“Because you don't need to know,” Ford said sternly.
“Fine. Then it's only fair I get to call the shots with this.” Dalton slapped the table with fervor, summoning back his smile. “Kevin, why don’t you help me grab the rest of my equipmentfrom other labs? I didn’t get the chance to gather it all yet. We can leave these two to brainstorm what we’ve forgot.”
“Uhh,” Andrew floundered at the suggestion, “okay…”
“Does that mean I get a tour of Avalon’s testing labs?” Kevin scurried to Dalton’s side.
“By a pro. There’s a total sensory deprivation chamber, full sterilization. Don’t tell Vallancourt, but a couple times between cleansing cycles, I setup LED lights and played racquetball like in an episode ofNext Generation.”
The expression on Kevin’s face was one reserved for drunken confessions and new issues of his favorite comic books. “I love you. I love this guy.” He turned to Ford. “How do you have a son this cool?”
With a pat on Kevin’s shoulders to solidify their budding friendship, Dalton dragged him away with a final parting smile.
“That’swhat this is about,” Ford declared.
“…huh?”
“Andrew,” he tapped his fingers in slow succession on the table, “don’t be naïve. You were a detective. Look at the evidence. Certainly, both our expertise can be of assistance on this case, but Dalton went out of his way to get us together… and left us alone.”
A clang sounded in Andrew's head as he came to the same conclusion Ford must have. “He is not parent-trapping us right now.”
“He is.”
“Why?” Andrew bemoaned. “This is your fault.”
“I’m aware.”
“Oh, you can admit when you’re wrong? Never would have guessed.”
“What are we going to do about this?” Ford asked with an unimpressed head tilt.
“Nothing. When he sees that his scheming isn’t going anywhere, he’ll let it go. There’s no getting us back together when we were never together in the first place. He’ll realize how wholly incompatible we are and give it up.”
“Incompatible?” Ford dragged his fingers more slowly across the tabletop, back and forth like tracing patterns on skin—and very purposely drawing Andrew’s eyes. “I certainly wasn’t about to ask you out to dinner, but I thought we agreed there’d be a next time.”
“We did, but… what about Dalton?”
“Apparently, he’s all for it.”
“For us dating, not fucking around.”
Ford changed course of his trailing fingers to tiny circles, as he scanned down Andrew’s body. “You don’t think we can be secretive? A little spy versus spy?”
Andrew felt his face heat up. “The other day was… It had been a while, okay?”
“Since dear Miss Park… cheated on you? Dumped you?”
“I dumpedher,” Andrew snapped.
For what?Ford’s stare seemed to ask.
The only way to get him to stop bringing her up was to be honest. “She was using me for stories.”
Ford stilled.
“Best reporter in town, because she had the inside scoop. I didn’t realize at first, thought it was coincidence or that she was just that good at her job. Then the coincidences got too frequent, and I noticed how she’d subtly needle me for details about cases.
“She was mygirlfriend. I never thought I had to say ‘off the record’. When I called her on it, she didn’t even try to defend herself, just shrugged like it was no big deal, like I was overreacting. It had gotten bad enough that IA was asking questions. Everyone at the precinct already hated me. I had to quit.
