"So..." Hot cop piped up after he'd proudly spread the blanket in a perfect swoop. "Have you ever been in love?"

I walked over to where he'd dropped the basket and spent my time picking it up and returning to the spread because I was barely ready to talk about his subject of interest.

"I'm seventeen," I informed in a matter-of-factly tone. "I'm supposed to be focused on my studies and what I want to become in the future, I'm too young for love."

He suddenly looked up from the basket of goodies he was perusing with amusement evident in his eyes as if I was relating a funny experience. I immediately knew he was going to ask a question, or say something I wasn't going to like.

"Are you though?" He enquired as I settled my derriere opposite him, on his spread. "Are you focused on your studies and what you want to become in future?"

And there it was; the million-dollar question.

"Consider me to be the stereotype of a bad student," was all I could manage in reply.

"From all I've gathered, you're not a bad student and you're definitely not a stereoty-"

"Not again, please," I interrupted with a frown. "Let's not do the 'Bella worship' shit, I can't stand it."

Hot cop looked genuinely perplexed when he replied;

"What do you mean 'Bella worship'? And why on earth is it so hard for you to just accept that you are better than you think you are?" His voice rose higher as he talked, telling me the tale of how he was beginning to get tired of my attitude to his 'compliments'.

Well, ditto. I was exhausted about his opinion of me too.

When he realised that my snatching the M&M's from beside his basket and tearing through the packet with silent frustration was my way of avoiding his answer, he continued to talk in that stern tone that announced our age gap.

"I won't ever stop telling you what I thi-no, what I know about you. It doesn't matter if you think it's me seeing you through a rose coloured glass. It doesn't matter if you think the worst about yourself, Bella, I'll keep telling you that I find you incredibly beautiful, smart, sweet, strong and one of a kind."

I stubbornly stayed silent, even though the strong conviction his tone held broke my heart and made it swell at the same time. I was now beginning to wonder if he was indeed right about me; maybe those beautiful eyes of his that gave the most penetrating gazes had seen something in me that nobody had been able to see?

I filled my mouth with the small, colourful pieces of chocolate I'd poured into my palm earlier for lack of what to do. A deep sigh sounded from Hot cop after several seconds of feeling his eyes on me. He resumed his rummage through his basket and maintained the silence that was only interrupted by crashing waves, shuffling and ruffling greenery.

I tried to adapt to the tension in the air, but it didn't work at all. I shifted uncomfortably at several intervals after Hot cop finally found what he was looking for-which turned out to be an oatmeal biscuit-and settled to eat it without breathing another word.

"To answer your question, I've never been in love. Never have and never will." I realised, only after the clumsy attempt to douse the tension, that I'd said the exact same thing earlier.

Not only have I failed to clear off the thick tension I'd somehow created, I had also added a large amount of awkwardness to the mix.

Joy!

"I see the way that... boy looks at you." Hot cop piped up all of a sudden in a voice that contrasted with his initial 'you must listen to me 'cause I'm older' tone. "And I'm sure you would have bashed his head in with a bottle if the feeling isn't mutual." He sounded playful, in fact, and the way he wriggled his perfectly arched brows in a knowing manner made me want to hide my face.

"I-" My voice broke. "I don't know what you're talking about." I offered my reply after clearing my throat. Hot cop only smirked and shoved a full, perfectly round slice of oatcookie in his mouth.

I pulled my knees closer to my body and hugged them, feeling stupid for telling coming up with such an obviously blatant lie.

"Some stupid high-school crush can't be compared to love anyways." I grumbled out loud in a bid to console myself and almost immediately Hot cop asked a question.

"How can you be so sure it's not love," He questioned with a raised brow. "I mean, it's not like you have loved anyone before to know the diff-"

"I loved Tiny!" I snapped before he finished. "I'll fucking know if it's love." He gave a mock look of surprise before chuckling his way to another slice of his oat biscuit.

"Ooh, I'm Bella!" He suddenly piped up in an annoyingly high sing-song voice. "I've never been in love and I never will, but I love Tiny and I don't know what I-"

I realised he was trying to mimick me too late.

