Just a Little Series (Parts 1 - 4) (6 page)

“Good morning,” Detective Bruno said from
his desk as I walked in.

Once inside the station, I shut my umbrella,
shook it off, and propped it against the wall as I scanned the
room.

“Good morning, Detective,” I walked past
him, “anything good to report?”

“Quiet morning, Miss Julie,” he said,“but I
do believe I saw Trigger moseying around here earlier. He’s
probably waiting on you in the break room.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” I patted him on
the back as I passed by.

Luke couldn’t have been waiting on me
because he hadn’t been expecting me. But I was there; ready to
carry out my hours for the day, dedicated to staying true to my
word.

I headed straight for the break room to get
an idea of Luke’s whereabouts. If he wasn’t there drinking his
coffee that only left two options: he’d already gotten his fill and
left for the day, or he was running behind schedule and hadn’t made
a morning pit stop for his daily cup of joe.

The coffee pot was full to the rim, and I
checked the upper cabinet to find one, single, solitary coffee mug
on the shelf, one belonging to an Officer Lucas Reibeck. I poured
the coffee in the cup and turned to greet him just as he walked in
the door.

He stopped short and stared at me as I
leaned against the counter, holding the hot mug with both
hands.

“Good morning, Officer Reibeck,” I stepped
forward to pass the cup to him. He took the mug, but his eyes never
left mine.

“Julie,” he finally said, shaking away
whatever kept him staring, and he stood a little straighter,
“feeling better today?”

“Much,” I nodded once. “I’m sorry I couldn’t
make it on Wednesday. It won’t happen again.”

“Good.” A smile tugged at his lips. “You
ready to hit the road?”

I nodded, knowing I was as ready now as I’d
ever be.

“Let’s roll out then,” he only took one
drink of his coffee before setting it aside.

Once in the car, Luke and I set out on
patrol like all the times before. But the morning was still eerily
dark, and the rain poured from the sky, pelting the cruiser with
heavy strikes.

A few blocks from the station, Luke parked
the car off the side of the road.

“Quiet morning,” he said as a large bolt of
lightning struck across the distant skyline.

I nodded, not knowing exactly what to say.
Was I supposed to pretend that I didn’t like him? Like he’d never
heard those things I’d said to Matt? Or was I supposed to just be
quiet and let him say whatever he was going to say?

“I was wrong to assume that you didn’t have
an interest in the field,” he finally said, still looking straight
forward as the rain fell harder. “I didn’t know about your
dad.”

“It’s fine,” I looked away. “It’s just
something I’ve been around my whole life, you know? Between Dad and
Charlie, I felt like I already knew everything I could possibly
care to know.”

He nodded as though he understood, but I
knew he couldn’t. Luke was the kind of guy who’d dedicated his life
to his job; he’d risked his own safety to protect his community. He
did it for the job, he did it for the passion, and he did it to
survive his mother’s legacy.

“It’s not that I don’t respect what you do,”
I said, hoping to set the record straight. “I do, I respect it with
all my heart. But I just have a hard time trying to figure out why
anyone would want to risk sacrificing so much, and get so little in
return.”

“It’s not about getting anything back,” he
said, and I truly believed he meant that. “It’s about paying it
forward. So many cops before us have lost their lives because of
the path they followed; people like your dad, Julie. And we owe it
to them to fight back. It’s not a job you choose when you get into
this field. It’s not a career, and it’s certainly not a hobby. When
it comes right down to it, you’re choosing a lifestyle. And no,
this lifestyle isn’t for everyone. I can respect that. But you need
to respect it, too. It isn’t something to take lightly.”

I peered through the darkness to meet his
gaze, mesmerized by the softer side he was showing me.

“I don’t take it lightly,” I said. “I think
it’s admirable what you do. But I can’t help but look at every man
and woman in uniform and blame them for their selfishness.”

Luke scrunched his brow. “It’s the most
selfless
thing a person could do, so I don’t follow—”

“My mom lost her life because of this job,”
I said. “And it could’ve just as easily been me. Dad wasn’t just
risking
his
life when he chose this lifestyle, Luke. He
risked the lives of everyone he knew, loved, and cared about.”

“What happened to your parents was a
tragedy, Julie. But it’s unheard of. Most guys violent enough to
commit a crime that heinous never see the light of day after their
arrest. I’m not saying that terrible things don’t happen. They do.
But you can’t call us selfish because of what happened to your
parents. If your dad had any reason to believe his family was in
danger—”

“Yeah,” I felt no need to hear him repeat
the same words Matt and Charlie had been saying since the funeral.
If dad had known, he would’ve prevented it
. I felt a tear
slip down my cheek and land on my lips.

“It’s just hard,” I said. “I miss him so
much, but I can’t get past hating him. He should’ve protected her,
Luke. He should’ve looked out for my mom.
Husbands are supposed
to protect their wives, and he let her down
. He let
me
down. He let her die, and I lost my mom. Now they’re
both
gone.”

“Julie—”

“All I want is to see him one more time…
just once, so I can tell him how much I blame him… and how much I
miss him… and how much I need both of them to just come home.”

As I sat in the passenger’s seat, tears
soaking the top of my shirt, Luke took my hand and brushed my
fingers with his. It looked as though he had a million things
running through his mind, but none that he knew how to say. He
chose to maintain the silence, letting me cry for a little while
longer. When the moments passed, and the rain let up, the sun
finally started to shine on the horizon.

I dried the tears with the back of my hand
and passed an apologetic glance to Luke.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t
have—”

“It’s okay,” he squeezed my fingers tighter.
“It’s healthy to get that out.”

