“I’ll come back and visit when it’s not stupid cold here,” Ella said out of the blue.
“Well, when you come to Chicago, you get about a three-, maybe four-month window when it’s what I define as warm, so plan—”
“Chicago, Croy?” She grimaced. “Come on. Who’re you kidding?”
“I don’t—”
“That sweet little house with the never-ending supply of front doors—”
“Oh good, I was worried I was the only one who thought that was strange.”
“No. That was odd,” she assured me, shooting me a look of concern. “You definitely need to get the story there, but his house and his ugly car—”
“Wait,” I warned her. “That car is a classic and—”
“You’re fooling yourself if you think you’re going back. Why would you leave that man for a job?”
“Because people don’t move in together after one day, two days. That only happens in romantic comedies and—”
“I think if you’re lucky enough to get struck by lightning, that you shouldn’t second-guess it, or risk losing it on the hope that it’ll come again. That seems—” She stopped, thinking. “What was that stupid word you used to—oh!” she gasped, pleased with herself. “Obtuse. That seems obtuse.”
At one time I had been very fond of that word.
Because ER time exists in a vacuum, I was ready to go home about the same time that Dallas came to let me know he had to go to the office to record his statements while everything was still fresh in his mind. Montez had taken mine while I was waiting for the doctor to see me, and I felt bad that Dallas still had a long day ahead of him before he’d be allowed to go home. Higa was going back to DC with Murray. He needed all the reports uploaded that evening so he could present it all when they began debriefing Murray the following day.
“I’m so sorry,” Dallas said, helping me dress, straightening the cardigan I was starting to think of as mine. “I’m gonna be stuck at work all day, maybe all night.”
“It’s okay,” I assured him, smiling, lifting my hand to his cheek and then thinking better of it.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, stepping in close to me, between my parted knees as I sat on the hospital bed.
“Nothing, I just—there’s a lot of your colleagues here right now and—”
“Yeah, everybody knows I’m bi,” he said, putting his hands on the bed, on either side of my thighs.
“But they don’t all know your personal business,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, I don’t care,” he scoffed, leaning in to kiss me. It was gentle and quick, but it made my stomach do the fluttery thing anyway, and the smile, with a trace of mischief, along with how rumpled his clothes were and how messy his hair was, all made me think about going home and getting back into bed with him.
“Okay,” was all I could think of to say.
He took a breath. “Today’s Saturday, so—are you leaving?”
“No, I won’t leave until tomorrow or maybe Monday.”
His relief was palpable. “Thank you. Just—don’t make any plans without me. Wait until I get home.”
“Certainly.”
He nodded and then turned to Ella. “The marshals are going to take custody of you in the morning for transport. Your office wasn’t about to let us provide security, since ours had a mole. I can’t blame them.”
She hugged him, and when she let go, he gave me another kiss and then headed for the hospital lobby. I watched him go through the doors and disappear. I got a text from him—he couldn’t have made it farther than the parking lot—saying that he’d miss going home with me, and for me to please be careful with my bandage. It was very thoughtful, and I told him so. I got a heart back, and I stared at the emoji for a long moment.
“Huh,” Ella said, looking at the text from her perch beside me on the bed. “You’re in a real fix, aren’t you? What to do, what to do…? You better think hard.”
I was good at that, so it wouldn’t be a problem.
Sixteen
Dallas was there on Sunday morning when the marshals arrived at the house, and was about to introduce Ella to Special Agent Sergio Mata of the DEA when she squealed and dived into his arms. Dallas was stunned when I hugged him as well.
“It’s like alumni week at college,” I said, staring at him. Sergio had gone to school with us, and though he and I had not been as close as I was to Ella, he had been, for those four years, a constant presence in my life.
“Where the hell did you go after graduation, man?” he asked me.
“He disappeared into the wilds of Chicago,” Ella informed him.
I chuckled at her choice of words, because she didn’t know how on the nose she was.
“No kidding. I’ve got a friend who just transferred out there. He’s a marshal,” Sergio said, eyeing me.