She pulled cool air into her lungs shaking the thoughts away and made her way toward Ursula with Jenson's arm around her waist across the field.
"Hey Brawny man," she greeted with a smile. He gave her a side hug and she felt, as she did every time with Jenson, that this was a warm man who loved well. The amount of times that she had thanked an unseen force for bringing him to her best friend was uncounted but many.
"Is he here yet?" Ursula asked looking around. She was in loose jeans, tennis shoes, and a green pullover sweater with her black hair pulled into a long ponytail.
"Not that I know of," she said easily. "I don't even know what he looks like."
"Oh, I think I found him," Ursula's excitement was effervescent and Eloise followed where she was looking, and something caught in her throat.
A man, of average height, dressed appropriately in joggers, tennis shoes, and a thick pullover was walking toward them. What made something catch inside of her was that he wasn't alone. Detective Taylor White was with him, standing a few inches taller, in a similar outfit to the unnamed man who sheassumed was her date and he was horribly handsome in a baseball cap. Why did he have to come?
"Ladies," Taylor said, his blue eyes carefully glancing over Eloise before he nodded to Jenson as they clasped hands in a friendly hand-arm shake. "Good to see you, Jenson. I saw the updates your crew did on the library you were talking about the other night. You're an artist."
Jenson nodded with a smile, that pride that swells but doesn't bloom too large for a man of humility.
"I appreciate it. How's the SPD going? The new chief up to the job?"
"We'll see. He has his own way of things. Going to miss Tennyson."
"Tennyson was the reason I joined the force," the still unnamed man said. He turned to Eloise then and reached out a hand. "I'm Ivan." His voice was nice.
"Eloise," she replied. His handshake was firm. Too firm. Like he had taken a class onhow to own a boardroomwith a handshakeand passed brilliantly.
"Eloise, Ivan joined the force about a year ago. Eloise is taking over the coffee shop for Shellee until she's back. And don't tell Shellee, but the coffee is better now." He was careful not to look directly at Eloise for more than a polite moment and she felt it.
Ursula bumped her shoulder lightly and Eloise saw her friend's apple cheeks lift in a proud smile.
"Well, nice to meet you, Ivan."
"Want to walk a bit?" he asked and she joined him, waving to their small group as they left them behind. It felt a bit staged, like a scene in a movie, or perhaps how it felt in high school when you broke away from your gaggling group of girlfriends with a guy you liked.
She took a sip of her water and they stopped as the referee blew the whistle to start the game. Girls were ready with their warlike faces and stances firm.
"So is one of those yours?" he asked.
"One of the players? No," she said with a laugh. "Bess is a regular fixture at the house, though. Love the kid. Don't tell her I called her a kid," she said quickly thinking of rolling eyes and teenage annoyance directed at her.
"So what's it like living in that house?"
She looked at him. He was handsome, in a particularly bland way. There was nothing off-putting about his face, but there was nothing striking and she worried for a moment that she would forget what he looked like the moment this date was over.
"It's like finding a place that was waiting for you to get there," she replied thoughtfully.
He made an odd face and said, "That must be nice. I live in a very white apartment. It's pretty bland," he admitted, the echoing her own assessment of him making her feel a twinge of guilt. She was being too quick to dismiss him. With a wide smile and a resolve to start over she tilted her body to face him and smelled hay and something too cold, like freezer burn.
"But I mean, that's what women are good at, right?" His eyes were alight and she internally tensed for what he was going to say next. "All the decorating and stuff."
She covered up a pursed look by drinking from her water bottle. "Yeah, I suppose that is a female-forward hobby of sorts. Though I've known many men who also decorate."
He shrugged. "Guess I'm not one of them. I wouldn't say I'm very domestic."
She nodded slowly. Not decorating and not being domestic were worlds apart and she got a bad feeling, which she didn't have to wait long to have validated.
"I mean, I joined the force because I'm that kind of man, you know? I've always been into really manly things and hobbies. Three brothers. Lots of experience there. You know, fishing and hunting and we do marathons together. And my dad was a firefighter. Older brother too. Becoming a cop just always made sense to me, even though they like to give me hell for it," he laughed loudly and she smiled trying to hold onto that resolve from moments ago. Then he sobered and said, "I like helping and protecting the community." It felt like a line as if he were standing in front of a classroom of first graders for career day.
She nodded, the picture forming easily in her mind. She was about to ask about his mother but he continued talking.
"My two other brothers are race car junkies. They own a garage together fixing up cars in their free time and race them. Neither one of them is married, as you could probably guess," he joked.
