Chapter 3 He Already Knew My Name
Ryan
I followed Hawley up the narrow stairwell. He didn't slow down. Didn't look back to check if I was keeping pace. Just assumed I would match his stride or get left behind.
The neighborhood wasn't what I'd expected.
In Toronto, the neighborhood of Cabbagetown wasn't the same as Yorkville, but it wasn't a wasteland either.
Working-class east of the downtown core, named for the Irish settlers who'd grown vegetables in their front yards a century and a half ago, the kind of pocket where Victorian rowhouses leaned against each other on side streets that hadn't been paved twice.
Quiet side streets. Corner shops with their metal grilles pulled halfway down.
Elderly residents shuffling along with shopping bags.
The kind of place where nothing exciting ever happened.
Which was probably the point of stashing us here.
The building itself was a dull beige Victorian, brick weathered to the color of dried mud. Cracks ran along the exterior. A defunct convenience store occupied the ground floor, its windows papered over with faded ads.
I felt the stairwell narrow around me as we climbed. The fluorescent light flickered overhead and threw Hawley's shadow long against the wall. His shoulders nearly filled the space.
"Is this really happening?" I muttered, more to myself than to him.
No answer. Of course.
We reached the second-floor landing. A delivery flyer lay crumpled in the corner.
I almost bent to pick it up. Some ingrained habit from my mother about keeping shared spaces tidy.
I stopped when Hawley glanced back. His expression unreadable in the harsh light.
Our eyes met for half a second before his slid away. Dismissive.
He turned the key with one smooth motion. No hesitation. No fumbling. Like he'd been doing this for years instead of seconds. I noticed the efficiency in his hands. Same precision I'd seen in the best officers back at 52. Annoying. Also, oddly reassuring.
The door swung open with a soft creak.
"Home sweet home," I said, forcing a smile that no one would see.
Hawley stepped inside without acknowledging me. I followed. The door closed behind me with a finality that crawled down my spine.
The apartment was small. Impersonal. Depressingly practical.
Standard Service housing, the kind of unit that had probably housed a dozen reassigned officers before us.
A narrow entryway opened to a combined living and dining area.
A low table. A worn couch that looked like it had been requisitioned from surplus storage.
The kitchen was just a strip along one wall.
Two burners. A sink with water stains. A refrigerator that hummed too loudly.
Two doors stood side by side at the end of a short hallway.
"I'll take the one on the right."
His voice startled me after the silence. Deeper than I'd expected. A quiet authority in it that didn't match our shared disgrace.
"Fine by me." I shrugged, aiming for casual indifference. The knot in my stomach said otherwise. This place was smaller than my walk-in closet back in Yorkville.
He moved past me. His shoulder almost brushed mine in the narrow space. The door to his chosen room opened and closed. I was alone.
I stood in the silent living area, taking it in. Faded off-white paint, scuffed where furniture had been dragged. A single window onto the street below, the glass smudged with city residue.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Probably my mother, wanting to know why I hadn't called to explain my sudden change of address. I ignored it.
I pushed open the other bedroom door instead.
A single bed with a thin mattress. A metal desk with a metal chair. A closet barely wide enough for half my wardrobe. The functional minimalism of departmental housing.
This was my punishment. This sterile box. The thin walls. The silent man on the other side of them.
I sat on the edge of the bed. It dipped under my weight. I stared at the blank wall. For the first time since the transfer, the reality of my situation hit me like a physical blow.
I was trapped.
When I stepped back into the hallway, Hawley was moving methodically through the apartment.
Checking windows. Opening cabinets. Testing faucets.
Precise, economical movements. No wasted energy.
Like he was securing a crime scene rather than inspecting his new home.
A reluctant flash of professional respect went through me.
He might be cold as ice, but he was thorough.
I tried the living room window. It stuck halfway, the frame groaning in protest.
"Great," I muttered, jiggling the handle. "Even the air is rationed in this place."
Hawley didn't acknowledge me. He was in the kitchen now. Turning the knobs on the stove. Watching the burner glow red, then go dark again.
