Page 75 of One Little Lie
The kid chuckles behind us.
“No, sweetheart. How could it be? That was …” Hatty rakes a hand through his dripping wet hair. “That was eight years of pent-up stupidity.”
“Love will do that to you,” the older man says. “Come on, now. I’m Officer Jacobs. This is tonight’s community service officer, Jeffrey.”
“What’s a community service officer?” I whisper, but Jeffrey hears.
“Oh, I’m a college student. I’m studying Criminal Justice at Champlain College. Block Island hires a bunch of us in the summer, kind of like interns, to help police the thousands of tourists they have in peak season.”
He’s way too excitable.
“This way. Follow me,” Officer Jacobs repeats.
“Are we, um, are we being arrested?” I finally ask.
“Well, I have to take you in. I can’t have tourists fornicating on my beaches. It’s just a couple of blocks. Can you walk that far in those shoes?”
Hatty sighs, then stoops down so I can climb on his back.
“We’re walking ourselves to jail?”
Jeffrey laughs. It’s an awkward sound. “It’s like the worst walk of shame ever, huh?”
“Jeffrey,” Officer Jacobs admonishes.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“So, what does that mean? Do we have to sleep in jail?” My voice raises uncomfortably high.
“Well, we do arraignments by Skype around here, and to be perfectly honest, it’s a huge pain. We don’t get much crime, and you look like a nice couple.”
“It sounded like you were killing her, though,” Jeffrey cuts in, and I feel my body flush from head to toe.
“Yeah. I don’t remember her being so, ah, vocal,” Hatty mutters, mostly to himself, but I bury my face into his back as mortification sets it.
“Hatty,” I screech. “What the hell is going on? Oh my God, this is like some sitcom nightmare. We’re walking ourselves to jail after fucking in the ocean. We were caught by an officer and an intern.”
I feel Hatty laugh before I hear it. His shoulders shake beneath me, and his head rolls back as he adjusts his clasped hands under my ass. Somehow, his knuckles graze my sensitive flesh, and I gasp. He squeezes my thighs like he did it on purpose.
“Listen, it’s not that bad. There are two rooms. I’m supposed to separate you, but Blake got here first, so I’ll let you shack up for the night. You’ll need someone to come bail you out tomorrow, though.”
Hatty’s body goes rigid at that news.
“Ah, you mean someone has to physically bail us out?”
“Unfortunately, yes. We’re about fifty years behind the times with our equipment here. We can arraign you via video, but I have to release you to someone.”
That doesn’t sound right to me, but it suddenly hits me as we enter what looks like an old saloon. We’re stepping back in time. Hatty slides me down his body to the floor as he glances around. Before us is a giant open room with two jail cells straight ahead, like the special attraction at a show.
I gulp, and Hatty silently reaches for my hand.
“Do I have to be fingerprinted?” Why that scares me more than anything makes no sense, but it’s all I can think about.
“No. I’ll just run your license. We don’t have the technology to run prints out here. They would sit in a pile until someone could get them over to Providence, so we only run them for violent crimes.”
I nod, but have no more questions.
“So, there’s a latrine in the cell, but you may want to take a moment to use the restroom before we process you,” Officer Jacobs says kindly, and I waste no time escaping to the ladies’ room.
