Disorderly Conduct

by Tessa Bailey

  My hand gets stiff, I shake it out and dive back in. I’m documenting every single moment I’ve spent with Ever—this requires a good deal of math, a calendar and some estimating—and there isn’t anyone or anything that can stop me. Except for a straitjacket.

  Minute eight: the day we met.

  I almost didn’t approach you at all. Jesus. How scary is that? You were/are/always will be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. But before you even opened your mouth, I knew you were going to change me. Change my life. So it took me an extra eight minutes to get brave enough to come closer. I had to prepare for whatever you threw at me. And Ever, if you had told me, right there in the glow of the Knicks game, that you only did serious relationships, I know now that I still would have kissed you. Still would have brought you home, fucked up, tried again, fought to keep you, lost you, won you back. All of it. I would have done it all, even if I spent the whole time fooling myself into thinking I wanted casual and easy. Nothing is easy without you. And nothing is casual about the way I love you. I miss you so much. I’m sorry.

  Minute thirty-two (roughly): the night of the day we met.

  The second time we kissed was in the back of an Uber. It was raining, and we were stopped at a red light on Broadway—do you remember? The driver was listening to talk radio in his language, and it was the least romantic setting ever. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t. Because there were raindrops in your eyelashes, and you were freezing from the air conditioner after getting wet while running to the car. You were smiling and blowing into your hands. And you were so real. You were everything real and beautiful and I thought, maybe I should drop her off and leave, instead of coming inside like you’d invited me to do. Because I couldn’t imagine keeping my distance from you. I couldn’t imagine being casual. So maybe cutting it short was a good idea. But the idea of that bothered me so much, I kissed you instead. I tugged you close with the strap of your overalls and kissed your incredible mouth. I should have known then we were forever. You tasted like forever. I’m sorry, Ever. I’m so sorry. Come back to me.

  Minute seventeen hundred and three: a Wednesday afternoon.

  On my way to your place, I saw you through your window. From the street. Since I’d observed the layout of your apartment—I’m a cop in training, remember?—I knew you were at the kitchen sink. But you weren’t washing anything. You were just staring out at the neighborhood or the sky, looking a little sad. When I got to your door, though, you were smiling. You flirted with me, dragged me inside and let me take you against the door. There wasn’t a single trace of that sadness. And I knew you’d hidden it from me. There was so much more of you to know, and I couldn’t pretend I didn’t see it anymore. From that point on, it got harder and harder pretending I wasn’t dying to know every tiny iota of thought and feeling that makes up Ever. I ignored how wrong it felt to leave you each day. I forced myself to focus on seeing you the next time, the next time. So when you broke it off with me, I panicked. There wasn’t going to be a next time to focus on. So I fucked up beyond any apology I can offer, but please know that being without you hijacked my common sense. I’m the world’s biggest idiot and I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.

  Minute three thousand and eighty: the day I knew something was wrong.

  I offered to fix your leaky pipes on this day, Ever. You really should have given me more shit about that, because it was about as smooth as a pothole. I saw you slipping away from me that day. Saw it in your eyes, the way you clammed up on me. You know how scary that was, when I never really had you at all? I had no foothold, no leverage. Nothing. And this scared asshole you hooked up with decided the best foothold would be friendship. To get you back. Becoming your friend was the greatest decision I ever made. The worst decision I ever made was lying to you, lying to myself, pretending the never-ending drive to be around you was all about sex. It wasn’t. It was about Ever and Charlie. And the fact that I’m so in love with you, your heart, your soul, your thoughts and words, that I can’t even breathe right while I’m writing this (day five of being without you . . . kill me now). Please take me back, cutie. Please.

  Minute three thousand and six hundred: the day I joined DateMate.

