::TEN::
“My heart belongs only to you, ‘Nette.” My breath caught, as I said it, the words struggling past the lump in my throat. Maybe it was just the inability to breathe. Everything got so clear, but only here, with her. The house could fall down behind us, and I wouldn’t have noticed, but I watched Jeanette, wanting to remember everything about her, right at this moment. That if she left me, if she were gone, I would remember everything.
The tiny gold flecks in her dark brown eyes dance and shift, flickering, only visible in sunlight. Her eyes glisten, before she blinks back tears, every thick dark lash distinct, the beginning of tears only making them darker. Pulling her bottom lip in, starting at the corner, to bite it gently. Her breath hitching, I can feel the tiny shudder of it, my chest pressed to her back. Her breath fanning over my cheek, the sub audible whimper of emotion in it, a sound I wouldn’t have heard at all, if I’d been breathing.
Her eyes hold mine, intense, the question burning bright in them. Turning in my arms, to kneel on the step below. Her hands, trembling, touch my jaw, one fingertip tracing over my lip, before holding me between her two small hands. Looking at me so intently, it’s as though she believed the answers to every question she ever had could be answered, if she just watched me carefully enough. Her breath in small hitches, the pulse, at her throat, racing. Her lips part, a tiny strangled sound, closing again, swallowing hard.
“Sean?” Her quiet voice is shaky, almost a whisper. My hands on her back, her waist, wanting to pull her close, to keep her from trembling. “If you’re going to hurt me, please tell me now. I’m falling in love with you, I know it’s so soon, and I shouldn’t. I’m not strong enough, if you hurt me.”
Her eyes squeeze shut, her head drops, her hands pulling back, to cross over her chest, to protect herself, as if she could keep her heart from being broken just by holding it in. She takes a quick ragged breath in, holding it, waiting, waiting for something terrible to happen, for me to push her away.
She’s falling in love with me. For all the quietness they were spoken with, the words shout in my head, every one distinct. Even with her head lowered, I can see her, in my minds eye, saying every word clearly. That if she wasn’t afraid, if we both weren’t afraid, she would say them, and the truth of every word would be right there, in her eyes.
“Jeanette.” I have to swallow hard at the end, hearing my own voice break. Lifting her chin to look at me, pulling her a little closer. She lets out a small resigned sigh, raising her head to look me in the eyes, maybe just so that if I’m going to break her heart, I’m going to have to look at her when I do it. I lean in to kiss her once, just a brush over her bottom lip. Cupping her face in my hands, so she can’t look away from me. So that, no matter what happens, she’ll know that I meant everything I said, that I wasn’t playing with her, that it wasn’t just words to me. “Jeanette. Please see me, beautiful.”
It’s killing me watch her, as she straightens her back, looking me in the eye, waiting to be hurt, for me to hurt her. The day that I first met her, in the cemetery. She looked so much at peace with the pain within her. It didn’t break her, or make her turn hard and bitter. It didn’t make her pretend, either. It’s as if through everything, everything that happened to her, she remained Jeanette. I watch her now, the deep clear depths of her, she hid nothing. She probably could, if she wanted to, but she doesn’t. “I love you, Jeanette. I swore I’d never hurt you, that I’d never break your heart. I love you.”
To be as vulnerable, as brave, as Jeanette. To show my feelings, everything, to her, as I hold her face in my hands, and try to tell her with my eyes, with my soul, that I meant it, every word. Everything was silence, stillness, the weight of the words in the space between us, of the emotion behind them, seeming to pull all of the sound out of the air. Her hands trace matching patterns up the side of my neck, coming to rest along my jaw. I realize I’ve stopped breathing. I saw courage in Jeanette, from the moment I first saw her. It wasn’t something I could define, it wasn’t even something a lot of people would have seen. Baring my heart to her, the way she just opened hers to me, I can see the bravery, the resolve, in her. A wall can make anyone brave. It’s another thing altogether to stand out in the open, with every defense down, to open your heart, and let someone close. It’s not weakness, it’s something else, something indefinable.
