Chapter 32
Thirty Two
Monday nights had a shape to them. The station quieted by seven, the last of the lights cut a pale line across her office, and the building sighed into its evening bones.
Erin drove home with the radio low. Leo trotted to the door before she had the chance to jiggle the key, tail thumping the jamb like a metronome.
She dropped her bag by the shoe rack and braced her palm on the door frame for a second longer than necessary, like she had to ask her body to catch up with the rest of her.
“Hi, menace,” she said, rubbing between his ears. “You hungry, or are you going to pretend I never feed you?”
He huffed like he understood and then beelined for his bowl.
Erin poured kibble, set out fresh water, and let herself look around the quiet room.
Monday had its rules. Dishes washed before bed.
Email closed after dinner. Cannoli waiting in a white box with a gold ribbon she kept on the second shelf of the fridge.
If nothing else, Monday would end sweet.
She opened the fridge to pull out garlic and a lemon and caught herself watching the spot where the white box with the gold ribbon usually sat.
She hadn’t stopped for dessert. The day had gotten away from her.
So had the familiar weight of the week’s first round of calls.
A detective had looped her in on something that made her neck tense, just a few lines in a draft brief and a name she recognized for all the wrong reasons.
Not public yet. Probably not tomorrow either. But soon.
She set a pan on the stove, oil in a slick, heat low. Leo nosed the kitchen rug into a fold and circled twice before collapsing like he’d done something heroic.
“You don’t pay rent,” she told him. “You can at least pretend to help.”
Her phone lit on the counter. For a second she nearly let it go. Then she saw the name.
You busy tonight?
Erin swallowed. Her thumb hovered, then moved.
Cooking. Does that count?
Depends on what you’re making.
Something with actual vegetables so my mother’s ghost won’t scold me in my sleep.
Your mother is very much alive.
She would haunt me anyway.
Jamie sent a laughing emoji. Then:
Do you want company?
Erin stared at the text and felt a small panic flare, the good kind, the kind that meant there was a choice to make and she could make it. She glanced at the pan, the lemon, the garlic waiting to be smashed. She pictured the white box with the gold ribbon that wasn’t on the second shelf.
Yeah. Come over.
On my way. Do you need anything?
Erin typed no and backspaced.
Wine if you feel like it. Or just you.
There was a beat. Then:
Got it.
She cracked a clove against the cutting board and let the scent open her nose.
Olive oil took the heat, garlic went in, the soft hiss a comfort she felt in her chest. She shaved ribbons of zucchini and sliced tomatoes.
Pasta water. Salt generous. Her mouth moved through a grocery list out loud, like the sound of routine could pin the evening to something steady.
“You will not beg at the table,” she told Leo. “We have guests now. We’re civilized.”
He yawned without remorse.
By the time a knock came, the apartment smelled like lemon and basil and the stove’s low heat. Erin wiped her hands on a dish towel and pulled the door open. Jamie stood there with a white box tied with a gold ribbon cradled against her chest and a smile that pushed a warm line across Erin’s ribs.
“Hi,” Jamie said.
“Hi.” Erin stepped aside. “You brought the good kind of trouble.”
“I figured it’s Monday,” Jamie said, lifting the box. “Seemed only right.”
Erin’s eyes cut to the ribbon and back to Jamie. A laugh caught in her throat. “You remembered.”
“Of course I remembered.” Jamie slid out of her shoes and nudged them into place next to Erin’s. “You told me about your cannoli rule. I like rules that include dessert.”
Erin took the box with a care she hoped didn’t show. “You’re dangerous.”
Jamie sniffed the air. “You cooked. Are you trying to show me up?”
“It’s not hard to boil pasta,” Erin said, then flushed. “I mean, I can cook. Just not anything that requires a blowtorch or an advanced degree.”
“That’s a relief.” Jamie stepped toward the kitchen and paused as Leo trotted forward, ears perked. “Hey, handsome.”
“Don’t lie to him,” Erin said. “He’s a tyrant.”
Leo leaned into Jamie’s hand like he’d been waiting all day for her to arrive. Jamie scratched under his collar, then glanced up with a grin that stuck.
“He remembers me.”
“He remembers anyone who brings cannoli,” Erin said, setting the white box with the gold ribbon on the counter.
