by Graves, Jane
Asking her out didn’t work. Being “nice” only made her wary or pissed her off. He had to find a way to get her to loosen up and relax and take things a little less seriously. He had no idea how to do that, but he’d find a way. She was definitely worth having. And that meant she was worth fighting for.
He smiled to himself. Or maybe worth fighting with?
* * *
The next day at noon, Kelsey sat at Johnny’s Subs having lunch with Angi. Johnny’s was even busier than usual, with wall-to-wall people, guys shouting orders behind the counter, and Johnny himself ringing up customers.
“So how did things go with Paul after you two left?” Kelsey said.
Angi shrugged nonchalantly. “Pretty good, I guess.”
“So are you seeing each other again?”
“Yeah. He asked me to dinner tonight.”
“Tell the truth. You told him to ask you to dinner.”
“Of course I did. How else is he going to learn?” She looked at the last bite of her tuna sandwich and made a face, shoving the basket aside. “That was pretty bad.”
“My BLT wasn’t so great, either,” Kelsey said.
“Why do we keep coming here?”
“Because as busy as it is, it’s not as bad as some places, and we only have an hour for lunch.” She sighed. “I wish that food truck would come back.”
“Angelo's Foot-Long Muffulettas?” Angi closed her eyes with a rapturous sigh. “I hear you on that.”
“I'd kill for one of those,” Kelsey said.
“I’ve been watching them on Facebook. They’re sticking to the Upper East Side. I wish they’d come back down here.” She pulled out her phone. “I’m going to get on Angelo’s Facebook page and beg.”
“Good idea.” Kelsey grabbed her phone and wrote on Angelo’s wall: Angelo! Come back to Midtown. You have customers waiting.
Then she thought about Brett’s friend request.
Driven by a compulsion she couldn't ignore, she looked at it again. She'd already told him she wasn't going to accept it, and the fact that he'd seen her naked didn't change anything. Did she really want to put her personal life on display for him, too, letting him see everything she’d posted for the past umpteen months—years, even? The very thought of Brett scrolling through her life freaked her out just a little too much.
“Kelsey?” Angi said. “What’s the matter?”
Kelsey snapped her gaze up. She lay her phone face down and shoved it aside. “Nothing.”
“You have a funny look on your face, like you’re going to throw up, or something.”
"I'm fine."
But was she really? Ever since she’d left Brett’s apartment, she’d imagined him wearing a big, self-satisfied grin as he told the other bartenders at Gianelli’s what they’d done. Kelsey the Cop? Yep. Nailed her.
Then came all the backslaps and high fives and other crude congratulatory male behavior. Worse, though…maybe there wouldn't be any of that. Maybe it would be more like, Kelsey the cop? Seriously, dude? How much did you have to drink?
She had to talk to somebody about this or she’d go nuts. Angi wasn’t just her partner. She was her best friend. That’s what best friends did, right? Helped put things into perspective?
“Okay, I’m not fine,” Kelsey said. “I did a crazy thing last night. But don’t worry. I’m never going to do it again.”
“You did a crazy thing? This I gotta hear.”
“Brett Hollister…”
“What about him?”
“He…well…”
“Well, what?”
“He and I kinda…last night…”
“You kinda what?”
“Had sex.”
Angi jerked upright. “You had sex with Brett Hollister?”
“Will you keep your voice down?”
“How the hell did that happen?”
“We walked home from Gianelli’s together. And then when we got to our building, it just kinda…happened.”
Angi blinked. “Seriously?”
Kelsey twisted her mouth with irritation. “Is that really so impossible to believe?”
“Well…yeah.”
“Thanks a bunch.”
“Come on, Kelsey. You know what I’m talking about.”
“What you mean is that I’m not his type.”
“Oh, hell, no. Not even close.”
“All right,” Kelsey snapped. “You’ve made your point. But it doesn’t matter. It didn't mean anything.”
“I don't get this. You had sex with that beautiful, beautiful man, and you're looking for meaning?” She leaned in, her eyes lighting up like fireworks exploding. “Tell me about it. Every single second of it. And don't leave anything out, or I'm going to reach inside your head and yank it out.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Angi sat back skeptically. “Did you or did you not have sex with him?”
“Yes. I did.”
“So how can there be nothing to tell? Was he good?”
Good? She'd had an orgasm that knocked the earth off its axis. “He was okay.”
“Okay?” Angi said, looking disappointed. “That’s it?”
Kelsey sighed. “Maybe a little better than okay.”
“That’s more like it,” Angi said. “So when are you seeing him again?”
“Never.”
“So he dumped you already?”
“No! In fact, he didn’t want me to leave.”
“So why did you?”
That was a really good question. One she was going to have to think about.
Okay, she had an answer. Because she’d been right in the beginning. It was just sex. Just sex was fine once. But past that, what did she become? The woman across the hall who answered booty calls without thinking twice? Brett seemed to be perfectly happy serving alcohol to party girls and flirting for tips. If that was the way he wanted to live his life, fine. But she didn’t want any part of it.
