AJ got up the next morning for work, leaving her sleeping husband in bed, whose day off it was. He'd no doubt laze around all day like usual, but she didn't blame him, her weekends off she tended to just laze around too. It was hard not to.
She was just out her front door, banana in hand as she didn't have time to sit down and have breakfast. She was always late for everything. She didn't have much flaws, but that was definitely one of them.
She turned to her right, spotting her new neighbour, Phil… stepping out of his own front door, locking it behind him. She looked upon him in a different light now, after Jamie had told her about the gun stashing he seen him doing. She was never one to bite her tongue…
"Excuse me." She said, watching him look up and turn to her, giving her a small nod, his formal sign of 'good morning.'
"Morning." Punk smiled over to her pleasantly, watching her scowl and make her way closer to the fence, closer to him.
"My husband seen you last night. Storing away your guns in your garage. Pretending no one was watching. You… you can't live that sort of life around here. I mean, there's little children around here, and young families." She hinted as he raised his eyebrows.
He actually wasn't pretending to be unnoticed last night like she said. He was being pretty blunt whilst storing away his guns, which he was entitled to. He found it rather funny, but also rather cute that such a small woman had such a small mouth, and could stick up for herself and her own opinions. He liked that.
"You have the wrong idea." He told her.
"I have a good mind to call the police, you know." She folded her arms as he smiled.
"They're already here." He looked upon her as she shook her head with confusion, watching him dig into his back pocket, taking out some sort of badge and showing her it, "Officer Brooks. Please to meet you." He smiled as she looked down with embarrassment.
Of course he was a cop. Why didn't she think of that? Maybe because he didn't look like a typical cop. She couldn't describe how embarrassed she was.
"I'm sorry. I had no idea." She shook her head with guilt, looking up at him laughing to himself, tucking his badge away in his back pocket.
"Don't worry about it. You have a right to wonder why I was storing guns in my garage. You don't have to apologise." He shook his head.
"Why aren't you in uniform though?" She asked curiously.
"I don't have to wear my gear unless I'm going out on the beat. If I'm just working at my office I can just show up like this." He looked down upon his jeans and bland t-shirt.
"Well, I am really sorry. I feel like such an idiot now." She admitted. She was mentally embarrassed with herself, to the point where she was going bright red. Maybe that was the reason why she was so intimidated yesterday when talking to him. He had a presence of a cop, in some way. He stood proud, and knowledgeable about his skills. A man in important uniform with the right set of skills to protect was always a great man, she believed.
"Don't be stupid." He laughed, "I better get going now." He said, pointing to his car as she nodded, letting him head on away as she began to set out on her walk to work.
It really only was around ten minutes, but in this weather, the freezing cold mornings upon them now, it was hard not to complain. She really should have been taken the car today as Jamie didn't need it, but he asked her to walk in case he needed the car later on when he got up.
She had her earphones in, having already finished her banana, walking quite the thing down the path, watching at the corner of her eye as a car pulled up beside her, his car.
She watched as he rolled down the window, "Where you headed?" He asked, having only just noticed that she was walking.
"Oh, I'm just round the corner." She explained to him.
"Well hop in, I'm going that way anyway." He told her as she shook her head insistingly.
"Oh, don't worry. I'll be fine, honestly." She smiled, appreciating his offer.
"No, c'mon it's freezing out. Get in." He told her.
Although not knowing him at all really, she felt willing to trust him. She was only going around the corner after all, and he was in somewhat a trusting man. He was a cop for crying out loud. And he was right… it was freezing out.
She hopped on, enjoying the warm heater of the car blowing on her face as she buckled up in the passengers side with him driving on. She'd gone from enjoying their conversation yesterday, to being completely disgusted by him, to being completely touched my how kind he was.
"Where did you say you were going?" He asked her.
"Just the school at the bottom of this road. I teach the second grade." She said as he nodded.
"That's the worst grade." He laughed.
"Is not." She defended, "I love my job." She told him.
"Well good. It's not very often you meet someone who can say that." He spoke the truth as she agreed, "I seen your husband last night. He's a nice guy." Punk complimented, not really knowing what else to say to the woman.
He figured they were neighbours now and would be for the time being. They would be seeing each other every now and then. And he wasn't complaining about that, she was sweet and easy on the eye, but she was married, and he respected that.
He'd spoken to Jamie last night when he was storing his guns in the garage, and Jamie was coming home from the pub. It wasn't much of a conversation, just a 'hey, man what's up' type of exchange.
"He is." AJ agreed with a smile, "He'll be relieved to know you're a cop, and not just storing guns in your garage for no apparent reason." She said as he laughed.
He thought it was brilliant that she was ready to fight him this morning before she even had the answers. She was a little spitfire, he liked that also. He seen a lot of happiness inside her. He was a trained cop, he knew what people were thinking before they did. But he sensed some sort of unknown sadness inside her, that she perhaps didn't know of. He wasn't sure what it was or why it was there, but a part of her just seemed discontent, even though she claimed she loved her life, her husband and her job.
