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It was uncomfortably warm in the pub so Ellie made her way outside to the beer garden. She was unsurprised to see several of her colleagues smoking there. Reg had been with uniform long before Ellie’s first day and his retirement party had packed out the small pub. Her quest for some fresh air had already been impeded twice on the way to the back door by people stopping her for a chat.
The wine had given her a warm glow inside that was only increased by the lingering heat of the day. Though it was getting late, the sun was feeling as lazy as the rest of them and was still visible over the sea. After the stress of the last few weeks, it was nice to turn off for an evening and laugh with friends. Even the darkest depths of humanity couldn’t destroy this feeling for her.
The big surprise of the evening was sat at one of the picnic benches right at the edge of garden, most likely to avoid the people or the cigarette smoke. Alec Hardy has caused an audible gasp from those who heard him accept the invite to come along to the party. Even Ellie, who knew him best, asked him again an hour later just to make sure he had heard correctly.
“Most of the station will be there.”
“I know.”
“Drinking. Talking. Laughing.”
“Aye.”
“ Laughing. ”
“Haven’t you got work to do?”
It was undoubtedly strange to see him there. More strange was that a few of the braver officers had elected to sit with him almost as if to enjoy the novelty of seeing a hermit socialise while it lasted.
Ellie edged through the crowd and blinked when she saw Hardy smile at something someone said. When his reply was met with a roar of laughter, she took a sip of her drink to make sure it was white wine and not paint thinner.
“Ellie!” cried one of the men still smiling from Hardy’s joke. His name was Lewis and she was certain he usually avoided Hardy at every opportunity. “You didn’t tell us Shit Face had a sense of humour.”
“I hadn’t noticed.” She smirked at Hardy and noted the relaxed smile on his face and suspected he was leaning against the wall behind him for support more than anything else.
“Shit Face?” he asked and the group went silent.
“Oh, didn’t you know, Hardy?” Ellie glanced at Lewis’ horrified expression. “That’s what everyone used to call you.”
He considered this for a moment. “They had a fair point.”
The group fell about laughing, more from relief than anything, and Ellie stared disbelievingly at Hardy. He shrugged and she noticed the way he was fidgeting with a beer mat. She began to suspect the real reason he hadn’t excused himself was that he was cornered in and was too tipsy to leave without being noticed.
Knowing the men around her the way she did, it was fairly easy for her to turn the conversation onto her kids’ latest school reports. It was less than ten minutes before most of them had peeled away in search of a more raucous group and tequila shots.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Hardy muttered as he finished his pint.
“Please. You looked like you were drowning in testosterone.”
“I was fine.”
“You were bored.”
He made a face.
“I’m proud of you. It’s been nearly two hours and you’re still here.”
“I’m not nearly bad as you make me out to be.”
“Maybe,” Ellie conceded, “but this isn’t really your scene.”
There was a short pause and Hardy considered the people that surrounded them. It could have been claustrophobic, stuck in a corner with him, but it was nice having their own bubble.
“I don’t mind all of this,” Hardy eventually replied. The honesty in his voice made her turn back to him. “That much. It’s not so bad if I’m not in the middle of it all and stick to smaller groups.”
“What?” Ellie chuckled. Multiple sentences was oversharing by Hardy’s standards. “Lewis and his lairy mates are your safe space?”
“I meant you.”
Time shuddered to a halt and Ellie was glad she wasn’t holding anything.
“You can’t get much smaller than a group of two,” she said through numb lips.
“Exactly.”
They held eye contact for longer than Ellie could ever remember them doing so before. It struck her then that, while she had seen Hardy at his lowest, she had never really seen him at his best. All of the health issues, the pain of being away from his daughter, the parasitic way his divorce stuck with him and the crippling guilt from the cases he let get to him that threatened to crush him were a memory. They still haunted him occasionally and would never be forgotten, but they were no longer on the surface.
He said something about getting another drink and shuffled away as she realised the same could be said for her. Against all the odds, they were as normal as either of them were ever going to be.
The realisation gave her a head rush she couldn’t blame on the wine.
