by Finn, Emilia
I should have already flattened him. I should have cuffed him and sent him to the tank for the night to give him time to think about the consequences of stalking a cop’s home. But there’s that magnet inside me, pulling me closer even as my feet pull me away.
I pass my neighbors and shoot them filthy glares. “Get back inside and close the damn door. No loitering in the hall.” Doors slam shut, some with grumbled cussing, and some with wide eyes. I live in the lower socioeconomic side of town. Most folks over here are earning minimum wage or government benefits, and though they’re usually inclined to give my colleagues trouble, they leave me be so long as I don’t pick at them for noise.
It’s a decent tradeoff. I get to be in with the locals who often know of dealings that, as a law enforcement officer, I’d like to know about, and they behave and don’t give me trouble, because as their neighbor, I’m vouched for, in a way.
I push out of the hall with an angry huff, and skip down the stairs on sure feet. I don’t wear heels often, but my time in the gym means I have good balance, my core keeps me upright. I move down one flight, then another. I know Theo is close behind, because with every click of my heels on the stairs, I hear the soft thud of his shoes. I move faster and faster, barely short of running, and that’s only because I don’t want him to think he’s spooked me.
I turn at the next landing and think of Switzerland. Just for a brief second, the word flashes through my mind, but I push it away and clear the next flight and push into the outside chill. The snow is gone for now, but the wind bites and makes me think fashionable jeans aren’t always sensible.
My car is always parked in the street, always in the same spot, as though my neighbors keep the space open for me, so I slide into the front seat with a pounding heart and stare through the darkness until Theo races out the front doors.
He’s so broad, so strong.
So insanely angry.
I don’t understand this turn my life has taken. We didn’t know each other just a few days ago. We still don’t know each other, but he claims ownership like I’m a mutt he can pick up from the shelter.
If he thinks helping me with my weights one time entitles him to some kind of hero status, he’s going to lose his balls in an extremely painful way. I didn’t need him, I don’t want him, and I wish my blood didn’t run faster because of him.
His eyes scan the road for a minute, and though I don’t move a single muscle, he finds me, his eyes lock onto mine, and after a beat, he starts forward.
I’m a cop! I should get out of the car and have him detained for the night. But underneath the cop, I’m also a woman.
Instead of squaring up, I start my car and pull out of my space with a squeal of my tires.
9
Theo
A Promise Is A Promise
I know I’m being crazy. I know I’m risking arrest. I know I’m showing my cards in a way that is absolutely insane.
Men and women who just meet don’t behave this way.
But I didn’t just meet her this week. I met her twenty-two fucking years ago, and I can’t let her go to that man’s house to fuck. I cannot stand by and let this happen, like we’ve got her on some kind of time share. She’s not on the same page as me, but she promised more than twenty years ago that she was mine. She might not have said it in those words, she might not have said it in any words, but promises were made anyway. She held onto my sweater. She forgot my face, but she never forgot me.
I jump into my car just minutes after she leaves in hers, and follow her all the way to the outside of town. There’s enough traffic that it doesn’t stand out that I’m following her, but not so much that it’s difficult to keep track of her movements. I follow her all the way to the freeway, then she skip-hops across two towns and pulls onto a street a little more upmarket than hers.
She stops in the parking lot of another apartment block, but this one looks newer, cleaner, and like the elevators work, and in the case of an emergency, the fire sprinklers are functional. She jumps out as though she has to sprint to where she’s going, like she’s desperate for him, or perhaps she’s desperate to escape the memory of me in her hall.
I pull into the lot behind her car, and once she’s out of sight, I climb out and follow her in.
I’m crossing all boundaries. I’m breaking laws and pissing her off while I’m at it. I’m pissing me off, too. But I will not stand outside and let her fuck another man because I annoyed her with ground turkey and bean theft.
She set this up only after I spoke to her. She made the call out of spite, and planned a fuck-date while she was looking into my eyes. That means it’s my fault this has begun, and makes it my responsibility to stop.
