Chapter Seven
"Ryan, can I talk to you for a minute?" Javi said, holding a cup of coffee in his hand and gesturing toward the break room. Kevin looked at the cup and shrugged, figuring that he'd need a caffeine kick to make it through the rest of the day.
After his tirade in interrogation, Alexis had returned to the bullpen to grab her things, her eyes red and her face mottled, and then she'd left for the remainder of the day. Kevin had heard her mention something about "apartment hunting" to Javier on the way out, and a fresh wave of betrayal washed over him. He'd wondered if she was going to see the guy again, the one she'd cheated with. She could now. She was free, untied, and about to have her own place again. The world was her goddamn oyster.
Just like it was his. What little good that "freedom" did for him. The bright side was that he and Javi had been working together in the hours since with exactly zero redheaded interruptions. They were actually making progress. It felt just like the old days.
They walked into the break room, Kevin first, followed by Javi, who closed the door behind them. As soon as he heard Javi's sigh, Kevin turned around. "What is it?"
Javi pulled out of the chairs and flopped down, setting his coffee down on the table. "We need to talk."
"Okay, but what about? You're acting like you have bad news."
"Not bad news, but not good either."
"Just spill it."
"I'm not sure how to phrase this in a delicate way, so I'm just gonna say it."Kevin nodded, so Javier continued, "You need to start acting more professional."
Kevin took a second to let that sink in. "What are you talking about?" Though he had a feeling he knew exactly what Javi was talking about.
"I know things with Alexis are—" Kevin rolled his eyes at the mere mention of her name. Javi was wasting his time with this bullshit? Really? "I know things are tough, but it's gonna get really old really fast if I have to break the two of you apart every single time you're in the same room with each other."
"It's not every time." Kevin argued. "It's just when she's being difficult with me on purpose."
"She can't take all the blame here, man. You know as well as I do that you've made your fair share of comments."
"She should be able to brush them off. She doesn't care about me anymore, so why does what I have to say matter to her?"
"Because she does care."
"Yeah, that's not true. You know the whole story, Javi. You should know better than to believe that."
"I do know the whole story and I'm not taking sides. I just want the both of you to keep the drama away from here."
"Not taking sides? Really, because you're only talking to me right now."
"I'll talk with Alexis, too. I will. I just need to know that you will agree to this before I move forward."
"I can't believe this, Javi. You have no idea how difficult it is."
"You're right. I don't, but get it sorted out, Kev."
"Oh, well, it's been a fucking dream for me, Javi. You think I like being in this position?" Kevin let out a humorless laugh. "You think I wake up with a smile on my face, knowing that I have to come here and see her and have to pretend that everything is okay?" Kevin shook his head and then rubbed the back of his neck. This whole talk was rubbing him the wrong way. "As long as this case is going on, I have to see her on a daily basis. You think that's easy for me?"
Even Kevin knew how that sounded, but he didn't care. He had shit to say and he was going to say it whether Javi wanted to hear it or not.
"I didn't want this to happen. I didn't ask for it. What? You think I love the fact that she cheated on me after I allowed her to get to know the real me? Newflash, I fucking hate it. I hate that she got in my head. I hate that she knew exactly how to fuck with my head. I hate that I allowed her to get to know any part of me."
Kevin was ready to leave the room, he was done with it. "I can't play pretend, so if you want any real civility here, maybe you can find a way for me and her to do our work separately. You can't deny that this case has gone much more smoothly since she left."
Javier shook his head. "Kev, I'm trying to help you here. I could have skipped this part of it and went straight to Beckett, but I didn't."
"Is this your way of telling me that you're going to go to Beckett?"
"Not if I don't have to. Just promise me that you will at least try and bite your tongue around her? Try and make it as civil as you can."
"Like I said, you can find a way for us to work this case, but we will have work it separately. Don't need to run to mommy to do that, do you?"
Kevin walked out slamming the door behind him. A few people looked his way, but lucky for them, they chose to stay quiet. He wasn't biting his tongue anymore. He was pissed and tired of people trying to get involved in his life. He wanted out.
Kevin Ryan was a dick. He knew that, but he hadn't always been that way. He used to be a genuinely sweet guy. He used to get called, "Altar Boy" while growing up because, well, that's what he was. He was always the guy who tried to see the best in everyone, he always tried to do the right thing.
He joined the NYPD because of the need he felt within himself to do good. To help people. He wanted to save people by day and go home to a loving wife and child at night. He wanted to have barbecues on the weekends and go on family vacations. He wanted to grow old with the woman of his dreams and one day watch his grandchildren play in their backyard.
