Chapter Text
June 14, 2023
“Oh - we can definitely make this work.”
The man behind Olivia raises his eyebrow, and meets her gaze in the mirror. He raises one eyebrow; lips curling up just a bit as he starts to pump the chair up. She scoots back, legs crossing and her own eyebrows raised in response.
“Are we doing just the cut, Captain, or do we have time to play a little, too?”
Roland - Roland, who has been her guy, now, her absolute go to; the one she trusts to keep her secrets and to make her feel gorgeous - picks up a lock of hair. “If you’re feeling like a big change, we could…”
He tilts his head. “We could go lighter, too.”
She does - want a big change. A big, huge, not quite a fucking crisis but definitely a reaction to life change, for the fourteen inches of shoulder length, winter-brown hair that he’s twisting back now, as he drapes the black cape over her.
Olivia nods; her lips pursing a little as she pushes out a breath.
It’s not a crisis haircut.
It’s not.
She’d come here today, because her daughter had called her father in tears, begging, and she’d had a fucking plan, before. A plan that involved ten days off, six of those days blissfully alone, with her son at his father’s and not a soul to bother her or need her or yell at her for disobeying orders. A plan that she’d made - before this morning. She’d had a plan, and a bag mostly packed and she’d been absolutely, 100% ready for this not actually a vacation vacation.
It’s not a crisis haircut.
It is, maybe, a small reactive haircut, though, to the phone called she’d gotten this afternoon.
“So - we’re doing bangs and we’re going lighter, too?”
Roland is back, now, with a glass flute in hand that she hopes was half full of champagne before he’d added the orange juice. Olivia slides her hand out of the cape and takes it; then looks at him again in the mirror.
It’s not a crisis haircut. These are not crisis bangs that she’s about to get cut, and it’s not a crisis two inches off the bottom that she’s planning. The color was Roland’s idea, even.
Her voice is firm as she answers,
“We’re doing it.”
She’s 59 years old, and she has had crisis haircuts and this is not that. She’d hung up the phone this morning in her office - the desk phone, of course, because Elliot is smart enough and knows her well enough to know she’ll answer that without thinking. She’d scooped her iPhone up from her desk and she’d googled the mileage and time from Manhattan to Stanford, California.
Forty hours.
Just shy of 3,000 miles.
Her next google search had been ‘2023 curtain bangs + middle part.’
It wasn’t a crisis haircut, but it could be, she thinks, a fuck you haircut. A middle finger straight up in the air haircut, to her almost, not quite ex husband.
Three thousand miles in a 2017 Jetta. Three thousand miles that she was supposed to travel alone - just her, and the open road, and about fifty hours of podcasts about finding herself and rebuilding after life events and learning how to love the self within.
Three thousand miles that she’ll now, it seems, be sharing with her soon to be, almost, not fucking quite yet ex-husband.
She looks at Roland again, as she raises the champagne flute to her mouth.
“We’re doing it.”
*****
“I know - shit, Liv. I know it’s not ideal.”
Elliot’s voice had been quiet over the phone that afternoon. Subdued, even, and more than a little apologetic as he told her what their daughter had called and asked him to do.
Olivia had stayed silent.
“She’s worried, though, with your hip, and - ”
She winces at the mention of her injury, and opens her mouth to protest. Elliot is fast though, and knows it’s coming and his next words come quickly. Her (almost ex) husband had sighed, and softened his voice even more. “Look, can I just - if I call you on my cell in a few, will you answer?” He pressed on immediately. “I gotta run, and get Noah, and - ”
Of course she’d take his call. She might wait, and let it ring almost until the end, while she battled with the ache that bloomed beneath her rib cage at the sight of Elliot’s name on her phone screen. Her husband’s name - her husband of twenty two years, now, whose name on the screen of her iPhone had been a four a day occurrence.
“Yeah - yes, Elliot.”
They’d hung up then, and she’d looked up the mileage and she’d looked up curtain bangs and she’d texted Roland an ‘SOS.’ She’d said goodnight to Fin, and she’d packed up her stuff and she’d been in her car, driving to the salon, when Elliot had called back finally.
