Danika

I balance a grocery bag on my hip, smacking the door of my parents’ apartment with my free hand. Inside, the television is muted long enough for my father to yell at my mother to go open the door. My straining biceps are not impressed.

Honestly, my parents are the best. They gave me a safe, happy childhood with limited means. They encourage me and make me laugh. I love them. I really do. But I’m not even inside yet and I can tell today is going to be one of those days, where I’m pulled in eighty directions. And I’m right. Minutes after I step over the threshold, I’ve put away the groceries, called Con Edison to dispute a charge on the electric bill and now I’m sprawled in the middle of the living room floor trying to repair my mother’s vacuum.

“How is Jack?” asks my mother from the kitchen. “He never comes to see me anymore. Tell him I’m not happy with him.”

“Gladly.” I select a screwdriver from the assortment of household tools, which we keep in an old Folgers coffee can. “You’ve been thrown over for an Irish girl. That must burn.”

My mom waves that off. “As long as she treats him good.” She assumes a fighter’s stance. “Otherwise we’re going to have trouble.”

A laugh vibrates in my belly, and I’m punched with nostalgia. There’s something about lying on your stomach in your childhood living room and giggling that makes you feel as if you never left. There’s a million memories trapped within these four walls. Watching movies on rainy days, big bowls of ice cream settled on our knees. Walking out in the morning and finding Jack asleep on the couch and knowing his mother must be entertaining a man upstairs. Just another reason why I love my parents. They gave Jack a key, told him welcome to the family and never brought up why his escaping to our apartment was necessary.

For all these reasons and more, I give up Saturdays to help my mother clean. To babysit Robbie’s sister’s new baby. To schedule my father’s physical therapy appointments. Stock the fridge, sort the bills, fix appliances. That’s what you do for people you love, right?

I’m totally not throwing extra energy into my visit today to distract myself. I’m not.

But it has been two days since Greer turned my dial from mildly horny millennial to sex-starved kerfuffle of hormones. He hasn’t been scheduled to train us at the academy, and since the sick instructor is healthy again, I haven’t seen him. Or spoken to him.

He can’t honestly expect me to carry on with this probation after what happened, though. We both underwent an unexplainable psychosis in that locker room. There’s no other explanation for the lieutenant nearly orgasming me with a few well-placed sentences. Although, there were some well-placed muscles, too. Very well placed. Let’s face it.

Then there’s the matter of his penis.

It’s magnificent. Long and thick with one of those Roman helmet-looking heads. Pretty appropriate since the thing was prepared to march onto a battlefield. Oh my God. I can’t close my eyes without seeing it rise, the skin stretching, veins growing more prominent.

For me. The invincible lieutenant was turned on for me.

“Danny, when you’re done with that, can you help me get the ironing board down from the top of my closet?”

“Yeah, Mom.”

“And I need stamps to send out the bills.”

“Caught her trying to sneak a couple from your collection again,” my father says, finally entering the conversation that has been taking place around him for twenty minutes. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t let her.”

My mom throws up one shoulder like a shield. “I was desperate!”

My father snorts. “Your collection hasn’t seen a new addition in a while, Danika. You planning to get the new Elvis stamp? It comes out next week.”

Elvis? I’m too focused on the stamps my mother needs to think about some . . . beautiful square piece of heaven featuring the King.

“I, uh . . .” Tension creeps into my shoulders. It usually does when my plate starts to get crowded, but I shrug it off. Sure, I could say no to my mother’s requests, that I want to spend Saturday with my friends. Or I could delegate some things to my cousins, but I hate admitting I can’t do something. It’s just a few errands. No big deal. Sometimes I wonder, though. Would they still want me around if I wasn’t doing things for them? “I can run down to the bodega for stamps. The post office is going to be too crazy.”

“Thank you, angel.” She’s quiet a moment, her potato peeler moving in a blur, sending brown debris into the sink. “I might need a police report filed, too.”

I drop my screwdriver. “What?”

“Your mother’s bike was stolen,” says my father. “She didn’t lock it up right.”

“The bike we got you for your birthday?”

“Yes.” My mother’s face is pinched. “I put it in the building hallway so I could talk to Pearl across the street. She wanted to show me the dress she knitted her grandbaby.”

My father huffs. “She was over there for two hours. Forgot all about the bike.”

“I didn’t forget, I got sidetracked.” She shoos him with a wrist flick. “Watch your sports, old man.”

We bought my mother that bike because she was feeling cooped up in the apartment. Ever since she started riding it along the river, I’d noticed more color in her cheeks, more bounce in her step. But I won’t be able to afford a replacement any time soon. All my saved money is being used for rent and food. I sigh and pick the screwdriver back up. “I’ll file the report. But I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t think you’ll see it again.”

