Page 106 of Gluttony
“No more than homicide.”
“Touché.” She’d recently moved from vice, where they’d worked together, to homicide. “So what’s it like?”
“Don’t change the subject,” he snapped.
A breezed wafted in, and she rubbed her arms briskly. The air wasn’t the only thing dropping the temperature. She shouldn’t have called him gay. Now he was pissed. God, she was always putting her foot in her mouth. She needed to learn to keep her nose in her own business. Friends were hard to come by for her, especially men, and she kinda missed the loser.
“Why would I know what it is?”
“You were here, weren’t you?”
Right. Yes, she was.
“I was at the film. Not exactly here, so I didn’t see much.”
He blinked. Stared hard at her face, then dropped his gaze to her ankles. “Oh really?”
Motherf—
“I know all your tells, Liza,” he warned. “I’ve known you for years. The first time I brought you a coffee order, you pretended to like it, but you stared at me, unblinking. I later saw you tipping it down the sink. And then there was the time you played poker with the boys. You did the stare thing when you had a good hand. You can’t lie to me.”
Oh how she wanted to laugh in his face because she’d been lying to him her entire life. But instead, she sighed and rubbed her eyes. “I’m tired and I’m cold. I want to go home. Can we do this tomorrow?”
He popped some gum into his mouth, scrutinizing her as he chewed.
“Fine,” he said. “But don’t think you can hide from this.”
“Wasn’t dreaming of it.”
“Good. I’m watching you.”
“Don’t stare too long, you’ll go blind.”
He snorted, and his lip twitched up. She smiled inwardly. It was good to see him crack a smile, even if it was small. Working violent crimes wasn’t an easy job. It took a toll.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Why don’t we grab a beer later this week and you can tell me all about the promotion.”
Joey stopped chewing. “You ignore my calls for months. Then when I do hear from you, you ask me for information. I ask you for a beer then, you shut me down, and now you just want to go and grab a drink like old times?”
She shrugged and smirked. “I know, right? Isn’t it good having a friend you can just catch up with like no time has passed? Plus, I said, maybe some other time. I didn’t shut you down.”
“Right. Yeah, of course. Except, friends don’t avoid friends,” he sighed. Someone shouted behind him, and he turned, momentarily distracted. He held up a hand to signal to whoever it was to wait and then came back to Liza. “We’ll talk later.”
When he walked away, Liza felt a cool sensation settle in her stomach. He was right. She’d avoided him. At the precinct, people had talked. They’d joked about how close the two had been.
When’s the wedding?
Taken her to bone-town yet, Joey?
He’d never discouraged them, but she knew he’d not liked her that way. Even if he somehow did, she couldn’t ever go there with him. Every relationship she’d had ended the moment she’d crossed the sexual line. She’d only ever come to anticipate that sick feeling when they got intimate and then she would end things. She thought things with Joey would be different because he didn’t like her that way, that she’d never have to worry about that potential scenario. But what if he changed his mind? What if she also caved and liked him back? It would all inevitably turn to shit. As it so happened, she didn’t need sex to ruin a good thing with him. She’d fucked things up well enough on her own.
Thirty-Six
On a Friday night,three weeks after Tony’s failed premiere, he sat with Bailey on a porch bench at the sobriety house. He wasn’t dark about the premiere, quite the opposite in fact. He thought it was funny. Just another sign that his decision to take a step back from the entertainment industry was a good one.
Down the steps, the streetlights turn on. Night had fallen earlier, and winter’s cool touch had landed on Cardinal City. The smell of Indian spices floated in the air.
With his hands entwined with Bailey’s, they snuggled into each other to keep the cold at bay and listened to the kids inside, playing music and testing out the new studio. It was good to hear them have fun, and even better to know they were thinking about things other than their problems.