The hours past as the drinks flowed. Eventually the cloudless sky gave the air a chill that couldn’t be ignored and they moved back inside. Although she had taken her place next to the resident wallflower, colleagues and locals still approached her. If they thought anything of how Hardy would happily join in with most of their conversations and even chuckled at a few jokes then they didn’t mention it. Meanwhile, Ellie’s head was spinning. A relaxed and sociable Alec Hardy was a bizarre creature with crinkles around his eyes and it terrified and delighted her in equal measure.
By the time they eventually left, walking home was not longer an option. Ellie half-dragged Hardy into the back of a taxi with a couple of others and gave up trying to keep him awake five minutes into the journey.
It was fairly obvious to the others in the taxi that someone needed to help get Hardy from the road to his house on the hillside and Ellie readily volunteered, knowing he’d be mortified if anyone else saw him like this.
“Why does he live down there?” snickered the copper that was moving from the passenger seat of the cab to the recently vacated seats at the back. “Does he think he’s a gull?”
“Probably.” Ellie opened the door Hardy was sleeping against. His seatbelt stopped him falling out but it was enough to jar him awake. “I think he hopes no other human can reach him there.”
“You can.”
Ellie made more of a production of getting Hardy to his feet than necessary so she didn’t have to reply.
The journey down the grassy slope to his house was made up of stumbling and giggling and it was a miracle that they both made it without a twisted ankle.
“Thanks for this, Miller,” Hardy said as she unlocked his door. Even this far out of the main town, he still insisted on locking it.
“We’ve all been there.” Ellie tripped up the step into his kitchen. Though she was nowhere near as far gone as Hardy, she was still closer than she was prepared to admit. “Someone had to make sure you got home okay.”
He mumbled something and staggered towards his sofa. With a sigh, Ellie poured him a glass of water. There was something nice about the routine of caring for someone. In her job, she’d had to deal with her fair share of drunk people and Hardy was definitely on the more amiable end of the scale. Rather than herding him somewhere he didn’t want to go or dealing with wandering hands, she found he was happy to follow her wherever she told him to go. The only real issue had been the high pitched giggle which had been such at odds with her previous knowledge of him that it was disconcerting.
Glass of water in hand, Ellie headed to the living room area but stopped when she saw more of Hardy than she had been expecting.
Several of the buttons on his shirt were undone and he was attempting to lift it over his head but he’d left his tie on. It wasn’t until he kicked his coffee table that she set the glass down and jumped in to help him.
“You don’t have to-”
“Stop moving!”
“‘M’fine just-”
“Stop!”
It took her longer than it should have done to untangle a fully grown man from his own shirt so she could get to his tie. Once she found the knot, muscle memory took over and she shook the thought clear.
“Ow.” Hardy rubbed his neck where she had pulled too tightly.
“Sorry.” She slipped the tie out of his collar and handed it to him with a smile.
Hardy took the tie from her without looking at it and dropped it on the floor. He frowned as though he couldn’t put the words he wanted to say in the right order and Ellie waited patiently. Speaking while stood this close to him was far too dangerous.
“You’re a good friend, Miller,” he told her, his voice breaking in the quiet.
He clumsily patted her shoulder. The buzzing noise in Ellie’s head fell silent. All of the uncertainty, confusion and denial stopped making sense. Suddenly, beautifully, it all fell into place.
Ellie grabbed his open shirt and pulled him down until their lips met.
The haze of the drunkenness warned her she might regret her actions but a voice in her head told her it was okay. Whatever happened in the morning, she could live through. All that mattered right now was that Hardy was kissing her back and she didn’t have to think anymore.
Considering how unsteady on his feet he had been, he wasn’t relying on her to stand too much as his hands wrapped around her waist. It was lucky, really, because Ellie was definitely more lightheaded than was safe.
Time faded into nothing and Ellie couldn’t be sure how long they had been kissing before she was hit by a bolt of clarity. There were reasons they shouldn’t have been kissing. Many of them. Just because she couldn’t think of them, didn’t mean they didn’t exist.
