Work Text:
“D’you think you got him?” Rafael asked.
When no answer came, he craned his head back, trying to catch Rollins’ gaze, but even that tiny movement sent a jolt of pain down his side like some twisted muscle that ran from his neck straight to the wound on his lower back, causing him to flinch and gasp.
“Stop moving!” Rollins snapped, putting her free hand, the one that wasn’t pressing down on his gunshot wound, on the back of his head as if to keep him down. It was warm and felt surprisingly good, a small part of Rafael almost wished she’d start petting him; most likely the part that was slowly succumbing to blood loss and hypothermia. He resisted the urge to nudge her hand.
“Then answer me.” His voice was half-muffled into Rollins’ coat she’d put on the ground for him to lie on, his right cheek resting on the inside of the hood with the rest of the coat awkwardly wrapped around him in a way that still gave Rollins access to his injury.
Rafael lay somewhat on his side, not quite in the recovery position, with his own coat covering his legs, freezing. Rollins must be freezing, too, without her coat, though her hand in his hair felt warm. Maybe his head was just cold. All of him, really, but the volcano of agony that was the spot just above his hip bone and to the center of his back – probably uncomfortably close to his spine if he’d stop to think about it – which felt like a glowing splinter of wood was stuck inside, trying to catch fire. His blood felt creepily clammy on his skin where it’d cooled down. A volcano indeed, the lava instantly freezing after pouring out.
“I don’t know,” Rollins said.
“What?” Didn’t she like his volcano metaphor?
“I don’t know if I got him.”
Oh. Right. The shooter who got away. Whom she’d fired at. “If he was injured, we’d… hear him, right?”
“Hm,” Rollins said, sounding either unconvinced or… remorseful?
“He’s not… Do you really not see him, or is he actually dead?” Rafael tried to lift his head to peek over the edge of the hood, but couldn’t quite manage it. As if prompted, Rollins at last started to slowly pet his hair.
“No, I don’t see him. I think I got him. He won’t be back, at any rate, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried.”
“Then why d’you ask?”
“I don’t want him to bleed out ten feet away from us behind a tree, while you’re-”
“-keeping you from bleeding out?”
Rafael huffed a laugh into the hood, squeezing his eyes shut when the pain spiked. At least Rollins couldn’t see his face, he was fairly sure of that. “You’re exaggerating. It’s just a flesh wound.”
“If you say so. You’re the doctor.”
“I’m sticking my tongue out at you.”
“Noted.”
A brief flash of light in the periphery of Rafael’s vision told him Rollins was checking her phone again. “I’m sure they’re on their way,” he said.
“Yeah.” But she sounded concerned; there was probably still no bar on the screen. She’d only managed to send out a call for help after five tries and it’d been cut short after two minutes.
New Jersey for you.
Shit always happened in New Jersey, or rather everything that happened in New Jersey was shit. Years ago, just before he and Sonny had started dating, Rafael had been taken by two employees of a disgruntled mobster out into the New Jersey boonies – it’d been freezing cold, like tonight – to then be ordered to dig his own grave, in his jammies, no shoes… The place did something to people. If New York was the place where if you made it there you’d make it anywhere, New Jersey was where they made a werewolf out of you or something. The city that never sleeps vs. the state that never woke from a nightmare.
No cell phone connection ten minutes outside of any city, just trees and cold and nothing, and people always but always hurt Rafael when he set foot in New Jersey. They could smell civilization on him.
Case in point, he’d just been on the way back from an interview at a correctional facility with Rollins – not even IN New fucking Jersey – when they’d spotted a man next to a broken down car, stopped to help, and now Rafael had a bullet hole in his back and Rollins had to give up her coat and maybe kill the guy.
Not to mention her car stood abandoned in the middle of the road, doors open, tires shot – if it was even still there. Maybe she should go check for it – the radio wouldn’t be working, of course, the New Jerseyan (Based on his overall behavior, Rafael assumed the man was a native.) had shot inside the car enough times to damage everything on the inside sufficiently – just to see if squirrels had made a home inside.
It had been almost too warm in the car, on the way, Rafael had complained, mostly because that was how he communicated with Rollins, but now he wouldn’t mind being too hot, not from the pain, not too hot like his back was too hot, but-
“Hey!” Suddenly, Rollins was right in his face, staring into his eyes upside down, leaning over him, her hand grasping his chin. “Rafael!”
“Woah, wh… fuck, don’t…”
“You with me?”