I pull her to me, my hand in her hair, at the delicate curve at the back of her neck. Kiss her bottom lip, just a graze, the tip of a tongue over the inner curve. The breath she was holding comes out, all at once. “I love you, Sean.” The words are whispers, more felt than heard, her lips just touching mine, as she said them, before kissing me, fully, deeply. Kissing me with her whole soul, everything in her, everything in me answering her, holding nothing back.
The knock at the side of the house. I ignored it at first, as I kissed her, but I knew I couldn’t ignore it forever. Alvarez. He must have knocked at the front door. There’s no way we could hear him out here. I kiss her quickly, one last time, my hands stroking over her hair, before moving back a bit, so she can sit between my legs again, her back to my chest. I’m not willing to let her go just yet.
“Sorry, Alvarez. I didn’t hear you, I’m going to have to get you a key.” My fingertips trace over her arm, always touching her. It’s going to be very hard to leave her this morning. Alvarez takes in Jeanette, still in her clothes from last night, the blanket tucked beside us, and probably the softness still in both of our expressions. Alvarez never misses anything, but he doesn’t say anything either. Just a quick look at me, leaving me feeling pinned under a spotlight for a fraction of a second. Evaluating, quickly, to see if I’m hurt or if I’ve hurt her, I couldn’t quite say, maybe a little of both.
He’s smiling, shaking a paper bag. “‘Morning, Jeanette.” He reaches across, to give her a quick hug, handing me the paper bag. “We couldn’t get the boys to sleep last night, and Miguel ended up telling us about all the cookies they ate. I figured that cleaned out your breakfast supply.” He’s laughing, as I move to get up, gesturing with a coffee cup. “Sorry, Sean, Jeanette. I have to pick you up early. Because of the case.” He’s watching me as he says it. Like with his wife, his family, Alvarez won’t talk about what we do in front of Jeanette either. A look, a nod, from me. Stacy knew almost everything about what I did, and it often came home with me. I close my eyes for a second, thinking of that last night with her. Was that the price I paid for that? A price Stacy paid? For bringing my work home with me? Almost as if Alvarez wasn’t there, I lean down, kissing her neck, as she turns to watch me.
“Home?” The corners of her mouth turn up in a smile probably only I can see, as she says it. I kiss the very corner, wanting to kiss more. “Yea, come on, let’s take you home.” A whisper against the outer shell of her ear.
“You driving, Alvarez?”
The drive back to her house took no time. It was hard to say goodbye to her, a soft kiss turning passionate, before the both of us pulled back, realizing we would have to separate, at some point. “Will you call me, when you’re done?” She grins at me, kissing me one last time, a soft laugh in her voice, as the both of us try to keep our hands off each other. Stepping back from her was hard, not just for me. She takes a deep breath, unlocking the door, and running up the stairs before she can turn around again.
I don’t even try to hide my grin when I get back to the car, taking the bag from Alvarez, digging out a muffin. Closing my eyes for a minute, and just thinking about her.
“So, it’s serious then.” His questions are spoken quietly, seriously, as we drive across town, parking across from a series of run down warehouses. The coroner’s car is just ahead.
“Yea, it’s serious, Alvarez.” There was no need to ask him what he was talking about. Jeanette and I. He might not have seen me right after Stacy died. He didn’t see the mess I was for a long time after. He didn’t meet me until I had come to the realization that I had to let go, that I had to move on. But he did try to set me up with several people, and he did hear from me that I wasn’t ready. Until Jeanette, I wasn’t.
“Do you love her?” Another man would have asked if I’d slept with her yet, and probably wouldn’t have been as polite about it either. Alvarez is a romantic.
“Yea, I love her.”
“You tell her?” I just nod at him, still grinning, feeling like a kid.
