Between the Pages and the Badge 3
When plus-size bookseller Emilly Hart agrees to one drink with friends, her ordinary night in L.A. spirals into danger-and an unexpected rescue by stoic LAPD officer Tim Bradford. As their worlds collide, Emilly learns that sometimes the bravest chapter starts with letting someone in.
The bar was more crowded than last time.
The lights flickered in warm, golden tones, and the music pulsed in the background like a soft heartbeat. Almost everyone was already at the table in the corner—Lucy was telling a story with a wide smile, Nyla was studying the menu intently, Celina had already ordered a drink with a blue paper umbrella, and John and Aaron were joking about something I didn’t understand.
And standing beside them was Tim.
For a second it felt like someone squeezed all the air around me. He looked… ordinary.
A gray shirt, sleeves rolled up, hair slightly tousled.
No badge. No handcuffs at his belt.
Just him—tall, steady, with that inexplicable something that makes it hard to look away.
Alice nudged my shoulder, like she was saying: go, breathe, live.
Smiles, greetings, chairs scraping the floor, someone shifting glasses to make space for me—right next to Tim. Coincidence. Or not.
“Hi,” he said. A simple word. But his voice… always sounded like something more.
“Hey,” I managed. “Looks like we’re running into each other again.”
“Seems that way,” he answered gently.
Nyla raised a brow.
“It’s only the second time and I can already feel the energy.”
Lucy snorted.
“Alright, before we start picking out wedding dates, I propose a game.”
“Oh no,” Tim muttered, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Comfort book!” Celina announced, as if it would fix everything in the world. “Everyone names a book, movie, whatever, that makes them feel like the world isn’t on fire. One sentence why. We go in order.”
John started with some war film because “truth always wins in the end.”
Aaron named a poet I didn’t know, but he said it so softly and warmly that everyone fell quiet for a moment.
Lucy, of course, threw in a rom-com.
Nyla—a true-crime documentary (which everyone greeted with solemn nods of understanding).
Celina confessed to an animated movie with a talking llama. Laughter rolled over us like a wave.
“Jane Eyre. Because Jane didn’t let herself be broken,” she answered without the slightest hint of a joke.
“Bradford,” Lucy prodded him. “Your turn.”
Tim looked at the tabletop for a moment, like he was considering every possible escape route.
“I don’t have one,” he said at last. Not uncertain—just honest. “I haven’t found anything yet that… brings me peace.”
I don’t know why, but before I could think, the words slipped out of my mouth:
“A comfort story isn’t the one that promises it’ll be okay…”
Everyone looked at me.
But I was only looking at him.
“…it’s the one that shows you can keep going. Step by step. Breathing.”
His gaze stayed on me longer than I should have let it.
Like he was really listening.
Like he… understood me.
“Sounds like something I could read,” he answered quietly.
At some point the game dissolved into conversation and laughter, and someone suggested pool.
Tim looked up.
“Not very well,” I admitted, tucking my hands into my sleeves.
“Good.” A slight smile. “I don’t play much either.”
Maybe I was the only one pretending to believe that.
But I took it with gratitude.
The pool table gleamed green. Angela and Aaron lined up against each other. Lucy and John cheered from the side.
When I leaned in to take a shot, my hand trembled.
“May I?” Tim asked, before stepping closer.
His hands settled over mine—sure, but with room for my breath.
He didn’t press. He didn’t intrude.
He just was.
I felt his warmth through the thin fabric.
I knew I should step away.
I didn’t want to.
“Watch the ball,” he said softly. “Breathe. Slow.”
Strike.
Flash.
The ball… in the pocket.
Angela’s eyes went wide.
“Oooo, the magic begins.”
Tim stepped back, leaving a hollow where he’d been and thicker air behind him.
“See?” he murmured. “You did that.”
I didn’t know if he was telling the truth.
After a few rounds I stepped out to the patio for air.
The night was warm, smelling of asphalt and the lemon on my wrist.
In the distance came Lucy and Celina’s laughter.
“You okay?” His voice was like a gentle bass line from a song you feel more than hear.
I looked at him. He held a plastic cup of water.
“I brought this… in case you needed a break,” he explained.
I took the cup, my fingers brushing his.
A tremor.
Again.
I leaned on the cool railing.
The city winked in neon, as if trying to tell us something.
For a while he didn’t say anything.
But his silence was… good.
The kind that doesn’t weigh on you.
The kind that makes space.
