"It's gonna be a crazy long day tomorrow…and two days in a row," he groans. They're walking into the one-two after shift, shoulder to shoulder, hands in the pockets of their winter duty jackets. Normally on a Friday night, they'd be getting changed and heading back out for dinner and drinks, but tonight is an early night for both of them.
"It's only the Hamptons. Two hours there and back against traffic, max." Eddie says.
"Oh, so an hour and a half, tops, with you driving."
"Ha! With me driving my Porsche." She shivers a little in anticipation.
That's the real problem, he thinks. He's not terribly concerned with giving up their weekends to two full shifts with long commutes at either end. But Eddie in her sweet little silver Boxter, grinning behind her Ray-Bans, is lethal. She may not be an amateur gearhead like him, per se, but she knows sports cars, and she appreciates a beautiful, well-maintained piece of engineering just as much as he does. Especially being in control of one.
He remembers the last time they took a drive out of the city in his new Mustang, last summer, just to see how she handled out on the open road, and how good it all was. Eddie beside him, excited and full of backchat and easy laughter. Belting along with the 80's tunes she'd brought along, with enough fervour that they could both pretend he wasn't singing along under his breath. He'd let her take the wheel for a while coming home, and she'd handled the sensitive controls like she was gentling an actual wild horse. It had been…thrilling, actually. Like some careless dream of a lazy summer that he never got to have the first time round, glued to his books as he was.
So naturally, that day led to another episode in his back catalog of never-in-a-million-years fantasies involving her. Specifically, the one where they're driving somewhere in her car, or his, doesn't matter which, doesn't matter where, going fast. She's got one confident hand easy on the leather-clad steering wheel, and the other is slowly and steadily working him to a mindbending finish through his unzipped jeans. She's never in uniform, though, and it's never their police cruiser. There are some places he's too strongly programmed to transgress, which, given their thousands of shared hours on tour, is just as well.
It's probably a pretty tame and common fantasy for the average car guy, but he wonders what she'd think if she knew where his brain went now and then, regarding her in particular. He's doing his best to steer his mind far away from such images, especially recently. Not with the knowledge of how Eddie's own sexuality was weaponized against her, and the impact it had on her. Not with both of them having admitted unwise things about that chemistry that's never died down between them.
She picks up on his hesitation and leans towards him. "You can drive the last bit to the Hamptons from wherever we cut off the Expressway," she promises.
"That's a really nice piece of road."
"Yes, it is. And you are going to keep your eyes fixed on it, Mister."
Busted? Maybe. He shoots her a look of personal affront. "As if I'd put Silver Belle in any danger. Or you. Did you swap your snow tires yet?" he asks.
She nods, and suddenly gets that look on her face. Her eyes widen and she grabs his arm.
"What?" he asks, with a sense of foreboding.
"Jamie. Oh, my God. Let's head out there tonight. Night drive, good tunes, grab a room. We'll feel so much better tomorrow if we don't have to get up at five a.m. and drive all that way."
He turns the idea over in his head for a moment, and God help him, but he really likes it. She can see it in his face and grins happily.
"Go get changed! I'll see what's available out there. It's not summer, so…"
She spins on her heel and departs. He watches her for a moment, open-mouthed, and heads to the men's locker room. He's halfway out of his gear before it hits him that Eddie said, "grab a room", singular.
He's not entirely sure what exactly he wants to do about that, or rather, what God or Fate or Eddie is telling him to do about that. By the time they meet up in the corridor again, in their usual jeans, boots and leather jackets, she's bouncing on the balls of her feet, excited and impatient.
"Jamie!" she hisses, beckoning, "C'mere. You won't believe it."
"Believe what?" he follows her into a supply closet lined with gray metal bracket shelves to the ceiling, and leans against a row of banker's boxes, arms crossed. Eddie is glowing at him, talking with her gloved hands, her blue gauzy scarf swinging in counterpoint.
"There's this little inn in Montauk," she says rapidly, and very low. It would not do for the rest of the house to hear this. "It's the off-season, so I thought I'd take a chance, and guess what, they've got two rooms for tonight and tomorrow. Plus, when I asked about government rates and explained we were working, they offered us both nights for the price of one. They never fill up in winter, the guy said. Which means, if we like it, I bet we could stay there again for the jazz festival weekend, too."
"No way."
"Way."
He's stunned by how everything has fallen into place. He grabs a small box of ammo off the shelf, and weighs it in his hand, thinking over Eddie's plan. "What the hell," he says. "Okay. I got everything ready to go at home, though, so I just need to make a stop there."
"I got my gear bagged up already in my locker," she grins. "You know what I'm like in the mornings. So you leave your car in the compound here and I'll run you home. Then we'll go grab takeout and hit the highway."
They nearly walk into Renzulli, who eyes the pair of them as if he really doesn't want to know why they're so bright-eyed coming out of the supply closet after a full shift.
"Hey, Tony," Jamie says, holding up the box of ammo he'd forgotten he was holding. "Just checking over our gear. We're moonlighting security tomorrow. G'night."
"Remember to sign for those." Renzulli says. Then he turns, "Hey, wait."
"Yeah?"
