––––––––
“Okay wait a second.” Colton was slightly confused, to say the least. “After the hospital you took him home? Is he an unwanted puppy?”
“No, although when he gives me those big puppy dog eyes, I would be remiss if I didn’t say he reminded me of one. Especially when he’s doped up on Oxycodone.” She laughed. “When he woke up today he ate an entire box of Cap’n Crunch mixed with an entire box of Cocoa Puffs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone devour that much children’s cereal at once, but he was happy.”
Colton was quiet for a moment as he clicked a few buttons on his panel and sent an ambulance to Pine Street. “So are you,” he said without looking in Angie’s direction. “You might never have seen anyone eat like that, but I’ve never heard you with this little skip in your voice. Mixed metaphor, but you get my point.”
Angie opened her mouth, beginning to respond, but she just hung there for a second, jaws agape, considering what he’d said. Before she could answer, her headset jingled in her ear. Someone needed a police car to make sure no one was lurking in their bushes, which in White Creek was generally as serious as criminal activity got. The whole time she was talking, though, Colton’s observation was on her mind. It was several minutes later when she got the caller squared away, but as soon as she had, she turned to him. “I think you’re right.”
This sort of detached, stop-and-go conversational traffic was just the way they did things. It helped to be really used to someone.
“It’s the craziest thing,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I have no idea why I’m doing it, but it seems like whatever I’m doing is right.”
He spun his chair, hunched over with his elbows on his thighs and stared at her for a second. “That’s because it is.”
“Thanks, Confucius. Any more cryptic things you’d like to say?”
“Make sure he doesn’t get any weird ideas about mating you forever, because you’re mine.”
She laughed and threw an eraser at Colton’s head. Instead it bounced off his monitor and landed on the floor. She followed it with her eyes. “I’m not crazy am I? For going on this ride, I mean. I’m not doing some ridiculous thing that I can’t ever come back from?”
“I’ll tell you this,” he said. “In my entire life – all thirty years of experience and brilliance – I’ve never regretted something I did more than something I didn’t do. Take that for whatever it is, but there you go. And I’ll tell you again, I’ve never seen you smile like this, so I’m guessing you’re onto something.”
“That’s not what you said before,” she said.
“Oh. Well, that’s what I meant. What did I say?”
“I don’t remember, exactly.”
“Great, two dispatchers who can’t figure out what the hell they were talking about five minutes earlier. How do we ever manage to get police to someone’s house before they’re murdered?”
Angie grinned. “Brute force and ignorance, I think.”
“Bull-headed stubbornness too,” Colton said. “Don’t forget that. Anyway, you’re lucky. Grab this thing and don’t let go. Look, I have no idea if this is going to stick, I have no idea if this you and Dawson are going to last, but what the hell? What’s the point of living if you’re not gonna take any jumps?”
“Don’t you think it’s crazy?” she asked. “I know I keep asking you that. I just can’t get my head around it. I can’t get over the fact that I’ve known this guy for two days and it’s like I’m already married to him, you know?”
Colton shrugged. “I know you think the dreams are bullshit, and I know you hate the idea of fate and all that, but sometimes it’s hard to think that things are anything but that, you know?”
“I guess,” she said. “I just can’t help but thinking I’m rushing into something that’s just going to leave me hurt.”
He leaned over on his knees, braced on his elbows. “What do you have to be afraid of? Seriously – what is it that you’re actually scared of?”
For a moment, Angie just stared straight ahead, eyes glazed over with thought. “I don’t know. I’ve just never jumped into anything before. Why the hell do you think I’ve been in the same job for almost my entire working life?”
“Because you know what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re always in control, some way or another. Maybe it’s time to step off that ledge without looking down? Maybe it’s time to just believe that sometimes life works out for the best? I don’t know. Look, I’m the worst person on earth to take relationship advice from. Remember? I’m the one with the made up girlfriend from California?”
Angie laughed. “Maybe it is. But damn if I can’t get it out of my head that I’m an idiot.”
“You’re no idiot,” Colton was serious. “Of all the things that could possibly describe you, idiot isn’t one of them. You know what you’re doing, you’re just scared. It’s normal when you’re going into something new. I’m here though, right? And even if you haven’t known him long, doesn’t it feel like you have? Like you know him better than you possibly can?”
“Or at least I can give it a chance, huh? But you’re right about the knowing him thing. It’s almost creepy.”
“Love is very frequently creepy,” Colton said with a grin. “It’s worth all the creepy in the world though.”
