All of Me (9 page)

“You shouldn’t smoke.”

“I don’t do it regularly.  Just
when I have a rough night at work or am really stressed.”  Stella didn’t know
why she was explaining her vice habits to this guy.  “And who are you, anyway –
the Surgeon General?”

Nothing.  Not a smile or a
crinkling of the eyes or even a blink of his eyes.  This guy was seriously
intense.

“Another…joke…”  Stella waved
it off.  “Never mind.”  She lifted up the lighter.  “Thanks, again.”

A silence fell, but it was not
entirely uncomfortable.  The crickets were chirping, some kid’s car stereo was
booming, and, in the distance, someone’s TV was playing way too loudly.  When
Stella looked at Officer Drazek, he was already looking at her.

He said, “If you want, I can
give your number to my partner.”

Uh…
what
?

“My number?  Why?”

 “So you two could…get
together.” 

Stella’s heart sank.  Well,
that figured.  Not that she should have given a shit.

“So, that’s what this is
about?  Nice. Very junior high.”  She stood and grabbed her wine glass.  “Tell
your partner I’m not interested.  I thought I made that clear last night when I
said I didn’t want his number, but I guess not.”

“Maybe if it doesn’t work out
with your boyfriend…” 

“What
boyfriend
?”

“The big guy you were with last
night.  With the earring.  Your
friend
.”

“Not that it’s any of your – or
your creepy partner’s business – but Christopher is not my boyfriend.  He’s my
supervisor, a childhood friend, and – oh, yeah –
gay
.”

When he didn’t so much as
blink, Stella lifted her hands, sloshing wine on the table.  “So, are we done
here?  You can go back and tell your buddy you did your best, but I’m not
interested, okay?  I know he’s probably not used to hearing that, but too bad.
And tell him I’m not his type anyway. 
Trust me
.” 

She opened the sliding door and
reentered the house.  Stella was furious to feel the sting of tears in the
backs of her eyelids.

What the hell? What, is it
PMS time already?

But she knew that wasn’t it and
it terrified her.  Unbeknownst to Officer Drazek, this
had
been a test
and Stella had failed.  Miserably.  It had proved she was as ignorant and weak
as ever.  No lessons learned, apparently.

She walked straight to the
front door and opened it.  When Officer Drazek paused in her living room, still
looking at her with those deep, sad eyes, Stella almost screamed. 

Instead, she put a hand on hip
and gestured out the door.  “Have a good night, officer.  Thanks for stopping
by.”

Without another word, Officer
Drazek crossed her living room and walked out.  Stella slammed the door, triple
bolted it, and burst into tears.

Chapter
Eight

“You fine, O.D. 
You know that right?  You like a tall, tall glass of fine wine.  Why don’t you
come over here and let DeeDee show you some lovin’ like you never had before?” 
One of Cleveland’s most prolific streetwalkers, Diamond DeeDee, blew Nathan a
kiss before turning around and giving her barely covered, rather large backside
a slap. 

“Thanks for
offering, DeeDee, but I’m not looking to fall in love tonight,” Nathan called
back.  “You being careful out there?”

She nodded,
dislodging her long, ratty blonde wig a bit.  After a minor adjustment, she
plumped her breasts and tugged up her hemline, revealing a pistol.  “You know
DeeDee always packing.”

“That registered?”

DeeDee busted out
laughing.  “For sure, O.D., for sure.  You know me: law abiding and all that
shit.”

“Don’t make me
arrest you tonight, DeeDee.  Stay out of trouble, okay?  And be safe.”

DeeDee blew him
another kiss and sauntered down West Lafayette, the streetlights bouncing off
her silver sequined dress.

“I’m gonna be
really pissed if she shoots someone tonight,” Nathan said more to himself than
to Danny.

Danny scoffed.

“What’s your
problem?”

“If only the world
knew what a softy Officer Drazek really was.  No one would believe a cop with a
mug like that would be sending hookers off with his blessing to ply their trade
packing illegal heat.  Why?  Because ‘a tear or two’ll get you through with
O.D’…isn’t what every meth mom, Lady of Night, and hell-raising female on our
beat always says?”

