Page 12 of White Wolf

When she opened the door, the smell of bourbon threatened to choke her. “Jesus, Lanny.”

The doorframe was holding him up by the shoulder, one hand clasped loosely around a bottle of Jim Beam. Head slumped, eyes glazed, the scent of alcohol pouring off his skin he was so sloshed, and he still wore his shield, a stray flicker of light catching on its polished surface at his belt.

“You’re gonna get canned,” she said, and grabbed him by the jacket. “Get in here before someone sees you.”

“Good evening to you, too,” he slurred, staggering into the apartment. The toe of his boot caught the rug and for one horrifying moment, she thought he’d faceplant right there on the floor. He managed to catch himself, though, and made it to the couch, flopping down with a drunken huff. “Shit,” he muttered.

“Yeah. Shit.” She relocked the door, sliding the extra bolt and chain. She leaned back against it a moment, after, staring across the dim room at her partner, frustration building at the base of her throat like acid reflux. “Where’ve you been?” she asked, as casually as she could manage.

He lifted a hand and made an aborted gesture, arm flopping back to his side when he was too tired to hold it up. “Around. Was at Beck’s for a while.”

“You didn’t get that bottle at Beck’s.”

“Nah, that was the bodega downstairs. After Beck cut me off.”

Trina sighed, chest aching. Her eyes started to burn. At a different time, if she was well-rested, if the sun was shining, she would have called him an idiot and left it at that. But now, raw from another nightmare, too tired to hold her tongue, she said, “Lanny, why are you doing this to yourself? What’s going on?”

He breathed a humorless laugh, the corner of his mouth hitching up in a dark smile. He shook his head. “Doing this to myself? Jesus.” He patted the couch cushion beside him, clumsily. “Come sit by me. I wanna tell you something.”

“Lanny–”

“Please.” And his voice went soft and broken, and she couldn’t refuse.

She sat down next to him, sitting sideways with her legs curled up, so her bare knees almost touched his thigh. This close to him, the smell of liquor pooling between them, she was made aware that he was fully-clothed, and she was only in shorts and a worn, thin tank top.

His gaze was trained on her face, though. Glassy with alcohol, but unwavering. Eyes that were beer bottle-brown shot through with gold, warm and always mischievous, now dark and serious, full of something heavy and painful.

She wanted to touch him, hand twitching with the impulse. Something was wrong, something wasso wrong. She could see it in the lines around his mouth, feel it in the weight of his gaze.

“Tell me,” she prompted.

He took an unsteady breath. “Remember when I used to talk about my hand?” He pulled his booted foot up onto the couch and rested his hand in his lap, palm-down, so the webbing of scars across the bones was visible. “And I always said it was the worst thing the doc could have ever said to me?”

He’d been a boxer, once. Before he was a homicide detective. Before he was a beat cop. Before he hit a skid and his life went off the rails, a year-long bender of booze, and pills, and trying to beat back the sweeping depression. Before the fight with Rodrigo Ramon that shattered his hand: two opponents at the same bar, bad blood, accusations of a fixed match…too much to drink, a pool cue…a jagged beer bottle. Roland Webb was going to be the heavyweight champion of the world…until he wasn’t.

“Yeah,” she said, throat dry.

Lanny’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. His eyes were hungry, despairing. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t.” He reached for her hand and curved his own around it, pulled it toward him.

She didn’t breathe.

Carefully, like he was afraid he’d crush her, he pressed her fingers to his throat, that tender patch of skin in the shadow of his jaw. She felt the heat of him, the prickle of stubble. And a lump.

A low, wounded sound left her mouth, and she bit down hard on her lip.

“I went in for a physical and they found this,” he said, and his eyes were wet now. His voice vibrated through his throat, into her hand, dark and ragged. “I’ve got maybe a year left, and that’s if they start treatment right away.”

“You…”

“I don’t wanna go out like that,” he said. “No hair, and ninety pounds, and shitting my pants. No way.”

“Lanny.”

“I’m dying, sweetheart. That’s what’s wrong.”

He’d never called hersweetheartbefore, but she didn’t want him to startnow, because ofthis.

It didn’t seem possible, him dying, not when his pulse thumped so strongly against her hand. But she felt that lump. She’d watched him grow depressed and self-destructive in the past few weeks.

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