Something shifted in his expression. The shadows were still there, would probably always be there. But lighter. Like the sun had found a crack in the clouds.
"Breakfast is getting cold," he said.
"Let it."
I kissed him again. And again. And the eggs did go cold, but neither of us cared.
The past was behind us.
The future was wide open.
And for the first time in years, I wasn't afraid of it.
CHAPTER 15
Garrett
Sloane hada key to my apartment.
It just happened. She needed to drop off case files while I was on shift, so I dug through my locker and handed her the spare. She never gave it back.
I never asked.
Now her laptop lived on my coffee table. Her shampoo in my shower. Her press credentials on the hook by the door where my spare jacket used to be. Reading glasses on the nightstand. A box of her tea next to my coffee.
The apartment didn't feel like mine anymore.
It felt like ours.
Sun coming up over Queens. I turned that word over in my head.Ours.
We hadn't talked about it. Hadn't named what was happening. But every night she didn't go back to her place, every morning I woke up with her hair across my pillow and her hand on my chest, the line blurred a little more.
I wanted to ask her to move in. The words sat in my throat every time she reached for her bag and said she should probably head home.
Don't go. Stay. Not just tonight. Every night.
Not a question of if. Just when. Whether I did it over dinner or in the morning when she was half-asleep and soft against me, or just some random Tuesday when the words finally came out.
I'd figure it out.
Rodriguez called us together before shift change.
The whole crew in the common room. Shane against the wall, Brian on the couch, the rest scattered around the way we always were when the captain had news. Usually that set to his jaw meant budget cuts, schedule changes, something that would make our lives harder.
Today was different.
"I just got word." For the first time in months, his face wasn't grim. "The closure vote has been postponed indefinitely."
The room erupted.
Gonzalez shot out of his chair. Ortiz grabbed the nearest person in a headlock that turned into a bear hug. Someone let out a whoop that probably carried to the apparatus floor. Brian was on his feet, fist in the air, yelling something I couldn't hear over the noise.
Rodriguez let it go for a minute. Then he raised a hand.
"Settle down. There's more."
The room quieted, but the energy stayed. Guys shifting in their seats, grinning, elbowing each other.
