Arrested by My Ex-Boyfriend

You're my boyfriend. You, of all people, know exactly what I look like after I've slept with someone.

I tipped my chin at him.

So. Do I look like that right now?

The cop didn't blink.

Miss Ellery. Cool. Bored, almost. I feel obligated to remind you. We broke up a month ago.

Right. That.

Rewind twenty minutes.

Me, three drinks deep in a private booth at the Onyx Lounge, a pretty boy I'd rented for the night refilling my glass, my best friend cackling into her cocktail beside me. Girls' night. Harmless.

Then the door banged open and a vice squad flooded the room.

"Anything going on in here tonight besides the drinking?" the one in front asked.

Six-foot-something. Badge on his belt, service piece on his hip, shoulders filling out the uniform like a threat.

I knew that face. I used to fall asleep against that jaw.

His hand settled near the cuffs on his belt, and the metal caught the light.

Small world.

Chapter 1

I chased Holt. And I mean chased. No shame, no brakes.

It never once occurred to me that I'd be the one to end it.

But I was.

He'd picked up half a shift for a coworker who called out last minute, which meant he ghosted the birthday dinner we'd locked in weeks ago.

I sat in a booth built for two and waited three hours.

Then I decided to go get him myself.

I climbed into a cab with the cake I'd designed myself balanced on my knees, and somewhere around the second red light, the driver decided to make it weird.

"Pretty little thing in a dress like that," he said. "You got a boyfriend?"

He'd turned around at the light, watching me with wet, yellowed eyes.

"I do, actually. He's a cop."

The driver huffed a laugh. "That so."

"Yes. That so." I tightened my grip on the cake box. "I'm on my way to see him right now."

My pulse climbed. I pulled out my phone like it was nothing and called Holt.

It rang twice.

Then it died in my ear. Declined.

The car went dead quiet.

The driver chuckled low, and his nicotine-stained hand slid off the wheel toward my thigh.

"Getoff."

I don't remember deciding to move.

I just came back to myself with the cake already mashed across his face, frosting in his eyebrows, strawberries sliding down the dashboard, the brand-new dress I'd worn for date night ruined in my lap.

"You little b"

He twisted around and swung at me. I cracked my bag across his skull before he landed it.

"Who the hell do you think you're talking to," I got out, crying and furious in the same breath, and shoved the door open and half-fell into the street.

Holt's precinct was two blocks up. I went for it on four-inch heels.

I couldn't tell if I was angry or just wrecked. My ears were on fire, my whole body was shaking, and the tears would not stop.

Inside, an officer stepped into my path. "Ma'am? Can I help you with something?"

My mouth wouldn't work. Report the creep in the cab, or say Holt's name first. I didn't know which came out of me first.

I was still deciding when I turned my head.

And there he was.

There was a girl on the bench in front of him. Young. Chin tipped up, watching his face like it hung the moon.

He handed her a cup of hot cocoa. His voice was flat and somehow gentle at once.

"Don't worry. We've got the guy. Someone here will run you home."

The girl cupped the carton and looked up at him, careful, hopeful. "You saved me. Could you take me? Home, I mean."

He glanced at the calendar on the desk.

Then up at the clock on the wall.

Eight.

He was quiet for a second.

"Sure," he said.

And I just stood there.

The ache went through me sour and sharp. My nails found my palm. I looked at the floor and blinked, hard and fast, until it stopped shining.

"Ma'am. Is there something you need?"

The officer had raised his voice. Both of them turned toward me.

Holt saw my face and went still where he stood.

"...Sera?"

I breathed in. I looked right at him. One word at a time, so he couldn't miss it.

"Let's break up, Holt."

Then I turned and walked out.

I stopped at the door. I looked back anyway.

Nothing but the cold wash of moonlight on an empty street.

He hadn't come after me. Not one step. Not one word.

Chapter 2

I'll be honest. It started shallow. I wanted him because he was gorgeous.

Then we started dating and I learned the truth, which was that Holt was always, always working.

The few nights we did get, he was one call away from gone. Twice he stood up mid-dinner and left for a job before the plates cleared.

I have a thing where, when I fall for someone, I buy them stuff.

So I bought him a shirt. One shirt.

