Page 19 of Enemies in Paradise

He’s so focused on the drums that he doesn’t look anywhere but directly at them—through them, almost. I lean against the wall leading to the bathroom and watch him. The intensity he uses to strike the drums and work the foot pedal makes me wonder how many sets of drums he might go through in a year. I don’t even know if that’s a thing, but he seems to work out a lot of stress on this set.

My eyes drift from the swift, pulsing movement of his drumsticks to the hands that hold them. They’re large and strong, but he holds the sticks gently, moving so quickly they become a blur. So I let my eyes travel the length of his forearms to his shoulders and torso, which are very muchnotblurry.

Defined is the only word to describe what I’m looking at.

The form-fitting tank he’s wearing hugs his chest as if it were custom-made body armor, showcasing the shape of his pectoral muscles while also revealing every arm muscle in clear sight.

And it is a magnificent view…

Which he has to know and is probably the reason he’s wearing a sleeveless shirt in the below freezing weather. He’s showing off.

I roll my eyes, but when they’re immediately drawn to Bear again, I notice sweat beads popping on his forehead. His arms glisten with the effort of marking the beat, and by the next song a slow stream of sweat trickles its way down his shoulder through the crevices of his biceps and triceps, all the way to his elbow. Drops of perspiration fall to his drums, down his nose, between his pecs.

And I am here for all of it.

All. Of. It.

But then his eyes snag on mine, and he misses a beat. Then another, and he glares at me until he picks up the beat again, as though I caused his mistake. As though it’s my faulthemessed up.

Just like it’s my fault he doesn’t have the money to buy his grandpa’s place. And my fault his hockey team won’t have somewhere to practice if I buy the shop.

I’ve been through all this before. My fault I’m “pretty” and too much of a distraction to work the hardest cases. Yet also somehow my fault that I don’t have enough experience working hard cases to get promoted.

I push away from the wall and send Bear a withering look on my way back to my table. Britta is taking a break from the hostess stand and sitting with Georgia and Evie. They’re laughing and talking like they’re a big, happy family. Which they are, and I hate that I’m a little jealous that I’m not part of it.

I have a good relationship with my parents, but they’ve been divorced for a long time. Mom lives in Arizona with her new husband. My brother’s on the force in the Bay Area, and we see each other once or twice a year. Dad used to be LAPD too, and probably the reason I joined the force. It’s given us a way to connect.

But I wish I had sisters like Georgia does now. Or even friends like Evie and Britta are to her. I haven’t had a lot of time toform meaningful friendships since I became a cop, and while I have plenty of friends at work, Georgia’s really my only not-work friend. Funny, LA is a huge, sprawling city with literally millions of people I could be friends with, but its size makes it harder to meet people.

This is another part of the reason I wonder if it’s time to leave my job and LA. The pressure of dealing with bad guys day in and day out makes it hard not to see everyone as one poor choice away from being a bad guy, too. It’s getting harder all the time not to let that attitude affect my relationships—the ones I already have and the ones I could have.

By the time I return to the table and Georgia fills me in on what they’re all laughing about, I feel as though my entire life is veering off course. If I’m not a cop, what am I? I’m not a Thomsen. I don’t belong here in Paradise any more than I belong back in LA, working a job that—even without Captain Markham—weighs me down more and more each day.

“What’s up, Buttercup?” Georgia nudges my knee, and I realize I’ve missed something. “Something bothering you?”

I force a smile and shake my head. But a few minutes later the music stops, Evie gets up to talk to Adam while the band is on break and Britta goes to the kitchen to help Zach clean up. So Georgia presses me again to tell her what’s wrong.

“Something with work?”

I stab at the ice in my drink with my straw, then nod. “It’s official. I’ve been put on administrative leave while my complaints are investigated.”

“That’s a good thing, right? That means they believe you, doesn’t it?” I shake my head. “They didn’t puthimon leave.”

Georgia purses her lips, and I go back to stabbing ice cubes until she breaks the silence.

“Let’s say the investigation turns out in your favor and your captain gets fired—or whatever they’d do to him. Would that make your job better? Would you love being a cop again?”

I move from stabbing to stirring my straw around in the glass while I consider the questions. Georgia and I were roomies during the hardest years of my job before I got promoted to detective. The years when a few bad cops brought opinions about peace officers to an all-time low, and I was verbally assaulted regularly. I couldn’t wear my uniform without worrying whether I’d be yelled at or have something thrown at me.

When I put in for a promotion, peace officer and community relations were getting better, but I thought I could do more good as a detective. I thought I could make a bigger difference investigating crimes than enforcing laws.

Instead, being off the streets put more distance than the uniform did between me and the people I’m supposed to protect and serve. The work itself is interesting, but my focus is on solving the crime rather than helping the victim. I’m assigned to the Organized Retail Crime Task Force, so a lot of times the victim is a faceless corporation—a Target or Walmart—that’s been robbed. Markham doesn’t put me on the flash-mob-style robberies that might be more interesting, even if the victim was still a corporation.

I’m all about enforcing laws and putting criminals behind bars. That’s just not necessarily why I became a cop.

I finally shake my head. “I don’t think I’ll ever love it again. I’m not sure I ever did. I went into the job too idealistic. I thought police work was about helping people, but investigations are so removed from people. And the work environment is hard. I thought it would get better over time, but … it hasn’t.”

“I’m sorry, Cass,” Georgia reaches across the table to squeeze my hand. “Service is your love language. You should have a jobwhere you feel fulfilled, not belittled, because you want to help people.”

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