“Yes! Wh-”
“Stay that way. Okay? Don’t go to sleep.”
He was about to tell her that he hadn’t been about to, who could sleep in a situation like this, when the fear in her eyes registered. He gave a faint nod, she nodded back, stroked his cheek and sat up again, carefully gathering him closer.
“I’ve never been shot before,” he said.
“I figured,” Rollins said. “It’d be quite the anecdote if you had.”
“Hm. I did grow up in the Bronx.”
“Yeah, but-”
“In the ‘70s.”
“Yeah, but you always struck me as a couch potato.”
True, but- “Harsh,” Rafael said.
“No?” she asked.
“I was going to say,” Rafael said, “I’ve never been shot before, so… am I going to die if I go to sleep?”
“No.”
Pause.
Rafael waited. Winced, when a sudden twitch jerked his leg against his will, his wound jumping at the chance to hurt more. It was like a stranger had taken over his body, reacting to every tiny move, like the injury had a mischievous, sadistic personality. A bitch.
“No, but…?” he prompted when Rollins stayed quiet for too long.
“No but.”
“It sounded like a ‘no, but’.”
“Just stay awake,” she said, petting his hair again. “Help will be here soon.”
He sighed, too afraid of the pain for a real chuckle, but amused nonetheless. “You’re as good at this as Sonny.”
“I resent that,” Rollins said, a smile audible in her voice. “I’m great with… people who’ve been shot. I’m having a very calming influence on you.”
“I hope Sonny isn’t too worried.” He shouldn’t have brought up Sonny. He closed his eyes, tried to will the pain to stop making him feel worse, heighten his emotions, make him even more worried about Sonny. “He hates it when I… get hurt,” he finished after a pause, confused about how his brain had intended that sentence to end when it’d made him say it out loud.
“I’m not a fan of it, either.” Rollins’ voice turned soft, still with a smile, but that teasing, slightly shit-eating Rollins-smile of hers. He could see it in front of him without looking at her.
“Panda,” he said, nudging her hand with his head after all. “I didn’t know you cared.”
“About you bleeding on my coat while I’m freezing my ass off? And you’re the one with the university degree here.”
“You offered your coat,” Rafael said.
“I’m a cop, they’ll check to see if I made you as comfortable as possible.”
Rafael couldn’t stop the snort this time, nor the grunt of pain that followed.
“Hey, shh, stop that,” Rollins said, her voice so gentle Rafael didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d made him laugh. She checked her phone again; he caught a suppressed, desperate sigh, almost a hiss of frustration.
His back was killing him – literally, probably, if very slowly – but he was glad their roles weren’t reversed. The thought almost made him feel guilty.
“You say that,” he muttered, taking a breath, not deep, that hurt too much, but steadying, to keep the strain out of his voice, “yet you took me to New Jersey.”
“Through New Jersey,” she corrected.
“To New Jersey. Don’t try to argue with me, I’m married to a lawyer.”
Her chuckle was like a sudden ibuprofen, easing his pain minimally but instantly. “Yeah, fair, okay,” she said. “You got me there. I shoulda known better. Everything is shitty in New Jersey, it’s even in the song.”
“What song? Springsteen?”
“From the musical.”
“Springsteen has a musical?”
“Hamilton,” Rollins said. “Everything is shitty in New Jersey, I’m sure it’s in one of the songs.”
“Sonny wanted to see that,” Rafael said.
“And?”
“And when he gets to see it, I hope he’ll enjoy himself.”
This time, Amanda laughed for real; Rafael admired her wherewithal to bend away slightly so she wouldn’t rock him with it. A true professional.
It still hurt. The slightest, tiniest movement hurt, breathing hurt, and that worried him. Surely he didn’t have a bullet inside him, right? He was still talking, it hurt, but he could do it, and his vision was fine, okay, his eyes were closed at the moment, but he could see in theory, and he was probably capable of moving, of getting up and walking – like, if Rollins’ car had still been intact, Rafael would have been able to get into it, he’d just bleed out on the way.
That line of thought wasn’t helping.
Plus, there were squirrels in Rollins’ car now, they couldn’t use-
“- about not falling asleep? Rafael. Barba. Hey!”
Her hand was against his cheek again. Cold now. But he was cold overall. She must be, too. Strands of her hair brushed over his temple, she was trying to see his eyes again.
“I’m awake,” he muttered and smacked his lips against a sudden, weird dry taste. Like he’d slept ten hours.
