Page 31 of Somewhere in the Sunset

I glance at her out of the corner of my eye and laugh. “Thursday. I’m back on day shifts, so all clear by seven. Much better.”

“The other cop who was with you when you answered the noise complaint against us .?.?. Is that your partner? He’s kinda grumpy.”

“Bill?” I dunk a pot into the sink, halfheartedly washing it. The other half of my attention is on Gracie. “He’s my field training officer, so I’ve got another ten weeks of having him ride my ass before I get stationed permanently. I’d rather go through the academy again than sit in a squad car with Bill while he flies off the handle because I forgot a radio code.”

Gracie dries off some silverware. “Was it fun? Theacademy?” She says the word with flair, like the police academy is something cool and magical.

“No.”

“It wasn’t?”

“I hated it,” I admit, then pause for a second to debate just how honest to be with my answer. I could spin her some lies that make me sound much tougher than I am, but what’s the point? She’ll learn eventually that I fucking hate being a cop, and I haven’t even finished my field training yet. “It was nine months of hell. The physical training was exhausting, and I refuse to do a single burpee ever again in my life. I got pepper sprayed in the eyes and thought I’d gone blind. I got tased and nearly broke my ankle when I fell. The role-playing was embarrassing. The firearm training was fun, though, and I’m a pro at administering first aid now. But I especially hated the active shooter response training.”

“Why?”

I turn to Gracie, my lips pressed firmly together. “Why do you think?”

What I don’t tell her is that I didn’t just hate the active shooter response training because it’s something every cop hopes they never encounter during their career, but because I realized that day that if I was ever faced with an active shooter, I wouldn’t have the balls to run toward them. I wouldn’t have the guts to enter a building. I wouldn’t protect anyone but myself.

That was the moment I realized I’d made a mistake. I wasn’t cut out to be a cop, and I didn’t deserve to be wearing the uniform and badge. In hindsight, I should have quit the academy that day, but I thought of Dad and how proud he was of me for being the only kid of his to follow directly in his footsteps.

When I first told him I was applying for SFPD, he flew out of his armchair and hugged me so damn tight it almost hurt. He triple-checked my application on my behalf before I sent it. I sailed through the written exam, the physical test and the interview, and with every step forward my bond with Dad grew that little bit stronger. We shared something he didn’t have with Keaton and Peyton, and that was invaluable to me. Ahead of the basic training academy, Dad spent hours preparing me. He talked me through all of the scenarios I’d have to role-play in front of the other recruits, had me perfect my report-writing, and brought me down to the shooting range every weekend. I was confident I’d always be one step ahead of the program with having a retired deputy helping me out. But the academy kicked my ass harder than I ever imagined.

I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint my father. The humiliation of quitting, of visiting him in Bodega Bay and admitting that I couldn’t do it, that I wasn’t as strong a man as he is .?.?. I couldn’t face the shame of it. So, like a fraud, I scraped by, graduated the academy, and was sworn in as an SFPD officer. Now the field training is even worse. With every call to action, I pray it won’t be something that scares me to death.

Gracie stops drying the plate in her hands and tilts her head, her expression as solemn as mine. “Do you actually want to be a cop?”

“Will you think I’m pathetic if I say no?”

She shakes her head.

“Then no, I don’t wanna be a cop.” I sigh and turn back to the sink, draining the water and drying off my hands. I hate admitting it. Iwantto want to be a cop. I want to be fearless like my sister, intelligent like my brother, tough like my father, and caring like my mother. The four qualities a cop needs, and four qualities I lack. I’m like the runt of the family.

“I need another drink,” I say, grabbing the second bottle of wine.

We sit down together on my couch, but the TV remains off. Our drinks are full once again and I’ve lost count of how many glasses we’ve both had. Maybe it’s the wine that’s made me so honest tonight.

I rest my arm over the back of the couch and relax into the cushions. “So? What about you?”

“What about me?” Gracie asks. She’s on the other end of the couch with an awful lot of space between us.

“You told me you’re taking a gap year,” I say, recalling our conversation at Starbucks this morning. “What about after that? What’s your degree?”

Gracie’s gaze briefly dips to her lap. When she looks back up, there’s a shy smile playing on her lips. “Child and adolescent development,” she says. “Next year I’ll go back to school to get my teaching credential.”

“You want to be a teacher?” I mirror her smile, because I’m not the slightest bit surprised by her career choice. Sweet, sensitive, smart women like Gracie are made for nurturing roles like teaching, and as I look back across the couch at her, I can imagine it. Gracie’s petite figure at the front of a classroom, stretching on her tiptoes to point at the screen, her coppery bangs falling across her eyes. “But what about your whole influencer thing?”

Gracie shrugs and angles a little more toward me. “Our content is totally kid-friendly. Luca and I always made sure of that, and we agreed that when the time came, we’d take down all of our accounts if it became an issue. Asyouwould say, our ‘real’ jobs would become the priority.”

I roll my eyes, then guess, “High school teaching?”

“Elementary,” Gracie corrects, and grief stings me.

My smile tightens and I look away from her, subconsciously tracing a pattern on one of the couch cushions with my index finger. “My mom taught elementary too, but she also did kindergarten for a while.”

“No way,” Gracie says. The note of excitement in her voice only intensifies the ache in my chest. “Does she still teach or is she retired?”

I swallow the lump in my throat and the words are like sandpaper as I tell her, “My mom passed a few years ago.”

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