Sweet Romance13 min read
I Drunkly Asked a Traffic Cop to Be My Boyfriend — Then He Came to Save Me
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1
"I asked a cop to be my boyfriend." I said it the way a child counts candies — half proud, half embarrassed.
Bristol laughed so loud her chair scraped. "You did what?"
"I did." I held my mug like a shield. "I asked him for real."
"Tell me everything." Bristol leaned in, eyes bright, like she had a scoop of gossip sauce ready for dipping.
I swallowed. "I don't remember most of it."
"Of course you don't. You were drunk," she said, blunt and kind, the best kind of friend. "What happened after the island iced tea?"
"The island iced tea," I repeated, like tasting a bad memory. "Bad idea."
2
The party was supposed to be a normal celebration. Luisa brought flowers. Bristol brought bottles. We were celebrating her engagement, which is a delicate thing to celebrate while holding someone else's freedom to be single.
"We'll find you someone tonight," Bristol promised, half joking, half plotting. "I will not let you go home alone."
I drank a glass of island iced tea. It tasted like something made to make people loud and brave. Half a glass in, I was still upright. Whole glass later, my filter had gone off duty.
I remember singing terribly loud, then crying for no reason — "Why don't I have someone?" I remember promising, "Tonight I will find a boyfriend. I promise, I'll find one without your help."
The rest is in other people's phones.
3
"What did you do?" Luisa asked, pulling up the video. The screen lit my face in a way that felt like small knives.
"You did not," Bristol said slowly. "You did."
The footage was shameful and honest. A city street at night, someone in uniform kneeling by a small traffic fuss. A crowd gathered. A girl — me — stumbled toward the uniform, teary, big-eyed, ridiculous. I planted myself in front of the officer and said, loud and clear, "Hello. Will you be my boyfriend?"
The driver arguing with the officer froze mid-complaint. Someone in the crowd made a choking sound between a laugh and a gasp. The officer blinked. The officer was Noah Green.
"Noah?" Bristol said, surprised. "He is the cop you kept mentioning."
"He's the cop I grabbed," I corrected. "And I called him my future boyfriend."
4
"Why Noah?" Luisa asked.
"Why not Noah?" I returned. "He was just handsome and upright and so—"
"You hugged a man in uniform," Bristol said, the kind of narration that is equal parts pride and disgust. "Abigail, you hugged a cop."
"I know. I know. But listen—"
The video kept playing. In it, I hugged him like I'd found something I had been missing. I cried the tears that later would be called Prada tears. They fell and smeared a bit of my mascara onto the officer's jacket when the camera was merciless.
Noah looked flustered in the video. He tried to be professional, then polite, then very confused. He attempted gentle physical distance, and I became an octopus. The crowd laughed, someone recorded, someone cheered. The driver — the one whose bumper had just been brushed — once distracted by our spectacle, bumped the car ahead and another tiny fender-bender was born out of curiosity.
5
The next morning, the universe asked for payment. The city called. A message from the traffic bureau asked me to come down because my drunk actions had created a traffic argument that had to be mediated.
I wanted to hide. Bristol pulled the blanket off me and said, very plainly, "You go. You apologize. You look sorry. I'm filming the apology."
"You are not allowed to film the apology." I protested.
"It will be evidence," she said, triumphant. "Evidence of charm."
I went down without makeup and with the remains of last night's courage.
6
The traffic bureau smelled like paper and coffee. A young officer at the front desk, cheeks pink, looked at me like I'd been dropped in by fate and forgiven by style.
"Are you Abigail Davies?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I have a fiancé," he blurted before I opened my mouth.
"No, you're not the one," I thought. "But please sit, don't look like you want to leave."
Bristol whispered, "You did well, you read your 'apology letter' out loud in the car last night. You looked tragic and real."
"I wrote a sincere apology," I said. "In the taxi."
"Please don't cry while you read it," she warned.
"I probably will. It's my part of the performance."
7
Noah walked into the lobby like someone who belonged in a photograph of quiet strength. He wore a casual jacket, not uniform, which made him suddenly less official and more... human. He recognized some of the faces from the video. He smiled the kind of professional smile that also worried for people.
"Noah," I said, a small, helpless wave.
He said my name like a confirmation. "Abigail Davies," he said, and my mouth forgot how to close.