Their son chattered in the backseat.
“Mom - hey, Mom - did you get my text?”
She’d laughed as she’d answered, had reassured their boy that she did, indeed, get his text about needing a picture of the permission slip that he’d left at her place signed and sent back, so his father could sign underneath it. His summer school program was aware, at least, of their status as ‘separated’ and liked to dot each i and cross each t and she - fuck, they both, really - appreciated it, as cops who had dealt with the fallout from parents who used their kids as leverage.
He was a good dad, and she was a good mom and they both acknowledged it. And that really, is precisely why Elliot had taken the phone off speaker, then, and restarted their early conversation, when Noah had jumped out to run into his dance studio.
“He’s - uh - ”
She’d heard the quiet ding from the open car door. He’d been watching him, she knew. He’d been standing outside of their - his - truck, like they both do, and had been watching their son run into the dance studio. Elliot and Olivia both were giving Noah that pre-teen level of space he craves these days, but Elliot had been making sure.
‘Trust, but verify.’
An old line he’d stolen from Ronald fucking Reagan of all people it turns out, and had used when his (first) ex wife and the two of them had sat down as a group to deal with an acting out Dickie.
Richard.
Her stepson likes to be called Richard, now.
“He’s inside now, ba - Liv. He’s inside.”
Elliot’s low voice had brought her back to the discussion at hand. She’d had twenty minutes left between her and Roland’s chair and she knew she'd already lost the battle, here. She’d lost it the second he’d told her that their daughter had called, and had broken down and begged him to come, too.
“She’s - Charlie’s just worried about you doing this on your own, but…”
Elliot had cleared his throat, and grumbled a little, when the loud honk of a horn interrupted him. “I’m - fuck, I’m moving, just - ”
He’d been dragging this conversation out, and she’d so far, anyways, resisted the urge to say anything. He’d been dragging it out, though, just like he’d been dragging out everything. The conversation at hand. The talk about custody, and moving forward, with Noah. What to do about their dog, Ross, and Charlie’s cat, Chandler and about Elliot coming over to the apartment and actually taking more than the bare minimum of his shit with him when he left.
He’d been dragging it all out, including signing the actual paperwork that could get them to start it all.
The dissolution of their marriage, after twenty two years.
Dragging his feet is how they got to this place.
“I know you wanted to do this alone, Liv. ”
He’d been saying it in that sorrowful voice he had now, the one that made her feel sad for a long time; the voice that had made her ache for him and them and a time before.
Until it started feeling less like an ache and more like the sharp, angry pinch of a nerve.
“You aren’t wrong, Elliot. I did, actually. Want to do this alone.”
She’d snapped at him. She’d interrupted him, and snapped at him, because that was the thing about Elliot and her. He did know that she wanted to do this alone. He did know, probably, about the plan she had, and the carefully constructed route she’d mapped out and the alone time she’d needed, to sit and to think and to run though the last five sessions of their marriage counseling.
He did know, because it’s been twenty two years.
He did know, but he’d let their daughter get under his skin and convince him, a thousand excuses falling from both their lips.
‘She’s worried about you - your hip is barely healed, Liv, and it’s a long drive alone - ”
She’s an NYPD Captain.
‘Mom, I don’t just need the car - I need Dad here too, to help with the furniture - my new place has steps and I can’t pay for the moving company. ’
Never mind that airplanes exist, and her (almost) ex-husband could be on one, in California; could move their daughter out of her (actual) ex-boyfriend’s house and into her new apartment and then be back in the air before Olivia hit Wyoming, even.
Elliot had stayed quiet on the other end of the line after her angry retort. He’d stayed quiet, and the simmer in her gut had started to boil, then. She’d shut her eyes in the front seat of her SUV, and taken a deep, slow inhale in, before slowly letting out.
‘7 in, 7 hold, 7 out. Works for panic attacks and for slowing yourself down, if you’re afraid of saying something you’ll regret.’
