Chapter 21 #2
I shake my head and swallow the tired groan desperately clawing its way along my throat.
“Until I have new information and a better plan, I’m gonna take Cordoza at his word.
He says she’s at risk? Means she’s at risk, and before anyone touches her, I’ll step in their way.
In the meantime, I’m cleaning this shit up so she doesn’t have to. ”
“And since you’re playing three different games of chess all at once,” Fletch grumbles, “you’re coming to work on an hour of sleep, draped in a shitty attitude, and are completely incapable of regulating your emotions.” He looks to Tim. “He was gonna murder Detective Banks, ya know that?”
Tim’s eyes swing back to mine. “Don’t whack a cop. It’s a bad look.”
“Detective Banks is a pain in my ass, and if we should be worried about anyone squealing, it’s him. He wants me out, and he wants to be real fucking loud about it.”
“I sometimes fantasize about rolling up a newspaper and smacking you on the nose when you get like this.” Fletch flashes a beaming smile.
“You ever notice when I’m staring into space while you’re bitching about Banks?
That’s when I’m thinking about the newspaper.
Whack!” He slaps the brick wall. “Whack! Whack!”
“Do it. Then I’ll dip it in hot sauce and shove it straight up your asshole.”
An apartment door whooshes open, startling all three of us to a skidding stop. Then Mrs. Mayweather pokes her head through the gap, a dozen pink rollers in her hair, and a loose-fitting floral nightie drowning her wrinkly body.
“Two police officers and a…” She looks Tim up and down. “Publican.”
Tim drops his chin, smirking behind his beard. “Ma’am.”
“I expect better from all of you.” She brings her hand forward and reveals a rolled newspaper clenched in her palm.
From Fletch’s fantasies to our realities.
“It is late! My shows are on. And I know for a fact there’s a child trying to sleep in 4B right now.
She does not need to hear your potty mouths.
If Mr. Morris were here, he would have all of your heads! ”
“We’re sorry, ma’am.” Fletch, our forever flirt, surges forward and takes her hand in his.
He relieves her of her weapon, yeeting it back into her apartment with a smooth flick of his wrist, then he strokes her arm with the pad of his thumb.
“That little girl in 4B is actually my daughter. And you’re right.
She deserves so much more than our potty mouths and bad manners.
We’re working on it, I promise. The conversations we have in the stairwell act as a release valve of sorts, so by the time we’re in the presence of my sweet baby girl, we’re better, more respectable men. ”
“Well… she…” Fight against it, Mrs. Mayweather! Stay strong. His smolder is only as powerful as you allow it to be. “I suppose, if you—”
“You see, Detective Malone and I,” he gestures my way, “we put our minds and bodies on the line every single day. We run toward danger when everyone else runs away. The department shrink suggested the release valve strategy.”
“Oh…” Her cheeks glow bright red. “I suppose if the professionals suggested—”
“But we are always open to feedback.” Fletch, the fuckin’ creep, brings the old woman’s wrinkled hand up to his lips. “We swore to serve the citizens of Copeland City. That means I heard your thoughts, and I vow to do better.” He kisses her knuckles. “Thank you for keeping us accountable.”
“Come on, Romeo.” I grab his shoulder and nod to the blustering, overwhelmed old lady. Turning him toward the last flight of stairs, I clap his back with a little extra oomph in the action, and shake my head the moment she reverses and closes her door. “There’s something seriously wrong with you.”
He barks out a laugh and throws my hand off his shoulder. “Don’t touch me. Flirting with her reminded me that I never get to spend time with women anymore.”
“You’re sick,” Tim chuckles. “And she’s old.”
“I’m horny, and it really fucking grinds my gears not to have a lady friend to call in times of need.”
“I swear to God, Charlie Fletcher.” Footsteps echo on the floor above us, then Fifi stops on the top stair, her body wrapped in sinfully tight yoga pants and a tank top that hugs her curves.
She glares, angry and intolerant. “Redemption has been chasing you, Detective, but you’re always just a little too fast.”
“Sera?” He gulps, noisy and desperate. “W-what did…” His cheeks turn impossibly pale. “How much of…” He draws a deep, shuddering breath. “Fuck. Guess that set me back another year or two?”
