“No grammar police, OK?” He pulled a wad of tissue away from his nose to examine for fresh blood. Satisfied, he lobbed it into the trash can. “What’s wrong with us, Nikki? Why can’t we be like a Woody Allen movie? Two old lovers with unfinished business running into each other on a New York sidewalk?”
“You mean,” she said, “instead of running into a sidewalk?”
“Is my nose broken?”
“Let’s see.” She reached her fingers for it, but he pulled back.
“No. Enough pain.” He got up and checked his face in the teakettle. “Reflection’s too distorted to tell.” He shrugged. “Well, if it is broken, it’ll give me character. I’ll be even more rugged in my rugged handsomeness.”
“Until people find out how you did it.” That made him check himself out in the kettle again. While he turned away, bending to assess the damage, she said, “Thank you for trying to protect me.” Then she added, “Guess you can’t be that angry.”
He rose upright and faced her. “Wanna bet?” But his look told her he had, at least, downgraded to a simmer.
“And I don’t blame you. I know you felt blindsided.”
“Why? Because you ditched me, and a couple of hours later, I find a naked dead man in your apartment? And when I dare to ask, you think you can get away with saying it’s complicated and giving me the boot?”
“OK, so I guess you may still be angry.”
“What if roles were reversed? What if you had come into my place and found a naked Tam Svejda with her brains on the floor? All right, maybe not so much the brains, but you get the idea.”
A stillness charged by unseen toxic particles settled in the chasm between them. Nikki knew that it fell to her to break the silence, or not to. She recognized a tipping point when she saw one and waded in. “You may not agree,” she began, “because of the… indignity of your nose injury, but tonight’s unexpected encounter is sort of good timing. Today my shrink suggested I make contact with you.”
“This is sounding more like Woody Allen, after all. You saw a shrink?” And then for emphasis, he added, “You?”
“Mandated. Long story involving Captain Irons, but it did get me to a session with a department therapist.” Nikki drew a breath that hitched in her chest. Compartmentalization always got her through, so this was scary territory. Vulnerability meant exposure, but she opened herself to him, unarmed and unprotected. “I’m willing to explain, if you’re willing to listen.”
That’s when the part of him she considered his essence, the part she most connected to, the part that jumped in front of bullets to protect her, softened him another degree. Yielding to his innate compassion, he held out his hand to her and said, “We’d probably be more comfortable on the couch.”
As with most great fears, including imagined monsters behind a door, hers became merely life-sized once she confronted it and opened up. Rook’s willingness to listen instead of interrupting her to judge, get defensive-or even to wisecrack-helped her immensely in telling him the saga of Don. After she informed him of their sexual hiatus after she had met Rook the summer before, he nodded, accepting that as fact. He even had the elegance not to ask her if they had slept together the night before. When she finished, he said one thing, and it was the best thing he ever could have.
“This must be absolute hell for you to face alone.”
Nikki’s tears erupted, and she threw herself from where she sat into his arms, shaking with sobs, allowing herself the unguarded emotional display without restraint. Her weeping rose from a deep, seemingly bottomless source that dredged up not just the raw hurt of the past twenty-four hours, but a decade of suppressed feelings of loss, hurt, anger, frustration, loneliness, and fear, which-until that moment-had been neatly boxed and locked away. He embraced her, cradling her into his shoulder, seeming to know that his caring silence was their strength, and that his encirclement of her with his arms signaled hope and unwavering friendship amid her catharsis.
When, after a time, Nikki was cried out, she drew herself away and they stared at each other, their gaze speaking volumes about trust and the bond they shared. They kissed lightly and parted, smiling, holding each other’s gaze some more. Just as they had never declared their exclusivity, they also had never shared the love words. Right then, basking in the intimacy of some new sanctuary they had just forged, that would have been the time to say them. But neither would know if it had crossed the other’s mind then in that tender, vulnerable moment. The time for voicing that came and then passed, banked for another day, if ever.
She excused herself to splash some cool water on her swollen eyes. When she came back, he helped her unroll the new rug for the entryway. After they squared it with the line of the wall, Rook stood on the curled ends to press them down flat and then took in the area. “Looks like somebody’s been cleaning.”
“‘Out, damned spot,’” said Nikki. “The super hung a new door and plastered the holes. Tomorrow, he’s going to paint. Pretty soon it will all be back to normal.”
“Like it never happened.”
“But it did. And we live with that.”
Rook’s face clouded. “I’ve spent all day thinking it could have been worse. It could have been you.”
“… I know.”
“Or even worse, could have been me.”
“Even worse?”
“For you. Not having me around to pull your pigtails and shake my moneymaker.” He danced a goofball dance in place-indeed accenting his fine moneymaker. He finished with a “Ka-ching!” and she laughed. The man could sure do that, get a serious girl to lighten up when there seemed to be no reason in hell to.
They were both hungry but wanted to get out rather than order in and spend too much more time just then in that apartment, with its recent history. Griffou down in the Village had quiet spaces and served late, so they set out for Ninth Street. Heat made sure to slip the Beretta Jetfire into her pocket along with an extra clip of. 25s before they left.
At that hour, they had their pick of the four salons in the former 1800s boardinghouse that one blogger got right when she said it vibed “subterranean swank.” Rook chose the Library for its tranquility and the warming company of books. After sampling their Manhattans, he surveyed the room, once frequented by Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, and Edna St. Vincent Millay and wondered if the day would ever come that they lined the room with Kindles and Nooks.
She ordered the chopped salad and he got the grilled octopus, and while they ate, Rook said, “I have a thought about your forced leave. Have you considered flexing some muscle?”
“You mean deal out a sweet beat-down to Wally Irons?” she asked. “Between us, yes. But only as a fantasy.”
“Not that kind of muscle. Political muscle. The power of downtown, Nikki. It’s how I got my ride-along with you in the first place. You should get on the horn to that weasel at One Police Plaza. What’s his name?”
“Zach Hamner? Forget it.”
“You don’t have to like him to use his clout. And he’s made for this. You said yourself this guy looks like he pleasures himself to pictures of Rahm Emanuel.”
“I never said that.”
“Oh. Perhaps I reveal too much. Know any good shrinks?”
“No way am I calling The Hammer.” She shook her head as much to him as herself. “Just being around that whole political cesspool is why I said no to my promotion.”
“Have you considered that if you had taken it, you wouldn’t be sitting on the wrong side of Cap’n Wally’s Iron gate?”
“Of course I have, but the answer is still no. It’s not worth the IOU it would cost me. And trust me, Zach Hamner would call in that chip. No,” she repeated, “no.”
“I think I get it,” he said. “Then I have an alternative.”
“I should have whacked you with that rug.”
“Hear me out. I know you and how you hate this downtime, but, now that you’re forced into it, you should do something relaxing.”
“We are not going to Maui.”
“No, I’m talking about continuing to work the case. Together, of course. Come on, you think I could ever imagine you relaxing in Hawaii? That’s not where we’re going.”
She set her fork down. “Going? We?… Where?”