  I’d spent hours touching you, looking at your gorgeous face, licking your skin. Seeing you through the eyes of a billion other men was Armageddon for my sanity. They could have you now. I’d blown it. You stood in your kitchen and told me you wanted something serious . . . and I didn’t jump all over it. What was wrong with me, Ever? Jesus Christ. When you messaged Reve, I should have told you I was Charlie. We could have saved so much time and you wouldn’t have been hurt, if I’d just been honest and said, “This is Charlie, I’m talking to your pictures, I’m miserable, can I come over and apologize for the rest of my life?” Instead, I did something stupid. Something that hurt your feelings, when that’s the last thing I ever want to do in this life. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. P.S. Do you still have the pink bikini? I’m not saying you’ll definitely take me back (please take me back) but I’m just curious. If you still have it. Laying around.

  And so on. In total, I think I’ve written ninety letters. Every time I finish one, I put a stamp in the corner, walk down to the blue post box on the corner of my block and drop it in. Looking like a fucking homeless mental patient in my grease-stained sweatpants. Jack and Danika have taken turns trying to haul my ass into the shower or convince me to go see Ever in person. But they don’t know my plan.

  You would think I never wanted to form another plan as long as I live, right? Well this one is different. The letters are only phase one. I want her to open her mailbox and have it stuffed full of my heart on paper, every day. I want her to read them and think about them. To understand that I’m a fuckup, but I’m a fuckup with good intentions that loves her beyond reason.

  Once I’ve convinced her of that? I’ll roll out phase two.

  You don’t want to miss it.

  Ever

  Maybe I’m a pushover. I don’t know. But dammit if Charlie didn’t have me back with the fourth letter I opened. Sue me.

  He’d engaged in some really backhanded business, though, so I’m letting him sweat. I need to be sure he won’t try to deceive me ever again. He may have won me back with the perfect honesty of those letters, but I’m still a touch angry. It would be impossible for me to get over lies and humiliation at the drop of a hat. But I can’t pretend my heart hasn’t spent the last two weeks with Charlie, uptown at the hospital. I miss him so much, my chest feels like an oversized, crushed aluminum can.

  I engaged in a little cyber research myself and found Danika on Facebook, allowing myself to check in once per day to make sure Charlie’s father is still doing fine. If something awful happened and there was a turn for the worse, I would be in a cab uptown without stopping to put on shoes. Charlie is my guy. Right now, I’d like to sock him in the stomach and give him the silent treatment for about a year, but I love him.

  I love him more with every letter.

  The one that won be back should have been the worst letter of all. Seriously. How could I not catch on to his game, when he’d been standing two blocks away after my speed dating fiasco? I should have hugged you on the sidewalk that night, his letter said. You were waiting for me to hug you, but I didn’t realize it until I knew you better. Now I look back and see things I missed and I never want to miss them again. Thank God I know you better now. I went about doing it the wrong way, cutie, but knowing you is my life’s greatest accomplishment. Better than passing the lieutenant exam could ever feel. Which is why I’m not taking it. If gaining something causes me to lose you, it’s not a gain at all. It’s a loss of the best thing I’ve ever had.

  Oh, Charlie is taking the exam. If I have to drug him and cart him there in a wheelbarrow, he will be there to pass it with flying colors. We will find a way to make time for one another when his job becomes hectic. It’s his good fortune he wound up with a girl who likes to spend a fair bit of
time alone. And it’s my good fortune that I ended up with a guy who is willing to set aside his life’s ambition to make me happy. I’ll be happier if he achieves it, though, and I will make sure Charlie knows it.

  As soon as he stopped sending letters and came to see me.

  Although, speaking of alone time, I haven’t had much of it lately. After coming clean about pointing Charlie in the direction of my speed dating event, my roommate has been extra sweet, cooking meals and letting me have control of the DVR. I’ve forgiven her, too, but I’m waiting to reassure her until I make it through season five of Supernatural.

  As for my mother, we’re getting closer every day. Especially since we had our talk about my love life and how I’d dated to bring us closer together. My happiness can’t be designed around capturing a feeling I didn’t have growing up. It has to grow with the future. We’ll find things in common, she and I, but this is my life and there’s only one way I want to live it. With Charlie. Hard or easy. Confusing or clear. Shouting or silent. Likely, all of the above.

