“Me.” She smiles. “You get me.”
We spend the rest of the day how we began it; with her in my arms, her body pressed against mine, with the news on, but no other intrusions on our lives.
Bar one.
Around two in the afternoon, a call came in.
Thecall I think we were both waiting for.
“The babies are here,” Libby whispered. With one hand pressed to her heart, and the other wrapped around her cell, she sat on the end of her couch with flushed cheeks and a pounding heart as she gently told me the story her chief told her. “Two girls, one blonde, and one with black hair.”
“Kinda like their parents, huh? One Lenaghan–”
“And one Bishop,” she finished. Sliding off the arm of the couch, Lib scooted closer until eventually, giving up on trying to sit close, she climbed into my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck. She laid her ear on my chest and stroked the side of my face. “There are two more Bishops, and word is that one of themlooksBishop. How does that make you feel?”
I shrugged and let my eyes stay on the TV. I didn’t want to talk about more Bishops, because no matter the decisions I made and the promises to walk away, it doesn’t come that easily to me. The kind of hatred I possessed… the kind I still possess… doesn’t wash away overnight because a dude tells me he’s good people. “Let’s hope they don’t turn out like their grandpa.”
I literally felt Libby’s eyeroll. I felt it in the air seconds before she flicked my neck so hard that the sting made me hiss. “I meant, how does it feel to be an uncle? Despite all the politics and feelings and all the weird shit going on, youarea Bishop. You are Kane’s brother whether you like it or not. Which makes those little girls your nieces. Put aside your anger for a minute, put aside the prejudice against their surname, and instead… tell me how it feels in your heart.”
It feels good.
In my head, those were the words that flashed by every time she asked.
“I hate that I’m related to them through Bishop rather than my mom. Because a small part of me wonders if either of those girls will look like my mom.” I swallowed, and held Lib tighter when she went to sit up. “I know that’s not how that works, but it doesn’t stop me from hoping for something impossible.”
“Ya know…” Despite my wishes that she wouldn’t sit up, Lib did, then she turned in my lap so her legs straddled mine and her hands held the sides of my face. Dirty green eyes flickered between mine and made my pulse throb. “It doesn’t work that way for them. You already said it, they’re not related to your mom. But…” She hesitated. “Butyouare. Jacintha Ellis’ blood pulses in your veins too. You always focus so much on the bad, but you forget the good. Ellis blood makes your heart beat. So whenyouhave a baby, that baby will be a direct relation to your sweet mom. That’s exciting, right? You could make a baby that looks just like her.”
I took Libby’s face and pulled her in closer until our lips feathered together. “That sounds nice and all… But I’d rather make one that looks just like you.”
Now it’s Monday, Lib has requested time off, and despite the fact she did it with no notice at all, her chief allowed it. I might have a problem with the police in general, but Libby swears he’s one of the good kind. She swears he’s family, and if she’s my family…
No. One cop in my family is enough.
“Good lord, Theo.” Despite Libby’s gaping mouth and wide eyes as she moves around my office, she remains in character. Here, my name is Theo, and there will be no exceptions. She understands this, so she does as she’s told and uses the name that surely tastes like lemon on her tongue.
She was speechless as we boarded my plane.
She was wide-eyed as my beautiful stewardess served us drinks.
But then she was terrified when the engines began and we started rolling forward.
Turns out, Lib is scared of flying, and as I held her hand and brought her body closer to mine in comfort, she forgot about the leggy stewardess she was ready to tear strips off of.
Lib is scared of flying…andshe’s jealous when women fuck me with their eyes.
Olly picked us up at the airport and drove us straight here, and despite Lib’s general animosity toward the fact I called a driver rather than drive my own damn self somewhere, she’s been cool about this new world she’s found herself in.
That was until we walked into my office and stood at the massive windows.
Turns out Lib isn’t necessarily afraid of flying, but of heights.
“I don’t think this is gonna work.” She turns away from her long study of the forty or so levels of nothingness outside my windows. “There are way too many flights to run down in an emergency. Where the hell is your brain? Why do rich folks insist on the top floor, when it’s the most dangerous? It seems so… dumb.”
With a smirk and immense pleasure in seeing her walk my office in skintight jeans, a navy-blue tank, and a light coat with a hood and sleeves with camo print, I sit at my desk and watch her move. It’s such a simple thing – walking. It’s absolutely not something that should be seductive, but the way Libby does it… there’s no mistaking she’s a cop. There’s not a soul on this planet I could deny it to. She exudes the law, so much so that I question; does the blood in her veins run red, like Tate’s, or blue, because she’s more cop than she is human?
It seems to make up her very DNA, and despite my dislike for her kind, this particular cop gets my attention every time. “I guess we like to sit at the top of our kingdom, Lib. We climbed it, we risked life and limb to get here.”
“And now you risk life and limb if some dumb shit on the third floor cooks grilled cheese for lunch and forgets to turn the grill off. Are you willing to trust your life to Gerald in accounting on the third floor?”