How do you handle confrontations?
*snorts* The same way I handle everything. I do what has to be done.
It's halfway through the night when Teri sort of trails her hand along his arm, an old, familiar gesture that makes him want to reach for his gun.
"Are you having an affair?"
He can tell she's in the same half-awake, blurred world he was in seconds ago. Now he's fully awake and reminding himself that she's still touching him, and she'll know if he tenses or turns away.
He breathes in and out, quietly. Calm, measured breaths like the ones he'd take on the shooting range when he still needed to go there for practice.
He's coached himself through this, had somehow managed to forget doing so before this moment came. Now he recalls staring down at the sidewalk, looking fixedly at a coffee mug, scanning store sign after store sign, muttering words under his breath all the while. Nothing loud, nothing real. Just under his breath.
Still, his first instinct is not to say "What?" and hope he captures that mix of shock and hurt he imagines and innocent man would have. It's to ask her why. What gave it away, maybe. Call it professional interest, since keeping secrets is his job.
Instead he takes her hand, the one still resting on his arm, and pulls her to him. For an instant he breathes in nothing but Teri--the lingering scent of her perfume, the laundry detergent she always buys, whatever it is that makes her her. He whispers into her hair, "No."
It's halfway through the night when Teri sort of trails her hand along his arm, an old, familiar gesture that makes him want to reach for his gun.
"Are you having an affair?"
He can tell she's in the same half-awake, blurred world he was in seconds ago. Now he's fully awake and reminding himself that she's still touching him, and she'll know if he tenses or turns away.
He breathes in and out, quietly. Calm, measured breaths like the ones he'd take on the shooting range when he still needed to go there for practice.
He's coached himself through this, had somehow managed to forget doing so before this moment came. Now he recalls staring down at the sidewalk, looking fixedly at a coffee mug, scanning store sign after store sign, muttering words under his breath all the while. Nothing loud, nothing real. Just under his breath.
Still, his first instinct is not to say "What?" and hope he captures that mix of shock and hurt he imagines and innocent man would have. It's to ask her why. What gave it away, maybe. Call it professional interest, since keeping secrets is his job.
Instead he takes her hand, the one still resting on his arm, and pulls her to him. For an instant he breathes in nothing but Teri--the lingering scent of her perfume, the laundry detergent she always buys, whatever it is that makes her her. He whispers into her hair, "No."