Chapter 1 - Oscar

The door crashed against the frame shaking the windowpanes as I brutally slammed it shut. I saw red and glared behind me to see the back of Lieutenant Baume calmly walking back to his desk through the glass. The other officers peered over with curious eyes at me, then over to Lieutenant's office, their dirty work stations piled high with missing case folders and last night's takeout and coffee. They weren't surprised, but I know they love to gossip.

Without my gun and badge, I stomped over to my chair and kicked it, angrily brushing my hair aside. Alain chuckled, picked up my chair and muttered.

-"I told you so. You knew you were gonna eat shit."

-"Formal reprimand. And I'm suspended for a week."

-"Damn, so I gotta wrap this case up on my own?"

Now I knew that Alain was pissed at me. As my partner on the case, he wasn't happy when I lost control at yesterday's drug raid. It had been a successful operation with twenty pounds of fentanyl confiscated and multiple homicide suspects detained, including the drug dealer we tracked for the past few months. But when I found the two teenage girls drugged and tied up inside a locked room with limited clothing, my body screamed.

Alain tried to stop me near the squad cars. The confidence of the young criminal who had evaded police capture for the past year disgusted me as he catcalled, "Damn girl, you're fine," and proceeded to list the obscenities he wanted to do to me. Already super activated by seeing those young girls, my body acted before my brain and before I knew it my clenched fist had collided with his stomach and my knee smashed his groin. When he fell to the ground, my boot kicked his stomach a couple times before Alain pulled me away.

-"Francoise, you're fucking this up!"

The drug dealer had already been in handcuffs. Though he was responsible for multiple homicides and lives lost due to his role in the drug trade, it never looked good when a criminal, already apprehended, is excessively beaten by an officer. Obviously I didn't need to understand why Lieutenant was pissed once I had calmed down.

I knew Victor Girodelle, the prosecutor who had been invaluable in getting the arrest warrant, would also be pissed at me, as now he had to pick up the pieces to try the case in court. He was fed up with having to deal with defendants' lawyers crying police brutality when the case was already an uphill battle. This wouldn't be the first time he got mad at me.

-"Come on, I need a drink. I'll buy you one," I tried to coax Alain.

-"Better be multiple drinks," he huffed, grabbed his jacket and followed me outside the precinct.

The sun was just going down, illuminating the city in a glow. I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The light on the New York City skyline always changed with the seasons. The changing leaves on the trees were just starting to scatter on the sidewalks. Soon the city would be covered in snow.

After several drinks at the bar, Alain, citing the excuse of wanting to check on his sister before he went home, motioned to leave. He made a joke about leaving me unchaperoned as he walked out. Alain Soissons had been a good partner to me over the last couple years. We had clashed in the beginning due to his protesting me as his assigned partner. I knew what others had thought of me when I came in as a detective. Whispers about Francoise Jarjayes as "Daddy's Girl" vibrated throughout the precinct. Though my father Reynier Jarjayes, as one of the Police Commissioners, had nothing to do my rank, I always dealt with the burden of being in his shadow, first when I was in the Army and now at the NYPD.

Alain and I had even gotten into a fistfight once. His eyes had widened at my audacity to hit him when he made a misogynistic comment, as he was twice my size and could easily have knocked me out. After the tussle was broken up, anger subsided, and after solving several cases together, the relationship had turned to one of mutual respect and friendship. I admired him as he was a good detective and cared about the squad.

I ordered another whiskey after Alain left, downed it and indicated another to the bartender. I probably should have just left when Alain did, but the thought of going home made my feet feel like lead. I didn't feel like seeing any disappointed, or worse, perplexed looks. Recently, the eyes that had once admired me, now only seemed to treat me with uncertainty. I didn't want to explain anything to anyone about the suspension. I was sick and tired of hearing other people talk about my problems. I felt in my jacket pocket to see if I had any medication on me. Shit, I had left it at work. I stared at the liquid in the glass sitting in front of me and slowly swirled the whiskey.