“Sometimes the hardest thing is to make room to breathe,” he said at last.
“And yet here it is,” I answered, watching the streetlights. “All it took was stepping outside for a minute.”
Tim nodded, like he was bookmarking something important.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said calmly, without any smirking subtext.
Just the truth.
My heart… skipped something.
I opened my mouth to answer—but didn’t get the chance.
The patio door swung open.
“Hey! You two!” Angela leaned out. “Second round’s starting! If Bradford doesn’t come back, Lucy’s going to start on her conspiracy theory again about how pool was invented by someone from SWAT.”
Tim laughed under his breath.
He laughed.
A small miracle.
I looked once more at the city.
At the cup in my hands.
At him.
“Yes,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We went back inside—back to the laughter, the lights, the pool table, and the people who were apparently starting to become something like… a team.
And somewhere deep inside me a quiet hunch stirred that this was only the beginning.
The bar began to empty out. The music softened, a waitress gathered the empty glasses, and one of the last flickering lamps burned above our table.
The light had something soft in it—something that made you speak quieter, sit closer.
Lucy sprawled on the couch, telling some story about a cat escaping from the precinct.
Angela and Celina were laughing to tears.
Aaron and John were analyzing the pool score like it was a key FBI operation.
And I… was sitting next to Tim.
Not too close.
But close enough to feel the warmth coming off him.
Close enough to notice every smallest movement of his hand.
“Tired?” he asked quietly, his voice wrapping around me like a warm blanket.
“A little.” I smiled faintly. “But in a good way.”
He nodded, like he knew exactly what I meant.
“Do you go out like this often?” he asked, not looking at me yet, just turning his glass in his hand.
“Is it that obvious?” I laughed softly.
“Maybe everyone here just knows you like the quiet,” he answered, lifting his eyes to me.
There was a kind of attentiveness in them that made my heart work harder—but didn’t hurt.
“True,” I admitted. “But it’s probably good to step out of the hideout sometimes.”
“Especially if the hideout smells like paper and coffee,” he added, half a joke.
My lips parted in surprise.
“You remembered?”
“I like… remembering,” he said after a beat, and something in his voice made my breath catch for a second.
Lucy suddenly clapped her hands.
“Hey, crew!” she said, standing and wobbling a finger in our direction. “I’ve got an idea! Everyone has to say one thing they like most about the person on their left!”
I froze.
On my left sat Tim.
And on his—me.
“Lucy, this is the worst idea,” Tim murmured, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“The best,” she corrected. “We start with… Brad-fooooord!”
Everyone was watching.
Tim straightened, like someone had just told him to give a report.
He looked at me—and the whole world went quiet.
Really.
I didn’t hear the music.
I didn’t hear the other tables.
Just his breath. And my own.
“I appreciate…” he began slowly, choosing words like someone who doesn’t throw them around lightly, “…that you don’t try to be someone else just to fit in.”
My eyes widened in surprise.
My inhale stalled on my lips.
“And that—” he added more softly “—you look at people like you really see them.”
It wasn’t a throwaway compliment.
It landed exactly where I’m usually invisible.
“Okay, okay!” Lucy cried theatrically. “Rom-com level unlocked! Now Emilly!”
My heart tried to break free.
But first I had to breathe.
I glanced at his hand on the table—strong, steady.
At his gaze—warm, under all that caution.
At his presence—which didn’t try to overtake me, just… be there.
“I like—” I began quietly “—that you don’t say much…”
His brow twitched with amusement.
“…but what you do say actually matters.”
Angela smacked her lips meaningfully.
“Well I guess we don’t have to say anything,” she muttered to Lucy. “It’s all clear.”
Tim shook his head with a small smile, like he was trying to wave off all that commentary—but his eyes came back to me. And stayed.
In that look was thanks.
And a promise.
And something else, too fresh to name.
“Shall we?” Alice asked after a moment, hooking her arm through mine. “It’s late, and you’ve got work tomorrow.”
I nodded and started gathering my things.
The crew said their goodbyes—hugs, jokes, promises of “next time I’m winning.”
“Thanks for tonight,” he said. “It was… good.”
“Good,” I repeated, “is a good word.”
Silence stretched between us. But not the awkward kind—the kind you want to keep.
“See you, Emilly,” he said, saying my name like he was savoring it.
As we walked out, Alice snorted softly.
“There’s chemistry, no doubt.”
“Don’t start,” I groaned.
“I’m not starting.” She smiled like someone who can see the future. “It’s starting itself.”