Lindstrom’s words echoed, and she did it twice, there, the deep breathing in and out and in and out - and it absolutely did no such fucking thing. She’d opened her eyes then; phone still at her ear and she’d finished the conversation.
“The last thing we should be doing, Elliot, is driving across the goddamn country alone together.”
Her mind flashes back now, as she sits in Roland’s chair to last month, and the last time she’d seen him without their son, or their nanny, or a squadroom full of her subordinates.
————————
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May 10, 2023
“You cannot - you cannot be fucking serious, Olivia.”
He’d come over to pick up the dog - the dog they both really, had no business owning, ever. The dog that Charlie had begged for, and sworn up and down she’d care for, despite every warning they both gave her. That they were busy police officers, that this dog was hers, and that this dog was going with her in five years, when she went to college.
They were not dog people.
Ross, though, had charmed their then thirteen year old, with his wiry coat and his big brown eyes and Elliot had broken first. He’d laid in bed (on a Thursday, she remembers, because she’d been so hopeful all week long that the dog would disappear from the pages of the Hope Fur Pups Rescue’s Facebook page) and Elliot had looked over at her, his reading glasses slid down the bridge of his nose and he’d broken.
“She wants this dog so bad, Liv. We could - I don’t know - ”
He’d laughed a little, at the way she’d raised her eyebrows at his change in heart. He’d leaned over; one hand pushing the mattress low by her hip and dipping it, so that gravity shifted her closer.
“We could what, Elliot?”
He’d taken the reading glasses off, then, and he’d reached around her, so that his hand landed on her opposite hip. Elliot had tugged a little, urging her over.
Her own reading glasses had fallen from the spot where she’d pushed them into her hair as she’d rolled over on top of him. He’d leaned up on his elbows and brushed his lips against hers softly, and slowly, then grinned against her mouth, both their eyes opening as he’d murmured.
“We could be dog people.”
They couldn’t, though, actually turn into dog people and Charlie had flown off to California when she’d graduated and now they argue ten times a goddamn month about this ten year old dog who Noah insists on sleeping with every goddamn night.
“You cannot - you cannot be fucking serious, Olivia.”
Elliot stands in their - her - kitchen; a look of disbelief and shock on his face as she hands him the leash for the dog; with a prepared container of kibble (add water, he just had six teeth pulled scrawled on top of a piece of masking tape on the lid) along with a thin manilla envelope. An envelope he knows, now, is full of documents he refuses to sign every time her attorney sends them over to his email for an electric signature.
They can’t even start proceedings. It’s just a release of information - just permission, really, for one attorney to contact the other - and they are stuck because he doesn’t want to admit that it’s happening.
“I am, fucking serious, Elliot.”
She dips her voice low, almost mocking his own timbre as she answers. She can’t look at him, as she says it - for every fucking reason, least of all that she can’t stand it, is terrified of folding if she sees the hurt there, loud and evident in the blue of his eyes - so she turns, and busies herself at the sink as she continues.
Spaghetti sauce had crusted into a pot from dinner last night; had thickened and gone crusty and Olivia blasts the water spray, two fingers underneath it as she tests the temperature.
“You won’t sign it electronically, and this is - ”
She bends down, and grabs the bottle of Dawn from underneath the sink. “God - this - ”
She explains it, as the latch from the child proofing days that’s still present - a hold out from when Noah had been small and curious, and his little hands had explored wherever he could - catches.
They’d never gotten around to removing it.
It catches today still, and she lets out a frustrated sigh.
“God - this fucking thing. How many times did I ask, Elliot, for it to get taken care of?”
She pushes the lever down then, and takes out the soap and turns for a moment to look at him. Elliot hasn’t moved - has just stayed standing this whole time, behind the other side of the island, with his eyes on her back. There is a muted rainbow dog leash wrapped in his hands and he’d set the container full of a kibble on the counter. Elliot’s mouth is a hard, tight line as he clutches the envelope, and just stares.
He puts the envelope down. He looks at the counter as he does it, and then he slides it towards her; his eyes fixed, it would seem, on the swirls of black and speckles of silver there.
