Chapter Seventeen

The front door of April’s old apartment was already propped open when Guin arrived. Peering through a tiny space in her armload of boxes, she double-checked the number beside the door anyway, 469. Right place. Guin glanced down either side of the somewhat dingy hallway. A diaper-clad kid too tiny to be in the hallway by himself stood watching her. The leftover smell of grease and spicy food hung thickly in the air. The immediate assessment had her happy April was leaving the place.

Sergeant Paul Winters almost ran smack into her, causing her topmost boxes to nearly topple off the stack. Guin rebalanced, shot him a look.

“Look out, Marcus,” he kidded her. He maneuvered a dolly over the apartment threshold, guiding a chest of drawers into the hallway. Guin was struck with a pang of jealousy that he was already sweaty, looked hard-worked, and clearly had been he-manning the heavy stuff around with ease. He nodded at her, kept teasing. “What? You sleep in today?”

Guin shrugged it off. Jealousy was ridiculous. Besides, Winters was like a brother to her; one of her top three choices for partner before April came along.

“Uh, she called this morning in a panic.” Guin set the boxes down just inside 469. “I’ve been all over the place hunting these things down.”

“Good man,” he genuinely congratulated her. He always said stuff like that to her, and he really aimed to treat her just like one of the guys. He went on. “How are you anyway, Marcus? You adjusting well? Feeling good and all that?”

He took a quick break, leaned against the chest of drawers in the hallway, actually waited for her answer.

Guin nodded. “It’s been hard. But I’m doing a lot better now.”

“Good.” He nodded solemnly. “Partners run deep. You don’t get over that stuff easy.”

“Yeah, we know that firsthand,” said a new voice.

The voice belonged to Clive Burnette. He appeared in the doorway, feigned emotional pain and clapped his former partner on the arm. “I just can’t quit you, man.”

“Oh geez,” Winters muttered, shaking his head.

Guin rolled her eyes, chuckled at the Brokeback Mountain reference. “Will you two lovebirds get out of my way so we can get this kid packed up and outta here?”

Winters worked the dolly, put his back into it. He hoisted the chest of drawers slightly back and began a slow trundle down the narrow hallway. Burnette leapt after him, playfully. “Paul, don’t go. You complete me!”

“I complete you, eh?” he could be heard saying. “You’re the one who went all detective on me, bastard.”

Guin shook her head at the pair. She entered the small apartment and spotted a number of clearly marked boxes. Several of them said “kitchen” in bold Sharpie and Guin pursed her lips as she considered them. April might actually spend time in the kitchen. What a nice switch that would be from her steady diet of takeout. Guin considered that if forced to pack her own kitchen, a single box would do the trick, and more than likely it would be full of leftover condiments and whatever stray beer she had in her fridge. Not that she was planning on April doing a lot of cooking for her. Not that she was planning anything at all.

“Oh good, more boxes!” April’s chirpy sound jarred her from her daydream. She hefted another box on top of the growing stack of kitchen boxes and came toward Guin. “Howdy, partner.”

“Hey, looking good around here.” Guin gave the place a once-over. “We’ll have you out of here in no time, huh?”

“And not a moment too soon, for sure.” April stood on tiptoes to check the top of the refrigerator. She then made a second check of the cabinets, opening each one and letting the door fall gently shut.

Guin took the opportunity to study her partner. It was the first time she’d seen her out of uniform, not counting their track-suit happy hour. And excluding her starring appearance in a rather high-definition vision, of course. April wore tattered, low-rise, tight-fitting jeans and a paper-thin T-shirt that hugged her just as nicely. Her long hair dangled down her back, messily, Megan Fox-ish. Guin figured the whole package was as good a reward for bumbling Winters and Burnette as money in the bank. Guin bit her lip to fight her smile. She bet April played hell on some men’s fragile self-esteem.

“Lucky me,” Guin muttered unconsciously. But when her partner shot her an odd look, she hurriedly amended the dangling statement. “Lucky that I found these boxes. They were just tossing them out back of Express Printing.”

“Brilliant.” April’s smile lit up the dim place. “They’re perfect for the rest of my dishes. Can you pack them?”

Guin eyed the last full cabinet and what looked like expensive wedding china. She felt nervous. “I don’t know how to pack stuff like that.”

“Pack them like you would your own dishes,” April answered nonchalantly, and shrugged. “You have plates, right?”

“Paper.”

April mouthed “yikes” and then added, “We need to get you eating off something other than Styrofoam. Leave that to me.”

Guin’s smile twitched helplessly.

“Meanwhile, there’s another dolly in the bedroom. You can start loading some of those boxes if it makes you more comfortable. Nothing breakable. Just my under-things and such.”

The very mention of such intimate garments had Guin melting inside. She left the room before April could see the impact of her words. She went to the bedroom, located the rented dolly and started stacking boxes on it. They were lightweight enough, probably chock-full of panties, she fantasized. And there were plenty of them—enough for three, possibly four trips, Guin figured. She grabbed one more box and started to give it a little toss onto the top of the stack. But it was full of far more than clothes. Guin held it to her chest and listened to its story.