I step into the building lobby and watch the elevator lights take her to the third floor. Instead of waiting for it to come down again, I sprint to the stairs and power up them in hopes of catching her before she goes in. Fuck knows who she’s going to visit, but we both know I won’t like him.
I explode out of the stairwell on the third floor and rush into the empty hall. She’s not here, she’s already inside.
“Fuck.” There are only five doors, so I stop in front of the first and listen for a moment. It’s past eight at night, and the evening news loudly pulses through the door, so I move along. Door number two is similar; TV. And door three is the same again. Everyone has settled in for the night, winding down with a little television in the last scraps of their weekend before Monday begins all over again.
Then I stop in front of door number four and hear a man’s deep voice.
Incensed, enraged, I listen as he speaks, and beneath that, the sound of soft music. He’s set the place up for seduction; he’s already got her coming to him, and now he’s adding music to seal the deal.
I take only a moment to consider this a bad move, but then I hear her. I hear her voice, her soft laugh, and then a heavy thud as something is dropped to the floor.
A shoe. Her shoes are coming off.
“Nope.”
I take the picks from my pocket and push number four open to reveal a room cast in shadow but for one lamp, covered in a type of shawl to create mood lighting. This place is twice the size of Libby’s place, maybe a little more, and though it’s more contemporary, a little more upscale, it doesn’t reek of wealth in the way I might worry about dirty money.
I walk into the small foyer, then into the main living area to find Libby in a man’s arms. Her top is off, her shoes are on. Her hair cascades over her lily-white skin so the ends tickle the band of a lacy black bra.
It takes the guy a second, just a single second of being distracted by the beauty he holds, the mouth he seduces with his own, the body he kneads beneath his hands, for his eyes to snap up and meet mine.
Her back is to me, which means I see her ass encased in her jeans and his hands, which means all it takes is for him to open his eyes to catch sight of me steamrolling across his living room.
His eyes widen, his jaw ticks with anger as he finally registers what the fuck is going on. He breaks the kiss with my Libby, then grabs her and tries to stuff her behind his back. But he’s too slow, and she still hasn’t seen me.
I grab her around the waist and tear her from his arms, but if I thought for a moment she might come willingly, I’m absolutely wrong. She doesn’t panic or ask who has grabbed her. She knows it’s me. She knew I would be just minutes behind her. So without wasting time on screaming, she moves straight to attack. Her elbow swings up and slams into my jaw, knocking me back for half a second, but she’s in my arms, so I bring her with me while her friend watches on in shock.
Libby’s heeled foot slams down onto mine, forcing a roar from my chest for the foot I’m almost certain has been skewered by the heel. She takes advantage of my distraction and slams her elbow back a second time to dislodge my iron grip on her silky belly. She screams, not with fear, but a battle cry.
She’s angry, but I just found her half-naked in another man’s arms, which means I�
��m ready to fight. I’m ready to work off my excess energy. It feels like an hour has passed, but in reality, it’s only been seconds.
Libby’s elbow snaps my jaw around one last time as I busy myself with trying to carry her to the door. She slips out of my hold somewhere near the kitchen counter, and before I can sweep her back up again, her hand slams down on her purse on the counter. She tears it open, and in the next breath, I find myself staring into the barrel of a handgun.
“Theo Griffin, you’re under arrest for stalking, attempted abduction, and aggravated assault.” Her breath comes fast, so her tits lift and fall beneath her bra with heavy exhales. “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. I know the good folks at Griffin Industries can afford one, but I hope you take the one I’ll offer. He’ll make sure you get an all-expenses paid vacation far, far away from me. Anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
She looks to the other guy as though in prompt, but I’m stuck on the gun. In my face. In my fucking face!
“Put it down, Libby.”
“Hell I will. Turn around, slowly lower to the ground, and put your hands behind your back. Drake, cuffs?”