“Brett’s not my type. He’s not the least bit serious about anything. And he has to be pushing thirty, but he’s still a bartender. Where’s the future there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s a big future there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Paul told me Jerry is opening another restaurant and making Brett general manager of Gianelli’s.”
Kelsey sat back, dumbfounded. “Brett? A manager?”
"Nobody's supposed to know yet. Paul knows only because he overheard Jerry talking to Brett. Brett told him the whole story, but Paul's not supposed to tell anyone until Jerry can have an employee meeting and announce it."
"So what is the story?"
"Jerry wants Carlos to run the new restaurant, so he's promoting Brett to Carlos's job as manager of Gianelli's. And get this. Paul said Brett is also talking to Jerry about putting up an equity stake in the company."
Kelsey was astonished. “He’s going to be a partner?”
“If they make a deal.”
“He has that kind of money?”
“Yeah. Surprised me, too. But Paul swears it’s the truth.”
Kelsey couldn't believe it. Brett wanted to buy into Gianelli’s? That was probably a smart business decision, considering the people who flocked there. But Brett Hollister? An actual businessman? She’d always assumed he had about as much depth as a drop of vodka, but now she saw him in an entirely different light. Could there be more to him than she’d ever imagined?
"Wait a minute," she said. "If Paul's not supposed to say anything, then how do you know all this?"
"You’re allowed to tell secrets to somebody you're sleeping with."
"Yeah? Where is that written?"
"Under the covers. Check it out the next time you’re doing it with Brett."
"I told you there's not going to be a next time."
"Uh-huh. "Angi rose from the table and pointed at Kelsey. “Pilates class tonight. Don’t forget.”
Kelsey rolled her eyes.
“I know. Sounds s
tupid. But if you’re already in shape, Sven will design a workout that’ll kick your ass.”
Kelsey was going to have to see that to believe it. She had a black belt in karate, could bench press a hundred and forty pounds, and had once done a boot camp with an ex‑Navy SEAL who believed you hadn’t had a real workout unless you threw up afterward. So what could a little stretching and bending on some strange apparatus hope to accomplish?
6
Holy shit. I’m going to die. Right here, right now.
As Kelsey dragged herself out of bed the next morning, just walking was a chore. Angi had been right. Sven had located muscles she didn’t even know she had and then beaten the crap out of them. When she told him what level she usually worked out at, he bypassed the beginner stuff and went straight to the hardcore moves.
She would never laugh at that dumb apparatus again.
Kelsey suffered through work that day, finding it hard even to get out of the car, which Angi thought was hilarious. Four ibuprofen in the afternoon cut the pain considerably, though, and by the time she arrived at her apartment building later, she was actually walking upright.
Before going upstairs, Kelsey stopped to pick up her mail and saw Gloria DeVita doing the same. She still wore her uniform from her job as a desk clerk at the Pomeroy Hotel, a small, worn-around-the-edges establishment that catered to people who needed to stay in the city but couldn’t afford so much as a broom closet in the higher priced hotels. She was a small, fragile-looking woman with worry lines around her eyes and mouth that made her look older than her thirty-three years. Her long, dark hair was swept away from her face and held with a barrette at the crown of her head, but several strands had worked their way loose to fall limply along her cheeks.
“Hi, Kelsey,” Gloria said with a small smile. “Thanks for the gifts from Jamaica. Sofia and Rosa were thrilled.”
“You’re welcome.”
Gloria pulled envelopes from her mailbox with a heavy sigh.
“Tough day?” Kelsey asked.
“It’s always the same. People complain.”
“Yeah, I get a few complaints, too,” Kelsey said.
“But you arrest people. All I do is give them a room for the night.” She shook her head. "I'd do anything to get a different job. One that pays more."
Kelsey sneaked a glance to see that most of Gloria’s mail looked like bills. One was from a hospital. She was probably still paying off the expenses from Ricky’s birth.
“My cousin in Texas is going to school to be a dental assistant,” Gloria said. “That pays pretty good. But where would I get the time or the money for something like that?"
That was a very good question. If not for the rent-controlled apartment in their building Gloria once shared with her mother, she could never afford to live as nicely as she did. But even with that, she was right up to her neck in debt. Money for college on her salary would be completely out of the question.
Kelsey grabbed her mail, and they both shoved envelopes into their purses as they got on the elevator.
“So,” Kelsey said. “How’s it going with you and Eduardo?”
Gloria smiled. “Good."
Kelsey wasn’t necessarily buying that. Did Gloria even know what a good relationship was? Clearly she'd thought her relationships with her missing-in-action baby daddies were good, too, and look how those had turned out. She only hoped Eduardo wasn't going to be number three.
“How long have you been seeing him?”
“I guess maybe…four months now?”
"Do the kids like him?" Kelsey said offhandedly.
"Rosa does, but I don't know what's wrong with Sofia. Eduardo has been very nice to her, but she barely talks to him. Maybe it's just a teenager thing. I don't know."