  Speaking of Charlie . . . what is taking him so lo—

  Sirens go off outside my kitchen window—police car sirens—and it’s so unexpected, I scream at the top of my lungs, but the sirens are so loud, you can’t even hear me. Oh my God. Oh my God. There has been like, an explosion or a crane collapse and I’m going to die. I’m going to die, and I didn’t even tell Charlie I forgive him yet. I’m only wearing a towel, but I run barefoot through the living room, straight to the kitchen window and frantically scan the street below.

  Dozens of police cars cram into my block, all of them flashing their lights and blaring their death sirens. But I can’t figure out where the crisis is taking place. Which probably means it’s in my building. Great. I shimmy forward onto the sink, craning my neck to look down at a hundred uniformed officers, maybe more and . . . and there’s Charlie. Standing on the hood of a police car.

  He lifts a hand and the sirens cut out. Just like that.

  While I stare dumbfounded, he lifts a bullhorn to his mouth. “Hey, cutie.”

  I’m in total shock, but his voice is muffled through the closed window, so my hand works frantically to disengage the lock and push it open. “Charlie,” I call, sounding like I swallowed a frog. “What is this?”

  “It’s your last letter.” How dare he look at me with his heart in his eyes when I’m three floors away from him? “Do you, uh . . . want to go get dressed? I doubt anyone down here is complaining—myself included—but I’m a little sensitive about people telling me how hot you are. That’s going to be unavoidable if you’re naked.”

  Blood rushes to my cheeks and I look down. The towel. It snagged on the sink when I was looking out the window. I’m literally showing the entire avenue my rack. “Shit!” I hurtle myself backward off the sink onto the kitchen floor. After taking a moment to die a small death, I wrap the towel around me—securely this time—and gain my feet once again, making sure it stays in place as I lean out the window. “I’m decent.”

  Charlie gives me that slow smile, like we’re in on a secret together, and my embarrassment evaporates like mist. He looks awful. On the surface, he’s as sexy as ever, in his academy uniform and bristly cheeks, muscles for days, but I can see he’s been sleeping about as well as I have. As in, not well at all. I just want him to end whatever production he has planned and come upstairs, so I can stuff him full of leftovers and take him to bed, but he lifts the bullhorn again before I can make the request.

  “I love you, Ever. I love you so much.” There’s definitely some male groans happening around him, but he doesn’t even flinch. “There won’t be a day in my career where someone doesn’t call me Romeo or Casanova because of this—and you know what? If you forgive me right now for what I did, I’ll smile every single time I hear those nicknames. Because I’ll know it was worth it. It would have been worth it every day for a hundred years. And I’ll know I’m the lucky bastard who gets to come home to you every night.” The bullhorn drops down to his thigh. “Please, Ever,” he shouts. “I’m miserable.”

  My eyes are like sprinklers. Tears are actually squirting from my ducts and all the while, I’m laughing. I’m laughing because this man is so incredible. “Who goes around ruining someone’s dates, Charlie? Who does that?”

  “I don’t know.” He covers his face with the bullhorn a moment, then he’s speaking into the mouthpiece once more. “Probably someone who’d do something like this . . .”

  A song pipes up from one of the police car stereos, amplified through the speakers on top of the vehicle. As soon as I recognize it, the crying-laughing jag starts up again. All I can do is watch as officers climb out of their cars, their expressions totally deadpan as they sing “My Type” by Saint Motel.

  Halfway through the song, Charlie calls to me again. “Take a good look at all these cars, Ever. I’ll be washing them for a year to pay for this.”

  My heart is going to expire from happiness. I’m clutching at my chest, laughing, tears spilling onto my arms, rolling into the seam of my mouth. All I can think about is getting Charlie upstairs, into my arms, so I make a blind grab for the keys on my kitchen counter, dangling them out the window a moment, before dropping them into Charlie’s waiting hand.

  A cheer goes up. Sirens go off again. Charlie is off the hood of the car so fast, his form blurs on its way toward the building. Mine probably does, too, as I make a mad dash to the door, throwing open deadbolts and twisting locks. The door opens immediately . . .

