Page 49 of Take the Fall
And under the worst possible circumstances, with a good kid beside me waiting to be turned down, something lifted in me. Stupid and warm and certain. I was in love with Luke. For once in my life I knew a thing about my own heart and it wasn’t a fault. It was the best thing I’d been told all year, and I was the one who got to tell it.
I found my voice. It came back steadier than I’d left it.
“Look at me a second.” He did, barely. “What you just did takes more guts than anything I’ve pulled off this year. I’m not being kind. I talk for a living and I couldn’t have said that. Not ever.”
“Here it comes,” he said. “I can hear the but warming up.”
“There’s no but. There’s a someone.” I turned the rest of the way toward him. “And I didn’t know it for sure until about a minute ago. You knocked it loose. So if it’s worth anything, you’re the reason I finally know my own head. That’s more than most people manage with me in a year.”
He nodded at the bar. Worked his jaw. The flush had gone blotchy and miserable.
“Lucky someone,” he said. He went for the smile and got about half of it.
“You already know who,” I said. Not a question.
“I’ve had a guess.” He turned his pint a quarter on the coaster. “He looks at you like you’re the last light on in the building. Has since about week one. I told myself it was that, or I was inventing it to feel less stupid.” A breath. “Guess I wasn’t inventing it.”
“You weren’t. You’ve got a good eye. That makes a great cop.”
“Cool. Love that for me.” There was no real bite in it. When I knocked my shoulder into his, he let it land.
“Hey,” I said. “I mean it about the guts. Don’t let anybody shrink it. Especially not you, at two in the morning, doing my voice in your head. That guy doesn’t get a vote.”
That got a real one out of him. Short, wet, but real.
“You’re still buying,” he said.
“I’m still buying.”
He huffed a laugh and reached for a wing, and for a second the worst of it was behind us both.
My phone lit up on the bar.
Unknown number. Then it resolved.
Inspector Murphy.
I had it to my ear before the second ring.
“Carlson.”
“It’s Hawley.” Murphy’s voice was flat and held down, the way it went when he was carrying something and didn’t want you to hear the weight of it. “St. Michael’s. Forty minutes ago, give or take. Get there.”
I was already off the stool.
“How bad.”
“Get there. I’ll have it all for you when you’re standing in front of me.”
I pulled cash out and put it on the bar. Too much. Didn’t care.
Jordan’s hand caught my sleeve. “Go. I’ve got the rest.”
I went.
Chapter 15: Leave It Alone
Luke