As I sipped on the glass, I noticed a dark-haired man staring at me on the other side of the bar. Averting my gaze, I ignored him. I looked around me; it was pretty full. This was the closest bar to the precinct, so there were usually always a few officers there, but I didn't see anyone I recognized. A few minutes later, I looked over again and he was still looking at me. Ugh, now I knew it was only a matter of time before he would come up to me and say something unimpressive.

I let out a sigh and decided to get up before that happened. I stood up, left some cash on the counter and started to put on my jacket. It was getting late and I should be going home anyway.

-"Hey, is this seat taken?" I heard a voice behind me.

It was too late to run off, so mentally preparing the typical answer I gave to men hitting on me, I turned and was surprised to see a familiar set of green eyes and more surprised at what came out of my mouth.

-"No, it's not." Though I had intended to leave, I didn't move from my position.

Both of us standing, the man was a little taller than me. His bright emerald eyes looked at me inquisitively. With tousled jet-black wavy hair that not quite grazed his broad shoulders, he had an olive complexion and stubble on his sculpted jaw. He had on dark jeans, a black t-shirt, and a bomber jacket. He was a lot more attractive up close than I anticipated.

Seeing this beautiful man in front of me, I wondered if I should go with it and have a fun night of anonymous sex. Hell, I hadn't done that in a while. But there was something about him that felt like I had seen him somewhere. The kindness in his eyes spoke to me and broke me out of my internal depravity.

-"Holy shit, Oscar, I thought it was you." As soon as he used my childhood nickname, I recognized him immediately.

-"Oh my god! Andre, is that you? You're all grown up!"

-"Same to you. How long has it been?!"

It had been twenty years since I last saw Andre Grandier, my childhood best friend. Ever since I could remember, I had spent every summer with him in the Hamptons, where my family had a beach house and where he lived in town with his parents.

It was hilarious that I even considered for a moment that Andre could be a one night stand. He was like a brother to me growing up.

We had first met at a summer day camp when I was seven years old, which was about twenty-seven years ago. At the end of the second day, whoever designated to pick me up was late. It was typical whenever I had music classes or anything after school, I was usually one of the last ones to get picked up. Usually my mom would come running in, apologizing, or my nanny or housekeeper would have to fill in. On this particular occasion, a summer storm was on its way, so Andre's mom volunteered to drive me home. I had sat in the backseat with Andre, and he had helped me with the seatbelt which was stuck under the seat.

The next day, we were partners in a scavenger hunt, and he had made me laugh when he fell off his boogie board. By the fourth day of camp, we did all our activities together. Pretty soon day camp ended, but Andre and I kept playing, spending hours in our pool. When my mom found out that he was at home alone whenever his parents had to work, she invited him to spend the days at our house. His dad ran his carpentry business from their tool shed but occasionally would have to drive an hour away to do a job onsite, and his mom, an elementary school teacher, worked restaurant shifts during the summer.

Soon after, we were inseparable and shared everything. With each summer, we got closer and Andre would spend almost every day and night at our house, to the point where the guest bedroom became his personal room. As small kids, time didn't seem to matter, even when we didn't see each other at all during the school year. When we got older, I would see Andre briefly throughout the year when he came to the city with his dad. We sometimes chatted on AOL Instant Messenger, and I had shown him how to call my pager whenever he was coming to the city.

But when I was fourteen and Andre was fifteen, his parents both died suddenly in a car crash, so he moved to Canada to live with his grandmother. I didn't even get to say goodbye since it happened when I was in Paris with my family. We had tried to keep in touch via Instant Messenger, email and phone. My parents and his grandmother had even tried to organize a summer trip so that we could see each other, but it hadn't worked out. It got harder to keep in touch as my schoolwork became more serious. Eventually, I went to the beach house less and less because without Andre, it wasn't the same.

Excited to catch up, Andre and I sat at a table and ordered multiple rounds while we reminisced, laughing about our childhood and asking each other about our families. I showed him pictures of my sisters and their kids on my phone and he told me about his grandmother and how she was learning how to use FaceTime.