He does it without a word.
Olivia’s words rush out, angry and fast as she shakes her head.
“It’s just like that paperwork, Elliot. You think, god. You think if you ignore something, it’ll just…”
She turns without finishing. She squeezes soap in the pot and she waits as bubbles fill it - because it will have to soak, now. It will have to soak all day but she’ll be home alone tonight - no Elliot, or Noah, or Ross, even. The cat will avoid her; still mad, it appears, at the absence of Elliot.
“It will what, Liv?”
His voice is quiet as the water stops.
The whole apartment is quiet.
The refrigerator hums, and Ross’s nails make slow, steady clicks on the hardwood of the kitchen floor as the older dog rounds the corner from the living room, intent on seeing what the commotion was about. The city out front is quiet - school still in session, and everyone working, mostly, or eating lunch outside in the sunshine, while the two of them have used the break in their days to trade off this dog.
“It will what, Olivia?”
Elliot repeats the words as he starts to make his way over, his voice wavering just a little; sad and soft, and fuck.
He never gets it.
He really doesn’t, she knows, doesn’t truly understand the split between them and the reasons.
She has said it - the same words to him over and over and over. Anger coils, a tight spring in her belly and she knows it’s a mistake, when she turns. She knows it’s a mistake but it’s noon - 12:03, actually - and she has to go back to work and she’d told herself she could not do this right now. She could not, and will not do this; fight with him and do this, because it always ends the same.
A yelling match - angry words and raw feelings and her almost stalking off. Even in their - her - own home, she will try to take leave and Elliot will stand, stunned and silent, for a moment, before he chimes in, and then -
There’s a reason she flees. It’s been a month since they’ve done this.
“Just sign the goddamn thing, Elliot, and go.”
She takes a shaky breath, as she turns around.
“I’ve got to grab a different blazer, I got - ”
She tries not to look at him, as she moves behind the island and towards the doorway. There’s a long hallway that separates the kitchen from the stairs leading up their bedrooms and if she can make it there, if she can make it out of here and into the hallway, she should be fine.
The problem is, as always, Elliot.
He’s standing on the side of the island now. The leash is set down and he’s between her and the exit and he would move, she knows. He won’t trap her here - would never, not once, but it’s his proximity, and both their weaknesses - and she needs to go.
She’s three steps away before his voice interrupts.
The hurt is gone from his voice; replaced now by a quiet, looming sort of anger that she knows. It’s been - god - it’s been twenty two years now, twenty four since they met; two detectives, at the beginning of the middle of their careers and she knows him. She knows him as well as she knows herself; better, sometimes, because just like him, she is an expert at everything but self awareness. She knows Elliot, and she knows the tone of his voice and she knows how upset he is.
“Or, wow - just don’t answer, Olivia.”
She stops, and her eyes meet his.
She wonders if this is intentional, on his part. If she knows him better than he knows himself; the opposite is true for the way he knows her and this is more than a pattern, now.
His voice is raw.
“It’s always on me.”
He shakes his head and narrows his eyes and it is Olivia, now, that leans in to this. She moves one hand on the island, spreads her palm, and raises her eyebrows and waits. She can feel it already; the thrumming sensation under her skin. She can feel her chest tighten, and her skin flush and the prickly sensation of sweat, right at the base of her spine.
Her breath quickens, and she keeps her eyes on him. Waiting.
He starts again. He thumbs at his nose and he shakes his head and his eyes flash, as he tells her.
“It’s always on me, it’s never on you, Ol -
The granite beneath her fingers is sticky. Orange juice, she thinks, left over from where she’d stood last night at half past eleven and sliced up orange after orange. Noah has field day today and everyone needs a snack and if Elliot and her hadn’t been estranged; if they’d still been a them, still, they would have tagged team the chore. He’d slice, she’d bag, and then he’d wipe down the counters as she lined them up in the drawer of the refrigerator.
Instead it’s sticky.
She forgot the last part.
