All of You (24 page)

Tears welled in her eyes again, because it was weird to have another guy text her after what she’d shared with Danny.

Kat identified the feeling as totally illogical. She and Danny weren’t a couple. They weren’t even technically friends, although, surely what they’d done had earned them a title.

Make-out partners? One-way oral sex buddies?

Kat couldn’t help but crack a tiny smile.

Well, how lovely.

The truth was, if Kat hadn’t really been all that enthused about going out with Ben before she’d spent time with Danny, she was even less so now.

But she was going to, because she couldn’t think of a single reason not to.

Because I made out with my brother-in-law’s best friend
wasn’t really reason enough and
I know I told you I would, but I don’t really like you that way
wasn’t gonna cut it either. Not at this late date.

Also, all of Kat’s reasons for accepting Ben’s invitation before were still valid. She still needed to appease some of the loneliness – maybe even more so now.

Plus, Danny wasn’t letting what they’d shared stop him, so why should she?

Kat finally texted:
Sorry for the delayed response. Yes, I am free on Friday. I will be at work tomorrow, so we can talk more then. Thanks, Kat Ciaramitaro.

She hesitated before she hit
send
.

But then she thought about how Danny would probably have sex with two more women by Friday…about how he was probably having sex with one now.

Kat jabbed that
send
button, curled up on the couch with every light in the apartment on, and stared at the ceiling until it was time to get up for work.

‡

G
o-Go Jones, a
transgendered prostitute and constant fixture on Danny and Nathan’s beat for the past ten years, gave them an animated wave as she teetered past the cruiser on purple-sequined high heels.

At Nathan’s quirked brow, Go-Go turned and showed them a bulge beneath her bright purple spandex miniskirt, at the small of her back. Go-Go turned back with a big smile, Nathan gave her a thumbs-up, and she blew them a kiss before moving on.

“Does she seem out of it to you?” Danny asked, watching Go-Go sashay away.

Well, she was trying to, but Go-Go seemed to be doing more stumbling than walking tonight.

“Yeah, but I’m thinking that comes with the territory. I can’t imagine a human being fucking for money without needing some sort of shit to make it through.” Nathan eyed Go-Go’s gait for a few more seconds. “But, you’re right…I think she’s more off than normal.”

“I wanna keep an eye on her. We can’t have her getting robbed or roughed up,” Danny said. “I know she typically holds her own, but I don’t like the way she looks right now.”

“I’m with you. And in this freezing weather…” Nathan shook his head. “We’re gonna have to check on a lot of our girls tonight, probably more than once. They get all hopped up on that shit and their bodies don’t register the cold properly.”

There were a lot of people, including fellow cops and superior officers, who didn’t approve of Danny and Nathan’s hands-off approach to dealing with prostitution.

Good thing neither one of them gave a flying fuck what anyone else thought.

Like Nathan always said, prostitutes, vagrants, and drug addicts had a rough enough time of it without making their shitty lives even shittier by arresting them and throwing them in jail.

Doing that never fixed the problem, anyway, so why bother? Better to help them the best Danny and Nathan could out on the streets, rather than handcuffing them, throwing them in lock-up, and then having to do it all over again on their next shift.

So, unless they were harming themselves and/or harming others, Danny and Nathan stood down. They tried getting them fed, finding them some kind of shelter, and protecting them as best they could.

Now, johns, pimps, and drug dealers were a whole other story. Someone probably could have made a case for double-standards and Danny and Nathan bending the law to suit their personal moral codes. But, again, neither one of them gave a shit what anyone else thought about their shared mentality and methodology. It was a system that had worked for them for the past ten years and they wouldn’t be changing it up any time soon.

“I’ll let her get to Sandridge and then we’ll roll up on her.” Nathan shook his head as Go-Go tried turning the corner, tripping and almost falling into a snow bank. “Although, a twisted ankle might take her out before the weather or a john can.” He shot Danny a look. “Where the hell do you even buy shoes that high?”

Danny’s brows shot up. “What are you looking at me for? I don’t shop at ‘Hookers R Us.’”

“I figured you might have gotten into a shoe wear discussion with one of your stripper friends or bar flies at least once over the years,” Nathan shot back with a half-smile.

Nathan was joking and, normally, Danny wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But for some reason, tonight, Nathan’s comment made him want to lose his shit.

Okay, not
some reason
.

Kat.

And her radio silence the past twenty-four hours.

It had taken Danny exactly fourteen hours to say “fuck it” and call her. He’d had no idea what he was going to say, but the urge to talk to her had him dialing with no plan whatsoever in place.

That had been over ten hours ago now and Danny hadn’t heard a peep back. He’d called and texted numerous times over the course of day with zero response to everything.

Danny knew she was okay because Nathan had mentioned her going over to her sister Gigi’s house to work on some science project with one of her nephews tonight.

And, because they both had iPhones, Danny knew she’d seen the text messages…the
Read at
message with the time showed up after each one.

So why the hell isn’t she answering me?

Danny reminded himself Kat didn’t owe him anything, even a text or phone call back. It’s not like they were dating, or even friends. He’d classify them as close acquaintances.

Who’d sucked each other’s faces off.

And one of the acquaintances had sucked off a lot more than that.

And that particular acquaintance was dying to do it again.

Danny cleared his throat, right leg bouncing like crazy. “So, anything else going on? Anything new with Stella’s family?”

Nathan took a long drag of his iced tea, head shaking. “Nope. Same old, same old.”

Danny wanted to grab Nathan by his uniform lapels and shake him for being such a succinct son-of-a-bitch.

“Oh, I did forget to tell you…” Nathans shot him a look. “Stella knows about last week.”

Danny cringed. “Shit. How’d she take it?”

