“What do you want?”
“Jesus, Jack. I have to want something to give you a call?”
“That’s usually how it works,” he said.
She laughed. “How well you know me.” Her voice softened. “Maybe I just want to hear how you’re doing.”
He waited for the familiar rush of anger. She had betrayed him. With his partner. And then used her connections to encourage him to resign. But the anger, once so dark and hot, felt pale and cold. Mostly he felt tired. Tired and very, very cautious.
“Fine.”
“Come on, Jack. I know you, too. I know that nothing-bothers-me voice. Tell me about the new job.”
“It’s fine.”
“That’s all? ‘Fine’? You used to be a little more enthusiastic about your work, Jack.”
He used to be more enthusiastic about a lot of adrenaline-charged, high-risk behaviors. SWAT team. Detective squad. Marriage to Renee.
“It suits me.”
“Writing traffic tickets and busting underage parties in Mayberry? I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe what you want,” he said. “I gotta go.”
“Hot date?” she teased. Because, yeah, she did know him.
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” For the first time, she sounded uncertain.
In the twelve years they were together, he’d never made a big deal out of Friday night. Dinner out on her birthday and their anniversary, weekends with her family or his... He’d assumed that was enough. Before the fights over dishes, laundry, having kids, before Frank, maybe that had been the problem—him assuming things.
The thought made him uncomfortable.
“You take care of yourself,” he said gently, and got off the phone.
Maybe he should take Lauren out to dinner, he thought.
On a Friday night? Good luck with that, pal. The local restaurants would all be slammed with vacationers out for one more seafood dinner before their rentals ended tomorrow. Even the pricey Brunswick wasn’t likely to have a table on such short notice.
Though they’d probably make room for the chief of police. He could call.
Jack paused with his shirt half over his head. What did it mean, that after one time with Lauren he was thinking of taking her to a candles-and-white-tablecloths kind of place?
Nothing, he decided, and yanked the shirt on.
He was hungry, that’s all.
He stuffed his phone into his pocket, snagged a beer from the galley. The gray kitten crept from under the table and crouched by the door.
Jack lowered the bottle. “I’m supposed to keep you in an enclosed space,” he told it. “Until you get used to me.”
The cat fixed him with huge green-blue eyes and emitted a piercing mew.
“You want to go outside, I have to hold you,” he warned. “You hate that.”
A blink.