"Shut up!" I cut him off in a mocking cold tone to return the favour, but I ended up sounding nothing like him. We both bursted into laughter as if we were cued to do so even though it was apparent that there wasn't anything funny about the situation.

"I sound nothing like that," I accused after catching my breath and he echoed my accusation with a smile, then we went on to hold a staring contest of sorts.

It was more like getting lost in each other's eyes and I tore my gaze away the moment I realised that was what it was.

"I don't love Dave," I found myself mumbling. "He's an idiot that feels important for no exact reason and he's annoying as hell and-"

"But you like him, don't you?" I could feel the knowing gaze of the hot cop, but I refused to match it with mine. "You shouldn't be scared to admit certain emotions-"

"But my sister likes him too," I had to cut him short, "as well as the entire female populace of the school."

"But that doesn't matter," Hot cop replied without missing a beat. "What matters is who he likes, and I'm sure that person is you."

"That is what scares the hell out of me, ho-sir. He told me he really likes me a few days ago and I really don't want our psycho murderer on his tail. I can't admit, not even to myself, that I like him until this serial killer is taken care of."

It went silent afterwards, a validation to the fact that I was somewhat right for refusing to let my emotions run wild. I refused to meet the penetrating gaze of the man who was hell bent on figuring out what my love life was like.

After a sigh, I felt his eyes left me and he returned to noisily munching on his cookie.

I realised, just then, that I'd unknowingly brought up the one subject we'd wordlessly agreed to not talk about, but before I could speak up in apology, Hot cop piped up with a cheery tone than usual.

"It's a relief to ascertain that you aren't a lesbo though." I shook my head at how uncreative he was at diversion and mentally flipped him a bird.

"Why don't you tell me all about your own love life?" I tried at a new conversation after a moment of silence spoke the volume of his failure to bring up one.

He simply chuckled and shook his head as if to say he wasn't interested. I huffed in dissapointment.

"Come ooon! You promised earlier to tell me all about it, don't be a spoilsport." I made sure to sound as whiny as possible as I reached for the nearest pack of something edible. I seemed to have hit the jackpot as I fished out my favorite brand of jellybeans.

"That offer expired long ago... when you declined my initial offer of a picnic?" He added the second part because he must have seen my puzzlement as to what I'd done to throw away such juicy offer.

I huffed in realisation and popped in more jellybeans in my mouth as if the sour sweetness of the coloured sugar would make up for the embarrassment and unsatisfied feeling.

I busied myself with closing my eyes and moaning in pleasure as I sucked at the jellies till my tongue began to feel the roughness of raw sugar. I opened my eyes to see Hot cop's eyes trained on me.

Michief overrode the sudden gallop of my heart, I narrowed my eyes playfully as I dropped the question that barely went through my brain for processing.

"I see the way Ruby looks at you, you love her, don't you?"

Since I've known him, I'd never been able to catch Hot cop off guard as much as I just did. He literally jumped to his feet and screamed his refusal so much that it scared a little bit of water away from the river bank.

"That is the most absurd thing I've ever heard," he cried after a humourless chuckle.

Yeah. Totally not suspicious at all.

"Okaaaay?" was all I could manage in reply.

"Ruby is far from my type. Trust me."

"Okay."

"I can never imagine myself in a lifelong commitment with Ruby, you see?"

"I don't see, but okay."

"You don't understand, the thing is, Ruby is my wife's cousin."

I almost stopped listening to his word vomit until he said the W word. It was my turn to be thoroughly thrown off guard.

"W-wife?" I exclaimed in incredulity. "Wife as in, you're married?!"

"Was." He replied as he planted his ass back on the sheet. "Was married for about two years. The marriage was annulled two years ago."

How old was this guy?!

I watched dazedly as Hot cop stood back up and fumbled around for something in his pockets. He walked over to where I sat and presented me with a small Polaroid he'd fished out of his wallet.

"Her name is Adesewa and I'm still very much in love with her. In fact, I'm doing all I am to prove that I'm worth her."

I didn't know how to feel about the new piece of information.

