Instead, she got the opposite.

  “This is really good.”

  “Thanks.” She took a sip of her club soda before returning to their earlier topic. “My aunt and uncle really told you where I live?”

  “I’ll admit to some surprise on that front as well, but I guess I ooze trust.” He grinned at her, that bright flash broad and wide. “It also helps I rented right out of the academy in their building over on Eleventh. They have my credit score, my phone number and my address. You know, basically it’s like they know how to hunt me down.”

  “I suppose they could.”

  And while she did get the local connection, it was clear she needed to give her Aunt Robin a bit of a drubbing on sharing personal information like that.

  “The moment I saw them I made the connection with their last name. And then once I mentioned us working together on the task force, that clinched the deal.”

  Since Sera could also imagine the twinkle that no doubt had lit up her aunt’s eyes, she opted to shift the conversation.

  “Is your pasta hot enough?”

  Although she’d intended the question as a kindness, all it really served to do was show her extreme nerves at his presence in her kitchen. One that had felt a heck of a lot larger before he arrived than it did now.

  “The temperature is fine. It’s not really why I’m here, though I’ll never turn down dinner with a beautiful woman.”

  “Flattery?”

  “Is it working?”

  She didn’t want to be flattered by the compliment. Even worse, she didn’t want to be caught up in him again or the cute banter that was stamped full of notes of appreciation and...notice.

  Wasn’t that how all this had started? That compelling gaze and ability to make her feel as if she was the only woman in the world?

  “I also didn’t come here to give you a line,” he continued, smoothly shifting gears. “I came to give you the apology you most definitely deserve.”

  “Oh.”

  “I wasn’t the best version of myself today. I knew it, even as it was happening, but I couldn’t seem to see past myself, and I am sorry.” He set down his fork. “I’m truly sorry for it.”

  For all that the apology was a surprise, Sera had to admit it fit the man she remembered. What she’d sensed of his character, even after only spending less than a day together. And with that memory came a resolution of her own.

  “If we’re being honest...” her gaze drifted to the small bouquet “...I’m not above saying the flowers weren’t a smooth touch.”

  “I’m glad you like them.”

  “But I wasn’t my best self, either. I was surprised to see you this morning. And then we were put together for the duration of the task force and—” She couldn’t fully hold back the sigh. “It was like my personal life slammed right into my professional life, and I didn’t like it.”

  “Same.”

  “This task force is an important step in my career growth. I’m sure it’s equally important for you.”

  “It is,” he agreed.

  “Then we’re going to have to find a way to put what happened between us at the holidays firmly in the past.”

  “Is it?”

  His comment sort of hung there between them, like a pulsing question mark hovering over them in blinking neon.

  “Is it what?”

  “Is it behind us?”

  The irrational urge to laugh hysterically at his question suddenly gripped her and she had one terrifying moment where she thought she actually might break down in laughter. Because that night might be over, but nothing about it was behind them. In fact, in six more months the consequence of their choice would be right there in front of them.

  She’d had their one night together expressly for the lack of strings. Attachments. Or any consequence other than pure, unadulterated need. She wasn’t particularly well-versed in doing that, and it had felt good—better than good, actually—to take something just for herself.

  Her life had been about studying and remaining focused and living with a strict, almost rigid, code of behavior. She wasn’t going to be her mother. And she had no interest in throwing her life away to listlessness or to excess.

  And yet, Gavin had somehow found a way beneath that. In the moment, he’d felt like impulse but never excess.

  So she took a long, deliberate moment to stare at her fork before lifting it to toy with a few pieces of pasta. “It’s all behind us. Of course it is.”

  “Things ended a bit abruptly.”

  Whatever distraction her dinner had provided faded as she stared at him head on. “We had a one-night stand, Gavin. By their very definition, they have a short shelf life. A point I’ve thought was pretty clear based on how neither of us has found the other these past several months.”

  “Did you try to find me?”

  Just like that morning, it was a neat, verbal trap and one she’d walked straight into. Yet even as a part of her wanted to wrap herself up in emotional tinfoil, deflecting the truth with all that she was, she found she couldn’t.

  “I went to that bar several evenings in hopes I’d see you again. When you never showed, I figured I wasn’t meant to see you.”

  A series of emotions flashed across his face, telling in that he obviously felt something but maddening in that she couldn’t actually read a damn thing.

  Did he think her needy? Hopeful? Was he glad she’d tried to find him? Or was it more proof what they’d had was only meant to last a few hours?

  Which made his quiet, scratchy tone a bit of a surprise when he finally spoke. “If you wanted to see me again, why’d you leave?”

  Had she been wrong?

  Since there was no way of knowing, she pressed on, willing him to understand her explanation.

  “Again, Gavin. New Year’s Day. One-night stand. Two strangers. It’s sort of the exact definition of awkward.”

