Page 16 of American Love Story

Easton

Patrice wanted to be friends? Fine, I could do friends.

I was sitting at my desk Monday morning thinking about Saturday and how easy it was to be with Patrice. How wanting him was all I could think about when he was close. But it wasn’t just that. I wanted to know about Patrice, about the reasons why he was so careful.

“What are you frowning about now? That’s your permanent expression these days.”

Cindy.

I lifted my eyes from the monitor I’d been blankly staring at for the last twenty minutes and tried my best to smile for her. She wasn’t buying it.

“Hey. What are you doing here so early? Aren’t you supposed to be on medical leave? It’s not even 7:00 a.m.on a Monday.”

Cindy waved me off as she sat in one of the chairs across from my desk. “I wanted to check in, and I needed to get out of the house.” Things were still tense from the stop last week, and as far as Ron and I could tell, not much had happened in the way of addressing it. Day had been evasive as fuck and Cindy had stayed away. Until now.

“I’m so fucking tired of being cooped up. You’d think recovering from heart surgery wouldn’t make you homicidal, but I’m getting there.”

I shook my head at her, trying to keep a straight face. Her humor had always been pretty dark, but after her heart attack, it was getting grimmer. Still she was pushing it, and I wasn’t sure her checking in was going to help matters.

“I’m calling Lorraine and letting her know you came here instead of going to the rehab place—which is what you probably told her, again.”

She looked down at herself and her workout clothes, then back at me. “You wouldn’t.”

I scoffed and gestured toward my phone. “Oh yeah, I would.”

She’d scared the shit out of all of us in the summer when she collapsed walking out of court, and there was no way I would be an accomplice to her going right back to not taking proper care of herself.

I pointed at the clock on the wall. “Thirty minutes. We can talk about what’s been going on and then you are going to your PT at the gym. You need to take care of yourself, Cin. We need you back; I am not built for all this administrative bullshit. I’m court guy, trial guy. Not a paperwork guy, and I’m starting to confirm I am definitely not a politics guy. This sitting on my hands bullshit is not pleasant for me.” I looked toward the hallway where the investigators usually worked. “Ron says that traffic stop was barely a bleep at the Sheriff’s department, meanwhile social media was on fire for days with community members demanding a response. This is going to escalate.”

Cindy shook her head. “First of all, you would be an outstanding DA and I really want that for this county and for you.”

I sighed, too frustrated to argue about this with her, or entertain the run-for-DA conversation.

“I understand it’s not ideal, Easton, but we need to give it time. So far nothing else has happened, and we have to work with these people. Overzealousness won’t work in our favor in the long run. How are things going with the Suarez case? Are you going over all the stuff from his previous arrest?” She could not have been more obvious about changing the subject. I would let it go, for now.

I gestured at the enormous pile of papers accumulating on my desk and sighed. “Yes, I am and it’s already a mess.” She made a face at that. “His family already started a smear campaign on her and the grand jury barely gave the indictment. They’re going to drag her through the mud. After what that motherfucker did to her.”

Cindy shook her head in disgust. “I heard his mom remortgaged her house to pay for a defense attorney from Rochester. Like that’s going to help him. You have to nail him to the wall, Easton.”

I slumped against my chair, thinking about the horrific details of that case and how even with all the evidence, it was still going to be precarious, because the perp was a “nice guy, who grew up in town,” and the woman was young and Latina and had only been in Ithaca for a few months when he broke into her home and brutally assaulted her. This case was going to be awful for everyone involved, but I would do whatever I needed to in order to get that motherfucker behind bars. Sometimes it amazed me that things seemed so black and white to me but were all gray for some people. That just made me go back to thinking about the stops. The niggling feeling that we were not doing nearly enough, eating at me. This was new territory for me, feeling like my hands were tied. Suddenly I wondered what Patrice would have to say about this. I knew it wouldn’t be an easy conversation, but he would tell me the truth.

“What?” Cindy’s voice snapped me out of my fretting.

“Other than the various fires actively burning in town, you mean?”

Cindy’s eyebrows dipped and she leaned in, trying to figure me out. “No. There is always a lot of shit going on. This place is a madhouse on a good day.” That was true, but this felt different. “There’s something up with you and it’s not just the work.” She attempted to scrutinize my face for another minute while I tried to keep cool under her stare and then her whole body perked up.

“Oh my god.” She gasped, looking genuinely contrite. “How could I forget to ask? How’s your stunner? Is he still giving you the runaround?” I could tell she was worried about me. Probably because she’d never seen me actually thinking about anything or anyone in the romance department for more than a second, andI was now closing in on fifteen months of lusting after Patrice Denis.

“Nope, we’re just friends, and I wasn’t just thinking about that,” I said as I started grabbing folders from the mountain of shit I had piled over my desk.

“Easton.”

I sighed and looked up at Cindy, annoyed at myself for wanting to talk about this when I’d told Patrice that I was done with lusting after him.

“It’s stupid, okay? He said he’s a better friend than a lover and since we’ll be neighbors?—”

“Wait. Neighbors?” She tipped her head to the side like she was confused. “When did that happen?”