Danika

The women’s locker room is my only refuge.

Seriously, I get a gun pulled on me one time, and my friends turn into psychotic babysitters. Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night to go pee, and when I came out, Ever was waiting for me with a glass of water and a smile. My efforts to convince them I’m fine are not working. Probably because I’m full of shit. I’m not fine.

Especially because Greer is on the academy schedule for the day.

I bend forward on the bench and stick my head between my knees, breathing hard, trying to calm my nerves. Yes, I saw him outside my building over the weekend, but I didn’t have time to psych myself out for that encounter. I’ve had more than enough time to get nervous about seeing him again at the academy. Especially because seeing him post-breakup was like a kick to the solar plexus. Seriously. He couldn’t have waited to break my heart until after graduation?

Charlie came home from being out with Greer, happy but tight-lipped. Why did he need rubber gloves and nose plugs? Did he return to the stamps lady’s apartment? Why?

Doesn’t matter. He’s running drills twice this week, then he’ll be at the commencement ceremony. After Saturday, forgetting about the lieutenant will get easier. I’ll only see him on the off chance he stops by the apartment to see Charlie. Making myself scarce won’t be difficult when that happens. I’ve got this. I’m on the road to heartbreak recovery.

Pay no attention to the girl hyperventilating in row three.

When I hear the locker room door open and shut, followed by the voices of some female recruits, I sit up straight and shake myself. “For the love of God. Pull yourself together, Silva.”

I stand up on rubbery legs and run in place, ignoring strange looks from the new arrivals. A check of the clock tells me inspection is in eight minutes, so I can’t put off changing anymore. Taking deep breaths, I open my locker . . . and around a million books of stamps perform an avalanche, piling up around my feet.

“Damn, Silva. Are you some kind of hoarder?”

I’m too busy trying to swallow my heart to respond to the barb. There are so many stamps and at a glance, my expert eye tells me they’re not normal, run-of-the-mill ones. No, there are collector’s editions I’ve only ever seen on the Internet. Some foreign ones. There are more Elvis booklets, like the one Greer brought me before. And there’s no doubt Greer left these.

Did all of these come from the cat lady? No. Not all of them are available at the post office. At least not currently. He might have gotten some from her, but the majority would have had to be purchased on the Internet. After a lot of research.

But what does it mean?

Does he want me back?

No time to think about it now. Or ever. He thinks he can fix the situation with hundreds of . . . incredible, breathtaking stamps that I’m dying to add to my collection books? He’s got another think coming. I’m not hanging around for more pain. I have to remember what it felt like. When he turned and walked away while I was shaking from needing him.

I’m not alone. I have you.

No. You don’t.

The echo of those words propels me into a crouch. Jaw tight, I scoop the books of stamps into the locker before dressing at warp speed. Moments later, I’m walking into the gym, Charlie on one side of me, Jack on the other, like a couple of demented sentries.

“Brought you a water,” Jack says, dropping an ice-cold bottle of Poland Spring into my hand. “Make sure you hydrate.”

“Ever is making chocolate cream pie tonight,” Charlie chimes in. “Guess who’s getting the biggest slice?” He pokes me in the side. “This girl right here.”

“Guys.” I pull my right leg up into a stretch. “If you keep this up, I’m assuming a new identity and moving to Siberia.”

“We can FaceTime,” Jack points out.

“Sorry, I’ll be going off the grid.”

Charlie winks. “Smoke signals.”

I’m considering knocking their thick heads together, but I stop when I realize they’ve taken my mind off seeing Greer. For a full sixty seconds. Which is no small accomplishment since I’ve been thinking of him nonstop. Also every hour prior to that, since I met him. What an asshole. It must have taken him days to round up all those stamps.

Asshole.

A familiar whistle blows and we line up, everything moving on autopilot, except my stomach, which buries itself under the gymnasium floorboards.

I force myself to look straight ahead as Greer moves down the line, his pencil scratching on his clipboard. My head is like a cave, though, making his approaching footsteps sound hollow, a lot like my belly. “Silva,” he says when he’s right in front of me. I lift my chin and stare at some imaginary spot beyond his shoulder. But that same chin drops at what he says next. Still making notes on his clipboard, he murmurs, “As goddamn beautiful as ever.”

Whoa. What?

In my peripheral vision, heads are turning. During inspection, the gym is silent except for the lights buzzing overhead, so everyone heard that. Everyone.

Doesn’t he care? I know he went to his supervisor about a special exception being made for our relationship while I’m still a recruit, but I assumed the request was withdrawn after we went our separate ways. Does this mean his request was approved?

I snap my jaw up off the floor. It doesn’t matter. There is no relationship.

But my blood is humming like a generator as Greer continues down the line.

Greer

Simply fucking put, I’m going out of my mind without her.

Having her in front of me, lined up for inspection, sends me through a flashback of all the times we’ve been in this same position, making the magnitude of what I could lose even more real. My electric mix of scrappy girl and gorgeous woman. My woman. It wasn’t my plan to call her beautiful this morning, but the words wouldn’t stay trapped inside. It felt so good surprising her that I’m dying to make a hobby out of it.

Starting now.

I haven’t touched Danika since I shook her and spoke to her so cruelly, before walking out of her parents’ place. I was only beginning to realize how miserable I could be without her when she passed me outside Charlie’s apartment. Now? I go back and forth between feeling like my insides have been slashed to ribbons, and being completely numb. Staying away from her has been utter hell, but taking the time to plan was necessary. There are two ways I could blow getting her back. Being impulsive and screwing up. Again. Or proving her right and being my by-the-book, predictable self.

I have two things going for me now—the element of surprise and the knowledge that she’s still attracted to me. Not just my body. Me. Us together. That belief is mostly a play to keep my sanity while I’m getting back into her good graces, but I’m running with it like a motherfucker.

The first two hours of the day are spent in one of the lecture halls. Try talking about community relations with romance on the brain—it’s not easy. After lunch, I blow my whistle to bring the recruits running, along with Danika. They start breaking up into groups, assuming we’re going to start conditioning exercises, but on top of charming a certain cat lady out of stamps and scouring the internet for other, more coveted booklets, I’ve spent the last handful of miserable days planning something else.

“Everyone head to the locker rooms and grab your things. There’s a bus waiting outside to take us to a training facility in Queens. We’re going to work on your tactical skills.” I pause for dramatic effect—proving I’m delirious with exhaustion. “In the maze.”

There’s a hush before every recruit begins speaking at once, their excitement obvious. Except for Danika, who’s watching me with curious eyes. The maze is exactly what it sounds like, but it wasn’t created for recreation. It was built to train officers on how to take corners and provide cover when navigating a potentially active crime scene. Recruits are usually trained in empty houses, veteran cops posing as perps, and these recruits have already completed that portion of the curriculum. The maze is far more advanced, used mostly by the Emergency Services Unit and occasionally the military. Sometimes I join them when I’m looking to blow off steam, but I’ve never brought recruits along for the ride.

I’ve called in some favors to get these near-graduates a lesson in what’s to come. They’re going to fail the first time—it’s just a given at the maze. Even I failed my first time going through the narrow, weaving passages with smoke in my eyes. It’s designed to hammer into an officer’s head that he’s not invincible.

Which means it’s going to be a test I have to pass, too. One I can’t fail. Am I an instructor today? Yes. Am I also a man trying to prove something to his woman?

Better believe it.