Every now and then, Ellie Miller lets herself imagine being gloriously and enthusiastically fucked by someone who utterly adores her.

She doesn’t feel any sense of shame about it. She’s always known that she has a high sex-drive, even back when she was a teenager. In high school she’d happily hung out with all the girls that the boys had called 'sluts', but somehow always avoided the label herself. She'd had friends of both sexes, and was well known for being kind and fair, as well as 'bloody smart'. Those were the labels that had stuck, the ones that had meant that becoming a copper in her own home town was something everyone easily accepted. People trusted her because she was a human being, because she’d been at school with them, and because pretty much everyone had been caught blowing some bloke round the back of the gym in sixth form, and Ellie Barrett had been no exception. 

Being single isn’t a state that she’s completely unfamiliar with, there were the years pre-Joe of course. After uni and her police training she’d been utterly focused on her career, all the dire predictions of her first DCC - ‘you’re a woman so you can forget ever making detective’ - only serving to strengthen her resolve. During her first ten years on the force, she’d gained a reputation for being earthy and grounded, for liking a pint, but - just like in high school - she’d skilfully avoided the usual smears that could dog upwardly mobile WPCs. No, Ellie Barrett had made damned sure she could never be accused of sleeping her way to the top, by staying single right up until the day she met the man 100% perfect to be the husband of a policewoman.

The irony of that choice will never cease to weigh on her.

Aside from the awful one-night stand after the night out with Claire Ripley, Ellie hadn’t given sex much thought since Joe. She feels lonely most nights, but it’s a loneliness borne of almost a decade and a half of sharing a life with someone, not of being truly isolated. At night, Fred is always in the next room, and is still young enough to submit to a cuddle without struggling. Tom and her dad are a warm constant presence in the house, and friends drop in every day just like they always have. But still she misses the other kind of connection with a human being. The connection she vividly remembers feeling during amazing, transcendent sex.

Beth sets her up on a blind date with a bloke she knows through work. Greg. He’s another support worker, attentive and sweet, and when she talks he holds her gaze with a kind intensity she finds completely unnerving. He has soft blue-grey eyes and a gentle smile and when she goes to sit down he pulls the chair out for her. They eat dinner at a fantastic seafood place in Dorchester she’s wanted to go to for years, and afterwards on the drive back he tells her she’s ‘gorgeous and hilarious’, that he can’t wait to take her out again.

She can’t imagine fucking him.

      “No…actually, that's not true. I can imagine it.”

      “And?”

Beth’s eyes sparkle. They’re sharing their lunch hour together on the quay, and she’s trying her best not to laugh at Ellie’s agonised recounting of her evening.

      “And I bet he’s one of those blokes who insists on going down on you for hours and hours, like he’s worshipping at the altar of a bloody goddess or something.”

      “Bloody hell, El!”

Her friend explodes with a snort of laughter, almost dropping her sandwich into the water,

      “That’s most women’s bloody fantasy isn’t it? I know I wouldn’t say no!”

Ellie sniffs, unscrews her bottle of 7-Up,

      "You shag him then.”

After that there’s a bit of a lull before Beth tries it on again. It’s almost a month later and they’re watching the kids have a kick about when she lightly mentions a barbecue and ‘a bit of a get-together’ at theirs on Easter Sunday. Few friends, maybe twenty or so, kids and dogs welcome.

      “Who’ve you invited?”

Beth shrugs a little too casually, her eyes evasive, 

      “Just a few mates. Jen and Tony are coming, Cathy and James, Jon and Pippa.” 

      “No single blokes from work though, eh? No setting me up again on the sly.” 

      “Not from my work, no.”  

Beth’s lips quirk in the hint of a smile, and Ellie tenses.

      “Oh god, no Beth, not Brian! Seriously, I’m not interested any more.”

      “Oh come on, he’s nice! Fresh from a break up,” she winks slyly, “Pretty sure he’s not the goddess worshipping type either.”

      “Oh Beth, no,” she squirms, “It’ll be so obvious. If we’re the only singles there?” 

Her friend shrugs,

      “So invite someone else? A mate?" 

      “Like who?”

