Chapter Text
Lizzie Keen was sitting at her desk, pretending to type out a report, but in reality staring blindly at her screen, outwardly calm and collected, inwardly seething and deeply, deeply unhappy.
Men. Whoever had decided they were to be the most important people in her life? Lying, cheating men! Every man she was close to had lied to her. Tom was a lie; according to Reddington, he hadn’t ever existed, he was a creation built specifically to lure her in. The man she’d trusted completely for the last two years…a stranger.
And then there was Reddington himself. He fed her half-truths and mysteries, but never told her anything. “I can’t convince you that your husband isn’t who he says he is; you have to find out on your own.” Yes, he’d been right, and no, she hadn’t wanted to listen, but really, hadn’t he been able to do it ANY other way?
Who was Tom? Reddington obviously knew, but now she was ready to listen to him, he clamped shut his lying, secretive mouth and only told her to bear with it and act naturally.
Act naturally?
She had to kiss him, that bastard who’d invaded her life. She had to cuddle with him, and lick pasta sauce from his chin because he always got it on his face, and she’d always licked it off, and he might get suspicious if she used a paper towel instead of her tongue. She had to have sex with him, and fake orgasms, and every time he touched her it felt like rape and she hated being intimate with him.
She wondered if Reddington was getting off on this. Had he installed cameras of his own? Did he sit in one of his acquired empty houses at night, watching videos of her playing house with that actor and smiling his little smug smile as she floundered helplessly in the theatre that had become her life? Because now he’d made her paranoid, she wasn’t quite ready to stop at Tom, or whatever his name was. Everyone said—every man said—they had her best interests in mind, but all they ever did was lie.
Tom had lied to her, and that hurt the most. But Reddington had lied as well, and manipulated her, and she no longer trusted his kindness. Even her boss was a liar, who’d denied beating a confession out of a man—if he hadn’t done that, she would perhaps have been able to save him his stay in that improvised electric chair—but no one ever seemed inclined to tell her the truth.
Was she that gullible? Was that it, she was stupid?
Had even her father ever been truthful to her? Never before had she missed her mother so badly—before now, her adoptive dad had been more than enough, but now, she missed a woman, a mother, someone who truly and unconditionally loved her and was there to call and ask for advice.
In despair, she had taken out her phone, looked at her, replaced it and bought a disposable cell, and thought about calling a girl friend—not to divulge everything to in a rush of hot tears, but to be able to talk to someone who wasn’t a goddamned two-tongued snake.
And she’d found she didn’t have a single friend she trusted completely. None of the women she’d befriended after meeting Tom could be trusted. Did she have any friends from before Tom? She must have, but none of them came to mind. Tom’s friends always seemed so much more interesting than her own vague acquaintances.
Of course, there was Alice Dillon, a girl she’d kept in touch with since high school, definitely before Tom, but even as she eagerly searched for Alice’s number, she knew she would never call her. She hadn’t seen Alice in four years. Alice hadn’t even come to the wedding because she was due any of those days…and Lizzie hadn’t attended the baby shower, or ever visited her when her daughter was born.
The cold fact was that she had no friends. No one she was really close to. Tom had been everything. And he turned out to be nothing, leaving her painfully alone to face this all.
She started as her phone buzzed, checked the time on her screen before looking at the caller’s name. 8.12 pm. It was Tom. Of course. Speak of the devil. She moulded her mouth into a smile to keep the deadness out of her voice.
“Hi, sweetie.” She winced. Was she overdoing it? She rarely called him ‘sweetie’ on the phone.
“Hey Liz.” He sounded so…so ordinary. So natural. You’d never think he was lying to her. About everything. “Hey, are you home yet?”
You know I’m not. She grabbed the phrase and transformed it. “You know I’m not,” she sighed, “I’ve got tons of paperwork to finish. I’m so sorry, I…”
“No, no, it’s ok. I’ve got kind of delayed myself…”
“At that congress?” She wondered if he really was in Phoenix. Sometimes, he actually went to places he said he would go to—to keep the illusion complete, she guessed. He really did teach kids, and he did know a lot about pedagogic teaching…Next to being some kind of agent, he was an excellent teacher. She felt tears of anger and frustration sting in her throat. Damn you. Damn you, I loved you! I loved that gentle teacher!
“Yeah. So, have you eaten yet? We’re taking one of the speakers out for dinner, but I’m afraid it’ll be too late to drive all the way back once we’re finished, so…”
“You won’t be home when I get back? And here I was going to demand you massage my shoulders…”
He chuckled. “I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, ok?”
