Lyssa patted her shoulder. “Damn right, we do. I’ve got to pee.”
Diana found a window to stare through while she waited for class to start. She gazed at the parking space formerly occupied by Gabe’s car. Lyssa knew what it meant to be on the same team. Why didn’t he?
After dinner, Lyssa fell backward onto her bed and put the back of her hand to her forehead. “I don’t know, Diana, I’ll be lucky to write a successful parking ticket after this sham of a course.”
Diana sat on her bed with her back against the wall, flipping through the orientation packet. “It’s not so bad. Griggs just gets distracted… a lot.”
“And what about that other creep? I mean, thanks for sending us on break uh-gain, but could you maybe take your eyes off my boobs for like, thirty seconds?”
Diana threw her hands up and let a few pages flutter to her lap. “Un-fricking-believable.”
“Cripes, between Lieutenant Numbnuts and Officer Four-Eyes, I don’t know who’s more useless.” Lyssa rolled onto her side and twirled her wild hair playfully.
Diana smiled. “It is what it is. But I think Officer Neville isn’t so bad. The lieutenant is the one I’m worried about.”
“I know, right? And what’s up with that mustache of his? We should sneak into his house tonight and shave it off.”
“It’s fugly,” Diana said with a sneer.
“Yes! Thank you! I’m so happy to hear you say that.” Lyssa slapped the mattress, beaming. Her facial expression changed to something a bit more pensive. She twirled her hair for a moment, then looked at Diana. “Is there anyone you do like in our class?”
Diana shrugged. “Lee’s okay, I guess. I haven’t really gotten to know anybody else… besides you, I mean.”
Lyssa twirled her hair and pulled at the ends. “I like you, Diana.”
“I like you too. You’re a good roommate. I was nervous when they said I’d be sharing a room with someone else. I’ve been with other women before, but I don’t know, I kind of assumed they would put me and Gabe together.”
Lyssa cocked her head. “Other women?”
“Yeah, Veronica was the last one, before Arbor Day. She got really distant after that. I think she was jealous of the attention I was getting.”
Lyssa laid on her back and stared at the ceiling. “I get that. So, you and Gabe got together after Arbor, huh? Major trauma has a way of making people settle for the safe choices.”
Diana set a handful of papers down. “Settle?”
“Shut up. I didn’t say anything. Whatever.”
“No, it’s okay. I didn’t think I settled for Gabe, but now… I’m thinking I made a horrible mistake.”
“Don’t say things you don’t mean,” Lyssa sniffed.
“I mean it. Where is he now? We’re supposed to be… I don’t know, teammates, at least, or something more than that. Rather than sticking with the academy, and sticking with me… and you know what, sticking up for me, he takes off because Griggs gives him crap. I’m not taking the easy way out. I’m going to be a police officer, with a badge, a gun, and everything. I’m not going to settle.”
Lyssa sat up on her bed and swung her legs over the side to face Diana, who had made her way to the edge of her bed as well. She impulsively reached across the gap and grabbed Diana’s hands. Lyssa’s hands were soft and warm. “Screw Gabe,” she said.
Diana snort-laughed. “I didn’t do that, and I’m not sure if that was why he dumped me. I’m not sure what men want. I should have stayed with Veronica.”
Lyssa leaned in closer. “Screw Veronica.” Her eyes sparkled.
Diana shrugged. “She took care of me like Mabel said she would. We drifted apart, but there’s still a place in my heart for—”
Lyssa’s nose was inches away from her own. “I can take care of you.”
Diana inhaled to speak, and the parting of her lips was an invitation for Lyssa to press her mouth against hers, her tongue feeling around for… something. She pressed the tip of her tongue against it, which compelled Lyssa to pull her hair and kiss her passionately. Diana had only ever kissed Gabe, and it was nothing like this.
Lyssa pulled away, and looked into her eyes, searching for permission, for desire, for need. Diana read the signs, which she found terrifying and exhilarating. She didn’t like girls, not like this. Or, she didn’t think she did. Feeling the taste of Lyssa on her lips, seeing the lusty gleam in her eyes, she wondered how well she knew herself, really. She nodded, and Lyssa smiled. “Yeah?” Diana nodded again.