       “I dunno?” She hesitates, “Hardy?”

 And Ellie rolls her eyes,

       “Christ, you’re kidding aren’t you? Hardy? I couldn’t drag him there. He hates socialising.”

To her great surprise though, he doesn’t turn the idea down immediately, maybe because Daisy’s there too when she asks. His girl always seems to soften his corners, reminding him why he chose to move them both here, to be a part of this close-knit community.

      “Is it a big crowd? I’m not coming if it’s a big crowd.” 

      “Beth says about a dozen.”

She doesn’t know why she tells the little lie, shapes the idea so he’s more likely to agree. She didn’t honestly think she cared if he came or not, until he genuinely seemed to be considering it. Standing beside him in the staff car park, Daisy slips her arm encouragingly through his, 

      “Oh come on, Dad. I want to. We haven’t got anything on, and it’ll be fun!” 

Ellie can’t help but smile when she sees the warmth that transforms Hardy’s sharp features, the surreptitious squeeze of his daughter’s hand. 

      “Ach, alright darlin’.”  

He frowns as Ellie and Daisy exchange sly conspiratorial grins, 

      "But not all afternoon, ok? Just for an hour or so.”

      “You never know sir, if you can unclench a little bit you might find you actually enjoy yourself.”

 The glower he directs at her snark is - as is usual these days - devoid of any real ire.

      “I highly doubt that, Miller.”

And he doesn’t of course. He never does. Ellie has never known anyone so determinedly grumpy as Hardy, so unabashed in his rejection of social niceties. Leaning on a wall at the edge of a garden full of people, he radiates a kind of angular, prickly fuck-off-ness that means there’s a permanent exclusion zone around him of at least three metres. The fact that he’s chosen to wear a suit to a Sunday afternoon barbecue only adds to the vibe. 

Ellie doesn’t know why she always seems to make him her responsibility, why she makes up a second plate along with her own, or why - when she takes it over to him - she doesn’t leave immediately to go back to the party. She tells herself she feels sorry for him, but she knows that’s not true. Hardy is many things, but a pitiable figure he is not. Neither is he polite though, so when he thanks her for the plate she can’t help but startle a bit.

      “Bloody hell.” 

      “What?”

      “Think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say thank you.” 

      “Bollocks it is.”

He scoffs at her as he bites into a bit of quiche, before taking a seat on the nearby garden wall. She hesitates for a moment below dropping down beside him. The wall is damp and she can feel it leeching through the thin fabric of her summer skirt.

      “Seriously. Four years and all I ever got before is that grunt through your back teeth.” 

He darts a look at her sideways, and then makes the noise. It’s a rare moment of self-deprecating humour and she can’t help her face splitting wide in a grin.

      “That’s it!!” 

His lips don’t smile, but there’s something like a sparkle in his eyes as he turns back to look at the garden full of couples chattering and drinking. 

      “Dozen people you said.” 

      “Couple of dozen.”  

She smirks around her sandwich, before spotting Beth, hand flapping high in the air as she points to the empty spot on the bench between her and Brian. Noticing her, Hardy snorts softly, 

      “Better get over there before she sprains her wrist.” 

      “Mmm.” 

      “G’wan, Miller. Don’t waste your time over here in Reject’s Corner,” he lifts his plate and gestures away pointedly, “You’ve done yer duty.” 

A little flare of anger bursts without warning inside her chest, 

      “Christ, you can be a dickhead sometimes!”  

Standing and brushing off her skirt, her cheeks feel flushed suddenly, although she hasn’t had a drink all afternoon. 

Hardy raises his eyes and looks at her in mild surprise, 

      “I thought we’d long established that fact, hadn’t we?” 

      “And yet you constantly feel the need to remind me.” 

He frowns,

      “Didn’t think you’d need reminding.”

      “No, ‘spose I didn’t!” 

He continues to look up at her, and as the seconds drag by she feels her annoyance wavering like a flame, flickering between the familiar desire to punch him in the face and something else. Something uncomfortably like affection. Flustered, she still manages a last retort as she turns to walk away,

      “Take off the bloody jacket at least. You look like an insurance claim investigator.”