I felt stupid for ever thinking there was some sort of chemistry between a broken teenager that had no idea where her life was headed and some middle aged man that aged gracefully, married, probably with kids; goal, career, marriage oriented gentleman. I felt betrayed for the offhanded compliments the man showered me with when he was working his ass off to prove his worth to the woman he loved.

He probably thought of me as his younger sister, or worse, daughter and that was why he was being so nice.

The woman in the picture was almost white, she looked pompous and rich and very fleshy. She filled out her wedding gown so nicely and complimented the man she stood beside beautifully like a match made in heaven.

And I thought I could contend with that?

Ahh! Ella, you're such a duns!

Regardless of the burn in my chest, I listened to his love story in details. He told me how she stood by him since seventh grade till university level, practically training him when he lost his scorlarship. Hot cop told me the nollywood tale of how she came from opulence and fell for a church rat orphan that he was and stayed true to their love, regardless of how hard everyone in her life came against it.

I listened attentively to how she cut off many friends, relatives, and even her father -for a while, just so they could be together. It took abject poverty and her having several miscarriages due to improper nutrition during pregnancy to drive them both back to the money bag father that meticulously planned the end of their relationship.

Her father set her up with dates, put ideas in her head until they had a big row and she called him out for wanting to latch into her riches. Against Hot cop's grovelling, she annulled the marriage and flew out of the country with her parting words being that she'll be back after three years and reconsider their union if he'd proved himself worth enough to her father.

"I work in her father's special unit and this is sincerely my first big case for the past two years. I still have this feeling that man is trying to set me up for failure, but I am going to prove him wrong."

I decided to like Adesewa, his wife's name, because she was a real life nollywood princess, I decided to feel happy for Hot cop; he found his soul mate so early and he had someone that was worth fighting for. I decided to understand how big and important catching this psycho is for him as well and most of all, I decided to be honoured that he shared that much about him with me.

So I repaid the favour.

We spent the remainder of the evening getting to know each other better and I finally found out his first name, which I laughed profusely at due to the fact that I found it hilarious for a man like him to bear such a name as Jethro. I learnt he was really a sucker for sappy music with romantic lyrics and that he could sing.

He discovered I had a very sonorous voice and I could make good use of it when I wasn't busy flipping people off or smoking weed. He exhibited his displeasure, when he found I'd recently ditched basketball; the only thing I was quite decent at doing. He told me he still kept in touch with the orphanage he was raised and donates fifty percent of his salary for the upkeep of the orphans and another twenty to their caretakers.

By the time we were driving back into the school's compound, it was almost midnight and I had loosened up so much so that I could barely remember the ruckus I'd caused earlier on.

The car revved to a halt, but we both seemed to be hesitant to end the date, if that was what it was. I felt like alighting his car will be bursting the bubble of happiness we'd spent all evening building. When he placed his warm hand over mine on my lap, I knew he felt the same way.

"Thank you for..." my voice broke as I offered my gratitude so I stopped midway and he nodded to show he understood and acknowledged my appreciation.

The next few seconds was spent staring into one another's eyes and I secretly wondered if, like a stereotypical date, this would be ending with the married man and I smooching in the car that was gifted by his wife on their wedding anniversary.

The sudden knock at the car's window jolted me out of my sinful, shameful imaginations. Hot cop seemed quite surprised too as he had instinctively reached for his hand gun.

Because it was my side of the car that was knocked, I was able to see and recognise the intruder before the hot cop;

It was Dave.

A happy semi new year to everyone, or no one in particular. I trust you have all been good.

I am ashamed of myself, for ditching this story in the way I did and I know I might not even be talking to all my old audience at this point, but my apologies comes from a place of genuineness;

I really am sorry for promising and failing woefully to deliver regular updates on this story. There are no words to justify my absence throughout last year. Absolutely none, but one of my resolutions is finishing this book once and for all and I am determined to deliver on that.

adesewa_x, this chapter is for you and I hope you don't mind that a character of mine now bears your name. 🙂

Okay, these fillers have been dragging on for too long, I know. I promise action in all its horrific goriness for the next chapter, trust me.

Xoxo illusionistic. mention a user