2. Olivia
Chapter two
Olivia
Friday night shifts are always full of drunk people and fighting. When I entered the academy, I thought there would be more action. Carrying drunk people into the drunk tank every night is not my idea of fun.
When I was a teenager, I told my dad that I wanted to be a cop, and he laughed at me. My family is all in the Finance field. My dad and grandfather were bank presidents, and my Uncle and brother were CFOs.
Of course, I joined the Police force right out of high school, so they didn’t try to bribe me to join the financial business. I didn’t want to deal with money or sit behind a desk. I wanted to be involved in the action and make a difference.
As I drive, the radio screams at me, “We have a bar fight at Jill’s bar on 5th Avenue.”
“Unit 7639, en route,” I reply to the dispatcher. Flipping on my lights, I head towards Jill’s.
Well, we shall see how this night turns out—there's an assault happening at a bar. My guess is two guys fighting over who has the bigger dick. I roll my eyes and continue to speed the mile to the bar. Pulling up, I see a group crowded around one area inside the bar.
Well, they are predictable today. Let’s hope they don’t try to buck up to me just because I am a woman. I would love to put them in their place and show them what a real woman can do. I fucking hate being underestimated.
When I step into the bar, everyone turns and looks at me. In the background, someone says, “The po po are here.”
I roll my eyes and keep walking toward the fight. Looking down, I see three men rolling around on the floor like pigs. I laugh and think to myself.
They call us the pigs.
“What’s going on here?” I say, loud enough to be heard over the music. All three guys stand up and look directly at me.
A petite brown-haired girl comes toward me from the bar. She says, “The older one was yelling at me and calling me vulgar names, then these two came over to ask if I was ok, and the older one started throwing racial slurs at them, and the blonde one punched the old man in the nose, and the brunette jumped in also and it has been fists and blood flying everywhere.”
This sounds like the most pathetic excuse to call the cops, but here I am. I take the statements of the girl and the two men involved. I will get to the witnesses after; I know their stories will be overdramatic and fabricated.
When I approach the last guy, my breath catches in my throat. He has the most beautiful brown eyes and dark brown hair. He is taller than me by a mile. I would guess he is pushing 6'6”, but there's no telling when you sit at a solid 5'5” on a good day. His biceps are bulging through his black shirt, and you can see the delicious veins running through his arms. He smells like beer, Cedarwood, and sin. Holy hot damn, I need to take a step back; his smell alone is making me dizzy.
I take a small step back and raise my eyes to meet his.
“Can I get your name, Sir?” I say quietly, I swear it came out as more of a squeak than actual English.
He chuckled, and the deep rumble through his chest sent a warm feeling to my core.
“Yeah, it’s Alejandro Lopez García. What’s yours?” He says with a half-smile. That accent that he has will cause a girl to have a heart attack.
With an eye roll, I reply, “I am Officer O’Connor; now, please tell me what happened in your own words.”
After an hour of being at the bar, I am finally on my way out with the man I now know as Xander Smith, handcuffed and being led to my car.
He happens to be the unlucky fucker who is being brought in for taking the first swing. If he had just let the old man talk his shit, he wouldn’t be sitting in the back of my squad car right now, humming a tune as if he had no care in the world. I wish I could be in his head to know his thoughts.
I get into the driver's seat and buckle up, keeping to myself as I drive to the station. I pull him out of the car when we pull into the station, and he is still humming his tune. We walked in, and I started recording his personal information and gathering his belongings. Once the tedious paperwork is done, I take him to get his mugshot taken. Once the necessities are taken care of, we check to make sure he won’t be a threat to himself or anyone else, and then lock him up to get sober for the night.
He said he didn’t want to use his one phone call because Alex was the one he would call, and he knew where he was.
I sit at my desk, trying to fill out these reports from the assault and submit them, but all I can think about are those beautiful brown eyes staring into my soul, the same ones that will be haunting my dreams in the future. I shake myself out of my daydream and look up at the clock on the far wall. It was 2 am, and finally, it was the end of my shift, even though I hadn’t accomplished anything that night after arresting Xander. The fight was the only call I got worth anything. I had a couple of speeding tickets and a guy who was nude running through the park.
A figure catches my eye as I walk out of the building. Immediately, I go for my 9mm pistol on my hip, ready for anything to happen. It’s 2 am in San Diego; you never know what you will find on the streets.
As I approach the figure standing outside the gate, I can already feel those beautiful brown eyes on me. Then, the wind blows his woodsy smell toward me, invading my senses. My body goes into overdrive. What is Alejandro doing here? I look him in the eyes, and a warm feeling fills my chest. It feels so… right.
Before stepping any closer, I heard his voice call out to me. “Hey! Officer O’Connor!” I walk up to the fence and see Alejandro leaning against a barrier, taking a drag of his cigarette. He grins at me with his panty-dropping smile and then blows the smoke up in the air.
“What are you doing here, Alejandro? Xander won’t be out until morning when he is sober.” You would think he would know that.
“I’m not worried about Xander. Maybe a night behind bars will get him to calm his temper.” He smiles at me with a shrug. It seems odd because I only saw the Xander that was humming the whole time, from the back of my squad car until I shut the gate to his cell for the night. He seems so peaceful.
I sigh. “If he isn’t the reason you are here, then enlighten me about the reasoning. Because I know you didn’t drive 10 mins from the bar to stand outside the station’s gates for nothing.”
Alex laughs a deep, contagious belly laugh. As much as I want to smile at him because his laugh is everything, I cock my eyebrow at him and cross my arms, tapping my foot as my patients run thin. He may be cute, but he’s messing with my shower, reading with a glass of whiskey, and sleeping time. My nightly routine is a ritual. I’m on autopilot most of the time when I get off work. I don’t want to have to think after dealing with these idiots all night.
Finally, he stops laughing and looks at me. “Well, first off, Ms. Officer, I didn’t drive under the influence. I have more morals than that. I took an Uber. You know, the thing you request a car on to take you places.”
I roll my eyes. “I know what fucking Uber is!” I damn near screamed at him. How can he be so handsome and so infuriating at the same time? I want to climb him like a tree and slap the smirk off his face all at the same time.
“Oh, good. I was nervous there for a second.” He looks up at me with a cheeky grin and then continues.
“I came here after you took Xander. I couldn’t get you off my mind, so I thought I would ask if you wanted to get some food with me at the diner down the road. It’s open 24 hours, and I didn’t know any other way to ask you out. So here I am going all in.” He asked me to go to a diner on a date at 2 in the morning. Is he desperate or crazy?
“You want to take me out on a date, Mr. Lopez García?”
“Please don’t call me that. That is my grandfather. Just call me Alex, “ he says, looking shocked as if he had spilled some huge secret to me.
He takes another drag of his cigarette, nodding his head as he flicks the cherry of the cigarette on the ground, stomps it out, and throws away the butt. Hmmm, usually smokers throw their butts on the ground. I am shocked to see he cares for the environment.
“Wow, I have never met a man who gets turned on by watching his friends get arrested. Was it the handcuffs or the manhandling that did it for you?” I wink at him and chuckle.
“Both; I wouldn’t mind being manhandled and put in cuffs by you. And when I say you, I mean only you!” Then he winks at me and walks towards the diner, not even turning around to see if I am following. The cocky fucker knew I would go with him. I am not sure how he can read me so well already, but I don’t like it.