Jamie set a bottle of red beside it. “Backup plan, in case you needed liquid courage.”
Erin watched her for a second, quiet settling over her shoulders like a soft coat. “I’m glad you came.”
“Me too,” Jamie said, simple as that.
They moved easily. Jamie poured wine. Erin salted the sauce. Steam fogged the small window above the sink and ran in thin lines down the glass. Leo sprawled on the mat like a sentry whose beat happened to include the kitchen triangle.
“So,” Jamie said, leaning a hip against the counter, “how are you? And please don’t cop out with fine.”
“I would never.” Erin twirled a wooden spoon and smiled when Jamie groaned. “I’m okay. Today started rough. Ended better.”
“Because you’re feeding me.”
“Among other perks.”
Jamie’s eyes warmed. “Among other perks.”
Erin lifted the pot and poured pasta into a colander, steam wrapping her face. “How was your day? Please tell me it didn’t involve another leaf blower.”
“Not a blower in sight,” Jamie said. “We did a follow-up on city park maintenance budgets, and I got to argue with a spreadsheet on camera.”
“Riveting.”
“I make everything riveting.” Jamie tucked hair behind her ear and lowered her voice. “I kept waiting for someone to send me a mean email. I think people got it out of their system after the presser.”
Erin’s hand paused over the pan. The word hung there between them. Presser. She set the bowl down and met Jamie’s eyes.
“I’m sorry about that,” Erin said. “Not for the question. For the mess after. I know everyone thinks it was your win, but I also know you didn’t want it at my expense.”
Jamie studied her for a beat. “I didn’t want it to be anyone’s expense.”
“I know.” Erin drew a breath and let it go. “I keep replaying the moment. I keep thinking about all the ways I’m supposed to be a wall and how it felt to be anything but.”
“You’re allowed to be human,” Jamie said softly.
“That’s inconvenient,” Erin said, a smile tugging without her permission.
“Very,” Jamie said. “But I like it.”
They ate at the small table by the window.
Jamie’s knee brushed Erin’s once, then didn’t move.
Conversation found its own pace. Work. A TV show Jamie insisted would fix Erin’s taste in television.
A neighborhood kid who kept trying to ride his skateboard down the stoop railing outside.
Erin watched Jamie’s hands when she talked.
She noticed how Jamie cut her pasta in the bowl because she hated the way long noodles smacked her chin.
She noticed and could not believe she had a life where she noticed that.
Leo lay at their feet with a sigh like a judgment. Erin dropped a single sliver of zucchini and pretended it was an accident. Jamie didn’t call her out, but her mouth lifted at the corner.
When the plates were mostly empty and the wine had turned both their cheeks a little warm, Jamie tapped the white box with the gold ribbon.
“Do we eat these now, or do we pretend we’re adults with restraint?”
Erin slid the box closer. “I keep meaning to save one for breakfast. I never do.”
“I’ll write you a permission slip,” Jamie said. “Breakfast cannoli is an act of self-care.”
“Is that your reporter’s official stance?”
“It’s just good journalism.”
Erin laughed, then quieted. The moment stretched, not awkward, just full. She could feel the next thing between them. Not a line to cross. A door to open.
“I don’t do this,” she said.
“Cannoli on Mondays,” Jamie said. “I’ve been informed that’s a lie.”
“I don’t do this,” Erin said again, and forced herself not to look away. “I don’t invite people over. I don’t cook for them. I don’t sit at this table with someone and feel like I could get used to it.”
Jamie’s throat moved. “Okay.”
“I like you,” Erin said, and the truth of it settled in her chest like something finally in the right drawer. “I’m trying not to be reckless with that. With you. My job. All of it.”
Jamie met her where she was. “I like you too. I don’t need perfect. I just need honest.”
“I can do honest,” Erin said. “I can’t promise I won’t mess up again.”
“I don’t need a promise,” Jamie said. “I just need to know you’ll tell me when you’re scared or when work gets close to the part of you that doesn’t have room for me. I can handle that. I just can’t handle silence.”
Erin nodded once. “Okay.”
Jamie exhaled like it had been sitting in her for days. “Okay.”
It wasn’t a label. It didn’t need one. It was a shape they both recognized anyway.
They cleared the dishes together, shoulder to shoulder at the sink.
