Hot Cop

I’ve always had a thing for cops. I’m not sure if it’s because they make me feel safe or dangerous, likely a little of both, but from Jesse Martin’s character on Law & Order to the Boys-in-Blue of A-Town, once I know they’re a police officer, I’m sunk.

My attraction is definitely not about the rules. I break rules. I’ve always had a problem with authority. When I was five my parents went away and left outfits taped together for me for the week. The first thing I did when they left was rip off all of the tape, so even if I did wear an outfit that they’d planned, it wasn’t because they’d said so. Okay, so it’s not exactly selling crack to second graders, but my point is that rule breaking started early. I break other rules, of course I do, I live in a ski town, but nothing I’m going to admit to here. At least not yet.

I dated a Los Angeles police officer a few years ago. Well, we went on a handful of dates. They didn’t always involve being in public and we kept it a secret from most of our friends, but I was crazy about him.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw him. We were outside of a comedy club where some of our friends had just performed. I remember him stretching as we were all standing around making a plan about where to drink next and I saw the gun tucked into the front of his pants. He’s a rightie who reaches across the body. My brain reeled as I weighed the likelihood of his being on the side of good or evil, and then decided that I wanted to get to know him either way. He was also really cute, confident and had on a t-shirt that made me laugh...it wasn’t all about the gun.

Though the gun was definitely a factor. When we first met, he lived with another cop and there was always a gun sitting out somewhere in the apartment. And, in Los Angeles at least, he was expected to have his gun on him whenever we went out.

Always on alert, he noticed everything about our surroundings and was very protective of me. He worked in one of the toughest parts of LA and would tell me which streets I should avoid because of gang activity. I still drove down them, but I loved that he cared. He was a police officer first, which was why we lasted as long as we did and why we’d never work in the long run.

Okay, flash forward to the present. As a bartender in A-Town, and in the Smurf Village down the road (Z-Tavern has two locations and we all work in both), I have a fair amount of interaction with the local cops. Some of them are my customers, many are also my friends, but all of them are my partners in keeping the peace in the bar. It’s not all that edgy up here, but, between DUIs, check ditchers (for whom I hope there is a special place in hell), and the occasional bar fight, they have their hands full.

Here’s the problem: there’s a new guy on the force and he’s so good looking that it’s hard for me to talk to him without making a fool of myself. Seriously. The first time he came into the bar he was carrying a cup of coffee from somewhere else. I told him that it was illegal to bring in outside drinks and that if he weren’t a police officer, I’d kick him out. Great flirting move, eh?

Next time I see him, he’s out with the boys. I’m drinking past my limit, which is about 3 drinks, I’m a cheap date. We’re in Z-Tavern and I’m flirting with the co-worker I’m crazy about, who, coincidentally, was a police officer before moving to A-town. Hmmm. I say hello to the guys, both Sheriffs whom I know and then turn to the new guy.

“Are you a Sheriff, too?” I ask.

As he says no, that he wears the blue shirt, a wave of recognition sweeps over me.

“You’re the hot cop!” I blurt out. And then I backpedal, as if I’m going to improve things by explaining, “no, you’re the guy with the coffee. Seriously, almost every woman in town calls you Hot Cop.”

I wasn’t hitting on Hot Cop. I was there to hit on the bartender, who was chuckling at my conversational ineptitude and merits his own entry down the road, but something about Hot Cop makes it impossible for me to say anything normal to him. I’m sure I blathered on and on. I woke up the next morning with the knowledge that he’s in his late 20s and has a girlfriend, so I’m sure I worked both of those questions into what must have been a humiliating conversation.

I woke up with no memory of our interaction, until I saw a police car pass me later that day. Did that really happen, I wondered as the details came back to me in disjointed flashes. About a month later, he came into the bar on my shift after I mentioned it to everyone I saw in a please-pass-on-my-apology-to-him kind of way. I brought up my embarrassment with a feeble apology and changed his nickname.

“I don’t want you to think I’m accusing you of being just a pretty face,” I dug myself in deeper, “I’ll refer to you as Competent Cop from now on.” Friends from another restaurant in town came in and I introduced him with his new moniker. He told me I didn’t have to share the story, in a tone that said ‘please don’t’, but I couldn’t help myself. Something about him makes me blather on like an idiot. And sure, he turned a little red and clearly was embarrassed, but he took it in stride.

And perhaps that’s the secret. There’s a confident swagger that comes with being a police officer. It’s not a job where you can second guess yourself. Hmm, should I shoot back at the bad guy pointing the gun at me, or not? That confidence seems to carry over to the rest of (many of) their lives. It’s sexy. It’s what I loved in the guy from LA, it’s why I can barely speak to Hot/Competent Cop without making a fool of myself and it probably is what I’m attracted to in the bartender with whom I work. A confidence, a purpose and the ability to stay calm when the bad stuff of life rolls around them.