“I hate seeing
women cry.  You know it makes me crazy.  And putting people like that in jail
isn’t going to do anything but make their shitty lives even shittier.  There
are plenty of dangerous assholes to lock up…no need to pack the jails full of
homeless people, junkies, and hookers.”  Nathan shot him a look.  “And I didn’t
see you arresting her either.”

Danny lifted his
hands.  “Hey, I agree with you.  I’m just saying people think you’re all bad
ass.  They always have, back to when we were in the system together.  I think
it’s hilarious, that’s all.”

Nathan shrugged. 
“People always think the quiet, serious guy is a bad ass.”

“Although the
severe beatdowns you handed out over the years have something to do with it, I
guess,” Danny said.  “More than a few broken noses and ribs and black eyes
walking around courtesy of Mr. Quiet and Serious.”

“I hit people who
deserved it.  And I made sure people who didn’t deserve it didn’t get hit. 
Simple as that.”

“Sounds like a
perfect police officer credo to me!”  Danny laughed.  “Hey, kept my skinny
Irish ass safe for a lot of years, so I ain’t complaining.”

Nathan snorted.

They walked their
beat in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Danny gestured down to
Nathan’s hand.  “So, what happened there?”

Nathan lifted up
his Ace bandaged hand.  “I cut it on something in my garage.” 

“What?”

“I…I don’t
remember.  Something sharp.” 

“You need
stitches?”

“No.  It’s fine.”

“I thought maybe
you did a slice and dice so you could haul ass over to St. Mary’s ER,” Danny
said with a shit-eating grin.

Nathan ignored
him.  But, as usual, Danny didn’t know when to quit. 

“When are you
gonna see her again?”

Nathan shrugged. 

For such a
loud-mouth, Danny sure had a weird, intuitive side that Nathan despised.  He
stopped abruptly and faced Nathan, hands on hips.  “You saw her already, didn’t
you?”

When Nathan didn’t
deny it, Danny studied him up and down.  “Well, I can tell you didn’t fuck
her.  You wouldn’t still have that puss on your face if you had.  So what
happened?”

Nathan definitely
didn’t want to talk about it, but a tiny part of him wanted Danny’s sage advice. 
And he also knew Danny was like a dog with a bone and wasn’t gonna let it go
anyway.

“I went over
there,” Nathan said. 

Danny reared
back.  “For real?”  Nathan nodded.  “And?”

“I fucked it all
up.  As usual.”

Danny gestured for
Nathan to keep giving him the goods.  “Okay, come on, come on.  Tell me
everything.”

Nathan shrugged. 
“I returned a lighter I took from her that night at the hospital.  I don’t want
her smoking, but it didn’t belong to me, so…”  Danny made another impatient
gesture.  “Anyway, she invited me in and offered me a drink.”  When Danny’s
eyes lit up, Nathan shook his head.  “Get your head out of the gutter.  Nothing
like that happened.”  He exhaled hard, running a hand over his head. 
“She…forced me.  She said she wouldn’t take no for an answer.  We sat on her
back porch and…” 

Nathan remembered
it all:  the incredible smell of her, the soothing quiet of her backyard, the
soft, sweet way she had looked at him.  Nathan was sure the look had everything
to do with pity, but it hadn’t felt that way at the time.  It had
felt…exciting.  Different.  And hot as hell.

“And?  And?” 
Danny was so amped up he could hardly stand still.  “Did you fool around out
there?  You dog!”

“Jesus Christ,
Danny, get a hold of yourself.  No, we did not ‘fool around’ in her backyard
after three minutes of conversation.  At 9 o’clock at night with kids riding
around on their bikes.”  Nathan shook his head, once again in awe of what must
go on in Danny’s life.  “We just talked.  Well, she talked and I sat there like
an asshole, per usual.  Or I did until I offered to give her your number.”

Well, that shut
Danny up.  For a second.  He reared back again and then leaned in
dramatically.  “You did what now?”

“I panicked.  I
didn’t know what to say.”

“So you offered to
pawn her off on another dude?”  Danny exhaled a hard laugh.  “That’s some hook
up strategy there, brother.  What the fuck?”

Nathan didn’t have
an answer for that.