  And there’s Charlie. All haunted eyes, stubbled cheeks and twisting hands. I launch myself at him, not caring one bit about the towel any longer. His strong arms are heaven around me. Perfect, unbreakable, never-letting-go heaven. The sound he breathes into my neck as I’m lifted off the ground is relief in its purest form.

  “God, Charlie. God.” I’m sobbing and holding on to him for dear life. “Look what happens when you harness your powers for good instead of evil.” His laugh is hoarse and it vibrates my neck. “That was amazing. You’re amazing.”

  “No, I’m a moron. I’m a desperate, exhausted moron who can’t spend another second without his girlfriend.” His blue eyes find mine, tired, but intense. “I have you back, Ever?” His voice is choked, beautiful. So, so beautiful. “Do I have you back?”

  “You’ve had me back for days,” I whisper, my knees shaking. My stomach. “If you’d come to find me, you would have known.”

  He grips my shoulders, stroking them up to my face. Cupping my cheeks. “I wanted to show you how hard I’ll work. To make you happy. To correct myself when I screw up.” His mouth hovers over mine and we moan. We moan, because it’s been too long since we kissed. “I needed you to see. I’ll keep you loving me. I won’t take it for granted. I’ll treat you, and this love, like the gift it is. You trust me, Ever?”

  “Yes.” I wind my fists in his shirt and tug him close, close as possible. “Will you trust me to know what I can handle? When I’m missing you or you’re gone too long, I’ll tell you and we’ll work it out. But you’re taking that exam, Charlie. What’s important to you is important to me.”

  “Of course I trust you, cutie.” His laugh is gruff and disbelieving. “And of course you wouldn’t let me back out of the exam. I should have known.” He shakes his head slowly. “At some point, I’ll stop forgetting I fell in love with the most incredible girl on the planet, I swear.”

  “Anyway, someone who can juggle the police academy and execute sabotage at the same time can handle being a lieutenant and still keep his girlfriend happy.”

  “That’s cute,” he breathes, walking me backward toward the bedroom, his expression awed. “Real cute. Thinking you won’t be my wife by the time I make lieutenant. You haven’t learned how determined I can be by now?”

  We fall backward onto the bed, my towel a thing of the past. Charlie’s lips are just above mine, brushing them together. I watch as he notices my bed is covered in the letters he’s been sending. Every single one of them k
ept me company as I tried to sleep. And his eyes take on a damp quality, his jaw flexing.

  “I’ll make you a deal.” He reaches between us, unfastening his pants, both of us laboring to breathe within seconds. “When I pass the exam, you let me put a ring on your finger. Vows in your mouth.”

  “Done,” I gasp as he thrusts into me, my back arching off the bed. “I love you so damn much, Charlie Burns.”

  He releases a ragged groan into my neck. “I love you more than life, Ever Carmichael.”

  Epilogue

  Charlie

  Life is . . . good? That’s a massive understatement. Let’s go with incredible. In fact, they haven’t even invented a word yet for how fucking wow my life is right now. Sure, I only got Ever back yesterday, but we danced to James Brown this morning in her kitchen while she cooked me eggs, so . . . wow. Compared to the low point I hit when I lost her, this isn’t just heaven. I’m on cloud nine, baby. And it’s only going to get better from here.

  I’m lying between Jack and Danika on a mat inside the gym. Greer just handed us our asses and we’re in recovery mode. Out of the dozens of zombies in academy uniforms sprawled around us, though, I’m the only one smiling like a crazy person.

  “Ever is spending the night at our place tonight.” I squint one eye and check the clock, still grinning at the thought of seeing her in my bed for the first time. Holding her there. Listening to her talk in the darkness. “I need to wash my sheets.”

  Danika’s nose wrinkles. “When is the last time that happened?”

  “No clue.”

  She groans. “Some Febreze wouldn’t go amiss, either.” Her elbow meets Jack’s ribs. “That goes for you, too, Garrett.”

  “And yet the complaint department has been totally silent.” He stretches his arms over his head and yawns. “Does Ever staying the night mean we should invest in some ear plugs, Charlie boy, you dirty dog, you?”