Eddie had me so figured out.
* * * * *
After, I was pressed up against his side, Eddie was on his back. He had his hand low on my hip and his fingers were moving absently. My plan was to distract him from the talk, at least until the morning. In the bright light of day, I could figure out how to say what I wanted to say. There were other, better, more important parts to my plan.
It would give me one last time to be with Eddie. I needed it. I deserved it. To make love and sleep next to him, smel him in my nostrils and feel him against my skin. To make one last memory so I could keep it with me for a long, long time.
And we’d made a real y good memory. I wrapped my arm around him and snuggled into his side.
His fingers curled on my hip.
“You think you got away with it,” he muttered and I could tel he found this amusing.
“No,” I said honestly, “But I’m hoping you’re feeling mel ow enough to wait until the morning.”
“Jet…”
I pul ed up and looked down on him.
“Eddie, please. Can I have this one night where we don’t argue? Please?”
He looked at me a beat, then his hand came up and slid in my hair and pul ed my face down for a lip touch.
“One night,” he said against my mouth.
I smiled at him.
His hand moved to my jaw and his thumb traced my smile while his eyes watched.
“I’m hopin’, with your shit finished, I’l see more of that smile.”
I dropped down and snuggled into him.
He wouldn’t be seeing any of my smile but where I’d be (that was, away from him and al his friends), I probably wouldn’t be smiling much anyway.
I could hear the ring tone from his phone. He dislodged me, leaned down, grabbed his jeans and pul ed the cel out of the back pocket. He came back, brought me to him again and flipped the phone open one-handed.
“Yeah?”
He listened for a bit then I felt his body tense.
I came up on my elbow to look at him and his gaze locked on mine.
“You’re shittin’ me,” he said into the phone.
He listened more and then he took his arm from around me and wiped his eyes.
“Right. Yeah. Later.” Then he flipped the phone shut and threw it on the nightstand.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“They found Fratel i dead in his cel . Someone broke his neck.”
I sucked in breath.
“Dear Lord,” I said on an exhale.
His arms came around me and he rol ed into me so we were both on our sides, front-to-front. “You okay?” he asked.
“How did that happen?”
“They don’t know. They’re investigating. He wasn’t in lock up, he was in a private cel . I made arrangements, I figured Marcus would renege on the deal.”
“Do you think he did?”
Eddie gave a single shoulder shrug.
“I don’t believe it,” I said and I didn’t. I didn’t want Vince dead. Maybe, if I was honest with myself, roughed up a bit, but not dead.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter to me. It’s just one more piece of shit washed away.”
But… Eddie was one of the good guys.
I stared.
Then I said, “Homicide is a bad thing.”
He rol ed me to my back, coming over me, his body mostly pressed against mine.
“Yeah,” he said.
“The worst thing,” I told him.
His hands slid into the hair on either side of my head.
“You aren’t okay.”
“I don’t care about Vince. He told me he was going to rape me with a broken bottle.”
Eddie’s eyes changed, instead of partial y wary and partial y resigned, they became active, as in, scary active.
“He said that?”
I nodded.
“Then I real y don’t give a shit that he’s dead.”
“But you’re a cop!”
“So?”
“Hank says you guys are the good guys, you play by the right set of rules and homicide is wrong, no matter who does it or why.”
He did a lip touch and then rol ed again, taking me with him so that I was on top.
“Hank’s a different kind of cop than me. Some dickhead makes my woman’s life a living hel and threatens to rape her with a broken bottle, I’m not f**kin’ losin’ sleep over the fact he isn’t breathin’ anymore.”
“So, Hank plays by the rules and you see shades of gray,” I said.
His body moved with laughter.
“Hank plays by the rules,” he repeated this like it was funny.
“He doesn’t?”
“Chiquita, Hank’s got a rule book and I bet he studies it, but he’s also got a lot of shit scratched out and a f**k of a lot of notes in the margin.”
Hmm.
“Oh,” I said.
See, I was right. Hank was a scary good guy.
“Let’s talk about what Vince said to you.” I sighed and pressed my face in his neck and shoved my arms around him.
“Let’s not.”
“You got to talk about it.”
“Why? It’s over. You deal. You move on. I’m fine, everyone I love is fine, except Dad and there’s hope he’l be fine too. Vince was a jerk. Now he’s dead. The end.” Eddie’s arms tightened around me and he said some stuff softly in Spanish.
My head came back up.
“What? I didn’t catch any of that.”
He did another rol , him getting on top again.
Then, he said, “You don’t wanna talk? We won’t talk.” Then he kissed me.
Then, for the next hour, there were some words muttered, but you couldn’t real y cal them talking.
* * * * *
The alarm went off, Eddie touched a button and rol ed into me, wrapping his arms around me and pul ing my back to his front. It was Saturday. Saturday meant there wasn’t even the need for the snooze button.
I nestled my bottom into his groin and started to drift back to sleep.
Then I heard Eddie say, “Wake up, Cariña, time for our talk.”
Shit, hel and damn.
“I want to sleep more,” I said.
“After our talk and after I make love to you, then you can sleep. First, the talk.”
My bel y did a curl.
I ignored it.
“But I want to sleep more now.”
I was partly trying to avoid the talk, partly trying not to think of Eddie making love to me and partly, I real y did want more sleep.
He moved away and rol ed me onto my back. He was up on his elbow and looking down on me. “Later,” he said.