He changed tactics. "Does your boss know you're seeing me again?"
"It's not like we're sneaking around."
He had heard the defensiveness in her tone, and pounced. "That'd make things real good for you at work, don't you think? It'll take less than a week for it to get around that you're being nailed by an ex-con."
She dropped her hand from the gun, swearing under her breath.
"What'd you say?" he demanded.
"I said it's already gotten around, you idiot. Everybody at the station already knows."
"They don't know everything," he reminded her in a low, threatening tone.
Lena glanced at the clock by her bed. She could not be late her first day back. Things were going to be tense enough without her breezing in five minutes behind. Frank would use it as another reason she was not ready to return to the force, and Matt, his cohort, would agree. Today would be a harder test for Lena than her first day in uniform. Just like then, everyone would be looking at her to fail. The difference was that now they would feel sorry for her if she fucked up, whereas before they would have cheered. If she was honest with herself, Lena would rather have their cheers than their pity. If this did not work out today, she did not know what she would do. Move, probably. Maybe they were hiring in Alaska.
She told Ethan, "I'll probably have to work late tonight."
"I don't mind," he told her, relaxed by the implication that she would see him later. "Why don't you come over?"
"Because your dorm smells like puke and piss."
"I could come over there."
"Yeah, that'd be great. With my dead sister's gay lover in the next room? No thanks."
"Come on, baby. I want to see you."
"I don't know how late I'll be," she told him. "I'll probably be tired."
"Then we can just sleep," he offered. "I don't care. I want to see you."
His voice was soothing now, but Lena knew if she kept resisting he would turn nasty. Ethan was only twenty-three, almost ten years younger than Lena, and he had yet to figure out that a night spent apart was not the end of their relationship. Though, sometimes, Lena wished it could be that easy to make the break from him. Maybe now that she had a job again, something more demanding to occupy her brain than the daytime TV schedule, she could finally get away.
"Lena?" Ethan said, as if a sixth sense told him she was thinking about leaving. "I love you so much, baby." His voice grew even softer. "Come see me tonight. I'll make us dinner, maybe get some wine…?"
"I missed my period last month."
He sucked in air and her only regret was that she could not see his expression.
"That's not funny."
"You think I'm joking?" she asked. "I'm three weeks late."
Finally, he came up with "Stress can do that, right?"
"So can sperm."
He was quiet, his breathing the only noise on the line.
She forced something that sounded like a laugh. "Still love me, baby?"
His voice was tight and controlled. "Don't be like that."
"Lookit," she said, wishing that she had never even mentioned it to him. "Don't worry, okay? I'll take care of it."
"What does that mean?"
"It means what it means, Ethan. If I'm…" She couldn't even say the word. "If something's happened, I'll take care of it."
"You can't -"
The phone beeped, and Lena had never been so thankful for call-waiting in her life. "I've got to get this. I'll see you around." She clicked the phone to the other call before Ethan could say anything else.
"Lee?" a raspy voice said. Lena suppressed a groan, thinking she would have been better off sticking with Ethan.
"Hey, Hank."
"Happy birthday, girl!"
She smiled before she caught herself.
"Didja get my card?"
"Yeah," she told her uncle. "Thanks."
"You get yourself something nice?"
"Yeah," Lena repeated, tugging the jacket back into place. Hank's two hundred dollars could have been better spent on groceries or her car payment, but Lena had splurged for once. Today was an important day. She was a cop again.
Her cell phone rang, and she saw from the caller ID that it was Ethan, calling on his cell phone. He was still holding on call-waiting.
Hank said, "You need to get that?"
"No," she told him, turning off the phone mid-ring and tucking it into her jacket pocket. She opened the bedroom door and walked into the hallway as Hank started his usual birthday story about how the day Lena and her twin sister, Sibyl, came to live with him was the happiest day of his life. She stopped in the bathroom, checking herself in the mirror again. She had dark circles under her eyes, but the tinted foundation she'd used helped take care of the problem. Nothing could be done about the deep purple gash on her bottom lip where she had bitten down too hard and split it.
A picture of Sibyl was tucked into the frame of the mirror. It had been taken a month or so before she was killed, and though Lena wanted to remove the photograph, this wasn't her house. As she did almost every morning, Lena compared the picture of her twin to her own reflection in the mirror, not liking what she saw. When Sibyl died, they had appeared almost completely identical. Now Lena's cheeks were hollow and her dark hair wasn't as thick or shiny. She looked a hell of a lot older than thirty-three, but it was the hardness in her eyes more than anything else that gave her that appearance. Her skin didn't glow like it used to, but Lena was hoping to get that back. She was running every day and doing free weights at the gym with Ethan almost every night.
Call-waiting beeped again, and Lena gritted her teeth, wishing she hadn't said anything to Ethan about her period. She had never been regular, but neither had she ever been this late. Maybe it was because she was working out so much, training to get ready for the job again. The last six weeks had been like preparing for a marathon. And then, Ethan was right about stress. She was under a lot of stress lately. She had been under a lot of stress for the last two years.
Lena pressed her hand to her eyes. She wasn't going to think about it. Last year, a pretty good shrink had told her that sometimes denial could be a good thing. Today was definitely a good day to pull a Scarlett O'Hara. She would think about it tomorrow. Shit, maybe she wouldn't think about it until next week.
She interrupted Hank's story, which had left out some important details, like the fact that he'd been a speed freak and an alcoholic when social services had dropped Sibyl and Lena on his lap – and that was the happy part of the story. "How'd this weekend go?"
"Better than I thought," Hank said, sounding pleased. He had turned The Hut, his dilapidated bar on the outskirts of the shithole town where Lena had grown up, into a weekend karaoke bar. Considering Hank's regular clientele, this was somewhat of a gamble, but Hank's success proved Lena's long-held theory that a drunk redneck would do anything when the lights were turned down low.
"Baby," Hank began, his tone turning serious. "I know today's a big day and all…"
"It's no big deal," she said. "Really."
"You don't have to talk all tough with me," he said, his temper flaring. Sometimes, he was so like her that Lena felt a flicker of shock when he spoke.
"Anyway," Hank said, "I just want you to know if you need anything -"
"I'm fine," she interrupted, not wanting to have this conversation again.
"Just let me damn finish," he snapped. "I'm trying to say that if you need anything, I'm here. Not just money and all, but you know you've got that if you need it."
"I'm fine," she repeated, thinking hell would freeze over before she went to her uncle Hank for help with anything.
The phone beeped, and Lena ignored it again. She walked into the kitchen and would have turned back around if Nan hadn't grabbed her arm.
"Happy birthday!" Nan said, clapping her hands with sheer joy. She took a box of matches from her apron, and Lena watched as she lit the single candle on top of a white-frosted yellow cupcake. There was another cupcake on the counter with a similar candle, but Nan left that one alone.