Gawking Awkwardly at the Law
(as opposed to running from it, which is what someone with better reaction-time would do)

--

College orientation was a hell she’d never experienced before. Sure, she experienced something like it when making those rough transitions from elementary to middle and middle to high school. She carried a certain resignation to shifting from oldest in the school to the youngest and most furtive.

But always before, there was someone else she knew, someone she could cling to like a leech and be almost certain would not become incredibly irritated with her spastic dependence. Here, there was no one, and she sat alone. She wrapped herself in a cocoon of anonymity and tried to hold her breath through the next two days.

Tuesday, she thought. I’ll start being sociable Tuesday.

“Really, Izzy, it’ll be okay,” her friend Monica said that night on the phone. “You’ll find your people; it’s impossible not to make friends unless you’re going around biting people.”

Izzy sighed and snorted at the same time, wishing Monica were closer than the five hundred miles and two state lines that separated them. “I miss you.”

Monica made a sympathetic noise. “That’s what you get for going to a nerdy college. I told you to come to Charleston with me. Party school! I’m surrounded by people I spent the last four years trying to escape from. And yet I’m happy.”

“But you have Claire,” Izzy pointed out, slumping in her uncomfortable desk chair and staring at the laptop computer she still was not acclimated to.

“Yeah.” Izzy could just hear the eye roll. “Claire’s a big help. She’s spent more time with guys in the past few days than I have in my life.”

“And that’s saying something,” Izzy laughed.

“Yeah, well. Give it some time, Iz. Listen, I’ve gotta run. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

So Izzy said goodbye to the dial tone.

All of her friends were always on the move, and here she was without even her roommate in evidence, all alone, and lounging because she had no idea of what else to do. That was one big difference between her and, it seemed, the rest of the world. She was not shy, she was not outgoing, she just could never manage to go out and try things. Now she did not know how. It frustrated her.

She slept her first night fitfully and awoke in the swaddled grips of her upset covers. Looking to the left she saw the lump of her roommate, a bit of black against the lighter black of a blank white wall in shadows, cast by light of a pre-dawn moon. They had met before dinner the night before, exchanged greetings, and nothing much else happened. Izzy unpacked. Sharon was not settled since she went out the night before to get to know the people on the floor. The noise from the impromptu party session lasted until the morning, and Izzy had been awake for all of it, wondering the entire time whether she should go out and try to involve her self.

She did not. Well it was not Tuesday yet. She had no obligation to her self to try before then. Tuesday, when classes started, she would find people in her classes with whom she had something in common. She would start from that pool. Izzy was good at keeping friends but not at finding them. She possessed no determination when it came to things like that; people found her, not the other way around. If people could look past the unassuming exterior, then they were worth befriending in Izzy’s mind.

Sometimes, in some situations, no one ever found her, which led to many ill-spent summer camps in her past. She had a horrible fear that this would be the destiny of her college-years.

She drifted off and woke next to the sound of her buzzer.

“What time is it?” Sharon rasped, rolling against the wall, then lying prone.

“Seven,” Izzy grunted. She buried her face in the dark blonde hair strewn across her pillow, a slab-like article provided by the university and replaceable, but she could not drift back off.

Showered and sick to her stomach with nerves, Izzy attacked her Monday with all the exhilaration inherent in a mid-term exam. She had few placement tests today, and so her schedule was filled with that dreadful specter: nothing. With nowhere to go and no one to talk, she sat alone on a garden bench until restlessness forced her to her car and from there into an aimless drive.

The city was fairly large, albeit smaller than her Maryland home. A strange impulse led her to peer into passing cars as she went along the main road, an activity that brought flutters to her stomach whenever handsome guys seemed to return her glance. She glared at her hands while she idled at a stoplight. By silently telling herself she was being moronic, she managed to browbeat herself into feeling silly.

But that did not stop her from ogling at a shirtless workman on top of a ladder, or from lightly rear-ending the police cruiser in front of her.

“Oh geez,” she groaned, letting her forehead fall to the steering wheel with a painful thump. A door opened, a door slammed, loose concrete skittered across blacktop, and then the slight cool of a shadow fell across her. Trying to keep from crying, Izzy raised her eyes to the cop’s. “I’m so sorry.”

She nearly choked on her words and was nearly proud to get them out at all. Where she was from, cops were usually a little pudgy or a little old. Mainly both. This one was neither; she did not want to act like a ticket-skipping ingénue. She did not want to appear like she was flirting, and the fact that she had no clue how to flirt did not keep her from tensing from shoulder blades to toes at the prospect of being misunderstood.

“What distracted you, ma’am?”