I left the window and wandered into the bathroom. Off-white tile. Hospital green. Mildew creeping along the grout lines. The shower looked like it had been designed for someone half Hawley's size, which meant it would be cramped even for me. A single towel bar hung crookedly on the wall.
When I came out, Hawley was standing in the hallway between our rooms, his hand on one of the doorknobs.
"Bedroom doors don't lock." He turned the knob back and forth to demonstrate. Something in his tone, not quite annoyance, not quite resignation, suggested he saw this as deliberate. Another carefully designed element of our punishment.
I glanced across at his identical space. Wondered which was worse. The apartment's emptiness, or the man I'd be sharing it with.
"At least they gave us separate rooms," I said, trying for humor. A peace offering of sorts.
His gaze flicked to mine. Cold. Unreadable. For a moment I thought he might actually answer. Instead, he turned away and disappeared into his room.
The silence that followed felt heavier than before.
I retreated to my own space and sat on the edge of the bed again. Through the thin wall I could hear him moving around. The creak of his mattress. The soft thud of what might have been shoes. Every sound amplified. Every movement tracked by the floorboards.
There would be no privacy here. No escape from each other.
The smell of instant noodles drifted under my door. Hawley must have found something in the kitchen cabinets. My stomach growled in response. The thought of sitting across from him at that small table was too much.
I'd eat later. After he was done.
I unpacked my toiletries. Lined them up on the bathroom counter.
Cleanser, toner, moisturizer in a neat row.
A small claim to territory. A tiny piece of myself inserted into this space.
When I came back out, Hawley was sitting at the table.
A steaming bowl in front of him. He was scrolling through his phone.
He didn't look up.
I lay on the bed for another twenty minutes, listening to him eat. My stomach growled again, louder this time. This was ridiculous. I couldn't avoid him forever.
I took a breath, pushed myself off the mattress, and stepped back into the hallway. Hawley was still at the table. The bowl was empty now, pushed aside. He was still scrolling. He didn't look up when I entered.
"So," I said, forcing brightness into my voice. "We should probably figure out some basics. Food. Cleaning supplies. That sort of thing." I moved toward the kitchen, opening cabinets at random. "There's not much in here. Did they stock anything besides instant noodles?"
No answer. His eyes stayed on his phone.
"I'm thinking we could split grocery duties.
" I pressed on. "Maybe alternate weeks. Or each buy our own stuff.
There's a 7-Eleven on the corner. I passed it on the way in.
I'm not picky, but I do need decent coffee in the morning.
Can't function without it." I turned toward him. "What about you? Any preferences?"
His silence stretched between us. Pulled tight. Finally, without looking up, he spoke.
"Each man fends for himself."
I blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me." His voice was low. Almost a rumble. "Buy your own food. Clean your own mess. Stay out of my way."
The dismissal in his tone sparked something hot in my chest. I'd spent the day being shuffled around. Stripped of my dignity. And now this man, this stranger who was as much a screwup as I was, thought he could dismiss me?
"Look," I said, crossing my arms. "I get that neither of us wants to be here. But we are. And unless you plan to live the next however-many months in complete silence, we need to figure out how to coexist."
Hawley finally looked up. His dark eyes met mine with cold indifference. "No, we don't."
"Yes, we do." I moved closer to the table. Rested my palms on the surface. "We're stuck together in this apartment. In this program. At this division. The least we can do is coordinate on basics like shopping and cleaning."
"I don't need coordination." He set his phone down with deliberate slowness. "I need space. Quiet. And for you to stay in your lane."
"My lane?" I straightened up. Anger flared. "This isn't Bay Street. This is forty square meters of shared punishment. We're both in the same lane whether you like it or not."
Something shifted in his expression. A subtle tightening around the eyes. A slight clench of his jaw. When he spoke again his voice was lower. Almost a growl.
"I didn't ask for a partner. Especially not a disgraced one who crashed and burned because he couldn't keep his mouth shut."
The words hit like a physical blow. My cheeks burned.
"You think I wanted this?" I shot back. "To be paired with the division's pet bear? You wouldn't be stuck here either if you were the perfect officer. What was it again? Going in solo against orders. One too many times, from what I heard."