Laughter bubbles along my throat, but I clap his shoulder again, purely to piss him off, then I keep on walking, ducking around the incensed Seraphina Lewis and carefully—quietly—through our apartment door.
Tim follows just two steps behind me.
Cato perches on the counter with a bag of chips in his lap, crumbs littering his shirt. But his eyes are on the doorway, so as I pause on the threshold, he brings a single digit up and holds it in front of his lips.
Shh.
I glance across the apartment to the back of the couch, and in front of it, the television with a cartoon lighting up the screen.
Aubree sits on the arm of the couch, her smile growing as she looks me up and down, but that smile turns up a thousand megawatts when her eyes flicker to the man behind me.
I don’t empty my pockets like I usually do when I come in here. Phone and keys in the bowl by the door, a rock or two beside those.
I can’t. Not for as long as Minka’s heart hurts.
Not for as long as she’s in New York’s crosshairs.
Instead, I finger the one I’ve been holding on to and cross the old, worn floor, stopping at the back of the couch and breathing easier, breathing cleaner air once more, as I find her curled up with Mia, their arms and legs tangled, their cheeks smooshed, and both sets of eyes shut so long, dark lashes kiss their faces.
“Aren’t they the sweetest things ever?” Aubree brushes a lock of hair off Mia’s face. “They’ve been like this for an hour already.”
Minka wears a pair of shorts and one of my shirts. Her face is red and splotchy, even while unconscious, because her lack of sleep and emotional turmoil have held her hostage for far too long.
She could’ve asked everyone to leave. She could’ve locked herself in her bedroom. Instead, she chose to snuggle with Mia… and my shirt.
“How anyone could think I wouldn’t want her is just…
” Exhaling, I lower into a crouch and rest my arms on the top of the couch, my chin on my hands.
“Jesus. Haven’t I said it five million times already?
” Daringly, I reach over the couch and drag my fingertips through Minka’s hair. “I can’t live without her.”
“I think Cordoza is—”
“Yeah.” I don’t even meet her eyes. I’m too fucking busy studying Minka’s plump lips.
Her dimples, dug into her cheeks even when she isn’t smiling.
Her nose, objectively almost too small for her face, and the shadows under her eyes, way too fucking dark for a woman I vowed to take care of.
“Tim said you think Cordoza’s fleecing me.
” I shake my head. “I don’t wanna talk about it right now.
I just wanna take a few minutes with my wife before I have to leave again. ”
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” Aubree licks her lips in my peripherals, her body folding forward until her chest touches her legs. “Loving someone as much as you love her, knowing you’re meant to be together forever, but not being able to have it.”
Tim wanders across the living room and comes around the side of the couch, stopping behind his new bride and splaying his hand over the column of her neck.
Her lips quirk higher in response. “I’m not mad anymore.
” She cups his hand and straightens her back, leaning against him and exhaling a happy sigh.
“But I feel it, Archer. I feel your pain. And hers. While everyone else was swinging punches and shouting at each other, asking what the hell you were thinking…”
“You already knew.” I hate that my eyes itch.
That my heart aches, knowing I won’t be sleeping here tonight.
I won’t be sleeping in the same bed as my wife, and that…
that’s not fucking fair. “I was shot and tortured by my own father, Aubs. Tormented. Pitted against my brothers. I left my family when I was still a kid and ran face-first into a world where I was fully prepared to be alone. I watched my father die. Literally helped dig the hole he would eventually lie in. I’ve done a lot of bad shit in my life… ”
“But none of it hurts nearly as much as this.” She drags Tim’s arm around, holding his palm to her heart and resting her cheek against his belly. “I believe everything will work out. Eventually.”
“Because that’s the path we’re on? That’s how it works, right? We’re headed toward whatever we’re headed toward, and our actions create the path laid out ahead of us.”
She nods, soft and barely moving. “Right.”
“So even though the things I’ve said and done damaged us, the path you see proves I’m doing the right thing.” I clear my throat and twist a lock of Minka’s hair around my fingers. “Right?”