Jamie washed. Erin dried. The kitchen light hummed.
Leo snored, then made a sound like a tiny trumpet and startled himself awake.
Jamie laughed and bumped Erin’s hip with hers.
Erin bumped back. It didn’t feel like a game.
It felt like a language they both already spoke.
When the counters were clean, Jamie set the white box with the gold ribbon on the coffee table and slid onto the couch. Erin grabbed two small plates and a knife, then paused at the edge of the rug.
“Do you want the one with pistachios or the one with chocolate chips?”
“Dealer’s choice,” Jamie said, patting the cushion beside her.
Erin sat and turned toward her. She had a joke ready about equitable cannoli distribution, and then Jamie was closer, and the joke fell right out of her head.
“I keep thinking about that night,” Jamie said. “I keep thinking about how I didn’t want to leave your bed.”
Erin swallowed. “I keep thinking about how quiet it was when you did.”
Jamie’s hand found Erin’s knee, warm even through the denim. “Can I stay tonight?”
“Yes,” Erin said, and it came out low.
They didn’t rush. Jamie kissed her like she wanted to remember every angle. Erin let herself lean. She felt Jamie’s hand slide to her jaw, felt the careful press of thumb against her pulse, like she was being measured and chosen, both.
The world narrowed to the soft drag of lips and the small sounds they made without meaning to. Erin felt a crack open in the guarded part of her and didn’t close it. She moved her hand to Jamie’s waist and found the place that made her inhale.
“Bedroom,” Jamie murmured, and Erin nodded.
Leo lifted his head as they stood, sighed like a chaperone, and put it back down. Erin flicked off the kitchen light as they passed and felt the apartment shrink to shadows and the line of light under her bedroom door.
They were gentle with each other. Erin noticed the way Jamie paused to look at her, like a question she wanted to answer right.
She noticed how easy it felt to say what she wanted and have Jamie listen.
The first time had been urgent. This was slow.
This was careful. This was the kind of intimacy that made Erin’s chest ache because it asked her to be present, not perfect.
After, they lay on their sides, breath evening out, the room dim and soft. Erin traced a line over Jamie’s shoulder with a fingertip and felt the day peel off her skin.
“Stay,” Erin said into the quiet.
“I’m here,” Jamie said, and turned her face to press her mouth against Erin’s wrist.
Leo thunked his tail once against the bedroom doorframe and then went quiet again. The clock on the dresser didn’t tick, but Erin could feel the time anyway. Monday had done its work. She felt the sweetness of it settle in her teeth.
“Tell me something true,” Jamie said, voice a thread in the dark.
Erin stared at the ceiling and let the words come without fuss. “I forgot to buy cannoli, and I thought maybe I could skip the ritual. Then you texted and it turns out I can’t. Not if you’re part of it.”
Jamie smiled, small and real. “I’ll try not to ruin it for you.”
“Impossible,” Erin said. “You’ll make it worse. In a good way.”
They were quiet awhile. The city outside rubbed along its own night.
Somewhere a car door closed. A neighbor laughed.
Erin felt sleep pull at her. She also felt the other pull, the one that lived under her ribs and wore a badge.
The case that wasn’t public yet. The one that would want every inch of her, and then more, and then she would have to learn how to return to herself after.
“Work’s going to get loud,” she said. “Soon.”
Jamie’s hand found hers and laced their fingers. “Then we’ll be loud back when you can. And quiet when you can’t.”
Erin turned enough to see her. “I don’t want to lose this. Whatever name we give it.”
“We don’t have to name it tonight,” Jamie said. “We just have to keep choosing it.”
Erin let that settle. Choosing it. Monday made a rule of that. She could too.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay,” Jamie echoed, and closed her eyes.
Erin stayed awake a little longer, counting the rise and fall of the woman sharing her bed and wondering how many more of these nights she’d get before everything shifted.
She could feel the edge of the high-profile case in the room with them, like a draft under a door no one had opened yet.
She set the thought on the nightstand next to her phone and let it be.
In the morning there would be coffee. In the fridge there would be one cannoli left because Jamie had insisted. She pictured Leo watching them like he was owed a bite of something sweet. She pictured Jamie’s laugh when Erin made herself save the second.
She let her eyes close. Monday had done its job. Sweet and simple and sure. The storm could wait a few more hours.