Page 49 of The System

“So, I get tuna?” Carina said, picking up the sandwich she didn’t want to eat.

“Oh, I also grabbed you the chips you like to make up for it,” Tinley added and fished a bag of chips out of her giant purse before setting them down. “And water.” She put a bottle of water next to the chips and smiled at Carina. “And my treat because I stole the last good sandwich.”

“And you’re staying at her house for free,” Ada noted under her breath.

“What are you doing here, Tin?” Carina asked.

“Paying a parking ticket,” the woman replied. “I tried to pay online, but the thing kept telling me that I had to come in instead.”

“Why?”

“Because I had more than one,” Tinley admitted and leaned against Carina’s desk. “I had seven, to be exact, and because I had so many, I had to come here in person and pay the full amount.”

“You had seven parking tickets?! Where the hell are you parking? On the sidewalk?” Ada said.

“No, I meet my clients at their homes, and sometimes, I’m running late, and there’s no decent parking unless I park where I shouldn’t. So that I’m not late, I park as close as I can, and, apparently, that means I have to get tickets.”

“How much do you charge for your training sessions?” Dylan asked.

“Yeah. And how much are your tickets? Do you even make money on the ones you get the tickets for?” Ada added.

“Anyway… That’s why I was here,” Tinley said to Carina. “And I saw Ada.”

“Well, the three of us were going to talk shop, so if you want to go, I’d understand,” Carina told her.

“Ada said you were just having lunch,” Tinley replied.

“We are; while we talk about a case.”

“What case are all three of you working on?”

“You know what?” Dylan said. “I think Ada and I will just eat in the cafeteria. I don’t have much time anyway before I have to get back to the station.”

“Yeah, that sounds good to me,” Ada replied and stood up. “Carina, lunch another day?”

Carina nodded and understood why they wanted to leave. Neither of them had liked Tinley all that much when she and Carina were dating, but Dylan seemed to need her wife and some calm right now, not an argument between exes about why Tinley had decided to join them for lunch just because she’d run into Ada downstairs. Carina wanted them to stay as her excuse, but she wouldn’t try to stop them.

“What about the case?” Tinley asked.

“We’ll just call you later,” Dylan offered in Carina’s direction before she followed Ada out of the room.

“Anyway, I paid the damn tickets, which was close to a thousand bucks, so I don’t have your three hundred, but–”

“Tinley, you need to move out,” Carina interrupted.

“Sorry?” Tinley stood up and moved around to the front of Carina’s desk.

“I mean it. I’ve been trying to be patient with you, but it’s been more than three months now, and you still haven’t paid me anything to help around the house. I’m not made of money, Tinley. I work for the DA’s office, for crying out loud. I can’t just keep paying for both of us, especially when we’re not together anymore.”

“This is about the woman you brought home,” Tinley stated as she sat down in Dylan’s old chair. “You don’t want your ex around when you’re starting to date again.”

“We’re not dating. I told you that she’s a friend.”

“Kelly, something, right?”

“Kieran. And don’t do that. You know her name. You made her say it, like, three times.”

“And she called me Tanley.”

---