Sunglasses blocked his eyes from examination, not that she could meet them. Shaggy brown hair stuck to his face and neck in the heat, and his chin has a small cleft, which in turn brought her attention to his mouth. Izzy focused on his nose to keep from blushing, but the heat spreading across her collarbone told her she was fighting a losing battle. She could only hope that he would release her before it turned her face red. The paleness of her skin was an age-old enemy.

“I…it’s just, a new city. Looking at everything, I guess I took my eyes off the road for too long. Really, I’m so sorry. This has never happened before, I swear.” She closed her eyes and begged some all-powerful force to crush her into the pavement. Humiliation was not something with which she dealt with any grace.

“License, please?”

She handed it to him, struggling not to cover her face with her hands. She felt the scrutiny of his gaze as he compared her to her photo.

“You at the university, Miss Zeiger?” he asked, resting the hand that held her license on the rolled-down window. He extended the two fingers from which it dangled and she put it back in her wallet.

“Yes.” Her voice was so soft she had trouble hearing it. “First day. Well, really the second day.”

Now her voice was gaining strength when she’d rather she could shut up completely, and she could only listen in horror as it ran away with her. “We came yesterday, but class doesn’t start till tomorrow and I only had a language and a math placement so I didn’t have anything else to do. This is only my second time here so I decided to explore because there wasn’t really anyone I could talk to.”

She faded slightly and when he remained silent, she kept talking, adding a few nervous gestures from the hands she kept firmly in her lap. “I’m not used to a town with so many hills, and I know that’s not an excuse, but every time I come to the top of one there’s suddenly this huge view and I get distracted and I guess I should be driving slower or just walking and not driving at all until I get used to everything, I just hate walking alone and driving alone at least gets it over with quicker. I—“

Far too late, Izzy forcibly shut herself up, clamping down on her bottom lip before gripping the steering wheel hard, full of the urge to shake it violently or rip it off to beat about her head. After concentrating intently on her white knuckles, she looked back up at the cop.

He was not smiling, but the slight curl to his closed mouth showed amusement.

“Seeing as this is obviously the first time you’ve been stopped—“ The red spread across her face instantaneously. “I’ll let you off with a warning. Try to admire the scenery some other time.” With that he cast a meaningful look back at the workman and Izzy had to swallow back tears of mortification.

She whispered ‘sorry’ again, and he regarded her with some pity that she could not stand.

“Be on your way, then.” The officer went back to his car. Izzy drove off with every bit of good feeling sucked out of her.

She could not afford to allow the distractive thoughts of the cop to ruin her first day of classes.

“So he was hot, then?” Sharon asked as they prepared the next morning, winking and giving a throaty chuckle. Izzy’s roommate leaned back, away from the mirror, and took a flattening iron to the wiry mess of black curls that encased her head. “He liked you enough to let you off.”

“He was very quick in getting rid of a babbling idiot,” Izzy groaned into her pillow. “God, I’m always such an idiot.”

If nothing else, the incident at least gave her a story to relate to her roommate, and they were so far getting along well. Sharon was small and energetic with a big voice and an active imagination, not to mention a readily available and forceful opinion.

“Aw, I’m sure you were adorable—ouch!” Sharon furrowed her brow and ripped out a few hairs that had caught in the seam of the iron. “You have that…mumbly charm. Makes cops want to pinch your cheek.”

Izzy propped herself up and flung the black-haired girl a disbelieving look. “This isn’t Uncle Millard at a family reunion! It’s a big handsome police officer.” Heaving a sigh, glad for the ability to be comfortably melodramatic, she smashed her face back down into her bed. “If I were saucy I’d say that’s not the cheek I want him to pinch.”

Sharon laughed. “You are saucy, then, girl. If you wanted him to do that you should’ve found a reason to get out of the car.”

Then she paused.

“You have an Uncle Millard?”

“It’s insane the number of people in my family that like to name people after presidents,” Izzy said wryly. Her roommate laughed again.

“I have an Uncle Yubble. Like Hubble, only amended through an unfortunate hand-spasm upon the signing of the birth certificate.”

Izzy smiled into her bedspread. She got some thread in her mouth.

“How old do you think he was?” Sharon asked.

“Uh, I have no idea. Mid-twenties? Why?”

“Well,” Sharon said in patient tones. “You could go after him.”

Izzy gaped. “Go…after him?”

“Yeeeees.” Sharon bounced in her chair to turn it around. “Find him. Flirt. Kiss. Scamper off. Foolproof!” She said the last with a flourish as she let her last lock of straightened hair fall down her back.

Izzy squeaked in astonishment. “Sharon!”