“Tell me something, c’mon,”she said, pretending to tuck a lock of his hair behind his ear, so she could feel his pulse. Like he wouldn’t notice.
“What?”
“Anything, just keep talking.”
“What were we talking about before? The squirrels in your car?”
“You growing up.”
He frowned. “No, I don’t… Were we? I don’t like…” Had he been rambling? He couldn’t remember, and he didn’t like that feeling at all. But he was in pain, and there was the slight off chance that because he was in pain, he might have said-
“-you and I were together.”
What? “What?”
“He thought,” Rollins said, sounding all patient like she’d had to repeat herself repeatedly, “you and I were together. Did he never tell you that?”
“Who?”
“Sonny.” That tone again. He felt her lean over him once more; his eyes were closed, but he could sense her studying him. “Are you actually awake? Open your eyes.”
He did, but it wasn’t as easy as before. He didn’t like that, and he blamed her for making him aware. Still, he met her smile with a squinty one of his own. She looked really pale; had she been shot, too?
“Are you okay?”
She snorted. “I’m cold and you’re worrying me.”
Rafael frowned, trying to search her eyes in the fading light and with her face upside down. “But he didn’t get you, too, right?”
She blinked. “No.”
“You’d tell me.”
More blinking, and she pressed her lips together, clearly trying not to laugh.
“I’m just asking!”
“You watch too many movies,” she told him, lightly squeezing his shoulder and sat up again, moving out of his line of view. “If I was shot, too, I’d let you know, trust me. And we’d find a way to keep both of us safe together-”
“Okay,” he muttered.
“-like the smart people we are, because I would realize, in a situation like that, that my own chances as well as yours are much better when-”
“Okay.”
“-we work together. Just as if I were to receive, say, anonymous threats on my life-”
“Okay.”
“-not even for an extended period of time, just one-”
“Yes. Okay.”
“-and I was working with cops every day-”
“That was years ago, but thank you. I got it now. You’re not shot.”
“And I’d tell you,” she said, “cause I’m not a man.”
“I’ll never ask again.”
“Good. And keep your eyes open.” She resumed petting his hair. It was getting colder, or maybe it just felt that way because the sun was setting. At feeling Rafael shiver, Rollins tugged at her coat, a futile attempt at dragging it around him more than it already was. He gave a small grunt, and she stopped.
“So,” she asked, while feeling his pulse again, “you didn’t know Sonny thought you and I were dating? He never said? Figures.”
As a means to keep him awake, it was working. “When did he think that?”
“He called me yesterday,” she quipped. “When d’you think, Barba? When he was new, of course.”
“Why did he think that?”
“I asked him that, too. I mean,” she said, her voice lighter with a teasing smile, “you’re cute, but…”
“Yeah, same,” he said. “You’re adorable, but…”
“...like one of the aquarium fish in ‘Finding Nemo’,” she continued like she hadn’t heard him, “and I know some people go for that, but…”
“… there needs to be more of a 50:50 balance between attractiveness and intellect for me and…” Rafael talked over her words.
“… you’re also such an…” - “...on top of not meeting that, you’re just such a…”
They abruptly stopped talking at the same time, a comically heightened pause hanging between them, Rafael trying his hardest not to laugh and die from the pain.
“Were you going to say bitch?” she asked at last, through a snort.
“Never. Were you going to say dick?”
“Asshole,” she replied.
“That wounds me more than the bullet. I was going to say ‘highly respected colleague and I’d never dare messing up this finely tuned, mutually appreciative relationship,” he continued over her laughing, “we have.’”
“That’s what I said,” she said, “but in less words.”
“Apology accepted,” he said, and she laughed again. “I’ve also been told,” he continued, swallowing a moan of pain when his back let him know he was talking too much, “in the past, that I’m not being overtly discreet regarding my sexuality, so-”
“Hm-mm,” she chuckled.
“-why did Sonny think I was dating a woman? Because it’s 1962?”
“Oh, he thought you were straight.”
“Ah. Well, honest mis-”
“I later asked him if it was your shameless flirting that gave him that idea, but-”
“I never flirted with him,” Rafael cut her off. “I don’t flirt with him now. I don’t flirt, period.”
She ruffled his hair, honest to god RUFFLED him, and went on as if he hadn’t said anything, “but he said he thought you were like that with everybody.”
“Like what?” Rafael asked.