Lyssa’s lips pressed against hers once more, and her hands traveled around her body, squeezing, caressing, feeling, exploring. Diana flung the orientation packet aside and backed up onto the bed. She had never expected to live on the East coast, or to be abandoned by her father, or to be looked after by a waitress named Mabel. Everything happened for a reason, she’d been told, and as Lyssa unbuttoned her shirt and revealed her breasts straining against a cream-colored bra, Diana decided not to question, or second-guess how she got here. She reached up to touch Lyssa’s bare skin and enjoyed the heady thrill of a new kind of love.
CHAPTER 25
Diana and Lyssa spooned on her bed, which wasn’t meant for two, but she pressed her back against the wall and held on tight. Lyssa turned slightly and smiled at her over her bare shoulder. “Hey, you,” she cooed.
“Hi,” Diana said.
“Are you okay?” Lyssa searched Diana’s face for something.
Diana cocked her head and smiled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I just… that was intense. I didn’t want to make this into something it isn’t. I don’t normally throw myself at other women, but… I don’t know, it felt right this once, you know?”
“I know. I don’t throw myself at other women either.” Diana let out a small giggle.
Lyssa rolled her eyes. “Why would you? Victoria was lucky to have you.”
“Veronica. And we never did… anything.”
“Bull.” Lyssa rolled onto her side and pressed her back to Diana with a huff.
Diana laid behind her silently for a few minutes, unsure of what to say. This—all of this—was new ground. She’d never been sexually active before, and she truly hadn’t expected her first time to be with another woman. But it felt right. Lyssa had more experience, but Diana must have held her own, based on the sounds she made when Diana explored her naked body.
She took a gamble and kissed the back of her neck. “She was nothing like you. You were so, so much better.”
Lyssa rolled back slightly. “Yeah?”
Diana kissed her cheek. “Yeah.”
“You weren’t so bad yourself,” she said, rolling onto her left side to face her. They rubbed their noses together, then kissed. Diana felt electricity course through her veins as their breath hissed, and their bodies pressed together under a blanket.
Lyssa pulled back and smiled broadly at Diana. “Hey, want to watch my stories with me?”
Diana was thrown by the question, expecting that they’d go at it some more after receiving Lyssa’s passion-soaked kisses. She took a hard swallow and brushed a stray lock of hair from Lyssa’s forehead. “Sure.”
Lyssa turned around and slipped out from under the covers, then she padded over to a bag slung over a chair. She fished something out of the bag, and headed back toward the bed, then she paused. She tiptoed to the door of their makeshift dorm room and slid a thin latch into place. She tiptoed back to the bed and gestured to Diana to move. “Sit up, with your back against the wall. Like that. Here, I’ll sit against you.” She slid under the covers and pressed her bare back against Diana’s chest. Diana peered over Lyssa’s shoulder as she flipped open a rectangular device and brought it to life with the touch of a button.
A blue glow bathed them as the tablet started up, and Diana brushed Lyssa’s hair away from the back of her neck. She kissed it softly, savoring her scent as Lyssa swiped and tapped the glowing screen with a fingertip. “Here we go. I’ll explain what’s
happening.”
Diana raised her head and adjusted her posture to watch the screen. A fancy restaurant appeared, and a couple was dining in the foreground. The man was wearing a suit and tie, and the woman was wearing a red gown with a long slit up one leg. She sat at an angle, with one leg over the other, her feet strapped into glossy black heels.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” said the woman. The man sipped a glass of wine, paused, and gave her a smoldering look across the table.
“It shouldn’t surprise you at all. After all, I own the restaurant. And the hotel it’s attached to. And the entire city block that it stands on.” The man smiled genially, with just a touch of arrogance.
Diana found her eyes drifting to the lady in red. Not purely because she was female, and dressed impeccably, with long flowing blonde hair and ruby red lips to match her dress. No, it was the opulence of the scene. Her jewelry. His crisp suit. The waiter, in a black suit and a white dress shirt, flitting around to the other tables to speak silently to the people in the background and receiving their silent orders.