“Oh, don’t be so geriatric. He’s hot, he’s young, and he’s nice. He’s in uniform. What else do you do with someone like that?” She apparently expected an answer.

“Uh, give him respect and a wide berth and hope I never have to face him again.”

Sharon snorted rudely.

“He saw me gawking at a roofer!” Izzy cried.

“All that means to him is that you aren’t a lesbian. Trust me.”

Izzy eventually rose and put her supplies into her pack. Her long shirt and lacy skirt were wrinkled from the trip to the university, but for some reason, now that she had a friend she was less self-conscious. Of course, she would probably compulsively smooth her garments all day. For now, though, she was fine with herself.

“I don’t know his name,” she announced triumphantly a few moments later, glad to have another reason not to do something she would never, ever try in a million years anyway. A small part of her considered the influence of her outgoing roommate liable to override her own disposition and make her do something she would never otherwise consider in the slightest degree; that’s how little she trusted her own fortitude.

“You could find out. The police force is only so big.”

“It’s a big city,” Izzy countered. “There’s got to be at least fifty.”

“Hardly.” Sharon gave her the fish eye. The snooze button gave them ten minutes every time they pushed it, and it went off as the clock reached eight. Sharon slid a sidelong glance to the source of the jarring noise. “We’ll finish this discussion over breakfast.” Her tone brooked no opposition.

“Harris and Main, eh?” Sharon said in consideration fifteen minutes later as they ate in the cafeteria. She tapped her cereal-encrusted spoon against her chin. “That’s about five minutes from the station.”

Izzy swallowed a bite of muffin. “So?” She was curious to see where Sharon’s reasoning skills would lead them both.

“So…nothing,” Sharon admitted with a lightning grin. “It is a big city, but the police force isn’t real big. This isn’t exactly a center of major crime.” Sharon lived one hour away from the university, which had a requisite on-campus housing policy for freshmen. She knew all about the area, something Izzy knew would come in handy. “He probably has a big area to patrol.”

“There you have it. He has been swallowed by the city and I am rid of him,” Izzy said.

“Oh, don’t sound so sad, Izzy,” Sharon mocked. “We’ll find him. I have my ways.”

Izzy missed Sharon’s warm nature when they had to separate to go to their classes. The teachers demanded so much of her concentration as they went through the class syllabi and attendance requirements that she was unable to summon the cop’s face in her mind.

But she was alone again come lunchtime, and with a schedule that conflicted with Sharon’s she could either eat alone in the cafeteria, foist herself on another table full of people she did not know, or simply buy something for a campus shop. She elected for the latter.

Where Main Street ended against the campus’ Main Square, she settled on a low wall surrounding the dead brown lawn and ate her sandwich under the dappled shade of a Crape Myrtle in bloom. Traffic was at a minimum along the T-intersection.

She watched in bemused detachment as a cruiser pulled against the curb.

Great.

“Alone again?” he asked. He stood between his open door and the car, resting his arms on the roof.

“Isn’t that hot?” It took her a second to realize what she said could be construed as both a rude question-answering-a-question and a rhetorical, coy remark. Izzy’s ears burned but she refused to rephrase.

“This? Yes.” He flashed some teeth in a smile seemed more like a baring of teeth and slammed the door shut before strolling over to her. “This looks like a nice cool spot.”

“Yes, it is.” Izzy answered just to be saying something, but she was horrible at meaningless conversation and could not think of anything else that could be said to draw out their dialogue. It made her feel boring and hopeless.

He sat beside her on the wall. Skin prickled and tightened along her chest and limbs. But then, cops always made her feel nervous, so much so that sometimes she wished she had committed some crime so as to justify her reaction.

“It’s my lunch break,” he said as if she asked. Izzy was very careful not to look at him, until her neck stiffened and she rolled it a little, trying to relax. Sitting down, he was much taller than her. She fancied she could feel his heat from a foot away, although the ambient temperature and her imagination were more likely to blame for her flush.

He was a blue-colored blob of intimidation in her peripheral.

“So where are you from?” he prompted. At the same time she blurted, “What’s your name?” in an unreasonably accusatory voice.

“Maryland,” she replied after a second’s hesitation in which she wondered how she could retract her demand.

“My name’s Jack.”

Silence.

“Hi.” It was a smothered mutter.

His chuckle startled her. She dropped the last bit of her sandwich on the ground and blushed harder. “Elizabeth,” she returned, sticking out her hand for lack of anything more rational. He shook it, still laughing.

“Yes, I know. I might’ve been writing it on a ticket, so I know. Elizabeth.” And in a movement too abrupt to allow her preparation, he pulled off his sunglasses, and his eyes were green. Deep-set under slashing eyebrows, they completed his face with far more clarity than her daydreams had given her after their last meeting. For a terrible instant, she could not look away. Then she did and found her hand was shaking.