"Is this you here?" Punk asked, spotting all the kids getting dropped off at the building which he only could assume was the school.
"Yeah. This is me." She nodded, opening the car door once he'd parked up beside the path at the school entrance, "Thank you for that. And I am sorry about earlier." She said once again, getting out of the car and leaning down to look at him.
"Hey, don't worry about it. Really." He told her, "See you around." He smiled as she nodded, watching her close the door shut and head away on into the school gates.
He was passing this way anyway, he figured it would be polite to offer her a ride.
AJ turned back to watching his car drive away down the road, smiling to herself without even realising as the car disappeared around the corner. Something in her stomach seemed to be doing flips, creating a bag of nerves for no reason. Being in a car with him, watching his hands grip the steering wheel as his tongue swiped over his lip ring from habit. She was completely lost in him, and she hated herself for it. He'd only been moved in three days.
She was just attracted to him. She was attracted to tons of guys, but it didn't matter because she was in a committed, loving and happy relationship. Nothing could change that.
"You getting anywhere with this, Brooks?" Carl asked, walking into Punks office later on in the day, looking on at Punk sitting on his chair, swirling around on it, "Or are you just having fun with the chair?" He folded his arms as Punk stopped himself, placing his feet on the ground and sitting up.
"This girl, Laura Fitzpatrick, the 1999 case..." He got his paper together, knocking over cans of red bull and different wrappers from his lunch, "She was kidnapped, raped, violently beaten up, died later in hospital after she was found in a park. It was suggested she crawled there. The only contact she could have made that night was with her family. Her mom made a statement when it happened, said she was in her room all night doing homework." Punk raised his eyebrows whilst looking at the statements and evidence towards the case, "I wanna take a trip to see her family. They don't live far which is good. Apparently the mom has gone crazy, which suggests she's either just having a hard time with what happened, or a hard time because she knows something. I just… I have a weird feeling about this family. The brother was out all night. The dad refused to give a statement, claiming he was just in too much shock." Punk shook his head with a sigh, "I'll see them later on in the week." He said.
"Good, you may be onto something." Carl smiled.
"It's just a start. You know the cases like these. It could be someone completely obvious, or it could be someone we don't even know exists. But I'll dig in as deep as I can." He said as he nodded.
"Good. Well I have good faith in you." Carl said, "I'll leave you to it."
Later night, Punk had stopped by to a pub on his way home from work. He didn't drink. It was strange considering his job could be quite stressful and hard going sometimes, but he just came to the pub to enjoy the atmosphere, the mellow music, the sound of chatter and the sight of willing, beautiful women.
He sat at the bar, twirling his straw around the empty glass, waiting to be served another drink, looking over at the young blonde standing at the bar, young, but old enough for him. He did hate himself sometimes for the way he dealt with women. It wasn't fair how he treated them, and it was just down right disrespectful, but he had his needs.
"Hey, can I buy you a drink?" He slid over to her as she turned to him, smiling to herself as she played with her purse in front of herself. He was charming, and his words were like a spell. Women just seemed to trust him, which for him, as a cop, was disgraceful. These women didn't know who he was, and yet he wound up being able to take them home every night.
"Yeah, go on." She smiled, just a normal girl, beautiful and lonely with the need of his company.
"What you having?"
AJ was curled up on the couch later that night with Jamie, enjoying some rubbish night time television, curled into his warm embrace. She'd had a hard day at work, and looked forward to this part of her day, where she could just chill out and enjoy her home comforts with her husband.
"I'll go shut the curtains. It's getting dark outside." Jamie announced as she sat away from leaning into him to let him up.
"The nights are getting so dark so quick, right?" She said.
"I know." Jamie walked over to the curtains, "Don't you love it though? You love this time of the year." He said as she nodded with a smile. He'd known her for years. He knew that, although she hated the cold mornings, she did love the winter months.
"I do." She smiled.
"Oh, looks like someone brought a date home." Jamie seen from the window whilst closing the blinds, not all that interested in their new neighbour as much as his wife had been, just addressing what he was seeing.
"Really?" AJ looked up to him.
"Yeah. Maybe it's his girlfriend." He shrugged, finally having he curtains closed, the living room dimly lit from the lamps around.
"He doesn't have a girlfriend." She said whilst he sat back down beside her on the couch, wrapping his arm around her shoulder whilst looking down at her.
"How do you know?" He laughed.
"Because I asked him if it was just him staying in the house, and he said yeah." She said. She'd learned her lessson, she wasn't going to start calling him a horrible man, and a user, and a pig towards women. She didn't know him, and that was the bottom line. He was none of her business, as much as for some reason, she wanted him to be.
"Who cares about him anyway. He's just some new neighbour." Jamie shrugged, feeling a little put off that his wife had been talking to this man, "I'm your husband, remember." He said, looking down upon her, which he sometimes mistakenly done.
"I know. And I love you." She smiled, cupping his cheeks whilst pressing a kiss on his lips, sinking back down against his warm body.
"I know you do."
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