Twenty-Two
Ihad to pee. I sat up in bed, and for a second, I had no idea where I was.
“Go back to sleep.”
I looked down at Sam, who was on his side next to me.
Seconds before I had been in the warm cocoon of his arms, and now I was sitting up, cold, weighing the need to relieve my bladder against how icy the floors would be, how freezing the air in the bathroom would be, and how much bitching Sam would do when I tried to warm myself with his skin when I got back in bed.
“Or go pee already.”
I grunted and got out of bed. I would actually write it down this time, the need to purchase a pair of old-man slippers. Socks just weren’t going to cut it. There needed to be much more insulation between me and the hardwood floors in the middle of winter.
I whined all the way to the bathroom and all the way back, and I realized that I didn’t even remember getting in bed. I had been so exhausted after making love to him the second time that he’d probably had to carry me. Not that he ever minded.
“Where are you?” Sam yawned loudly, which brought me out of my head and into the present.
“I’m right here.” I smiled, coming back around the bed, ready to dive in until I heard a floorboard squeak in the living room. “What was that?”
Sam went from groggy to fully awake in seconds. When he slid his gun out from under his pillow, I put up my hands in disbelief.
“What the hell?” I stage-whispered.
He glared at me, whispering back, “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, but he put a finger to his lips for me to shut up and went immediately to the doorway.
“Don’t,” I said softly. “Just stay here.”
He shook his head. “It’s okay, baby.”
But I was terrified. My luck was not good lately. Anything could be out there, and I hated it when he went into dark rooms alone. I gave him a three-second head start, then followed him. The front door was wide open, and that scared me to death. How did we not hear the door open?
“It’s clear,” he yelled out to me as all the lights in the living room and kitchen flicked on.
I pointed at the front door.
“Yeah, I know. Just…calm down. Sit on the couch and let me look around.”
I did as I was told, feeling like I was in a horror movie where something was going to jump out at me at any second.
“I don’t see anything,” he called to me from the second bedroom before checking out the door that led to the tiny square of concrete that had been listed as the “patio” when I moved in. All you could see from it were the “patios” of my neighbors.
I waited for him, frozen on the couch as I looked from window to window in the living room. When lightning paled the sky, I thought I saw something moving out on the fire escape. My yell brought Sam down the hall, fast.
“What?”
I pointed at the window that I saw wasn’t all the way lowered.
He darted across the room but stopped when he got there. “J, it’s wet over here.”
I felt the shiver slip down my spine. “It’s open, right?”
He turned to look at me. “Yeah.”
“Shit,” I said, getting up to join him.
“Stay there,” he ordered me, throwing up the window.
“Don’t you dare stick your head out there,” I yelled at him.
I watched him decide, saw the muscles clenching in his jaw, his shoulders tensing before he suddenly relaxed and closed the window with a bang.
“Thank you.” I barely got it out before I started to cry. The adrenaline surging through me was way too much.
“Aww, babe,” he said, walking over to me, putting an arm around my neck, and pulling me close to kiss my forehead. “It’ll be okay. I’ll call it in. You’ll see—everything’s gonna be fine.”
I nodded, trembling against him.
Our apartment was swarming with policemen.
Most of them were wearing those jackets that said POLICE in bold yellow letters, but some were in ties and suits and those shiny black shoes, while others were in uniforms and hats with shower caps over them to keep them from getting soaked from the rain.
The crime lab guys were there dusting for prints and taking photographs outside on the fire escape, inside by the window, and down on the street.
Someone had been in the apartment, they were sure of it, they just didn’t know who, and there were no fingerprints to be found.
Sam split his time between being on the phone and talking to Hefron and Moore.
I was surprised that Pat and Chaz were there instead of Chloe, and even more surprised when Pat came and sat with me, not talking at all, just sitting beside me, shoulder to shoulder, stopping anyone from getting too close to me.
“No,” he said repeatedly, not raising his voice, sometimes just the slight shake of his head keeping people away.
It took hours, and I was nodding off when Sam finally came and sat with me. He put an arm around me and leaned me against his chest.
“How’re you holding up, baby?”
I nodded.
“Jory,” Pat said slowly, drawing my attention. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe all Sammy’s friends don’t care so much that you’re a guy, but more about the fact that you’re so goddamn young?”
I looked at him.
“Yeah. Ya missed that, huh?”
I turned my head to look at Sam and found him scowling.
“He’s not that young,” he growled at his friend.
“Oh, screw you, Kage.” Pat shook his head, flipping him off. “You’re the only guy in our group who’s dating a guy who doesn’t know who Led Zeppelin is.”
“Wait,” I began, “I know who—”
“He’s twenty-six, Pat,” Sam barked at him.
But Detective Patrick Cantwell was already getting up off the couch. He reached out and ruffled my hair before sauntering across the room to talk to Chaz.
I turned and looked at Sam.
“What?”
“They all think I’m gonna leave you crying in your coffee because you’re old.”
“I’m not—fuck that, J, I’m not old! I’m not even forty.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I won’t be forty for four more years!”
“Three years,” I corrected him. “You already had your birthday this year. You’re thirty-seven.”
He stared at me.
“What?”
“You remembered when my birthday was?”
“Of course. It was August eighteenth.”
“I had no idea you—”
“You’re eleven years older than me.”
His brows furrowed, and I got a growl. “I’m not old.”
I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face to save my life.
“Leave me,” he muttered under his breath. “Never happen.”
But I could tell from the way he was acting, from the scowl on his face, the muscles flexing in his jaw, and the way he was gripping his cell phone that maybe our age difference had him a little spooked as well. I couldn’t have that.
“What’re you doing?”
It was perfectly obvious that I was comforting him. My hand was in his lap under the blanket, and my lips were pressed to his throat.
“Quit.” He shifted uncomfortably, trying to push me away. “You’re gonna give me a boner and I’m wearing sweats.”
“You’re not old.”
“Thank you, but I know that already.”
“You’re the hottest guy I know,” I said, slipping my hand down under the elastic waistband of his sweats.
“Stop before you—”
I bit his jaw lightly before I licked it better, moving my lips back toward his ear.
“Baby,” he groaned, wrapping his arms around me fast, crushing me against his hard, muscular chest. “Stop. I can’t put you over the kitchen table right now, so…
quit. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but my ego is not that delicate.
All I gotta do is look at you when you see me to know that I do it for you big-time. ”
I closed my eyes, surrendering all my weight to him.
“There ya go, just relax. I gotcha.”
We sat together on the couch, me in his arms with my eyes closed, drifting in and out as he talked on the phone to Dane and Agent Calhoun and his captain and his partner and so many, many other people.
It was four in the morning before he finally put me in bed.
He kissed me good night, promised that he’d be right back, and tucked the down comforter around me.
There were two officers outside our front door, and a patrol car parked on the street in front of the building.
No one was getting anywhere near me. I wanted Sam to stay, but he had to go—there’d been a murder that he and his partner were needed at, and then later that morning, he was going to go visit Susan Reid with Dane.
I argued that I should be there too, but he said I’d done enough.
I needed to rest; it was all anyone expected me to do.
I realized when I heard the front door lock that I was more like a prisoner than anything else.
Scary to think that I was no more able to do as I pleased than Susan Reid.
Hard to imagine a time when it wouldn’t be like this.
The last thing Sam had said was to concentrate on setting a date for us to fly to Canada and get married. I dreamed about that.