Page 11 of Falling For You

"You've been working hard, Sergeant Handler."

Dinner was easy. He told me about a call. I told him about the elevator. He laughed when I described Wyatt's face through the gap in the doors. For an hour, it felt like the beginning again. Back when we first started dating, just two people talking about the job, enjoying each other's company.

After, he pulled me toward the bedroom.

Something was different. I could feel it in his hands. He was impatient, distracted, and his rhythm was off. He finished fast and rolled over. I lay beside him in the dark, my body still waiting for something that wasn't coming.

"I'm going to go shower." He grabbed the back of my head and kissed me hard before he got up and closed the bathroom door behind him.

Something about it felt wrong. He'd never kissed me like that before. I shoved it aside and got up to change.

Elliot kept a side of his closet clear for my things. I reached for a shirt to change into but my fingers caught on something underneath.

I pulled it out.

Lingerie. Black lace, delicate, expensive.

My first thought was that he'd bought it for me. I wanted that to be true. That made sense with the dinner I'd just cooked, and the evening I thought we were having. But I was holding it up and it was too small for me. Elliot had an entire shelf of my clothes in this closet. He knew what size I wore.

"Oh, that's for my sister." He was standing in the bathroom doorway with a towel around his waist. The look on his face lasted less than a second. A half-blink, a reset, and then the easy smile he had worn all evening was back again.

Sister.

It was becoming painfully clear. The roughness in the bedroom and the way he kissed me was energy he picked up from somewhere else. From someone else. He'd been lying this whole time.

"Who buys their sister lingerie?"

Silence. The lie sat between us, already dead.

"How long?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

"How long, Elliot?"

"A few months."

The apartment went quiet. He'd been lying to my face for months and I didn't see it. Every night he worked late, every cancelled dinner, every time Burns called him in on his day off. I believed every single one of his excuses.

"We're done." I dropped the lingerie on the floor and reached for my clothes.

"Andy, come on. Sit down. Let's talk about this."

"There's nothing to talk about." I pulled on my underwear and clasped my bra.

"You're overreacting."

"I'm leaving." I pulled on a shirt, grabbed the tote bag off the shelf, and started shoving everything that was mine into it.

"Look," he said. "Let's not act like I'm the only one here who's been messing around."

"What are you talking about?"

"Come on, Andy. Every guy in the precinct finds a reason to come to your desk. Zeus Alexander walks past me to get your read on a scene. Rookies are walking you to your car. You think I don't notice?"

I stared at him.

"You think the guys are coming to me because I'm sleeping with them?"