“Don’t go 10-8,” Taylor pleaded.

“Why?” Matt furrowed his brow.

“You know, the second you put us in service, dispatch is gonna send us that stupid domestic on Peachtree.”

“No, I’m going to ask for the disorderly in our zone,” Matt reassured and batted away his partner’s extended hand. “Don’t worry, this dispatcher likes me. She always sends me winking faces on her work messages to me.”

“She does that to everyone,” Taylor rolled her eyes as she turned the steering wheel, following traffic to the left. The clutter of New York City’s evening traffic released its grip on the streets. As it neared midnight, cars found their way into parking spaces, and the third-shift taxis and rideshare drivers were joining Officer Matthew Reese and Officer Jessica Taylor on the road.

Matt considered his partner’s words for a moment, then shook his head in disbelief.

“No way she’s not into me,” Matt raised the microphone to his mouth and depressed the receiver button. “54-52.”

There was a pause before a woman’s voice answered on the patrol car radio, “54-52, go ahead.”

“54-52, you can close us off code one from our last and send us the disorderly on thirty-second.” Matt cocked his head at the radio box that sat between Taylor and him. The dispatcher took a moment longer than he expected to respond and Matt narrowed his eyes at the radio box. “Don’t you do it…”

The dispatcher’s voice crackled through the speaker, “Actually, sir, I’m going to need you for this domestic on Peachtree St.”

Taylor stared at him coldly.

“10-4,” Matt said, defeated.

“54-52 Charles and 54-50 be direct,” the dispatcher continued. “It’ll be a domestic assault call for service at 810 Peachtree St. 810 Peachtree St. Apartment 602. Sandy, your complainant, called in, stating her boyfriend refused to leave her apartment. Didn’t give any more info. Verified address, then hung up on call taker.”

“Direct…” Matt replied.

Taylor smacked her lips together as she made a series of turns to return the way they came. “Yeah, you’re right. That dispatcher’s in love with you.”

“Okay, I might’ve misread some signs,” Matt admitted, throwing his hands up before seating the mic back in its holder.

“When’s the wedding? You write your own vows? Is she pregnant!?” Taylor prodded with her fake schoolgirl excitement.

“I was wrong, you were right…” Matt muttered.

Taylor shunned him with silence.

The two patrol officers graduated from the NYPD police academy together almost two years ago. They and one hundred and eighty-five other rookies had completed their field training and spent the last eighteen months working the city’s most dangerous streets. Taylor and Matt had worked as partners for most of that time. Sharing a car together for that long turned the pair into a married couple that was five years past the ‘honeymoon’ phase of their relationship.

“Now we have to go into freaking Edwards’ zone and handle Edwards’ bullshit domestic because Edwards’ too busy riding out his damn business check to handle a call in his own damn area.” Taylor’s knuckles went white as she choked the steering wheel like it was Officer Edwards’ throat.

“It was bound to happen,” Matt said. “Name a shift in the last year where we didn’t handle his area for him? At least we’re getting it out of the way early in the shift.”

“What did we say about that optimistic attitude of yours?” Taylor warned, holding up a single finger as she took a right turn.

“‘Don’t bring that shit in this car,’” Matt said in a mocking high pitched voice. Matt removed a clipboard of papers from behind his headrest and updated their call activity sheet. He turned the laptop monitor in his direction and transcribed the call’s address, time, and report number, as was his unspoken job as the partner in the passenger seat.

“That’s right,” Taylor said. “The only thing that can make this night worse is if I have to hear your chipper attitude while Edwards screws us.”

Working with the same person every day for months at a time had as many perks as it did drawbacks. In the field, they could anticipate each other’s movements when clearing a room. A simple nod or side-eyed glance was enough to communicate intent and purpose to each other. They knew how one another liked to handle calls. Simple cues from what they said to victims and the options given to suspects were enough for them to know where they planned to take a call—a verbal warning? Report? Arrest? They also knew each other’s idiosyncrasies and could weaponize them. Matt knew Taylor was a bit of a control freak and always had to drive, while Taylor knew how neat and orderly Matt liked to keep their activity sheet.

