Page 22 of Eternally Devoted

They have so much rapport, sometimes I feel like my texts curb their flow, and that they’d be in pure bliss without me as their reminder that we’re all just friends.

Without me, they’d be forced to acknowledge that sizzling chemistry they have.

I glance down at the screen, catching up on the messages I missed during my last traffic stop.

Juniper

I was thinking we go out to eat after bowling, at the nice Italian place in town.

I laugh at the very first message, because there's a thinly veiled joke in there. One only Bluebellers could get.

There is no Italian place in Bluebell. But on Thursdays, Goode’s Diner makes spaghetti and breadsticks, and puts red and white checkered tablecloths out. They even use those red mercury glass candles at each table, and dim the overhead lights to make it feel as Italian as cowboy country can get.

Sterling

Ah, so a spritz of my finest cologne is calling.

Juniper

Only the very best for high-end Italian, of course.

Shall I wear my ball gown?

Sterling

Yes. I’ll pick it up from the cleaners when I’m getting my hat and tails.

An image of Juniper in a floor-length silk gown, her golden hair swept up in that fancy way women do, her lips painted red, her arm curled around Sterling’s, her body dwarfed by his as he leads her through a reception, everyone clapping and cheering for them.

Keanu’s door slamming closed keeps me from drifting into a sad fantasy. “Here,” he says, passing me an ice-cold Coke.

I crack it open and take a sip, the cool buzz of caffeine easing the sting of seeing them together in my mind. “Thanks,” I tell Keanu as I slip the can into the cupholder and write back.

Sounds Goode.

See what I did there?

We’ll pick you up at the normal time, Juni.

I stash my phone away before anyone can respond, because I can get lost in a text with the two of them all day. On the way to a call about a chicken stuck in a fence, my mind wanders back to last night.

Sterling was going to tell me something, I’m fairly sure.

From one big thing to another, my mind circles that fateful knock, and Juniper showing up covered in blood, tears in her eyes, panic racking her body.

What happened last night?

And why, as much as I love Juniper with my entire heart and soul, does my brain keep circling back to the same question—What did she do?

I grab at the back of my neck as Keanu steers the cruiser onto a dirt road. Letting dispatch know we’ve arrived on scene, I silence the radio clipped to my chest. With the sun at my back and a breeze keeping me cool, I talk with the citizen while Keanu wrestles a grouchy cock free from a wire fence.

Not a lot of crime happens in Bluebell, which is precisely why I wanted to come here. And today, crime is the only thing on my mind. The woman tells me about her rooster woes, and all I can think about is Juniper and how the amount of blood on her last night far outweighed what a slice on her palm could produce.

I want to let it go. To trust she’ll tell us when it’s right, and take solace in the fact I’ll feel so silly when I find out it was just her palm, nothing more. Nothing sinister. Nothing criminal.

But I can’t help but watch the woman talk about chickens all the while wondering…What did you do, Juniper?

If I weren’t so hyperfocused on the state in which Juniper came to our place last night, I would have done the smart thing and jerked off in the shower.

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