I nodded.

“And Julie,” his brown eyes met mine as he
leaned a little closer, “you can’t blame Charlie, and you most
certainly can’t blame anyone else in uniform. And if the day ever
comes that you find yourself falling for someone who’s chosen the
same lifestyle as your father, you can’t blame him for what you’ve
lost either. You can’t make him suffer. If anything, let him help
you. See, you can’t live your life in fear, kid. At some point—and
I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, you have to learn to let
go.”

I bit back another sob and looked away,
staring out the window and avoiding the soft look in his eye.
Something told me that Luke knew a thing or two about holding on to
fear, but it still didn’t comfort me.

“I’m not ready to let go,” I heard the
bitterness in my voice.

I turned back and looked at our linked
hands, and back up to Luke’s half-hearted grin.

“What do you say we change the subject for
now?” he knew that I was on the verge of another emotional
breakdown. Either he didn’t want to listen to another sobfest, or
he truly wanted to spare me from dealing with all those raw
emotions. “How’s that sound?”

“Like a very, very good idea.”

“Okay,” he looked down at the notebook. “Any
more questions you haven’t asked?”

There were plenty on the page, but none that
would open the door to who he really was. All the questions I
wanted answers to were the ones burning in my heart, the ones that
would lead me closer to knowing everything I could know about him.
Sadly, he was right back at the station the other day. I didn’t
really care about the job-shadowing program, the report, or getting
a passing grade. All I really cared about was learning as much as I
possibly could about the man sitting next to me.

“The scar,” I gently gnawed on the top of my
lip. “How’d you get it?”

“Another story for another time,” he shifted
uncomfortably in his seat.

I accepted his answer, though still unable
to pull my gaze from his lips. I couldn’t help but wonder a million
things I knew I shouldn’t… for starters, what would they feel like?
Or better yet, how would they taste?

And as if he knew the questions I’d been
thinking, he pulled his hand from mine and repositioned
himself.

“What do you say we hit the road?”

Jilted by his sudden change of heart, I
nodded and readjusted.

“So,” he pulled out on the road to start our
morning shift, “what’s next in your line of questioning?”

I looked down to the tear-soaked notebook
sitting in my lap and opened it up to an earmarked page.

Just as Matt had observed, the page was full
of barely legible scribbles… and dozens of tiny hearts. There were
still so many questions I wanted to ask him, so much more I wanted
to learn, but I didn’t know where to begin. At what point were my
questions crossing the line of professionalism? And at what point
would he read into my curiosity and refuse to answer?

Feeling as though it was best to keep my
inquiries as closely related to the job as possible, I scanned the
list and stopped at a question halfway down the page.

I poised the pen over the paper and asked,
“Officer Reibeck, in your time on the force, have you ever suffered
a serious injury?”

“Once,” he admitted, his tone laced with
humor.

“The scar?” I hoped I’d finally hear the
story he’d seemed reluctant to share earlier.

“No, not the scar,” he said, definitely. “I
was shot.”

“
Shot
?” I asked with wide eyes. My
mind raced to find the right question to ask next, but my
imagination ran wild with scenarios. Shot during an arrest? A drug
bust gone wrong?

Who?

Where?

Why?

I took a deep breath to help calm myself.
“Care to elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the
shooting?”

“Certainly,” he turned onto Main. “Went to
the shooting range last year with a couple of buddies. We were
halfway through target practice, and your Uncle Charlie cracked a
joke about Bruno. I lost sight of where we were, what we were
doing, and my finger slipped on the trigger.”

“You shot
yourself
?”

“Right in the foot.”

“And that’s why they call you Trigger?”

We shared a laugh, and as we turned on to
Linden Avenue, a strange sensation settled in the pit of my
stomach.

Luke was opening up to me, and not because
he had to; because he wanted to.

And as I watched him appreciatively from the
passenger’s seat, it was the look in his soft, brown eyes as he
threw me a sideways glance that made me wonder if maybe Lucas
Reibeck had developed feelings for me.

And maybe, just maybe... I wasn’t the only
one experiencing what Luke had so lovingly labeled
just a little
crush
.

Just a Little Series | Part 2

CHAPTER ONE

Wednesday, September 12 | 4:00 a.m.

“Up and at ‘em, Little,” Luke’s voice rang
through my ears. He ripped the sheets from my bed and flipped on
the lights. “You’ll have plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead.
Now get up.”

I rolled over and checked the clock.

4:00 a.m., just as I’d suspected.

I buried my face in the pillow and prayed my
pink satin pajamas would be enough to keep me warm. Whether he
liked it or not, I was sleeping in. And I didn’t need the sheets, a
dark room, or even privacy. I could sleep in even the roughest
conditions. The joke was on him.

“Don’t even think about it,” he stomped to
the side of the bed. He tucked his arms under my body and pulled me
up. He swung my legs over the bedside and backed away with heavy
steps. “You have five minutes. Use them wisely.”And with that, Luke
marched out of my bedroom and closed the door behind him.

I let my weary eyes wander across the room,
and it didn’t take but a second before I noticed the white sports
bra and shorts I’d laid out the night before.

Right
—our run.

With ten hours to go before completing my
job-shadowing requirement for the Oakland High School senior
project, my Uncle Charlie suggested I forget about patrolling the
streets and start living the lifestyle required of any man, or in
my case, woman, in uniform.

To me, that meant sitting around the Oakland
PD break room all morning eating donuts and sipping coffee. To my
mentor Luke, it meant waking up at an ungodly hour to get in a
five-mile run to jump start the day.