We stepped out into the street, where the cool wind finally brought relief and the lights of nighttime Los Angeles blurred into gold and rose.
And for the first time in a long time, the days ahead didn’t feel empty.
In fact—I felt like they were just starting to fill up.
The warmth of the evening was still in the air when I got out of the car and closed the door to my apartment behind me.
The AC purred softly, greeting me with familiar relief.
I kicked off my shoes where they fell and leaned my back against the door.
It was past one in the morning.
My heart had never worked so hard from… a simple night out with friends.
I pushed off the door and walked to the kitchen. I filled the kettle, even though I wasn’t planning on tea.
I needed something to do with my hands.
Echoes of the past few hours were everywhere—his gaze, his voice, Lucy’s laughter still somewhere in the background, punctuated by Angela’s commentary.
I turned on only the small lamp on the windowsill so the room wouldn’t be completely dark.
The light reflected in the glass, blending the inside with the remains of the night outside.
I lifted the blind a little.
The street was almost empty.
A few scattered lights, the distant hush of a car, the slow breathing of Los Angeles sleeping in its own noise.
I touched the pane with my fingertips.
The chill of the glass met my hot skin, like two worlds trying to find common ground.
I could still see him looking at me at the table.
How he listened—really listened—when I talked about stories that save your breath.
How he said he was glad I was there—so simply, so honestly that I ran out of something to say.
I shouldn’t be feeling this so much.
Not after one almost-meeting and one evening.
Not for a man I only know from brief conversations and smiles you could count on one hand.
But feelings don’t follow rules.
They never have.
At some point I must’ve made tea without realizing it.
The mug steamed in both my hands—an anchor meant to keep me in place.
I sat on my couch.
The same couch that, every day, held my exhaustion and doubts.
Now it held something that was at once lighter and heavier.
I took a sip—hot, citrusy, familiar.
And then a thought cut through the night like a lighthouse beam:
Is he thinking about me too?
Did he go home and forget?
Was this evening just one of many for him—or did he feel that something that still wouldn’t let me go?
I closed my eyes and tipped my head against the cushion.
I wanted to keep this moment.
This… delicate sprouting of something new.
Uncertain.
But real.
“I don’t know who you are,” I whispered into the quiet, like that other night by the window, “but because of you I want to breathe again.”
My phone blinked softly on the table.
A new message.
My heart stopped for a second before it sped up again.
I reached for the phone, adrenaline skittering up my spine.
I hovered a finger over the screen.
Maybe I shouldn’t believe in coincidences yet—
but maybe sometimes it’s exactly coincidences that lead us to the most important places.
The apartment went still, like it was waiting too.
I took a breath.
I tapped.
The screen lit the half-dark.
For a split second, hope.
Stupid. Naive.
But when I saw the name…
something inside me froze.
Four letters that once sounded like the future.
Now like a fist closing around my heart.
Just that.
And yet… it contained everything.
The memories I’d tried to bury.
Words that hurt so much I still have scars under my ribs.
Silence that always fell on me like a sentence.
I sat up straighter, like that could stop the rush of thoughts.
Like changing my posture could change the past.
My breathing quickened.
The skin on my arms tightened automatically—instinct, not “longing.”
The body remembers before the mind can say anything.
For a moment I stared at the screen without unlocking the phone.
As if an unread message had less power.
My head whispered: “Don’t answer.”
My heart added: “Don’t let them convince you that you have to.”
For a second—just one—the question I hate surfaced:
“What if he really wants to talk?”
“What if he changed?”
But I remembered.
Clearly.
Every time he apologized only to take another piece of my self-worth away.
I set the phone back on the table.
And yet my eyes kept drifting to the screen like a magnet.
The taste of bitterness filled my mouth, though I’d just drunk something sweet.
That bitterness was what he always left behind.
I pulled my knees in, drew the mug closer—like a shield to protect me from something I no longer wanted in my life.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Just like Tim said at the table.
And then I remembered something important:
The evening, the laughter, hands guiding mine over the green felt.
His steady voice.
His… care. Without expectations.
Not cutting remarks.
Not judgments.
Not a silence that punished.
I let the air out of my lungs.
I reached for the phone again.
Not to reply.
Just to block the chat.
One motion.
For a moment it felt strange—like taking off a too-tight ring that supposedly belonged to me but only cut into my skin.
“Not anymore,” I said softly to myself. “You don’t have access to me.”
