Hidden in the Blood: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 5)

Chapter Forty-One: Joanie, Friday

Joanie amazed herself at how quickly she progressed with Patrick. Maybe it was just their natural chemistry, or maybe she was careening in this new direction so she could get as quickly away from Joe as she could, but they were already sleeping over at each other's places. 

After their first coffee date a week ago, she already knew she liked him a lot, but they kept things chaste at the end of the evening with a closed-mouth kiss on the lips. The Saturday she went to Joe and Lauren's house to drop off Mrs. Mackenzie, Patrick was with his kids and she was on shift into the evening, and both of them agreed it wouldn't be a good idea for her to see him with his kids there, but she thought about him the entire night, and when Sunday came around and they were able to see each other again, they went out to dinner right after shift, making sure no one at the detachment, especially Fatima, saw them leaving together. Then it was straight back to Patrick's apartment, because she knew she couldn't wait any longer. 

She knew it wasn't really healthy, that only part of it was because she wanted him, and a much bigger part of it was because she wanted to see how he measured up to Joe, but Patrick wasn't complaining. Pleasantly surprised, he let her take the lead, and when she had him out of his clothes she was relieved to see that he measured up to Joe very well. 

He had condoms, and she wondered if they were leftovers from his days cheating on his wife (Agnes' words on Saturday still nibbled at the edges of her conscience, but they didn't stop her from going after what she wanted), or if he'd anticipated a night like this with her and gotten them recently, but it made no difference. They made use of all of them, and unlike with Joe, there was no time limit on their fun, and she was happy to sleep over, since there was no one waiting for her at home, and he was happy to have her there. The only caution they had to take was to drive separately and spaced apart back to the detachment for their shift so that nobody suspected they were dating.

That was the danger, and it both unnerved and thrilled her at the same time. Relations between officers were governed by the Interpersonal Workplace Relationship Policy, which required them to disclose to HR that they were dating, to mitigate the harms that might arise, especially due to a power imbalance; she was a sergeant and he was a constable, after all. She didn't want HR to know they were dating, though. For one thing, police were as prone to gossip as any other members of society, and this would get around like the flu, the two skyscrapers of the detachment getting together. For another, she didn't want Fatima to know she went and did what the other woman could only fantasize about; she liked the younger constable and felt a protectiveness toward her as the only other female officer in the detachment, and she didn't want Fatima to hate her.

Lastly, she didn't want the higher ups frowning at her out of some kind of moral obligation; Patrick wasn't officially divorced yet, and she didn't want his marital status to affect their view of her professional conduct, especially if she was going to be the face of the detachment. #hotcoplangley was still going strong, and she could just imagine the trolling that would occur if the Internet world knew she was carousing with a married man. She knew very well the double standard women faced when it came to this sort of thing, the names they were called, so she thought it would be simplest if this were just kept between the two of them. 

To her relief, he felt the same way. "I don't want to hurt Fatima's feelings," he explained. "I'll keep her thinking she has a chance with me even if she'll never go for it."

It was kind of cruel to keep her thinking he was single, but Fatima was a good girl, and as she'd said before, her family wouldn't accept her dating a non-Muslim. What was the harm in a partnership filled with friendly flirtation? 

"The biggest challenge will be telling my kids their mother and I are no longer together," he said that Thursday night as she lay in his arms on her bed. "I wouldn't want to introduce you until I knew for sure we were well into this relationship."