rumors about me marrying “The Patrick Boy” are all true. Everybody loves both Brad and James and if I didn’t love them both so much, it’d be sickening.
Love?
Um…
Yeah. Yeah, love. You know, like best-friend-love. Like first-kiss-love. Like I-might-get-some-love.
“Miss, this area is restricted!“ the woman at the front desk calls out to me as I pass. She has pale skin and beautiful strawberry blonde hair with lovely grey eyes. I have never seen any woman look this good in her dress blues. She is stunning. I sort of want to s her already.
“Pardon me,” I say in a faux nice voice. I look at her badge and try not to sneer. I have an irrational hatred of her name. “Vicky,” I say, drawing it out. “My name is Colleen Frasier Patrick. That means my daddy is the Chief, my brother is Detective James Frasier, my godfather and father-in-law is John Patrick, who is the Assistant Chief, and my husband is Detective Bradley Patrick. Please remember that.” My tone is snotty and I know it, but this “Barbie in Blue” needs to know who she is dealing with. I grew up in this station.
I breeze past Vicky, ignoring her muttering about policy and waltz into the squad room. Brad is seated at his desk with James hunched over him. My dad and John are flanking them on both sides. They look so serious.
I walk over to them and offer a timid, “Hello,” so as not to startle them. They each look at me with sad eyes. Each of their hellos is something akin to a gruff bark. I don’t even want to know what they’re working on. I’ve spent years blocking myself off from the gruesome world they work in, never asking many questions and always respecting their boundaries when it comes to what they’ll share about their work—and this is why—all too often they’re working on a case where someone has lost someone dear to them.
Brad stands, crosses the desk and hugs me tight. His body is rigid and he’s burrowing his nose into my hair. I set the wicker basket down on his desk and curl into him. I know this hug. Brad needs this hug. When he’s working on a really bad case, he needs a hug. It grounds him, lets him know that he’s still here, with us. I’m more than happy to be able to be that for him.
“What’re you doing here, pretty girl?” he asks and we pull apart. My dad has collected all of the papers they were looking at and has them safely in a manila folder far from my line of sight.
“I made you cookies,” I beam up at him. Brad smiles and kisses my forehead. I lean up and kiss his cheek, shocking him. “You should look in the basket,” I whisper. Brad turns and starts to rifle through the basket, pulling out the cookie container first, his eyes dancing with amusement. I’m so excited and proud of myself that I don’t even see it happening—it being the chaos that is about to happen.
The moment that James hears there are cookies, he grabs the container and opens it. Sure, they’re discarded bakery cookies, but they don’t look half bad as homemade cookies. Brad pulls out the Special Edition DVD of “The Notebook” that I’ve bought him to replace his deeply scratched copy; and quickly shoves in back in, his cheeks turning pink. He spies the box of tissues and doesn’t even move to pick them up.
“Thanks,” he mumbles, embarrassed because he knows the meaning behind the DVD.
“There’s a note,” I say, prodding him to read it. I need to see his reaction when he reads the note. I spent a lot of time thinking about that note. I’m not quiet about it and my voice carries to James’s big old honking ears. Before I can stop him, James finds the note in the basket and starts reading it. Brad tries to snatch it from my stupid brother but he dodges him in time.
The entire squad room watches the budding show as James begins to read the note aloud. I put my head down, nearing tears. This was private and was never meant to be shared with anyone—especially not the entire squad room.
“Bradley—,” James recites in a feminine voice. “—I wanted to replace your worn, but well-loved copy of “The Notebook—,” James pauses to laugh. This is so bad. I hear feet shuffle and chuckling from all around. “And the tissues are because