The process had failed and the counter is sticky and messy underneath her fingertips as she erupts. There’s venom laced through her voice as she shakes her own head back and she is loud, now; her voice deep and the angry laugh she lets out harsh, her hand moving off the counter as she does.
“Oh - fuck off, Elliot, it’s - ”
And this; this is where they fall down every time.
She gets too close.
It’s been a month.
Her finger points, close to his chest and she doesn’t touch him. She locks her gaze with his, though, and she moves forward - one, then two steps - and she grinds the heel of her boot into their - her - kitchen floor and she finishes.
“It’s always the same thing, Elliot, you and your fucking avoidance and - ” Her voice gets higher as she gets closer, and with the last step she is there. In his face, close enough that he’ll feel it, when she exhales and finishes. “It’s always the same. Goddamn. Thing.”
Her eyes stay on his and she can see it; the wave of anger rolling there. His pupils are big; blown out, the edges of blue barely visible. His mouth is closed and his jaw is clenched and she is so close now she can feel it, his chest bumping hers when he takes breath after breath after breath, and tries to gain some composure. His mouth opens, finally, ready to respond.
It’s been a month since a half lit parking garage and their last fight face to face, and she’d thought maybe they really had moved past this.
His eyes dance down to the envelope, then back to hers.
“You don’t really want to do this, Liv, do - ”
She kisses him.
She kisses him hard; both her hands reaching up to grasp him and somehow it’s her that gasps in surprise. She gasps, and he moans; but he reacts instantly. Elliot’s hand moves around her, slides down and crooks around her waist and his other is fast. It curls behind her; settles into the hair that he loves, she knows. Long and dark and shiny; his fingers thread through and cradle the back of her skull as his lips move. They chase hers, as her ass hits the edge of the island.
They have to be fast; have to move faster than Olivia’s rational mind, here, and they both know it.
Their mouths crash, messy and impatient and one of her hands moves down, to cup him through the thick black denim of his jeans.
“Fuck, Liv - ”
He gasps it out and she takes the opportunity, with his mouth sliding open, to nip at his bottom lip. She isn’t kind about it; her teeth more than grazing as she pulls back and takes his lip with her. It is hungry; and she has him now - she’s driving this - as his tongue slides into the heat of her mouth and her fingers curl hard over the fabric. He jolts, taken aback for a moment but they’re good at this. They are a mess, mostly, everywhere else, but they have always worked well here; instinct and need and trust taking over.
Even now, the trust is there, as Elliot’s hands leave the nape of her neck and the side of her face and land, big and spread on her ass.
He breaks away from her; pants against her mouth as he shifts their bodies back towards the island again.
“Up.”
He doesn’t give her a moment to adjust, though; just scoops her in one move; the hard muscles of his arms against her sides as he lifts her up and onto the granite counter. Her legs open as he lunges forward and finds her mouth again and it’s so Elliot, still. The coffee creamer he uses; and the hint of chocolate from his protein shake - all familiar and him, as his tongue slides against hers - and they have to stop this.
Next time.
They can’t keep doing this, she knows, even as her ass lands on the sticky, citrus scented spot her hand had just been on. She winces, thinks about her pants and how she’ll have to change them; and then Elliot’s lips are on her neck and she’s not thinking about her pants, or orange slices at all.
They can’t - they shouldn’t, she knows - even as her arm wraps around his neck and holds him close.
He is gentle about it at first. His lips brush, soft and tender, down the line of her neck. He slows himself down, balances his weight with the palm of one hand on the counter. He uses his other arm to join around her waist; and Elliot holds her up, tilted towards him, as he moves slowly. His lips meander, move up and back down between the collar of her blouse and the side of her chin and she lets herself sink, a little, into the feeling. The stubble on his face is a familiar sensation; the bristles of it long enough to not be rough at all and Elliot slows down even more, as he moves down again.
Olivia’s head tilts back as his hand moves from the counter. It curls around her ribcage, delicately, almost; and his thumb strokes against the underside of her breast and it feels so - fuck - so good and so tender as the hand on the small of her back spreads.
