I could not believe what I just heard, he said he loved me? No fucking way. This is not happening. I will be his best friend, I will be his fuck buddy, I will be his partner, but I am not going to be his, "boyfriend".
"No. Ed, you can't love me."
"What do you mean I can't love you? I just told you that I already do. You should say it back or something."
"Ed, we can't do this! There is no place for this where we are at."
"I have to disagree, Jasper, I have found the perfect place to be at."
He leaned down and began softly kissing my jaw and the side of my face as he whispered, "It will be okay, it will be our secret. No one will know but us, but I had to tell you. I think I have loved you since the first time you punched me."
"Ed, I don't think I can say it back to you yet."
"It's okay Jasper, as long as there is hope that you will someday, I can live with that."
He was already hard again in me and he slowly began to move again, this time feeling like love making, and as much as I wanted to resist it, I found myself enjoying it and believing that maybe it would be okay, that maybe we could keep it just between the two of us without anyone figuring out we were anything more to each other than friends and partners.
"What are you doing Jasper?"
"I'm adjusting your tagline Ed, I swear, over 9 months of inspections and I don't think you managed to have a straight tagline the entire time. It's important you look really good today, after all, as Valedictorian of the class your speech will get the most attention, since you have the highest academic levels ever, you are getting all kinds of attention from not only the sheriff, but the college too. You want to really look good because it would help you out in the future."
"Jas, im not worried about it. I'm going to go work in admin and you are going to patrol where you are going to be in danger all the time. I just don't think it's fair! Your grades were just below mine and you are my Lt, how can they not see you should be in admin as well?"
"Ed, I don't want to be in admin. I wanted to be on the road. I want to go into narcotics investigations, so I got what I asked for, they didn't let me down."
"But, you could get hurt."
"Ed, we have had this talk more than a few times, I will be fine. I have had even more training than you in surviving out there and I seem to be pretty much bulletproof."
"What are we doing tonight after graduation is over?"
"Well, Ed, I thought we would drive over to San Diego and celebrate for a couple of days. We don't have to move out of the dorm until next week and I don't start with my Field Training Officer until the week after, so we could just hang out on the beach and relax."
"I don't even want to think about anything to do with a beach, but I have missed the ocean quite a bit."
"Good, now let's get ready to go before they come looking for us."
"Jasper?"
"Yeah, Ed?"
"Can I get a blowjob for good luck?"
"How about you settle for a kiss?"
"Can't blame me for trying, can you?"
"No, I was actually thinking of asking for the same thing."
"Jas, I think I have rubbed off on you more than a little."
"Many times in the last 9 months Ed, many times, in case you forgot."
"Nice one! Good to see you were paying attention to all the cool shit I was teaching you about being a pervert."
"After waking up with your junk in my face almost every morning, I don't think I had a choice, Ed."
He walked out the door of our room with his laugh booming down the hall and I watched him leave with pride. He had made it and he had made it in fine form. Not only had he achieved the highest academic marks in the academy, ever, he had managed to help the majority of his classmates achieve high academic marks with his study guides and mnemonics, and he had built a strong following among the cadets and training officers. As his best friend, I had also achieved much, overcoming all my injuries to pass with high marks in all areas of the physical and practical skills areas. We had dominated the academy and our recruit class at the sheriff's department, but it had not been without controversy. We were suspected of being more than friends.
It had been a recruit that Ed had caught cheating after he had tried to help him several times to grasp the requirements needed for an arrest vs a Terry Stop, but the guy was just determined to be obtuse and difficult. He was already badge heavy, skirting the rules about when he was allowed to wear his full department uniform by claiming he had changed in his car when he was suspected of wearing it out in town and claiming to already be a full officer.
Black had no problems using expletives of all kinds, including racial ones and his favorite was the word, 'Faggot." He had referred to me in that capacity more than a few times due to my stature, but had refused to back up his words with any action so we tended to walk around each other with a wide berth, until Ed observed him cheating on the written test and did what the Code of Conduct required of him, he went straight to the director and reported his observations, completely unaware at the time that the director had seen him make the observation so if he hadn't reported the cheating, he would have been expelled for violation of the Code of Conduct along with the cadet he caught.
The controversy went down fast and furious with the majority of the class supporting Ed, but the expelled cadet had friends who decided to exact revenge for him by lying in wait for us as he walked back to the dorms after the end of a particularly tough practical's session when we were both exhausted and more than a little bruised.
