The police stationwas not where Blake wanted to be, and it showed. He’d been staring down at the printer with a menacing expression for the last five minutes, hoping it might reveal why it was beeping and flashingincessantly.
It didn’t.
“You… uh… you okay there, Sarge?” Lily said, appearing at his shoulder.
Blake’s head jerked up, and he realised he’d crumpled the documents he’d planned to copy into little golf ball sized spheres.
“Yes,” he snapped.
Lily nodded slowly, taking a cautious step towards him. “Paper jam,” she said, quietly tapping the screen. “You just need to… uh… open?—”
“Thank you, DC Jones.” Now he really was snapping, but luckily it seemed Lily knew when to let a grumpy sergeant figure out his own mess. She nodded, melting back into the incident room without another word.
He found an empty office at the end of the corridor, containing little more than a desk, a chair and an obnoxiously aggressive laminated sign that read, “HAS YOUR SUSPECT BEEN ON BAIL FOR LONGER THAN 90 DAYS? CONTACT CUSTODY IMMEDIATELY.”
Blake snarled at the sign, which he thought was reasonable given thathe’dmade it in a fit of rage one morning after his twentieth bail escalation. Detectives were good at many things, but remembering to tell their suspects they were no longer under investigation was not one of them.
At some point, Lily must have slipped into the room and placed a mug of green tea on the desk, because he was holding one with no recollection of making it.
“Smithy!” Mark’s irritatingly chipper voice called from down the corridor.
Blake calculated that he had approximately three point two seconds to get around the desk and slam the door shut, however, he wasted a further two seconds tearing his eyes away from the poster.
“There you are,” Mark said, appearing in the doorway. “What the fuck are you doing in here? Our office is that way.” He pointed towards their shared office at the other end of the corridor.
Blake’s jaw tensed. “I know that, Mark. I’ve worked in the department for fourteen months.”
Fourteen fucking months of listening to the other alpha’s incalculable number of excuses for getting out of jobs.
Mark quirked an eyebrow. “Don’t I fucking know it. Anyway, I need you to go through the briefing pack with me. Explain things so I don’t make a tit of myself in front of the boss.”
Blake’s lip twitched. “I sent you the briefing pack by email yesterday. You haven’t read it yet?”
Mark scoffed and waved the comment away. “Of course I fucking haven’t. Did you think the Villa game was gonna watch itself?”
Blake snarled, rising from the uncomfortable swivel chair. “Well then,Mark.To quote you—tough fucking tits.”
Mark smacked the desk with his fist. “You wanna go, big boy?”
Then they were both posturing. The only things keeping them apart were the desk and Blake’s crinkled stack of paperwork. There was a sound from the hallway—an awkward cough followed by a concerned yelp.
“Uh-oh, Mum and Dad are fighting again,” one of the other detectives said, tugging at another’s sleeve as they both backed away.
Blake’s nostrils flared as he straightened his tie. “See you in thirty minutes,” he said between clenched teeth. “Whether or not you make an idiot of yourself is entirely on you.”
With that, he strode out of the office, down the corridor and out of the back door.
There was a little grassy patch with a bench that used to be the smoking area. However, since the superintendent had decided that everyone should give up smoking and ‘employ a more healthy lifestyle,’ it’d been renamed the Garden of Reflection. The wild lilies sprouting from the borders did nothing to make it sound less like a crematorium.
Blake sighed and placed his mug next to him on the bench. Rubbing his eyes, he did his absolute best not to think of Pember all alone in his bedroom. Likely feverish. Probably naked. Possibly touching himself. The way he’d smelled earlier… It made Blake’s mouth water every time he caught a whiff of it on his own skin.
He closed his eyes and imagined a blank room.
A rough hand slapped his shoulder, making him almost jump out of his fucking skin.
“Alright?” A blonde-haired, blue-eyed sigma beamed down at him. “Long time no see.”
Blake rubbed his eyes and sighed. “Oliver, respectfully, please allow me to drink this cup of piss-water in peace.”