The police department was a busy place to be. Her shift should have ended long ago but, somehow she had been roped into staying another few hours. The police detective didn't need to be told that she would most likely be late for her date with her girlfriend.
With a weary sigh, Rachael answered the phone at her desk. "Yeah," she groaned. "This better be good."
"I'm in trouble," she heard the voice on the phone utter barely above a whisper.
Rachael sighed with a smirk. Her longtime friend saying that there was another crisis in her life was not a new occurrence. Sarah was always in trouble. When was she not?
"What did you do, now, Sarah?" Rachael had asked with a laugh.
Hours later as she drove home, Rachael wondered if perhaps she should not have been so quick to dismiss her friend's words as nothing more than Sarah overreacting to a minor problem.
"If this is nothing out of the ordinary," Rachael asked herself, "then why am I so worried about it? It doesn't make sense. Sarah is hiding something."
Resting her chin against her fist, she looked ahead to the steady traffic that was threatening to make her even more late for her date with her girlfriend, Gale. Unfortunately, this had not been the first time that she had not been on time for one of their dates.
Gale was beginning to become accustomed to it which Rachael couldn't say particularly settled well with her. Why should she be happy that her girlfriend expected her to be late? And yet, this was just a part of her life as a police officer. Things came up. She hoped that Gale would understand. Much to her surprise her girlfriend was doing just that which usually tended to be a problem with her girlfriends.
Battling traffic turned out to be more dangerous than any criminals Rachael had ever faced. She was more than happy, when she finally arrived to the safety of her home. This contentedness grew leaps and bounds as she enjoyed her hot shower.
It was just before 8:00pm, when Rachael jogged lightly down the front steps of her Dallas home, seeing a black convertible parked along the curb. She smiled at the woman, leaning against it with crossed arms.
"Is that what you're wearing?" Gale asked with a smirk.
Rachael looked down at her jeans and her white t-shirt. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" she asked. Her smile intensified as she drew closer to her lover. "You like me this way."
The twenty year old Latin woman looked away with both a blush and a smile. "Are you ready?"
Laughing under her breath, the police detective could not get over how obvious that subject change had been. Her lover was terrible about avoiding topics concerning emotions, whatever those happened to be, even something as simple as her liking of Rachael's clothes.
"Wanna take my truck?" Rachael pointed over her shoulder to the black Ram in the drive.
Gale arched her eyebrow as she looked over to the menacing 4X4. As a petite woman, a truck, especially a large truck with a roll bar, lights package and its— she winced— lift kit, was just too much for her. "Sure, lover. I've been practicing my pole-vault," she joked.
It wasn't a big surprise to her that Gale wouldn't jump at the chance to take her truck. Rachael knew that they would take her girlfriend's car which suited her just fine because Gale always let her drive the Corvette. When she was tossed the keys to the 1967 black convertible, she did not suppress her smile. She darted a kiss to her lover's cheek before eagerly pushing her out of the way so that she could move into the driver's side. Her eyes followed the young woman walking around to the passenger side.
Slipping behind the wheel, Rachael relaxed in her seat. A faint frown wrinkled her forehead.
"What's wrong?" Gale asked fastening her seatbelt.
Shaking her head, Rachael said, "Someone short has been in here."
Gale laughed as her lover adjusted the driver's seat to allow the room needed for her longer legs. "Someone short, huh?" she chuckled. "Damn those short people driving your car."
Giving Gale a wicked grin, Rachael nodded in agreement. "I'm telling ya. This car always has the seat way too close to the wheel. How am I supposed to drive with my legs all bunched up like that?"
"It's a mystery. I mean, who would do that?"
Rachael shrugged, starting the powerful engine with a rev. "I don't know but, if I catch 'em, someone's getting handcuffed."
Offering her wrists, Gale smiled. "Oo, I confess. I did it."
Playfully slapping her girlfriend's hands, Rachael took relief in their playing. It had been a long day and having this chance to unwind with Gale certainly helped a great deal.
"Come on," she said forcing herself to be serious. They were going to have a hour long drive north of Dallas to Sarah's country home. "We need to hurry or we are going to be really late. I told Sarah that—"
"Sarah?" Gale held up her hand, putting an end to her lover's sentence. "What are you talking about?"
"Sarah... you know my friend for years," Rachael reminded in a sarcasm-filled voice. "The woman that we are meeting."
Gale closed her hazel eyes, taking a long moment to collect her thoughts.
Rachael squirmed a bit under the silence emanating from her girlfriend. Silence was never a good sign, she told herself. She waited for Gale to speak and let her in on the reason that she was so upset.
"You forgot; didn't you?" Gale whispered.
"Forgot what?"
"I told you that we had plans, tonight."
Rachael knew that her memory was not always great but, she could not think of anything that she had forgotten. "Yeah, we have plans with Sarah."
"Dammit, Ray! That is not what we were supposed to be doing, tonight!"
"Well, then remind me what we are supposed to be doing."
Gale held her breath for what Rachael thought must have been just long enough for the woman to pass out. Then, finally after exhaling a long weary breath, she turned away. With a wave of her hand, she said, "Hurry, Sarah is expecting us."
