Going Home - Chapter 16

The rebuilding site turned into almost a party as people who’d been working earlier came by. A few were even hauling ice chests of beer. It didn’t get too rowdy, but everyone had a good time. I spent some of the time with Rosita, but between her continued work trying to get people to contribute and donate to the rebuild project, we didn’t really get to spend much time together.

She did surprise me by asking me to go to play put-put on Sunday at a place she’d seen in Summersville. Her restaurant was only open for lunch on Sundays, which meant she didn’t have to ask Julie to cover the place again.

Since I was once again carless, I walked up to her shop and she drove us there after she locked up.

“So, I hear you were telling Orville I didn’t really want to be a gym teacher?” I asked when there was a lull in the conversation as we drove.

Admittedly it was far from the smoothest way to bring up the subject, but it had been on my mind since Orville had brought it up. I wasn’t mad at her, but I wondered what made her seem to think I didn’t want to move on from just being a bum around town.

“Yes, although we weren’t gossiping about you behind your back or anything. He was by the shop the other day while you were up in Summersville doing the investigation, and we were just talking. He asked if it was true you were planning on leaving in the fall to be a gym teacher and I told him yes, but I didn’t think that was something you really had your heart set on. He didn’t ask me to elaborate and we switched the conversation to something else. Honestly, it was so short I really didn’t even think about it to mention to you.”

“Why don’t you think I want to teach?”

“Because you don’t light up when you talk about it. Sometimes, it almost seems like you are being forced to do it. Not like you regret the decision or are angry about it, but compared to how you’ve talked about the investigation, it has become very apparent, probably to anyone who knows you.”

“My eyes light up when I talked about the investigation?”

“Yes, every time. You were engaged, interested, and almost eager to get back to it. It’s the most alive I’ve seen you since we’ve met.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

“So you think I should take his job offer?”

“I wouldn’t try to tell you what to do, Henry. I didn’t mean for it to sound like I was trying to convince you to stay. Would I like you to stay? Yes. We’ve gotten to know each other and I really like you, but I also want you to be happy. If going off and being a gym teacher is what will really make you happy, then I think you should do it. I just got the impression that you aren’t doing this because you really want to, but because you felt like it was the only direction you had available. When you started with it, you were living with your parents and you talked about living here like you were trapped. Lately though, since you moved out and had something to focus on, you’ve seemed almost like a different person.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. “Hopefully not too different.”

If I was being honest with myself, her description of feeling trapped and using my degree to go teach gym wasn’t that far off. I had felt trapped and all I could think about was escaping.

“Not different in a bad way. You were still all of the things that I like about you. You are still smart and funny and have a good heart. If anything, since you started helping with the investigation, you’ve just been more of those things. I don’t know the word in English, but it’s like when you hear music from outside, and you can kind of make it out, but can’t really hear all of it until you step outside.”

“Muted,” I offered.

“Yes. Muted. You were a muted version of you, and over the last week or so, you’ve been the full sound version of you.”

I went quiet, staring out off into space, thinking. I’d actually thought a lot of these things to myself, at night, when I tried to picture where’d I’d be in a year or five years. Not the muted part, but when I thought of myself, was it being in some random city getting kids to run around a track or whatever. If I tried, I could force it, but she was right, it didn’t really make me feel anything, other than maybe resigned that it was the best I could do.

I had, however, been thinking about her a lot recently. Part of me knew that whatever we had going wasn’t long-term, because I was only going to be here a few more months, but I’d basically been ignoring it. I really liked spending time with her and most days it was the only thing I really looked forward to, so contemplating that it wasn’t going to last had been too much of a bummer to think about.

She was also right about how things had been different for the last week or so. Although I hated seeing what George Cooper had gone through and that night in the burning building had been terrifying, I didn’t remember feeling this focused on anything in a long time. That didn’t, by default, mean that I would feel the same about being a cop again. While there were times that an interesting case or event really got me engaged, I’d spent a lot of my time on the force doing routine, mundane, and frankly boring work, all the while getting shit on.

Of course, things would be different here, at least to some degree. For one, in New York City I was just a cog in a huge machine with a several billion dollars a year budget … and a small one, at that. Maybe if I’d stuck it out and made detective or something similar, I would have been more engaged, but that didn’t mean it would be the same here. There would only be three of us if I took Orville up on his offer, which meant everyone would have to do everything. It would also be a lot less faceless than it was in New York City, since I already knew most everyone in town. I was, even if unwillingly at the moment, a part of the community and this was where my roots were.

“Are you okay?” Rosita asked after a while.

I’d been quiet, looking out the window, but not really seeing where we were. Snapping out of the trance, I saw that some time must have passed because we had stopped. We were in Summersville, sitting in the parking lot of the put-put golf place.

“Yeah. Sorry, I know we were coming out to have fun and spend the day together. I didn’t mean to go quiet for so long.”

“We can go back if you want. I know you’ve got a lot to think about.”