“Good. Life is too short to not have a woman in your life.” He’s getting out of the car, bringing the paper bag with the muffins with him, before I can say anything in return. I look in the side mirror, trying to force the grin off my face, before following him out.
“We had another two last night.” He doesn’t cross the tape, just waves at the coroner with a danish, before he continues telling me what he’s managed to find out. “Vega went after two of Brubaker’s men, in retaliation for the two dead dealers. The two guys that got killed don’t look like dealers though. Too clean cut, nothing about them says street to me.”
“Brubaker’s CIA connections maybe. It wouldn’t be all that hard for Vega’s men to find out who they are, they’re probably even well known to each other. Now we’ve got dirty CIA agents killing each other off, as if this wasn’t messy enough already.” There isn’t much to see here, the two bodies, bringing the total to fifteen now, being loaded into the back of the coroner’s wagon.
“It’s Brubaker’s move, now, Vetter. Just a matter of when. And where.” He’s shaking his head, walking back to the car. There’s nothing to see here that we haven’t already seen so much of already. We aren’t going to learn anything from this, even if it was officially our case and we had the tools to look into this, I doubt we’d find out anything. This isn’t a drive by shooting. This is professional killers tracking and killing each other. He lets out a deep sigh. “At least they’re not shooting each other right on the street.”
“It’s strange, knowing all of this, and not being able to do anything about it, Alvarez.”
He turns to look at me, getting comfortable in the car seat, brushing danish crumbs off of his shirt. “There’s only so much you can do, Vetter.” He waves his danish at the windshield, getting more crumbs everywhere. “How long do you think they’ve been killing each other already? How long will they keep doing it? We’re not ever going to stop it. There’s so much money involved, and too many people that want a piece of it. Maybe we’re lucky, this case not being ours. We’re free to watch all of it, and not pretend we can fix it, or stop it. Maybe sometimes the best option is to let these guys deal with their own.”
“Brubaker’s our own.”
“He stopped being one of the good guys a long time ago. Maybe some of our own guys don’t want to see it that way, but that’s the way it is. He belongs to them now.” A last wave of the danish, to take in the last of the police taking down the tapes.
“And we’re the ‘good guys’? It gets hard to tell sometimes.”
“You and I? Yeah, Vetter, we’re the good guys. Just because we don’t want to get ourselves or those we love killed doesn’t change that. Watch and wait, remember? Brubaker will move next.”
“Coffee?” I nod, as he pulls out into the street, brushing more danish crumbs from his shirt. A new one, by the looks of it. Purple, with bright blue fish.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you Alvarez, where do you get your shirts?” He looks over, grinning around a mouthful of danish.
“Why? You like the shirts, Vetter? You could use a bit of colour, instead of wearing black, and dark blue, and what is that, some sort of brown, all the time?”
“I was thinking of maybe burning the place down.” I tried to keep a straight face, but it didn’t work very well. Pressing the spot between my eyebrows, trying not to laugh out loud.
“Yeah, very funny.” He’s laughing along with me though.
—
The rest of the day passed quietly. There was a small buzz between the secretaries in the office, around two o’clock or so, after I got back from picking up lunch. Doing a little shopping. It seems that one of the men shot last night was known to someone in the office. We didn’t ask, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that we had been following the situation. A look passed between Alvarez and I. Things were getting closer and closer to the DEA.
The call came, around three thirty or so, on my cell. Jeanette’s name flashing across the display, my chest tightens, and my belly fills with butterflies, before I answer, waiting to hear her voice.
“S..Sean…?”
That one quavering word, and my world crashes. Her voice small and broken, crying and hurt. Everything goes grey at the edges. I knock the chair over I stood so fast, holding onto the edge of the desk, to steady myself, everything spinning. Alvarez is holding my arm, I don’t know how he got there. It takes me a second that feels like forever to even realize who he is. “Stay right there, baby. I’ll be there in a minute.”
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