“It was kind of heartbreaking,” she kept on ignoring him, “he was so obviously pining after you, and I could never figure out why he wouldn’t just make a move, I mean, you were so ridiculously smitten-”
“I was no-”
“-but I didn’t know him that well, yet, so I didn’t feel I could just ask him, and then one day he’s like, ‘You and Barba ever thought of having kids?’ and I-”
Rafael guffawed and groaned, curling up when the pain hit. “Aw fuck, don’t-”
“Oh sorry,” she was talking over him, gently squeezing the back of his neck, “sorry, are you-”
“Don’t say stuff like that without warning me,” he grunted out. “Ow, shit! The fuck, did he… Did he really say that?”
“-sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean to… Yes,” she said, adjusting her hold on his wound, a brief flash of agony that he managed to react to with a swallowed wince, pressing his forehead into the hood of the coat. “Sorry. You okay?”
“Hmm,” he whimpered.
She petted his head, down to the nape of his neck, scratching lightly, like she probably did when dealing with a spooked Frannie. “It was during a stake-out. We were talking about the case, kid who’d run away from home, and, yeah, he asked me. It wasn’t to gather information, or make sure he’d gotten it right, he was so convinced we were an item he thought he was just making polite small talk.”
Rafael breathed through the lingering pain and forced out, “What I said about the 50:50 balance…”
Rollins snorted.
“What did he say when you told him?”
Into her silence, the sun set lower. She was stroking his hair. Rafael was really cold, he couldn’t feel his fingers, or so he thought, he couldn’t feel much but the stabbing fire in his back.
“Rollins.”
“Uhmmmmm…”
“You didn’t.”
She giggled.
“Right, what did you tell him? I can’t have kids? Oh wait, we already got some?”
“Nah, just kidding. I told him I could think of worse sperm donors, but I wasn’t really looking for one.” She paused. “And THEN I asked him if he was being serious, and… He was.” She made a little disbelieving tsk sound.
“He never told me about that,” Rafael said. He noticed his eyes had fallen shut again and tried to blink them open, but they wouldn’t obey. He hoped Rollins wouldn’t check.
“It was just at the beginning,” Rollins said, “when he was still very new. Maybe he forgot. I think you might’ve still been dating that asshole at the time, what was-”
“Anthony,” Rafael muttered. He shivered.
“Yeah.” She rubbed her hand down his upper arm. “Him. Anyway, it all turned out roses in the end, that’s the main thing. Are your eyes closed again?”
“No.”
“Rafael. Open…” She trailed off; he felt her shift against him. And then, he, too, heard them.
Sirens.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Rollins breathed.
“Seconded,” Rafael grunted, the relief making him hurt more, like the tension he let go of was a liquid running down his back straight into the wound. The sirens were still far away, audible, but not yet audibly coming closer.
“What did he say when you asked him why he thought it in the first place?”
Rollins seemed to have to think about it, then said, “In essence, that we were both gorgeous, so…” She trailed off in a radio-version of a shrug.
Rafael frowned, eyes still closed. “What?”
“I dunno, do I?” she said. “You married that.”
He snorted softly, straining his ears to listen to the sirens singing their song of approaching warmth and painkillers. “Still glad I did. Mi hermoso idiota.”
“The part I understood you got right,” Rollins said. The sirens were getting louder. “You can close your eyes now if you want.”
***
“… and then we have the neighbor,” Sonny says, looking up from his notes, “Robert McGee, who says he saw her leave at 2 am.”
“Busted flat in Baton Rouge,” Barba starts singing, low, almost under his breath, but terribly off-key, and at the same time Amanda sings, “Feelin’ good was good enough for me…” She isn’t much better than him, just louder. They both stop at the same time, look at each other, and Barba asks, “From where?”
“Chorus,” she replies.
Neither of them are smiling, it’s conversationally, like they are still discussing the case; they just fall into this nonsense like Sonny’s not even there in the office with them, on the couch next to Barba, across from Amanda on a chair.
“Don’t know the lyrics, huh?” Barba teases.
Amanda just starts singing, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”, while flipping him off, he falls in at ‘another’; they’re matched in their lack of talent, the melody is barely recognizable.
Sonny’s heart squeezes painfully in his chest, his throat is turning dry. He’s watching them, no doubt looking annoyed, like they are making him wait, which they don’t, Barba’s scribbling on his legal pad, adding Robert McGee into a potential timeline, and Sonny doesn’t want to come across like he doesn’t appreciate a moment of lightness during a case meeting, he doesn’t want to look annoyed, he isn’t annoyed.
