“Why not?”
He pul ed out onto Colorado Boulevard.
“Your favorite color is not a piece of personal information.”
“Yes it is.”
“Okay, then, your favorite color is a boring piece of personal information that doesn’t tel me a thing about you.” I gave up and looked out the window. It seemed a good way to go.
We were silent al the way to the station.
When he parked, I jumped down from the truck, wishing my slut shoes resided in perdition. He came around and grabbed my hand again and we walked into the station.
I’d never been to a police station in my life. It was cleaner than I expected it to be, it didn’t look like NYPD Blue at al .
He walked me through the hal s and took me to a room with lockers. He opened one, obviously his, pul ed out a flannel shirt and handed it to me. “Put that on.” It was a nice thing to do. It wasn’t only chil y but I didn’t wear my Smithie’s uniform anywhere but at Smithie’s and his shirt would cover me up.
I put his shirt on and it smel ed like him. It was then I thought the shirt wasn’t a good idea. Smel ing Eddie on Eddie was disturbing enough. Smel ing Eddie on me was too much of a good thing.
I didn’t have a chance to object. He took my hand again and walked me into another room, this one big, mostly dark and ful of desks. There was one guy working: typing on a computer. He looked up when we walked in and his eyes took in Eddie’s bloody t-shirt and knuckles.
“Tough night?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Eddie replied, not inviting further discourse.
The guy’s eyes moved to me.
“Looks like you won.”
Eddie didn’t reply and walked me over to a couch and turned to me.
“Wait here. I’l be five minutes.” Then he was gone.
I sat on the couch and the guy was watching me.
“There was a bit of a bar brawl,” I explained.
“Yeah, I heard.”
“It started for a good reason.” I don’t know why, but I decided to defend Eddie.
“Eddie start it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You the reason?”
I bit my lip then said, “Yes.”
“That’s a good enough reason.”
He turned back to work and I took the opportunity to fish the fifty from my cle**age. It was hard won. I should probably give it to Eddie for the trouble I caused him but I needed it too much. I put it in my wal et and then waited.
Then I waited some more.
Then I looked at the couch and decided it looked real y comfortable. So, for research purposes, I decided to check and see if it was comfortable. So, I stretched out on it and within minutes, I was dead asleep.
I woke up smel ing Eddie.