When I got back to the car Sean was sitting with his hands folded neatly in his lap, a look of worry on his handsome face. I got in and closed the door softly. He took one look at me and knew that my talk with Bosco hadn't gone well.

"What did he say?"

I shook my head for a minute and looked out the window. I reached up with my right hand and wiped a tear that had started to zigzag down my cheek. I was sure that Bosco had been about to tell me something that I'd only dreamt about all those years. I was totally convinced that he was going to tell me that he didn't want me to go out with Sean because he was jealous. He was certainly acting like a jealous jerk. But the question was why didn't he?

"It means that maybe I didn't want you to go out with him because—because I couldn't—".

"He's mad at both of us." I said, looking over at him. "Mostly me." I murmured, thinking about Bosco's mysterious words to me.

Sean sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "Faith he'll get over it. He gets like this sometimes. He's just irrational, that's all. He's just mad that we kept it a secret."

I shook my head. "I don't think so. He's hurt and angry and he told me that I'm not your type. Said that I'm not the first and I won't be the last." I confessed, looking down at my hands. "Is he right about that?"

"That asshole." He grumbled, releasing out another long sigh. "He's gone too far this time." He looked strait ahead and bit down on his lip. "Faith, you're the first woman I've dated since Sarah left. I've gone out with a few girls on set-ups but left before dinner was finished. I want you to believe me when I tell you that I really like you and I want to see where this is going." He swung his head around and gave me a sheepish grin. "What do you say? You can't hold my best friend and yours against me, can you? Especially since you kissed me more than once." He teased.

I rolled my eyes and gave him a small smile. He was right; I couldn't hold it against him. And I believed him when he told me that I was the first woman he'd dated since his relationship broke up. After all, Bosco had said those things out of spite and they probably weren't true. When my partner got mad or felt really miffed he always blew things out of proportion. If I decided to go out with Sean again I knew I had to clear things with Bosco first. I at least owed him that much and after thirteen years of partnership and friendship I hoped that he'd of done the same for me.

"I have to talk to him first and see what the real problem is." I said, hoping that he'd understand. "I like you too, but Bosco has been the most important person in my life for as long as I can remember and I need things to be cool with him before anything else happens. Can you wait to talk to him until I've had a chance? I'll probably get to do it tomorrow when we're at work."

He nodded in agreeance. "You're a good woman, Faith. I'm glad I met you." He said, reaching over to take my hand into his. "And I can wait." He leaned over and kissed me again, this time slow and gentle, making me melt all over.

"Okay. I'll call you soon." I said as I grabbed the door handle and swung it open. "Bye."

I walked up to my apartment and slid the key into the door. Everything was so sparse and empty looking inside. It was lonely coming home every day to this place that gave me nothing but bad memories of Fred and even though my kids had grown up here it still wasn't enough to keep me warm at night. I kicked off my heals and didn't even stop to put them away properly. Who cared anyway? I went directly to the bathroom and washed the makeup off of my face and put my hair in a ponytail.

As I walked down the hall to my bedroom, questions began to fill my altered mind; Where was the passion? Where was the love that I had dreamed about my whole life? There was no one waiting in the bedroom for me, no messages on the phone and nothing left but a middle aged woman who dreamed about being loved and needed. How pathetic I felt as I walked into my bedroom and slid off the most expensive dress I'd ever owned and let it fall into a heap on the floor.

I put on my black lacy nightie, deciding that at least if my apartment got broken into I'd look good, and walked out into the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine. I put on one of the only cd's I had left; Marvin Gaye and turned it to 'Sexual Healing', and turned up the stereo. I poured myself a generous glass in my purple goblet and downed it. At least if I was going to spend the night alone I could be outrageously drunk and all the wine I'd consumed at dinner had given me a wonderful start.

I flopped down on my sofa and put my feet up on the coffee table, all the while singing along to my favorite singer. I'd always loved Marvin; loved the way he sang, the way he looked, the way he made me feel like a sexual creature just waiting to be discovered. At so it began; my feelings of drunkenness lead to my feelings of wanting and being wanted. And who did I think of first? Not the date that I'd just ended; not even some stranger that I'd met on the street or in a bar. The only man who made me feel the need to be completely taken.

Bosco.

It always came back full circle to him. I guess it was about time that I admitted it to myself that I loved him. It was the only explanation that fit. I was in love with my partner and there was no denying it. Trouble was that I was pretty sure that even if he was jealous about my going out with Sean, there was no deep feelings behind it. How I wished there were. I couldn't stop thinking about what he was about to say to me. What if he loved me too? What if? What if?

"It means that maybe I didn't want you to go out with him because—because I couldn't—".

