Author's Note: Okay, I still can't find this story. Flo, I tried but I couldn't do what you told me to...maybe I can't follow directions...but can someone tell me how to get it on the new chapters list? Thanks all.

Pre-Date Thoughts

Friday morning I was out of bed by ten, which was early for me. I read the morning paper, had some coffee and did up all of my housework incase Sean came over after our date. I wasn't planning on asking him to bed or anything, but I wanted my place to look nice in case I decided to get forward and invite him up for drinks (which was something that I'd never done). And so, my sheets were washed and dried and put back on my bed and sprayed with Fabreeze. A gorgeous lilac smell that reminded me of summer time and barbeques. I did up all of my dishes and even dried them and put the rack under the sink. Then, I polished my cherry wood coffee table and spread the magazines out neatly on top. I fluffed the pillows on the couch and arranged the blue throw blanket on the top. Everything looked as good as I could have expected, considering that there was hardly enough furniture to even make up an apartment.

My place was pretty empty since my divorce, especially since Emily and Charlie moved in with Fred and the mistress. Rooms were bare, the movie rack was empty; the bathroom was cleaner than ever, the front closet was hardly ever used; the coats and boots and shoes had all vacated and made their way to a better part of town where they could get comfortable in a bigger, more expensive closet, no doubt. And all because Fred's new main squeeze had a big wig job at the Department of Defense and owned her own BrownStone.

I was actually considering moving into a one bedroom closer to work, but couldn't commit to looking at another place or even calling around and seeing what I could get for my money. The smart choice would have been to move as soon as Fred and the kids left me but somehow I always hoped that they would get tired of living with him and magically appear outside my door and ask me if they could come home again. Home. Did I even know what that was anymore? A three bedroom apartment with nothing much in the fridge except a half drunk quart of milk and a jar of mayonaise? I never grocery shopped anymore. I ate out all the time. What was the point?

Bosco had hinted on several occasions that I should move closer to him and that way we could always go to work together, but I hadn't taken him up on his 'charity' offer yet. He was only trying to be nice; trying to make me take my mind off the fact that I was in my mid thirties and I was alone. Totally alone. He, on the other hand, didn't care about being by himself. In fact, I think he relished being able to come and go as he pleased and never have to answer to anyone. He had no ties accept for his mother and brother, who were hardly ever around anyway. If he wanted to see Rose he just went to her bar. Otherwise it would be weeks and weeks before he heard from her. I love his ma, don't get me wrong, but she wasn't exactly the typical housewife and mother that Anthony wanted her to be. He was no sweet smelling rose either. But this is America; No one can say what is or isn't normal these days.

I decided to take a long bath before going in to work. I'd have to shower when I got home anyway, but I loved the relaxation of being in the hot water with bubbles up to my neck. I had already asked Swersky if I could have some personal time in the evening and he told me I could come in to work from three to seven. It wasn't exactly police procedure, but I had a lot of over time racked up and Lieu always liked me so he didn't have a problem accommodating my request. The thing that worried me was telling Bosco that he'd be riding solo or with Gussler for the rest of the shift.

I laughed to myself as I ran the water as hot as I could stand it and dumped in a whole lot of raspberry bubble bath. Bosco was gonna flip his lid when he found out that I was ditching him. He hated it when he had to ride by himself, but not as much as he hated riding with Gussler. I had no problem with him, he was a nice guy; a little on the geeky, meek side, but he was always polite and friendly to me. Bos, on the other hand, was absolutely infantile around him and totally obnoxious. Big surprise.

I hadn't told Bosco about my date with his friend, and I guessed that Sean hadn't told him either because I hadn't gotten the third degree yet. I knew that as soon as I told him that I was taking some personal time, he'd ask what it was for. I wouldn't lie to him either. I'd tell him just to see the look on his face; his eyes scrunch up and that sour look turning up his mouth, like he just swallowed a bottle of lemon juice.

Too bad for him, I thought, as I lowered myself into the suds, relishing the smell of the bubbles and the water caressing my skin. I leaned back on my bath pillow and closed my eyes but my brain continued to do a play by play of scenarios that could possibly happen when I let the bomb drop.

Either way I was going out with him that very night. It didn't matter what Bosco said or didn't say. Hell, he'd probably stop the car and tell me to get out and walk back to the house, he'd be so angry that I had defied his wishes. It really bugged him when I did or said something that he disapproved of. Like when I was married to Fred and I had found out that I was pregnant and in a moment of insanity, told him, it was like the flood gates had opened, mainly his big mouth. He told me his opinion constantly. No, not just his opinion, his demands that I tell Fred right away, which I wasn't ready to do. He badgered me constantly for days until I finally told him that I'd lost the baby after a perp we were chasing hit me in the stomach with a metal pipe. I actually had an abortion because I knew that the last thing we needed was another mouth to feed. In the end, he finally stopped talking about it. A relief at best.