She doesn’t fuck Brian.

She didn’t really want to anyway. That ship has long since sailed, and anyway she has a sneaking suspicion that he was only ever interested because she was married. Happily married. To a perfect man who’d shared her own loyalty and devotion to his family and unshakeable moral code. In her darkest moments she wonders how she could have ever been so deluded. Not to have missed the fact that there was a monster in her bed, but to even think such a ridiculous paragon could actually exist.

Spring ambles into summer in Broadchurch without much incident. She takes Fred and Tom away for a week at the Centre Parcs in Wiltshire. It’s a good choice, loads of outdoor sports for the teenager and tons of things for Fred to try his hand at. They make friends with the family in the cabin across from them and her two spend almost every day at activities with their kids, while Ellie is left to enjoy the hot-tub and sauna and the blissful quiet. By day three though she’s already going stir crazy, using her phone to search local news reports to see what’s happening back home. A story about a missing teenage girl catches her eye, and before she knows it she’s speed dialling Hardy’s number.

       “Miller, you’re supposed to be on holiday.”

 His voice when he answers is scratchy and comfortingly familiar, like fingernails at the base of her spine and she frowns at the metaphor.

       “Just wanted to know if you’ve been to see the Daleys? Any chances she’s a runaway?”

 He grunts, and she can imagine him sat in the car without her, one hand resting on the wheel while the other picks at a sandwich.

       “Most likely. Took out a load of cash and packed a bag, and parents said she’d been begging them to let her go to some festival this weekend. Besta-something?”

       “Bestival? In Lulworth?”

       “That’s it.”

       “Well she’s most likely gone with friends then. Have you…?”

      “I’m at the best mate’s house now. She’s not talking yet, but ten to a penny she knows where she is. Parents are bollocking her. Chances are Tessa’s there, and security will turn her up today,” there’s a sound of plastic packaging rustling, "I’m not worried, and you shouldn’t be either.”

Sixty miles away from him, Ellie glowers at his name on the screen.

      “I’m not.” 

      “So why phone?”  

He sighs, and when he speaks again his mouth is full of something, 

      “Just…try and enjoy your bloody holiday, Miller. You’ve earned it.”

When she gets back four days later the girl’s been found, alive and well - albeit in serious hot water with her parents - and Broadchurch is its usual calm and predictable self. There’s the normal rash of pissed-up altercations between residents of the town and the incoming summer tourists. Someone ends up in the harbour and almost drowns. A white van’s spotted doing the round of the local villages, and there’s talk of dogs being nicked from people’s back gardens. Most days start and end on time, and - although it’s a bit boring sometimes - Ellie finds herself enjoying the lack of anything to worry about after work hours.

By the end of a slow June, she can’t help noticing that even Hardy looks well-rested for a change, perhaps even a little bit tanned. The weather is glorious, and at some point in the middle of the month he’s finally given in and bought himself some sunglasses. The sun is still high when they finish work for the day, and putting them on he seems to stare up at the sky appreciatively for a moment as they’re leaving. It’s so uncharacteristic, Ellie can’t help but make a comment.

      “Careful Hardy, you’re starting to look like you actually enjoy living here.”

 Her boss moves his angular shoulders in a shrug as he flips his jacket over his shoulder,

       “What’s not to enjoy?”

       “Blimey. Whatever’s next? Going to start coming for a pint after work too?”

His lips purse and he looks down at her. It’s impossible to see his eyes behind the glasses, but she imagines he looks different suddenly, a little less tightly wound than he used to be. There’s a pause, and he switches the jacket over to his other shoulder.

       “Sure. Why not.”

       “What??”

       “I said ‘sure, why not’.”

       “I know what you said, just thought I must be hearing things is all.”

They walk companionably over to The George, where they make their way through the many familiar (and a few openly incredulous) faces to the bar. He orders two pints of bitter without asking her what she wants and when they move over to a table, he sits down without even looking at the other chair.

       “Thanks for ordering this for me,” she says with only the tiniest hint of snark, and he gives her a curious look.

       “You’re getting the next round,” he says.