What did he see? It was so comforting to be able to read a man’s thoughts in his eyes, but she would not let herself look back into them, and so she was left with only terrible uncertainty. Was she a lost duckling he was taking under wing, fascinated by her “mumbly charm” into playing the roll of protector?

“I hope everything went well for you with all your classes. Do you like it so far? The campus, the teachers…the food?” His tone was genuinely friendly and genuinely interested.

“Uh, the campus, yeah. The teachers…I mean, I’ve only had one class so far and I guess he’s okay. And I haven’t exactly eaten enough to know about the food yet.” She shrugged and again was left with nothing else to say.

After a moment he said, “It’s a nice city. I think you’ll like it; a lot of students love all the stuff that goes on. A bunch of singers come here on tours, and the night-life is mostly bars but there are some teen nightclubs, so I don’t think you’ll get bored.” He smiled in assurance.

Teen nightclubs, she repeated silently and with rancor. He was giving her the same spiel every tour guide here had given the new students. Reinforcing the status of being on the bottom of every hierarchy.

She would not meet his eyes because she felt it was impossible that her thoughts would be hidden from their intensity. Her feelings were so stark in her mind that a radio-tower could pick up the frequency. If he read what she was thinking and he was being brotherly or even, God-forbid, fatherly, she really might just die.

Izzy squelched the rising melodrama.

“I have a class to get to,” she lied, standing suddenly and grabbing her pack. “It was nice…meeting you. Jack.” She bobbed her head, emphasizing the errant-fowl metaphor still squatting in her mind. “Jack what?”

Oh geez, she growled inside. Why did I ask that? It’ll seem like I’m stalking him!

At the same time she was also thinking that she would never see him again and it did not matter what he thought of her.

“Goode,” he drawled after a brief pause. Jack was looking at her in a funny way that she knew meant he knew what was in her head.

“What’s good?” Her obtuseness crept through.

“My name. Jack Goode. And you’re Elizabeth Zeiger. So it was nice meeting you.”

Something in his voice had her whirling around and leaving without saying another word. I hate you, her inner voice hissed. I love you is what nearly came out of her mouth.

Sharon was, of course, thrilled; Izzy was thrilled that Sharon was thrilled. It did after all show somewhat of an investment in her life. At the same time she wished Sharon were not thrilled at her expense. Izzy was very intent on never mentioning Jack’s existence ever again.

“He’s a bored cop,” she muttered.

“He practically invited you to a nightclub,” Sharon insisted. Izzy had to roll her eyes in exasperation.

“He very distinctly separated us by putting me in the teen nightclub category and him in the bar category. He’s got to be at least twenty-five. And I’m eighteen, looking like I’m fifteen.”

“Geez, would you listen to yourself? I’ve known you for two days and already I know you hate more things about yourself than anyone else is even seeing,” Sharon declared. “Now you listen to me. No more of this. This’ll be fun. Once you settle in to everything, we’ll hit those nightclubs. If needs be—“ Here she held one finger aloft in a rousing position of proclamation. “—we will teach you how to dance. And then you will one day in the not-distant future shimmy up against this Goode cop.”

“Oh gosh, that name is just rife with potential for bad punnery isn’t it?” Izzy laughed.

“I wonder if there’s a Badd Cop,” Sharon mused, making Izzy laugh harder.

It was a good month before she settled into the routine well enough to lose the death-grip she had on her printed schedule. Every time Izzy was walking and she saw a cop car, a delicious butterfly feeling surged in her stomach, and she was delighted because even she had to admit life was a bit more fun when she had a crush. Harmless fun.

“Friday niiight, dance cluuuuub,” Sharon sang, doing a little booty shake in the mirror. She raised her voice to a roar. “And Leslie’s coming too!” She then danced to her closet and rummaged. Sounds of squeaking hangers rent the air.

“No, no, no, no,” Leslie chanted, waggling her eyebrows as she came through the door from her room across the hall. “Too much to do.”

“You mean you’re going to sleep,” Sharon said scornfully.

Leslie and Sharon had hit it off the first night in the hallway party, and all three of them were becoming fast friends. Leslie towered over Sharon and had a few inches on Izzy, and her height was the only reason her ridiculous amount of wavy brown hair did not dwarf her. Hazel eyes and classic cheekbones topped everything off to create a slightly mismatched but nonetheless statuesque underage genius. With a birthday in January, Leslie was the youngest on the floor.

“Of course I’m going to sleep. I plan my life around sleep. I live to sleep.”

