“No, he’s not here right now.” I tip my head back and enjoy the gentle scratch of brick against my skull. “He’s working with another cop this week.”And it burns me the fuck up.“I’ll tell him when I see him later.”
“Working with another cop? The fuck?” He exhales a deep grunt, but then Zora’s babbling nonsensical chatter makes me think he’s picked herup. “All the cop shows I’ve seen have the partners working together until one of ‘em dies or retires. Then they’re usually replaced with a dog the remaining partner is reluctant to own.” He pauses for a beat. “Did you get a dog this week?”
“Nope. Worse. I got me Special Agent Fuckface.”
“Special Agent…” He pauses. “Who? I thought Roscoe was here in New York?”
“Not Hale. Banks. Though I’d rather a dog.”
“Drake Banks?” He exhales a playful chuckle. “That motherfucker. How’s he doing? He still with that cutie with the bum leg?”
“Rory?” I drop my chin and nod. “Mmhm. They’re still together. She seems really nice.”
“Brave, too. And ballsy. Not the type I expected he’d go for, but…” He shrugs, his shirt rustling with the movement. “What the fuck do I know? I like her for him.”
My eyes narrow to slits. “Youlikethat he’s dating someone we consider nice and brave and decent?”
“Sure.” He makes a noisy, juicy,mwah’ing kissy sound that elicits a sweet baby giggle from his daughter. “Not sure I expected any of us to lose our heads for the outspoken, stubborn style of woman available these days. But I like the one I got, and I think Tiia’s adorable as hell and just fussy enough to send Micah halfway to insanity. You know I like Minka, and Aubree’s the cute kind of weird.” Anothermwah. Another giggle. “Cato will find his eventually. Fletch already has one on the hook, he’s just gotta stop annoying her long enough to get her to agree to a date.” Anothermwah. Another giggle. “Drake deserves stubborn and annoying and weird, too.”
“How do you do that?” Frustrated, I lower my foot so it hits the concrete with a thud. “It’s like you don’t care at all.”
“I don’t care about a lot of things,” he snickers. “Which specific thing are you talking about?”
“About Banks! He was your friend, Lix, and you wear scars on your skin because of him. But you act like it doesn’t matter to you.”
“I wear scars for just about everyone in my life. It’s just skin. Itdoesn’tmatter to me.”Mwah.“I still go to bed every night with my wife curled against my chest and my baby girl tucked into a tiny crib beside us.”
“Lix—”
“I wake up every morning to the sound of Zo’s cooing and the stench of her shit-filled diaper.” He exhales a soft chuckle. “When I’m lucky, I wake to Christabelle doing things to my body, but I’m not allowed to saywhat those things are, ‘cos she said it’s inappropriate and that I need to work on censoring the impulsive side of my brain sometimes.”
“But—”
“I’m happy, Arch. I’m so fucking happy, it’s terrifying. My main stressors these days aren’t Cordoza dying or Mayet whacking folks on the side, or you and me fighting, or me having to tweak my schedule so Stovic can take time off to be with his momma now that you went and snitched and told me things he didn’t want me to know. My biggest stress is waiting for the other shoe to drop, and all my happy things being taken away. But worrying about things that haven’t even happened is kinda dumb, so I’m trying not to do that, either.”Mwah.“Isn’t she the sweetest thing you ever heard?”
“He fucked you over, Felix! Banks sold you down the river, and you caught Dad’s wrath for it. You don’t even care?”
“I caught his wrath when you took off to Copeland, too.”
He says it so calmly. So easily. So fuckingdevastatingly.
“I wear scars on my body ‘cos you took off, Arch. ‘Cos you dipped and Dad was pissed about it. I’m not mad, though.” He continues to kiss his daughter and bathe us both in the sound of her giggles. “He was a piece of shit, and my baby brother wanting away from that was a cause I could get behind. Drake used to catch black eyes from his old man almost as often as we did. Different dudes, different methods, but half the reason he and I clicked back then was because of our shared hatred for the men who put us here.”
“He lied! He was a badge.”
“Eh. I wear his scars. He wears some of mine. We both made it out the other side, and now we get to live our lives the way we choose. I met my darling Christabelle. He met that stubborn girl who, last I heard, wants to work for Mayet, which tells meeverythingI need to know about her. Banks is set for a lifetime of wanting to rip his hair out ‘cos she won’t sit down and do as she’s told, and he’s gonna spend the next eighty years perpetually horny because defiance is sexy when these women do that smirky smirk and thosecome-hithereyes they do. ZoZo, say hi to Uncle Arch.” He turns his voice into a ridiculous babble. A tone I’m not sure I ever could’ve predicted would come from his mouth. “ZoZo, Uncle Arch is on the phone. He says he loves you.”
Mwah.
“Why areyoumad at him, anyway? He fuck your girl?”
“Drake? No!”
“He point a gun and shoot you himself?”
“No.”
“So…” He trails off. “I dunno, Arch. Help me out here. What did Special Agent Fuckface do to earn your wrath?”