I had no clue how proud I sounded, nor how fierce, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Sully’s head jerk up but it was what Agent Nowakowski said next that kept my attention on him.
“February, the mistake is yours if you think that’s true.”
I heard a loud reverberating sound, like a tiny drop of moisture splashing against the bottom of a dry, cavernous pit.
I almost looked around to find the source of the noise until I realized I was the only one who heard it because it was coming from inside of me.
*
Colt walked into J&J’s, it was early but he was off duty. The Feds and Sully were still working but after the scene in the Station his already minor “consultative capacity” became miniscule.
There was another reason he escaped the Station and that was because Sully had told him probably a dozen times that day they needed to talk about “what Feb said in that room”.
Seemed everyone wanted to discuss him and February, Susie, Jack, Morrie, Sully.
As for Sully, to be fair to Feb, Colt thought it was her choice if she wanted to share. He’d fucking well like to know what she said, make no mistake, but she should be the one to choose to tell him.
Walking into J&J’s, he knew he was likely jumping straight out of the frying pan into the fire. But Feb had said she’d cried in the bar when she’d heard about Puck and that meant the killer was in the bar to see her crying and therefore Colt was going to be in J&J’s scrutinizing the crowd.
It was Friday night and J&J’s like always on Fridays was packed. Darryl and Jack were working the bar, Feb and Ruthie, Morrie and Feb’s only other employee outside Fritzi who came in every morning to mop and clean, were both out amongst the tables, dropping drinks.
Morrie was nowhere to be seen.
Feb glanced up, saw him and dipped her chin like he’d seen her do to hundreds of customers, saying hello, asking, nonverbally, “What can I get you?” or “You want another?”
Colt felt exactly as he felt that morning when she’d denied him the jaw tilt for the first time since he could remember. He felt like he felt when she called him Colt for the first time something he’d repeatedly told her to do but something he found he fucking hated when she finally did it.
He felt like throwing something.
But instead he dipped his own chin and hid his response just as he kicked himself for being such an enormous jackass in the bathroom the day before finally losing it about her calling him Alec and taking away the only good thing they shared anymore.
Or so he thought.
After she denied him the jaw tilt that morning she threw a minor hissy fit about him being off the case. Colt had no idea if she was doing this because she thought The Feds were insulting him or if she wanted him working the case or both. He kept hearing her saying, “He’s a good cop,” over and over in his head and he liked the sound, too fucking much, but there was no denying he did.
And there was also no denying that her reaction to the possibility that he would get hurt, not to mention the death of his dog, had been spectacularly more mammoth than the tears she’d shed over her asshole ex-husband. They’d thought they’d need to sedate her, hell, he’d thought it too. She was completely out of control.
But she’d let him calm her. Not her Dad, or her Mom, nor had she pulled herself together on her own. Colt had done it.
Feb could lose it. She had her mother’s temper which was volatile, though quiet, but making matters worse she was also emotional, again just like her Mom. Both Feb and Jackie could descend into righteous indignation or inconsolable tears at the slightest provocation. Like Jack with Jackie, Colt had been the only one back in the day who could calm February.
And that day, he’d done it again.
And last, she wasn’t avoiding his eyes anymore or his touch. That morning, after her drama and him helping her to pull herself together, she’d stood in his arms and started a conversation about how he should get a new dog. When Warren interrupted the moment, Colt’s hands itched to wring the man’s neck. But when Colt finally let Feb go, she didn’t step away, gain distance. She stood close then met his eyes before walking away.
He had no idea what any of this meant or if it meant anything at all and it was only her way of coping during a seriously shitty situation. He’d give her her lead and he’d wait.
What he wouldn’t do was let Sully, Jack or Morrie piss all over it. If something good came of this mess, a détente between the two of them, he was going to take it and he wasn’t going to let anyone piss on it.
No fucking way.
He slid onto his stool at the end of the bar and scanned the room.
“Off duty?” Jack asked and Colt nodded.
He heard the hiss of the cap coming off the beer and the thud of the bottle landing in front of him and he forgot until then how much he missed hearing Jack ask, “Off duty?” then the subsequent hiss and thud.
It sucked why the family was back together but he couldn’t deny he was glad they were.
“Where’s Morrie?” Colt asked, watching Feb talk to a table full of kids who looked too young to be sitting in a bar.
“Shoulda come in three hours ago, you missed World War Three,” Jack’s amused answer brought Colt’s eyes to him.
“World War Three?” Colt asked the smiling Jack, not sure whether he was more surprised to see Jack smiling indulgently or to see that indulgent smile aimed at his daughter.