Five Times They Didn't Say "I Love You" …
The First Time
"Hey there, Bernice, how's that dickhead husband of yours?"
Bernice clenched her jaw and did her best not to roll her eyes the way she wanted. "Not as much of a dickhead as you, Jarvis," she replied sweetly.
Terry laughed heartily and walked over to his desk to get going on his paperwork.
She was still new to Homicide, and Bernice Waverley was not going to squander her chance to prove herself. She was a very young detective still. And while it might have been a show of confidence from the brass if a man was put on Homicide as a detective with only a year's experience, Bernice knew better in her case. They were trying to scare her off. Push her too far and too hard and too fast and give her the sack when she crumbled under the pressure. Well, the joke was on them. Bernice Waverley wouldn't ever crack under the pressure.
Having to work alongside Terry Jarvis, however, might prove too much. They'd been at the academy together, side by side from day one. Or rather, locking horns from day one.
Terry Jarvis was an absolute pig. All the men gave Bernice a hard time, being a reasonably attractive woman in a world of overly-masculine men, but Jarvis was different from the rest. He didn't just whistle at her or make sexual comments. Terry Jarvis actually took the time to learn about her, get to know her, and his taunts were unsettlingly personal. Not always cruel, actually. Sometimes it almost seemed like he was complimenting her. But Bernice wouldn't be fooled. Someone like Jarvis didn't have a kind bone in his body, no matter how well-built that body was.
Across the room, Terry was watching Bernice Waverley. More often than not, he found himself watching her. There was a reason women shouldn't be detectives. Too distracting. At least when they were as beautiful as Bernice. And she really, really was. Perfectly soft blonde hair. Dazzling smile. Very curvy figure. Everything Terry's shrew of a wife wasn't. Pamela had dark hair, freckled skin, skinny legs, and a voice so shrill, it made Terry want to bash his own head in. But she was his wife, so he was stuck with her. If his mother hadn't been so mad for Pamela, Terry might be a free man. Free to do all sorts of things.
There was still the problem of Bernice's husband. Jack, his name was. Terry had never met him and didn't care to, but he'd overhead enough conversations from Bernice's desk to know that he wasn't too keen on having an ambitious cop for a wife. And Bernice Waverley was as ambitious as they came. That was probably the thing that rubbed him the worst. She was a damn good cop. Sharp and gorgeous and a damn good cop.
Bernice looked up and made eye contact with Terry when he was staring at her. That wasn't the first time she'd caught him doing that. What was he playing at, just watching her? She was well-acquainted with what it looked like when some disgusting man was having sexual fantasies about her in his head while he stared at her, but it didn't seem that Terry had that on his mind. He seemed curious, somehow. But maybe that's just how he looked when he was imagining her tits.
A small shiver passed through her as his lips curled into a small smile. Damn him, why did he do that? And why couldn't she ignore him?
Terry broke their shared gaze and went back to the paperwork on his desk. Bernice's phone rang, making her jump. "Detective Waverley," she responded, trying to keep from squeaking out her own name.
Even though he wasn't looking at her anymore, Terry was still paying attention to Bernice. His head was cocked in just the right way so he could overhear everything she was saying. And once again, it seemed she was trying her best not to have too much of an argument.
"Jack, you don't understand…I…" She kept shutting her mouth as the man on the line kept interrupting her. She sighed heavily, "Look, I've gotta go. I need to work…Wait what do you mean, 'Don't come home'?! Jack!"
Bernice hung up the phone. The line was dead anyway. Jack was madder than she could ever remember him being. And he'd told her not to come home. Her shift would be over in an hour. Where was she supposed to go?
Left with no alternative, Bernice pushed her problems out of her mind and got back to work. Maybe she could get some overtime approved and she could just stay at that police station all night. She'd do the filing if it meant she didn't have to worry about where to go.
Five hours later, after everyone had knocked off and gotten a drink and got themselves a bit pissed, Terry Jarvis returned to his desk at Homicide to retrieve his car keys. He'd left them in the drawer when he went out with the boys. If he was honest, he'd had one too many. But he could sober up in the car before dragging himself back to Pamela.
A sound caught his attention. A strangled sort of sob. After a moment of investigation, Terry found the source of the sound in the corridor beside the senior sergeant's office. There, sitting on the floor and curled up in a ball, was Bernice.
"Oi, what're you doing here?" he asked, nudging her foot with his shoe.
She tried to hold back her sobs and looked up at him with a tear-stained face. "Oh Christ, what are you doing here?" she asked angrily, between hitched breaths.
