Page 89 of Dancing in the Dark

“I’m happiest when I get you both together, which is why I’m really fuckin’ happy you’re staying tonight.”

“I didn’t actually agree to that yet.” Warmth floods her cheeks the way it always does when she’s nervous. “You declared it so.”

“You packed a bag.”

“You packed my bag,” she snickers. “You collected me from my job, walked me home, grabbed my clothes, and now here we are.”

Something heavy crashes against the back of my apartment door, the heavy thud making us both twitch.

“Now here we are.” I slip closer and savor the taste of her jawline on my tongue. “I’m not above begging. I’m not above cuffing us together and copping the charges that might come of it.”

“Total red flag behavior,” she drawls.

“We’re happiest when you’re with us.” I trail my palms over her shoulders, down her arms, then around her wrists until I create temporary cuffs with my thumbs and fingers. “I know this is still new and feels really, really scary. I know you have no interest in running full speed toward the things I want to run full speed toward. But I just…” I search her eyes. “We’re happy when you’re around, Sera. We’ve never been so happy. So even though I have absolutely no fuckin’ chill around you, and even knowing you could cut out on us at any moment, I still wouldn’t choose that aloof, too cool to admit my feelings persona dudes lean towards these days.”

Her eyes glitter with emotion. With yearning.

“We want you around.” I settle a gentle kiss on the corner of her lips. “We want you in our lives. In our home. Drowning under the avalanche of well-loved teddies.”

She snickers.

“We want you eating dinner with us as many nights a week as you can, and we promise to never, ever eat pork chops on those nights. Ever.”

“Oh, God,” she chokes out on a watery laugh. “Poor Greg.”

“Sometimes, when you want to, not because I’m shirking my responsibilities, we want you picking Mia up from school. But only if it makes you happy. We want you at our dance recitals, because I know a cute five-year-old desperate to get back on the stage, but so fuckin’ scared of messing up that she can’t quite master the ability to actually move. We want you with us as much as you’re willing to be with us, and though I know my track record for not fucking up is… well…” I scoff. “Not great, we’re doing okay so far, don’t you think? I’ve been juggling, like I promised I would.”

“Mostly. Ish…” She tips her head back, the rough brick exterior catching in her hair. “Your juggling today left a little to be desired, considering we spoke to the press without you calling me back.”

“I was working the case and questioning our lead suspect. That wasn’t Charlie the man, the dad, the dude you’re dating and a failure to juggle. It was Detective Fletcher putting in the hours to find a killer, and, even if it pisses you off, you know Arch and I put ‘update the mayor and the media’ riiiiight near the bottom of our list of priorities.”

Just as I predicted, her eyes flash with temper.

“I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose.” I press my finger to her supple lips and lay my forehead on hers. “I would’ve given you an update the very instant I could. But following up on our leads in an active investigation and hoping they’re still warm when we get there will always come first. If Markum wasn’t so hellbent on throwing up roadblocks every time we try to take a step, we wouldn’t be three days behind. If I didn’t have to fill out seven hundred pages of bullshit today, I probably would’ve had time to write Lawrence’s statement my damn self.”

“He said the pages were important.” She wraps her hands around mine and drops a sweet kiss on the tip of my finger. “He said not filling them out would’ve risked the entire investigation.”

“Who said? Lawrence?”

“Anderson.” Her eyes flicker back and forth between mine. “Something about admissibility in court and…” She shrugs. “Ya know what? I don’t want to talk about him. Not when we’re already so close to fighting about your questionable juggling skills.”

I bark out a laugh so loud, Mia’s squeals inside my apartment silence. “I’d be happy if I never spoke about the weasel prick ever again. You exhibited excellent self-control this afternoon, by the way. He stood three feet away, and you didn’t even stab him once.”

“Mm. But I wanted to.” She pushes to the tips of her toes and lays a sweet kiss on my lips. Then, like she could tell purely by the silence in the air, she shoves me back with a solid thump and spins exactly as the door opens. “Mia!”

“Fiiiiifiiiiii!” Mia springs through the doorway and throws herself into Sera’s arms, wrapping her arms around Sera’s neck and nuzzling in tight as twin grunt-grunt-grunts erupt from them both each time their hugs grow squeezier.

“Oh my gosh, Mia. You smell like…” Sera makes a show of noisily sniffing her neck. “Flowers. And dirt. And a bit like the aftershave Cato wears.” Pulling back, she flashes a wide smile. “Did you give Cato extra hugs this afternoon?”

“I did!” She wraps her legs around Sera’s torso and leans back, fearless in the way she assumes we won’t let her go. “We saw you on the news, Fifi. You were on the TV!”

“Really?” Wandering into my apartment, Sera glances past my couch to the television that flickers with a seizure-inducing light sequence. “The news isn’t really for little kids, baby. Sometimes, the news says things that aren’t very nice.”

“It was on mute.” Cato stops in the doorway and looks me up and down, his eyes twinkling with teasing playfulness, especially as they jump to Sera’s bag sitting on the floor, then he spins on his heels and heads back in.

I suppose I’ll walk in on my own then.

“Your hair was the same as it is right now,” Mia happily exclaims. “But your clothes were different. You must’ve gone home and got changed, huh?”