Lyssa nudged her as the lady in red stood up sharply and splashed her glass of wine across the well-dressed man’s shirt. She set the glass down and stormed out of the restaurant.
The camera zoomed in tightly on the wine-soaked man, who dabbed his cheek with a white linen napkin. “You can run, Alexa, but you’ll sell your controlling stake in PDX to me soon enough. And when you do, I’ll own this city… and you.” His lip curled into a sneer as he stared off into the middle distance.
“That’s Brent Moorcroft. He’s the bad guy. Well, one of many bad guys, really. He’s been trying to take over PDX, which is this super mega-corporation that does… something or other. Anyway, her name is Alexa Charlevoix, and she’s the richest woman in Cape May.”
Diana nodded and watched a montage of characters sweep across the screen, ending with the program title, FORTUNE AND DESTINY.
Lyssa leaned back and laughed. “I know, this is really stupid, but I got hooked on this in middle school, and I just can’t stop. It’s addictive!”
Diana put her arms around her and squeezed. “I like it. I want to see more of… Alexis, right?”
“Alexa. She’s on quite a bit. Her family is the “Fortune” part of the title. They’re all richy-rich, and they always dress her up in the most expensive outfits. It’s obnoxious.”
“No, it isn’t,” Diana said, and frowned as two characters talked at length at a wood-paneled bar. She wanted to see more rich people, and what their lives were like. She felt a thrill when Alexa returned to the screen, surrounded by luxuries she couldn’t have imagined.
“That’s Strathmore Manor. It has twenty-four bedrooms, but they only ever show her bedroom or the front room. They need to build some more sets.”
“I didn’t get where I am today by being a coward! If it’s a fight he wants, then a fight he’ll get!” The camera pulled in tight on Alexa’s face, as fury flashed behind her eyes, and the back of someone’s head obscured a sliver of the left side of the screen. The background music swelled dramatically, and the screen went black.
Lyssa shrugged. “Commercials. I just ignore them. Want me to put this trash away? I can check up on it some other time.”
Diana shook her head. “I want to see more.”
Lyssa turned to face her and beamed. “Yeah? See what I mean? Addictive!”
Diana kissed her and nodded. “Very.” The fancy sets were nice but seeing them as the backdrop to a strong, powerful woman resonated with her to her very core. She didn’t know what she was missing and having caught a glimpse, she knew where she wanted to end up: on top, surrounded by wealth and prestige.
Prestige was a word she heard in a commercial as a white-gloved hand revealed a card that said 0% APR. She had to know what that meant, and why it got white-glove treatment.
The following morning, Diana tried to reconcile her budding romance with Lyssa with her commitment to becoming a genuine police officer and having difficulty picking one over the other. She didn’t have this problem with Gabe, but they’d never done more than kiss. She’d done far more with Lyssa, and with far more satisfaction. She concluded Lyssa was a good match for her and didn’t concern herself with how to label the relationship. She didn’t feel an attraction to women before, but men didn’t really pull her in, either. She just needed the right person, and that was that.
Lyssa appeared to have problems concentrating as well. She suppressed giggling fits as Lieutenant Griggs lectured drily on the different types of citations. He noted that anyone they stopped had to wait for them to either release them or make a formal arrest, which meant the cadets could sit in their cruiser and ask for help with filling out the paperwork. If the detainee became impatient and drove away, not only were they moving firmly into the formal arrest column, but there would be more paperwork for the officer.
“A win-win, in other words. Now then, who can tell me what three things to ask a detainee for after pulling them over? Yes, you.” He pointed to Lyssa, who hadn’t raised her hand.
“We, uh, um… ask them to exit the vehicle?”
Griggs huffed and pointed to Diana. “Miss Pembrook?”
“License, registration, and proof of citizenship.”
He nodded and wrote them on the whiteboard. He circled the last item. “Why this?”
“Arbor Day.”
“Because…?”
“Because it’s in the handbook?” Diana smiled sheepishly and glanced at Lyssa, who met her gaze. A thrill ran through her core as she locked eyes with her, however briefly.