"I think I am going to stand under the shower for a good hour, and if I am capable of movement after that, I am going to crawl into my bunk and sleep until Monday! I'm serious Jasper, don't even wake me for chow, that is how damn tired I am."
"Uh huh, I have heard that all before, then either your stomach growls or your dick gets hard and you are up with the chickens. We have PT in the morning so quit yer bitching, you owe me a good 5 laps around the track and 20 trips up and down the beach."
"Oh come on! You aren't going to hold me to that, are you Jasper? I mean, really?"
I should have been paying more attention, after all, I had lived in a combat zone and survived all kinds of things, but I had let my guard down thinking we were safe because we were almost full cops and we were on a college campus.
I had no idea we were surrounded until Ed stepped in front of me and said, "Your beef is not with him, this is between you and me, so why don't you just let him go?"
"That's my cousin you got kicked out of the academy, pendejo! You and your maricon are gonna pay for that that. You fuck with one bean; you have to fight the whole burrito!"
With that, the tattooed and stocky man in front of Ed swung the bat he was holding and hit Ed in the side as two of the others plowed into me and attempted to take me to the ground. Fists and boots as well as tire irons were striking all parts of me that I couldn't protect, I couldn't even see if Ed was still on his feet as a well-placed shot caught me across the brow and with blood pouring over my eyes, I went to my knees, the world turning gray as one of the men grabbed me by my hair and said, "I would cut your maricon throat but I don't want the AIDS, we all know you and your boyfriend are bringing that shit to our city, you should leave before maybe a bullet finds you instead."
The sound of distant shouts and sirens was the last thing I heard. I awoke three days later in the hospital, stitches still holding my face closed and worried about Ed, worried that I had been retained, and just plain worried about what the punk had said to me.
"Oh thank God you are awake! I didn't think you were ever going to wake up!"
A pale and haggard Ed rose from the seat he had been ensconced in beside my bed, bandages on his face and arms as well as bruises coloring his cheek and jaw. He pulled the blanket back up over my chest where it had slipped down, seeming to need to do something with his hands other than touch me for so some reason.
"What happened, Ed"
"We got attacked by 5 of Blacks cousins. You caught the worst of it before the campus cops showed up. You have a concussion, some bruised ribs, a hairline fracture of your wrist and 23 stitches in your face and arm."
"What about you, Ed?"
"I got off easy, just some broken ribs, some cuts and bruises. They went after you because you were smaller and they were a bunch of pussies. I broke one guys jaw in 3 places, the guy who hurt you has 8 broken ribs, a broken collar bone, and a concussion as well as he's missing part of an ear."
"Ed, what did you do with his ear?"
"Uh, well…I think I might have swallowed it."
"Ed, they know."
"They know what?"
"They know about us."
"How do you know, Jasper?"
"The guy who's ear you bit off? He told me."
"Don't worry about those idiots; no one will listen to them. They all got charged with assaulting police officers since we are already limited certification and then since they had weapons and other shit on them, they got a bunch of other charges. They are going away for a long time. The department and the academy is kissing our asses right now because apparently Black made threats and they ignored them, so their asses are on the line for a huge lawsuit. Neither of us are getting recycled, in fact, we are heroes right now because they gave the entire class the week off while the director and the college coordinate to address the lack of security for cadets.
"Holy shit, we have a vacation?"
"Yeah, Jasper, we have a vacation. The doc said you might get out of here tomorrow if you are feeling better, so feel better, okay? I hate sleeping in this damn chair and I can't sleep in our room without you because I guess I need to hear your stupid snoring."
We had survived that and no one else had said a word to use about being anything other than best friends. I thought we were careful enough to keep any sign we cared about each other, hidden deep inside, but when you work with cops, everyone is watching everything at all times and subtle glances are evaluated and filed away for a later date when they occur too often.
"Come on, Jas! You have to give the prayer before I can give my speech, so get a move on before we cause a riot."
He leaned in the door leering at me in my uniform as I adjusted my Smokie hat for the last time.
"You make sure to bring that hat along to San Diego, okay? I have some ideas for what you need to do to me while you are wearing it."
"Ed, you are a perv! I think that violates the uniform code somehow."
"Jasper, I plan to violate a hell of a lot more than the uniform code once we get the hell out of here for a few days, I may even see if we can violate a few laws of nature, and one or two of physics."
"Damn, Ed!"
His laughter once again echoed down the hallway as he threw an arm around my shoulder and dragged me out the door of our room, my blush coloring my cheeks until we reached the front exit doors.