Wanting to make Norma feel at ease, Alex broke free from the kiss, but with a hint of a smile played on his lips. He cupped her cheek in his right hand, and looked at her in a way that made her uncharacteristically blush. At this, he smiled widely like a child, and dropped his hand.
"So are you Alex or a cop to me now?" Norma asked bluntly, dampening the mood. Alex was used to her brashness however, and thought carefully. Being the Sheriff of a troublesome small town was difficult on its own, let alone having a growing affection for a person in which trouble surrounded constantly. It was almost as though the trouble followed her for a reason, for him to be there, with her. He realized he was thinking far too long and he needed to answer the question.
"I'm Alex. That doesn't mean I'm not a cop, but I will still protect you. That goes without saying. My job is my job though. It's one of the most important parts of my life." There was a long pause before Norma shot up from her seat.
"But doesn't it?" She said sadly, a hushed whisper. But he heard what she had said.
"What?" His forehead wrinkled, but his eyes softened.
"I'll always be in the way of your job, one way or another. I mean, take the flash drive for example. What you want is completely different from what your duty is. We can't overlook that." With that, she headed slowly to hiss door, feet dragging as she did so. Norma didn't want to leave, but she felt if she stayed, the conversation would get heated. But both people were stubborn, and Alex flew past her and thrusted his hand toward the door so that Norma couldn't open it. He kept his arm there so that she wouldn't get by him. Alex was in full cop-mode, so she knew there was no leaving just yet. They were standing in front of each other, and as much as Norma wanted to touch him, and whisper her deepest thoughts and feelings in his ear, she took a step back.
"You're being ridiculous. Let me go. I demand you let me go!" She tried to be as controlling as possible to intimidate him. However, Norma knew that couldn't happen. She watched his face, and it was a typical unimpressed Romero look.
"C'mon. I need you to know that you are a priority over my job right now, damn it!" He waited for her to react. He took his hand off the door and she didn't move.
"That must have been hard for you to say," she laughed. Alex face grew less stern, and he crossed his arms.
"Yeah, it kind of was. But I meant it." His eyes darkened and he looked down at her lips and then up to her eyes again. Norma shifted in her stance, and then went for the door. He let her go, because he had gotten out what he wanted to say. As long as she finally knew where they stood in the relationship. That thought made his stomach flip. Relationship. Alex knew it wasn't much yet, but it was becoming something, something he never would have imagined.
Despite their conversation being on the verge of a fight, Norma smiled. An entranced smile that she stopped for a second to appreciate. No one had made her do that in a very long time, and it both scared her and excited her.
Falling back into reality, she got in her car, and sped back to the house. Right when she had sat down at the kitchen counter, her cell rang. Checking her caller ID, she saw that it was Alex Romero, and considered not answering, just to get him worked up. That after all was a talent of hers, and he knew it.
On the third ring, she groaned and cleared her throat. An electric shot of adrenaline went through her. Norma was afraid she would start acting different around him. Lying was her specialty, but she didn't want to lie to him. This was one person she didn't want to desert her, so she needed to be genuine. Whether it was safety, friendship, or falling in love, she wasn't entirely sure, although she felt her lips with her fingertips and had a good idea. All these things were running through her head within the seconds that she picked up the phone.
"Hey Alex." Her tone was hushed, unsure of what he wanted to tell her.
"Hey. I just wanted to let you know that there's no way of getting the flash drive away from Bob, but I wish I could." His voice was gruff, and he clearly had trouble saying it. Norma had to contain herself.
"So Bob's not going to get what he wants? So he might come after us." At this point, the flash drive had proven to unveil more about herself than those around her, and she wasn't as afraid of Bob himself, but rather who he would manipulate to get on his side. Norma could hear the uneasy breathing of Alex, and this made her anxious as to what was going to happen next.
"I-I'll do whatever I can to keep you safe, Norma." And then, in a gentler voice, so soft that it took her by surprise, he asked, "Do you trust me?" Norma smiled to herself, and knew that she had no need to hesitate.
"Yes, I do. Talk to you soon." And with that, she hung up.
Alex was still on the line. "Norma?" His chest panged with the knowledge that she had hung up on him. In the complete dark of his home, Alex sat at the spot by the table where they had kissed. He poured himself some scotch into a glass, he sat down with it at the table. Absentmindedly, he found himself touching his lips with his fingertips. Realizing what he was doing, he shook his head and chuckled to himself. How was this happening to him? She was plaguing his mind, and even physically causing him feelings that he didn't know he could ever feel.
Norma headed to the motel office and noticed that Norman wasn't at the front desk. Furious at his recent behavior and isolation, Norma knew exactly where he was. He couldn't have gone far. Storming back to the house, she made her way down to the basement. Expecting him to be down in the dark, putting his beloved animals back on the shelves and counter, she raised her voice to get his attention.
"Norman, I'm sick of this hobby you…" In the middle of her sentence, she stopped to realize that he was nowhere in sight. She decided to check upstairs, needing to communicate to him how disappointed in him she was that he was not managing the business.
First checking his room, she expected to see him watching an old movie on his laptop, or stroking that freaky stuffed dog he had. Yet, when she opened the door, it was vacant, everything as it was. Her primary instinct was that he had been abducted again, like the time with the horrific underground box.
Frantically, she ran down the hall to check her room. Not there. Then, she looked in the guestrooms. Nowhere to be seen. The bathroom was the only room she had forgotten to check. The door of the bathroom was ajar, and she swallowed anxiously, knowing this was the last place in the house her son could possibly be. Norma wanted so badly for their relationship to heal, and go back to how it was when they had first moved to White Pine Bay for a fresh start.
Opening the door, at first she noticed that the room was empty. She scanned the room to make certain that he wasn't there. But the room was pure white from the walls, to the tile floor, to the toilet, and the bathtub. That's how she knew what was wrong. The bathtub was filled with light red water that began to seep out the sides of the tub, and trickle onto the tile floor.