vered he was a Chicago police officer. I’d also learned that Ethan had been involved in a shooting that killed a man who was trying to hurt his sister.
He nodded and fished his keys out of his pocket. “Yeah, I’m a sergeant now.”
“That’s amazing,” I gushed as Ethan opened the door.
“Yeah, I love it. What made you decide to be a bartender?”
I chuckled slightly. Did he think I went to Stanford only to be a mixologist? Granted, I wasn’t using my bachelor’s degree. “Actually”—I stepped inside his condo and into the living room area—“I just started at Judy’s last week. My daughter recently started college, and I needed something to do with my time. I have my BA in biology, but now I’m taking classes to become a crime scene investigator.”
“No shit?” He closed the door behind him and tossed his keys and phone on the table near the door.
I watched him walk to the open kitchen. “I’ve always wanted to work crime scenes, but I got married and had Maddie right after college. Never pursued law enforcement like I’d wanted to.”
“I remember when we were dating before, you wanted to work crime scenes, but are you okay seeing dead bodies?”
It was my turn to balk. Ethan had shocked me with his question because I’d never thought about the dead bodies. It had been years since I thought I’d go down the crime scene investigating path, and sure, I knew there would be dead bodies, but I hadn’t considered the fact that in the near future I was going to see dead people.
I shrugged. “I guess so.”
Ethan pulled a jug of apple juice out of the fridge and then turned to a cabinet for glasses. He chuckled. “You better know so.”
“What is it like?” I asked, moving to a barstool at the kitchen island.
He paused with his hand on the cap of the bottle. “I think it depends on the person. For some, it’s gross. For others—like me—it is what it is. But the smell is disgusting. It’s the foulest thing in the world. I can’t even describe it.”
“Oh.”
“Each one gets easier to deal with, but killing someone and watching them take their last breath is the real deal.”
“That happened to you? You’ve killed someone?” Again, I was playing dumb. There was no way I was going to tell him that I’d looked him up because a part of me had always longed for him. My heart still ached as I thought about how we’d ended.
Ethan sighed and then opened the juice before pouring us each a glass. “Actually, it happened right behind you.”
Time stood still as I processed his words. I blinked. “What?”
He slid a glass to me and then leaned forward, resting his elbows on the gray granite. “My sister was almost kidnapped. I happened to come over just in time to see the guy pointing a gun at her boyfriend. Before he could shoot, I did.”
“Wow,” I breathed, still processing the fact that the man he’d killed had died not ten feet from where I sat. I knew he had killed a person; I just hadn’t realized I was in the room where it had happened.
“Yeah, but you won’t be shooting people, so you don’t need to worry about those nightmares. Which part of investigating are you going to get your certification in?”
I took a sip of the sweet juice. “Forensics.” There were several types of investigators: forensics, photography, ballistics, DNA and blood analysis, and crime scene reconstruction. I wanted to gather and preserve physical evidence at crime scenes and then go back to the lab and analyze it, run tests on fibers and hairs, and help solve the cases.
He grinned. “Then maybe we’ll work crime scenes together.”
“Maybe, but I need to find a job first.”
“I might be able to help with that.”
I smiled. “Really?”
“I’m sure I can. I know people in this town.” He winked.
The very first person I gave my heart to was sitting across from me.
The same person who first broke my heart, and the person who still carried a piece of it after all these years. When I’d thought about seeing Reagan again, I always thought I would turn the other way. After all, she’d ripped out my heart and never looked back. But when I saw her at Judy’s, all those thoughts went out the window, and then she was in my condo, drinking my apple juice as if nothing had ever happened.
I didn’t hate her. It was the complete opposite. I …
I still loved her.
A part of me always had. They say you never forget your first love, and that was definitely true. Just the thought of Reagan walking out my door and never coming back again was messing with my head. I needed to prolong the reunion even though it was getting close to one in the morning, and I had to be at work in less than eight hours. I wasn’t ready to let her leave my sight.
“I’m sure I can. I know people in this town.” I winked.
“A job at your precinct?” she asked.
“Maybe. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“I just have to get through nine more weeks of school.”