Stopping short at the red light, Taylor watched Matt’s pen scribble outside the box he wrote in. He set his jaw, took a moment to stare forward, and released a calming breath.

“Whoops,” Taylor said.

“You good now? You get that out of your system?” he asked, placing his pen back in his breast pocket before removing a white-out from the door pocket. 

“Maybe,” she said with a devious grin as she stuck her tongue out.

Taylor kept her long brown hair in a twisted low bun while in uniform. The few strands that hung loose along with her decision to wear her thick but stylish black-rimmed glasses instead of contacts were evidence of her ‘morning rush’ before work. Even in the police academy, where the department went out of its way to dress down trainees into neutral, monotone creatures they could mold, Matt noticed Taylor was an attractive woman. When it came to personalities, though, Taylor and Matt were opposites. The type-A personality, organization, and fastidiousness of Matt clashed with Taylor’s fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants and act-now-think-later philosophy on life. That was probably why they never hooked up after all the time they spent together locked in a car together. However, their contrasting styles also made them one hell of a team.

“I saw your packet on the Lieutenant’s desk,” Taylor said. “You weren’t going to tell me you were putting in for schools?”

Matt stuffed the clipboard back behind his headrest and pulled at the neck of his bulletproof vest. “You sound like my mother… I told you about it last week.”

“Well, maybe you need to talk to your mother more often,” Taylor shot a grin at her partner, clearly pleased with her double dig. “Look, I’m happy for you if you really want it, its just… I’m just surprised. I thought you were a patrol lifer.”

“Yeah, me too,” Matt let his voice wander off as he fingered at a smudge on the window. “I don’t know. After doing the job for a bit, I just… It’s not what I thought it was. Maybe it’s time for a change, you know? See what else is out there.”

“But School Resource Officer?” Taylor made a face.

Matt shrugged, “Day shift hours, Monday through Friday…”

“We’ve been a cop for five minutes, and you already want to turn that in for a desk job?” Taylor snickered.

“I don’t know… I mean, what do we do here?” Matt slapped his thigh uncomfortably. “All we do is smack band-aids on the same problem every week. That robbery suspect we arrested last week? Twenty-five years old and two hundred arrests. Like, what the hell? We arrest the same suspects fifty times for the same fifty crimes, and they bond out fifty times just for the charges to get dismissed or for them to get probation. I mean, what are we even doing, Taylor?”

Matt didn’t mean to run on like this. Cops bitching about calls typically happened in short spurts and sardonic quips. Come to think of it; This might’ve been the first time he ever put into words what has been eating at him for the past year. And Matt wasn’t a genius who just figured this out. He knew everyone in the department had the same thoughts, but he didn’t understand how they could keep it up. Day after day. Twenty years of arresting the same people on the same blocks… it was like bailing water out of a sinking ship with a piece of chain link fence.

Taylor took a deep breath as she slowed at another red light. Matt had expected a sarcastic insult in response, but he could tell she was preparing a thoughtful response. A serious conversation between the two of them was like a unicorn.

“54-52,” the car radio sparked to life with dispatch calling their unit number. Matt grabbed the mic and advised dispatch to continue.

“54-52 Charles, 54-50, and any unit who can break free, be advised, your call has been upgraded to code three,” dispatch continued.  “Your complainant called back in to advise boyfriend is armed with a knife and is refusing to let her or her daughter leave. Is threatening to kill them both if she called the police. Call taker heard a male yelling in the background, and the phone disconnected. No further.”

In a rush of movement, Taylor flipped the emergency lights and sirens on. The patrol car lurched left onto the wrong side of the street as the siren yelped, and Taylor accelerated through the red light.

“54-52 direct, en route,” Matt replied.