Page 80 of Falling For You

Two officers walked me in through the side entrance and put me in a holding cell at the end of a corridor with nothing in it but a concrete bench, a stainless steel toilet, and a fluorescent strip overhead that hummed at a frequency nobody had ever bothered to fix.

I sat down and leaned my head against the wall.

My right hand was throbbing. My knuckles were swelling, the skin split across the middle two. I flexed it once and let it rest on my knee.

I always knew that mouth of yours was an asset to the force in more ways than one.

That bastard.

A door opened at the end of the corridor. Andy's voice came through a second later, talking to the officer at the desk.

I stood and went to the bars.

She came around the corner still in her duty belt, braid half undone, badge crooked on her chest.

"Andy."

She walked over and reached through the bars. Her hand settled on my cheek. Her fingers were cold. I leaned into them before I could stop myself.

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

I covered her hand with mine and shook my head. "I'm fine."

She stayed like that for a second. I watched the worry leave and a smile break through.

"Good." She tapped my cheek and opened the cell door to come inside.

I moved toward her but she put a hand flat on my chest, holding me at arm's length.

"Do you understand what you did?" Her voice hit the concrete walls and came back twice. "You assaulted a police officer. That is a felony in the state of Nevada."

Her hands were fists at her sides.

"You could lose your job. You could go to prison."

I didn't answer.

"Say something, Wyatt."

I looked at her. She was furious with me and I didn't care. All I could think about was the look on her face after Elliot said what he said. Her whole body went still. Something in me snapped and I would not take it back.

I had always hated Elliot Handler. I hated his arrogance and his smile that never reached past his teeth. I hated the way he carried himself as if everyone around him owed him something.

I knew they had history. I knew he was part of her life before I was. But she wasn't his anymore. She was mine. And he had no right to speak to her that way.

I was not going to stand there and let any man talk about the woman I loved like that. Least of all Elliot Hollywood Handler.

"I don't want people talking to you that way."

She stared at me. I watched the anger hold for one more second and then give. Her fists uncurled, then she grabbed my shirt collar and pulled me into her. I wrapped my arms around her and we stood there in the middle of that cell with my chin on the top of her head, her face pressed into my chest, her breath coming hard through my shirt.

"I love you but what you did was stupid." She was talking into my shirt. "You can't just hit people. That's a crime, Wyatt. You had no right to do that. You're going to⁠—"

She stopped.

I didn't hear anything after the first three words. I'd told her I loved her many times and she never said them back. But I understood. I held it. I waited. And she just said them in a holding cell, in the middle of a lecture, like it was that easy.

She must have felt me go still, because she pulled back and looked at my face. I bit the inside of my cheek but the grin was already pulling through. Her brow furrowed and it only got wider.