“Maybe I can be your study buddy?” I proposed. “I do know all about crime scenes.”
Reagan smiled. “You’d do that for me?”
I shrugged and picked up my glass of juice before walking to the other side of the island to sit next to her. “Sure, why not? It’ll be like old times.” I smirked.
She bobbed her head and chuckled slightly. “Old times that used to lead to not studying or doing homework.”
That was true. After school and before our parents arrived home from work, we’d hang out and study. We were each other’s firsts—in more than one way.
“You never complained,” I reminded her.
She threw her head back, laughing. “No. No, I didn’t.”
Her laughter made my palms itch to touch her, to pull her into my arms and feel her lips on mine again as I kissed her. Instead, I said, “So, tell me what Reagan Hunter has been up to the last twenty-some-odd years.”
She took a deep breath. “Well, I graduated from Stanford, moved to Denver, got married, had Maddison about a year later, and have just been doing the mother thing since then. She kept me busy.”
“And now you live here?”
“Yeah. Moved far away from my ex and closer to Maddie.”
“And me,” I stated.
“And you, but I didn’t know you still lived here. What have you been up to?” Reagan took a sip of her juice.
“As I mentioned earlier, I became a cop, then got married, had my two boys, dedicated most of my time to the job so I could one day be chief like my father was, got divorced, and then went to a bar that has a reputation for people finding their soulmates.”
“What?” she asked, dragging out the word and scrunching her eyebrows.
I chuckled. “My sister met her husband at Judy’s.”
“She did?”
I nodded and then took a sip of juice. “About three years ago. Didn’t realize that the one time I go there, I would run into the only woman I still dream about.”
She didn’t speak.
I didn’t speak.
The clock on the wall ticked …
Tock ...
Tick ...
Tock ...
Tick…
Tock.
I cleared my throat. “Let me give you my number, and you can call me if you need help with anything.”
Reagan stood to grab her purse from the table by the front door. After fishing out her cell phone, she said, “Okay, give me your number.”
I took her phone, and after I typed my number into her contacts, I sent myself a text so that I had her number as well. “I feel like we’re back in high school, exchanging numbers and shit to help with homework.”
She grinned. “Yeah, it’s like we’re starting over.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if she wanted to try, but I thought better of it. Instead, I handed her back her phone and said, “Would you like to go on a ride-along with me sometime?”
Her emerald eyes brightened. “Reall
y?”
I smiled and went to sit on my couch as she placed her purse on the table. “Yeah. Then we can see how you do with dead bodies.”
Reagan sat next to me, but not close enough to touch. “Do you get them every day or something?”
Chuckling, I said, “No, but we do live in one of the thirty cities with the highest murder rates.”
“No wonder you’re used to it.”
“Yeah, and like I said, it gets easier.”
“A ride-along sounds fun. I’d love that.”
“Great, I’ll set it up.” Being a gentleman, I should have offered to take her home—or drive her to her car at Judy’s—but I didn’t want her to leave. “Want to watch a movie or something?”
She paused, and I knew she wanted to do the right thing—the right thing being head home since it was late. Instead, she said, “Yeah. Let me use the bathroom first.”
I grinned because her answer gave me hope that we were both feeling something. “Just down the hall. First door on the left.”
Reagan returned not long after, and we selected a movie while she got comfortable on one side of the couch, and I got comfortable on the other side. I had to admit that we’d never watched a movie together this way. Even when we first started dating, I’d wrap my arm around her shoulders. Now, she was a mile away, and I felt the distance between us.
While we watched the TV, I made it my new mission to win her back.
Reagan Hunter was going to be mine again.
I woke in a bed.
A bed that didn’t feel like my bed.
After slowly opening my eyes, I looked over and noticed I was alone. I couldn’t remember falling asleep or getting into a bed—Ethan’s bed. I didn’t feel hungover, drugged, or anything like that, so I didn’t understand how I didn’t remember anything except watching a movie on Ethan’s couch.
I lifted the covers, looking down to see that I was still in my clothes except for my shoes. Turning my head, I noticed a piece of paper on the pillow next to me, so I sat up and grabbed it.
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