She nodded as her phone buzzed again. Only this time, it wasn’t the one in her head, rather the one stuffed in her pocket.
“Got a surprise for you tonight,” the text from Dawson read. “I’m not gonna say anything else, but ABHT-hhthht.”
Laughing out loud, she texted back, “Fat fingers?”
It took a second for a response. “Like lniks of snausnage.”
At this point she was laughing so hard it didn’t matter if he was full of it or not. The guy was somehow able to make her laugh in the most boring and most serious of circumstances, which for someone in a position as normally gravitas-laden as Angie’s, was pretty crazy. When she finally stopped, she noticed Colton was staring at her and shaking his head. “What?” she asked. “You’re staring at the side of my head.”
“You’re laughing. A lot. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I heard you laugh this much?”
“Never?”
“That’s not really what I meant, but... yeah, probably never. Are you dating Charlie Chaplin? I mean, before the whole weird communist thing, anyway. Although I’m sure he was still funny, that whole thing just kind of put a sad clown damper on him.” When he realized that Angie was just watching him talk, he got defensive. “What? I was just saying that... oh to hell with it. You know what I’m saying.”
She was just about beaming. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean. And to answer you more honestly, I really don’t know how long it’s been since I felt like this. When we were in the hospital Dawson said something about feeling like a teenager falling in love for the first time, but that it was different – and both of us are closer to forty than teenaged.”
“And you’re starting to see what he meant?”
“I almost feel stupid saying this, but... yeah, I think I do. When we got home after the whole bar fight thing, I felt like we were just going home,” she emphasized the words to be explicit as to her meaning. “It wasn’t like he was just gonna come stay with me for a few days while his stitches healed, it was like... I’m rambling.”
“You are,” Colton said, “but it makes sense. And I’m guessing from the way you were guffawing like Herman Munster over there, it was him with the messages?”
She turned the phone around and showed him the screen, but not before a quick check to make sure there weren’t any naughty texts in viewable range. That was something she’d never in her life thought she’d have to contend with: worrying about someone seeing her dirty text messages.
As Colton read the screen, and said something about how guys do that shitty-at-texting thing as an act because they know how cute it is, something deep and awful set in heavily on Angie’s chest. It was that same old nagging, awful feeling – why me? Not that she had any real shame about her appearance, or thought she was anything less than awesome, she did have her moments of self-questioning, like everyone else. And aside from that, this was a bear with a golden tongue, in more ways than one, she figured. The singing she knew about, the other... well, she knew it probably wouldn’t be very long until she didn’t have to guess anymore.
“I know I already asked you once, but do you think I’m crazy?” Angie asked.
“Yes,” Colton replied flatly. “You have to be to be as interesting as you are. But do I think it’s bad crazy? Hell no, not at all. I think you should roll the dice on this guy because unless you’ve made up all these stories like I did when I pretended I was dating a wolf girl from California when I was in sixth grade, I think he’s a keeper.”
“You what?”
“It’s a long story. Okay not really, but it is embarrassing as hell and I already told you the most important part of it, so there we go. Angie,” he grabbed her shoulders. “Stop questioning yourself. You know how badly you’ve wanted this. You know it’s your turn to have something good. God knows you’ve earned it.”
Listening to her friend say that made Angie’s cheeks burn. “Really? Why?”
“For all the things you’ve done for this town? For the people you’ve helped and the lives you’ve saved with that steely nerve and quick brain of yours? For the fact that in the five years I’ve known you, you haven’t said anything negative about anyone?” He paused for a moment, considering. “Okay, well I’ll amend that by saying – nothing negative about anyone that wasn’t both true and constructive in the long run – which is far more accurate.”
She laughed at that, and the smile lingered on her face afterward.
“You remember that guy from the donut shop date? Whatever his name was? Jamie Danish or something?”
Again, she started snickering. “Uh, Jake Lamar? That poor guy. I hope he ends up with some nice girl who acts submissive so he doesn’t feel like he’s being bossed around. Jamie Danish sounds like the lamest mobster in history.”
“Right,” he said. “See? See what you just said? Anyone else would have something like ‘oh yeah, that asshole,’ or ‘right, that guy was a creep.’ But you? Of course not. You say that you hope he ends up with a nice girl who suits him. And you’re asking me why you deserve something good for once?”
She sat back in her chair and interlaced her fingers behind her head. Her curls became a toy for a moment; she twisted her fingers among them, then pulled her hair and let it spring back into place. “Yeah,” she said, “I guess I do.”