Kelsey felt a glimmer of apprehension. Maybe where Eduardo was concerned, Sofia’s eyes were open wider than her mother's. When she'd been Sofia's age and her mother had brought a man home, it hadn’t taken her more than thirty seconds to size him up and decide he was worthless. Sofia clearly had the same instincts.
"Maybe," Kelsey said, even though she didn't believe it. "Teenagers can be tough to deal with."
“I don’t understand it,” Gloria said. “Sofia gets angry every time he comes around.”
Of course she did. After seeing two baby daddies come and go, one of whom was her own father, along with a parade of Gloria's questionable boyfriends, how could she not?
"Eduardo is helping me out,” Gloria said. "I didn't have the money for my power bill this month, and he helped me pay it. I told him I couldn't take his money, but he insisted."
“What did you say his job is at the hotel again?”
“He’s a maintenance man. He wants to get a better job, but he’s like me, I guess,” she said on a sigh. “No time or money.”
Exactly. No money, but he was paying her power bill? Where had that cash come from?
Then a weary smile crossed Gloria’s lips. “But I know that someday things will be better for both of us, you know?”
This drove Kelsey crazy. Gloria was like so many other women who were wowed by flash and cash, only to realize later there was more going on with a man than met the eye. Inevitably, those men were both controlling and volatile, and eventually bad things happened. Gloria had already hooked up with two men who fit that description. What were the chances she’d broken the pattern and found Mr. Right this time?
The elevator lurched its way to the fifth floor. They got off and walked down the hall, and Gloria stuck her key in her door.
"Gloria?" Kelsey said.
She turned around. "What?"
The words were on the tip of Kelsey's tongue. Stop messing around with questionable men and concentrate on raising your children!
"Say hi to the kids for me," she said instead, and Gloria gave her a smile and went into her apartment. As the door closed, Kelsey let out a sigh of frustration. If she ever saw solid evidence that Eduardo really was bad for Gloria and the kids, she wouldn't think twice about telling her she was making a big mistake. The trouble was that the woman probably wouldn't listen. Kelsey had learned from an early age that some people were destined to make the same mistakes over and over, and there wasn't a damned thing anyone could do about it.
She headed down the hall toward her apartment, her muscles still aching from last night's Pilates experience. She intended to take a hot shower, fall onto her sofa, and watch a couple of episodes of CSI she'd recorded last week. But as she drew closer, she was surprised to see something leaning against her door. It looked like an automatic weapon. Or it would have looked like one, if only it hadn’t been bright orange and made of plastic. She looked left and right, wondering where it had come from.
Then all at once she heard a door open behind her, and something cold and wet gushed onto her back. Gasping with surprise, she whipped around to see Brett standing in the doorway of his apartment. He held a toy gun just like the one leaning against her door. A water gun?
No. More like a water cannon.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she shouted.
He pulled the trigger again, blasting water all over the front of her shirt. With a gasp of surprise, she held her arms out, staring down at her dripping shirt. She looked up again and glared at him.
“Will you stop it?”
He squirted her again.
“Brett!”
He grinned. “This is like shooting fish in a barrel. Only I’m shooting a cop in a hallway.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Don’t like it? Then I’d suggest you defend yourself.”
“You do not want to mess with me!” Kelsey growled. “I will take you out!”
“Big talk, Morrison. Let’s see some action.”
Kelsey spun around and grabbed the weapon. But by the time she turned back and took aim, Brett had run into his apartment. She had a moment's thought about her aching muscles, but she shoved it to the back of her mind. She had a mission, and she was dam
ned well going to accomplish it.
She dashed across the hall, through his open door, and flung her shoulder bag down, looking left and right. All at once he popped up from behind his sofa and nailed her right in the face. She sputtered and swiped away the water.
Enough is enough. This is war!
She aimed and shot, but he ducked back behind the sofa, taking only a glancing hit to the shoulder with the rest of the water slamming into the window behind him. For a moment she felt bad about soaking his apartment, but hey. Who had started this stupid game? If it ended up drenched from floor to ceiling, so be it.
She retreated and crawled into his kitchen. Then she crept to the corner and peered into the living room. When he poked his head around the side of the sofa, she pulled the trigger, but he dodged the spray. Water shot past the sofa and splatted on the wall behind him. She took cover in the kitchen again, only to hear footsteps on his hardwood floor. She looked into the living room just in time to see him duck into his bedroom.
She smiled wickedly. Bad move, Hollister. Now you’re trapped.
She tiptoed to his bedroom door, flattening her back against the wall outside it, her weapon pointed toward the ceiling. He actually thought he stood a chance against her? She was the best shot in her precinct, with hair-trigger reflexes and a superior spatial skills that allowed her to move fluidly through any active crime scene and take out the bad guys.
And that meant Brett was toast.
“Hollister! Give up now! You don’t stand a chance!”
“I’ll never give up! You’ll have to come get me!”
He shouldn’t have opened his mouth. The echo of his voice told her he was in the bathroom. If he was trapped before, he was in a straitjacket now.
She whipped around the doorway and raced into the bedroom, intending to storm the bathroom and finish him off. But as she circled around his bed, her knee smacked into something, and pain rocketed through her leg.
