He tried to dodge. “Not most of the time.”
“When, Rook?”
Seeing no way out, he chose the Robert Frost path and went through. “OK, sometimes, when I want to broach certain subjects with you lately, you do ice me.”
“You think I’m cold?”
“No. But you do know how to freeze me out.”
“I freeze you out, is that your point? Because that’s ridiculous. You’re the first person I’ve ever heard say that about me.”
“Actually…”
She had started to take another sip of wine, but the color left her face and she clanked the glass down on the cold stone countertop. “You’d better finish that.” Already feeling up to his neck, Rook’s brain clawed for a way out, but all the passages were marked “No Exit.” “I mean it, Rook. You can’t lay something out there like that and retreat. Finish it.” She fixed him with that unblinking X-ray stare he’d seen her melt bull-necked sociopaths with during interrogation.
“All right. The other night in Boston, Petar and I were talking and-”
“Petar? You were talking to Petar about me behind my back?”
“Briefly. You went to the loo, and I was just minding my own business-I mean, what do I have to say to Petar? Anyway, he brought up the notion-Petar did-that-his words, now-that you had a protective wall.”
“First of all, I think it’s cheap of you to throw Petar under the bus like this.”
“He brought it up!”
She ignored him, swept up in her anger and the release it was giving her. “And second, I would rather have a slightly cautious, slightly controlled side that values privacy and discretion than be a reckless, immature, self- centered jackass like you.”
“Look, this came out all wrong.”
“No,” she said, “I think it just finally came out.” She grabbed her blazer off the back of her bar stool.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not sure. I suddenly feel the need to have a wall between us.” And then she left.
Don took the brunt of it. Seeking an outlet to subdue the riot coursing through her veins, Heat had texted back her combat training partner, and thirty minutes later the ex-Navy SEAL landed facedown on the gym mat with the air knocked out of him. He drew himself up on all fours, gasping, but Nikki smelled the fake. He sprung at her shoulder-first, his long arms octopussed out to wrap up her legs for a takedown. Before he got there, she dropped to a crouch and hooked the inside of her elbow into his armpit, then kicked herself upward off the mat, lifting and flipping him midair. Don crash-landed on his back with her on top of him for the pin. Nikki hopped to her feet, panting, blowing sweat droplets off the tip of her nose, as she danced side to side, ready for more. No, craving more.
At the close of the hour, both drenched in sweat, they bowed and shook hands, center mat. “What got into you?” he asked. “Fierce tonight. Did I piss you off somehow?”
“No, it’s not you. Got a lot on my mind. Sorry if I made you my punching bag.”
“Hey, anytime. Keeps me sharp.” He dabbed the perspiration off his face with the belly of his shirt and said, “Got enough energy left for a beer or something?”
Nikki hesitated. The “or something” meant bed, and they both knew it. He made it sound casual because it was. Or had been once. Before she met Rook, Nikki and Don had no-strings sex on a semiregular basis for two years. They both got the same thing out of it, which amounted to a full-contact, no-commitment, physical relationship without the emotional hangover or jealous inquiries when one or the other passed. When they both wanted to, it was fine. When not, same deal. It never interfered with their jujitsu sessions, and Don hadn’t pressed or sulked once in the months since she’d chosen to remain exclusive to Rook, who knew nothing about her arrangement with her combat TWB. “Beer would be nice,” she said on impulse, feeling a flutter in her rib cage that might be guilt. But hell, it’s just a beer, she decided.
“Wouldn’t mind a shower first,” he said, plucking the wet shirt from his skin. “No hot water here. They shut it off after the earthquake, and I guess the city’s backed up on inspections.”
The flutter rose again, but she ignored it and said, “You can get a shower at my place.”
Heat stayed in her gym clothes but changed into a dry tee shirt while Don hit the shower. She checked her cell phone again for case updates from the squad and got nothing but three more voice mails from Rook she didn’t listen to. In the refrigerator she found a six-pack and tried to decide whether to drink there in such proximity to the bedroom or go out to the Magic Bottle after Don made himself presentable.
She washed her face in the kitchen sink to rinse the sweat salt from her eyes. As she dried herself with a paper towel, Nikki tried to figure out what she was doing with Don back in her apartment. Was she seeking escape? The mere company of a friend? Or was she testing the old waters of independence again to see what that would feel like? She told herself, if any more did come of the evening, that it would not be to spite Rook.
Then why did she take that extra step to invite Don over? Was it because their relationship was shallow enough that he wouldn’t be asking her too many questions or try to go deep when she didn’t want to? Was she looking for mind-numbing sex as an escape?
What bugged her about Rook wasn’t so much that he had pushed a hot button with the accusation about her wall-and then hidden behind her old boyfriend. It was that he insisted on poking around in places he had no business. Dragging her back over family secrets she wanted to be done with. Quizzing her father like he was in the interrogation box up at the precinct… And then, tonight, pushing her to talk about her relationship with her mother. How could Nikki explain something like that-and all it encompassed-to him or to anyone? And why should she have to? Did she have an obligation to share with Jameson Rook the way her mom made her feel when she bandaged her skinned knees? Or how she dropped everything and took her right out to a Broadway show when her junior prom date stood her up? Or how she taught Nikki the joys of Jane Austen and Victor Hugo? And that practice, whether it was for the piano or anything else in life, should be a journey of discovery. Not just about the music but about herself.
She couldn’t tell him all that. Or wouldn’t. These, and the hundreds of thousands of other random memory slideshows, were journeys to the places Nikki seldom ventured herself. Like the lid of the piano across the room, those were doors too painful to open. Maybe Rook was right. Maybe her defenses did constitute a fortress wall.
Was it one just like her mother’s?
And if so, was that really a character deficit, or simply one more valuable life lesson Cynthia Heat taught her daughter by example? Like demonstrating how to let the spaces between notes breathe, because they are music, too.
The shower water shut off, forcing Nikki to ask herself what this moment was all about, because she could not deny she had put herself at a crossroads. Why? But, as the bathroom door opened, Heat knew that wasn’t the most pressing question. The immediate issue was what she would do on this night full of risky impulses.
He came up the hall with his skin glistening and nothing but a towel around his waist. “I believe you mentioned something about a beer,” he said. Before she could agonize over it too much, she grabbed the pull handle on the fridge, popped open a pair of bottles from the six, and set them on the counter between them. They side-clinked necks and each took a sip. “Gonna be hurtin’ for certain tomorrow,” he said.
There was a soft knock at the door. “Expecting anybody?” he asked as he stepped toward the entryway.
Rook had a key, but maybe he was learning to be discreet for a change, so she whispered, “Don’t say anything, just look.” She came around the counter trying to figure out how to handle the introductions as Don’s towel slipped and it landed on the floor before he could snag it. He turned to her with a wink and impish grin and then leaned forward to look though the peephole.
The shotgun blast punched a hole clean through the door and threw Don backward with such impact that he landed headfirst at Nikki’s feet. A seemingly endless flow of blood rivered out of him where his face had been, and pieces of his brain stuck to the front of Heat’s legs and shirt.
SEVEN
