Blood in the Ozarks

11. With Me

Guilt gripped me as we rode back to the diner in silence. Ultimately, we decided to leave the church in the disaster state that it was. The damage was too much for us to clean-up ourselves. It was easier to let everyone assume the place had been vandalized. Ideally they would never know who--or what--did the vandalizing.

I let Ortega drive again. There was no argument on my part this time. My body was beginning to bruise and ache, and I had no energy left for petty disagreements.

Sometime after midnight, our car gently rolled into a parking space next to where Ortega had left his motorcycle. He threw the car into park and killed the headlights before letting his head fall back against the headrest. I'd been slumped down in my seat staring out the passenger's side window for most of the ride home, but now my gaze turned to watch as his eyes fluttered shut in a moment of peace.

I watched his chest rise and fall in the soft amber light of the parking lot. Locks of dark hair were matted across his forehead and streaks of sweat dried in a dirty grit across his skin. He'd taken a beating almost as bad as the church.

"Why are you staring at me, Ross?" Ortega asked without opening his eyes.

Although his voice was soft and smooth, the sudden sound startled me. Heat instantly rushed to my cheeks as I adjusted to face the windshield. "I wasn't. I was just thinking," I told the glass.

"About what?"

I sighed letting out tension from my body on a long exhale. "The church. The damage. What else?"

"Mm," he murmured with his eyes still closed. "What are you going to tell Harding?"

I didn't answer. I honestly didn't have one.

Without turning his head, Ortega opened his right eye under a thick arched brow to look at me.

I squirmed in my seat. What was I going to tell Cian? Or anyone at the bureau. We obviously hadn't put in an operations request or gone through the proper channels for clearing the church. In fact, we'd done the opposite. Even if I had a badge, it's still considered breaking and entering. All thoughts I should have gone through before running off to destroy a church with Tommy Ortega.

I could already hear Cian's reaction in my head. About how reckless I'd been. How he could have helped me if I'd waited. And how I never waited.

"I'm not sure," I finally said. "If I submit a report, Cian's going to see it. If I don't turn one in, I'm obviously breaking the law."

Ortega shut his eyes again and continued to rest against the seat as if he could fall asleep any second. "You're not breaking the law," he pointed out. "Only bureau procedures."

"We work for a federal department. Breaking procedure is breaking the law."

With eyes closed he gave a sharp snort. "Speak for yourself."

For the briefest of moments, I'd forgotten Ortega no longer worked for the CIU. The last few hours felt like we'd picked-up exactly where we'd left off. All we were missing was the metal stairway leading up to my apartment where my bed waited to welcome us home. If there was any kind of time capsule for our relationship, we were sitting in it. And despite the arguments and the pain, I'd be lying if I didn't admit I yearned to revisit those memories.

I laid my head back on my own headrest and closed my eyes mimicking Ortega. Pain was beginning to set into every muscle, yet I felt at ease for the first time in days.

After a while Ortega broke the silence. He sat up and rotated his body toward me. "What if you didn't tell Harding?"

"What?" Languidly, I turned my head and peered up at him. The puffed up side of his face was in full view with his black-eye was blooming in shades of deep indigo and fuchsia. But his excitement tore past the tender injury bringing light to his whole face.

"Don't tell 'em," he declared.

I stared at him in confusion.

He simplified it for me. "Quit."

My side ached as I laughed.

"I'm serious," he insisted. "Quit. Stop sending in reports. And updating a manager. Work for the people who actually need your help instead of wasting time with all this bureaucratic bullshit."

"Like you."

"With me."

Stunned. I was stunned. My mouth hung open as my brain scrambled to piece together what he was saying. With him? Work with him? Be with him? I closed my mouth. I couldn't.

Like speaking to a child, my tone became softer. "I'm not quitting the bureau. You know that."

The driver's door popped open in response ending the encapsulated time I'd reveled in only moments before. Ortega jumped out of the car at breakneck speed, slamming the door behind him.

"Tommy, wait. I'm sorry," I pleaded as I climbed out of my own side of the car and jogged around to meet him.

He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and shrugged. "There's nothing to be sorry for. You don't want to work with me, and that's the end of it. No hard feelings."

"It's not that I don't want to work with you. It's just that I'm not ready to leave the CIU yet. I've put in a lot of time there. And I'm on the verge of a promotion where I'll be involved in more cases and help more people. They trusted me on this case to show what I can handle, and I'm not going to throw all of that away. Not yet. Maybe not ever. You understand that, right?"

"They trusted you or Harding trusted you?"

My glare spoke volumes about how unfair the question was, and I choked out, "Both."

He rolled his eyes, but didn't pursue his question further.

"Look, Tommy--"

"Stop calling me that."

I reeled back like I'd been bitten, and in a way I had.

"And stop staring at me like that," he said.

"Like what?"

"You keep giving me this look. Like--" he grasped for the words while raking his fingers through the short sides of his hair in frustration. "Like we're still together and you want everything to be like it was a couple years ago. And it's not."
"I know it's not." And I did. As much as so many things felt the same between us, there were a million more that had changed.

"But it could be. I'm offering you a way to go back to the way things were. To be partners again."

Immediately, I shifted my gaze down to my scuffed black boots and the cracked asphalt between them. The fissure split into a y-shape with the tail staggering right between my planted feet.

I didn't say anything.

Those two dark eyes bore into me waiting for an answer. Raising my head I stared back silently. He was waiting for an answer I couldn't give.

With a single solemn nod, Tommy silently stalked back to his bike.

"Tom--" His head snapped up and I cut myself short. "Can I please have my keys?"

The line of his jaw tightened as he fished through his pocket for the rental car keys. He walked back to me and placed the keyring into my stretched out palm.

Once back to his bike, he didn't look at me as he gripped both handles and slung one leg over the body to straddle the seat. As he hit the kickstand and brought the engine to life, I was sure whatever little rapport we still had between us had changed. Then he glanced up in the briefest acknowledgement before taking off.

As he rode away I continued standing in the parking lot with nothing but my thoughts and the cracks in the pavement.