I turn to Drake. “If you pass her a set of cuffs, I’ll rip your trachea out and make it so you need help wiping your ass for the next seven years. Don’t fucking test me.” I turn back to Libby. “Put your gun down. Now. I’m not your enemy, Elizabeth. And I will not tolerate being treated like a criminal.”
“You are a criminal! You came to my home, you followed me for twenty-five miles to another home, and then you let yourself in without that homeowner’s permission. Oh, and you’re arrested for breaking and entering. Add that to your list. Turn the hell around, slowly, and keep your hands where I can see them.”
“Lizbeth, darling.” Drake’s smooth voice irritates me beyond reason. “Honey, you gotta lower your piece. He’s unarmed, and you’re pointing it at his face.”
“What?” She turns to him. “No. He broke into your home!”
“I know. I hear you, babe. He also fucked up what would have been a good time for me.” His taunting eyes come to me. “Lord knows I enjoy being inside you. But that’s Theo Griffin, and he’s unarmed. I’m saying, to keep your career, I’m gonna need you to lower your piece. I’m trying to help you.”
“That’s not fair!” she cries out. “He deserves to be sent away.”
“And you deserve to maintain a clean record. I know what it means to you.” Stepping forward, Drake sidles up so his body, half-fucking-naked body, presses against her ribs and arm. One hand rests on her far hip, and the other slides along her arm toward the pistol. “I’m saying you’ve worked your whole life to be who you are, and killing a jealous boyfriend isn’t how this is gonna go down.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she snaps. “I literally don’t know…” Her voice quivers and ends on a strangled cry. “His eyes, Drake. It’s his eyes.”
He nods, and as his hand wraps around hers and begins lowering the piece, his lips press to her temple and set me alight. “You can arrest him. We’ll toss him in the cages at my station and keep him in for a while to give you space, but I’m saving you from yourself. I know you’ll regret shooting him.”
Rage shoots off inside my body. Through my blood. Electrical charges zap my every limb, painful but energizing. “You’re a cop?” I look into Drake’s green eyes, then I turn to Libby and narrow mine. “You’re fucking a cop? That’s disgusting. Way to keep it in the family, Lib.”
“You offered to fuck me today,” she snaps. “That would mean you’re willing to fuck a cop. Way to maintain hypocrisy, you stupid ass.”
Once the gun clears my face and most of my instant-death spots, I begin to relax, to set the half-naked cops at ease. “I didn’t offer to fuck your badge, Libby. I said that I would fuck you. I would fuck the woman who has a six-pack, enviable shoulders, and dick-sucking lips.” I snap my hand out when she lowers her guard, fold her wrist back until she cries out, and tear the gun from her hand. I release the slide from the frame and let both pieces drop to the tile floor, then I lean in closer so all three of us are in the same space, and adrenaline skips from one body to the next. “Don’t ever aim a gun at me again, Elizabeth. Don’t you ever look at me like I’m your enemy.”
I’m not a stupid man. I’m not naïve, nor do I believe my money keeps me above the law. Coming to this apartment today was bad. I knew I risked arrest simply by following Libby – a cop – but when Drake turns out to be a cop too, I consider my freedom gone, if only for a little while.
But that’s not what happens. The guy who stands head and shoulders taller than Libby, whose hands splay across her belly, whose eyes watch me, merely smiles when Lib and I stand nose to nose like raging bulls ready to charge.
She’s mine, and she has been since she was nine years old. It’s like he knows this, somewhere deep in his heart, he knows who she belongs to, so he neither arrests me, nor does he challenge me to settle this like men.
Instead, he grins and passes Libby her shirt while she murders me with her eyes.
“I can see that, despite this being my apartment, maybe I’m intruding on something personal between you folks. Lizbeth, darling, you didn’t tell me your circumstances had become… complicated.”
“This is not complicated,” she snarls. “I met him for the first time in my life just two days ago. He has a staring problem, and boundary issues.”