He turned around and blew a couple months of his paycheck on the ugliest bag in the store, because the sales associate swore it was perfect for me.

I made him return it.

He came back from the counter, took out his bank card, and pressed it into my hand.

"I don't know what you like." He looked at me like this was a serious operational decision. "I didn't want to get it wrong again. So keep my paycheck. Spend it on whatever."

Here's the thing. Underneath the disappearing act, Holt was good to me.

Card in my hand, no questions. Phone unlocked, check it whenever. Painkillers on the nightstand before the cramps even hit. He'd fill my fridge on a rare night free and cook breakfast before he slipped out in the morning.

None of it was the thing I actually wanted.

"I know what you want," Frankie said, watching me stab my straw around my glass. "You want him around."

She popped a fry.

"But the paycheck thing? Day one? That's my dad's generation, babe. Your Houdini's a little." She waved the fry. "Vintage."

"It's fine, actually." My face went warm. "In certain areas he is not remotely vintage."

The first night Holt stayed over, he'd come straight off a job.

The cuffs were still on his belt, bright silver. I reached for them. He caught my wrist before I got there.

"Can't I use these on you, Officer Holt?"

His throat worked. Something dark and warm sat at the outer corners of his eyes. His voice didn't move an inch.

"These are department-issue. Not for this."

"Mm." I leaned in slow and dragged myself against him. "Then. I bought a pink one. Plastic. Let me use that one on you instead. Yeah?"

The most serious, buttoned-up man I'd ever met. And I made him play pretend. And he let me.

Click.

He hooked my wrist and dragged it up over my head, pinned it there. He leaned down until all I could breathe was him.

"Miss Ellery. You've gone and dirtied my uniform."

His mouth was at my ear.

"So. You're under arrest."

Chapter 3

I didn't sleep. The old memories and the night before kept braiding together behind my eyes, over and over.

The next morning, Holt knocked on my door.

And the second I saw him, most of the sour, sleepless ache I'd been drowning in all night just lifted.

Sera. You are so pathetic.

I stood there hating myself and waiting for him to apologize. To take it back. To win me back.

Instead he held out a box. Unsealed.

I looked inside.

Every gift I'd ever given him.

My head snapped up. "What is this supposed to mean?"

"They're the gifts you gave me. They're expensive."

He let two seconds go by.

"I figured, since we're ending it, it's better you have them back."

I couldn't breathe right. "So you're just agreeing to it. You came here to settle up. Clean break."

"...Something like that."

He let out a long breath.

"Your heart, your gifts. They can go to someone who fits you better."

Something in my head went quiet. Then it snapped.

I turned the box over and dumped it out between us.

The watch. The tie clip. The glass vase I'd blown by hand. The LEGO build I'd sat up two nights straight to finish.

I put my heel through the vase first.

Then I brought the rest down, one by one, until the floor was glitter and plastic and broken glass.

I stood in the wreckage and lifted my chin.

"When I date someone new, don't worry. I wouldn't hand him secondhand junk like this either."

"...I'm sorry."

He stayed in the doorway. The morning sun came in behind him and lit up that unfairly good face, all cold edges and clean lines.

He really did have a ridiculous face. It was the only reason I'd ever broken my one rule, boyfriend picks up when I call, and chased him this long.

Turns out the things you beg for aren't worth much once they're yours.

I pressed the ache flat.

"You're right. We don't fit. Because you were never good enough for me."

I pulled the door wider.

"Get out."

He apologized again, dropped his eyes, and turned to go.

"Wait."

He looked back.

I threw the bank card he'd left with me into his chest.

"Your paycheck."

"Take it. Get out."

Chapter 4

The second month after the breakup, I met up with Frankie.

She took one look at me and flinched. "You've dropped a whole size. Are you dieting again?"

I wasn't dieting.

The second she found out I was still thinking about Holt, she hauled me into a booth at the Onyx Lounge and ordered the two prettiest boys on the menu to pour our drinks.

I drank. She talked.

"You and Houdini were never a match, okay? And newsflash, he is not the last hot man on earth." She swept a hand at our company. "Tonight, these two keep you smiling. You're not into them? I line up ten more tomorrow, babe."