She feels herself slipping into it, and she shakes her head, and tilts herself forward again. Her hand curls around his neck as she tugs him up; so that his lips leave her skin.
She knows what would happen next, if she didn’t stop it.
Elliot would kiss his way slowly - even here, in the kitchen, in the middle of the day - down her body. He’d ruck up her shirt and he’d peel off her bra and he would use his tongue and his teeth on her breasts. He would worship there, swirl his tongue around each nipple, and pull them through his lips and suck hard while she whimpered and moaned; her hand on the back of his neck.
He’d shift, eventually; and sink to his knees. He’d kiss the soft valley of her belly, and the soft skin inside her thighs and then he would lower his mouth to her cunt. He would have her writhing and begging and pleading as her thighs tighten around him.
After, he’d kiss her forehead - he’d kiss her forehead and he would call her ‘baby,’ again, tell her how pretty she looked like that, how good she tasted and how much he missed her; and all her resolve would fall away. She’d take him back to the bedroom; or she'd let him scoop her up, boneless and satiated, and carry her to the couch.
It would be so easy to let him do all those things.
Not like this.
She doesn’t want it like that.
With feelings, again.
“Elliot - c’mon.”
She hisses it out as she reaches between them again. She is rough about it this time, pressing her palm flat and cupping her fingers in around him. He reacts immediately; jerks into her touch and she uses the moment to claim his mouth again.
She shows him.
She kisses him hard; strokes him through the fabric of his pants as she does and he is helpless almost immediately. He reacts honestly; touch-starved and needy (and she takes some glee from that, because she has not taken solace from anyone else either) as he thrusts into her touch.
Their kisses fall apart, when he can’t help the heavy pant that falls from his mouth. He is helpless - even still, twenty four years after the first time; when two hungry detectives had slammed into each other - putty under her touch, and he adjusts to what and how she wants this.
“Liv, please - Olivia.”
He begs her a little, even as she pushes forward, and slides off the counter. She uses both hands to find his belt. She is hasty about it, backing him up as she unbuckles and unbuttons, her chest against his. She is thankful, as always, for the huge open floor plan, and she keeps nudging him - through the gap in their oversized chairs, and around the coffee table he’d found and refinished for their twentieth until they hit the front of their - her, her’s, it’s her’s - couch.
“Sit down, Elliot.”
They break apart for only a moment, long enough for her to yank her own pants down and toss them on a chair, and for him to sit, then arch his ass up and pull his jeans down to his ankles.
Olivia’s eyes find his. They’ve gone dark, now; heated and narrow and she watches his tongue dart out, running against his lower lip as she climbs into his lap, trapping his cock between them. She brackets him in, a thigh on each side as she grasps his cock in her hand and raises her hips up.
“Now, Elliot.”
Her hands grip his biceps as she sinks down on him without looking away. It’s one swift motion as he fills her, his head tilted up to keep his eyes on her. He groans; low and deep in his chest and she can feel it, their bodies pressed together through both their shirts, and it makes her unravel a little, that familiar sound.
She shuts her eyes.
She doesn’t allow for a build up, after that. She digs her fingers into him; and feels his own hands anchor to his hips as she starts to rock forward. Elliot meets her, thrust for thrust, his own hips slamming up as hers rock down; the thick length of him filling her over and over and over again. It’s hard, and loud, the sound of skin slapping; and their gasps and moans filling the room. She can feel sweat gathering low on her back, and the swing of her hoops, jarred by the motion with each pound of his hips.
“God, fuck - Liv, I mis- ”
She dips down, and swallows his words with her mouth against his. It doesn’t last, the kiss is too much; their teeth knocking with the drive of his hips up and the snap of her own down, but it works. The sentiment stays buried; never tumbling from his lips, as her head tilts back, and her eyes shut again.
She rides him; takes what she wants and needs with each roll of her hips. His big hands stay on her hips, lifting her up and dragging her down each time. It’s primal, and messy, and she knows if she’d open her eyes right now, she’d see her husband staring up at her, his eyes never leaving.