I turned the lights down low and moved my head back and forth to the music, while trying to get up the courage to go over to his apartment and see if we could work it out, but the very thought that he might slam the door in my face kept me wallowing in self pity. What was it about me that I couldn't even make sense of the relationship that had been in the works for years and years? Essentially, the relationship that I had cultivated with Bosco had been a delve of emotions, ranging from friendship to love, including all of the other sub-emotions such as anger, jealousy, rage, and the best of all; total lust. It seemed that there was no other man on the planet who could evoke the kind of feelings that he could.

Admitting that I loved him was like climbing the highest mountain; and when you reached the top where did you go from there? What else was there left to do but climb down and find the next wild thing to do? In loving him I'd set myself up for a new kind of fall; one that would most likely be rocky terrain and very, very long. Even if he did love me back, which I suspected would never truly be, where would we go? What would we do with it? And if we decided to give it a shot, would it work?

The next time I looked at the clock it was three-thirty in the morning. I groaned and thought about how I'd be spending my day washing the squad cars and probably fighting with Bosco. Again. I downed the last of my wine and took the empty bottle and glass into the kitchen. I stumbled as I made my way down the hall and realized that I was a little too drunk. If I got in a full four hours of sleep I seriously doubted that the effects or the smell would be gone by the time I got into work. Or maybe it would make the day go faster and be a total blur. I laughed out loud at the lunacy of my logic.

I had almost made it to my bedroom door when I heard my door bell ring. I stopped dead in my tracks, a little spooked. It wasn't often that I got a visitor at this time of night without a phone call first.

I hoped that it wasn't the police telling me that Fred had been in an accident with one of the kids. I always hated late-night calls just for that reason. I'd worked enough doubles to know that when someone comes knocking on your door in the middle of the night, the reasons were not good ones. Fortunately for me, Bosco and I didn't do many doubles.

I walked slowly toward the door and peeked through the hole. There was something covering it, a hand maybe.

"Hello?"

Nothing.

"Hello?" I called again, this time feeling almost sick to my stomach. " Is someone there?"

"It's me." Came a muffled voice. "Let me in."

"Who's me?"

"Faith!"

Relief flooded through me to realize that it was Bosco, and then nervousness. What the hell was he doing here? I unlatched the chain and opened the door and peered out.

"Bosco? What are you doing here?" I asked.

He stood in front of me wearing the same white t-shirt and blue jeans he'd had on when I'd seen him a few hours ago. He'd been drinking, possibly as much as I had consumed and he reeked of stale beer and cigarettes. His hair was on end and his eyes were all glassy. He raised his right arm and placed it above the door and leaned his weight on it. He looked me over much in the same way he had when he saw me with Sean, his eyes lingering on the tightness of the nightie I wore, especially on the top part.

"We need ta talk." He said, slurring his words a bit. "It can't wait."

Oh, he was drunk. It was the only reason he'd come to my home, especially since we'd fought horribly only a few hours past. He never could be totally honest unless he had his liquid courage.

"You stink. What did you get yourself into?" I said, not moving from my spot. "Can't we talk tomorrow? We're spending the whole day together anyway." I said, yawning and just not wanting to get into what I knew would be a big argument.

"Are ya gonna let me in or am I gonna hafta sleep in the hallway?" He asked sarcastically. "I don't wanna talk about—what happened earlier if that's what you're worried about."

I thought for a moment. Maybe he really did need to talk. Usually he wouldn't end up drunk at my house unless he was desperate to get something off of his chest.

"Okay, but just for a few minutes. We both need some sleep." I said, and moved aside so he could come in.

He went directly toward the livingroom and plopped down on the couch, crossing his right foot over his left leg. I followed him and sat down and rubbed my temples where my head was starting to ache. I was really in for a time of it tomorrow. I leaned back and waited for him to begin.

"So, Bosco what is it that can't wait?" I asked tiredly.

"I saw her." He said between clenched teeth, his nose scrunched up, disgusted.

"You saw who?"

"I saw her at the hospital tonight. Her daughter was raped. She's only a kid and she looks so much like her, Faith." He gushed, waving his arms around, really disturbed. "And she was horrible, just horrible an I—"

I cut him off. "Who was horrible? Who are you talking about?"

"After ten years she still looked the same, dressed the same—like some damn classy call girl that you see in the movies and she was a real bitch too!"

He turned and looked at me for my thoughts. "Are you listenin to me, Faith? Didja hear what I said?" He practically yelled.

"Bosco—I don't know who the hell you're talking about—so who is it?" I demanded, impatient for him to tell me who it was.

He stood up and jammed his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and began to pace the room. I sat staring at him for a moment, too drunk to press him any further and too tired to beat it out of him. It must have been five minutes before he looked back at me again and this time I saw that he was not only angry but hurt. His eyes welled up with tears as he began to tell me the events of the rest of our shift.

