Page 40 of Dropping Like Flies

More silence. Silence that threatened to kill me. Either that or I’d end up killing Griffin for making me suffer it. Maybe when they caught Satanic Romeo, they’d put me in the cell next to him and we could compare notes. Eventually, the silence was too much to bear, and I mumbled something about needing the bathroom before leaving my seat and going in the opposite direction.

Once I reached the vestibule, I opened the window and stood with the wind on my face, trying to think of nothing but the fresh air and how good it felt. I drew the line at rain, though, closing the window once it started and reluctantly returning to my seat. I’d half expected to find that Griffin had made his escape in my absence. He hadn’t. He was still there, his face turned toward the passing scenery once more.

“It’s raining,” he said when I sat down.

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“It feels,” he finally ventured after what felt like hours, “like there should be some sort of option between two and three.”

I rolled my head his way, refusing to feel relieved at him not choosing the first option. Too right, he hadn’t. I deserved better than that. “Why?”

Griffin dropped his gaze, scrutinizing his fingers for what felt like forever. “Because… fixing things might not be that easy. We can’t just wave a magic wand and expect everything to go back to the way things were.”

“That’s why I said we work on it. I said nothing about waving a magic wand. We both have to want it, though, or it definitely isn’t possible.”

“And do you want it?”

It felt like standing at the edge of the precipice. It would be so easy to scuttle back to where it was safe, to where I couldn’t get my heart broken all over again. If someone had done it once, they could just as easily do it again. But what had safe gotten me over the past few years? A series of one-night stands, most nights spent alone, and nobody to talk to. Sometimes you just had to take that leap. “Yeah. That’s what I want.”

Griffin nodded. “Then… yeah, it’s what I want too, but it might not be easy.”

Fireworks went off in my chest as I reached across the space and took hold of his hand. “Nothing worth having is ever easy.”

He stared at our joined hands for the longest moment. Fighting the urge to yank his away? Enjoying how they looked together? Who the fuck knew? And that was the problem. The necromancer bond might have furnished us with sharing a great deal of things that a normal couple couldn’t share, but I couldn’t read his mind. Maybe I should hire a psychic from the PPB. They could follow Griffin around for a day and tell me what went on in that head of his. It might be worth bankrupting myself, their services coming at a hefty price.

“What are you thinking?” Without a psychic, asking him was my only option.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what you’re thinking?”

“Give me time, Ben.”

“I gave you three years.” I grimaced. “Sorry. Forget I said that.”

“I promised I’d try. I don’t know what more you want from me.”

No, neither did I. That was the problem. I let go of his hand, needing to think without the feel of his skin distracting me. “There needs to be some ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” Griffin’s brow furrowed in a way that said he couldn’t imagine what they might be.

“The case comes first.”

The frown grew deeper. “Right.”

“It does. At work, we’re not lovers. We’re two men trying to catch this bastard before he kills again. I wasn’t lying last night when I said you’d been a distraction. My thought processes have been clouded and I need to think clearly.”

“Do you want me to ask Cade if he can put someone else on the case?”

“Who?”

A small sigh. “That’s the problem. John, as far as I know, is still suspended and Calisto wouldn’t last two minutes.”

“No?”

Griffin shook his head, a small smile pulling at the corner of his lips. “We’re talking vomit all over the crime scene. Patrick would probably work himself into such a frenzy over the amount of contamination that you’d have another dead body on your hands. And I already tried to get Cade to send John’s replacement, and he wasn’t having it. I could ask him to find someone else, twist his arm a bit.”

I shook my head. “It’ll take too long. I just need you to remember that when I’m at work, that’s my primary focus.”

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