She’ll leave marks on his arms, she knows. A row of purple circles on each one; and there is something broken in her, because the thought of that; the thought of the man she is trying to divorce right now, walking around with her fingerprints on him pushes her so close to the edge she cries out.
She won’t even let him say he misses her, but the thought of her mark on his skin is enough.
“El - Elliot, please.”
She leans forward, eyes still shut; and Elliot’s hand snakes between them. It doesn’t take much; his thumb on her clit pressing down and she’s right on the edge. Elliot’s voice is a low moan; then a plea as he begs her.
“Look - fuck, look at me, please Olivia.”
She does. She leans back and opens her eyes, and it’s too much, the way his blue eyes go soft. It always amazes her how this big, brooding man - her big brooding man - looks at her every single time; vulnerable and open and she’s going to come, she knows; lose control and cry out his name, so right before she does she reminds him.
“The last time - this - ”
She gasps it out; her words stuttered by the slam of his hips. Her fingernails rake down his back; angry red scratches that will stay, she knows.
“ - has to be the last time.”
He shuts his eyes and gathers her close.
She can feel him nod; feel him growl ‘fuck - fine, Olivia’ against her blouse, and then his fingers grip her hips hard, as his hips slam into them. She cries his name out, loud and unabashed as she shatters around him. He is right there, falling right behind her, his hips pistoning into her and her name a soft shout as he pulses inside her.
They were still in sync in one way, at least.
Olivia slumps forward and they catch their breath, still joined. Her eyes stay closed; even as she feels Elliot’s hand leave her back.
It’s tentative, and soft, when his fingers ghost over her cheekbone. She keeps her eyes shut as he pushes a lock of hair; damp with sweat and stuck to her face, back behind her ear. He lets his fingers linger there, threaded through her hair; his thumb by the shell of her ear.
They breathe, until he goes soft inside her.
They clean up separately; her in the master bath and him in the kid’s, and she knows it may be cruel, how she’d refused to meet his eyes as she’d fled, finally.
She stands behind the door.
Olivia hears the rattle of kibble in a container, and Elliot’s voice, low and quiet, as he talks to their daughter’s dog. The front door creaks, then clicks shut behind them. She changes in her bedroom. She winces at the ache in her hips as she slides on new underwear, and a new blouse that’s close enough.
The living room is quiet, as she finds her pants and slides them back on.
She starts to leave, then, is almost halfway to the door when she remembers the sticky dried orange juice on her ass. She changes quickly, pulls a pair of black denim jeans out of her closet and prays no one will know the difference. When she comes back out, she heads to the kitchen, and wets a paper towel. She scrubs the island clean, and pulls open the under counter trash and she gasps, then, when she sees the contents of the can.
A manila envelope is crumbled; shoved down into banana peels and coffee filters and she shakes her head as she tosses the dirty paper towel on top.
It’s the last time they’re alone for a month.
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June 14, 2023
‘Kathleen says she’s free the whole two weeks if we need her.’
The text comes through when she’s halfway through her second mimosa. She’ll have to take an uber home now, she knows. A year ago, even, she’d have finished them faster. She would have called him, waited inside until Elliot showed up. She would have slid in the front seat, spinning a little at the way he still eyes her. He’d have driven her home, his hand on her thigh inching in as he told her again and again, in a low, thick voice, how great her hair looked.
She would have been a mess by the time they made it in the apartment; her fresh blow-out wrecked by his fingers.
Olivia sighs as she opens the text to respond.
‘Two weeks is more than enough. Let her know I’ll call her tomorrow.’
Roland is back then, behind her. His eyebrows raise again at the way Olivia stares down at her phone. He lifts a foil with the tail of an applicator brush, checking it for a moment before he asks.
“Well? Is it the divorce or the job?”
One and a half mimosas, and her guard is down enough she knows to share. One and a half mimosas and she’s almost eager. One and a half mimosas and Roland is her best friend; her confidante, and she shakes her head, and slides her glasses off as he extends a hand to help her stand.
