Page 46 of Take the Fall
He looked at his inbox and made the face.
“Need to fill out forms again?” I said.
“I know.” He pulled the top one over. “How was the afternoon.”
“Quiet.”
“Harbourfront?”
“Done.”
He picked up his pen.
“Carlson. Ryan!” Reid was back, halfway into his jacket, keys in his hand. “You’re going to hate me.”
Ryan looked up. “What.”
“Garden-bed one came back to us. Neighbor’s out there again with a shovel.” Reid grimaced. “Sergeant wants us both on it before it blows up. Twenty minutes. In and out.”
“It’s quarter to four,” Ryan said.
“I know. It’s your file. I’ll drive.”
Ryan set the pen down. Stood. And the ease came back into him, the same loose thing he’d walked in with, and it had Reid’s name on it now. He pulled his coat off the chair.
“Don’t wait for me.” Over his shoulder, already going. “I don’t believe Reid’s estimate. This’ll run long.”
“Sure,” I said.
He went. Reid said something at the door and Ryan laughed, the short one, and then they were gone.
The noise came back in around me.
It was nothing. I knew it was nothing. Reid was a rookie, or more like an enthusiastic puppy without a bad bone in his body. You couldn’t even resent him.
But I’d watched him laugh on the way out and felt it in my gut anyway.
What I had was last night. Ryan’s fists in the back of my coat. His face pressed into my shoulder. His voice with nothing left in it. The most of him I’d ever gotten, and I’d taken it, and I’d told myself it was the deeper thing.
Maybe it was. Maybe I was holding something he hadn’t given me yet.
He hadn’t chosen anything. Last night was grief. He’d held on because I was there and he was going under, and that’s not the same as wanting me. I’d known that. I’d been managing it fine.
Right up until I watched him laugh on the way out the door.
His pen was still lying across the half-finished form.
I’d told myself I was patient enough to wait as long as it took, to wait until he could sort out how he really felt about me. However, sitting there, I wasn’t sure that I was patient enough to wait that long.
Chapter 14: No Side to Him
Ryan
Pat had the tap running before we were halfway to the bar.
“He knows your order,” Jordan said with a laugh.
“He knows my everything.” I took the stool at the end. The one I’d been sitting on the night Jordan came for me. He clocked it. Didn’t make anything of it. Sat down beside me.