He’s jealous.
It only hits him that he knows the fucking lyrics, too, when they’re already at, “me and Bobby McGee”, and Barba puts his pen down.
“And he’d testify to that,” he asks Sonny, all business again, “in court?”
“To him thumbing a diesel down?” Sonny asks, before he can stop himself.
Barba gives him a wry smile. “Don’t let him slip away.”
This is only the fifth or sixth time Sonny has met Barba, but that smile is already a problem. It’s not quite teasing, or Sonny can’t tell if it’s teasing or exasperated; sometimes he thinks Barba’s trying to banter with him, but it’s never quite like with Amanda, and it’s obvious Barba thinks the world of Benson, but sometimes he seems to think Sonny isn’t of this world…
It’s always hard being the new guy, Sonny knows that, he’s been the new guy a hundred times, he knows he’ll find his place eventually. He gets along well enough with everybody, he went out to lunch with Amanda quite a few times now, he’s pretty sure Fin likes him, and he likes Fin, it’s a good team, he’s glad to be given the chance to work with them.
Barba, though. Barba’s a problem, not just the smile. Technically, he isn’t part of the team, of course, but Sonny wants to work with him every day, all day, and then go home with him, and not for more work.
He’s heard of Barba before he’s met him, followed a few of the cases Barba became famous for in their circles; Barba’s a bit of a big deal, a showman but one who seems to want to fight the good fight, a lawyer who’s entertaining to watch but without the Richard-Gere-movie-character shadiness going with it. To any law student, Barba’s style would look attractive, but as a cop Sonny can also appreciate the extend to which Barba seems to try to understand where everybody is coming from, the victims, the police, the law – where they all might clash in their unifying pursuit of justice. Barba’s enjoying the game – quite obviously, dashingly so one might say – but he would never call it a game, he never loses sight of what it is they are doing, the people they are dealing with.
It makes Sonny think that Barba’s a genuinely good person, and while that’s nice, there should be more good people out in the world, it only makes Barba even more sexy to Sonny, and that’s not good, he doesn’t need that, neither of them do, Sonny doesn’t need Barba to be sexier, and Barba doesn’t need to fucking BE sexier, he’s already driving Sonny insane, and Sonny doesn’t know what to about it, and also – Sonny’s pretty sure that Barba’s involved with Amanda.
It isn’t just that they’re launching into song together over a witness, though that doesn’t help, that’s going to stay with Sonny now, but from the first time he’s met Barba, with the whole team present, at the precinct, it was obvious how relaxed Barba and Amanda are around each other. Like siblings, ribbing each other, but of course that can’t be what it is, because, well… look at them! Amanda’s one of the most beautiful women Sonny’s ever seen, and Barba’s…
Barba is…
Sonny isn’t a straight woman, but he’s also into men, and no way do these two not appreciate how fucking drop-dead gorgeous the other one is. The only reason Sonny hasn’t fantasized about the two of them together is because he thinks Amanda is hot but he’s hopelessly in love with Barba, and in his fantasies he doesn’t have to share him.
Not all of Sonny’s fantasies are sexual, but the ones that aren’t are probably more embarrassing: Sonny finding the winning clue in a case and Barba praising him for it, with that teasing smile, but Sonny knows he did good; Barba quoting a movie and Sonny recognizing it, so they can bond over it; Sonny flipping Barba off like Amanda does and Barba snorting at it, that cute little smirk he always gives Amanda directed at Sonny. Barba adjusting Sonny’s tie with an appreciative nod.
The last one is Sonny’s favorite and, yes, it usually does turn sexual fast.
Days after the Bobby McGee meeting, Sonny has to pick up warrants at Barba’s office – ‘has to’ because he volunteered – and there’s Amanda’s dog under Barba’s desk, asleep on his feet.
“Detective,” Barba greets him, “forgive me for not getting up, but…” He gestures for Frannie.
Frannie is snoring. Sonny has met Amanda’s dog a few times now, she’s big, friendly and full of energy. He didn’t think she sleeps, ever.
“What d’you do to her, sedate her?”
Barba looks so baffled Sonny wants to have never been born.
“I threw a ball 978 times,” Barba tells him, “in the park. That usually does the trick. It does make me wonder if she’s just humoring me, you know? Running back and forth, secretly thinking she’s taking care of the human who forgets he needs that ball every five seconds. Like a goldfish.”
