Learning To Trust Again

Jake looked at her in silence for a minute, as if he was weighing up her reason for asking. ‘I don’t think coffee will help with that’ he said.

Rebecca smiled. ‘Coffee never keeps me awake.’ She was really hoping he wasn’t trying to find a reason to decline.

 He shrugged, ‘yeah, okay. I could handle a coffee I guess. Where?’

Pleased he had agreed but trying not to feel too depressed by his apparent lack of enthusiasm, Rebecca pointed along the street to the left and said ‘there’s a restaurant not far along here that is always open late.’

‘Lead the way’ he replied in a gruff tone.

As they walked along they were once again silent. But Rebecca didn’t break it this time. She had decided to wait until he was sitting opposite her with no chance of evading her questions before she asked anything more. Instead she used the time to think about how best to approach getting to know him.

Within a few minutes they had reached the restaurant and were shown to a table near the front window. They ordered a coffee each. Taking off her scarf and her jacket, Rebecca hung them on the back of the chair along with her bag. She had settled on asking him about his work as a place to start. By picking a less personal subject, she hoped he might be more likely to want to talk about it. So as they waited for their drinks she asked ‘are you stationed around here?’

‘Yes and no.’ Jake replied with his usual minimal reply.

But then he surprised her by adding ‘I’m a Senior Sergeant in a specialised unit of the police force and our base is not far from here but it’s not a station exactly.

‘A Senior Sergeant’ Rebecca said, impressed. ‘That’s pretty high up isn’t it?’

‘Not really. It’s about the middle’ Jake replied ‘while there are a few ranks below me, there are plenty of ranks above.

‘So are you in like the bomb squad or swat or something?

‘Sort of’ Jake said.

Then remembering an article in the paper she’d read recently about another of these specialised police units, who use tasers and have advanced technology, her eyes widened. With awe evident in her voice, she said ‘oh are you one of the guys I’ve read about with all the extra training and negotiating skills?’

Giving her a wry smile, Jake said ‘extra training I’d agree with, but negotiation is not really my strong suit.’

‘I don’t know about that’ she said disagreeing with him ‘you did okay the other night with those guys.’

But shaking his head Jake negated her praise ‘nah that was straight out intimidation not negotiation. If they’d tried anything it would have been a whole other story.’

Smiling Rebecca refused to believe it, ‘I’m sure that’s not true Jake but I’m glad we didn’t have to put it to the test.’

‘You and me both’ he said with feeling.