“Stop,” she managed between kisses although her body was still a bit behind and she only pulled him closer.
It came as a shock to her when Hardy pulled back and jumped away from her immediately.
She stared at him, her mouth still open.
“Fuck,” he whispered before covering his face with his hands. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-”
“Hardy-”
“I’m sorry.”
Ellie blinked. The situation had changed too much and far too quickly for her to follow. “What?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Why?”
“I shouldn’t - you’re drunk - and I -”
“Hey, listen to me.” Ellie approached him but he stumbled back into the kitchen table. “You haven’t done anything wrong. You’re worse than me and...” She swallowed, well aware that admitting to her actions was much scarier than living through them. “I kissed you.”
The words acted as confirmation to the pair of them. They stared at each other, hoping the other had a solution. Ellie wished she could think straight, knowing the answer was somewhere within her, but her judgement was skewed. Her daydreams were in reach but she hadn’t yet worked out if she wanted them. Reality and the place she ran to escape in her head were two very different things.
Even if she knew what she wanted, she had no idea about Hardy.
“I should go,” she said, finally dropping his gaze. She readjusted her coat but stopped when she heard a single word cut through the background noise of her thoughts.
“Stay.”
“What?”
“Stay.”
It was one thing to hear it, but seeing the words come from Hardy’s mouth made hers dry.
“Not - shit - not for that,” Hardy hastily explained, slurring his words. “Just… stay.”
Ellie watched hopelessly as Hardy rubbed his eyes and spoke slowly, as though trying to forcibly sober himself up as he paced.
“I should’ve stayed. I know. I know I shouldn’t have left, but I’m here now.” He stopped and held his arms out. “I came back.”
“You did,” Ellie replied because nothing else seemed safe.
“What? You think I came back for the - the fucking sand?”
His question hung in the air. Ellie wanted to jump to conclusions but her feet felt as though they were made of stone. “Why did you come back?”
His thin chest rose and fell and Ellie tried not to focus on the skin still visible through the open buttons.
“Please stay,” he whispered. “I like having you around.”
It was all too real, all too immediate, and Ellie longed for the fuzziness that made everything seem distant. Criminals, she could stare down all day if she needed to, but her own feelings towards Alec Hardy could be dealt with another day. One far in the future that she didn’t have to think about.
“Hardy, go to bed.”
His eyes went wide and Ellie regretted the finality in her tone. “You’re going home?”
She opened her mouth to answer but paused when she realised she had no idea how she was going to respond. “Yes.”
Hardy nodded. His movements were jerky enough to let her know he wasn’t nearly as sober as he wanted her to believe. “Let me know when you’re there. Text me.”
She snorted. “You’ll be asleep by then.”
“I don’t sleep.”
His reply was instant. It reminded her of when they first met, all those years ago, and he used his gruffness to hide his broken heart of gold. Seeing his barriers snap back into place made a lump grow in her throat. She should never have acted until she was certain. This man, this wonderful, damaged and infuriating man, was ready for her, wanted her. It would be cruel to lead him on.
Avoiding his eyes, she hurried to collect her bag from the table next to him. She needed to get out of there before she could stop lying to herself and she could already feel the facade slipping.
“Goodnight, Hardy,” she breathed and pressed a kiss to his cheek. When she pulled away she saw he had his eyes closed, almost as if he couldn’t bear to watch her walk away one more time. A need to reassure him gripped her and she kissed his lips.
It was slow and tentative this time, but Hardy still joined in. She could feel how tense the muscles were in his arm where her hand rested with the effort of keeping them at his sides. Even now, when Ellie knew he could have taken advantage if he had been that type of man, he was straining to make her feel safe.
It was that more than anything that made Ellie realise how tired she was of always playing it safe and staying within the lines.
She pulled away and and brushed a thumb over his cheek. His eyes fluttered open.
“You got spare pjs?”
He frowned, confused by her question. “Somewhere.”
Ellie wetted her lips and said the only thing that made sense in a world that refused to give her a moment of peace.
“I’ll stay.”