Griggs huffed again. “Anyone? Does anybody pay attention in this class?”
Lee raised his hand, and Griggs pointed to him. “Because non-citizens are an automatic arrest?”
“I’ll accept that. Yes, you will absolutely arrest any non-citizens, but first, you need to call in their information, so the proper authorities can be notified. We are the front line of defense against the enemies of America, and it’s up to us to root out the bad apples so they can be dealt with properly.”
Diana scribbled a note to herself, which started out being a reminder about the correct answer, and devolving into a doodle in the margin of a heart surrounding the inscription DF + LD.
Lyssa snickered, then cooed, then tapped the drawing with her pen. She lightly drew a question mark next to the top pair of initials. Diana groaned, and made the F into a P, darkening it several times. Lyssa smiled, and pressed her pen tip down below the doodle, and wrote 4-EVA.
Diana wrote WHO’S EVA? Both women giggled, and Griggs stood over them, beet red. “I suppose this vital lecture on police procedure is hysterical, and you’d like to teach the class instead?”
“No, sir,” they said in unison.
“Perhaps you two need to be separated?”
“No, sir,” they said.
“Well, can’t hurt. You, sit over there. You, sit over there. One more peep of nonsense out of either of you, and I send you packing. Got it?” He pointed to chairs on the opposite side of the room, fuming.
“Yes, sir,” they said, and relocated to their new seats. Diana squirmed in her seat, trying to break it in after becoming accustomed to her usual spot in the dead center of the class.
“Now, let’s finish this unit, and after we break for lunch, we’re doing something essential but terrible. We’re going to the gun range and teaching you how to handle and shoot a firearm safely, correctly, and effectively.”
Diana gasped. She was aching to shoot a gun. It soothed, calmed, and focused her. Just what the doctor ordered, after falling under Lyssa’s spell once more, to the detriment of her performance.
“And to be clear,” he continued, turning to face Diana as he spoke, “firearms training will be strictly by the book.”
Diana gulped but wasn’t sure why. Her father hadn’t taught her to shoot, as he planned—or claimed, anyway—but she spent hours on end shooting BBs at stationary targets, then moving ones. Real guns were l
ouder, more destructive, and heavier. She knew her father’s philosophy and applied it to the guns she acquired on Arbor Day: hit the target with one shot, and make it count. Two bullets meant failure. She watched him kill a deputy with one well-placed bullet, and that was that. She closed her eyes and saw the first man she shot drop his gun. She took a deep breath and saw one of the Stallions drop to the ground with a bullet between the eyes. She could shoot.
But by the book? That depends on the book, she thought. Griggs returned to his lecture, and Diana listened intently, taking peeks at the heart with her corrected initials inside it. Lyssa—scratch that—nobody could ever know the truth about who she was, or where she came from. This was her life she was making for herself, and she gave herself a new name. Her father would never be any the wiser that his daughter was training to be a police officer. He’d shot a deputy before. Why not her?
CHAPTER 26
Diana hated to admit it, but she learned things about firearms from Griggs as he lectured the cadets on basic firearm safety, the parts of a firearm, and common rookie mistakes. Receiving this education revealed the gaps in her knowledge, and by extension, suggested she was a genius where firearms were concerned, merely a fast learner, or damned lucky. She knew without asking where Griggs rated her on that scale.
She and Lyssa stole a kiss after lunch, but now they stood apart, continuing their separation as ordered during the morning class session. Diana was disinclined to complain. This, to her, was where her academy training began, and to that end, she was not going to let anything—or anyone—distract her.
The handgun they trained with was the same type as the one she was given by Officer Milton. She learned how to eject and load the magazine, how to empty and refill it, and how to eject a round from the chamber, spent or not. She hadn’t touched the cartridges before, preferring to use what she had, and only reload the shotgun as necessary. In the heat of the moment, she hadn’t considered this, but now as she held the loaded gun, she felt her father’s influence on her preference for a long-barreled firearm. She would be forced to adapt to a smaller weapon and welcomed the challenge.
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