A Saturday night poker game had been Duke's suggestion (of course) and a few people had gathered on the Cape Rouge in the cool evening air. It's later now and the game has wound down; only Audrey and Nathan are left, talking and drinking with their host.
"I'll figure it out eventually, you know," says Audrey.
The two men look at each other, confused.
"What's that?" asks Duke.
"Whatever it is..." she replies, gesturing from one to the other and back again, "that's going on with you two. Or happened between you. Or whatever it is that drives this thread of hate, but also seems to drive you together a lot."
"It's the troubles that drive us together," says Nathan.
Audrey's expression makes it clear she's not convinced by this explanation.
Duke is nodding, but then he adds "And you," waving his beer vaguely in her direction.
They are after all not dealing with a trouble right now and yet here both of them are.
"That's not the whole story," she says, shaking her head, "either of those options. That's something else to it … maybe you don't even realise yourselves. I wonder who will figure it out first."
"It's pretty clear to me," says Duke. "He doesn't trust me."
"Of course I don't trust you - why would I?"
"The question is," asks Audrey of Duke, "why that bothers you so much?"
But Duke shakes his head, "No," he says, "the question is why he's still here. Why he keeps hanging around someone he apparently doesn't like so much and..." warming to his subject he leans forward in his seat, "what else about me is going on in that pretty little head of his," punctuating this last comment with a finger pressed to Nathan's forehead, hard enough that his head moves back a little.
Nathan grabs Duke's hand to move it away from him, but doesn't move it very far. They are completely still then for a moment, glaring at each other with all the intensity of that dislike and distrust, but also of something else entirely.
For a moment, Audrey takes "that pretty little head of his" to be nothing more than a turn of phrase, chosen only for its potential to irritate Nathan, but Duke holds Nathan's gaze for just long enough that she realises he meant it literally.
Nathan flicks Duke's hand away and reaches for his beer instead, the moment gone; dismissed. Duke sits back in his chair, a determinedly casual pose that would have fooled Audrey ten minutes ago, but she's not buying it now. Nathan gulps at his beer and shifts awkwardly in his seat.
"I don't think that pretty little head has much in it at all just now other than beer," says Audrey lightly.
"Good plan," says Duke simply. Audrey opens her mouth to tell him there was no plan, she was just trying to diffuse the tension, but he's already gone. And then she realises, diffuse isn't the right word anyway - redirect would be more distrustful kind of tension is only going to be unpleasant, but there's another kind running underneath it that could be far more interesting.
Nathan steadfastly refuses to meet anyone's eye as Duke comes back with more beer, as well as a bottle of whiskey and three shot glasses.
He pours for them all as he talks; chatting, joking - funny stories from the bar. They listen and drink for a while, the level in the bottle gradually falling as he talks and they laugh. It hits Audrey suddenly that he is trying for some kind of redirection as well - or rather, he's succeeding; Nathan has relaxed again.
Then Duke is talking about how she and him met; her almost drowned and waking up to her clothes strung up around his boat to dry before she even knew who he was.
"You were so angry," he says, smiling.
"Well - wouldn't you be? Imagine if it had been the other way around!"
Duke considers this, head at an angle as he looks at her, "Waking up with no clothes on to find a gorgeous woman looking out for me? I've had worse days," he says easily and reaches forward to pour them all another drink. His comment floors her for a minute and she realises, belatedly, that she's staring at him, a little too long perhaps. He hands her her glass and her fingers cover his as she reaches for it: another moment drawn out too long to be an accident, and she knows Nathan sees it too.
This should feel strange, she thinks. This tension bouncing between the three of us; it should feel strange, but it doesn't.
Duke shifts his hand so she's holding just the glass instead and he sees the little flash of disappointment in her eyes change to something else as he moves his hand to her knee.
She downs the shot of whiskey and puts the empty glass on the table as she shifts closer towards Duke, his hand ending up on her thigh as she moves forward. They look at each other for a long moment, but neither has forgotten the other man in the room and they both turn to see him watching them.
Audrey puts one hand on top of Duke's and reaches towards Nathan with the other. Duke expects him to flinch, make excuses and leave, but he leans forward to kiss Audrey instead. Audrey reaches her arm around Duke as she pulls the three of them closer together. Duke puts an arm around Nathan, then wonders if that is even fair, since he won't be able to feel it. But he must have seen it coming between kisses because he turns towards Duke then, his hand leaving Audrey's arm to rest on Duke's leg instead.
