(no subject)
Ammy and Arthur both jumped like they’d been electrocuted. Ammy shot back across the seat so fast that if the passenger door latch had been faulty or not fully engaged she might have spilled right out onto the pavement.
Harsh white beam. Largish torso shape behind it. The backsplash of light glinting on belt, buttons, badge. And beyond that, a PPD patrol car parked slantways across several spaces.
Arthur stared at Ammy, wide-eyed. She stared back the same way. Twisting her ponytail, chewing her lip. He braced himself and rolled down the window. Which was, she saw, a little bit steamy … and her blush heated.
“Is there a problem, Officer?” he asked, his expression announcing that he could not believe he was saying those words, or in that tone.
The flashlight centered on him for a long moment during which the policeman said nothing. Hair goop, letter jacket, jeans, ‘caught/guilty’ look.
Then the beam moved to Ammy, though it hardly needed to as she must have been just about glowing in the dark, her face felt so hot. She smiled weakly, huddled against the door, poodle skirt kind of bunched in her lap, one bobby-soxed ankle hooked over the other, knees tucked in as ladylike as was possible.
The officer was a solid man maybe in his mid-fifties, comfortable career cop with a beefy build and a donut gut over his gunbelt. He swung the beam briefly into the back seat, maybe to see if it was empty, maybe looking for beer or something, but not seeing anything of the sort.
He continued looking in at them for another long moment or two. None of them said anything.
Then he aimed the light at an angle so it wasn’t shining right in their faces. “Please tell me costume party. I’ve got a three-day weekend starting at the end of my shift, and the paperwork on a Temporal is a pain in the neck.”
They blinked at him.
“Uh … no, sir, not a Temporal,” Arthur said.
“Skate hop at the Roll-a-Rama,” Ammy added.
“Skate hop.”
“Uh-huh.”
“At the Roll-a-Rama.”
“Uh-huh, in Galaxy City?”
“Right.” He looked back at Arthur. “This your car, son?”
Arthur shook his head.
“It’s, um, my gramma’s,” Ammy said.
He looked back at her now. His mouth was downturned and stern, but the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Tell me, miss, does your gramma know where you are and what you’re doing?”
“… yeeeeeessss …” she moaned, mortified, putting her hands over her face.
“It was her gramma’s idea, actually,” Arthur said.
“Was it now.” Looking at him. Lips twitching.
“Yessir.”
The policeman paused. “Do I know you, son?”
“Uh … I … I don’t think so, Officer?”
“You look familiar.”
Arthur smiled vaguely and shrugged. Under the vague smile, Ammy could see how embarrassed he was, as much at being ambushed - even if it was by one of the good guys, a police officer - at the situation they’d been caught in.
Another long moment as cop studied them. One hand aiming the flashlight. The other resting at his hip, above the butt of his service pistol. “Hmm. All right, you two.”
They flinched in unison.
“Get yourselves out of here. Neighborhood’s crawling with Pantheon this time of night. No place for a couple of kids.”
“Yessir!” Arthur said in a relieved rush.
“Thank you, Officer!” said Ammy.
“Buckle up.” Grinning, he retreated to the side of his patrol car, still watching as they hastily buckled up.
Arthur rolled up the window. He dropped the keys on the floormat while trying to start the ignition, muttered frantically under his breath as he fumbled around to recover them, almost dropped them again, finally got the car going, stalled it, made an aggravated noise that was close to a howl, and then the engine turned over.
“Don’t back into him,” Ammy said, smothering a giggle.
“Gee, thanks, that helps loads.”
She craned around to watch the policeman through the rear window, and saw him suddenly give a start, jawdrop, and gape at them. He mouthed a word that looked like, Pearce?!
“Um …” With more giggles, a bubbly hysterical string of them.
“What?” asked Arthur, reversing carefully in a veeeeeery slow arc.
“I think,” she said, “that he just worked out who you are. He could have just asked to see your license, gosh.”
“Oh jeez.” He drove at a sedate speed out of the turnaround, signaled, and then they were back on the Argo Highway. “That would have been bad.”
“Why ‘oh jeez’? Why bad? Worried your dad might get mad at you?”
“Among other things.”
Ammy hesitated.
Did he mean … that if Bex found out he’d been at Inspiration Point with … with her … even if they hadn’t done anything … but still … how could she have let this happen? How could she have agreed to this at all, being here with another girl’s boyfriend? No matter how much she loved him and how much she might wish she could be with him, for real, for real like he’d said, how could it be that way?
And why was it up to her to … to … be the one who had to …
In a small, shamed, pained voice, she asked, “You … you mean … Rebecca?”
“What?” The car veered a little as he looked at her. Shocked, somehow. Alarmed. “Wait … Amelia … wait. Listen to me. This isn’t about Bex. Not at all.”
“How can you say that?”
“Wait. Please. Listen.” He struggled with his words for a moment. “Bex and I … we … we agreed to … to not … we … we’re not together anymore.”
“What?” she whispered. “What, since when?”
“Since … since a while ago. Before … before everything that happened with Glad Rags.”
She stared, wide-eyed. “You … you didn’t tell me …”
“I didn’t tell anybody. Except Mom, and even then, I didn’t tell her so much as she …” He shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret … I just didn’t really know how to tell anybody, how to talk about it. We just kind of … drifted.”
“Oh.” Blinking, and feeling stunned. “But then … what … why, with the policeman …”
He blushed again. “I … uh … don’t actually have my license yet.”
Ammy boggled. “What? Wait, what? But Gramma …”
“Asked if I was a safe driver.”
“But …”
“I am!”
“I know, gosh, but …”
“I have a regular permit, and I’m trained in advanced and defensive driving techniques.” He said the last part with the slight alteration in tone she had grown to recognize as code for Mid-Knight made sure of that, all right. “Better with a motorcycle, but more than competent with a car. Just never got around to making it official with the license. Other more important stuff kept coming up, and we live in a city with an excellent public mass transit system, and …”
“You … you’re … breaking the law … you …” She fell against the seatback, laughing so hard her stomach hurt.
“Amelia! It isn’t funny!” Except then he started to laugh too.
“Sorry …” - giggle! - “… sorry …”
“Are you going to arrest me?”
“Gosh no, but … why … if you don’t have a license, why did we …?”
“Because … well, because I …” He stopped at a light, and glanced at her. “I wanted to spend time with you.”
She melted. “Ohhh …”
Arthur cleared his throat. “But, I, uh, guess it is getting pretty late.”
“Yeah … I guess it is.”
“I should take you home.”
“Probably …”
“The, uh, the next cop might not be so understanding.”
“And you without a license.” Giggle.
“Don’t start again,” he warned, reaching over as if to tickle.
“Eek!” She swatted at his hand. “Safe driver, remember?! Safe driver!”
“I am, I am!” He put both hands back on the wheel to prove it, then asked, “Do you have your license?”
“Well … no … not yet.”
“Then you’ve got no room to talk, cupcake.”
“I’m not the one driving!”
*
(( to be continued … ))
**