2. For One Night Only
When he peels the car away from the kerb he thinks that of all the mistakes he's made about Brenda Leigh Johnson, this is the worst. Certainly the most stupid and he has had plenty of experience with stupid things.
Putting a move on your boss ranks pretty high on the scale, especially when she's the ex of the big boss and he wonders vaguely if Pope has managed to get her back, which would just make everything perfect.
She's an impossible human being and he concentrates on that fact for a moment, nearly running a red light and braking just in time. A hurricane of a woman: clever, tough-minded and a little crazy; and the worst part of it is that he likes those things in a woman.
He licks the taste of her from his lips, rich and deep like the wine she'd been drinking and just as addictive. He wonders if maybe he should go to a meeting; he imagines shuffling into the back, tripping over the feet of the guy who's spent the day hanging around outside a bar without going in and is now crying to himself (because there's always one like that) and standing up to confess to being whatever it is you'd call someone who's stuck on Brenda Leigh. That would be an idiot, a small part of his brain tells him and he has to agree.
But then decides no, he'll handle this, and that just for now, for this one night only he'll be an addict again. For tonight he'll give in, he'll revel in her, the memory of her, the way she had said his name. Andy. Two simple syllables given a cadence by her accent that he had never heard before. Breathiness behind it and he imagines her saying it again, sighing it.
After tonight he'll catch hold, push it down deep, lock her away along with all the other things he's given up. Another memory that he won't take out and look at because it's safer that way. Need is something he's learnt to control, to deal with in small doses.
But for now he allows himself the luxury. The traffic light turns to green, to red, and back again before he notices and the car judders through the intersection. He should have known, he reflects, that she would have this effect, in the end; she can stand everyone else on their head so there's no reason why he should be immune.
Working for her was, once, a form of not-so-subtle torture; it is still torture, but of a different kind and one that he took on willingly. If she had thrown him to the wolves, and he admits that he couldn't have blamed her, he could still have been nursing his hostility but then there wouldn't be this; this, whatever it is, and he isn't sure that he wants to give it up. He feels light-headed, like after the first hit of a cigarette but stronger, and for a moment he thinks that he'd do anything- Maybe this is what the real junkies feel and maybe he'll have a bit more sympathy for them from now on, but probably not.
Back home, his own place, on safe ground. He wonders if she's still awake, scouring the house for the stash of candy he knows she'll have somewhere, the cat trailing along behind her. Perhaps she's already in bed, gold hair tangled across her pillow and he lingers on that image for a while. He's allowing himself that.
Even with city blocks between them she is still overwhelming. There was a time, for a long time, when he liked to be lost and he could be lost again, over her. He'll be lost, just for a few hours, just until morning and then-
And then they'll go back to the way it was before and the next time the squad goes out they'll sit at opposite ends of the tables and he won't drive her home.
He thought he'd left the scent of her perfume behind but he can still smell it.
The rooms are too quiet. Turn on the stereo, whatever was playing the last time starts up again, sound filling up the speakers and spilling out into the darkness of his home. The arrangement of strings is instantly familiar. Sinatra, of course, the last really good one, Point of No Return,1962. The smile that greets it is grim. It's ironic, he thinks, and he really hates irony.