She forced a breezy laugh as well. “You’d better!”
“I’m sorry, Lizzie. But if you’d rather have me come home, I can…”
“Nah,” she smiled. “Take your professor out for dinner. Have fun. I’ll be dreadfully late, too, so we wouldn’t see one another anyway. See you tomorrow.” She grimaced. “Be careful on the way back.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you too.” She hung up, her chin quivering, then slammed the phone on her desk. Even the relief of not having to deal with him, not having to pretend for one evening, wasn’t enough to make her feel better.
Ressler, sitting a desk further away from her, looked up from his report, which he had been staring at for twenty minutes without ever turning the page and raised a blonde eyebrow.
“Trouble in paradise?” he asked, and she wanted to throw the cell at his head and maim him with it.
None of your business, was what she wanted to snarl, but “I hate all men,” was what came out.
Ressler was taken aback. “Whoa,” he said. He regarded her for a few seconds, then resolutely put down his file and got to his feet. “Want to go out for a drink? You look like you need one.”
A drink? With you? With another lying, traitorous man? Fuck you! Her paranoia flared, and she leaned back in her chair, away from him. “You’re asking me out for drinks? Why?”
He shrugged. “Because it’s weekend as of two hours ago. And because you look like you could do with getting well and truly hammered. And because I feel like doing precisely that, and I’d prefer not doing it alone. But if you don’t want to, suit yourself. I’m going.”
He sized her up, not so much expectantly, but to give her a chance to either change her mind or stick with her decision, and she met his impassive stare with burning eyes.
She did not want to go home. Even with Tom gone, it was a hole of betrayal, a doll house where she felt like a puppet on strings.
Had Ressler ever lied to her? She didn’t think so. If anything, he was always brutally honest with her, if he ever spoke to her at all. Ressler, who hadn’t cracked a smile since Audrey had died a month ago, and who now regarded her with a face so expressionless it might hide anything below the surface. Howling rage. Desperate grief. Sheep jumping fences. Ressler never pretended anything; he didn’t have to, because his face was a mask and he never made any pretence it wasn’t. It was such a difference compared to Tom and Reddington’s deceptively open, friendly, all-concealing features she decided that yes, she needed that drink and a friendly mask more than an evening without acting. Unlike everybody else, Ressler had never showed an interest in her. Even better: he’d rather be rid of her than have her here for any kind of purpose.
“Fine,” she said. “Let me get my coat.”
*
“Where are we going?”
She was sitting in Ressler’s car and it made her feel claustrophobic and vulnerable. His car smelled as impersonal as he was: the last remnants of ‘new car’, a very faint scent of aftershave, an almost undetectable whiff of cigarette smoke, and just a hint of some feminine perfume. Audrey’s, she supposed. No air freshener, no receipts on the dashboard or empty coffee cups in the back, nothing at all. It could be anyone’s car.
Ressler kept his eyes on the road. Traffic was thinning out, but he drove carefully—or maybe he just didn’t want to look at her while they spoke.
“There’s a bar around the corner from where I live. I’ll crawl home, later. You can take a cab.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That’s it?”
His jaw muscles worked. “What more should it be, Keen? I’m going out to get rip-roaring drunk and if you’re feeling as low as you look, you’ll follow my lead. Nothing more, nothing less.” His eyes briefly flicked to her face. “I’m not planning to take advantage of you. If that’s what you’re afraid of. Or expect.”
Lizzie snorted. She’d expect advances from Ressler when hell froze over.
“Christ, Keen, relax. You’ll damage my upholstery.”
Lizzie eased her grip on her chair. Getting drunk with Ressler. That was a truly terrible idea. It sounded exactly like what she needed right now.
*
The pub Ressler had mentioned was filled with dark wooden furniture, dimly lit, and had a very long mahogany bar that formed a widely spread hollowed-out half rectangle against the back wall, more or less trapping the bartenders against the shelves and shelves of liquor against that wall. A number of small tables stood in booths against the sides of the room, but were as of yet unoccupied. Soft music, something alternatively poppy, played unobtrusively in the background.
The vast expanse of counter already provided several customers with a place to drink, and Ressler preceded Lizzie to the corner place against one of the two shorter sides of the square. He pulled back two barstools with his foot, plunked down on the one closest to the wall and raised his hand to call over one of the women behind the counter.