Somehow this simple gesture surprises Duke more than anything; just how drunk is this guy, he wonders.
Then Nathan is kissing him and Audrey's hands are all over him and thinking becomes difficult. Kissing Nathan is not like he would have thought - how does a man who can't feel me and doesn't even like me that much manage kisses this tender, he thinks. Is it just a kind of hesitation? Wondering about Nathan again, he sneaks a glance at the whiskey bottle - there's surprisingly little left and he hasn't drunk that much himself, which means these two must be smashed.
He moves away from Nathan a little to take a proper look at him, but this just opens up a gap that Audrey fills and being kissed by her makes it hard to think again. But eventually he does and pulls away from her a little.
"OK, guys, slow down," says Duke. "I'm not sure this …" there is a pause while she's kissing him again "... I'm not sure this is such a good …"
It registers with Nathan that Duke is objecting, "What's that Duke?"
"What I'm saying," says Duke as he starts to untangle himself from them, "is that you two are both a lot more drunk than me. And if we're going to do this, it should be when we're all sober enough to remember it in the morning. I don't want to be the only one who remembers how this happens. And I don't want the only reason it happened to be because you two were too drunk to think straight, either," he adds.
Audrey goes to put her hand on his shoulder, but misses and almost collapses to the side of him.
"You see?" he says, to no one in particular.
It's Friday afternoon and they've had a quiet week for once, during which the two cops have both avoided discussing the weekend. Then both their mobiles bleep at the same time and Nathan, expecting a trouble, suppresses a groan. But it's a text from Duke: [more poker anyone? see you both tonight?] Nathan's heart misses a beat despite himself. The details of the last poker night are a bit vague, but he definitely remembers they moved on from poker to …. He stops that line of thought and looks towards Audrey. She glances up at him and he knows she got the same text because he can see the same reaction. And the same hesitation that it's a good idea.
He knows it might not be. But he also knows he wants to go; wants her to go.
He gestures with his phone, "See you at Duke's later?" he tries to sound casual, but he doesn't quite manage it. She hesitates, seems about to say something much more involved, but then settles for one word, "Sure."
Nathan tells himself he's just turning up for poker as he steps onto the Cape Rouge and even as they say hello and go down into the cabin for a beer.
"You made food," says Nathan.
"I bought snacks," Duke corrects him. "It's a whole different vibe. But something to eat seemed like a good idea. Stop you getting drunk quite so quickly this time."
There is a little pause during which neither man quite looks at the other.
"You seemed quite happy about it up to a point," observes Nathan eventually.
Duke looks round at him, "So you do remember the evening then?"
"In parts," Nathan says. "I think I remember you being a gentleman, which is an interesting new experience."
They're moving close to each other as they talk, standing close enough that when Audrey walks in a moment later, she asks, "Am I interrupting?"
"Not in a bad way," says Duke, staying close to Nathan as he turns towards her.
"I brought beer," she says, holding up a six pack.
Duke smiles at her, "We were just discussing the benefits of a little alcohol," he says.
She walks across the room to put the beer on the table, but doesn't say anything.
"Although the memory loss that tends to follow too much can be problematic," offers Nathan.
Audrey is strangely quiet as the two men glance at eachother.
"Exactly how drunk were you last time we … er, played poker?" asks Duke, the cards forgotten in their pack behind him.
Audrey takes off her jacket and hangs it carefully over the back of a chair, before moving to stand in front of them, silent all the while and clearly considering how to respond.
"It's a little hazy," she admits, "but I remember enough to be unsure whether you would really be here," she says to Nathan, before looking at Duke, "and to appreciate you sending us home when you did," she adds.
"And yet you came back," observes Duke.
"There's not really any 'yet' about it," replies Audrey, moving a little closer to them.
They stand in a kind of triangle, so close they will touch if any of them moves at all, and the moment stretches …
"Let's just stay off the whiskey this time," suggests Audrey, and then, almost quoting Duke's words of the previous night back at him, "If we're going to do this, let's make sure we all remember it."
Duke puts a hand around Nathan's waist as he leans forward to kiss Audrey and she pulls the three of them closer together. Nathan reaches behind him to put his drink down, but it falls and clatters, the beer spilling across the table and dripping over the chairs and onto the floor; all completely unnoticed by the knot of three people in the middle of the room.