Im going to give you a little insight into how Edward thinks and where he is coming from. This will not be an exact repeat of everything you just read from Jaspers POV, Edward does a whole bunch of stuff that does not involve Jasper, but I felt you needed to understand his mindset.
Being married to your career is the loneliest life imaginable. By all appearances I had it all, I was rising fast in rank and in all likelihood I was going to be the next sheriff. I have all the toys any man could want, and my life of leisure is envied by those who think they know me. I have horses and a nice big house and I travel all that I want, but I do it alone. I have no one. Tried dating for awhile, in fact I tried dating a woman, the daughter of my best friend and mentor. We went out for a couple of years and she never questioned why we hardly ever had sex. I was gone all the time to work and scrambling my way to the top of the pile and all she had to do was hang out at the house and go shopping and be a woman. It was a good arrangement that was working until I came home and caught her fucking one of my deputies in my bed on my birthday. I had to dump her ass then because the deputy couldn't keep his mouth shut about fucking her, and well…I just couldn't let that shit stand, so unofficially I have been nursing a broken heart for the past few years, truth is Im gay, have been for as long as I can remember, but you don't get anywhere in this department being gay, so I shoved that part of myself in the closet and I just maintain the "John Wayne, Cock of the Walk persona" around here and no one bothers me if I get to feeling tense enough to need to scratch the itch, I get in my truck and drive to Las Vegas to a very nice hotel on the strip where I reserve a very expensive suite for the weekend along with a very expensive young man that has no idea who the hell I am and he never will. I get looks, hell, Im not stupid, badge bunnies that like the whole cop thing have given me plenty of attention, and then there are women in the department who have a desire to hitch their wagon to me in an attempt to be Mrs. Sheriff when I finally get there in the next 5 years, but none of them clue in that I just don't give a fuck. I have my work and she is a jealous mistress, my hobbies, and those keep me plenty busy, my dog "Duke" and my horses. I really haven't had time to even want anything, that is until I saw him walking towards me up the damn parking lot today.
When I first saw the print card, I thought it was some kind of joke. The prints looked like they had chunks missing out of them and were virtually useless. I raised hell with the tech that took them and he told me that the fella that he took them from was a veteran who had been injured, and those were the best he could get. Normally I would have just rejected the card and sent a letter telling the recruit to try again next rotation, but I felt that I had to give this guy a shot, so I called the contact number and left a message telling him to come in for a re-do. I never imagined he was going to make me want to re do my whole damned life.
It was our typical Monday morning exiles meeting out front. The sheriff was on another health kick and wasn't joining us so I was kicked back against the wall, trying to stay out of the worst of the sun while keeping an eye on Gunny. He was our resident pain in the ass that we just couldn't seem to get rid of even though he had bounced up and down in rank so much that the line officers called him, "Ping-Pong" behind his back, currently he had managed to hold onto his Sergeants stripes for all of 6 months after being busted back from Watch Commander for roughing up a rookie he thought was being disrespectful of him. The kid was being disrespectful, but hell, Gunny deserved it, not only was he an ugly motherfucker, he was mean as a stepped on rattlesnake. I don't know what he had on the sheriff, but my first order of business once I took over shop was going to be to get rid of the rotten old bastard as soon as possible.
We were all just standing there contemplating the start of the day when we heard him before we saw him. The truck was a rolling noise complaint, and I was frankly surprised to see the green monstrosity pull into the parking lot and then park right next to my baby. I was almost had a heart attack, worried that the ugly of the grass green paint was going to rub off on my truck, and the laughter of the chuckleheads standing around at the look on my face didn't help. Gunny growled, "What the hell do we have here, who sent their kid up here to disturb my morning smoke?" and for a fact, the person walking up the lot towards us did appear to be a young teen boy at first glance. Gunny stepped right up to be his usual bulldog, asshole self and he braced the kid right off the bat, but as the kid stopped and looked at him, I could tell that there was a wariness and weariness in the eyes that spoke of age.
I was struck by my reaction to the small man standing in front of us. He wasn't much to speak of size wise, in fact he was a bit of a bandy-legged runt, but he was obviously in good shape and he was what could be described as a "Pretty" man, and I knew that he had probably caught more than his fair share of hell for his size and his features, but I wanted to just step up and protect him. Something about him just drew me in and I knew right then and there I wanted to know him, but after he met my eyes and then spoke, I was done for, roped, tied and ready to ride in more ways than one. That cocky lil son of a bitch had me wrapped around his delicate little finger and I was lost.
After he lipped off to Gunny, I knew he was fixin to get pounded if I didn't step in. Gunny wouldn't let an affront to his masculinity stand, even if it meant beating the snot out of the kid right on the front steps of the station, but I knew if I stepped in and reminded him just how close he was to being a slick sleeve again, he might step off and leave the kid be for the time being. Just leaning forward and whispering in his ear, "Is this lil peckerwood worth bein a slick sleeve road dog again? You better stand your ass down, Gunny" To his credit, the gunny actually listened and just grunted his typical "10-4" response and went back inside to sulk in his cave down in the evidence bay. He knew that being inside and having an office was very preferable to being out on the road at his age, so he wasn't going to push his luck.
The rest of the crew scattered to go back to work, leaving me with the kid on the front deck. I felt kinda bad being the reason he nearly got a beating first thing on a Monday morning, so I felt like I had to make things right. I nutted up and stepped forward and offered to shake hands with him, he was looking at me like he wasn't quite sure what to think about me, but his face was red so he was feeling something. His hands were scarred up, but deceptively strong for such a runty fella, and I was taken by how green his damn eyes were and how full his lips were. It was mind boggling that a man should be that damn pretty and I found myself wanting to touch his face, but luckily we both seemed to snap the hell out of it before we outed ourselves right in front of the station and all the inmates in lockup watching out their windows.