“What’ll it be?” she asked. Her voice was raw, almost masculine, the result of smoking two packets of cigarettes a day for at least thirty years, and perhaps a healthy intake of the spirits she distributed. She was pretty in a motherly way: somewhat stout, well-rounded with an impressive cleavage, beautiful eyes and a wrinkled mouth.
Ressler handed her a hundred dollar bill. “Vodka and tequila shots. Keep ‘em coming. Keen?”
“I’ll have double bourbon on ice, please.” She watched as the waitress lined up four shooter glasses and alternatively filled them from a bottle of vodka and a bottle of tequila. A saucer with salt and lemon slices completed the line-up. “You’re quite serious about this, aren’t you?” she asked, amused despite herself.
Ressler nodded. “I don’t drink often enough to be anything but serious about it when I do.” He waited until she had her bourbon, lifted the first shot in a mocking sort of toast and belted it down. He shivered. “Urrgggh.” Immediately he picked up the second glass and emptied that as well. Then he licked his hand where index finger and thumb met, pressed it into the salt, licked it and downed the third glass, ending with a bit of lemon. He shivered again, screwing up his face, and finished off with the last glass, which he then placed upside down on the bar.
It had taken him about forty seconds in total, and Lizzie watched with somewhat disconcerted interest as colour rose in his face like a flood, his eyes became glassy and his lips turned red.
He raised his hand again. The waitress wordlessly upended all the glasses and refilled them. Ressler stared at them with a dogged expression on his flushed face.
“Are you here to get drunk or alcohol poisoning?” Lizzie asked. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but probably not this single-minded inebriation. Still, he was doing exactly what he’d said he would do, and she was here to join him. She took a big gulp of her own drink, wincing at the impact of it. Perhaps I should have eaten something before doing this. Already her head was swimming.
“Drunk. I’m a big man, Keen; it takes a while before I’m affected.”
“You could start out with beer.” She took another sip, and then quickly another.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “It takes ages before I feel beer. And it makes me sick much sooner.” He picked up the first shot. “I fully expect to reacquaint myself with my toilet, but I’d much rather save it until tomorrow.” He tossed back the liquor with the now-familiar little shiver.
“Do you like vodka?”
He’d started sprinkling salt on his hand again. “No. Don’t like tequila either, but it’s cheap and it works fast, and the hangover’s not so bad afterwards.”
She chuckled. “I never would have guessed you’d be so efficient in getting drunk.”
Again the arching eyebrow. “I’ll have you know I’m always highly efficient, both in my job and in my pursuit of intoxication.”
“Your pursuit of intoxication, huh?” She laughed again. The knot of unhappiness in her stomach was still there, but seemed a little less solid. One more quaff and the glass was empty, and she placed it on the counter with a clearly audible clink. By the time the woman, with an inquiring look, had refilled it at her nod, Ressler was almost through his second line of shots.
He was starting to droop a little, but his hand was still steady as he raised it to point at his upturned glasses.
“You sure, honey?” the woman asked. She was still recapping the bottle of bourbon.
“Have I ever caused trouble?” was his reply.
She shrugged and splashed more alcohol in the glasses. “I could give you the bottles?”
“I’d lose count. It’s not so busy; I’d prefer it if you tipped me up. And I’d like some more lemon.”
She went to the other end of the bar and returned with a fresh dish heaped with lemon wedges a few seconds later. “Here you go.”
“Do you come here often?” Lizzie asked. It was nice to talk about someone else for a change. It was also nice that Ressler actually participated in the conversation. He usually wasn’t all that talkative.
“Not very often. Just been here a couple of times the last few weeks.” He dipped a digit into his first shooter, sucked the liquid from his finger to identify it, licked his hand and added salt, licked it off and tossed back the tequila. “Oh god,” he grimaced, and hastily crammed a couple of lemon slices into his mouth. Sweat popped out on his forehead.
“Uh, are you ok?” She took a big swallow of bourbon to steel herself against Ressler possibly hurling all over the counter, or dropping from his seat in an alcoholic stupor. He did neither of the two, though, just sat there with his hand pressed against his mouth, going from red to unhealthily pale and back to flushed again.
“Huhff.” He chewed, swallowed, and she realized he had eaten the lemon, skin and all.
She took a celebratory swig. “You’re not very good at getting drunk, are you?”
“I’ve become better.” He leaned his elbow on the bar and his head on his hand, and studied her with slightly reddish eyes. “So. You hate all men. That’s a new one.”