Nathan shook his head slowly.

“That bad, huh?”

“She didn’t talk to me for three hours.” Nathan set his iced tea in the cup holder and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not gonna lie. It was freaky as hell.”

“Everything okay now?”

“Yeah.” Nathan lifted a shoulder. “We figured it out.”

Danny grinned. “I’m guessing that means Stella lost her shit, you groveled, and then you two went at it like rabbits?”

Nathan shot him a death glare. “That’s my
wife
you’re talking about. Watch your fucking mouth.”

Danny lifted his hands. “Okay, okay, sorry. No offense meant. I’m just glad you guys ‘figured it out.’ And I’m really glad I wasn’t around to see that particular showdown. A quiet, seething Stella?” Danny shuddered. “Yeah, not something I’d ever want to witness.”

Nathan grunted.

After a minute or so, Nathan grunted again. “Poor Kat. She got stuck smack-dab in the middle of the whole shit-show.”

Danny’s head whipped around. “Kat?”

Nathan nodded. “She stopped by last night after Stella had dragged the shooting crap out of me. She stuck around long enough to see Stella go berserk and me snap.” He lifted a shoulder. “I’d be embarrassed, but Kat is pretty good with stuff like that. Not judgmental at all. Probably from growing up in the middle of all that drama.”

Danny was like a drug addict. He’d gotten a small taste, a small morsel, of info about Kat and now he was craving more.

He was craving it all, but he’d take what he could get.

Pathetic.

Yeah. Probably. But Danny was in way too deep to care.

“So, what’s Kat’s story?” Danny asked, in what he hoped was a cool, casual tone. “I didn’t realize she was a doctor until her dad said all that shit Sunday. There’s gotta be an interesting back-story there.”

When Nathan didn’t respond, Danny glanced over, “Nathan?”

Nathan met Danny’s eyes. “I know about the break-in at Kat’s apartment. Davidson passed along a copy of the report you submitted. Told me you requested it.” When Danny didn’t speak, because there was nothing to say, Nathan continued. “I went to Kat’s apartment yesterday. Twice. She wasn’t there, but her car was.”

Nathan paused, giving Danny another chance to speak, but Danny silently pled the Fifth. Again.

“Please tell me you aren’t messing around with her, Mac.
Please
tell me you could not possibly be that selfish and stupid.”

Danny tried arranging his facial features into some semblance of nonchalance and pushed out a scoff. “Give Kat some credit, would you? You think a chick like that would be dumb enough to mess around with me?” When Nathan continued staring at him, Danny huffed. “Listen, she called me that night because Gia was sick and she didn’t want to bug you and Stella. She didn’t want her sisters getting all crazy, so I drove over there, took some pictures, and wrote up a report.”

“So she
wasn’t
at your place that night?”

Danny became overly interested in a microscopic fuzz on his uniform pant leg.

“
Jesus Christ, Danny…
”

“She was spooked. I told her she could spend the night at my place, so she did. She slept in my bed, I slept on the couch, and I drove her home yesterday. No big deal. Seriously.”

Nathan eyed him suspiciously. “The second time I knocked on her door it was the middle of the afternoon and she still wasn’t there.”

“She was up half the night, so she slept late. I cleaned up her apartment, grabbed us lunch from Stillman’s, and drove her home. It was all perfectly innocent.”

Big. Fat. Lie.

If the quirk of Nathan’s brow was any indication, he knew it. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because Kat asked me not to. She didn’t want everyone freaking out.”

At least that’s true.

Danny scoffed. “You know, you’re really insulting Kat right now and giving me an awful lot of credit. We both know she’s way too smart too even think about getting mixed up with me. And, like I told you before, she can’t stand me,” Danny said. “Yeah, she mellowed after I helped her out, but, trust me, that woman is so far out of my league it’s not even funny. I’m not even a blip on her fucking radar.”

As Danny said it, it occurred to him how true that was. And it probably explained why he hadn’t heard back from her.

Kat was a smart, accomplished, amazing woman who had a whole other life outside of the twenty-four hours they’d spent together.

What did you expect? That she’d fall in love with you?

Danny laughed, when all he really wanted to do was smash something. “Not to mention Kat is not my type. At all. ‘Cold, uptight bitch,’ remember?”

Nathan continued studying him, obviously unconvinced. “Stella commented on how you guys were looking at each other Sunday. I blew it off, because…well, Stella loves reading into stuff and getting all gooey at any possibility of anyone ‘liking’ anyone else. Plus, all that shit you said about Kat the night before…”

“Still valid,” Danny said firmly. “You’re giving all of this way too much thought, brother. No story here.”

Nathan nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Okay. Good to hear.”

Danny managed to wait a full ten seconds before pushing his damn luck. “So, Stella was cool about…I mean, it didn’t piss her off to think Kat and I might…”

Nathan slowly turned to look at him. “You lying sack of
shit.
What the fuck did you do?”

“It’s not like that, Nathan. I…”

Danny struggled to find the right words…as if there were right words to describe what was happening to him.

In the end, he went with honesty, only because there wasn’t a better explanation.

“I think I’m in love with her.”

The stunned silence that followed shredded Danny’s last remaining nerves. He finally looked over to find a frozen mask of shock and disbelief on Nathan’s face.

Danny forced a smile. “Right? All kinds of fucked-up. And so goddamned karmic. I finally fall in love and the woman doesn’t want anything to do with me.” Danny shrugged. “But don’t worry. I’ll get through this shit, just like I’ve gotten through everything else, and we’ll all move on, okay?”

“Are you sure Kat doesn’t feel the same way?” Nathan asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Like I said, how could she? She’s…
her
…and I’m twenty shades of fucked up. As you know. So, yeah, no chance in hell.”