And so, as I soaked myself my thoughts turned from Bosco to Sean. Tall, gorgeous, hard bodied, Sean Kelly. He had called me on my cell phone the night before and we had talked for about fifteen minutes. He had asked me for my number when he'd run into me at the coffee shop a couple of days before, which was where I asked him out in the first place. He told me that he would call me on Thursday evening to confirm our date. I wasn't sure if he'd actually call me or not, but as soon as I got out of the squad and got into the house, the phone rang. Bosco was taking back our radios and signing them off, so all I had to do was get ready to go home.

Sean was really sweet and very funny. I changed as I talked to him, which is no easy thing to do when you are putting on a turtleneck sweater, but I managed. I stood there for the longest time, just listening to him and laughing at almost every word he said. He joked about cops in general and told me some funny stories about the things that went on at Trump Tower. He told me he had made reservations at this hot restaurant in Manhattan called Serendipity. It was supposed to be a great place and he was anxious to go there and eat. He also said he had tickets to a play, but wouldn't say what one.

I was totally delighted by his voice; the low gravelly sensualness of a man who knew how to talk to a woman; his mannerisms, his obvious interest in me. It had been years since a man other than Fred was actually interested in me; in Faith. Not the wife, not the mother; the woman and it felt damn good.

The only downer of the call was that Bosco kept staring at me with that sour look on his face as he changed into his street clothes. He took one hell of a long time getting dressed, too, as if he was waiting to say something nasty to me and was hoping that I'd hang up the phone. We had hardly spoken the entire shift, actually for the last three shifts, and I was sure that he had so much stuff built up in there that he was about to burst into flames right there in the locker room, from the agony of having kept his mouth shut for so long. So what did I do? I shot him my dirtiest look and turned away. He left about a minute later and slammed the door behind him.

I pushed the thought of my partner out of my mind as I plucked a baby blue towel off of the shelf next to the tub and began to dry myself off. I hung my towel up on the shower bar and proceeded to stare at my naked body in the mirror that was hung on the back of the bathroom door. I didn't look too bad, I thought, as my eyes skimmed up and down over my breasts to my tummy and down my legs. I was still firm where I wanted to be, maybe a little extra weight on my belly, but nothing that caused me to want to go on a crash diet. For a woman in her thirties I thought that I was doing better than a lot of the girls I went to high-school with.

Those girls had made getting married and pregnant a religion. They ate, slept, and breathed babies and husbands; in that order. For years all they did was cook and clean and give birth like some breeding cow, a million times over and then they were all dried up, angry and bitter that their life had passed them by. Consequently, they all gained about a hundred and fifty pounds in the last fifteen years or so while I still had a pretty good body. I had seen it a hundred times. I was glad that I was where I was. The only thing I missed profoundly were my children.

I finished drying off and went into my bedroom to get dressed for work. I pulled out the new dress I'd bought the day before and set it out on my bed. It was a red v-neck Christian Dior that went midway between my knees and my ankles with a long slit up the side. Impulsively, I'd bought it and charged my credit card, not caring that it cost almost three hundred dollars. I had a pair of black slipper sandals to go with it and a small red handbag. I also had a thin black shawl that I'd gotten as a birthday present a year or so before, to drape across my shoulders in case it became chilly later in the evening.

It was the most expensive and revealing dress that I'd ever contemplated wearing, but when I tried it on it made me feel like the sexiest woman alive. It took my cleavage and made it tantalizing; my legs, eight feet long; and my torso slim and sleek. And in a moment of utter vanity I'd bought it.

But as I was getting on the subway, a strange feeling came over me. After going though all of the preparations, the shopping, the cleaning, the nervousness, why did I feel like I was betraying the one man I could never have? In a small way, I felt almost guilty for going out with someone else to dinner. But that was silly, I scolded myself. He doesn't want you. He never did. And he certainly wouldn't waste any time in finding another woman to go to dinner with if he wanted to.

But it was time to move on, time to get over what mis-placed feelings I had for my partner, and sometimes, best friend. Today was a new day and no matter what I felt for Bosco I knew that I was doing us both a favor. This way he could stop hanging out with me from pity and I could let go of the fantasy of having him all to myself.

And besides, Sean Kelly was definitely a good reason to start fresh.