I stood up, setting the mug down.
In the hallway mirror I saw my face—tired, a little, but calmer than it had been a minute ago.
And for the first time in a long time, I felt that I was the one deciding.
Not him.
Not the past.
I glanced once more at the windowpane—at the city shining like it was waiting for the next step.
Maybe I’ll take it tomorrow.
Slowly. Breathing.
And maybe… I won’t take it alone.
Morning came too soon.
Light pushed through the crack in the curtains, sharp, like it wanted to wake me from thoughts that didn’t want to end.
Yesterday’s tea still sat on the table—cold, with a lemon film on the bottom.
The phone lay face down. I didn’t want to look at it.
I didn’t want to go back to that message. To those four words that could lift the weight of all my memories.
I brewed fresh tea and let the silence fill the space.
It wasn’t pleasant. But it was honest.
By the time I reached the bookstore, the city was only just waking up.
The sun glinted in café windows, and the wind carried the smell of fresh rolls from the bakery on the corner.
Inside, I was greeted by the familiar door creak, the cool breath of the AC, and that scent—paper, dust, and something that always felt like a beginning.
I took my place behind the counter.
The day moved slowly.
A few customers, a few ordinary conversations.
No surprises.
Until the bell over the door chimed again—muffled, like it wasn’t sure it should.
An older man stood in the doorway. Elegant, in a gray coat even though it was warm outside. His hair was gray, lightly dusted with the ash of time, and his gaze held something familiar—a kind of gentleness I remembered from years ago.
I knew that face.
Not at once, but after a second, the memory returned like a photo pulled from the bottom of a drawer.
“Mr. Lewis…?” I asked uncertainly.
He smiled gently.
“Emilly Hart. I didn’t think it possible you’d recognize me after all these years.”
I froze, bracing my hands on the counter.
I hadn’t seen him in… four? Maybe five years.
Claire’s father.
Claire—my friend from back then.
Before everything fell apart. Before Michael.
Before the quiet messages and hollow calls.
“This is a nice surprise,” I managed finally, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “How are you?”
“I’m trying,” he said, with the same smile that always had a trace of melancholy. “Actually, I came for something for Claire. It’s her birthday next week.”
Her name hit me softly but squarely.
It didn’t hurt—not like it used to—but it stirred something long extinguished.
“That’s lovely that you remembered,” I said after a moment. “Anything specific?”
“She once said she always liked when you chose books for her,” he replied, and a knot formed in my throat. “So I thought maybe… you’d do it one more time.”
I stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say.
Memories returned in a rush:
long afternoons in cafés, our talks about the future, laughter that felt immortal back then.
And then—the chill. The silence. Her message that sounded like a verdict:
“I can’t choose between you.”
And that choice—never landed on me.
“How is Claire?” I asked quietly.
“Good.” He nodded. “She works at a law firm. Has a little boy. She’s happy. But you know…”
He trailed off.
“Some people, even if they’ve left, still stay in our stories. I think you were one of those for her.”
I felt a sting behind my eyes.
“I don’t know if she’d want that.”
“Maybe not then. But now?” He smiled faintly. “You know, Emilly, over the years you learn one thing—time doesn’t fix everything, but it gives you the chance to see differently.”
I turned to the shelves to hide my emotions.
My fingers reached for a book on their own.
I didn’t deliberate. I just knew.
Dickens’s Great Expectations—her favorite author, my safe choice.
I handed him the book.
“I think she knows it. But maybe this time she’ll read it differently.”
Mr. Lewis accepted it with gratitude, paid, and tucked it into a canvas tote.
He was about to leave when he paused at the door.
“You know, Emilly…” he said, turning back with a small smile. “Sometimes we meet people a second time not to go back, but to truly say goodbye to what never had an ending.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I whispered.
He nodded and left.
The door closed softly behind him, and the bell above it chimed like the last note of a forgotten melody.
I stood for a while, gripping the counter, until the air returned to my lungs.
I didn’t feel pain.
Or regret.
Just something like relief.
Like someone had taken out a bookmark from my life that I hadn’t needed in a long time.
I sat on the stool with my tea, which had already gone cold.
Outside, Los Angeles throbbed with life, and for the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel the need to escape into the past.
That day, when I closed the bookstore, the sun set slower.
The light was gentle, warm.
Like someone had finally turned down the volume in my head.
Before I left, I thought:
Not every meeting is meant to say “come back.” Some are meant to say “go on.”
I switched off the light.