“What did she
say?”  Danny perked up a bit.  “Was she into it?”  At Nathan’s dirty look, Danny
laughed.  “Just checking.  So what did she say for real?”

Nathan remembered
the confusion followed by the flash of hurt in her eyes before she’d gotten
pissed.  Just thinking about it made him want to punch his own face. 

“She kicked me
out.”

Danny laughed. 
“God damn, I would drain my entire bank account right now to have seen that! 
What did she say?”

“To tell you she
wasn’t interested –“ Danny winced.  “And she called me ‘very junior high.’  I
wasn’t sure what that meant, but she wasn’t saying it in a good way.” 

Danny laughed
again. “You never hit it up with the ladies in junior high, that’s why.  It’s
all about guys going and trying to make hook ups for their friends.  What I
don’t understand is why you said
that
to her.  Of all things…”

“I have no idea.” 
Nathan rested his hand on his holstered gun and shook his head.  “It just came
out.”

“So she kicked
your ass out, huh?  That little thing tossing out the big, bad police
officer.”  Danny’s shit-eating grin was not helping Nathan’s mood.  “Sorry,
bro, but that had to have been something see.”  He gestured down to Nathan’s
hand.  “You punch something afterwards?  Is that what really happened?”

Danny had dealt
with Nathan’s propensity for hitting things when he was really frustrated or
angry for years.  It was a decent assumption.

Nathan shook his
head.  “No, it is really all cut up.”

What Nathan didn’t
tell him was how it had gotten cut up. 

What a clusterfuck
that night had been.  He’d left Stella’s house, driven home, and immediately
thrown himself on the weight bench.  Three hours and a ripped up, bleeding left
hand later, Nathan had finally forced himself to stop.  He’d lifted weights,
run on the treadmill, run around the block five times, and then weight lifted
some more.  Nathan had been fully aware of how fucked up be was behaving and
how much damage he had been doing to his body, but it was either that or get
obliterated.  Or high.  Or put his fist through something.  Or drive back over
to Stella Ciaramitaro’s and tell her his visit had had nothing to do with
Danny…that it had just been his pathetic, fucked up way of communicating.  That
he was sorry he had bothered her and how he really wished she wouldn’t open the
door to strangers in the future.

“And I ended it
with Christy,” Nathan said.

“Who?  Oh, yeah. 
How’d she take it?”

“Fine.  She seemed
fine with it.  I told her she was a nice person, but I didn’t think it was
right for us to see each other anymore.”  Not that he thought there was a
chance in hell anything would happen with Stella, but it had felt wrong to
continue with Christy when he was so twisted up over another woman. 

And he
was
twisted
up.  Twisted up, fucked up, jacked up…he was every kind of “up” there was. 
He’d mentally clawed and scraped and shoved, but she’d still been there. 
Lurking.  Haunting.  He’d wondered where she was, who she was with, and how she
was doing.  He hadn’t wanted to think about her…in fact, he’d done everything
possible
not
to think about her including watching a bunch of inane TV
shows, cleaning his already spotless house, and mowing his just mowed lawn. 

But she’d never
been far from his thoughts.  Even while he’d been breaking up domestic
disputes, checking on tripped alarms, and busting up bar fights.  It was one of
the few times in his life he hadn’t been able to forcibly shove stuff into the
Things That Made No Sense box and it was really starting to piss him off.

“She doesn’t have
a boyfriend.”

“The big dude?” 
Danny asked.

“Her gay friend.”

“Yes!  Gay!  I
knew there was something going on there.  He was way too into talking to Mr.
Tight Tee.” 

“Not that –“ 

“
A-12,
A-12…we’ve got a 138 at 112 Essex.  Skip’s Tavern
.”

Nathan unclipped
his radio and hit the call button.  “10-4 dispatch. We’re en route.”

Thank God.

Nothing like a
drunk and disorderly to help take your mind off things.

Especially
fearless little Italian things with gypsy eyes and sweet smiles.

***

Stella laced up
her Nikes and grabbed her iPod.  She’d put this off long enough.  Time to get
her butt moving.  There was a 3 day Walk for the Cure in six weeks and Stella
wanted to be somewhat prepared.  This was the first time since her diagnosis
she was well enough to participate and she wasn’t going to miss it – new lump,
be damned.