“I live to daaaaance,” Sharon sang, continuing to boogy.

“You live to eat,” Izzy observed acerbically, shutting down her computer on the paper she had finally finished. She yawned and stretched like a cat.

“Well, we are all going dancing tonight.”

Izzy did not argue, figuring getting out would be good for her.

“And maybe we can hit a…bar or two…on the way back?” Sharon winked at her when Izzy jerked her gaze over.

“Oh no. Nooo no no.”

Sharon shrugged noncommittally.

Leslie took some convincing but finally pulled on a short, fluttery jean skirt and a modest but well-fitted t-shirt, while Izzy was forced to submit to Sharon’s taste, which ran to modern Daisy Dukes and low-cut spangled tanks.

“You’re a funny girl, Shar,” Izzy said, not at all amused. In the mirror was a very tired, pale dirty-blonde with chicken legs and too many freckles due to too much bare skin. “I can’t fill this out!”

Sharon tugged hard on the laces up the back and before she knew it, Izzy was spun out the door and off to Sharon’s car.

The city at night was full of flashing, blinking, and all around bright lights, but instead of succumbing to an unconsciously created headache, she smiled up at them and marveled at the beauty of nightlife.

The club was not packed, but there were tons of college students there all the same. With Sharon holding her hands and bouncing about, Izzy had no choice but to laugh and join in with enjoyment. They danced like fools, finally able to draw Leslie into it; she did not dance so silly, but she laughed just as much.

It was only around eleven that Izzy realized she might have to break apart from the girls, and only because Sharon hopped off with a guy and Leslie rolled her eyes and went to sit down for a bit. For a few moments, Izzy was a little lost, half-inclined to follow Leslie’s lead but also not willing to do so knowing she would not dance anymore if she sat down and let everything wash over her. Thankfully, the decision was made for her. She was happy to know that, while she was not comfortable seeking out this sort of stuff, she could enjoy it when she was thrust into it.

In the blinking lights she had no clue who she was dancing with, but it was fun, a little sexy, and it did not last too long; a fight broke out on the right side toward the exit and it got big enough that the music stopped, even if half the people were still dancing.

The cops were called. The sirens made her knees quiver, but she decided it was just the suggestibility of the atmosphere and the fact that it was so easy to imagine that cop’s face on any one of the male bodies around her.

I’m turning into a slut, she marveled silently. Then she giggled out loud.

The club was cleared out and she could not find Leslie or Sharon in the mess of laughing bodies despite the normal lights turning on. She stumbled her way to the curb and waited impatiently for a glimpse of one of them. She caught of glimpse of someone familiar.

“Wow, out and about,” Jack said. He was wearing his hat for the first time since she had met him, something she only noticed now that it was on. Pulled down over his eyes, he was more enigmatic, and with the dark and the sweat all around, he made her heart pound. She could not help noticing the looks he was getting from a lot of the girls.

“I’m here with my friends,” she stated, almost defiantly. Izzy cast a sweeping glance back to the crowd but neither made an appearance. “Or, I was.”

He took her shoulder and led her a few steps away from the current of the people on the sidewalk. “Well once this is all cleared up, if you haven’t found you’re friends, I’ll take you to your dorm.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be necessary,” she immediately said. Jack nodded slowly.

“Okay. We’ll see.” He turned to go inside and then stopped, looking her up and down. “Nice outfit.” It was the first indication that he saw her as more than a young girl.

He and the other cops continued clearing out the place until it was just a few milling groups of people and the bloodied combatants, who looked a little sheepish about the whole thing. They got into the back of a patrol car and it pulled away, lights and siren off. It all seemed surprisingly normal.

Izzy expected that Leslie and Sharon, who never showed up, had seen her talking to Jack and figured, at least in Sharon’s case, to force her hand.

Izzy was feeling a little daring. That was the only reason she was not mad.

“I guess you do need a ride,” Jack said when he returned to her. He was broad, tall, and built enough to make even the bulky pack around his waist fit in.

“I…guess,” she replied. Dark eyes uncertain, she followed him to his car. He tossed his hat through the open back window and opened and shut the passenger side for her. He leaned down to her window.

“Normally we make you sit in the back. But I get off duty at midnight and I don’t have a partner, so you’re lucky.” With that he went to his side.

The ride was silent for the most part. Policeman Jack asked a few questions about her night, but she could not quite get up the courage to ask him about his, so the silence was left awkward after a bit.

“If you feel weird hanging out with a cop, I’m sorry,” he said with a light chuckle. “You just seemed really out of your element that first time and I felt sorry for terrifying you.”

