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ROBERT
After I arrived at the precinct, I sat in my rented car and just stared ahead of me for a while. I knew it was important. I still valued the hell out of my job. It was just that I couldn't seem to make myself get out of the car and go and face another hostile precinct where I had to evaluate how poorly they treated their hired shifter consultants.
I wouldn't say my job had ever been a labor of love for me. First, it was a labor of penance, after my partner was killed during an undercover job that, frankly, everyone should have known he wasn't qualified for.
It hadn't been his fault. They ruled it wasn't mine, either. But that didn't change the guilt. I definitely didn't want to go back and try to get another partner. What I wanted to do was help to fix the systems that allowed stuff like that to happen.
Shifters, unless they'd gone through police training, or sometimes very specific military training, simply weren't equipped for what was often asked of them. They had a strong sense of smell, greater strength than non-shifters, and were well-paid. Most had a particularly strong senses of duty to help out their precincts and save people's lives. These strengths could be weaknesses, when they allowed shifters to be taken advantage of and put into situations they weren't trained to handle. There were levels of training; and simply put, the few weeks of non-specialized training that most shifters received were never going to be enough for undercover work, hostage work, or the like. Those sorts of jobs took years of training to gain the expertise to engage with safely. When shifters were put in greater danger than they'd been trained for, they could end up dying because of it.
It happened too often, and it wasn't okay. It hadn't been okay when my partner died from it, and it was a problem across the country. I'd been on a mission to help correct it by checking up on precincts and what they required or asked or "suggested" their shifter consultants be involved in that might be outside their trained, and paid, purview.
It happened a lot. Less now, but still more than it should.
I'd never loved my job. Getting to travel a lot and always be the bad guy, so that precincts took better care of their shifters. Never being home, seeing more than I wanted to see of what happened when those professional boundaries were pushed, and the inevitable fallout for some unlucky shifters.
First it was penance. Then it was a righteous sense of outrage. Then it was just doggedly forcing myself to keep going.
I was reaching the end of that, somehow. I didn't know why, or why it was now.
I'd known for a while I was getting burned out. I just hadn't known it was this bad.
I put my head down on the steering wheel. Just another minute. Just another minute, then I'd make myself get out of the car, go in, and do my damn job.
#
Someone tapped on my window. I looked up. A handsome guy was smiling at me through the window. His expression was an interesting mix of emotions, sympathetic, slightly humorous, but also a little sad. When he saw he'd startled me, he stepped back, raising his hands. "Sorry! Just wanted to say...they won't bite."
"What?" I opened the car door a crack so I could hear him better.
"They won't bite." He motioned towards the precinct.
I let out a little snort. Don't be so sure of that, buddy.
"I'll go in with you and introduce you, if you want. Do you have a crime to report?" He looked sympathetic.
I smiled at him then. I couldn't help it. He had such an appealing face. "Not exactly. I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum. Investigating." I unfolded myself and eased out of the car.
He stepped back to give me room. "Oh? Are you a new cop here?" He looked me up and down. More down than up; he was taller than me. Most men are. But he didn't tower, and there was nothing dismissive about that look. It was more like interest, and not the professional kind. But apparently, he knew the place well enough to offer to show me around.
Maybe he worked here. Maybe he was a regular friend or informant who hung around. Or...
Suspicion bloomed, and I grinned back at him. "It would be better if I told your boss what I was here for, and not you, I guess."
"Oooh." His eyes got big. "You're from the Feds! I should have known! Here to investigate us all."
"Now, why would you say that? I'm probably just the new cop, like you said." I was teasing him. Teasing, and I hadn't even met him yet.
"You've got this hard-edged tough loner thing about you," he pointed out.
I made a tsk sound of dismissal. Now, really. Most people underestimated me on the first meeting. Seemed like he was doing the opposite.
"You do," he insisted. "You with your...self." He gestured vaguely to me. Were his cheeks getting pink? I didn't usually fluster anyone. At least not without trying. It was flattering, I admit.
"You're just being nice. Why don't you show me around, like you suggested?"
"Is that what I suggested?" He was looking at me. "Why don't I take you for some lunch and tell you all the gossip instead? Is that what you're here for? Or is there actually trouble I don't know about, and it's more than a vague checkup?"
I debated how much to tell him. If he was who I thought he was—one of the two shifters who worked here, either the wolf shifter or the fox shifter—then I didn't know how much I should say right off the bat. I might get more out of him if I didn't. I might also enjoy the lunch a hell of a lot more.
"Let's just say a friendly chat over lunch would be very welcome. Keeping in mind it's all strictly professional."
"Of course." His eyes twinkled at me. "I know a place. I was heading there anyway. It's no problem. You can even drive if you want to."
"You're awfully trusting," I pointed out.
"Should I ask to see your badge?" he teased. "I can smell a cop. You're definitely something like a cop."
"That's fair," I decided. "Let's take your car. This one's a rental and I'm sick of sitting in it."
"Are you sure you should be so trusting?" he shot back, grinning at me, and then turning away with a kind of swish in his step, leading me to his car.