Getting more time with him was something I defiantly wanted so I decided that I was going to redo his prints personally on our new Afis machine. It was so new it wasn't even in the main processing area, it was down by my office and only used by rank who had been specially trained, until we got the rest of the knuckleheads squared away at the end of the month. Whitlock would be the first and only recruit to get his prints done that way, but because the sheriff was a veteran and had a soft spot for underdogs, I knew it would fly, plus this kid could be very useful. The local high school had a problem with meth being sold by one of the football team members, but due to the fact we couldn't seem to get anyone in the schools that could pass the narc sniff test amongst the student body, we hadn't been able to ferret him out, I knew we had just found our ringer, that is if I could stand to put him into the meat grinder that was undercover work, and if he passed the background and academy requirements. Enough of putting the cart before the horse, I knew then that I wanted to get to know this man, not just because his smart assed demeanor and confidence put a snap in my boxers and about made it hard to stand there face to face with him, but because his eyes told me that he needed me as much as I needed him and I was bound and determined to find out just what the hell it was about him that made me even want to consider violating every policy we had in place against fraternization, just to be around him.
Walking though the station with him on my heels I flew past everyone like a man on a mission, and I knew he was having to hustle to keep up, but I didn't want folks to get any ideas that he was anything buy some recruit that I was trying to help out. Having a reputation as a generally kind-hearted but standoffish kinda fella can come in handy at times and with the sheriffs policy of taking in the orphans, bastards, brawlers and general miscreants that other departments wont even consider due to their general standard of only accepting the poster children for perfection, I knew we would be able to slide past without too many comments, no one even suspected I dressed to the left as far as I knew, and I planned to keep it that way. I didn't know if Whitlock was even gay, but if he was, I planned on finding out and then I planned on making sure he knew he wasn't alone.
He was a quiet lil fucker, he just followed along behind me like I had him on a leash, and when we got down to where we the machine was I stopped short just to see if he was paying attention. Yeah, it was a dick move, but I kinda gotta a kick out of how flustered he got when he ran into me, and it gave me another excuse to touch him and see how he reacted. I was still playing it off as no big deal, but I was going to step it up a notch when we got to the printing machine.
The machine was already up and running, so we didn't have to stand there with our teeth in our heads while we waited for it to warm up, but then again, that also cut down on my time I could just spend pumping him for information and looking at him. He was nice to look at, even with the light pattern of scars I could see. He had some freckles and a mole on his cheek that was just…dayuum! I was gonna have to go rub one out if I kept it up, just to get through this. I explained to him how he was going to have to stand facing the machine while I stepped up behind him, and that was where it was going to get interesting, so I figured I might as well go for broke. When I said I liked to take control, I knew he understood exactly what I was putting down, and I felt him get a little shaky, hook, line and sinker I knew I had him.
When he told me how he got the scars, I wanted to take him into my arms and just hug all that pain away, but I knew for damn sure that shit wouldn't fly in the squad bay, so I settled for thanking him. The printing was going pretty smoothly, but being up against him with my arms around him was creating a bit of a situation. When I shifted positions to get to his left hand, I knew he felt it, and Ill be damned if the lil fucker didn't rare back and rub up against me. We were running out of time to get a handle on things so I just asked if we had a problem, and his answer made me feel alive inside for the first time in years.
Giving him the tour of the whole damn shooting match gave me the excuse to keep him around longer. I wasn't ready for him to take off, and because I didn't know when our schedules would allow us to be around each other again, I was being greedy. He was easy to talk to and a quick study. When he smiled it really lit up the room. The gals in the office about fell all over themselves making googly eyes at him and he really cranked up the charm and the accent when he met Rosalie, I later discovered that was an effort to help his buddy Emmett to get into her good graces, but Whitlock came damn close to melting that ice queen into a puddle of goo on the carpet with just his "aw shucks" and smile alone, so he woulda been golden if he wanted her to just drop panty right there on the desk in front of him. The dude was a lethal weapon and he had succeeded in not only working his way into my mind and affections, he had half the damn staff charmed by the time he told me he had to go meet his buddy to sign papers on his apartment.
With his charisma and charm I knew he was going to be a shoe in with the department, the only one we were gonna have to worry about was the gunny, but then that old bastard didn't like anybody but himself, so I was going to have to make sure to run interference to keep him away from Whitlock, because until the gunny got his pound of flesh, he was going to be gunning for the kid, and the academy, where he was an assistant instructor, was the perfect location for him to extract a little payback. I knew I was gonna have to be a little more hands on with this class than I was planning, even if I didn't want to be.
As he was getting ready to leave I decided to take my last union smoke break of the day and get a moment to just chat him up in private under the guise of giving him the deets on his packet processing time and just being an all around hell of a nice guy. I got his number and gave him mine because hell, you never know when something would come up. But when he told me he had never…ever…holy sweet mother of all that is right with the world! I copied that info clear as a bell and I was flattened. I knew he was young. I knew he was a shy fella, but I never expected him to be that much of a rookie. I about had to sit my ass down on the sidewalk to contemplate all the implications of that little bit of information. It meant so many damn things, not only was he someone that I couldn't just maul and be done with, it also meant that he had no fucking idea what he was in for.