“You didn’t terrify me,” she said, resenting his words for the ache they left in her stomach when she understood he had only been being nice. Izzy was just a girl with a crush on an older guy in uniform.

“Well, good.” Minutes later he pulled in front of her dorm. She found the shoes she had worked loose onto the floorboard and had to work to get them back on.

“Here,” he said. He reached down and flipped on a light under the dash so she could see what she was doing. It, unfortunately for her, brought him too close. The melodrama was coming back and she jolted. He, still unfortunately for her, noticed. “Really, I don’t mean to be a bother.” Jack’s elbow was resting on the center compartment and if she had not been so far against the door in her own seat, he would be looming directly over her. She wanted that, deep in her mind, but would not put herself in that position.

“You’re not a bother,” she said with a quick, reassuring smile as she finished with her left shoe. She almost stomped her heel on his hand when she shifted to get her purse at the same time he went to hand it to her. “Geez, you always move at the wrong time.”

Izzy did not mean to say that. He chuckled and glanced up at her through his bangs. “I apologize, Miss Zeiger.” Jack turned off the light and they both sat still.

“Thanks for the lift, Jack,” she said briskly, holding her hand out to shake his once more. She figured it was becoming something of a shtick. It made it all light-hearted, or at least Izzy tried to make it so. The officer took her hand. Then he tugged her close so that he was right in her face.

“Anytime. And I mean even if you’re drinking illegally somewhere and you need a ride. I’ll drive you. Don’t get hurt.”

He sounded just like her dad. Izzy did not mean to sigh so heavily. She did not mean to do a lot of things.

“Thanks.”

A few months later, Sharon was invited to a big party over at one of the fraternity houses. She assured Izzy that they would’ve invited her too if they knew her, so Izzy agreed to come. The two roommates decided it would be interesting, at least, and they would not fall prey to the normal traumatic events of such parties because they just would not indulge. They just weren’t those kinds of people.

That was the way it was supposed to be. But Sharon was always one for excitement.

“I’m choosing my own clothes this time,” Izzy warned when she caught the look in her roommate’s eye. Sharon only scoffed.

“You have the taste of a noodle. Bland and slimy. Now, here’s something,” she said, sweeping out as a short dress as Izzy choked on what she had said. The dress fluttered down over her head, forcing Izzy to glare out from under the frilly hem that draped across her nose and up over her hair.

“Right. I see you are adamant about this,” she said with as much dignity as possible.

They walked to the party across a dusk-blurred campus, Sharon in high heels, a blue tunic and a short denim skirt, and Izzy in boots and the lacy coral dress that came to mid-thigh and was, in Izzy’s mind, far too short for decency. It was longer than Sharon’s hemline, though.

“Alright. Don’t let anyone grope you,” Sharon warned before they entered. The party was already in full swing, which meant it was dirty, smoky, and hazardous.

It took Izzy ten minutes to realize she wanted to get away from the place. She’d never been to an event so completely disgusting and unashamed of its repulsiveness. People reveled in the things they were doing, and she was trying as hard as she could not to touch anything at all.

“Here,” Sharon said breathlessly, tumbling down next to her on one of the big armchairs and squishing them both in tightly. “It’s punch. Aren’t you thirsty?”

“Sharon,” Izzy said in disbelief, but then Sharon was off saying something about peeing.

She spotted some girls she knew from class and battled her way over to them.

“Hey Michelle. Karen,” she said, nodding to them in turn. Michelle smiled widely and hugged her and Karen winked, saluting her with a paper cup.

“Wow, Izzy. I never thought you’d come to one of these!” Karen whooped.

“What, do I give off a loner aura?” Izzy joked. Michelle giggled, and it was obvious that she was drunk, which explained the hug.

“Noooo,” Michelle assured her. “Here, drink this and dance. This’ll be so much fun! All my friends will love to meet you.”

Izzy didn’t believe her for a second, but figured a sip or two couldn’t hurt.

The burn of alcohol smothered her, but she refused to choke in front of these girls, determined to create a different image for herself. “What is this?” she demanded weakly.

Karen roared for a shot of vodka. “Vodka and cranberry juice. Wow, girl, you downed that. Try it alone.”

Izzy did because she was happy to be talking so easily with these two girls, who she mostly avoided in class for fear of making a fool of herself. She tossed back the shot like she’d seen it done in the movies, and only willpower kept her from tossing it back out of her esophagus.

By the time Michelle offered a chaser, the taste was gone and the burn had dulled, so she refused. It was apparently the impressive thing to do. “Holy cow, we’ve got an experienced woman on our hands.”