Hawley stood abruptly. His chair scraped against the floor. He towered over me by several centimeters, his presence suddenly filling the small room. The air between us seemed to compress. Charged with something that wasn't quite anger but felt just as dangerous.
"You don't know anything about me."
"And you don't know me." I refused to back down despite the figure he cut. "But here we are. Two failures in a box. And one of us is trying to make it work."
"There's nothing to make work." His voice rose. "This isn't a partnership. It's a punishment. And I don't need your cooperation or your conversation."
"Well, you're getting both," I said, my volume matching his. "Because I'm not spending the next six months tiptoeing around this apartment pretending you don't exist."
"Six months?" A harsh laugh escaped him. "You think you'll last six months? The Service is waiting for you to fail, Carlson. They're counting on it."
"Then I'll disappoint them," I snapped. "And so will you. Because we're going to make this work even if it kills us both."
We stood there. Glaring at each other across the small table. The tension crackling between us like live wire. In the silence I could hear the neighbors' muffled television through the wall. Distant traffic on Parliament below. The soft hum of the refrigerator.
"You're delusional," Hawley said. His voice quieter but no less intense. "This isn't a buddy cop movie. We're not going to become friends."
"Good," I replied. "I have enough friends. What I need is a functioning living situation."
His face darkened. "A functioning living situation requires one thing. Boundaries. Stay on your side. I'll stay on mine."
"That's not how shared spaces work." I gestured at the kitchen. "What about this? What about the bathroom? Are we supposed to draw a line down the middle?"
"If that's what it takes."
"You're being ridiculous." My voice rose another notch. "We're adults, not children fighting over toys."
"Then act like one and accept the situation," he countered, his volume rising to match mine. "I didn't ask for you to be here."
"And I didn't ask to be paired with the division's most antisocial detective!" I was shouting now, my patience completely gone. "But here we are, and one of us needs to be realistic!"
"Realistic?" He stepped closer. His height forced me to tilt my head back to keep eye contact. "Realistic is understanding that this program is designed to fail. Realistic is knowing that they put us together because we're both expendable."
"Speak for yourself," I snapped. "I'm not giving up my career because you can't handle having a roommate!"
"Your career?" His laugh was sharp and humorless. "Your career was over the moment you were assigned here. You're just too naive to admit it."
That stung. Worse, because there was truth in it. "At least I didn't risk civilian lives by playing lone wolf!"
The moment the words left my mouth I knew I'd crossed a line. Hawley's face went completely still. His eyes hardened into something dangerous. The air between us seemed to freeze.
He took one step forward. I instinctively backed up until my spine hit the edge of the counter, the hard surface digging into my lower back. He didn't touch me. But his presence was suffocating. Looming.
"You want to talk about risking lives?" His voice dropped to something barely above a whisper. Somehow more terrifying than if he'd shouted. "Let's talk about the officers who risked their cover and their lives because you couldn't keep your mouth shut for a puff piece."
My lungs constricted. The room felt airless.
How.
How does he know.
I shoved past him, hard enough that our shoulders collided. The brief contact sent an unexpected jolt through me. Not anger. Something else I couldn't name. My hands were trembling as I grabbed my wallet and badge from where I'd tossed them earlier.
"I don't have to listen to this," I muttered. My voice unsteady even to my own ears.
Hawley didn't try to stop me. Didn't say another word. Just watched with those cold eyes as I fumbled with the door.
Once in the hallway I leaned against the wall. Pulse hammering in my throat. "Shit," I whispered, running a hand through my hair.
I needed air. Distance. Out of this claustrophobic box and away from the man who had just looked straight through me.
I took the stairs too quickly. Almost tripped on the last step. The night air hit my face, cool against skin that felt fever-hot with shame.
He knew. Somehow, he knew what had really happened. The part that wasn't in the official reports.
And worse. For just a second back there, when he'd had me cornered against that counter, I hadn't felt just anger. I'd felt seen. Really seen, for the first time since this whole nightmare began.
Round one: no winners. Just the promise of a very long war.