THE NEXT THING
"... and then he set off the fire extinguisher, which is how he ended up having to skip out of the training session at eleven. To run downtown to buy Francine a brand-new jacket." Lee chuckled as he pictured the newest rookie agent running for the elevator with a ruined green suede blazer balled up in one hand, fearing for his life and his job as Francine followed close on his heels, shouting out instructions for which section of the store he needed to visit to right this egregious wrong.
"Oh no. She got that jacket on sale, too. She'll be livid." Amanda laughed, but it was a quiet laugh and her eyes didn't twinkle with amusement as much as they usually did. "Is that why she was wearing that scarf on her head this afternoon?"
"Yeah."
"I saw her in the hallway and she looked so angry I was afraid to stop and say hello."
"So did you?"
"No. I just, you know. Waved. And kept moving." Amanda wiggled her fingers to demonstrate and turned her attention back to her dinner.
Silence rose up between them. Lee shifted in his seat. She'd been like this all week, strangely quiet whenever they were alone together, extra busy when the boys were around. Worry had started to niggle at him. He'd suggested dinner and a movie the night before — he'd thought about making a reservation somewhere upscale and romantic, but something about the way she looked when she said yes told him she needed something else. Something low-effort and fun. So they were here, eating diner food before the late show at the revival theater.
"What's going on?" he finally asked as she picked at her dinner.
"What do you mean?"
"Amanda, you've barely said two words since we got here. You've been like this all week." He set down his fork. "Come on. Out with it."
"I had a meeting with Billy last week," Amanda said, haltingly. He leaned back in the booth and studied her. She was shifting in her seat as if it were full of pebbles, a posture that immediately made his stomach clench in anticipation of bad news, though there was no bad news Billy would have told her that he wouldn't have also told Lee. "He offered me a promotion."
"What? That's great," Lee said, though he got the sense there was a 'but' coming. "Isn't it?"
"It's in Analysis."
"Analysis?" Ah, he thought. So there it was. They hadn't really been partners for a few months, not since she'd come back to work. They'd worked together, sure, but not in the field. She'd been part of the analysis team for weeks now, but she'd always treated it as a temporary thing. He had a feeling she liked it but she didn't want to admit it — whenever he asked about it she said it was "fine" but she almost hummed with energy in meetings sometimes. Even Francine had commented on it.
Amanda nodded. She looked expectant, he thought, like she was waiting for him to get upset. But all he felt was a deep relief and sudden, intense gratitude toward Billy. "Do you want it?"
"I don't know," she said. "I miss working with you."
"I know. I miss it too. But I'm happy to trade it if we can have more of this." He gestured at the space between them. "Analysis is a good gig, Amanda. Regular hours, lots of challenging work."
"I know. Better pay."
He grinned at her, then. "You want it." He reached over to catch her hand. "You should take it."
"I don't — " She shook her head. "What about you?"
"This isn't about me. This is about you and your career."
"But we're partners." He realized now that this was what was holding her back. She missed working up in the Q-Bureau with him. And he missed it, too, but more and more he was willing to give it up in exchange for a measure of safety.
"Maybe it's time for us to move on to the next thing."
"Why are you being so… philosophical about this whole thing?"
He laughed. "Because if I'm realistic about it, I'm not getting any younger. And things are different now. It's probably time for me to think about making a change, too. One that keeps us all a little safer."
"I guess. But if you don't want to —"
"Amanda. It's not just about me now. And I've been thinking about it for a while. Since Birol, if I'm honest. Definitely during that brush with Doneck. Billy's been sliding management opportunities into my inbox for months."
"You've been thinking about it for that long? You never said a thing."
"Well, I wasn't sure. And then we had a few other things on our minds, you know?" She wrinkled her nose, nodding. "And those weeks I spent up in the Q while you were getting better weren't so bad. The worst part was that you weren't there."
"I still won't be there."
"Sure you will." He grinned. "I have it on good authority that the field section needs to work more closely with analysis. Especially up in the Q, if the agent there is missing a key part of his team."
