Say the Word(109)
I pushed him away with a light shove of my palms against his chest. “Why do you keep suggesting that?”
“Because one of these times, you’re going to say yes.”
“In your dreams.” I let out an amused huff of air. “I have to go, I have things to do.”
“Sure you don’t want a ride?”
“I’m sure.” I began to walk away, but stopped myself. Turning back, I stared at him for a beat. “Hey Bash?”
His eyes softened to that warm, glowing look I loved so much. “Yeah, Lux?”
“This was kind of fun.” I admitted, surprise clear in my tone. “I mean, not the Vera stuff or the part where you called me pigheaded and told me I was ‘out of my f*cking mind’…” My smile was irrepressible. “But the rest of it.”
“You’re right — it was fun. You know what would be even more fun?” he asked, the warmth in his eyes beginning to build into a fiery heat.
“Nope,” I grinned full out, taking a step backward as he began to advance on me.
“There’s that pigheadedness,” he said, shaking his head at me. “Can I at least have a hug goodbye?”
“Nope. See you tomorrow!” I called, giggling as I dodged his embrace and rushed down the sidewalk toward the nearest subway entrance.
“Flying away again, Freckles?” Bash called after me.
Without turning around to face him, I held my arms aloft at my sides and pumped them up and down, mimicking flight as I walked further away from him. His laughter chased me all the way to the platform and back to Midtown, where I let it envelop me like a warm blanket I never wanted to remove and lull me into a sort of temporary bliss. I knew this holding pattern of friendly bantering and benign flirtation couldn’t last forever between Bash and me — sooner or later, real life would overtake the fantasy we’d shared in the café this evening.
It was as though, through some unspoken pact, we’d both agreed to set aside the past completely and live the life we might’ve had — two twenty-five year-olds on a coffee date, laughing and arguing good-naturedly as time ticked by and the world spun on without their noticing. We’d been isolated in that bubble of content self-deception for hours, our mirage so convincing we’d deceived even ourselves, for a time, into believing it might last forever.
It wouldn’t last — it couldn’t.
But for tonight, I’d hold the blanket Bash’s words had woven close to ward off the shadows of the past.
***
I was late.
My morning run had been painful — I’d been sincerely neglecting my workout regimen lately, and my sore leg muscles were paying the price. The three-mile loop I typically flew through with ease was a struggle for breath, each cramping stride a punishment for my lack of discipline. By the time I made it home and hopped into the shower, I was thirty minutes behind schedule.
Hair still damp, I practically ran to the subway, stopping only briefly to grab a coffee from the food cart parked just outside the platform. I was in the process of dumping two sugars into the steaming brew when someone smashed into me from behind, spilling the entire scalding cup down the front of my blouse and eternally staining my outfit.
There was no way I could go to work like this — I’d have to go home and change, which would put me even further behind schedule.
“Goddammit!” I cursed in the loud, unabashed style I’d adopted since moving to the city, turning to face my assailant and unleash a can of whoop-ass on him. “Watch where you’re going buddy, it’s—”
“So sorry, miss.” The smooth voice immediately drew my attention. My eyes traveled from the shiny black shoes, up two navy, uniformed legs, and came to land on the gleaming chest badge and emblem. Shit — I’d just cussed out a police officer.
“No, officer, it’s my fault,” I apologized, raising my eyes to meet his. Another sentence was there, on the tip of my tongue, but it dried up when I realized that the face I was staring at was one I recognized. I’d seen it before — infinitely pixilated on the screen of my computer, furrowed into a frown outside the 6Th Precinct station in the Village, illuminated by the faint glow of a cigarette on the docks of an old brewery in Red Hook. I’d seen it every day for the last week, affixed to my wall — that permanent gloating smile, seeming to mock me from across the room whenever I glanced in the direction of the mosaic.
Officer Santos.
“Are you alright?” His pressed lips turned up in a small smile. “Looks like you really doused yourself.”
I stared into his pale brown eyes, searching for something appropriate to say but coming up short. My mind was otherwise engaged, reeling as I tried to calm myself. All of my mental resources were occupied by one thought — this was no coincidence. Santos was here, following me to work, watching me buy coffee, and staging an interaction, all because I’d been careless. I’d been spotted somewhere along the way, whether at the brewery or on one of my surveillance trips to his precinct. And that meant…
I was no longer flying safely below the radar. I was being watched.
I comforted myself with the knowledge that, if I were seen as a true threat to these people, they’d have already eliminated me from the playing field. There were only two possible purposes served by this confrontation with Santos: either they wanted to warn me away from the story and let me know that they were surveilling me, or they were testing me — trying to see whether I was simply a dumb blonde, who’d stumbled onto their organization accidentally.