But they all had to look up at him, and as he moved through the halls, people got out of his way.
He was clearly a respected cop here.
We went up to one of his buddies and I waited patiently as Adam chatted with him briefly. All I could do was stand there awkwardly and hope he wouldn’t talk to me, but then Adam introduced me.
“Nick, this is my boyfriend Luke,” he said.
Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend…
That word wound its way through my brain like curling calligraphy, marking this label onto my identity.
I loved it.
“Hiya Luke!” Nick greeted me brightly, his red beard morphing as he smiled underneath it.
“Hey…” I said softly, sort of hiding behind Adam.
Nick looked back to Adam, still smiling and gave him a wink.
Adam smiled and looked down at me like I was a treasure.
I grabbed his hand and squeezed it.
Adam took the signal, finished up his conversation with Nick, and then we were off to the locker room.
“What was that wink about?” I asked, a smile creeping onto my face as I sat down on a bench.
Adam was opening his locker and pulling out all this official-looking cop gear. “I think he just… likes you.”
“What?!” I said.
“Yeah… he and a number of my other buddies have been nagging me to “find someone” for the past few years now. Guess he’s just happy that I’ve got someone.”
“Oh…” I said, feeling the acceptance of these strangers give me fortitude.
But, Adam had said that they’d been pressuring him for the past few years to start dating someone. That means that none of them had met Brian, or even known about him.
I watched as Adam peeled off the black v-neck he was wearing, revealing his perfect body.
Bodybuilders had nothing on this guy. He was all muscle and definition: A perfect specimen of a man.
I was practically drooling as I fought to regain my train of thought.
But then he poked each of his thick arms through the sleeves of a button-down black shirt, and with each button that he fastened, his beautiful body was obscured to me.
I sighed.
“What?!” he said with his arms out, incredulous. “You’ll get more of this later if you want, I promise!”
“If I want?” I asked, a smug look coming across my face. I stood up from the bench, took a few steps toward him, and looked right up into his face. Our noses were less than an inch apart. “Oh, I want,” I said daringly.
His mouth popped open to form a small “o,” and I planted a quick kiss on his mouth.
Adam groaned. “Come on, don’t tempt me at work! That’s not fair!”
I turned away from him. “Not my fault!”
Only a few minutes after Adam put on his full uniform, we were in the parking lot next to a sea of cop cars.
“Wow, this town really invests in its police, huh?” I asked.
“They sure do,” Adam said proudly. “This town loves two things most of all: Safety and gossip.”
I chuckled. “You’re sure right they like to gossip.”
We got in the car.
I sat down on the leather seat and let my eyes scan the interior. There was a box with a zillion buttons on it on the center console, a bunch of screens, and a lot of random mounts secured to the dash.
Behind me, the back seat was obscured by woven metal that looked like a cage.
I froze.
The monster woke up and I trained my eyes forward, trying not to look at it.
Just seeing a cage-like material like that brought me back to that night when the incident happened. Like I’d trained myself to do, I moved my thoughts away from what had happened and onto other things…
But no matter how hard I tried to stop it, the anxiety was gaining steam. I started to need more and more air, sucking it into my mouth greedily.
Then Adam got in the driver’s seat.
It only took one look at me for him to know what was going on.
“Luke, Luke!” he said in a panic, grabbing my hand.
I turned to him with my eyes full of fear.
Adam was thinking quickly. Then he squeezed my hand and said, “See that tree over there?”
I glanced to where he was pointing. There was a giant old oak tree, swaying in the breeze, its leaves shimmering.
I nodded, sucking in tight breaths.
“That tree has been there as long as I remember.”
I had no idea what he was up to.
“See that signpost right there?” he said, gesturing to a yellow diamond with “School Zone” printed on it.
I nodded again.
“How many school-related signs do you see around here?” he asked gently.
I didn’t know what game he was trying to get me to play, but I went along with it.
I counted, then said “Seven.”
But my voice didn’t come out high-pitched or out of breath. It came out normal.
The anxiety attack had stopped.
I blinked a few times and then looked at Adam in wonder. “How did you do that?”
“I’ve been… I’ve been talking to someone.” He said. “My sister, actually. She’s a child psychologist. I told her I’d met someone, and that he suffers from anxiety. I hope that’s okay…”
I stared at him blankly.
He looked down at his fingers that he was knitting together, then peeked over at me. “Are you mad?”
“Mad?!” I exclaimed, “How could I be mad? You cared enough to ask someone how you could best help me!”
Then I planted a kiss on his lips, though this one was sweet instead of spicy.
“Mmm,” he moaned, meshing his lips with mine.
When we pulled away, his eyes fluttered open. “Every single time you kiss me, it feels like I’m being given a breath of life.”
I smiled and stared forward, trying to hide my blush.
And also trying hard not to look at the wire mesh behind me.
* * *
As we drove the patrol car around, the conversation was easy. We talked about anything and everything that came to our minds.
Talking to Adam for me was ordinary and extraordinary at the
