Page 117 of Never Alone
The street was quiet around me.
I'd been a man standing on a curb at four in the afternoon. I wasn't anymore.
I took one step. Just one.
"Get in your car."
My voice came out lower than I'd meant it to.
"Lieutenant—"
"Get in your car, Nicholas. Now."
He held my eyes for a second longer than he should have. He wanted me to do something. He wanted a fist in his face, a hand on his collar, or a word he could use later, in some other lawyer'soffice, to say I had threatened him on a public street outside a fire station while in uniform.
I didn't give him any of it.
He raised his hands, palms out. The polished smile widened a fraction.
"I meant no offense, Lieutenant. I'll be on my way."
He got in his car. He started it. He pulled away from the curb at the speed limit. He turned at the corner and was gone.
I stood on the sidewalk for a long time.
The thing he'd said was in the air around me. It was inside me, and I could not get it out by standing there, so I turned and walked back across the street. I went into the station, and I finished my shift.
I didn't tell anyone.
I didn't tell Davis. I didn't tell Sam. I didn't tell Tessa when I got home the next morning, even though she was at the door with her hair down and a smile on her face, and she kissed me and asked if I'd eaten breakfast.
I didn't tell her, because Nicholas had wanted me to.
He had given me a thing to carry. He had given it to me, knowing I would either tell her—and watch her flinch—or hold it alone, and let it sit between us in our bed.
I held it alone.
I was not going to let him into our bed.
I got home at seven-thirty in the morning. Tessa was off. Noah was at school. The apartment smelled like coffee.
She met me at the door.
"Hi."
She put her hand on my jaw and kissed me. Not a small kiss. The kind a woman gives a man she's been waiting for.
"Have you eaten?"
"No."
"I can make you something."
"I'll eat whatever you've got. Let me shower first."
"Okay."
I kissed her again before I went into the bathroom. I kept it short. I needed it to be short.