He was there because the two drivers needed to be convinced to settle things privately. The drivers argued louder than a small storm. Each claimed the other had been the one who looked, distracted, and bumped into someone. Noah, calm and clear, mediated. He asked questions. He kept the tone fair. Two pairs of arms promised to be reasonable.
"I will help you mediate," he said to me, and then to the drivers he said something like, "Let's settle this with insurance. Be reasonable."
8
After the drivers calmed, they asked me to apologize for drawing the crowd. I did, solemn and ridiculous. I read the apology that I had scrawled on a napkin in a taxi at three a.m. Maybe I was a little dramatic.
"I'm sorry for causing trouble," I read. "I was intoxicated. I embarrassed a public servant and inconvenienced two drivers. I promise to avoid stupid island iced tea from now on."
Noah tried very hard not to laugh. Bristol, who was recording the whole thing with a look that said this would be helpfully humiliating later, tried to compose herself and failed.
"Thank you," Noah said, very quietly, when the reading ended.
9
He offered to walk me out.
"Do you live nearby?" he asked, polite and practical.
"I do," I lied. My heart did something like a small juggling trick.
He offered me water and a quiet patience I had not learned how to handle. I wanted to apologize for last night. I wanted to be tiny. I wanted to be brilliant. I wanted to be brave.
"Do you have any snacks?" he asked, an odd but simple question.
"Not yet," I said.
"Then I'll take you for something to eat," he said. "You look like someone who needs real food."
10
We ended at a small late-hour restaurant. He was decent about listening. He told me things about his job that made me admire him more. He told me about the time a duck caused chaos on a bridge, about the time a lost dog found its way to an old man. He told stories, and I listened like a person collecting small treasures.
"You shouldn't have drunk that island iced tea," he said, not accusing.
"It was delicious until it wasn't," I said.
He smiled. "You apologized. And you were honest."
I liked his voice. I liked how he said 'honest'. It felt like permission.
11
He gave me his message later that day: "Be careful. Regulations are rules, but people are not. If you ever feel unsafe, call."
I took a screenshot and stared at it like someone at a constellation that was just within reach. We texted about small things. He liked a picture of my cat (I had a cat in my life; it was not present in the video because cats are wise and avoid bad decisions). He asked me about spicy food and said the best dumpling place was two subway stops away.
I began to leave my place earlier. I visited intersections and sat on park benches. I did small acts of kindness to be seen: I helped an older man cross a street; I picked up a child's dropped toy; I offered directions to tourists. I did the things that would make me a pleasant recurring character in his city.
"You're turning into a public service angel," Bristol said one evening, toothbrush in mouth.
"I'm dating destiny," I said.
12
We texted less in the first long week. He didn't always reply fast, and when he did, it was steady and calm. I pretended not to be waiting, but I read his messages the way a person reads the weather — hoping for a storm that would be gentle and bring rain.
"Why did you carry sugar in your pocket?" I asked once, when we had a silly little conversation about odd pocket items.
"Because someone in my family sometimes gets low blood sugar," he said. "It's a habit."
I loved that answer. It told me he thought about people who were not him, who might be small and in need. It told me that when he considered someone, he thought of safety first.
13
Then came a night that tightened my chest. I was walking home late from a job emergency, the city quieter than I liked. A pair of footsteps matched mine, and then slowed when I slowed. My shoulders tensed.
"Abigail?" a voice echoed from behind. It sounded amused and thin.
I turned and the man was smiling in a way that did not include light in his eyes. He had a hat low on his brow. He laughed as if nothing terrible could be done in front of you.
I felt my gut knot. I walked on faster. His steps matched.
"Hey, you okay?" I texted Noah with shaking fingers.
"Where are you?" he wrote back almost immediately. "Stay where you are. Close your door. Don't open it for anyone."
I fumbled my keys like a novice sleight-of-hand artist and closed the door, but the man was still at the steps, light in his throat, voice like a web.
I called the building security and tried to stay calm. Through the peephole his grin looked worse. He tilted his head like he had all night.
"Don't open," Noah said finally over the phone. "I am on my way."
14
He arrived like a storm that smelled of safety. He ran up the stairs, knocked, and leaned down so he could look through my door's small window.
"Are you okay?" he asked. His voice carried the utility of training and a soft coat of worry.
"I am now," I whispered.