Basically he was kidding himself for most of his life. He was in denial about a lot things back then. When he met Jenny O'Malley, who he would refer to as "the one," things looked like they were falling into place. He thought he was getting closer to that life that he had always wanted and Jenny was the perfect woman.
Well, until she wasn't.
She had taken everything from him and left him in little pieces. He'd tried to put all the pieces back together, to be the guy that he was before meeting her, the one who had hope, but the pieces didn't fit anymore.
Then he was like a new man. A worn down and cynical version of himself. It was different, but he didn't care much. About anything really. He still loved his friends and family, but he didn't really care about anything else. He didn't crave the future that he once had before. Those things didn't appeal to him anymore. He had his job, which he still enjoyed doing, and he was able to go out and have a wide selection of women to choose from. And then he'd go home alone.
It wasn't everyone's idea of a fulfilling life, but it worked for him.
Until he met a young redhead with bright blue eyes and a sweet smile. Alexis Castle had started chipping away at his hard exterior from day one, and before Kevin could stop it, she had gotten through to him. She'd brought new and long-forgotten feelings back into his life. He had starting craving things again. A future with her. Maybe not the same future he had wanted with Jenny, but he wanted her, and that's all he had cared about.
For a while he had her. She was his and he was hers. Life was good again. But like always, it couldn't stay that way. An obstacle had to appear out of the middle of nowhere, and Kevin slammed into it head first.
Of course it had been Jenny. The woman just couldn't seem to get along without wrecking him one way or another. The bad part was that Kevin had allowed it. He'd let Jenny into his life and allowed her to draw a wedge between him and Alexis.
Maybe it wasn't Jenny's fault; maybe it was just that Kevin was such a master of self sabotage that he didn't even notice that he was to blame for what had happened between him and Alexis. What other explanation could there have been? Why else would he have let Jenny, the woman who broke him. back into his life willingly? Why else would he have pushed Alexis into the bed of another man?
Maybe he wanted that. Maybe pushing her away was the better choice than losing her later.
Kevin didn't know the reason why he couldn't be happy, but he was okay with accepting it. At least he was okay with it when he had a drink in his hand. That always made things easier for Kevin. It worked for when he had a bad day at work usually. But it didn't work when he had to deal with seeing Alexis all day.
They weren't together anymore, but she still had to pull over him. He tried to stay disconnected around her, because if he allowed himself to feel around her, he'd just get hurt in the end.
In his head he thought he could be around her, do his job, and then leave without a problem, but he was wrong. Being around her was anything but easy. It was a living hell most times. Not because she was a horrible person or anything. It was hard because Alexis called out to him. If she was around, he was always too invested in what was going on with her. He hated himself for being that kind of a guy, but that's just how it was.
Alexis didn't even know what she was doing to him, which pissed him off. He wanted to hate her. He wanted her to be the bad guy. He wanted to push all of their problems off onto her. She was the one who had cheated. Not him. She cheated on him, and somehow he was to blame for it.
He hated it. He just wanted her to be the one to blame for it all. Was that so hard?
He downed a couple of more drinks, hoping that if he drank enough he could find a way to see Alexis' faults in their breakup. Maybe somewhere along the way, he'd meet a nameless woman and find another release.
It was a lovely way to spend a Tuesday night.
Kevin didn't know her name, nor did he care. All he needed to know was that she was willing and ready and with the way her hand had been sliding up his thigh most of the night, it was apparent that she had been more than willing for whatever he had in mind.
The truth was that Kevin didn't have a game plan in mind for how things were going to work out. All he had was an end game. The end game was that he'd fuck her until he was satisfied enough to sleep and then in the morning or whenever he woke up, he'd be gone as fast as he could, never to see her again.
The Kevin Ryan that once upon a time believed in respecting women wasn't anywhere around, so he didn't have an inner voice telling him to rethink his life choices, but he did have an inner voice that told him that he needed to do what he needed to do.
That woman he 'd met at the bar couldn't possibly expect him to stick around for long. If she was looking for more than just a dick for one night, she wouldn't have spent the whole time at the bar getting filthy drunk and touching him nonstop.
His inner voice had been becoming more prominent whenever Kevin was having a particular fucked up day. Mostly those days were when he had to be in the same room as Alexis. On those days he was a little more irritable and couldn't think straight. That's when the voice would come out.
The woman lying underneath him was struggling to get his pants undone, so he raised up and took them off throwing them across the room. He was in no mood for prolonging the inevitable, so he quickly took off his remaining clothes and then started on hers. She had drank quite a bit, so he doubted she could uncdress herself without it taking forever or without hurting herself somehow.
