“Up and at ‘em, Little,” Luke’s voice rang through my ears. He ripped the sheets from my bed and flipped on the lights. “You’ll have plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead. Now get up.”
I rolled over and checked the clock.
4:00 a.m., just as I’d suspected.
I buried my face in the pillow and prayed my pink satin pajamas would be enough to keep me warm. Whether he liked it or not, I was sleeping in. And I didn’t need the sheets, a dark room, or even privacy. I could sleep in even the roughest conditions. The joke was on him.
“Don’t even think about it,” he stomped to the side of the bed. He tucked his arms under my body and pulled me up. He swung my legs over the bedside and backed away with heavy steps. “You have five minutes. Use them wisely.” And with that, Luke marched out of my bedroom and closed the door behind him.
I let my weary eyes wander across the room, and it didn’t take but a second before I noticed the white sports bra and shorts I’d laid out the night before.
Right—our run.
With ten hours to go before completing my job-shadowing requirement for the Oakland High School senior project, my Uncle Charlie suggested I forget about patrolling the streets and start living the lifestyle required of any man, or in my case, woman, in uniform.
To me, that meant sitting around the Oakland PD break room all morning eating donuts and sipping coffee. To my mentor Luke, it meant waking up at an ungodly hour to get in a five-mile run to jump start the day.
I hadn’t known Luke long, two weeks to be exact, and each day we spent together came with its own set of surprises. When it came to Officer Lucas Reibeck, there were only two things I knew for certain. One, there was no one in the world who could hold a candle to his physical assets. His dark hair, brown eyes, and strong stature only began to lay the groundwork. And two, the crush I’d developed during my first ten hours of job-shadowing hadn’t come close to subsiding. If anything, it had only grown by leaps and bounds, and I blamed a lot of that on the fact that I’d been forced to shadow a man who was the walking definition of irresistible.
“Three minutes, Little,” Luke tapped on the door.
I mustered the energy to stand and traipsed across the room to my workout attire. I stripped my pajamas to the floor and slid into the sports bra and workout shorts before completing the ensemble with a pair of pink tennis shoes.
I stopped at the mirror and ran a brush through my hair and meticulously styled it back into a ponytail. With a quick application of lip gloss and a single brush of mascara, I dubbed myself acceptable.
Yes, it was only a run. No, I didn’t have to look beautiful. But it was a run with Luke, and I couldn’t squander a single opportunity to catch his eye.
I left the room and reminded myself that just down the hall my cousin Matt was sleeping soundly. Lucky for him he had another two hours of beauty rest before he’d have to get up and be ready for school.
I took each step down the back staircase a little slower than the one before. With heavy feet and a yawn, I took the last step to reach the first floor. When I stepped into the kitchen, Luke and Charlie looked up from the table with wide eyes.
“What are you wearing?” my Uncle Charlie asked, shielding his eyes. “For the love of God, Julie, go upstairs and put some clothes on.”
I looked at my outfit. Sports bra and shorts, what was so wrong with that? “I thought we were running—”
“We are,” Luke interrupted, standing up to take a step closer. I caught his eyes wandering down my torso for a brief moment before he looked up to meet my gaze. “I guess you’re ready?”
“Guess so,” I turned to Charlie. “You comin’ with us?”
Still shielding his eyes, he shook his head and motioned for us to leave.
“He’s not comfortable with you baring so much skin,” Luke said as we walked out of the kitchen and through the living room to the foyer.
In his running shirt and black shorts, Luke looked just as irresistible as he always had in his police uniform, if not more so, but I didn’t really mind either way. The way the material clung to his muscles made my heart flutter a bit off beat. As I stood in front of the door assessing his shoulders and tight chest with a mindful eye, I caught him gazing at me yet again.
“Is it that bothersome?” I looked down at myself. “Would you like me to go upstairs and put a shirt on?”
He closed his parted lips and shook his head. “We don’t have time for that now, Little. I’ll just have to suffer.”
With a quick wink and a light smirk, he walked out the door, leaving me stunned in the doorway.
Was Luke flirting with me?
The morning sky was dark as night, and the sun hadn’t yet begun to show. I followed closely behind Luke and met him on the sidewalk where he was already bent over at the waist, touching his toes, and stretching his muscles in preparation for the run. I stood and watched as he stretched, appreciating his loyalty to everything he did.
“You need to warm-up, Julie,” he glanced up. “You’ll pay for it if you don’t.”
“I’m young,” I waved my hand. “Stretching is for the elderly.”
“And exactly how old do you think I am?”
“Old enough,” I said, not disguising my disappointment for a single moment.
Yes, Luke was old, every bit of twenty three, give or take a few months, making him six years older and in his opinion, six years too old for me.
I watched as he finished his stretch and used each moment he was bent over to my full visual advantage. He finally stood and looked at me, the street lights dancing off of his brown eyes.
“You’re really not going to stretch?” he asked.
I smiled and shrugged, hoping that would be answer enough.