I knew she meant it. Not in a ‘we can go if you’re going to be a killjoy’ kind of way. It’s one of the many reasons I liked Rosita so much. She was one of the most thoughtful people I’d ever met.

“No. No. I’m good. I swear I’ll snap out of it. Let’s go play some put-put,” I said, giving her a smile.

I’m not sure if she believed me, but we both hopped out and went through the brightly colored gate that led inside.

Overall, it was a good time. I did learn a couple of important lessons, however. One was that, although I’d been an athlete in high school and kept in shape ever since, even with my leg injury, those abilities did not translate in any way to playing miniature golf. The other thing I learned was that Rosita had a killer instinct when she was competing and wasn’t against trash-talking, especially when she was winning.

She still kept it clean, which is something I’d noticed since the first day we’d met. It wasn’t that she didn’t curse, because she did, but she reserved it for when she really felt passionate about something. She didn’t curse just casually like pretty much everyone else I’d ever known.

She also proved again how sneaky she was. Halfway through, after basically destroying me at every hole, she suddenly had trouble with a shot that I’d finally managed to do good at. She’d convinced me the only way to solve the problem was to have me help her with the shot, asking me to help her with her stance and grip on the small putting wedge, which basically ended up with her pressing her body up against me while I wrapped my arms around her, placing them on top of hers while she held the putter.

I recognized the steps to this dance and had been the one to instigate it when I’d been with Terri, although she’d set up the opportunity much like Rosita had by inviting me to play mini-golf. We were talking about put-put, but neither of our minds were on what we were saying, both of us keenly aware of each other’s bodies as she pressed her butt into me.

It only lasted for a few minutes as we heard a family coming around a corner from the previous hole and we broke apart. This wasn’t the place to do anything more than tease each other when we were out of view, and it was then that I noticed she’d waited until we were at a hole in the corner of the place, blocked from the other players by a windmill thing.

The rest of the game was mostly the two of us watching each other and looking away when they turned around or made eye contact. It was exhilarating and for a little while, I felt like I was a teenager again.

Rosita was cool as ever. As we returned our clubs, balls, and little pencils, she invited me back to her house so she could cook me dinner. Even if I wasn’t completely revved up by her, I would have accepted. She had proven time and again that she was a far superior cook, and I’d be a fool to pass up that kind of offer.

Thankfully, the rest of the drive was back interacting as we had been. No more talk about the future or what I wanted to do, and no more staring out the window in silence. The tension on the drive-up had passed and we talked just as easily as we ever did, reminding me of the other thing I liked about her so much.

I’d seen Rosita almost every single day for the last month, and no matter how much we saw of each other, we never ran out of things to talk about. I’d never felt so in sync with someone … at least not that I could remember.

That was how it went the rest of the evening. She cooked, while I leaned on the counter, and we talked. We ate a wonderful meal of rice and chicken, and we talked. Afterward, we somehow ended up in her living room, sitting on the couch, where we continued to talk.

It was getting close to midnight and we’d been together uninterrupted for twelve hours, talking almost the whole time, aside from the interlude on the way to Summersville, and not once did either of us get bored or run out of things to say.

I’m not sure where in the conversation I made the decision, but during one of the brief lulls that sometimes happened, looking into her eyes, I said, “I’m going to stay.”

“Really?”

She didn’t sound surprised, and I guess I hadn’t made it hard to figure out that I’d been wrestling with the question. If anything, she sounded almost excited.

“Yeah. I’ll give it a try, at least through the summer. I still have my resumes submitted and, if things are going bad after a month, I can always go and do the interviews in the middle of the summer.”

“Ohh,” she said, sounding slightly less excited, looking away, down towards the carpet.

“But it would have to be going really bad,” I said, reaching up and gently grabbing her head, raising it up so she was looking at me again. “I’m not staying because of the job offer. Yeah, I am interested and Orville’s offer to let me try it out for a few months is fair, but it’s not going to be all roses and that’s not why I decided to stay.”

“It’s not?”

“No. I’m staying because of you. Sure, the job makes it possible, but I really like you and I hate that we’ve both been kind of ignoring this thing between us because we both knew I wasn’t going to be here long-term. I want to give this a chance and see where it goes.”

“I’d like that,” she said.

I leaned forward and kissed her. We went on like that for twenty minutes, like we were a couple of teenagers, the passion ramping up steadily. I could feel it from her as she ran her hands across my back and through my hair just as much as I could feel it inside myself. Finally, I broke away from her mouth and started kissing up the side of her neck. As I got up near her ear, she let out a soft moan.

As if controlled all by itself, my hand traveled down until it cupped one of her breasts through her shirt. For a moment she pressed into me, moaning again, before suddenly pulling back, a hand on my chest in an unmistakable stop gesture.

I was surprised, since everything had felt natural and right, but I pulled my hand back, lifting both of them in a surrender gesture.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Can we slow down?”

“Sure. Sorry, I didn’t mean to push you. I thought I was getting the signal that you were into it and wanted more. I haven’t dated in a long time, so I’m pretty rusty and misread it, I guess.”