She sat up as he slid her panties off. "Can I suck your dick? I've been thinking about it all night."
"Don't you want to come, too?"
"What?"
"Do you want to come?"
"Of course, I do. But—"
"Then don't delay it."
"You're actually turning down me sucking your cock?"
"I'm just trying to make us both happy. You got a problem with that? If you're looking for foreplay, maybe you should be in a random motel room with someone else. What will it be?"
She looked at him for a good moment, before she let her head drop. "I don't want to be treated like a whore."
Kevin rolled his eyes. His inner voice was back. It didn't have nice things to say. "I'm not treating you like a whore, but you know what this is. We both are here for one thing and one thing only and if that's changed, let me know, now."
She shook her head. "It's just—"
"Are you staying or not?"
She swallowed and then nodded. "As long as you know that I'm not a whore."
"I didn't say you were." The voice in his head didn't agree.
"Okay." The drunk woman nodded, a smile slowly graced her face again and Kevin took a moment to let out a sigh of relief. He wanted sex, not to deal with her insecurities.
The next twenty minutes was a blur to Kevin. He didn't have many memories of what took place, just that he was feeling very tired and that he was on a high after his orgasm, but not high enough for him to feel any good about it. The woman next to him was breathing heavily and trying hard to cover her body with the sheet beneath them.
"We shouldn't have done that." she said.
"Well, we did."
"You could have at least remembered my name, dickhead. My name isn't Alexis. It's—"
"Why does it matter what your name is? It doesn't matter what my name is. We both got what we wanted, so what's the big deal?"
"I just feel—"
"Maybe that's your problem. You feel too much. One night stands don't need to be that complicated. Figure out what you want. Don't go out there and lead people on if you're not serious about it. And don't to and make me feel guilty. I gave you a chance to bail and you didn't use it and you could have said stop at any moment, but again, you didn't. So don't cry about it now. It's over. Move on."
Kevin didn't know who was talking just then. Him or the other guy. He got up from the bed, pulled his pants on, and started looking for his clothes.
"You're leaving?" she asked.
"As soon as I can find my shirt and shoes." He found them a few seconds later underneath the bed. He tossed on his shirt and then put on his shoes before he reached for his jacket sitting by the door.
He turned around at the door and looked at her. The woman clearly had no idea what was happening or what she was doing with her life. He could relate. He shook his head. "Do yourself a favor from now on. Don't leave bars with strangers. You're not cut out for it."
He left her with those words. He needed a shower, and his bed at home was calling his name. That sad woman was right about one thing: he needed to start remembering names. He was getting a little tired of calling out Alexis' name.
Kevin arrived at the bullpen the next morning long before sunrise. Sleep, as it turned out, had been hard to come by. He'd barely scraped together an hour's worth of rest before giving up and getting ready for work. The alcohol had long since worn off, as had the endorphins. There was nothing to do but try to make progress on his case. The sooner he solved it, the sooner he could return to his pathetic excuse for a life, after all.
He made a fresh pot of coffee in the break room, lamenting at the early hour while the carafe filled with dark brown liquid. He felt keyed up and scraped hollow all at the same time. Tired in his bones and restless enough to scale ten flights of stairs. He began pushing his brain through logistics on his case. Certainly, he wouldn't have been surprised if Antoine had been made. The man was more than a little bit of an idiot, and he had more tells than an underage coed on spring break.
Still, if the powers that be had discovered Antoine was a snitch, well, there went about six months' worth of work trying to break into the organization. The captain wasn't happy with the recent development, and as Antoine's "handler," Kevin was first on the shit list. He need to get this solved and figure out damage control before his job was at risk.
The percolator stopped huffing, and Kevin poured some of the not-so-delicious coffee into his mug. Footsteps outside the break room caught his attention.
Alexis was at her desk, dressed in workout clothes that hung baggy on her frame. Her hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, and she occasionally bobbed her head to the music playing through her earbuds. She didn't seem to have noticed him in the break room.
He watched her wrap each of her hands and wrists in athletic tape with practiced ease. She left her travel thermos on her desk and tucked her purse away in her desk and then shouldered her duffel bag and continued to the training area.
Was this a new hobby of hers? A way to deal with the breakup? He took a few steps forward, then stopped. He shook himself, already he was slipping, letting his mind fixate on her when it had plenty of work to tackle on his case.
He changed his trajectory to the murder board instead, and stared at the variables on the board for approximately twenty seconds. Then he set his coffee mug on Javi's desk and followed Alexis to the training room.