“That’s okay,” she says quietly. I don’t realize she has crossed the room until she stoops down and cups my chin. “You’re a good girl, Danny. So responsible.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

All at once, I feel like an imposter. Am I responsible? I haven’t seen or checked in with Greer since Wednesday, when I witnessed him in all his buff, naked glory. Sure, he was a complete jerk in the locker room, but he helped me out of a bind. Not to mention Robbie worked with the NYPD community outreach program yesterday to clean graffiti off a local elementary school. I could tell over the phone how proud he was to do something positive to cover up the negative. To be responsible.

Meaning the Grim Reaper’s lesson was working.

But here I am, not living up to my end of the bargain.

I blow out a breath and tighten the final screw, giving the vacuum a quick test. “Mom, let’s get down the ironing board. I’ll go grab those stamps, then I have to go out for a while.” Hopping to my feet, I dust off the back of my jeans. “I’ll be back later to babysit, but I can’t stay too long. I have a date.”

My mother looks like she’s just been informed the Pope is coming to dinner. “A date?”

“Kind of.” Although it doesn’t feel like one at all. More of an obligation. “It’s just pizza.”

But first? I have a date with the devil.

I’ve never actually been inside the Ninth Precinct where Greer is stationed, but I’ll admit to crafting my route occasionally so I can walk past the gray stone building. It’s arching steel entrance boasts glowing green lights on either side, letting all who pass through the door know that serious shit is going down inside. But I don’t really have a grasp on how serious until I step through the entrance, my Vans squeaking on the polished marble floor.

It’s not loud or chaotic, but the mood is laser focused. Two cops nearly mow me down as they march through the foyer, accompanying their low conversation with precise, cutting gestures. I’ve spent a lot of time envisioning myself walking into a precinct and punching a clock, rubbing shoulders with veterans and rookies alike, but it suddenly seems much further in the future.

Shaking off the negative worry, I propel myself toward the front desk, waiting patiently for the female officer to acknowledge me. She assesses me like spots on a drinking glass. “Yes?”

“Hi, I’m here to see Lieutenant Burns.”

At least now she looks interested. “What’s this pertaining to?”

“Nothing. I’m just . . .” Just what? A recruit on probation? It might be the truth, but I’m still not sure it’s appropriate for me to be visiting my instructor on my day off. Definitely should have thought this through a little more. Intending to walk back outside and call Greer on my cell, I start to back toward the exit. “You know, I’ll just—”

“Name,” she sighs.

Mud. “Silva.”

She picks up the phone and hits a few buttons. A few beats pass before she hangs up. “He’s still in a briefing. Have a seat.”

Her no-nonsense tone gives me zero choice, so I park it on the far end of the waiting room, hands wedged beneath my thighs. When the front desk lady rises a few minutes later and opens the hallway door, Greer’s voice drifts—okay, barks—out and my spine goes straight. All I hear are the words pinpointing possible locations before the door closes again. Except now I’m curious. What does the lieutenant look like in action? Are his officers as scared of him as us recruits? What kind of case if he working on?

Judging I have two minutes max before the receptionist returns, I creep toward the hallway door and open it for a peek. About fifteen yards ahead on the left, I can see Greer through an entrance marked Briefing Room, standing in front of a whiteboard. Before we collided in the locker room, I used to feel tingly whenever the lieutenant was around. Aware. Sensitive. But ever since I’m talking about fucking you, baby, tingly doesn’t quite cover how it feels to see him again.

Those low, intimate muscles between my legs tighten up, my nipples turning to spikes. Inside my shoes, all ten of my toes curl under. And I’m suddenly a mouth breather.

It doesn’t help that he’s ten times as intimidating when leading a meeting. He’s standing, hunched forward over a desk, propped on giant fists. His frown is made of nightmares. Every time he speaks, I jump a little at the ringing intensity, the decisiveness with which he answers every question.

My line of sight trails over his broad, bunched shoulders, down his back to settle on the curve of his butt. Damn. It’s not tight, exactly. It’s definitely muscular, but there’s some meat. I have this sudden vision of Greer checking out his ass in the gym mirror, growling over the extra cushion he can’t manage to banish—and it happens. I breathe a giggle.

Blue eyes snap to mine so fast, I freeze like a clumsy moose in a hunter’s crosshairs. That’s all the reaction I get out of the lieutenant before he resumes the briefing, delegating and indicating things on the whiteboard with a tapping knuckle. Finally, I force myself to close the hallway door and sit back down, only now I’m considering bolting for the street. I can hear him now. Eavesdropping is technically a violation of your probation.

But I already have violated it by avoiding my responsibility for the last two days. That fact, along with my determination to make it right, is the only thing that keeps me glued to the plastic bucket seat.

I strongly rethink those intentions ten minutes later when the lieutenant fills the hallway doorframe like an irritated king and crooks a finger at me to follow.