She was still mid-speech when the door crashed inward.

"Vice! Hands on your heads, against the wall!"

Frankie's hands shot into the air. "Officer, I swear, I didn't do a thing. Houd" She caught herself. "Uh. Officer Holt?"

I lifted my eyes, still swimming a little, and past the two young cops in the doorway, someone stepped through.

Great face.

Very familiar face.

Six-foot-something of him, shoulders stretching the uniform shirt, the holster belt cinching it in tight at a waist that had no business being that narrow. Long legs the department slacks did nothing to hide.

The room rearranged itself around him. It always had.

His gaze came over cold.

"You're sure there's nothing going on here tonight besides the drinking."

The liquor climbed. I looked right up at him and smiled like a dare.

"You're my boyfriend. You'd know exactly what I look like if I'd actually slept with someone. Wouldn't you?"

He didn't so much as shift his weight.

"Miss Ellery. I have to remind you. We broke up a month ago."

"Oh. Right. That."

My head spun, hot and furious, and I curled my mouth into a smile on purpose.

"Then let me confess, Officer. I have been very much out of line."

I tilted my head.

"What are you going to do about it?"

Chapter 5

The air in the room dropped a few degrees.

Something in Holt's eyes sharpened, just for a second. He stepped in, and before I could react, cold weight closed around my wrist.

He cuffed me. Clean, unhurried, his voice as flat as ever.

"Taking you in. We'll sort it out at the station."

He paused.

Then he bent, slow, until his mouth was almost against my ear.

"Isn't this what you always wanted?"

Warm breath. Cold words.

"Today I'll let you have it."

My face went up in flames before he'd even straightened.

Behind him the other officers called out something and filed off to sweep the next room.

Holt's gaze cut sideways. Frankie's hands flew up. "I'm clean! I have a boyfriend!"

Traitor, I told her with my eyes.

Every woman for herself, she told me back.

I still wasn't speaking to him when we got into the cruiser.

He spoke first. "Even if you're seeing someone new, that's not the kind of place to go looking."

Calm. Even.

It lit me up like a match.

I whipped around and glared at him.

"What's the alternative? At least they'll sing and pour drinks and try to make me smile, which is more than I got the night you left me in a restaurant for three hours. On my birthday. And when some creep had his hand on me and all I wanted was you, the view I got instead was you offering to drive another girl home."

Holt went rigid.

He looked at me, and his voice came out low and careful. "Someone put their hands on you. That night. Where."

"Oh, come on, Officer." I laughed through my teeth, all vinegar. "You're so resourceful. You really can't dig that one up? Not while you're busy driving girls home?"

"I'm sorry," he said.

This apology wasn't like the one at my door.

It came out heavier. There was something raw in it, something that cost him to say, and it stopped me cold for a second.

The quiet in the car spread out. That night came flooding back, and the sting and the grief rose right up with it.

I looked away and shut my mouth.

Then the hard pressure on my wrist eased. He'd taken the cuffs off.

These weren't the flimsy little toys I bought. The steel had already rubbed my wrist raw.

I tucked my hand up into my sleeve. My voice came out ugly. "Officer Holt cutting his suspect a break? What is this, guilt?"

"...Like you said." He turned his head away, not quite comfortable, and tugged at the tie against his throat. "I know what you look like after you've actually done that."

"So I know you didn't."

Chapter 6

My hand moved before I could stop it. I fisted his collar and dragged him around to face me. "Then what was the cuffing about?"

He held my eyes, steady, nothing to hide.

"Whatever the truth is, you confessed to a crime in front of a room full of people. Procedure says I bring you in."

He paused.

"...And don't go to places like that again."

Something went flat in me. I let go of his collar, made some sound of agreement, and quit talking.

I hadn't actually taken any "special services," but that place wasn't exactly clean, so at the station I sat through the standard round of questions anyway.

After I signed, Holt moved to walk me out. I stopped him.

"This is far enough."

I said it flat. Then the jab slipped out anyway.

"Officer Holt's a busy man. I never dared trouble His Highness even when we were together. Definitely not now that we're finished."

His lips pressed thin. "...Sorry."

I've never been good at holding my temper, and the sheer number of times this man had apologized to me tonight finally cracked something loose.