What she was thinking though was that she didn’t think anyone deserved anything. Everyone takes different things from college, and for Angie, it was existentialism. Well, existentialism and a lifelong love of Malbec and dark, stout beer. Those were the two things she couldn’t physically drink enough of to get a hangover of any note, so she had always felt pretty proud of herself for discovering those things.
“Ange?” Colton asked. “You’re drooling.”
“Oh,” she laughed and wiped her face. “Just thinking about beer.”
“O-okay,” he said. “So when are you going on your honeymoon? And are you gonna invite me to the mating ceremony? The part before the actual mating, I mean. I don’t want to watch that. Because you totally should. I want to see the thing, er I mean not that thing, just the vows part. And then you can tell your grandkids that the only reason they exist is that Uncle Colton told you to jump at the chance to find a good guy instead of being a baby and running away.”
“That was... oddly specific,” Angie said with a laugh. “But yeah, sure. Whenever it happens I’m sure you’ll be there.”
Immediately, like she’d just been shot in the brain with a lightning bolt, she went starkly still. A million thoughts – did she really just say that being chief among them – bounced around in her skull. Echoes that reminded her of shouting down the mouth of a sinkhole blanketed her mind. She just let herself admit something she’d been afraid to allow – she was thinking about this guy as a mate. She hardly knew him, but it seemed like they’d been together for an eternity. They’d been through a hell of a lot in the three days since they met, and they hadn’t even had a proper date yet.
Her phone buzzed again. “Look out the window,” his text read. She stood up and did. The sun was just beginning to peek up above the horizon. Underneath it was White Lake, the town’s namesake body of water. Orange fingers shimmered across the surface of the lake, warming her face just at the thought of sharing a sunrise with Dawson.
“Looking,” she texted back. “It’s beautiful. Are you looking too?”
Her house was facing more or less the same direction as the windows on the top floor of the police station where she was currently staring out the window. If he was, he’d see the same thing.
It took a few moments before he responded, during which she let the twinkling rays of sunlight on the water ease her fears and her worries. If anything happens I can always just start over, she thought, again. I don’t want anything to happen though. This is what I want. He – Dawson – is what I’ve been looking for, even if I hadn’t known it until I met him.
When her phone finally buzzed again, it reminded her she wasn’t actually standing at a beautiful cliff staring out over the ocean with her apparently beloved bear by her side. “I was looking at it and thinking of you. Your hair. How you felt when I touched your face. I can’t wait until you get off. An hour now?”
He almost took her breath. Not only is he a musician with a golden spoon, he also sweet talks with the best of them. “How the hell did I find you?” she replied. “I know we’ve known each other for less than a week, but—”
She was half done when he continued his message. “It doesn’t matter if it’s an hour or a year. You’re the one for me, and somehow I know that. I’m not going to lose you, no matter what.”
Her finger hung over the touch screen, trembling slightly. How the hell do you respond to that? Do you even try? She asked herself over and over again what it all meant, what it was that drew them together. Instead she decided just to continue her text. “But it all feels so right. Let’s just let it be whatever it is.”
She paused again, waiting for some divine inspiration to spark her to action, but none came. It was all her and Dawson, nothing else in the world mattered right then. Colton’s chair was squeaking as he turned back and forth, and the computer bank behind her was clicking out its standard rhythm. It was all so familiar, but at that moment it felt purely alien, like the first time you go into a building that’s completely empty when before you’ve only seen it full.
“Deal. I’ll never ask any more than for you to be you. And see? I’m not fat-fingering anything this time. Not yet anyway.”
The hint of levity was very welcome and the naughty joke was good too. She cracked a smile and extemporaneously decided to turn around and snap a picture of herself in front of the window.
“Oh Jeez, it’s selfie time?” Colton said. He was grinning. “You have no idea how happy I am for you. If you want to run, no one will know. These hours are dead time. I can cover you.”
She hit send without adding a message. “You sure?” she asked. “I’ll owe you one.”
“You owe me about thirty at this point. Get on out of here, you have a bear waiting to see you.”
For a moment, Angie pondered telling him she was on the way, but decided to surprise him. She loved surprises, and given how things had gone so far, she thought he probably would too. And even if he didn’t, it’d be fun to stroll in the door naked and see how he reacted. His ribs were getting better, he could stand a good wrestling match, or at least some nudie snuggling.
“Thanks,” she said. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I know it’s really, really good.”
What she didn’t see as she left the Batcave were Colton’s twinkling eyes and the email he had started to a certain eve@matingcall.com. “It worked,” he wrote. “I have no idea how to thank you, but... yeah, I think we have a winner.”
He clicked send.