“It’s a recent development,” she confessed, and swirled the bourbon around in her glass before taking a drink. “Like your drinking, obviously.”
“I have a pretty good reason to have started drinking.”
“I have a pretty good reason to have started hating men,” she shot back, and he snorted. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
Ressler shrugged. “So don’t.” His hand wavered over his second shooter glass, but in the end he thought better of it and used it to rub the bridge of his nose instead. “I didn’t ask you along to be your shoulder. To cry on, I mean. If you need a shoulder, ask Reddington.”
“Reddington’s shoulder might have spikes,” Lizzie said morosely. She reached out, picked up the abandoned vodka and swallowed it in one go. It went down like tasteless fire, and she hastily drank some bourbon to soothe her tongue.
“Hey.”
“You didn’t want it.”
“I was gathering courage to pound it down.”
Lizzie’s hand moved towards the remaining two glasses. “If it takes you that long, it must be spread pretty thin.”
Ressler glared at her, but made no move to stop her as she went for his last remaining tequila. Instead, he waved at their waitress and pointed at Lizzie’s bourbon. “I’d like one of those, please. No ice.”
He got it, together with a bowl of peanuts and a carafe of water. Ressler took a handful of peanuts and firmly pushed the carafe to the side. He swallowed the bourbon in two gulps.
“You’re not supposed to shoot bourbon, you know,” Lizzie said, as he sat there looking flummoxed—at least, she thought he looked flummoxed; things were beginning to blur a bit around the edges after the tequila. Which was truly vile. She gratefully sucked on a piece of lemon.
“No shit.” He pulled the remaining shot towards him with one finger. “So Reddington has unexpectedly grown spikes? I thought you trusted him.”
“I’m not the one who was saved by him. Twice. Nor did I turn to him to hunt down one of my own ex-colleagues for me.” I’m different. I only ask him to keep track of my traitorous, murderous husband—the fact of him being that, having been pointed out to me by him.
“I was only saved by him,” Ressler argued hotly, “because I almost died because of him. Hell, do you know how often I’ve been shot, or even wounded, in all the years before that man nestled himself in the Post office like a hungry tick on a fat dog? Once. I was grazed, once. Didn’t even need stitches. And now I’ve been shot and almost died of it twice in the past four months. And Audrey died of the kind of injury I’d just survived…” His voice grew suddenly husky. “She died because that fucker Jonica, who, by the way, used to be my friend, betrayed me and his entire team because he wanted to play at being a criminal. You catch a criminal with a criminal. Like…pigs, with truffles. Or no, that’s not a good comparison. Ferrets with dachshunds.” Lizzie blinked at that as well. “I only wish I could mount that head on the wall instead of keeping it in the free-...” He trailed off, and Lizzie shook herself.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.” He finished the last vodka shot and motioned for the bartender to refill them.
“That’s the third line, darling,” her smoky voice warned, after doing so. “Makes twelve in total.”
“She drank two of them,” He thumbed at Lizzie. “I’m good.”
“Nevertheless, you’re not getting anything else before you drain that pitcher of water first.”
Ressler smiled mirthlessly at the four brimming glasses. “I’ll make ‘em last, then.”
“They’re shooters; they’re not supposed to last. But suit yourself.” She added more peanuts to their bowl; unnoticed, they had devoured more than half of it, then shot Lizzie a questioning glance.
“I’m ok,” she said, indicating her half-empty glass. Although decidedly tipsy, she wasn’t quite as relentless as Ressler in her dipsomania—which was, frankly, somewhat unsettling. She knew the man as the picture of sobriety and he was now ruthlessly destroying that picture. She’d had no idea he was that miserable. He always seemed to be…coping. Never in high spirits, never low, simply…coping.
God, aren’t we the prime of the FBI? Look at us sitting here, folks; him trying for an alcoholically induced coma and me literally drowning my sorrows in bourbon. And there he goes again, he just keeps pouring it in, one of these times he’s simply going to fall over backwards from his seat and hit the ground like a ton of bricks.
Ressler, however, no matter how far gone, remained steadily seated and faced her again, supporting his head on his hand.
“So what’s it he’s done to you, then?” he slurred, and for a moment Lizzie thought he meant Tom. Then she realized he was talking about Reddington, and she shrugged.