  “It didn’t feel awkward.”

  “No, it didn’t.”

  And when his dark gaze met hers, she had to admit that even now, it still wasn’t awkward at all. It was freeing. This strange connection between them that had no reason for existing yet did all the same.

  “I wanted to see you again, Sera. I looked for you every time I went out. Each time I walked the neighborhood. Each time I got on the subway.”

  He’d looked for her? Hoped to see her again?

  All those lonely moments, practically willing him to show up at the bar hadn’t actually been for naught. Even if they really didn’t have a shot at a future, there was a special sort of joy in knowing that he hadn’t been unaffected.

  And with that knowledge, she couldn’t hold back the small smile that she suspected held the slightest notes of sorrow for what could have been. “And here all you really needed to do was call my aunt and uncle. Keep that in mind next time you go hunting for a one-night stand.”

  “Why would I go hunt for anyone else?”

  Whatever humor had pulled at her faded, and something sharp speared through her at the earnest expression that set his face in serious lines.

  “This can’t go anywhere,” Sera finally said, even if she wished she were wrong. “Especially with the task force. It’s a conflict now.”

  “How?”

  Whatever outcome he was considering wasn’t readily apparent, but the fact he was considering any outcome other than the path they’d been on—going their separate ways—needed to be squelched.

  “What do you mean, how? We’re partnered on an important work project.”

  “One that won’t last forever. We don’t work in the same department. We don’t even work for the same entity. Last time I checked, employees of the City of New York can date each other.”

  “We’re not—” She stopped abruptly, catching herself before trying again. “What we had isn’t dating. Let’s not pretend there’s more between us then there actually is.”

  Sera wasn’t quite sure who she was trying to convince, but knew she needed to hold her ground. Because she had wanted to see him again. And once she’d gotten over the shock of seeing him again that morning, it had felt so good to be in his presence once more. To look across the table and see that face that had been emblazoned on her mind as if every feature had been captured in indelible ink.

  But she couldn’t give into this.

  Nor could she delude herself into thinking somehow this all had a happy ending. They’d come together in a heated rush and had proceeded to go on with their lives. Only now there was a very large secret between them. One that she knew she had to share.

  One that he deserved to know.

  Yet no matter how she spun it in her mind, she couldn’t seem to find the words to tell him the truth.

  * * *

  “But there is something between us, Sera.”

  Whatever Gavin might question about his feelings and the odd way they’d come in and out of each other’s lives—twice now—there was something there.

  Wasn’t this very conversation proof of that?

  Sure, things had had gotten very personal, very fast. That had been true between them from the start. But at the moment, things had also gotten much too serious. So with his dual police and dive training in the forefront of his mind, Gavin did what he knew how to do best.

  Pivot and attack the situation from a new angle.

  “Let’s go get some ice cream.”

  “Now?”

  “You ever heard of dessert, Forte?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  He stared pointedly down at his empty plate before looking back up at her. “Do you have ice cream in your freezer?”

  “No.”

  He shook his head and let out a small tsk for good measure. “A crime against nature, but we’ll address that later. Let’s go get some ice cream.”

  Based on her initial resistance, Gavin figured she’d put up more of a fight, so it was a welcome surprise to find themselves walking into the Sunset Bay pharmacy and heading for their soda counter twenty minutes later.

  “Best ice cream sundaes in Brooklyn.” Gavin breathed in deeply of the mixed scents of sugar, cream and chocolate as they took two stools at the counter.

  Sera slipped onto the stool next to him, and he took her coat as she shrugged out of it, walking it down to the small coatrack at the end of the bar before returning to her.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  As he settled himself on his stool, he couldn’t help but notice the two of them reflected in the big mirror that stretched along the back of the soda fountain. Although they didn’t touch, they looked like they were on a date, the light tension arcing between them evident even in the old mirror with desilvering in small splotches up and down the length of it.

  “This place has seen a lot.” He said after a quick glance at his menu.

  “It was the heart of Sunset Bay while I was growing up. And even more so for the generation before us. Aunt Robin still talks about how Uncle Enzo brought her here when they were dating.”

  It was interesting. She’d spoken of her aunt and uncle several times throughout the evening, but still nothing about her parents. Were they absent? Dead? Gavin wondered.

  He was about to ask, but a skinny, bored teenager came up to them to take their orders.

  “What’ll you have?” the kid asked Sera.

  “Scoop of chocolate with some peanut butter sauce.”

  “Banana split for me.”

  The bored teen trotted off, leaving them to their conversation at the mostly empty counter. It was the distinct lack of people that had him drifting straight back to their unfinished dinner conversation.

  “So about this something more between us.”

  She was in the middle of settling her purse on hooks beneath the counter, her attention focused elsewhere, but Gavin didn’t miss the wary lines on her face.