After that, it becomes their regular end-of-week thing. Not that they didn’t work weekends, but if you’re going to have a regular drinking date then Friday is the obvious choice. They don’t call it a date of course. A date is something you have with someone you fancy, or at least are hoping you might fancy, not with a boss who acts more like a workmate and who has somehow (implausibly) turned into the only friend you can actually be yourself around. Eventually, the regular habit turns into a ritual that’s so much a feature of Ellie’s week, she’s truly unsettled the first time Hardy stands her up.

      “Why, what’s up?”

 She grins at him when he tells her, despite the fact that she’s strangely irritated by her routine being suddenly thrown out of whack.

       “Got a hot date or something?”

 There’s a pause that lasts a fraction too long and her eyes widen,

       “Oh shit, you have?!”

Hardy doesn’t squirm exactly, but shifts in his seat a little bit, and for the first time she notices that he’s wearing a nicer suit that usual. A slightly less mundane tie.

       “Daisy pimped your profile on Tinder?”

      “Uh…no. She’s a…” (god he really is awkward) “I knew her back in Bromsgrove. She used to work in CID, just got a transfer down to Dorset.”

      “Weymouth?”

      “Yeah, but she’s thinking of buying down here. Looking at a few place today." 

      “Wow! That’s…great!”

She can hear the sound of her own voice and even to her ears it sounds fake. She doesn’t think he’s noticed though, he’s already packing up his shit for the day with the look of someone both excited about and dreading the evening ahead.

      “Well have a great time,” she manages to his back, “Try not to say anything too mental.”

He rounds on her with a distracted harried expression,

      “Like what?” 

      “Like ‘don’t invite me in, I might be a rapist’.” 

He grimaces as he grabs his coat.

      “I wish to God I’d never told you about that.”

He’s late in the next day. Only fifteen minutes, but for Hardy that’s hours. He’s clean and pressed though and in a different suit, so she can’t make the obvious joke about a ‘walk of shame’ as he make his way to his desk. It’s a Saturday but there’s been a pretty big bust the morning before of a ring of local drug suppliers, and there’s a ton of paperwork to be done so they’re still going at dusk. When it gets to six, Ellie calls Lucy to tell her she might as well put Fred to bed. The clock crawls round to eight and then nine, and finally there’s just her and Hardy and two of the visiting DCs from Bournemouth left.

       “You two go home. We can finish up here.”

Hardy’s voice sounds tired and paper-thin, but the other two aren’t arguing and are packed up and gone within fifteen minutes. Twenty or so more pass before he makes his way over to lean on her door frame.

      “You almost done?”

       “Pretty much.”

       “Lift home?”

       “Oh, no second date tonight then?”

She gives him bright questioning look, but something about his expression stops her from the obvious tease that would normally be the next thing out of her mouth.

      “Yeah, thanks. Let me just send this off and I’ll shut down.”

It’s only a twenty minute walk to her place, so only a five minute drive. They make it there in a little over seven, which means Hardy’s driving extra slowly for some reason. Maybe he’s a bit hungover still, or maybe just tired. She’d ask him but he seems particularly distant this evening, and she has a sneaking suspicion that last night’s date is the cause. Pulling up outside her house, he kills the motor and they sit next to each other and stare through the darkened windscreen for a minute.

The silences between them are usually fine. They’ve learned each other’s natures like the backs of their hands in the last four years, and there’s never been any need for the chit-chat people normally use to fill up the spaces. This time though, it’s different. Ellie shifts in the unfamiliarity of it, and feels the words spring to her lips even before she realises what she’s going to say.

      “I think I was a bit jealous of your date last night.”

Hardy’s leant back in his seat, his hands resting on the wheel and he turns his head slightly to look at her. If he’s surprised he doesn’t show it, his dark brown eyes reflect the dash lights as they rest calmly on her face.

      “Well,” he pauses minutely, allowing space for the nuance in what she’s said, “You’d no need to be.”

       “Wash-out was it?”

Her lips twitch into a smile and he inclines his head, looks out at the darkness through the window behind her.

      “No, it was fine. She’s fine. I just…” he sighs, “I’m just not sure I can be bothered with it all.”