“What hasn’t he done? He’s infiltrated my life, he’s lied to me. Worse, he told me the truth, but never the whole truth.” She finished her glass in a large swallow, coughed and blinked back tears. “He ruined my life, that’s what he’s done,” she added bitterly.
“That’s harsh,” Ressler said, and she glanced up sharply at the non-committal tone of his voice, but his face was sympathetic. The man couldn’t help it he had such an expressionless voice.
“Not as harsh as losing your girlfriend,” she offered, and to her intense mortification, a flood of tears coursed down his cheeks. They came out of nowhere, and he didn’t even seem to notice, but they were there, just like that, and in combination with his blank face they scared her rather badly.
He shrugged his shoulders, picked up his first glass and emptied it. His involuntary shiver almost resembled a full body quake now, and the liquor brought more tears to his eyes. He kept ignored them. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “That’s pretty harsh as well.” His tears pattered on the bar and he blinked at them, uncomprehending.
And his face still hadn’t changed—he was producing the volume of tears Lizzie had only seen children, small children, cry, but unlike a child whose faced scrunched up and twisted, Ressler’s face hadn’t lost its perpetual look of neutral determination. It was eerie. He sniffed, and she hunted for a tissue before he’d started dripping snot on the counter as well.
“Here. You’re…uh…”
“What? Oh.” He accepted the tissue and blew his nose. “Sorry. I don’t think this has happened before.” He dabbed at his eyes, then looked at her, and now his mouth trembled before he started speaking in that same flat, staccato voice he had, but in fragments, so he sounded like a soft-spoken, faulty machine gun, “It’s just…after she died. After Audrey died…When I got home, I started cleaning up. Her stuff…it was all over the place, like she’d come back any minute, and I…couldn’t handle that, so I started gathering her belongings, and I found this…this little bag she had, you know, with…woman stuff. And it had a pregnancy test in it.”
Oh Christ, Lizzie though, anticipating and dreading where this was going.
“It was positive,” Ressler whispered. He stared at his shooter glasses, then picked one up and chugged it almost aggressively. “So how am I supposed to deal with that, huh?” he asked tonelessly. “I don’t even…what am I supposed to do with that? I can’t deal with that!” His voice rose, and another flood of tears streaked down his cheeks. He wiped them away angrily.
“Ressler…”
“And when it gets really bad,” he interrupted her, “when I’ve got time to think, I picture that bullet, and where it hit her, and…I don’t know how long she’d been pregnant—a week? A month? Two? And I think of that bullet, and I can’t help wondering, did it tear apart my child as well as my…as Audrey?”
“Jesus Christ, Ressler…” She hadn’t known pity could actually hurt. The lump of unhappiness in her stomach suddenly seemed to have tripled in size and grown glass shards; she felt almost sick with the mental agony he was projecting.
“Now do you see?” he asked savagely. “Do you see why I can’t take time off to dwell on this? I can’t stay home and think of this! I’ll go insane! I need to keep busy, keep working, keep occupied. That’s why I was back at the Post office before the soil over her grave had even settled, and that’s why I’m here when there’s nothing left to do, because I can’t…I can’t…”
“I understand.” She did. Fifteen negative pregnancy tests and three failed fertility treatments and hours spent in tears of loss and self-incrimination and thwarted desire really did make her understand. Her heart literally ached for him, and she was surprised by the intensity of that feeling.
Ressler tossed back his third shot. “You can’t tell Cooper,” he said, suddenly anxious. “He’ll make me take time off and I can’t…it will kill me.”
“I won’t. But…haven’t you ever considered counselling, or…”
“I can’t talk,” he spat. “I can’t talk about this unless I’m…” He snorted, gestured at himself and the empty glasses on the bar. “Unless I’m completely pissed.” He seemed to realise something. “As a matter of fact, you’re the first I’ve ever talked to about this.” And then he snorted again, and smiled, lopsided and raw. “Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to burden you with my…”
“It’s ok.” She waved at the waitress and received a fresh glass. “Really. I’m glad I…But why didn’t you come over when I asked you for dinner?” When my life was still weird instead of impossible. “You’d have been more than welcome, and it might’ve taken your mind off of things, at least for the evening.”
He shook his head. “I’m no good company these days.”
“Don, you’re rarely good company.” It had flapped out before she could check it, and she hid her face in her glass to hide her blush, hoping he’d ignore her.
Of course he did not.
“Oh. Really? Is that your professional opinion of me?” He sounded more amused than angry, though, and when she met his eyes, his expression was less stern than she’d expected. Then again, that might be the fact that it was hard to look stern with those wet eyes and gleaming red nose and mouth.
