He got up to take off his jeans, putting his gun, badge and phone on the nightstand.
I tried to ignore his (very nice) chest but kinda failed, (because Hank had a super nice chest and great abs too), and hissed. “Hank! My Mom and Dad are in the other room.”
“So?”
“So, my Dad’s going to have a conniption if he thinks we’re sleeping in the same bed under the same roof as him and Mom.”
Hank, now naked (and looking fine by the way), got in bed.
“He’s al right with it,” Hank said with certainty.
I stared at him.
“What? Did you two talk about it?”
His hand came out and he pul ed me out of my sitting position. I toppled to my side and he yanked the covers out from under me and flicked them over me.
“No,” he answered, looking down at me as I settled on my back.
“Then how do you know?”
“It’s my roof,” Hank responded.
“I don’t understand.”
Hank reached over me and turned out the light, then he rol ed me, tucked my back to his front and rested his hand on my thigh.
“You wouldn’t, it’s a guy thing. You’re just gonna have to trust me.”
Shamus jumped up on the bed and walked around a bit.
Then he settled with a doggie groan on his side, his back pressed into my front.
Oh wel .
Whatever.
I was total y exhausted, way too comfy and I had the human and canine Nightingale boys’ warmth seeping into me front and back. I wasn’t going to fight it.
I was about to fal asleep, mindlessly scratching the soft fur behind Shamus’s ears, when Hank cal ed, “Sunshine?”
“Yeah?” I mumbled, snuggling a bit deeper into him.
“I’m lettin’ you go,” he told me.
I thought it was weird that he’d announce this but it didn’t matter, Shamus was fencing me in.
“That’s okay. I’m good,” I said. “Even if you do, I have nowhere to move, Shamus is plastered to the front of me and taking half the bed.”
He was silent for a second and the air in the room started to feel close.
Then he said, “That’s not what I mean.”
I opened my eyes and looked, unseeing (for more reasons than one), into the darkness.
“What do you mean?”
“When this is finished, I’l get your car back and you can go with Annette and Jason to Chicago.”
I felt the muscles in my body tighten.
“Excuse me?” I whispered.
“I’m lettin’ you go,” he repeated.
I felt my lungs contract.
“Are you…” I hesitated, “breaking up with me?” His hand moved up my thigh and then wrapped around my waist.
“You already did that, remember?”
I was such an idiot.
I felt my breath get shal ow.
“Though, I need you to understand something,” he said.
I nodded my head on the pil ow but didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything.
“I’m a cop, al I ever wanted was to be a cop. I protect people and keep them safe on a daily basis. Doin’ it for someone I care about…”
He stopped talking.
I stopped breathing.
He started talking again. “I understand why you didn’t want me to be involved with this business with Flynn,” he paused. “But you need to understand that I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
I started breathing again, mainly because my body needed oxygen and, if I didn’t, I would have died.
Not that dying would be a bad thing at that moment.
I waited for him to say something else, like he didn’t want to let me go, like he would have preferred if I didn’t go.
But he didn’t say anything else.
I let the silence stretch between us.
Then I said, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you letting me go?”
His arm tightened, contradicting his earlier words.
“Awhile ago, you said, if you care about something, you have to set it free, if it comes back to you –”
“I remember,” I whispered.
“I stil think it’s bul shit.”
Even though I felt that thing that had knitted inside me was in danger of unraveling, I couldn’t help but smile.
“So, I go home to Chicago and you hope I’l come back to Denver?” I asked.
“No, you move on, I move on. If there’s some way to move on together, that’d work for me. In the meantime, I’m not waitin’ for you and I don’t want you to feel obliged to come back to me.”
My smile disappeared, my throat closed and Hank’s face went into the back of my hair.
“You’ve been alone and felt trapped for a long time, Roxie. Soon, you’l be free of al this shit. You have good friends and a family that loves you. They’l see you through.” I didn’t want them to see me through. I wanted Hank to see me through.
Good God.
I was going to start crying again. How many tears did a body make?
I knew this was good, I knew it was the right thing, but it felt very wrong.
“Last thing I want to do, last thing I ever wanted to do, was make you feel trapped,” he murmured into my hair.
“So, I’m lettin’ you go.”
That’s when I knew.
I knew why his eyes looked unsettled after he’d talked to Stevie and Indy. I knew why his touch on my cheek was so poignant.