Page 7 of Cross the Line
His silence stretched between us. Pulled tight. Finally, without looking up, he spoke.
"Each man fends for himself."
I blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me." His voice was low. Almost a rumble. "Buy your own food. Clean your own mess. Stay out of my way."
The dismissal in his tone sparked something hot in my chest. I'd spent the day being shuffled around. Stripped of my dignity. And now this man, this stranger who was as much a screwup as I was, thought he could dismiss me?
"Look," I said, crossing my arms. "I get that neither of us wants to be here. But we are. And unless you plan to live the next however-many months in complete silence, we need to figure out how to coexist."
Hawley finally looked up. His dark eyes met mine with cold indifference. "No, we don't."
"Yes, we do." I moved closer to the table. Rested my palms on the surface. "We're stuck together in this apartment. In this program. At this division. The least we can do is coordinate on basics like shopping and cleaning."
"I don't need coordination." He set his phone down with deliberate slowness. "I need space. Quiet. And for you to stay in your lane."
"My lane?" I straightened up. Anger flared. "This isn't Bay Street. This is forty square meters of shared punishment. We're both in the same lane whether you like it or not."
Something shifted in his expression. A subtle tightening around the eyes. A slight clench of his jaw. When he spoke again his voice was lower. Almost a growl.
"I didn't ask for a partner. Especially not a disgraced one who crashed and burned because he couldn't keep his mouth shut."
The words hit like a physical blow. My cheeks burned.
"You think I wanted this?" I shot back. "To be paired with the division's pet bear? You wouldn't be stuck here either if you were the perfect officer. What was it again? Going in solo against orders. One too many times, from what I heard."
Hawley stood abruptly. His chair scraped against the floor. He towered over me by several centimeters, his presence suddenly filling the small room. The air between us seemed to compress. Charged with something that wasn't quite anger but felt just as dangerous.
"You don't know anything about me."
"And you don't know me." I refused to back down despite the figure he cut. "But here we are. Two failures in a box. And one of us is trying to make it work."
"There's nothing to make work." His voice rose. "This isn't a partnership. It's a punishment. And I don't need your cooperation or your conversation."
"Well, you're getting both," I said, my volume matching his. "Because I'm not spending the next six months tiptoeing around this apartment pretending you don't exist."
"Six months?" A harsh laugh escaped him. "You think you'll last six months? The Service is waiting for you to fail, Carlson. They're counting on it."
"Then I'll disappoint them," I snapped. "And so will you. Because we're going to make this work even if it kills us both."
We stood there. Glaring at each other across the small table. The tension crackling between us like live wire. In the silence I could hear the neighbors' muffled television through the wall. Distant traffic on Parliament below. The soft hum of the refrigerator.
"You're delusional," Hawley said. His voice quieter but no less intense. "This isn't a buddy cop movie. We're not going to become friends."
"Good," I replied. "I have enough friends. What I need is a functioning living situation."
His face darkened. "A functioning living situation requires one thing. Boundaries. Stay on your side. I'll stay on mine."
"That's not how shared spaces work." I gestured at the kitchen. "What about this? What about the bathroom? Are we supposed to draw a line down the middle?"
"If that's what it takes."
"You're being ridiculous." My voice rose another notch. "We're adults, not children fighting over toys."
"Then act like one and accept the situation," he countered, his volume rising to match mine. "I didn't ask for you to be here."
"And I didn't ask to be paired with the division's most antisocial detective!" I was shouting now, my patience completely gone. "But here we are, and one of us needs to be realistic!"