Talking to him felt like such a relief, as if we were still innocent kids joking around. It felt like we picked up right where we had left off. I tried to recall the last time I saw Andre. I think it was when he came to the city and had paged me to meet him at Washington Square Park. Arranged by my parents, I was just getting picked up from school with Marie by her driver, when I tried to make excuses to leave. Marie Lorraine was a girl from school whose parents were friends with my parents. We sort of grew up together, being the same age and seeing each other at charity events and at our private school, but we were never close. I had been too much of a tomboy and Marie was way too pretty and popular to associate with me. Which was why I had been surprised when she quickly gave a believable lie to her driver, freeing the both of us, and then annoyingly followed me to the park. As an adult, Marie Lorraine had fulfilled the expectations of her family by becoming Marie Capet, marrying politically-ambitious Louis Capet, the son of the famed Capet family. The Capet family, which was one of those old money families in New York, filthy rich from their oil companies and various conglomerates with a lot of influence in Washington. By the time she was thirty, Marie had become the perfect Senator's wife and mother of two angelic-looking children.

Breaking me out of past memories, Andre pulled my chair toward him, startling me, to let someone squeeze past the space behind me. The bar was getting more and more crowded and the tables around us were getting more packed and volumes and rowdiness increasing. Not sure if it was due to the booze settling inside our bodies or the bar getting louder, Andre and I leaned our heads forward and scooted closer together. We observed the crowds and bantered back and forth, creating backstories for random people at the bar, an amusement of ours while people-watching when we were younger.

I threw my head back laughing when Andre offered a detail about a woman in the corner having a peanut allergy. He was a great storyteller. I always thought he would become a writer or do something creative. We laughed together and then our eyes met for a long second. Everything seemed to quiet down around us. Why had I never really noticed his eyes before? This dark hair kept falling over his left eye in a charming way, making him look mysterious. As soon I thought this, Andre delicately reached out his fingers and brushed a lock of my blonde hair behind my ear. I froze as I felt his touch. I shyly looked up at him but didn't say anything.

Andre quickly retracted his hand and cleared his throat. After fidgeting with his chair a little bit, he started asking me about my military service, saying he heard from his grandma that I had been in the hospital. I paused and took a deep breath. Without giving too much detail, I gave short responses to his questions. My time in the military wasn't something I talked about often and didn't want to get into that right now. Andre seemed to sense my hesitation because he changed the subject, recalling our first time getting drunk together when I had vomited on his shoes. I remembered another moment that had happened that same year.

-"Hey, I'm really sorry about your parents. I never got to tell you in person, but I wanted to."

-"It was a long time ago but thanks…"

All of a sudden, two chairs toppled near us and two men started violently grabbing each other. My police instinct kicked in and I immediately got up. "Hey hey, break it up," I said as I tried to get in between them. One of their fists collided with my chin and knocked me down. Drunk, annoyed, and with inhibitions lowered, I picked up an empty beer bottle on the floor and threw it at the man's head. As soon as the bottle squarely hit him in the ear, the man turned around and growled at me. I saw Andre get up swiftly and punch the man who was about to get in my face. From a distance, security hollered at all of us to leave. Andre helped me up with concerned eyes, but seeing that I was amused by the whole situation, we stumbled out of the bar laughing. It had been a while since I had laughed so much.

-"Oscar, you're crazy. You're exactly the same."

-"What about you? You're the one who punched him."

-"I was defending you!"

I smiled as I lit a cigarette, leaning against the wall outside of the bar.

-"You smoke?" he asked me disapprovingly.

-"Not all the time." I looked at him, inhaling defiantly.

After some time calming down outside the bar in comfortable silence with Andre next to me, I extinguished the cigarette.

-"You should quit," he said.

-"Don't tell me what to do," I said as I lightly pushed his arm.

As soon as our limbs came into contact, he grabbed my hand and pulled me towards him. I tried to break away from him but he held me firmly. I held my breath as we were pretty close face to face.

-"You know I always had a crush on you," Andre said smiling at me.

-"Is this your way of fulfilling a fantasy?" I shot back at him.

-"Maybe. But you're even more beautiful now than I remember," he said as he slowly pulled me closer.