Sonny laughs. Barba’s funny, too, of course. He would be. Smart, funny, kind, good, sexy, untouchable, the usual. Sonny knows he shouldn’t think of every other person in relation to him, and he doesn’t, but Barba’s obviously been put on this Earth as a punishment for Sonny. For what, Sonny doesn’t know; the universe works in mysterious asshole ways.
“979th time,” he asks, “she refuses?”
“No, I always stop when she starts giving me that look like she’s contemplating putting me out of my misery,” Barba says.
‘Always,’ Sonny thinks. So it is their dog. “And yet she forgets right after, or she’d maul you the second you throw the ball again.” He bends over, addressing the sleeping dog. “Who’s the goldfish now?”
Barba snorts. “Cut her some slack, Carisi, it’s not like we do this often. I got your warrants here.” And he launches into case talk.
Sonny has, of course, introduced himself to Barba as ‘Dominick Carisi, jr., call me Sonny, I’m a law student at Fordham. By night.’ upon meeting him, and while Barba has never let him forget it, over time he seems to make an effort to listen to Sonny’s spells of Law Rambling when they overcome him. Sometimes, Barba’s even genuinely interested in his opinion, or at least Sonny likes to think so. Twice, Barba calls him ‘Fordham Law’ like a nickname. Both times with that smile, once with a wink.
Amanda doesn’t have a nickname, she’s always ‘Rollins’.
But then Sonny’s there when Barba asks Amanda for a ride to an interview, there’s apparently going to be a lunch date, too (His exact words are: “You drive, I choose the food.” to which Amanda replies, “You pay, I choose the music.”) and Fordham Law means shit again.
You don’t need a nickname, when you got the man. Who’s saying she won’t have his name one day? They already got a dog.
The next day, Sonny’s at a stakeout with Amanda, talking case, talking family and future, like buddies do. He’s ready to accept his Barba-less fate. He can be their friend at least; maybe watch Frannie when they take the children on vacation.
“You and Barba ever think of having kids?”
***
“Someone will come get you once he’s settled,” the doctor told Sonny with a kind, tired smile, the kind of forced smile that made you think about and then quickly stop to think about how sleep-deprived the person who’d just operated on your husband looked.
Your husband who was going to be fine, who’d had minor surgery to retrieve a bullet that didn’t do much damage, who was going to have to stay overnight, but maybe not longer if he didn’t develop a fever, and who you’d see soon, in a regular room, no ICU required.
“Thank you,” Sonny said, so relieved he got a bit shaky, noticeably so if Amanda’s grip on his arm was any indication.
“I’ll talk to you again tomorrow,” the doctor said, already on his way out. “Have a good night.”
“You, too,” Amanda said, letting Sonny sink into a hard waiting room chair, where he leaned back until his head touched the wall and covered his face with his hands to breathe deep into them.
“He’s going to be fine,” she said. He felt her sit down next to him. “Just a flesh wound.”
Sonny huffed. “His words?”
“Yeah, course.”
“Moron,” he muttered, dragged his hands down and cast Amanda a weary smile. “I’ll be okay now. Thank you for staying.”
She squeezed his hand. She’d had her own moment of flooring relief at hearing the would-be carjacker she shot would make it. He had collapsed unconscious in a driveway after running a good three miles. While she and Rafael had still sat in the cold vast nothingness, the man had already been at a hospital.
“If you need anything,” she told Sonny, “call me.”
He nodded, leaned over to peck her head. “Thank you.”
She grabbed her blood-stained coat, but hesitated suddenly. “Barba kept fading, so I had to keep him awake, right?” She didn’t wait for Sonny’s confused nod. “You never told him you thought we were dating when you met us?”
Sonny froze. Blinked at her.
She grinned.
“You didn’t,” he said in the universal tone of voice that translated to ‘How could you?’
“I thought you told him!” she exclaimed. “It’s a funny story, you two love funny stories!”
“You think he’ll maybe… forget? Surgery, all that?”
“No.”
“No,” Sonny said, and after a pause, “I hate you.”
“I know,” she grinned.
“And… just everything? The kids thing, too?”
“I thought you led with that,” she said, “when you told him.”
Sonny sighed. “At least it kept him awake, I guess.”
“He got such a kick out of it.” She stood, bent down to kiss his forehead, put on her coat and said, “I’ll call you tomorrow. Give Rafael my love when you see him,” winked and left, chuckling at his glare all the way out the door.
THE END