"Stop it. One more apology and I'm assaulting an officer."

"Righ"

He read my face and, wisely, shut up. Changed lanes.

"We closed the bust tonight. I'm not needed for the cleanup. Let me take you home."

So he really wasn't busy today.

And the very next thought that surfaced in my head was this: I wish today were my birthday.

Sera. You are genuinely done for.

I was working up to say something when a young officer leaned in around the door.

"Sarge, that girl's here to drop something off for you again."

Right behind the words, a familiar figure walked in.

The girl from that night.

She held a beautifully wrapped box, a ribbon tied on top, her smile soft and sweet. "Officer Holt, I baked these to thank you for saving me. I promise they're better than last time. Try one"

Cold water, straight over my head.

The little thought I'd had a second ago turned into the most ridiculous thing in the world.

No. I was the most ridiculous thing in the world.

I did not want to stand there and hear him say yes to her, the way I'd heard it that night.

So I grabbed my bag and walked out without looking back, and caught a cab home.

Chapter 7

"With a face like Houdini's, honestly the demand tracks. And after that night, he's got the whole saved-your-life thing going for him too."

Frankie was on my couch with a bag of chips, delivering her verdict.

"But Sera, come on. You're a catch. Who else pulls off financial freedom before she's even got a diploma? Rich, gorgeous, no shortage of guys in line. This one doesn't work, you swipe to the next."

"...It's not the same." I sniffed. "Holt's not like other people."

"Sure. Besides being hotter, better body, the whole uniform." She flapped a chip at me. "Situation. What else is so different?"

I opened my mouth.

And fell straight into a memory instead.

Of every guy I'd ever dated, Holt was the steadiest one by a mile.

Me, I'm what you'd politely call high-maintenance. Less politely, a full-blown princess.

The ones before him all wore out eventually and left. Holt didn't.

There was this one time. My period, my hair greasy, and I was cold and aching and refusing to leave the apartment but also, somehow, demanding to wash my hair, pitching a fit about the whole thing.

I swept everything off the nightstand onto the floor.

Holt swept it back up. Calm. Picked every last shard out of the carpet.

Then he ran the water, got the temperature right, set a stool at the right height, and laid me back to wash my hair for me.

My stomach was cold and knotting and the painkiller hadn't kicked in, so I hung off his arm and whined. "You're doing this on purpose. Washing my hair in the freezing cold so it hurts more."

Completely unfair. Completely invented.

He didn't even blink. He picked up the dryer and patted the spot in front of him. "Come here. I'll dry it."

Warm air, steam lifting off my hair, his damp, hot fingertips grazing my ear, my cheek. Somewhere in there my mind wandered clean off.

He switched the dryer off. The room went quiet all at once, and I caught his hand.

"Officer Holt. When my period's done, will you dry it for me then too?"

"Sure."

I looked into those cool, still, lake-water eyes. "And that. Will you do that for me too?"

"..."

His earlobe went red at a speed you could actually watch.

"You are really"

His throat rolled. He leaned down and kissed me instead of finishing.

"Yeah. That too."

"Earth to Sera."

Frankie's hand waved in front of my face and hauled me back out.

She stared at me. "That has got to be the hundredth time this week. Somebody says Houdini and two sentences later you're gone."

She didn't get to finish.

My phone went off.

That ringtone. The special one I'd set for him and never changed.

Holt.

Chapter 8

Three days later I was standing in Holt's precinct. Again.

"Miss Ellery, can you confirm for me. The man who verbally harassed you in the cab that night. This is him?"

The pure procedural flatness of it threw me for a second before the words landed.

I turned.

A leathery old face, those same murky eyes set into it, watching me with a look that was half grovel and half threat.

"A misunderstanding. It was all a misunderstanding"

"It's him." I didn't leave a crack of doubt. "And it wasn't just talk. He reached over to grope me."

Holt's gaze dropped a few more degrees.

"I took a cab that night. Somewhere around here, I had a thing to get to. I wasn't in the car two minutes before he started in on how good I looked in my dress. Whether I had a boyfriend."

The driver blew up. "A man can't tell you you've got a nice figure now?"

