As soon as I’d mentioned it to Jake, he was all for the idea. After a ten-second conversation, it was decided he was coming with me. This was similar to the discussion we had regarding the schools we were applying to back home. We’d decided to apply to Northwestern, Purdue, and the University of Chicago. It depended on who got in where but we were planning to either attend the same college or go to the colleges that were closest to one another. At least with those three, we were talking a few hours at the most.
“Yeah,” Jake answered, “they think it’s a great idea. They like the influence you have over me.” He winked at me, and I so wished his winking wasn’t as hot as it was.
“My parents are resigned to the idea as long as I apply for pre-law.”
“They’re still on about that huh?”
Delia and Jim Redford just couldn’t get to grips with the idea of their daughter becoming a cop. I think they were now just beginning to realize that this wasn’t a phase I was going through. Now they were pushing hard for law school. My mom had even downloaded brochures.
“I think they’d be okay with it if my intention was to be a deputy here.”
Jake smiled affectionately. “But of course, you want to join the illustrious ranks of the Chicago PD.”
“I do. I want the chance to advance, you know. Specialize.”
This caused a little furrow between Jake’s eyebrows. Although I’d talked at length with him about being a cop and he’d spoken at length about getting into engineering, we both just listened in that I’m-there-for-you-and-I-care-that-you-do-what-makes-you-happy-but-I-have-no-idea-really-what-you’re-talking-about kind of way.
“You’ve never mentioned that.”
I shrugged. “It’s just something I’ve been thinking about more and more lately.”
“Well, specializing to what?”
“I don’t know. Homicide, maybe.”
Jake tensed and then moved back in his seat. “What?” I noted the concern in his voice and hoped to God I wouldn’t have him to contend with as well as my parents when it was time to apply to the academy. “Do your parents know this?”
I nodded, sighing. “I told them a few nights ago. Please don’t tell me you now agree with them?”
Jake rubbed his eyebrow in thought and then shook his head. “You should do whatever will make you happy, but Charley … a homicide detective in a place like Chicago? You’ll see things you can’t erase. Ever. Why would you want to see that shit every day?”
The reason was something that had been in the back of my mind since it happened. It wasn’t something I’d shared yet with Jake because it was pretty sad, but I wanted him to understand me like no one else did. “I’ve always wanted to be a cop, ever since I knew what one was. I just …” I smiled ruefully, “I wanted to do something that mattered, that makes people feel safe. Working in homicide? Well … three years ago my big cousin Ethan was shot and killed in his Miami apartment for his laptop and some cash. The police never caught the guy. My aunt and uncle don’t have any closure. It was a mindless crime and there’s no one to perpetrate justice on. You can still see that in their eyes.” My throat constricted and I felt that same rawness inside of me that I’d felt last summer when I spent a month in Miami with them. They got through each day for my cousins Emily and Seth, but it was like something was weighing them down, something eating at any chance of contentment they might have. “I guess if I can’t give them closure, I’d like to try and do that for other people. And I know that I’ll see some really horrific stuff, Jake, but I also know I want to at least try to see if I can handle it.”
Jake regarded me with an intensity that held me still. “I bet you can.” He slid his arm along the table until his hand found mine. He squeezed it, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. “I’m sorry about Ethan.”
“What’s this? Young love?” a rough voice mocked as a shadow fell over us.
Jake and I looked up at the intruder and I tensed. Jake’s grip on my hand tightened and suddenly, it was me squeezing his reassuringly.
“Mr. Thomas,” I murmured unhappily, eyeing the weathered, obnoxious face of Trenton Thomas—Brett’s dad.
He shot his son’s table a smirk before turning back to look down on me. “I see all your friends have dumped you since you started dating the enemy. Maybe you should think on that, Charlotte.” He grinned, as if he’d cracked the world’s funniest joke.
I sneered. “Grow up.”
Just as abrupt as a blackout, Trenton’s face darkened. “You watch who you’re talking to, young lady. Around here, we treat our elders with respect.”
So I was supposed to respect this forty-year-old bully just because he had twenty-four years on me? I didn’t think so. “You want respect? Earn it.”
Trenton was practically bearing his teeth at me. “Pfft, just like your momma. Delia was a stuck-up bitch too.”
Flinching at the insult to my beautiful mother, I had to take a couple of breaths, concentrating on Jake’s hand in mine. Before I could respond calmly, however, a familiar voice said, “Delia just didn’t like you, Trenton. That’s why she said no when you asked her to prom, and that doesn’t make her a stuck-up bitch. That makes her smart.” Hub, the owner of the diner and a six-foot-four bear of a man with a scruffy beard and usually kind eyes, was standing beside Trenton, wiping his hands on a dish towel. His kind eyes were sharp and filled with warning. “If you’re smart, I won’t hear you speaking about Delia or any good woman like that again, and I won’t hear you trying to intimidate kids in my establishment or elsewhere … or you and I got problems. Understood?”
It took everything I had not to grin triumphantly at the strained look on Trenton Thomas’s face. Tall at six foot and strongly built, it wasn’t as if Brett’s dad couldn’t handle himself, so it was galling when he came up against someone who wasn’t afraid of him. Especially someone as well liked and integral to the town as Hub.
We watched as Trenton gave Hub a short, sharp nod and then turned tail and stormed out of the diner.
Hub sighed and then looked at our empty plates. “Enjoy that, did you?”
I laughed. “The food or the show?”
Hub chuckled and shot Jake a sly smile. “Hope you can handle this one. She’s as sharp as her mom.”