She laughed, rolling her eyes.
"And I mean it. I know the first time around you put everything on hold for your family. I don't expect you to do that now." Lee squeezed her fingers. "I'm proud of you. That's a big promotion and he offered it to you because you're good at it and you deserve it. You'd be nuts to turn it down."
She squeezed his hand back and he watched as her eyes brimmed with tears.
"Hey."
"Oh, I'm being silly," she gulped. She drew her hand away and wiped her eyes. "Just… I've been so worried about what you'd think about this and I didn't know how to talk to you about it, and you're right, if I think about it I do want it. But I'd be just as happy to keep working with you. And then there's… well, we never talked about adding to our family, and I wasn't sure how you felt about that. Or how I felt about that, even. I mean I thought I knew, but then the last few months..."
Lee chuckled a little at her ramble. She hadn't rambled in a long time — maybe because she'd become so sure of herself in so many ways. "Amanda, we don't have to have more kids."
She let out a strange little gulp and her shoulders sagged. "Lee, I thought you wanted…"
"Maybe at the beginning, I thought I did. But I think what I really wanted was a family, and I have that. In spades. They're everywhere." he paused, then, worried he'd misread her. "You weren't going to say you wanted…"
She shook her head. "No. No. I thought I did, too. But after all this —" She gestured to her chest. "And Phillip's going into high school. And I don't know. I like where we are right now and I know if we were going to do it we'd have to do it pretty soon, and we've barely had time to just be together."
"Yeah." He'd thought of all those things, usually late at night when she was asleep beside him. About how much better she was, but how she still struggled to really get through a day. He knew she got up extra early to stand in a hot shower and work out the stiffness she felt in the morning, and he knew that she was nowhere close to starting physical training at work again. And he also knew that since she'd started working in Analysis she'd gotten some of her spark back, and it made him feel like they were closer to the way things should be — that even if she couldn't reach the shelf above the fridge (where she'd used to hide the marshmallows) she was more like her old self than she had been since February.
"And Dr Kelford said I should wait a year, and that makes me at least thirty-eight, and I don't know if I want to do it all over again when I'm thirty-eight."
"You asked him?"
"He saw the ring. And… well… anyway. You're really okay with… not?"
"Yeah, I am. I like where we are, too. And you know, the boys are great. I think we're doing okay."
"Yeah, you are. You're doing great." Lee didn't know if 'great' would have been the word he'd chosen, but it was the word she chose so he decided to leave it. Maybe she knew something he didn't. What he did know was that Jamie had thawed considerably in the past few weeks, in part thanks to a lot of reassurance and extra one-on-one time with Amanda, and in part thanks to his 'gift' of a camera. Enough that he'd been thinking about taking them on a road trip over the summer, something that filled him with excitement and trepidation in equal measures.
"Your mother will be disappointed."
"She'll be fine. She likes you. She's got a lot going on." Amanda picked up her fork again. "It's not about what she wants, anyway."
He chuckled. "Listen to you." He leaned over the table suddenly, kissing her squarely on the mouth. "Anyway. Congratulations. You're going to be a great analyst."
"Thanks."
"I wish you'd told me about it yesterday. I'd have suggested something a little fancier for dinner."
She smiled. "I don't care. I'm happy to celebrate here. I don't need fancy, I just need you." She paused and sipped her drink, then a smile lifted one corner of her mouth. "I wouldn't say no to a nice dinner at Spencer's next week, though. Since you brought it up."
"You wouldn't, huh?"
"Of course not."
"What happened to not needing fancy, just needing me?" he asked, laughing.
"You're welcome to join me." Amanda busied herself with her food for a minute, peering up at him from under her eyelashes. "I'm kidding," she said after a minute. "We should spend the money on something else."
"Like responsible adults, you mean."
"Unfortunately, yes."
He nodded, waiting a beat. "You don't mean that, do you?"
"Not a word of it," she admitted, laughing, and this time the sparkle reached her eyes.