      “Getting to know someone new you mean?”

       “Yeah,” he gives a small tight nod, “The slog of it all, y’know? We’re sat there talking, chatting away, and I’m asking her a question, then she’s asking me one, and I had this sudden thought.”

There’s a pause, and she wonders if she’ll have to ask him what it was.

      “I thought - what are the chances? Really?”

      “The chances of what?”

      “What are the chances that we actually end up together? That she learns everything about me, and I learn everything about her and - four years down the line - that we still like each other. We still have stuff to say to each other every day. That I still look forward to seeing her every morning.”

His voice has become uncharacteristically soft as he’s talking, and looking at him Ellie feels that strange mix of emotions again. He’s utterly exasperating, so bloody doom-and-gloom sometimes, but there’s something in his expression that reminds her of Tom. A boy who wears his cynicism like armour since his heart was broken. The thought softens her own voice as she replies to him.

      “Don’t you think you’re taking it all a bit too seriously? No-one knows how they’ll feel four years from now about someone.”

She inclines her own head in a mirror of his movement,

      “I mean, look at us.” 

      “Look at…?” 

There’s a beat then where she thinks he looks a bit stunned, like someone’s hit him over the back of the head with something heavy. She frowns, opens her mouth to continue to explain. Say something like, ‘yeah because four years ago you hated my bloody guts and I hated yours, and now look at us! The best of…’ but somehow the rest of the thought doesn’t quite make it out of her mouth.

Because suddenly Hardy is leaning forward, and then she is too.

It’s a distance of maybe ten inches, but somehow it feels like miles. Miles towards somewhere that - when she finally gets there - feels nothing like she was expecting. At the last moment, Hardy’s hand reaches up to her jaw and for a moment she thinks he’ll stop himself. Draw back from the edge. But instead he just touches gentle fingertips to her cheek as their lips meet, softly at first, and then - when Ellie can’t help but make a tiny involuntary sound of need - with undeniable and increasing heat on both sides.

And for a first kiss? Between two workmates who regularly annoy the shit out of each other? It’s not half fucking bad at all.

Ellie can imagine fucking Hardy.

A week ago though? No. Or if she could have done, she certainly wouldn’t have allowed herself to. Her semi-boss, with his permanently unshaven jaw and permanently malcontent look on his face, as tall and spare as he is pale and irritable. A man who practically survives on nothing but stewed tea and toast, and who never once sings along to ‘Happy Birthday’ but always always helps himself to the cake. A week ago, before the lift home and the kiss that felt like it jump-started her long calcified heart, she couldn’t have imagined anything of the sort. And now? Now she can’t seem to stop herself. She wakes up thinking about it, sits at her desk thinking about. Christ, today she’d even thought about it sitting in the loo at work.

Like a movie preview, flash-framed against the back of her eyelids. Hardy smiling into her neck, fingers twisting in her hair, pressed together, warm and naked, wrapped up in his bedsheets in the light of early morning.

She’d come out of the loo and seen him sat opposite, and she swore to God he’d taken one look at her and known exactly what she was thinking.

Her phone beeps and she checks the text. 

      ‘U COMING OVER L8R?’

She can see him on the phone at his desk, frowning as he talks to someone in CID, leafing through a file as he does, and she can’t help smirking. 

      ‘DEPENDS. WHAT’S ON OFFER?’

There’s a long pause before the reply comes. 

      ‘WHAT D’YOU FANCY?’

She types and then hesitates, her face glowing with heat before she presses send.

      ‘QUITE FANCY YOU ACTUALLY.’

She can see his nose wrinkle from across the room, as three texts come back:

      ‘WELL I’M DEFINITELY ON OFFER.'

      ‘CONSIDERABLY DISCOUNTED IN FACT.’

      ‘SHOULD PROBABLY TAKE ADVANTAGE WHILE STOCKS LAST.’

Oh yes. It turns out that Ellie Miller can definitely imagine fucking Alec Hardy. What’s surprising to her though is that - for maybe the first time in her life - the reality turns out to somewhat exceed her very vivid imagination. 

THE END