"Nicole."

My eyes widened. He couldn't be talking about that Nicole! I sat up, my mouth hung open. "Nicole? Wild Nicole?" I whispered. "How? She's got a kid?" I asked, still not believing that it was the same woman. "She's got a kid who was raped?"

"Ya. She came into the hospital after her step-father raped her this morning before he dropped her off at school." He said, in his hyper voice that he reserved for when he was super upset. "Her name is Lilly Nicholson and she's the cutest little thing ya ever saw."

That sounded funny coming from the guy who thought that most woman should have their tubes tied and that children and babies were an albatross around the neck of America.

"So what happened?" I pressed.

He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "She's tellin me about how her dad raped her an I'm tryin not to have a complete breakdown and go hunt down the bastard himself, when all of a sudden Davis sticks his head in the door and tells me that the mother's here and that I know her. I'm like wonderin who the hell it could be an the door swings open and there she is..." He said, his own eyes wild, like he still couldn't believe what he'd seen.

"And?"

"An she comes in an completely ignores the kid, who wets the bed, by the way, when she sees her."

"She didn't!"

He nodded his head vigorously. "Oh ya, she did an Nicole starts yellin that the kid's a liar and that it didn't happen and all that."

"Is she crazy or what?"

His eyes widened so much that I thought his eyebrows might snap off. "Oh she's crazy all right!"

"So, what are you gonna do? Is Lieu gonna let us have the case?"

"Why wouldn't he? I got the call."

"But you have history with Nicole. I'm just wondering if he might think that you're too—" I thought for a moment for the right word. "involved. Maybe someone else would be better for Lilly. You and Nicole practically hate each other, Bos. Do you think that you can handle it?" I asked, patting the seat beside me for him to come and sit down. He needed to relax.

"I havn't been with her in almost ten years, Faith. I hardly think that I'm too involved to work the case. That bastard Tony Nicholson is goin to jail forever an a day if we can find 'em and get the kid to testify." He said, walking over beside me and sinking down. He put his arm over his head, shading his eyes. "I gotta do it for her. For Lilly. She needs me."

"Yah." I said, not sure what else there was I could say that would make him feel any better. My partner always took child abuse cases to heart; a vigilante for the abused who had no voice, was he; Hunting down the gut-rot of society and putting them behind bars, usually after he gave them a real good beating.

Poor Bosco had such a miserable childhood, it was a wonder that he could even function half normally. His father had used him and his brother and his mother too, all as punching bags; tools of his aggression. As a result my partner had made it is silent mission to rid our city of the scum-bags, the jag-offs, the child abusers and the men who thought that woman were property of some kind. I looked at him then, with new eyes; eyes that saw the pain he was in and could understand why he was the way he was; It was the only way he could wake up in the morning and go on with a new day. He needed to be doing something to stop the memories. Memories were his redemption.

"We'll get him, Bos." I said softly, reaching out to rub his shoulder reassuringly. "You'll do it."

"Only if you're with me." He brought his arm down from his face and looked at me with glassy eyes; eyes that now burned with drunken lust. Our eyes locked and held and for a moment I found it hard to breathe. "There's nothin I can't do when you're by my side."

I sucked in my breath, shocked by his honestly, by his revelations. I didn't know what to say to him.

My heart pounded in my chest, knowing that he was horny because he was drinking and because my desire for him was becoming so strong. It was a complete turn from a few hours before and I had to keep reminding myself that he was only looking at me like that because he was completely obliterated and would say just about anything to get laid.

Just keep telling yourself that, Faith, I thought to myself. Knowing full well that he meant what he'd said; that he'd only ever say it when he could hide behind a bottle of Jack Daniels; when he wouldn't have to answer for it the next day.

"Bos—" I started to say, but he turned more toward me and put his finger tip against my lips.

"Don't." He whispered. "Just listen ta me."

I started to open my mouth again, but he shook his head at me. For some reason I knew that whatever came out of his mouth right then would bind us together forever. There would be no going back and I felt scared and nervous, but most of all, my lonely heart cried out for him to say the things I knew he'd regret the next day. I was a kaleidoscope of wants and needs and I couldn't make up my mind about any of it.

"Ya can't go out with Sean. He's not right for ya, Faith. I'm tellin ya the truth." He said, piercing his gaze at me. "I can't watch it and I can't know about it either, so please, for me, don't go out with him again."

"But—"

"Faith, don't make me say it."

"I—"

He leaned in and closed the gap between us, taking his hand and rubbing slow circles on my face with his thumb.

"There's no one who will ever know you the way that I do. No one."

"Bos, you're drunk." I protested, but quite liking the closeness of him.

"So're you."

"This is gonna change everything."

"I hope so."

And then our lips met.

And I didn't look back.