Page 17 of Bare
He and Phillipe would come here whenever they needed a break. Half the time, Samantha would leave the kids with her mom and meet them. The three of them would spend the night drinking beer, eating wings, playing pool, and laughing their asses off.
Aleksei hadn’t set foot in the place since Phillipe was murdered. Trapped grief pressed against his ribs, making his chest feel like it might burst. His heartbreak was fighting to get free, and for the first time in years, he wanted to let it out, wanted to lighten his burden, wanted to talk about his pain and loss. He wanted to share it with Rosemary.
She rubbed his arm again, and he pushed memory and heartache away. His feelings weren’t relevant. He had a job to do.
“Sorry. My mind wandered for a minute.”
She tugged the umbrella from his hand and splashed water toward him as she lowered it. Icy wet droplets bombarded his face.
“What was that for?” he demanded.
The exterior lights illuminated her teasing smile. “You looked sad. You needed a distraction.”
She was perceptive. Years of covert ops and undercover work had made his impassive mask a second skin, yet she’d seen his pain and acted to pull him back from that dangerous edge of guilt and despair. This was only their second date, and already, she was reading him better than the bureau-assigned psychologist ever had.
He was going to have to be careful around her if he didn’t want to blow his cover.
He pushed open the door, and the sound of Noah Kahan singing about dialing drunk poured out. A smile tugged at his lips, lightening his thoughts. Some things never changed. You never knew what you’d hear at McGillin’s. Sinatra, Nirvana, Post Malone, Morgan Wallen, Arrowsmith, The Cure, Dua Lipa, The Weekend. It was a total crapshoot. Now, Noah Kahan was in the mix.
Rosemary sang along as they wound their way through the crowd. It was one more thing they had in common. They both hatedOf Mice and Menand liked Noah Kahan. It was as good a place to start as any.
A burly man in a flannel shirt bumped into them and murmured apologies. The place was packed. The crowd ran from college students to boomers, with everything in between, and way more off-duty cops than anyone other than the cops and bartenders realized. When you did undercover work, no place was completely safe, but Moresco’s crew never strayed far from their south Philly stomping grounds, so for Phillipe and him,McGillin’s had felt like another planet. A planet where they could relax and blow off steam.
Aleksei searched for the clearest path to the bar, and his gaze found the easy warmth of Samuel’s smile. Samuel nodded at him and crooked a finger to call them forward, ignoring the sea of patrons jostling to order drinks. Aleksei put his palm on the small of Rosemary’s back. She’d slipped off her jacket, and the heat of her body warmed his cold hand. He fought the desire to slide his fingers into the waistband of her dark jeans. Instead, he kept his hand where it was and guided her to the side of the bar reserved for the waitstaff.
Samuel leaned across the bar and clenched his hand like a sailor pulling a shipmate into a lifeboat. “Hey, man. It’s good to see you. It’s been too long.”
It had been too long, and not long enough. Memories were deep here. Too deep for tonight. He couldn’t afford to be distracted when he was running the most important op of his life.
“Sorry I haven’t been back. I wanted to come, but I wasn’t ready. I didn’t even mean to come tonight. I just”—he shrugged—"ended up here.” He cocked his head to the side. “This is my friend, Rosemary.”
Samuel understood the words he hadn’t spoken. There would be no talk of Phillipe tonight.
Samuel greeted Rosemary, took their drink order, and told Aleksei he could pull theReservedsign off one of the pool tables upstairs. As Samuel laid on his full bartender charm, the light from a hanging pendant caught a scar on Rosemary’s neck, making it shimmer in rosy contrast to her pale skin.
It was probably from one of her cancer treatments.
She had battled cancer three times, and he hadn’t even had the guts to talk to Samuel after the funeral. Samuel was good people, and Aleksei had been a flaming shit. He was going tostop back later this week and catch up with the guy. Even if the memories killed him.
He passed Rosemary her fruited sour. Then, he took his chilly Guinness in one hand and her soft, now-warm hand in the other, guiding her upstairs to the pool tables. The music was quieter on the second floor, so they didn’t need to shout to hear each other.
“That was an interesting conversation you had with the bartender,” she commented as she racked the balls. “What’s the story there?”
Her question wasn’t surprising. She was smart, and with his hesitation at the door, his conversation with Samuel, and the mutterings of “sorry” and backslaps he’d received as they’d made their way upstairs, it didn’t take a genius to know there was a story. It had been stupid to come inside.
“Samuel’s a friend of mine. I haven’t seen him in a while.”
It was a non-answer. The question was, how would she respond to his obvious avoidance? Would she be hurt? Angry? Irritated enough to decide she had way too much going for her to spend time with a guy who couldn’t answer a simple question—a guy who wasn’t willing to open up a little after she’d spoken so freely about her cancer, her family, and even her high schoolOf Mice and Mentrauma?
He had to give her something. Not just because he was afraid she’d bolt if he didn’t. He needed to release a little of his pain, or he might make a mistake. Until now, he’d rebuffed every opportunity to share his heartache, because that meant facing it. He thought ignoring it was the only way to survive, but it was impossible to hunt Phillipe’s killer and suppress the pain. Philly held too many memories. If he didn’t find a way to control his grief, he risked it controlling him—just like it had brought him here tonight.
The crack of pool balls cut through his thoughts. The three hit the side pocket, and the seven hovered on the edge of the top right pocket before falling in.
“I’ll take solids. And for every ball I drop, you tell me something about yourself,” she said.
He arched a questioning brow at the command in her voice.
“I’m an open book, and every time I ask you a question, you give a non-answer or deflect with a question back to me. Wasn’t it Ghandi who said, ‘All compromise is give and take’?”