Izzy was not going to be the one to dispel their admiration, so she merely shrugged and asked for another one. She figured three was enough to show them she wasn’t a loser. But it was easy enough to get more, and pretty soon she was trying rum and tequila as well, although the latter was an experience she was not going to try again.

Someone kind eventually gave her a cup of water, and she accepted it gratefully before stumbling off to sit on a sofa. Within moments two bodies threw themselves down hard enough to ram her over. In disgust, she rose and stomped off.

She did not feel the full effects of everything she drank until almost fifteen minutes later. And then she went loopy; that’s when Sharon found her. Sharon was not much better, although she was keeping to her feet while Izzy was forced to hold onto the wall to prevent her self from slipping off into infinity.

“I think it’s time to go hoooome,” Sharon cried, cackling insanely as she have-shoved, half-led Izzy to the door.

They had no idea where to go.

“I think you should call your cop friend to come take care of us,” the black-haired girl said with a throaty and suggestive shimmy of her hips.

For some reason, Izzy found that hilarious. By the time she got a hold of herself, the alcohol was making her think it was a pretty good idea. She threw herself down on the grass, where Sharon joined her.

“What’s…what’s the number for the station,” Izzy asked, very carefully enunciating as she flipped open her cell phone.

“Nine. One. Oooooone,” Sharon said as if Izzy were a complete idiot.

“Oh, right.”

Fortunately, Fate prevented her from that moronic misstep in the form of yet another arrival of a police presence.

“Jack! Jackieeee. Jackster.”

Izzy was beginning to think it was meant to be. That, or she was just stupid and reckless. She had never been that way before, so it could not be that. Izzy put it down to Fate, and smiled up at Jack as the other partiers scattered to the winds.

“I told you to call me,” he said very quietly. She could tell he was angry but could only laugh in response.

“I don’t know your number,” she said, ducking her voice down into a conspiratorial whisper on the last word. “It’s not 911, is it?”

He was utterly silent. “No,” he finally forced out.

“See? Then it’s good I didn’t try. Besides,” she said as she poked at the buttons on her phone, “This is all I can manage to type anyway.”

A bevy of nonsensical numbers stood out on the light of the screen and he sighed, stooping down to help her up. His features swirled in her vision, and Sharon gave a burbly giggle into the dirt before he aided her as well.

“Okay, I’m not taking you down to the station. I’m taking you underage drinkers home. Next time I’ll take you to the station.”

“Next time,” Izzy giggled. She hung on his arm while he attempted to maneuver Sharon.

“You were right,” Sharon stage-whispered. “He is hot.”

“Shar-ron.” But Izzy couldn’t keep her laughter in.

“Miss Sharon, please get in the car,” Jack said long-sufferingly. She gave him a coy flutter of her long fingers and slid in. “You, Miss Zeiger, should know better. How many run-ins with the law have you had in the past month?”

“You mean run-ins with an h’officer of the law,” she corrected with a sly grin. He tugged down the dress that had ridden perilously high on her thigh.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, rolling his eyes and preparing to guide her to the other door. She wrapped her arms around his neck and jumped up.

“I like you,” she giggled.

“Aren’t you the bundle of fun?” he got out as he swung her around into the backseat. “You’re making yourself a home here, that’s for sure.”

“Makin’ a home with Officer Hottie-McHolyshit,” Sharon muttered, giggling to herself and waving her fingers in front of her eyes. “Did you know I can make it look like I have three hands?” In order to demonstrate, she swung her arm back too far and slammed her elbow against the door. “Owie. My wenis!”

“Shhh.” Izzy held up a quieting finger as Jack climbed behind the wheel. Izzy lurched forward and curled her fingers against the partition. “Don’t be so vulgar. Where are we going?”

“The police station.”

Both of the girls yowled, and somewhere inside drunk Izzy, sober, scared Izzy reared her nervous head. “No, no, please don’t.”

At the stoplight, Jack twisted his head to look directly at her. “Relax, Miss Zeiger. I’m not turning you in. I couldn’t.” He cleared his throat and facing forward. “Seeing as I told you I wouldn’t.”

“Why do you still call me Miss Zeiger when I keep calling you Jack?”

This time he met her gaze in his rearview mirror. “I’m on duty. You’re not.”

“You don’t know that.” That made absolutely no sense. Scaredy-cat Izzy groaned and hid her face somewhere deep inside her mind. She slumped back and Sharon rolled over toward her.

“You know—“

“No, Sharon,” Izzy sighed, suddenly immensely tired. Jack stopped in front of their dorm and got out to open the Sharon’s door. Sharon crawled out and stumbled up to the steps of the dorm, where she promptly sat and let out a grumpy huff. Jack took Izzy’s hand as she crawled after her roommate.