April had been arguing with an attractive, very thin young woman. Clearly upset, April followed the blond-streaked waif to the door.

“Lauren, wait.” April gently touched her arm.

“Don’t tell me what I can or cannot do!” The woman jerked her arm away. “I don’t need your permission to go out with my friends.”

“You were out all night!” April said. “All you had to do was call me if you couldn’t come home. I would have gone anywhere to pick you up.”

The woman Guin now knew as Lauren only stared at April. It begged the obvious question. April clenched her eyes shut, tipped her chin slightly, remained composed. “Are you sleeping with her?”

“You and I are finished,” Lauren stated succinctly.

The look on April’s face was heartbreaking. Before the door could slam, Guin threw the box on the top stack to break contact and end the second-hand torture. No surprise, she figured. Everyone has a story, why should April be immune? Still, the scene played out in the back of Guin’s mind for a better part of the morning.

They’d packed the U-Haul full by early afternoon. Knowing the bulk of the work was done, April volunteered to thank them by picking up lunch on the way to her new place. Burnette and Winters said they’d go on ahead and April handed the keys over to Guin.

“Wow, I’m in charge of breaking in the place, huh?” she teased her partner. “Ceremony, formal ribbon cutting, the whole works?”

“Go for it.” April patted Guin’s arm, smiled. “Of course you’ll have to unpack everything to find the scissors. But feel free, by all means.”

Guin looked at Burnette and Winters, put on her official voice. “Attention movers. The ribbon-cutting ceremony has been indefinitely suspended.”

“Well, it was worth a try,” April said.

Two hours later, protected by a fortress of boxes, the four dined cross-legged on April’s “new” living room floor. The spacious one-bedroom was a considerable upgrade, but that didn’t much matter to Guin. The neighborhood alone was such an improvement from April’s last place, she could literally feel herself breathing a sigh of relief. One less thing to worry about. Not that she worried, of course.

As they ate sub sandwiches, Winters and Burnette, obviously missing their former partnership, queried each other about who worked harder these days. April and Guin were an attentive audience, quietly casting little glances in each other’s direction, an action that didn’t go unnoticed by the entertainers. Even Winters, with his cavalier attitude and ill-concealed desire to at least win a drinks date with April, seemed to know the score. He’d lost before he’d even begun to actively campaign for her affections. The women’s interest in each other, on whatever level, was obvious to the room.

When the silences got longer and the looks more frequent, Guin clapped her hands together, breaking the trance and indicating that much work was yet to be done. She swiped Burnette’s barely empty plate out of his meaty clutches, inspiring a round of heys from the men. They finished their warming beers and stood and stretched.

“Yeah, I suppose that truck isn’t going to unload itself.” Burnette scruffed his hands through his hair. He headed for the door, followed by his counterpart.

Guin began to buzz around the room, collecting food wrappers and discarding bottles.

“Whoa, okay, hon.” April laughed. “What’s your hurry? You got hot plans later on?”

“No,” Guin answered too quickly. She stopped, recouped her normal careless-looking saunter and forced her voice lower. “Well, maybe I do.”

April came dangerously near her, countered with her own best low-sexy voice. “Then I guess I better put a wiggle in it, hmm?”

Guin froze, blinked, wondered if they were still in the joke. She watched April utilize a very deliberate, girly wiggle as she walked across the room. Guin’s mouth was slightly gaping, and her cheeks burned when she saw that Burnette had reentered the apartment just in time to watch her watching April.

“What?” Guin asked him impatiently. “The show’s over, big boy.”

He promptly cleared out again.

April returned to the living room with a plastic bag. Guin quietly deposited the trash she’d gathered up and twisted it shut.

“I’ll just…run this out to the Dumpster next trip.”

“Don’t bother yet,” April told her. She smiled, seemed herself again. “Stay here and help me.”

So much for escape. Guin nodded, looked around. “Where should I start?”

“Grab a box and rip it open. There’s a box cutter over there.” She waved toward the tiny foyer table. “Tear it all open. I’ve got no secrets.”

Guin retrieved the cutter, recalling quite clearly the vision she’d seen at the last apartment. Nothing to hide, huh? But then again, April was a big girl, and judging from her nice curves, mink hair and eyes that twinkled like she knew something no one else did, Guin would be stupid to suppose she hadn’t had her share of relationships.

She sliced open the first box, waited a moment, got an ethereal all-clear and tore into the next one, relieved that nothing was talking to her now.

“Guin, in case I haven’t mentioned it, thanks for helping me do this.”

“You have mentioned it.” Guin nodded, smiled, and tore open another box. “About twenty-two times so far today.”

April turned serious. “Make that twenty-three. I really do appreciate it. I know you have other places you could be.”

Guin flicked the box cutter closed, noticed April staring at her, eyes twinkling. She was bewitching.

“I’m happy to do it, April.”

And truthfully at the moment, there was no place she’d rather be.