"You're doing site-sec for that festival out on Long Island, yeah?"
"Yep."
"Right, right. Listen, you guys are gonna get asked to take your photographs all day, you know? The kids, they love putting that stuff up on their Twitter feeds."
"Snapchat," Eddie corrects him. "Instagram."
"Okay. Anyway, be careful with that. You've both done good undercover work, and we want to be able to keep using you while we can. You understand?"
"Ten-four," Jamie says. "There's not much we can do if we're just standing around on duty, but yeah, we'll try to fend off the selfie crowd."
"Do your best," Tony says, "Have fun. I won't hear you on the radio out there, but call my cell if you need. Call me on your break, if you can, to check in."
"Will do. 'Night, Sarge," says Eddie.
"'Night, you two."
"'Night, Sarge," Jamie mimics, sing-songing in Eddie's ear, as Tony heads off down the corridor. She smacks his side, hard, forgetting he's not wearing his soft armor anymore, and stifles a giggle as he winces and mock-staggers into the wall. She pretends to be apologetic and concerned, patting him as if to check him over, and Jamie wonders how this weekend could possibly end without them getting into trouble.
Eddie is usually pretty good at keeping her cool, but she gives it up within a few steps of the precinct doors.
"I don't remember the last time I went on a proper night drive!" she exults. "And it's such a clear night, and it won't be crowded. There's a meteor shower tonight, did you know?"
"It's the Leonids," he confirms, because of course he knows that.
Falling stars and Jamie, she sighs to herself, and mentally rolls her eyes.
It's true, though, that tonight is bringing back all sorts of rushes of memories of the first few summers she and Silver Belle traversed everywhere within a day of Manhattan, alone or with a boyfriend or a pile of girlfriends, alive and curious in a vast universe of possibility. Encountering the world full-on. Before the thing at the PBT house, and her dad's house of cards crumbling a year later. At least being dragged back through those memories has also brought back the memories of how she felt about herself before.
Time may not heal everything, but if you're lucky and work at it, the passage of time and the overlay of powerful new memories can mellow bullshit into good compost, she thinks.
And impromptu road trips with best friends take her right back to that self she misses.
For all the miles they log on shift, she and Jamie haven't taken a long drive for the hell of it since summer, in Jamie's new Mustang. It took her weeks to stop playing that lazy summer afternoon over in her mind. That day, like tonight, feels intimate and slightly clandestine. They could pull straight faces and speak candidly about wanting to arrive on shift well-rested, if anyone happened to find out, but they'd be just as happy if nobody ever did.
"What music you bringing?" Jamie asks. He's a little giddy himself. The glint in his eye is causing some backflips in her stomach that she's in no mood to shut down in a hurry tonight, as she usually does.
"Got Sirius hooked up to '80's hits, classic jazz, psychedelic 70's and R&B," she rattles off. "Or whatever else you feel like."
"No, that'll do. Dinner?"
"Eh, anything, as long as we don't eat – "
"In the car. I know." he says agreeably. He has similar rules for his car, she knows, although he does allow coffee-drinking out of the two complimentary stainless-steel mugs that came with it, which fit perfectly in the console without sliding around.
Sports car people. They get each other. They share a look of complete understanding as they reach Silver Belle, and walk around to either door.
For two people who spend upwards of eight hours in a car together on an average workday, it's remarkable how much talking they find they need to do off-duty. And in the dark, in the private bubble of her car, conversation drifts easily with every passing mile from Jamie's place in Brooklyn Heights towards Long Island.
"He's going to be placed in a residence with five other older guys," Eddie says, "For at least a year, but realistically, there's a chance it could be much longer. He's sixty-seven. He's not going to be looking for work or retraining. He's mostly got to get used to living on the outside again. I guess in some ways he's ahead of the game – he was always pretty up on technology and culture trends, just the nature of being a salesman, so he won't have missed all that much."
"He knows your mom's honestly, truly out of the picture?" Jamie asks softly. He knows her father had held onto the belief, and then a lingering hope, that he and her mother would be back together again, for years.
Eddie was the one who had to take the brunt of his shock and denial when Mira mailed the divorce papers to him at Fort Dix. He hadn't signed them for six months, until Eddie threatened to never visit him again unless he let her mother go. She'd taken the signed papers away with her that day and not returned anyway, for three years, and she'd hated herself for it as much as she had desperately needed to buy some breathing space for her mother and herself.
She hadn't gone back, even after writing to her father to tell him of Mira's engagement and subsequent marriage to her now-stepdad Bradley. Not even after her father had clearly, painfully explained that he understood, not until Jamie drove her there himself and waited outside the gates for her. Jamie had seen through her jittery anger and attitude and just absorbed it all until she ran out of reasons to run away, and made her feet point in the right direction, despite wanting nothing more than to run away.
"He knows. What worries me the most is him being alone. He can't stand being alone. He went from a big family, to marrying Mom, then trying to surround us with a constant social scene – then to prison, where he's never left alone. At least in the halfway house he'll have people, but after that? I don't know. He can't stay with me."
"Has he suggested it?"
