Page 7 of American Love Story

I was in no uncertain terms being told to mind my business. “That won’t work for long, boss.” I tried to sound cordial, because in the end, she had the last word. But ignoring this would not make it go away.

Cindy left without responding to what I’d said, which was probably something I’d have to deal with later. The frustration was rolling off Ron, but we’d gotten our marching orders. I sighed and sat down at my desk, closing my eyes for a moment. “Cindy’s right. At this point there isn’t much we can do other than keep an eye on it.”

Ron opened his mouth and then closed it, as if he knew he’d just hit a wall. “These things escalate and they are neverevera one-time thing. You know that, Easton. I mean you watch the news, you read. You pay attention.”

I glanced at the pile of folders I needed to review for court later and wanted to curse. None of us needed this shit right now. “I do, I also know, as you do, that we can’t just make demands from the sheriff’s department, especially when not much has happened.”

As soon as I said it, Ron’s face went stony. Then I realized how flippant I’d just sounded.

Fuck.

“I know this is notnothing, and that it’s going to scare a lot of people in the community, Ron.I know that.I’m not saying we should ignore it. I’m sayingyou and Ican’t take this on, no matter how much we’d like to.”

I kept the “not that I have any ideas” part to myself and thought of Patrice.

This was the kind of thing he would pick up on and go off on socials about. Just one more reason for him to not want to have anything to do with me. And that unhelpful and self-involved line of thinking needed to be cut off immediately anyway, because I was a lot of things, but I would not be fucking callous.

Ron’s silence told me that he was probably stuck, too, or at least giving up for now. I gestured to the untouched files on my desk and looked up. “Sorry man, I need to be in court in an hour, let’s talk about this later. Can you check in to ask exactly what happened and if this was the same officer who’s been getting other complaints?”

Ron looked annoyed but seemed to be on the same page as me. “I’ll see what I can find out. Not that the boss is going to let us move on any of it.”

I had a sinking feeling he was not far off. Cindy liked to keep all her ducks in a row when it came to our community and law enforcement partnerships. But this was not exactly something we could ignore. At least I wanted to believe we wouldn’t.

When I looked at Ron, his expression told me he was probably onto what I was thinking. “We’ll figure it out. I’m not going to let you down on this.” Ron looked about as confident as I felt about my statement, but it seemed like, for now, he was letting it go.

I took a few deep breaths and tried to push away the stress of the past half hour. There was nothing more I could do with this, and I had cases to work on. Just as I was settling down to lookat the docket for the day, I saw my phone buzz with a message. I smiled when I saw it was from Nesto.

Hey, man. Jude and I are having a little thing at our place on Friday, seven-ish.

I’m making a Dominican Sancocho (it’s a stew thing with a metric ton of meat in it) because only for Jude would I cook on my day off. Come thru, if you’re free.

The way the heaviness from moments before seemed to lift—at least in part—when I thought about running into Patrice was pretty pathetic. Before I talked myself out of it, I picked up the phone and texted back.

I’ll be there. Should I bring anything?

He replied almost immediately.

Nah man, just yourself. See you then.

Great. Thanks for the invite.

I got a fist emoji as a response.

The prospect of seeing Patrice was exciting and unnerving. This was all new territory for me, this level of anticipation to see someone…I wasn’t sure what to do with any of it, especially since Patrice was clearly not in the same place as me, but I didn’t succeed at my job by taking things sitting down. I wasn’t going to push if Patrice didn’t want to play, but I wasn’t going to hide away either.

Patrice

I was still digesting the conversation I’d had with Nesto about Easton when I walked into my office. I didn’t expect much human interaction until I headed to class later in the morning, and was checking my email when Brad Gunham, one of the associate professors in the economics department, walked into the office.

“Professor Denis.”

Brad was the reason people thought all academics were insufferable assholes. He went out of his way to let people know all the ways in which he was smarter than them and could not have a conversation without repeatedly attempting to throw shade or just outright offend. The first time he ever talked to me, he let me know we needed to “band together” since we were the only two minorities in the department.

Brad was white and both his parents were world-famous economists. I came to the States with my mom as a refugee from Haiti in the nineties, and she literally had to work three jobs to support us. But to Brad, the fact that we were both gay apparently made us homies and brothers in “the struggle.” It would’ve been funny if he wasn’t literally the master of micro-aggressions. I sighed internally and tried my best not to sound as weary as I felt when I finally answered.

“Hey, Brad.”

He had his usual sneer in place, indicating he was on some bullshit again, and I had literally zero patience for it right now. I had to play nice though. Brad had just gotten tenure and would most likely be on the committee that decided on mine when it came up. The chair of the department was also, from what I’d seen at least, very much a Brad fan, so I had to keep it polite, no matter how much this dude annoyed me.