“Can we make this somewhat less of a habit? Not that I don’t enjoy seeing you, Izzy, but I would rather it be when you’re doing something legal. Like eating lunch. Or studying.”

She got to her feet and it took awhile for his words to register. The feel of his body supporting hers between it and the car was distracting and very solid. “Our first meeting was very embarrassing for me. I never wanted to see you again.” Izzy definitely hadn’t meant to say that. Jack seemed halfway between surprised and amused.

“Oh really? Go figure. Most people love meeting me in those circumstances.” He put a steadying hand under her elbow and helped her totter closer to her destination, although she didn’t lose contact with the car.

“’s the problem,” she grumbled, starting to move off. She noted that Sharon had nodded off against the stair railing—at least she hadn’t attempted to climb them and died while Izzy was here making a drunken fool of herself in front of the most attractive man of authority she’d ever made a drunken fool of herself in front of. “People love you, don’t they?” She ignored his look of confusion. “Women love you?”

The look on his face now was near priceless. His shaggy hair, she noticed, was rather mussed. She guessed it had been a long day. For absolutely no reason, she giggled, and somewhat dispelled whatever atmosphere she thought she’d created. Jack sighed and turned his green eyes back to the dorm, never moving his hand from her arm.

“I think it’s time to go to bed, Izzy.”

She nodded because it was easier, and she was so damned tired. “Sharon, time to wake up!” she called. Sharon only snorted something unintelligible. Thinking she was steady enough to move on her own, Izzy pulled away from the officer and started to walk like she would sober, and immediately lost her footing, putting her exactly where she would have been too nervous and self-hating to ever consciously put herself in her life.

Against his chest and in his arms.

“See, that’s what we call a bad idea,” he murmured, waiting a moment—a wonderful moment where she felt incredibly safe and still flattened tightly against his hard body—before pulling his head back so he could look down into her face. She, however, feeling like the moment would be gone forever after tonight so she might as well take it while she was too drunk to be terrified, shut her eyes, ignoring the dizziness of her drunken haze, and kept herself still against him.

Jack didn’t move his arm, and she almost started to enjoy the dizzy sensation. It was clear that her silence and stillness were starting to worry him, though, because he moved one hand to her face and tilted it up, brushing back the hair that was blocking her eyes from his sight. “You okay there?”

For maybe the first time, she met his eyes fully, almost directly. The kindness that tightened the corners of his eyes relaxed as she stared into them, and his thumb, apparently in an unconscious motion, gently stroked the line of her cheekbone while his other hand tightened the hold he had on her body against his. Was she imagining this? She noticed then the rigid grip she had on his shirt, right at the shoulders. His dimpled chin was about level with her nose. Jack just kept looking right into her.

Slowly, incredibly slowly, he lowered his face toward hers, never moving his eyes until, when their mouth were breaths away from touching, Sharon let out an unhappy little burble, and his eyes darted in that direction.

But by then, Izzy was certain of the way things were headed, and she got a second-long boost of alcohol-enabled confidence that led her to get a hand on the back of his neck and pull his mouth against hers.

There was an instant of shock on both sides, where nothing happened, just the sensation of touching and the need to acclimate. Then his mouth slowly started to move on hers. He didn’t increase the tempo of the kiss, he merely deepened it, pulling her bottom lip between his and moving the hand on her face to sink it into her hair and wrap her tighter against him. In her state of mind, she would have let him do more. She would have taken his tongue in her mouth—wasn’t that how they kissed in movies?—but he wasn’t the type to do that. Not yet, she could see that even in this moment.

Jack pulled back. The inner Izzy was afraid to look him in the eye, and drunk Izzy was starting to sober up and followed suit. But the cop leaned his forehead against hers.

“I know you’re drunk. And I know…you’re different. You’re not…good with people,” he haltingly began. She didn’t even take offense. It was the absolute truth. “And I want you to know that I’m not kissing you because I’m too nice to push you away. I’m doing it because I want to. It’s probably not admirable, considering, but it feels right, and I’ll probably do it again. Hopefully…in better circumstances.”

He didn’t ask for any response from her. Jack only caught her face between his hands, met her eyes one more time, and then wrapped one arm around her waist to help her up the first few stairs, where Sharon grudgingly allowed herself to also be hauled up. Izzy managed to get the door open. Jack stopped her from entering.

“This isn’t normal cop service. In case you were wondering.” He cupped the back of her neck with his hand and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Stop getting into trouble.” And then he was gone.

A/N: It’s longer than my usual one-shots, and I’ve been sitting on it for awhile, so hopefully the development is better.