I didn't fight him. We were just inches apart. I felt something fluttering in my stomach, the anticipation rising inside me. Seeing Andre as he was now, I had to admit that he looked good. Really good. I had never thought about him in this way before, but hell, I was drunk and curious. The last time I saw him, he was a boy and I was a girl, but now he was a man and I was a woman. Did he really have a crush on me back then? It was pointless to think about, but I found myself wondering if that was really true.

I closed my eyes. Our lips met and a floating sensation lifted my body. His lips were soft and warm. He slowly moved his lips over mine and softly used his tongue. I felt his arms around my waist as his kiss became more forceful. I wrapped my arms around his neck. Shit, he was a really good kisser.

My phone started ringing in my pocket. We ignored it. When it started ringing again for a second time, I pulled away, looked at the screen and saw who it was. Reality set in, and I squinted my eyes debating whether or not I should take it. I declined the call. I felt a sense of dread, like I had to get out of there. I spotted a taxi in the corner of my eye.

-"I'm really sorry but I have to go. It was great to see you."

-"Wait, Oscar. Can I see you again?"

-"I don't know..."

-"Well, take my number." He grabbed my phone and tapped the digits to call his phone. "Now I have yours too."

-"I'll call you," I said lying, not sure if I actually would, given what had just happened between us.

As soon as he gave my phone back, Andre pulled my hips towards him and firmly kissed me again. I kissed him back, opening my mouth to feel our tongues sliding together. One of his hands found its way to my hair at the back of my neck. Despite being outside, my body was warming up. Taking a few steps back, we stumbled in our drunken desire towards the wall. My back was against the cold concrete forcing our heated centers to press together. When I felt his groin hardening, I pulled away abruptly. Looking into his eyes, I managed a breathless, "See you" before I quickly walked towards the cab.

I looked behind me just before I got in the car and saw Andre where I had left him. He waved at me and gave a cheesy smile that I recognized on his face as a kid.

Dizzied by what had just happened and the amount of alcohol consumed, I made an effort to calm myself in the back of the cab until it brought me to my apartment. I mumbled a thank you to the doorman, in my drunken state, as he greeted and let me inside the building. He has seen me in worse conditions, but I couldn't help but be embarrassed by the countless times he's seen me drunk, high, or incapacitated. Closing my eyes briefly in the elevator, Andre's green eyes clouded my vision. I couldn't believe I ran into him after so many years.

He really had grown up. Gone was the lanky teenager with the patchy facial hair that I constantly made fun of in the last years of our friendship. In his place was a tall, lean handsome man with beautiful eyes, sexy hair, strong arms, and a soulful gaze. I thought about the erection I felt against my leg and wondered what he looked like naked.

I unlocked the apartment, threw my shoes off, and walked over to the kitchen. After pouring myself a whiskey, I looked inside the study and bedroom. It was quiet. I was silently angry, even though I had no right given my behavior earlier that night. It was late and I knew what he was doing, as I had done similarly in the past, even though we hadn't had the courage to admit it to ourselves out loud. I plopped down on the couch.

Not able to get those green eyes out of my head, I realized I never asked Andre why he was in the city. Scrolling through my phone, I saw a text from an unknown number. It was from Andre, saying he was happy to run into me. I felt unusually giddy seeing it. I couldn't remember the last time I had been this excited by any person. Wanting to see him again, I wondered if I should text him back. His kiss had ignited something I hadn't felt in a while. But he was an old friend and we were drunk! We had kissed once as teenagers in a joking manner, so how different was this? With questions and emotions swirling inside me, I saved his number to my phone and closed my eyes.

-:-:-

Eyelids heavy, I squinted as the sun's rays shined directly on my face. The curtains had been drawn and a blanket was on top of me. Slowly walking over to the bedroom, I saw signs that he had been here. Papers on the kitchen counter, a used coffee mug, his shoes in the hallway, but the apartment was empty.

The ringtone on my phone went off. Mom. Not ready to talk to anyone, I declined the call. Seeing little red numbers on the phone screen, I was exasperated to see multiple missed calls and texts from my father. Knowing what I had to face, I decided to get it over with. After jumping in the shower and chugging some old coffee, I left for my parents' apartment in the Upper East Side.