“It’s the - ”
She laughs then; a little bitter as she lets him lead her to the hair wash station. Olivia sits, craning head back against the sink, as she finishes her reply. “It’s the non divorce, actually.”
His eyebrows shoot right up, a small ‘hmmm?’ passing through closed lips as he starts to unravel the first layer of foils. His fingers are quick, and nimble - the best of the best, really, she pays too much and comes too far across the city to see him - but he’s adept at this part too. Roland lets the silence linger, and doesn’t push and he could have been a therapist, she thinks.
Or a cop.
“He still - Elliot still won’t sign anything. And, fuck.”
One and a half mimosas has her looser, for sure. She closes her eyes as he continues. “I could just go ahead, I guess. My attorney says we can proceed with or without it, but…”
Roland’s voice shifts, as he moves to her other side. Deft fingers move again, unwrapping individual squares as he asks. “But you want him to sign it, right?”
He’s really very good at this.
She quirks one side of her mouth up, and lets out a sigh as she answers.
“Exactly.”
She keeps her eyes closed as she starts to tell him.
“And now, our daughter needs her car. She broke up with her boyfriend…”
*****
June 14, 2023
When she gets home that night, it’s quiet. She hears Chandler scatter as she steps inside; his small paws delicately carrying him far and away from her presence.
She fills up his food bowl, and dumps the old water he shares with the dog. She refills it.
She heats up a bowl of the spaghetti Noah and Martha had made last night. He’d seen it on Tik Tok, she knows, and they’d bought the ingredients last weekend. They’d picked out fresh herbs and spent too much on a sauce; and she’d let him put some sort of noodle she’d never heard of before in the cart.
It kills her more than a little to know he’d had to make it with his nanny. For half a second she lets herself picture it again; her busy kitchen of ten years ago. Countertops filled with homework and sippy cups; a step kid on a bar stool helping Charlie, and Elliot behind the stove, stirring and talking.
She can almost hear it, even; the low murmur of voices. She tries to remember the name of the radio station they’d always had on, playing quietly on the old under cabinet model. It played stuff the older kids (minus Lizzie who always, always tried to turn it up) would wrinkle their noses at. “Old man rock,” Kathleen would say.
“Fuck.”
She says it around a mouthful of pasta. She still needs to call Kathleen tonight.
And finish packing, still.
She puts her bowl in the sink, and rinses it clean. She refills the coffee pot; makes enough for her own mug and a travel mug too, and Olivia moves to her room. Her suitcase is open on the floor, mostly filled. It had been organized; a mix of warm and cold weather clothes. She’d packed bathing suits and cover ups and - fuck, she’ll need to call tomorrow, and add a second room to each booking.
She leaves it.
The buzz from the drinks in the salon has worn off. She’s tired now, and she knows everything will keep. Her stepdaughter will be fine, if she calls on her way to work and in theory, her vacation starts at noon tomorrow - so barring any crisis, she should be able to finish packing then, and call very hotel off I-80.
She pushes the door to the bedroom open with her toe, and calls out.
“Door’s open, Chan.”
She’ll wake up to the cat on his pillow, she knows.
Olivia washes her face, then, and peers in the mirror and god.
Her new bangs are short, and her hair is so light and it looks good, she knows. Roland had shown her exactly what to do, how to blow it out each morning so it frames her face. The first layer cuts off at her cheekbones, dances above it and she’ll have to remember a curling iron, now, she realizes.
Not that it matters.
This wasn’t a crisis haircut.
If it was a message, maybe, a reminder that they couldn’t fall into old patterns - then who could blame her. If it was a warning - that his fingers can’t be there, this time, threaded and lingering through the long dark brown hair that he loves so much - then he’d hear it loud and clear. She’d lost count of how many times they’d let it happen, but they’d finally stopped, now, and she was determined.
He knew why this was a bad idea when he’d told their daughter yes.
She knew it was too late, too.
Charlie had asked. Two days from now, it will be her, and Elliot, and three thousand miles to go.