He stepped inside when it was safe. He pressed his shoulder against the door and checked the locks. He sat with me on my couch and asked me trivial questions to bring me back — about my worst coffee, about the time a bird pooped on Bristol's shoulder. He made me laugh until the tears were from relief and not from fear.
Later, with the stranger gone and me calmer, he said quietly, "Why didn't you call me sooner when he started following you?"
"I tried," I admitted. "My hands were shaking too hard."
"Next time, call me or 911," he said. "Don't manage fear alone."
He had the voice that could be strict and kind at once. He held me like a friend and like someone who knew that I might, in a foolish moment, want to cling when I felt small.
15
That night changed things. Sitting on my couch, wrapped in one of his old scarves because I had nothing else to wrap with, I realized I liked him in a real, stubborn way.
"Why did you come?" I asked. "You weren't sure we were anything."
"You asked me to be your boyfriend," he said, low and soft, and it landed like a stone in a pond and made a thousand ripples in me. "You said it once before."
"I don't remember that," I said. The words felt small and ridiculous.
"You asked me in the street," he said. "You were drunk and honest. It got attention. It was absurd, but I remembered your eyes. They were direct, even when everything else wasn't."
I blushed. He was remembering my late-night honesty as something brave rather than stupid.
16
We moved into a phase where small things mattered. He taught me how to notice the way rain changes sound in the city. I taught him how to make a terrible playlist that made both of us laugh on long bus rides. We texted about dumpling dipping sauces like people building a language only the two of us knew.
"Do you ever feel embarrassed about how we met?" I asked once, toes peeking out from under a blanket.
"Sometimes," he admitted. "But you were honest. People never forget honesty."
He asked to be Noah, not Officer Green, when we were not on duty. He asked to be Noah when he bought two bowls of noodles and handed me the second like an offering. He smiled when he saw me laugh at the silly things. He called me by my full name when he wanted me to really listen.
17
There was a small, absurd crisis. Someone in our neighborhood tried to reenact the old drunk-man move — a heavy-set guy at a local bar saw Noah and thought to himself that the cop was fair game. He stumbled toward Noah with a slurred joke and an attempt at grabbing. Noah handled it the way a trained man handles danger: controlled, firm, and a little theatrical.
He moved like this was practice. A swift hold, and the man found himself on the ground, breathing and embarrassed, more than hurt. People around clapped. Someone filmed it and sent it to me.
"Classic," I said. "I feel oddly proud."
"You should be," he said.
He did not humiliate the man. He didn't yell. He protected the space between himself and others, and he made it clear that property and person are worth more than bravado.
18
Our story grew in small increments. We had lunch at midday under a cheap awning in a rainy market. We argued about whose favorite dumpling place was better. I told him about the time I once tried to get into a fashion magazine and was told my photos were 'too honest'.
"You were honest then too?" he asked, curious.
"I guess so. Honesty has a bad reputation sometimes. But it is also the only thing that changes anything."
He looked at me, and in that look there was a promise that didn't sound like a vow but more like practice. "Honesty and sugar," he said, because he still kept sugar in his pocket. "Good emergency kit."
19
We grew into a rhythm. He was sometimes distant, when the bureau took him for training or when his shifts ate his days, but when he returned, he returned with an easy grace. He would check my apartment door to make sure I had someone to call when I was leaving work late. He would buy me two portions so I would not be alone. He would sometimes stand on a corner waiting for me like someone defending a small kingdom.
"I want to be here," he said once, steady as a weight. "Not because you asked, but because I want to."
"Why?" I asked, but I was already holding his hand.
He answered with a small smile. "Because you laugh the way someone who knows how to live should laugh. Because when you are brave, it's like sunshine. And because the way you apologized that day— even that was honest."
20
People in our group watched the odd love story and whispered. Bristol ran a chant of our misadventures like a series of postcards. "Abigail met Noah and then almost conquered his career with a kiss," she told anyone who would listen.
"Stop," I said. "It wasn't like that."
"It was like that," she said. "And you two make a cute story."
We became a safe headline for our friends: a little ridiculous, a little sweet, and oddly complete. I sometimes thought of that night and wondered if I had been dramatic or accidental. I decided that it didn't matter. What mattered was what we were building after.
