“Yeah?” I mumbled, snuggling a bit deeper into him.

“I’m lettin’ you go,” he told me.

I thought it was weird that he’d announce this but it didn’t matter, Shamus was fencing me in.

“That’s okay. I’m good,” I said. “Even if you do, I have nowhere to move, Shamus is plastered to the front of me and taking half the bed.”

He was silent for a second and the air in the room started to feel close.

Then he said, “That’s not what I mean.”

I opened my eyes and looked, unseeing (for more reasons than one), into the darkness.

“What do you mean?”

“When this is finished, I’l get your car back and you can go with Annette and Jason to Chicago.”

I felt the muscles in my body tighten.

“Excuse me?” I whispered.

“I’m lettin’ you go,” he repeated.

I felt my lungs contract.

“Are you…” I hesitated, “breaking up with me?” His hand moved up my thigh and then wrapped around my waist.

“You already did that, remember?”

I was such an idiot.

I felt my breath get shal ow.

“Though, I need you to understand something,” he said.

I nodded my head on the pil ow but didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything.

“I’m a cop, al I ever wanted was to be a cop. I protect people and keep them safe on a daily basis. Doin’ it for someone I care about…”

He stopped talking.

I stopped breathing.

He started talking again. “I understand why you didn’t want me to be involved with this business with Flynn,” he paused. “But you need to understand that I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

I started breathing again, mainly because my body needed oxygen and, if I didn’t, I would have died.

Not that dying would be a bad thing at that moment.

I waited for him to say something else, like he didn’t want to let me go, like he would have preferred if I didn’t go.

But he didn’t say anything else.

I let the silence stretch between us.

Then I said, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you letting me go?”

His arm tightened, contradicting his earlier words.

“Awhile ago, you said, if you care about something, you have to set it free, if it comes back to you –”

“I remember,” I whispered.

“I stil think it’s bul shit.”

Even though I felt that thing that had knitted inside me was in danger of unraveling, I couldn’t help but smile.

“So, I go home to Chicago and you hope I’l come back to Denver?” I asked.

“No, you move on, I move on. If there’s some way to move on together, that’d work for me. In the meantime, I’m not waitin’ for you and I don’t want you to feel obliged to come back to me.”

My smile disappeared, my throat closed and Hank’s face went into the back of my hair.

“You’ve been alone and felt trapped for a long time, Roxie. Soon, you’l be free of al this shit. You have good friends and a family that loves you. They’l see you through.” I didn’t want them to see me through. I wanted Hank to see me through.

Good God.

I was going to start crying again. How many tears did a body make?

I knew this was good, I knew it was the right thing, but it felt very wrong.

“Last thing I want to do, last thing I ever wanted to do, was make you feel trapped,” he murmured into my hair.

“So, I’m lettin’ you go.”

That’s when I knew.

I knew why his eyes looked unsettled after he’d talked to Stevie and Indy. I knew why his touch on my cheek was so poignant.

He thought he was making me feel trapped.

He wasn’t letting me go because he wanted to, because I’d final y convinced him I wasn’t good enough for him, because I was annoying and stubborn, because I was a nut or because my mother cal ed out to Sweet Jesus.

He was letting me go so I could, final y, feel free.

Oh… my… God.

He was such a good guy.

The thing that I thought had started unraveling inside me tightened up.

Then steel bands slid across it and locked it into place.

“Whisky?” I cal ed.

“Yeah?”

I took a deep breath.

Then I took a scary plunge.

“I think I’ve changed my mind,” I said.

I felt his body grow tight.

“I think…” I whispered, “I don’t want you to let me go.” I’d barely got out the “go” when Hank rol ed me over, rol ed on top of me and Shamus jerked and jumped off the bed as he kissed me.

He went straight into one of his make-me-dizzy, ful on tongue, brains scrambling, hands everywhere Hank Nightingale kisses.

One of my arms wrapped around him and my other hand slid into his hair. I pushed off with a foot and rol ed him over, getting on top, laying kisses down on his neck, col arbone and I started down his chest when he yanked me up and rol ed me back. He got on top of me again and kissed me, his hands sliding my nightie up to my waist and then beginning to pul my panties down.

It was then my phone rang.

We both stil ed.

We listened to it ring until it stopped.

Hank’s hands slid back up my hips, slow, not starting anything, waiting.

Then my phone rang again.

“Fuck,” he muttered and shifted, moving to turn on the light.

Stil under him, I twisted, grabbed my bag off the nightstand and snatched out my phone as the light came on.

It said, “Unknown number”.

I flipped it open. “Hel o?”

“Were you f**kin’ him?”

My body tensed.

Hank was mostly on top of me and looking down at me.

“Bil y?” I said.

Instantly, Hank rol ed away from me and knifed off the bed. I came up on my elbow and watched as he tagged his phone from the nightstand at the same time grabbing his jeans. Bil y talked in my ear.

“Were you f**kin’ him? Is he touchin’ you now, you bitch?”

“Bil y, where are you?” I was watching Hank. He’d hit a few buttons on the phone and it was tucked into his neck while he pul ed on his jeans.

“Fuck you, Roxie. Fuck you and f**k Detective Hank Nightingale.”

“You listening?” I heard Hank say into his phone.

“Is that him? What’s he saying, the f**k,” Bil y said in my ear.

“Bil y, you’re in trouble. Desmond Harper’s men are after you,” I told him.