It was a five-mile run. How hard could that possibly be?
And before I had time to register another thought, Luke set off on his run. I watched him from the sidewalk, knowing I’d be scolded if I didn’t soon follow, but I took a brief moment to appreciate the alone time we’d spend together, even if that time was limited to complete exertion.
As I took my first step forward, a light inside the neighboring house came on, attracting my immediate attention. The face of a teenage girl appeared behind the curtain of the downstairs window. I turned to watch her for a moment, looking on as she stared at me intently from inside the house.
It was odd to see her there in the first place, let alone at that hour—it was so ungodly early in the morning; there was no reason any ordinary person should be awake, let along standing in their window and watching their neighbors. Anyway, I’m not sure the hour of the morning surprised me nearly as much as the fact that there was even anyone in the house. The neighbors had moved out months ago, and last I’d heard, the house still hadn’t been sold.
But there was definitely someone there, and she hadn’t taken her eyes off of me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think her staring wasn’t nearly as innocent as it was supposed to seem.
I was ready to die one mile into the run.
Luke hadn’t taken kindly to my complaining, especially when I whined about the pain in my legs and back. You should’ve stretched, Little, he’d said over and over. I wished someone would’ve told me that running wasn’t as easy as it looked.
By the time I reached school, the thoughts of the morning were far from distant memories. The aching in my legs served as a constant reminder that Luke expected only the best from me, and that required full dedication to each and every task he threw my way. If I wanted to earn his respect, I’d have to start taking him and his tasks seriously.
I slid into the first desk and threw a sideways glance at my cousin.
“Rough morning?”
“You have no idea,” I dropped my head on the wooden surface in front of me.
A sympathetic look crossed Matt’s face as he leaned over to pat my back. “Trigger’ll have you whipped into shape in no time.�
�
Trigger—the official Oakland PD nickname for Lucas Reibeck. And yes, it had everything to do with him accidently shooting himself in the foot last year during target practice.
“I only logged an hour with him this morning,” I said, lifting my head. My messy hair shielded my face as I turned to look at him. “That’s nine more hours of doing whatever in the world he comes up with. He’s killing me.”
“Because you’re letting him,” he pushed his fingers back through his hair. “Just go along with his plans for the next few days, and before you know it, he’ll be gone and out of your life. You’ll never have to worry about him again.”
I didn’t need the reminder. I could only foresee another nine hours with Luke, and it pulled at my heart in ways I couldn’t even describe. After the shadowing was over, would I ever see him again? Would he ever want to see me again? How would I make it through each day knowing I wouldn’t get to see him, even if only for a moment? I knew I hadn’t known him long; I wasn’t oblivious to that at all, but something about Luke had just made me feel so normal for a change.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mrs. Brown stood in front of the class, “I’d like to introduce you to our newest addition.” Standing in the front of the room was a small, petite redhead with eyes as emerald as I’d ever seen. The girl watched over the class with a freckled smile—one that was somewhat mischievous, and somewhat familiar. “This is Hannah Jones.”
Hannah, the redhead, nodded to the class before her gaze immediately fell on Matt. The two of them stared at each other for what seemed like forever, but Mrs. Brown finally spoke up again, breaking their staring match, and assigned Hannah to the empty desk in the back of the room.
By the end of the class period, our teacher had explained our latest current events project and assigned two-person teams across the board. Hannah’s addition brought about an odd number. Because Mrs. Brown didn’t think it would be fair to make the new girl work alone, she gave her the opportunity to pick which group she’d want to work with. Of course, given her glazed-over staring match with Matt earlier, she chose to work in our group, making us the only three-partner team in class.
The rest of the day went as smoothly as any other, and after school, Matt and I met up with Hannah at her locker as promised. “Thanks again for letting me join you,” she said, looking past me to watch Matt. My cousin grinned sheepishly. He had never been one to get nervous around a girl, especially since he usually spent his days fighting flocks of potential suitors. But Hannah seemed to affect him in ways even I couldn’t understand.
“I’m sure you’re still busy with the move and getting settled in, so we understand if you aren’t able to start working right away,” I said, making my presence known. “We have plenty of time.”
“Oh no,” she wore her mischievous smile, “I think it’s best that we get started right away.” She looked to Matt as if she needed him to take her side—not that there were even any sides to take. All I’d wanted was to make her feel as comfortable as possible, and I’d hoped to give her time to ease into her first major assignment. “What do you say, Matt?”
“I’m with Hannah,” Matt turned back to me. He almost acted as if she’d put a spell on him; he was so taken by her. “We should put in as much time as we can as soon as possible. It’s always smart to stay ahead of the curve.”
If Matt and Hannah wanted to get started right away, that was fine by me. And fortunately for them, I hadn’t scheduled any shadowing hours for the evening. My 4:00 a.m. run was all the Luke I could handle for one day, at least in that capacity. So for the night, my focus belonged solely to them.
TWO
Just a Little Series (Part 1) Page 8