"Once. I think he was just spinning a fantasy. He seemed to think he was going to make a new fortune, and be able to buy a place where I could go and live with him. For all I know he was on sedatives at the time. He seemed to think I was still coming home from school on breaks."
"It sounds to me like you need to decide what your limits are with him, and stick to it," Jamie says seriously. "Don't wait until you're over your head to draw your lines in the sand or ask for help. But I mean, he's a gregarious guy, and smart, and he's used to working from dawn to dusk. He might find something good to do to keep him occupied. I bet there's plenty of places that could use someone with his skills. As a volunteer, or even a real job."
"I did think of suggesting it, but he could never use his financial skills as an employee, or even to volunteer. He'd never pass a crim check to even be a society treasurer or anything."
"He gets people to trust him. I gotta say, I warmed up to the guy pretty quick, even knowing everything I did. And not just because he's your dad. If he can find a way to use that, he might do a lot of good for people."
"I hope so," she says. "I can only hope so."
"You're not alone, either. Don't forget that part."
She feels a warm tingle rush up her arm as Jamie's hand slides over hers, resting on the manual gear knob as she pulls up to a red light. He strokes his thumb briefly over her wrist, and withdraws.
"Hey," he says suddenly, "I think I saw one. A meteor. Let's pull over for a bit once we're clear of the city lights."
"If it weren't the middle of November, I'd put the top down," she says.
"Next summer."
"Next summer," she agrees. "Where'll we go?"
"Upstate?" he muses, as though they plan driving dates all the time. "Probably not Long Island. Too crowded. My family's found some good fishing spots in those little lakes up the Hudson that tourists never seem to find."
"Fishing?" she eyes him dubiously as the light changes and she eases forwards. "Do I seem like a fishing person to you?"
"Have you ever?"
"Well, no," she admits.
"You're missing out," he tells her. "Believe me, the fish are a relatively minor aspect of the thing."
"That's good, because there won't be any fish travelling home from any lakes in this car."
Okay, it's worked, she thinks, throwing him a look. He's given her space to air out the thoughts she needed to, and then tugged her back from the brink of wallowing. It's something they take turns doing for each other.
He flashes a grin at her, the one that says he's just happy to be there with her. It makes her glowy.
"About that music?" she suggests.
"Classic jazz, you said?"
"That'll do." She touches a couple of buttons on the stereo panel, and Sarah Vaughan's "Detour Ahead" comes though as clear and silvery as the night itself.
It's been a long time since they listened to jazz together. Almost exactly a year ago, in fact. Dancing at Bix' Basement, on a crisp evening in mid-November, the night after the fiasco that was their last trip to a Long Island hotel.
The memory hits them both at the same time.
"Jamie?"
"Yeah?"
"What're we doing?"
He takes a long, slow inhale, and she feels his eyes on her face in the dim light. "Looking for shooting stars."
He can't help but remember the last time they listened to jazz together. Barely breathing, moving together like a dream out on the dance floor. He'd thought his heart might actually burst from the feeling of Eddie in his arms, tucked close against him.
When they left the club, she'd turned to face him in the street, and kissed him lingeringly and sadly on the cheek.
"Thank you. Tonight was…Jamie – " she shushed him with a finger on his mouth. "Don't say anything."
He remembers shoving his hands in his pockets helplessly, as she turned away and raised an elegant arm from under her evening wrap to hail a cab. She'd felt it, too. They both knew what would happen if they let it continue outside the club, even if he only intended to see her home. And a word from either one would reel them back in an instant.
So he'd stood like an idiot on the pavement, not even helping her into the cab or closing the door. Trying to memorize every detail of how she looked that night, how she smiled at him, how she felt against him. As her cab pulled away, she'd let herself look back through the window just once, like Orpheus, and her eyes said everything.
She was right, of course. They'd thrown open doors that should have stayed closed, out of a need to release an unbearable pressure. And what came crashing through those doors could well have cost them far more than a night in jail and the knowledge of more gossip circulating behind them.
And they'd continued after that, almost but not quite as if it hadn't happened. Even if Eddie tried to work off her feelings on men who were totally unsuited to her and tried to hook him up, too, like a good wingman. Even if they tried to laugh off the house-talk about them and joke about cashing in on the benefits, they both knew it would always be all-in or nothing with them.
"What're we doing?" she asks him softly, in the here-and-now, with almost the exact same catch in her voice as when she warned him not to say anything.
What are they doing? Heading to a work site to get some sleep before a full day on their feet. Two friends and longtime partners enjoying a spontaneous night drive.
He's lying to himself if he thinks that's all it is, but he's not going to lie to her.
"Looking for shooting stars," he murmurs, because it's truthful however you spin it. He only hopes they don't come crashing to earth themselves and burn up on re-entry.
Because there will come a time, maybe tonight, maybe next week or next year, when he's going to kiss her again. And it's going to be for real. No more playing around. They both know it. He already knows exactly how he's going to kiss her. He always had a thing for girls who kiss sweet and warm up slow, and however much Eddie likes being in control, he also knows she kisses just like that. He'll kiss her soft and sweet and tease the hell out of her till neither of them can stand it.
And then he's going to kiss her like they both really, really need.