“He sure looks like he knows you, darlin’. Are you scared of him?”
Her nostrils flare with rage. “No.”
“Has he ever hurt you?”
She sees the rage in my eyes. Hurt, that she would consider me the enemy when in reality, we’re the only two people on this team. She doesn’t know that this is our team from forever ago, she’s blind to what I’m not, but she can’t know I’m that boy. He’s dead, so she needs to get the fuck on this new team.
“No.”
“Do you want to talk it out with him? I see your inclination is to rearrange his face with federal ammo, but that’s against policy, baby girl. He’s unarmed, and he looks hella invested in making sure you and I don’t fuck. Somehow, I don’t think he’s here to toss my home. He just wants you to not sit on my cock.”
He paints these pictures in my head, these images of her riding him in bed, and forces more shots of rage through my blood. He’s had something I never have. I claimed her when I was eleven, when I held her hand and sat with her in the cold. But he claimed her body when she was a woman, and she’s so okay with it that she initiates it, and comes back after the first time.
“I do not want to discuss anything with him.” Lib steps back and takes her friend with her. One step, then two. “I do not want to discuss anything with him. I’m going to file a report at work, I will document this evening, and I will begin the process of keeping him five-hundred yards from me at all times.”
“Libby…” I step forward and try to take her hand. She holds it against her stomach, cradling it where I might have hurt it. “You just need to–”
“Nothing,” she inserts. “I need to do nothing. You have secrets, Theo. Big, ugly, horrible secrets that bring me nightmares.” She hurriedly pulls her top over her head and down over her torso. Squatting fast to collect her gun, she puts it back together with a fast one-two slide and click, then she grabs her purse and meets my eyes. She looks at me the way she looked at the sour-sisters a lifetime ago. Untrusting. Hurt. “Stay away from me, Griffin. Go back to your home and stay there. There’s no room for you in my town.”
Turning on her fuck-me heels and leaving behind only an air of perfume that my lungs crave, she rips the front door open and slams it again when she leaves.
“Dude.” Laughing, Drake walks across his living room, entirely too comfortable, considering I’m a stranger in his home. He flips lights on as he moves and gives me his back. “You’re a ballsy motherfucker.” He turns back. “You’re the Theo Griffin, right? S
mart and rich. Computer guy?”
Instead of answering verbally, I give him a small nod. I give Libby all of my words, because she makes it so I want to talk, but the rest of the world gets silence unless I find I have something I wanna say.
“So, I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m also a cop, and what you just did, brother…” He shakes his head. “It was bad. It’s straight up hard time in the pen. The only reason you remain standing is because you were smart enough not to pull a weapon.” He pauses. “You’re carrying, aren’t you?”
I consider his words. I consider the Glock in the back of my jeans. Then I nod.
He grins. “I figured you would be. No genius is stupid enough to walk into another guy’s home without at least having something. But you were smart enough not to touch it, even when she was teeing up to blow your face off.”
“No point touching it. I’m never going to hurt her.”
He chuckles, grabs the remote, and plops down on the end of his long couch. “Figured. I feel like there’s this massive miscommunication between the two of you. Like…” He thinks it through as he flips channels. “I dunno, like maybe you’re on the page at the end of the book. You know how it’s gonna end, so you’re certain in your actions. But she’s still at chapter one. You know what’s up, but she doesn’t, and your confidence scares her. She doesn’t know you, man. But in your eyes, it’s already tied up.”
He’s a good cop. “You’re very intuitive.”
Finally settling on a renovation show, Drake tosses his remote down and kicks his feet onto the coffee table. “That’s why I get employee of the month every month for six consecutive years. I’m the fun one, the easygoing dude that everyone loves.” His eyes meet mine. “That’s why she comes to me; I’m not a complication for her. I’m easy, I smile a lot, and there’s no stickiness or weird feelings when it’s done. She’s drawn to my…” He considers his words. “Simplicity, I guess. I make it easy for her.”