A/N: I know it's been a long, long time *Dorothy Moore voice* but I will finish this one soon :)

Thanks, and enjoy x

Chapter 71: Martinique

Two weeks later, Thursday 27th April 2017, 4.50am, Paul's house, Elmhurst, Queens

Gina DeVeaux thought of herself as a reasonable woman, one of more patience than most. But even she had her limits; limits that made her pack a duffel bag of new dance team uniforms while Paul lay asleep thinking of whatever had him turning in his sleep more than normal. Joss, probably. Jeremy, certainly. The last time they spoke was at dinner, where he was preoccupied about finding Jeremy a place to stay when he got discharged from the hospital.

"Norfolk Light Motel." He stated more than suggested as though his mind was already made up.

"A motel for your father?" She asked, as her tacos went cold.

He closed the fridge and said in a cavalier fashion, "I'll pay by the month. He'll be alright."

She could hear the tightness of his jaw as he spoke. She could feel that tightness when they kissed and feel his frustration as his lovemaking became more selfish and less attentive in that I-could've-had-a-V8-kinda-way. "You seeing Susan on Thursday?"

He nodded and ate his taco in four bites like a college kid.

'Good, 'cause you need it', she thought.

Then he downed a protein shake, none the wiser that she was unhappy. So when he started to kiss her on her neck as she washed the dishes and she didn't respond, he didn't read into it and went to the garage to bench press for a while. Gina's mouth couldn't form the words, "I heard you on the phone to her" but she knew it was trouble that he took to sharing his moment of weakness with another woman who wasn't paid by the hour to understand him. His hands were shaking when he called, she watched him silently from the bed, as he didn't know she was awake.

"Hey Joss, it's me. Ummm…it's been a while. I don't…I know it's…Look I need to see you. Meet me at the Diner?"

So Gina packed her bag with those words ringing in her ears, and thoughts in her mind that ran wild. She always thought Joss was off-limits to him, but that call and his desperation said something different. It said this man wasn't hers, that she couldn't help him, that even Susan couldn't do it. He wanted Joss…still. He wanted to hear her voice in his darkest hour, in the middle of the night when the world outside New York was asleep. That was an ugly truth she had no choice but to see. And seeing it gave her an energy she hadn't felt in months; it emboldened her to face it in a way Paul couldn't face his own blistered father. After all, Taylor did say something about the 8th Precinct…

2.03pm, Turner Hall, Emory University

Girls talk. That much Taylor knew, but he didn't know that the last person he said those words to would be at his door, wearing a football jersey and paint on his face, already pumped up for his Friday night game against the Georgia Bulldogs. "Reggie?"

"Ask me how I got here. Come on, ask me how I got here." Reggie asked with the eagerness of someone on a Red Bull IV drip, pushing his way through the door.

"How'd you get here?" Taylor asked, to his chagrin.

"That girl Zora." He replied with a mischievous grin. "So, you wearing my shirt or what?"

He was greeted with a printed Reggie "Da Champ" DuChamp shirt on his face. "You mean Zahra."

"Whatever. Wear it."

He could tell beneath the jerkiness he was nervous. And if Taylor followed college football like he did Premier League soccer, he would've known Reggie's star was fading fast. "Fine. What're you doing here?"

"Killing time." Reggie said, looking at the posters on the wall. In his room, legs-spread Nicki Minaj with a lollipop was squatting where Uma Thurman lying on a bed smoking a cigarette in Pulp Fiction was.

Taylor asked the obvious. "Shouldn't you be at practice? Scrimmage? Something?" The long silence said enough. "You got benched, huh?"

Reggie scratched the back of his neck just like his father did and explained it away. "Coach…has…a rotation thing going on."

"Rotation?" Taylor repeated.

"Shut up…look just don't tell anyone, alright?"

Taylor acquiesced, like he often did with his cousin because Reggie had that effect on him. "Who am I gonna tell?"

Reggie punched his chest in approval and smiled as someone knocked on the door. "Who's that?" He asked with a twinkle in his eye. "Look, if I'm blocking just say it."

"Shut up, Reggie." Taylor grumbled, because it was That girl Zora and he was expecting her. "Hey Zahra," Taylor greeted as the climate of the room changed on her entry. "I got the R.U.M.M. letters. Anything else?"

"Not really. Margot thinks you suck."

Taylor shrugged his shoulders because he figured that blaming him to her roommate was part of her acting and feeling like any other girl. "Zahra, Reggie. Reggie, Zahra."

"Hi."

"Zara like the store?" She nodded. "You ever take that thing off?" He blurted out, referring to the blue seashell print scarf on her head that was wrapped into a headwrap his mom wore when she was waiting for her hair appointments.

"Only when I'm plotting." She joked.

"He's not always like this." Taylor explained as he gave her the stuffed envelope of R.U.M.M. letters Brock wasn't around to open for a social psychology assignment.

"I think he is." She said with a smile Reggie didn't understand. He was too insensitive to handle her with kid gloves and that was something she appreciated. "Later, Taylor. Reggie."

"Later."

"What the hell was that?" Reggie asked a few milliseconds after she left. Taylor couldn't explain it with more than a shoulder shrug. Shoulders that felt infinitely lighter since he broke up with her. Reggie watched his cousin punk out, in his eyes, with genuine disappointment. Especially when That girl Zora was just a few points off hot in his opinion. He resisted the urge to call his cousin a Simp, when their very King Russell Wilson was winning at life.

"Why'd you get benched?" Taylor asked, because he figured Reggie might as well tell someone.

Reggie sighed. "I know the plays. Shit, I know what to do. I just can't get my head in the game."

Taylor threw out his first thought. "Aleesha?"

He shook his head because she still wasn't talking to him and it had been so long he forgot why. "They got married." Reggie had never said the words out loud; he was repeating them from the time CeCe bought him new Jordans to break the news and he hadn't been the same since.

Taylor understood why his hands and feet couldn't do what his head knew they should, and how expendable he was as college cattle – especially underperforming cattle on a scholarship. But Reggie didn't want sympathy, he wanted collusion for support. "So…Rotation?"

"Yeah." Reggie nodded. "Rotation."

4.21pm, 8th Precinct

Gina DeVeaux picked the wrong day to visit a homicide detective at work, if the two hour wait while she interviewed witnesses from a nightclub stabbing in Spanish Harlem was anything to go by. She spotted numerous black and brown faces being walked in and fewer walked out as she read a crumpled Essence Magazine with Kerry Washington on it. She thought Laz the Police Aide was about to apologise for the third time when he took her to an interview room to see the woman she wanted instead. "Gina? Is something wrong?"

Gina wasn't expecting concern, or that one of her eyebrows arched higher than the other. "I'm sorry for coming but I didn't know where else to find you."

Joss recognised that panicked look on her face. She used to wear it often. "It's okay. Water? Coffee?"

"No, thanks."

"How can I help?" Joss asked in her cop voice.

Gina exhaled and looked her in the eye. "I know."

There was no recognition or guilt in Joss' soulful eyes. "You know what?"

"About the call." She read Joss' face, nothing registered because she didn't know. "He called you on Saturday. 1.30. AM."

Joss shook her head because she was home that time. "No, he didn't. Maybe you confused me for someone else."

Gina knew she wasn't crazy but was relieved to know they weren't talking. "He called you, Joss. I swear he did."

Joss knew she was telling the truth and there was only one explanation; a certain phone-cloning, building-leaping, car-speeding deer shooter in-a-suit. "Is there anything else I can do for you, Gina? There's a pile of reports on my desk."

"No, thanks for hearing me out."