His steps were confident, but not very butch. If he was a straight guy, he was doing a good job of hiding it. But then, why shouldn't he be openly gay, if he was—or be whoever he was, just himself?
I admire that in others. Not so great at it myself sometimes.
He was talking. "I'm a bit of a connoisseur of the local restaurants. Don't get me wrong, I like almost everywhere that sells food, especially this amazing taco truck—but I think I can steer you in the direction you'd like for your introduction to the city's cuisine."
"We don't need to go the whole way to cuisine," I responded, as he drove us carefully out of the parking lot, looking both ways frequently, while continuing to talk the whole time he drove.
"Are you a meat and potatoes guy? A 'salads for lunch' guy? An adventurous eater? Any special type of food you prefer?"
"More meat and potatoes than salad," I told him. "Or maybe meat and potatoes and salad. I'm neither picky nor adventurous. Pick somewhere you like, and I'm sure I'll be okay with it."
"Have a heart! I don't get to play tour guide very often. Let's make it better than okay."
I chuckled. "Have it your way." Something about this guy set me at ease.
He picked a wonderful restaurant. In the end, we were so busy talking I forgot to ask him for any local gossip. I didn't tell him I thought he was a shifter, and he didn't ask for details about my job. We just talked, and ate, and talked, and gazed into each other's eyes, and somehow laughed about so many things that were so funny in the moment.
Odd for me to connect so well to someone. When I looked out the window, I saw the sun was already lowering in the winter sky. A quick lunch had turned into a couple of hours of continuing to order and sample foods and talk. Somehow he'd gone from sitting across from me in the booth to cuddling up near me so he could show me things on his phone, our heads leaning close and intimate.
I thought I would've kissed him already if I was a little less professional. Not that I was being super professional as it was.
"Oh god," I said, looking at the sky. "I'm supposed to be on the job already."
He bit his lip, chewing it a little in a distracted (and distracting) way. He turned to look at me, considering. "You know, you were pretty distraught when you got there. And now it's getting late...why not go to your hotel and introduce yourself bright and early tomorrow, when you're feeling...refreshed?"
He reached up and fiddled with the buttons near my neck. Gently, very gently opening one. He was looking down at my chest, and then he was looking up at me, and our eyes locked.
My heart was thumping.
I didn't do this.
"It wouldn't be very professional," I told him.
I wasn't talking about not going in till tomorrow, and he didn't try to pretend I was. He nodded seriously. "And we both love our jobs so much, that's of paramount importance."
His words wrested a smile from me. "What gave it away? The existential crisis in the parking lot?"
"Honestly? It's how I'm feeling, too." He looked up at me with his sweet root beer colored eyes. "Even if I got fired for unprofessional behavior—which I don't think would happen—it would be..." He paused, considering his words. "Almost a relief at this point?"
My brows rose. "That bad, is it?"
He shrugged.
I wasn't the guy who met someone, ditched work, and took them back to my hotel room for a night of passionate sex. I wasn't that guy.
I took things slowly. I was sometimes considered bland and boring. I didn't inspire passion. I wasn't this guy.
Maybe I wanted to be, for once.
"Let's go somewhere we can get more comfortable," I suggested in a low voice. I watched his eyes, looking for signs that I'd read him wrong.
They lit up so they almost seemed to glow from the inside.
We got out of there. He let me pay the check. I left a hefty tip for our time hogging a booth, even though we'd been ordering pretty steadily. And sharing one side of the booth pretty effectively, too.
He stood close to me, almost close enough our arms were pressing together. I was very aware of his presence, his warmth, his body.
He was handsome in a slick, well-groomed, aware way, the kind of guy who wouldn't normally look at me twice, unless it was to judge me wrong in some way: too straight-looking, not tall enough, too grim and serious, not thin enough, etc. But he wasn't tough. He was gentle, and handsome, and very, very interested in me.
Maybe it was just physical, and a night together would take care of this crazy attraction. Maybe it was more than that. Doing my job, knowing the things I do, I had to be aware of that possibility. It was possible he was one of the shifters I was here to check up on, to see if they were being treated right. If so, there was a chance that this wouldn't be casual for him, and already wasn't.
It might be a cliché, but there was a lot of truth in it: it happened fast for shifters, when they fell in love, when they found a mate. And it wasn't easy to break that attachment, even without sex.
I looked up into his sweet face and promised myself: if it's just a fun night, okay. I'll let you go back to being your hot, attractive self, far out of my league. But if it's that I'm your mate, I'll stand by you. I'll change my life to be with you. Whatever it takes.
I wouldn't let another shifter down.
In the parking lot, he tucked his arm through mine and leaned into me a little as we walked. "What's going on in that clever head of yours? You got so serious there."
I smiled at him. "It can wait. Unless you think we need to discuss some things first?"
"No," he said quickly, tightening his grip on my arm, shaking his head. "Not at all."
"Okay, then." I leaned in and kissed him, short and sweet, because we were in public. "Your place or my hotel?"
He hesitated, digging his fingers into my clothing, like he didn't want to let go even for a second. "My place."
"Okay. Take me there."
He laughed, almost breathless. "You got it."