I struggle into a pair of Bosco's NYPD sweat pants and pull my hair back off of my throbbing face before joining Alan on the front porch.
"Good God look at your face." He shakes his head slowly.
"Had worse." I sigh, moving to sit on the steps. "How'd you find me?"
"GPS in your Blackberry." He tells me dropping down beside me. "I thought you'd been killed."
"I'm sorry Alan." I whisper, knowing I'm about to tell him the woman he's known for the last five years doesn't exist.
"This is what you've been running from?" He gestures around Bosco's neat yard before his eyes fall on my daughter. Leaning impatiently against her little red hatchback, her toe shoes hanging lazily over her shoulder. "This is.." Bosco is holding Charlie's face in his hand, nodding his head as he talks to him. He slings his arm around his shoulder and walks him to Emily's car. She studies him with scrutiny that was once reserved for only me. He gives her a little nod before kissing her forehead and putting Charlie in the passenger seat. He gives me an appraising look before slipping back inside the house. "I don't know what this is."
"My name is Faith Yokas. I'm a New York City Police Officer."
"Bloody Hell." He exhales slowly. "You're a police officer and you couldn't stop it?"
"Stop it..?" He looks back at me like I'm insane.
"The abuse." He shakes his head. "Muhammad Ali in there."
"There was no abuse. That was my fault. I got in the way. Bosco has never hit me before and he didn't mean to hit me then."
"No he wanted a go at me." Alan snorts.
"I don't think he appreciated your British humor." I say dryly. "He didn't like the implication that he picked me up off the street like some prostitute."
"I see."
"I didn't like the implication that he picked me up off the street like some prostitute."
"The children?"
"Emily's 17 and Charlie is 12. I left there father five years ago when I found out he was having an affair."
"He cheated on you and he still gets to defend your honor?" He chucks his thumb towards the door.
"Bosco's not my husband." It feels strange to say it.
"They called him Dad."
"Boz took them in after their father died." I explain, the reality of that statement still fresh. "He was my partner."
"Bloody hell he's Jack Holleran." My characters name sounds foreign to me. I briefly wonder if Emily Charles was thinking about Maurice Boscorelli when she created Jack Holleran. The confusion of that quandary makes me more than a little nauseous. Or it could be the heat radiating from the welt forming on my face. "You're nothing like Mary-Alice."
"Emily was nothing like her." I explain slowly. "She and Faith have more than a few things in common."
"Emily was..?" He asks slowly, catching the full meaning of my words. I give him a sad smile before nodding.
"I can't keep running." I whisper. He looks out at the yard for a moment and we sit in silence. I know he's trying to decide if it's worth a fight. He gives me another long look before nodding. Leaning in, he kisses my good cheek.
I watch him drive away and just like that my alter ego ceases to exists. Emily Charles is no more.
I find Bosco in the kitchen starring out the back door. I drag my hand across his back.
"Is your friend staying for lunch?" He asks cautiously.
"My friend is already gone." I drop onto the bench at the kitchen table.
"How's your face?" He joins me.
"Hurts like hell." I admit.
"I don't know what possessed you to get in the way." His voice is strained, as his fingers gently trace over the swollen parts.
"I'm out of practice. I forgot the best way to get you off of someone is from behind." I smile and he makes the slightest move towards me. It's so deliberately minuscule I almost think I've imaged it. Until I see the look in his eyes. For the second time today I realize that Maurice Boscorelli wants to kiss me.
Instead he presses his forehead lightly against mine. I wonder if he's still angry or just scared now.
"You're all normal now." He tells me pulling back to look at me with a little grin.
"Normal? Me?" I raise an eyebrow at him and the grin grows.
"NYPD sweats and your hair all pulled up." He swallows hard. "My clothes look good on you."
"Yeah?" I smirk. "Get used to it. I only have two outfits."
He shakes his head at me.
"You're stuffs upstairs in the attic."
"You're kidding me."
"Okay. It's not upstairs in the attic."
"Boz it's been five years."
"I'm aware." He rolls his eyes a little before his voice drops. "What the hell was I supposed to do with it? Throw it out? It was your stuff."
Tears immediately come to my eyes when he says this, I reach for the hand he has laying on the table and trace my fingers over it.
"You know the tears don't really go with the look." He raises an eyebrow at me before shoving himself up from the bench and planting a kiss on the top of my head. "Get dressed I want to show you something."