“No, you didn’t. I …” she paused, collecting her thoughts, scooting back a bit further from me. “I was raised Catholic. Very Catholic. This kind of thing was always a big no-no, so it takes a while for me to feel comfortable enough to … you know.”

She was trembling slightly and it was obvious to see how nervous and self-conscious she was. Although she’d mentioned former boyfriends in passing, we hadn’t actually discussed our past sex lives or anything. Mine was easy to figure out, since I’d only ever been with Terri, but I’d had the impression that she’d been in intimate relationships before.

“Ohh, I’d gotten the impression that you had …”

“I have, but it takes time. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lead you on and then put on the brakes.”

She had fear in her eyes. If I had to guess, I’d say there was a chance she’d hit this step before, and the reaction from the other side had been less than great. She was still nervous and self-conscious, but I wondered how much of that was about her hang-ups and how much was fear that I’d react badly when she wouldn’t go any further.

“No, it’s okay. I get it. Besides, we’ve been talking for a while, but we’ve only kissed a handful of times, so this was a big step up. I’m fine with whatever speed makes you comfortable and I’ll keep it to kissing and hand-holding until you decide you’re ready for anything more. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said, scooting back closer to me, the tension visibly draining from her body.

I put my hands on her forearms and leaned in to kiss her again. It didn’t have the passion we’d been building to a few minutes before, but there was almost more affection in her response now.

I stayed for a little bit longer before heading home, just to make sure she wasn’t uncomfortable or thought I was leaving just because she’d turned me down.

***

The next morning, after calling to make sure he was around, I headed down to the sheriff’s office to see Orville.

“I’m sitting down with Jeremy today. He’s bringing his lawyer, so we won’t get much, but it’ll be enough to send it on up to the DA,” he said when I stopped at the railing separating the front area from the three desks behind it.

Sarah wasn’t in yet. I’d found that she came in and started taking calls around ten most days, so she could cover the main part of the day. Since it was such a small operation, the emergency system was set to roll over to the next county, which was larger and already controlled most of the emergency medical services.

“Good. Son of a bitch needs to spend some time behind bars,” I said.

“Couldn’t agree more. So what’s up? I didn’t expect to see you back here.”

I hesitated for a second. Not because I was second-guessing myself, but more because, even though the offer had been for me to try it out for a few months, it felt like I was stepping over a threshold that would be tough to come back from.

“I think I’m going to take you up on your offer,” I said.

“Really?” he said, sounding genuinely surprised. “You seemed so dead set against it.”

“Yeah, I know, but I think that was just me being stubborn. I’ve spent some time thinking about it, and I decided I’d give it a go. If things aren’t going good after this month, I may need to travel for a few days to do interviews at school districts. That doesn’t mean I’d definitely be leaving, but I have to keep those options open if, at the end of the summer, I decide it really isn’t for me. Are you okay with that?”

“I can live with that. You know we don’t pay like they do in New York City, right? I could start you off at thirty-five and, if you decide to stick around, we’ll bump you up to forty, which is the same thing Al makes. You okay with that?”

Forty thousand a year was a little less than I made my first year on the force and was a lot less than I was looking at making if I’d stayed a few more years, but it was also significantly cheaper to live in Buxton than it had been to live in New York City. Besides, it wasn’t like I was going to do much better as a teacher, and I wasn’t really staying for the job opportunity anyway. That was just what gave me the option to be able to stay and see if things could work out with Rosita, which was a big part of why I’d decided to give it a try.

“Yeah, I can work with that.”

“Great. It’ll take a few days to get the paperwork through the county so we can get you sworn in, by which time we should be able to get a uniform and sidearm to issue to you. You know those both come out of your check, right?”

“Yeah, that’s how it worked in New York City, too.”

“I figured. Come back on Monday and we’ll get you all set. I know you know the county pretty well and you’ve done this before, but do you want to ride along with me for a few days at the end of the week to get a feel for it?”

I knew firsthand that living in a place and knowing about it from a law enforcement perspective wasn’t the same thing. I might know the business owners and a bunch of the people that it paid to know, but not the people I’d be dealing with the most; addicts, drunks, and other frequent fliers that I’d be bound to have run-ins with. I also hadn’t really strayed much from Main Street or Oak Ridge since I got here, so it would be good to drive around the rest of the county with Orville as he made his rounds.

“Yeah, that’ll work for me.”

“It’s usually quiet at the beginning of the week, so why don’t you come back on Friday and follow me through my weekend shifts, that way you can make the most of it. I usually take nights on Fridays and Saturdays, since Al’s single and sometimes has a date. Course, that’ll change now that you’re here.”

While not an unsubtle way of saying he’d want me to work weekends instead of him, it made sense. Days off must have been hell for the two of them trying to cover the entire county by themselves.

“That’s fine.”

“Great, come by here at four on Friday then. I’m really glad you changed your mind, Henry. I think this is going to be good for everyone.”

“I hope so,” I said, giving him a half-wave as I showed myself out.