"I asked you first."
How typically childish of him. "Just leave me alone, Jarvis," Bernice insisted.
"No, I won't. Not till you tell me what you're doing here in the middle of the night, cryin' your eyes out."
He looked down at her and did his best not to let the look on her face break his heart. Her bottom lip, which was usually frowning at him in disdain, was trembling. "My husband is going to leave me," she said, tears flowing from her eyes anew.
Terry knelt down to speak to her softly. "Is that what he said?"
"No, but he doesn't need to say it. I can see the writing on the wall. He hates that I'm a cop. If I don't quit, he's going to walk out on me, I just know it."
"Well, good riddance. Being a cop is the best thing about you. It's who you are, through and through. And if that husband of yours can't see it, that's his problem. You kick him out first, I say," he told her encouragingly.
That made her chuckle, in spite of herself. "If my dignity was the only thing to worry about, I would agree with you. But Jack's the only real protection I've got around here."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh come on, Terry. What do you think is gonna happen when you and every other man in this building know I don't have a husband waiting in the wings to defend my honor? You lot might not respect me, but you respect that I've got a husband. You wouldn't dare do anything to another man's wife, isn't that right?"
"Anyone bothers you, you just point them my way, alright?"
"And what are you gonna do?"
"Set 'em right."
Bernice just scoffed in pessimistic disbelief.
Terry sighed. His knees weren't appreciating squatting in this position. "Come on, up you get," he announced, offering his hands to her as he stood.
Reluctantly, Bernice let him pull her up off the floor. "Thanks," she mumbled.
"Come on, I'll take you home."
She shook her head. "Can't go home."
"Why not?"
And just when she thought she'd gotten ahold of herself, Bernice burst into tears again. "Because Jack told me not to."
While Terry's immediate impulse was to drive over to the Waverley house and beat the living daylights out of that miserable husband of hers, Terry knew it wasn't his place to do anything of the sort. "Alright then," he said, pulling her into a rather awkward embrace, "I'll take you to a hotel." Bernice sniffed against his chest for a moment and he patted her back before she was able to catch her breath and pull back from him.
Without giving it much more thought, Terry grabbed his keys and took Bernice's hand to lead her to the lift. When they stood inside, waiting to be taken to the basement car park, Bernice turned to face him. "You're being nice to me."
Terry shrugged.
"You're never nice to me."
"Just don't let the truth spread, alright? I've got a reputation to maintain."
"Reputation as a horse's ass," she muttered.
"You wanna stay crying in the corridor all night?" he threatened, having heard her pointed insult.
But Bernice just laughed. "No, thank you, Terry." She put her hand back in his grasp.
He realized, quite suddenly, that she'd never called him by his first name before. Always insisted on just calling him Jarvis.
They got to his car and he opened the door for her. He put the key in the ignition and paused. "What's the problem?" she asked.
"I'm not really alright to drive," he admitted.
"Are you drunk?"
"A bit," he replied with a shrug.
Bernice groaned in annoyance. "You are unbelievable."
"So are you," he said softly.
She turned to him sharply. "What!?"
His voice was quiet but deeply sincere. "You are. You're unbelievable. Unbelievably smart and strong and beautiful. And that husband of yours is an unbelievable idiot."
Bernice wasn't sure if it was the booze making him say those things or if it was her own vulnerability and exhaustion that made her feel like she was melting into a puddle of goo, but whatever was going on seemed to take on a life of its own inside her. Before she knew it, she had started kissing Terry Jarvis.
Terry responded immediately, taking her face in his hands, tangling his fingers in her hair, holding her close to him.
Neither of them said a single word as they kissed passionately and unbuttoned shirts and shimmied out of trousers. Terry laid her back on the bench seat of his car and positioned himself on top of her. The sounds of breathy moans and skin wetly slapping together joined the rocking squeaks of the car. The sex was nothing too exciting, but it was quite good for them both. Terry couldn't believe his luck as he thrust inside her over and over. Bernice had her head thrown back as she gasped in ecstasy before Terry finished with a bone-deep groan and collapsed on top of her.
For Terry, this was the culmination of years of feelings and yearnings for this woman who drove him crazy. He had wanted her, and now he'd had her. And all he wanted was more.
For Bernice, a lightbulb seemed to go off in her mind. All the frustration with Terry over the years suddenly made sense. And all of her hateful protestations seemed to fall away to the truth of the moment.
They lay together in the front seat of Terry's car, breathing heavily and clutching one another. And neither of them said a word.