Holt's head turned. One look, sharp enough to draw blood, and the driver swallowed the rest of it.

When he faced me again the cold hadn't fully cleared out of his eyes. He looked like a blade somebody had just drawn from its sheath.

I lost two whole seconds to how good he looked before I could keep going.

"I told him I had a boyfriend. I even called you. You were busy, I guess. You hung up."

"He took that as a green light. Went for my thigh. I had a cake in my hands, so the cake went in his face."

With every word, the cold and the guilt in Holt's eyes thickened together like fog rolling in.

And watching it happen loosened something in my chest, so I asked it on purpose.

"This wouldn't count as disorderly conduct, would it, Officer?"

His lashes gave one small tremble. "It's self-defense."

"Your statement matches the in-car audio and the street cameras. We'll be handling this one seriously."

He closed the file. "Thank you for your cooperation."

A young officer walked me out and stopped me in the hall.

"Miss Ellery, the sergeant asked if you'd wait for him a minute."

I raised an eyebrow. "Wait for what? I cooperated. We're done here. The rest is your procedure, not mine."

"It's not about the case."

His voice came fast, close to urgent. "That night. It was my fault, really. My mom got rushed to the hospital, and the sergeant took my shift for me. Then a call came in while he was covering it. He caught it, and he got hurt on the"

A woman's voice sliced clean across his, forcing its way in.

"Officer Wesley? Is Officer Holt free?"

Chapter 9

I turned, and a foot away my eyes ran straight into the girl's.

She smiled, perfectly at ease. "Oh. It's you. Officer Holt's ex."

"...Sorry?"

If I couldn't hear the hostility packed into that, I'd have wasted my whole twenty-odd years on this earth.

"Do you need something?"

"I heard all of it that night." She said it like it entitled her to something. "Officer Holt saved my life. And I can't stand watching some princess with a chip on her shoulder come after him." She lifted her chin. "You're the one who ended it. So what is this? You regret it now, so you crawl back to cling?"

I laughed. It came out mean.

"I'm sorry, who are you, exactly? Let's get the facts straight. Your precious Officer Holt is the one who asked me to come down here today."

"And whether we broke up or get back together is between me and Holt. Since when does it come with your commentary?"

"Holt would never take you back." She had the nerve to sound certain of it. "A high-maintenance headache like you? He needs someone who understands his job. Someone supportive. Someone kind."

"Oh." I kept my face flat. "And that someone wouldn't happen to be you, would it?"

She tipped her chin up, looked me over slow, and then she smiled.

"I heard the only reason he ever dated you is because you hounded him until he gave in. No say in it at all."

She hadn't been there. She didn't know one true thing about him and me. She'd built the whole story out of air, wearing that little smile, and dressed it up as something she'd "heard."

The anger already lit in me went white.

But I didn't move.

She's the one who moved.

She stepped in and shoved me, both palms flat to my shoulder, hard enough to put me back a step. "Don't you look at me like that, you"

My hand was up before I'd caught my balance. It cracked across her cheek, clean and loud.

The whole hallway heard it.

Wesley lunged half a beat too late, close enough to have seen exactly who put hands on whom first.

I didn't go again. My chest was heaving and my palm was on fire, and I kept my hand down.

The glass door behind me swung open.

Holt stepped out, uniform crisp.

The girl saw him and her eyes went red on cue, tears spilling over fast and theatrical.

"Miss Ellery, you'd hit someone right in front of a police officer? Isn't that a little lawless?"

The wronged-little-flower routine.

She left out the part where she put her hands on me first. Wesley hadn't.

Wesley's face had gone tight. He took a half-step in, his eyes cutting to her. He'd seen exactly who moved first, and it was written all over him.

My lungs were about to catch fire, but I kept my hand at my side. Holt crossed to me in a few long strides and closed his hand around my wrist.

"Sera."

"Breathe," he said. "You're in a precinct."

I turned my head. He was looking down at me, and whatever moved behind his eyes was complicated.

And all at once the hurt and the anger came up together and spilled out of me.

"When you talk about me to other people, you tell them I hounded you. That I chased you down. That the only reason you were ever with me is that you had no choice."

"That's it, isn't it?"

Chapter 10