“Well, no. But you’re always so…”
“So…what?”
“So serious.”
“Serious? Me?” He seemed honestly surprised.
“Well…yeah! You never smile…”
“I do!”
“No,” she maintained. “You rarely smile, and you haven’t smiled at all since…”
Ressler looked pained, but to her immense relief he didn’t start crying again. “Well,” he said softly, “there wasn’t much to smile about, was there? You’re no poster child for carefree happiness yourself, either, at the moment, for that matter.”
She nodded, took a drink. “We’re both pretty fucked up, I guess.”
“See?” Ressler said. “Who needs counselling? We’re perfectly able to diagnose ourselves.”
*
Somehow, from that point, they managed to shuffle back from the abyss of personal misery and find lighter topics, like placed they’d been to, people they’d known, movies they’d seen and alcohol. Ressler bought the option for more liquor by finishing most of the carafe of water, but opted for whiskey instead of shots afterwards. By now, he was, as he had set out to be, ‘well and truly hammered’, and the combination of too much alcohol and his personal confession had completely drained him. He was draped over the bar like a stole, and Lizzie had adopted a similar pose for camaraderie’s sake.
And because it was rather comfortable.
She herself was, she had to admit, really quite drunk as well. She was rather enjoying the sensation. Sitting at the bar, wilfully getting drunk to forget one’s sorrows had a certain romantic notion, and she appreciated the picture the two of them made. It was fitting, and it made her love Ressler in a way that had nothing to do with being in love.
Time sped up the way it only did when you were either having a great time or when you were drinking, and she was amazed to check her watch and see it was almost one. Her internal clock maintained it had only been half an hour since they’d sat down at the bar, but no, they’d been here for over three hours.
“What time’s it?” Ressler rumbled from where he’d lain his head on his arm.
“Twelve-fifty.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. Hang on, I gotta pee.”
“Not going anywhere.”
Lizzie made her way to the bathroom, did her business and studied herself in the mirror. White face, check. Large, limpid eyes, check. She always thought she became more beautiful when she’d had a lot to drink.
You’re an idiot, Tom. If only you weren’t a fraud, you could’ve had this for real. She snorted, and went back into the bar, where she found Ressler with his eyes closed. The bartender had taken away their glasses and even the bowl of peanuts, and as Lizzie made her way back, she caught her eyes and gave a small, conspiratorial nod.
Lizzie reached out and shook Ressler’s shoulder. “Perhaps we should go home.”
He cracked one eye open. “We?”
“I’ll deliver you and go home myself.”
“I’m not a pizza.”
“I’ll walk you home, then.”
“I’m not a virgin girl either.”
She laughed and repressed the urge to ruffle that insanely neat and ordered hair of his. “No. But I'm knackered, and you’re falling asleep on the bar, and if I don’t walk you home I think you’ll probably won’t reach your house.”
Ressler blinked. “There’s some messed up grammar in that sentence of yours, Agent Keen.”
His eye closed again, and she shoved him a little harder.
“Hey. Stop that. Come on, get up.”
He moaned, but pushed himself up until he sat straight up, and slid down from his stool, grabbing his coat. “Christ.” He rubbed his face.
“Yeah.” Lizzie put on her jacket as well and stood swaying. I’m so going to regret this tomorrow. How am I going to hide this mother of all hangovers I’ll have from Tom, tomorrow? Tomorrow would bring what tomorrow would bring, she decided, and grabbed Ressler’s arm. “Let’s go.”
*
Slowly, waveringly, they made their way to Ressler’s apartment one block away. It took them a while, and the cool night air sobered the both of them up—a little. Lizzie checked her phone. One message, from Tom or course. He was staying over in Phoenix and would see her Saturday, early afternoon.
It occurred to her they were no longer walking and she pulled Ressler’s arm. “Have you fallen asleep? Come on.”
He smiled. Good god, it was a true and honest smile! Alright, it was sad and drunk and lopsided, but it was a real smile and it made his face look…not like a mask. “We’re here, Keen. This is where I live.” He paused, not moving. Lizzie did not let go of his arm either. The streets were empty and cold and she didn’t want to hail a cab, because the moment she let go she would be on her own again, and the prospect of going to her own house made her feel like crying.
And so, when he said, hesitant and a little self-conscious, “Want…to come up? For coffee?” she only hesitated for a few seconds before nodding.