“How’s it going?” he said in the deep cigarette-smoke voice she still heard while she screwed other guys.
“Hey,” she croaked.
Senior Constable Max Connor looked away, scratching the side of his head. Julia’s teeth sank into her tongue and she tasted blood. A thick silver band sat on the fourth finger of his left hand. He was married. Julia had the distinct feeling she was tumbling down a long tunnel into infinite blackness. All she wanted to do was run, but the shitshow wasn’t over yet. An attractive woman with long dark hair entered the kitchen. “Hello, Henri. Who have you got with you?”
Henrietta beamed. “This is Julie the new computer girl. Julie, this is Senior Constable Bonnie Connor—”
Julia’s stomach clenched. No. Surely it wasn’t? Could Max have a sister?
Bonnie Connor extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, Julia.”
“Yeah, ah…nice to meet you too.”
Bonnie nodded toward Max. “My husband’s the handsome one,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Have you met?”
KO. KO. Knockout.
Julia wasn’t sure what she said after that. Probably just garbled a bunch of nonsense and ran from the room. The rest of the day passed in a Technicolor haze of horror. She honestly thought about quitting but she and Tiff were neck deep in debt trying to make Scarlet Woman and she desperately needed the cash. So began her misadventures in unfortunate crush-dom. For months if she so much as glimpsed Max she ran into the nearest toilet. If she knew he was in the lunchroom, she went down the street and bought a sandwich. She’d been on the receiving end of awkward run-ins before but being forced to interact with Max “the married man” Connor and his wife three days a week took the cake. Eventually, Bonnie transferred to another station but Max remained, filling her days with tension, pain, and stupid endless longing…
“Julia.” Max tapped a finger on the table. “Did you recognize me right away when you started at Brenthill?”
Wishing like hell that she could run and hide, Julia took a deep breath. “Of course I did.”
“So why did you act like you didn’t?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Do you think I should have come up to you and said,Hey, you look really familiar? Did you finger me at a party one time?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
Julia scoffed. “It was exactly like that and since I met your wife about four seconds after I saw you, I didn’t think bringing up our tree-sex was appropriate.”
“We didn’t have sex.”
“All the more reason not to bring it up. And while we’re accusing people, Senior Constable Memory Lane, you recognized me too. Why didn’tyoucome up and say hello?”
Max’s mouth thinned. “You took me by surprise. I didn’t know what to do.”
Julia resisted the urge to gloat. “That’s exactly my point. We hooked up six years ago. I don’t know why you’re giving me shit about it now. It’s not like I’ve been pining after you.”
Max arched an eyebrow. “Really?”
Julia willed herself to lie with conviction. “I kind of idealized you for a while because you smelled like cologne and had stubble and a job, but I’ve been with plenty of guys since.”
He scowled. “So you keep telling me.”
“Well, you’re the one who keeps asking all the weird questions. Anyway, since it apparently needs to be clarified, we don’t have to tell anyone we had intimate relations then and we don’t have to tell anyone we had intimate relations now. It’s. All. Good.”
Max’s nostrils flared. “I don’t care if people know we’ve had sex. How could you possibly think that’s the issue here?”
“Then what are you on about?”
“Why do you think I left you that night?”
Julia rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. I thought you were being a knob.”
“You thought I was being a knob?”
“Yeah, I thought you were doing the typical guy thing and running scared because it got too serious too soon.”