21
I learned to be braver for better things. I kept a little note in my wallet that said: "Call Noah when scared." I kept a spare sugar and a handwritten apology in my drawer, in case life turned absurd again. He kept something too: a small matchbox-sized tin that carried two candies and a folded receipt from the night we had dumplings. The things we kept are the things that tell stories.
"Who keeps receipts?" I asked, laughing.
"No one," he said. "I keep things that make me remember. You are one of those things."
22
The seasons slid. In autumn, when the air smelled of distant oranges, we walked together and he showed me how to cross streets with a glance into drivers' eyes like they were a map he already knew. I kissed him beneath a streetlamp once, because he held me like a chosen person and because the world felt like something that could be quieted.
"You were the first to take me seriously," I told him, fingers cold in his.
"Noah laughed. "Because you actually asked me to be yours first," he said, with a smile that suggested he'd memorized the day my courage had been a wrecking ball.
23
I am still embarrassed about the island iced tea sometimes. I watch old segments of the video in a safe, private way, and I cringe and smile at the same time. There is a part of me that wants to hide it, and a larger part that keeps it as evidence that human bravery can be both silly and effective.
One night, when a silly fear reached me, I called him and he showed up like the person I had taught myself to rely on. He listened and then he did what he could do: he was present.
24
"When did you fall for me?" I asked him once on a late sidewalk in winter, breath like smoke.
"When you were honest," he said. "When you apologized like a person who could see and change. When you sat in my car and said you wanted to eat better. Those things were small. But they were consistent. That's how you build trust."
"Do you still remember the first ask?" I teased.
"I do," he said softly. "And every time you call me Noah, it's like a favorite song repeating."
I laughed. "So don't ever not be you."
25
We did not have dramatic declarations of forever. We had smaller vows: he taught me to keep snacks; I taught him to laugh more at silly internet things; he always checked to make sure my doors were locked. We created a life that fit like a warm sweater.
There was a little public moment, too — not a punishment, not a spectacle, but an honest public correction that felt like a moral finishing touch. A man who thought that touching another without consent was amusing found himself corrected on a busy street by the person he had targeted: Noah. The man ended up embarrassed and alone, giving us a small, public correction that was more cultural than criminal: bystanders muttered, someone filmed, but the man left ashamed rather than a hero. The crowd's reaction was not cruel; it was the city's way of saying consent matters. Noah handled it with professional restraint, and I felt proud that when the city watched, it sided with decency.
26
"I still can't believe how this started," I told Bristol at one of our catch-ups.
"You asked the right man in the wrong way," she said. "And look where we are."
"Don't make it sound heroic," I said.
"You were heroic," she insisted. "You were also drunk. The mix is perfect."
27
When I look back, I see a list of small miracles: a sugar in pocket, a public apology, a message that read "Be careful", a late-night arrival at my door. I see a person who showed up despite a less-than-glorious beginning, and I see a friend who never let me stop trying. I see a cop who was first an officer and then a human who chose to be real with a girl who once tried to grab him on a street.
We still tease each other. "You could've met me in a better way," Noah says sometimes, playful.
"Like how?" I answer, and then kiss him, because that is the best punctuation.
28
One evening, Bristol messaged a group: "Remember when Abigail hugged Noah and made a small traffic accident into a love story?"
We all laughed. The city keeps his and our small story in a file labeled "strange but kind."
The island iced tea that started everything is now a private joke between us. I will never drink it again, not because it led to me meeting the person I love, but because I prefer to remember the way things settled, slow and steady, like sugar dissolving in warm tea.
29
The last line I will leave here is small and very particular, because endings should feel like the creak of a particular stair or the smell of one specific café.
I put my hand in his and he squeezes, and the little voice of the city hums: "Prada tears, island iced tea, apology letter under a lamplight, and sugar in a pocket." He smiles. "And you asked me to be yours first," he says. I grin, because it's true.
We walk across the crosswalk he once stood on. The traffic light blinks from red to green and the city breathes. The light is nothing epic — just a light. But the day we cross, he pulls me close and murmurs, "You are mine," and the sound fits, like a small locked key into a tiny home.
And in my head, because endings should taste like things from the story, I hear the faint echo of Bristol's laugh and the city's small, honest hum; the island iced tea is only a memory now, turned into a story I tell sometimes with a laugh, sometimes with a blush, always with the same warmth.
The End
— Thank you for reading —