  Whatever had gripped her in that moment was gone when she gave him her full focus. Her spine was rail-straight as she sat on the backless stool, and her voice held what he assumed was a match for the formidable tones she’d use in the courtroom.

  “There isn’t something more.”

  “Sure there is.”

  “A single night of passion? And while I won’t say it’s nothing, it shouldn’t stand in the way of what each of us wants to accomplish.”

  “Why are you so insistent on relating the two things at all?”

  “Oh, come on, Gavin. Of course those two things are entwined. They’re intimately entwined.” She leaned closer before seeming to catch herself. “We’ve seen each other naked.”

  While he assumed she’d brought up that enticing fact to make a point, he couldn’t help but needle her a bit. “We most certainly did.”

  “Be serious.”

  “I’m certainly not laughing. In fact, I’m remembering a few things in rather vivid detail.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “And you’re combining two things together like they somehow cancel each other out. I’d like to know why.”

  “My work is important to me.”

  “As mine is to me.”

  “We slept together. Do you think anyone on that task force is going to take us seriously if we suddenly start up an affair?”

  Although there was a thread of irritation starting to simmer in his blood at her continued pushback, he fought to maintain the steady, easy, nearly carefree notes in his voice. If she didn’t want to go out with him, he could live with that. But her arguments centered around what others would think or why they couldn’t have a shot at something, not basic disinterest.

  He just couldn’t let it go.

  “Two single people having a relationship isn’t an affair.”

  “It is when they’re paired up on a work project and keeping it a secret.”

  “So make it public.” As he said the words, Gavin realized them for solid truth. “To my earlier point, it’s not a crime if the city’s employees date each other.”

  “That won’t keep people from talking.”

  “So let them talk.”

  Their ice cream arrived, cutting into the argument that was steadily building between them. He wasn’t going to get anywhere in this conversation behaving like a petulant child. And he certainly wasn’t looking to date someone who didn’t want to be with him.

  So why was he pushing this?

  He’d never put that much stock in the romance dance. You saw someone. You liked them. You spent some time with them. Was it simplistic? Sure. But he’d always had far more important priorities in his life, and no one had ever made him see a reason to change them.

  Until Sera.

  Something in that time they spent with each other—less than twenty-four hours of his life—had wrecked him. He hated the vulnerability, but more, he hated the idea that what they did for a living needed to dictate their private moments.

  Sera had already taken a few small bites of her ice cream and he opted to dig into his banana split, hoping the mix of sugar and heavy cream would cool their conversation off a bit.

  “Can we maybe chalk it all up to a complicated situation that we don’t have to decide right now?” she finally asked.

  “Yeah. We can do that.”

  And he could. While he wasn’t ready to fully back off, Gavin could appreciate that a lot had been thrown at both of them and a bit of time to figure it out would go a long way.

  “How’s your ice cream?” He asked, their heated conversation fading. He’d brought her here to take her out for a treat and it was actually quite nice to sit and enjoy her company.

  “Delicious. I haven’t been here in a while. Dessert was a good idea.”

  “Sugar usually solves most problems. Or at least makes them seem less fraught.”

  “As someone who solves problems for a living, I’d like to say we’re more evolved as a species, but—” She stared down at her ice cream, tapping the side of the small metal dish with her spoon. “It’s hard to argue with sugar therapy.”

  Their dessert seemed to diffuse the tension that had spiked when he’d brought up their relationship status, and they sank back into that easy conversation that had been there between them from the first.

  It ebbed and flowed, until they both looked down and realized they hadn’t just finished their dessert, but their dishes had long been whisked away by the bored server.

  With dessert completed, Gavin collected their coats once more, and then they were weaving their way back out into the early spring night.

  “Thanks for the ice cream.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Gavin fought the suddenly desperate desire to lay a hand low on her back and shoved his hands into his pockets as they headed back in the direction of her apartment. The lights of the pharmacy spilled back onto the sidewalk and illuminated the deep red tones of her hair.

  The rain that had dogged them for days had faded, and in its place was a cool breeze that promised spring, even if winter hadn’t quite relinquished its cold grip.

  “I still think your lack of ice cream in the home is a crime against nature, but I’ll do my best to reserve further judgment.”

  “Maybe I just prefer eating ice cream with others.”

  That breeze kicked up once more as they passed by the alley between the pharmacy and the old shoe store that was its neighbor. The same kid who’d waited on them had obviously been put on closing duty, and he carried two big black bags in his hand to the curb, the distinct scent of the aging garbage filling the air.

  “Maybe we’ll—” He broke off as a dire look came over her face, the color instantly draining from her cheeks. “Sera?”

  But she’d already bolted, heading straight for a city garbage can at the corner. The distinct sounds of misery rose up into the night air as she lost the remnants of her meal, and he made it just in time to hold her shoulders when a second, wracking jolt ripped through her.

 

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