Free Faith and Fidelity by Tere Michaels

She looked up and gave him a radiant smile before sticking out her tongue. Things were looking up— the Stepford Helena had not come back.
    “Somebody's late.”
    “Five minutes?”
    “It's late for you. I win. Shut up.”
    She waited until he took his coat off, sat down, rolled up his sleeves, and turned his computer on in typical Evan-is-anal-retentive fashion. The man was clockwork incarnate. A furtive look around told her that no one was close enough to hear so she leaned forward. “Well?!” she whispered.
    Evan leaned forward and whispered back, “Well what?”
    Her eyes narrowed. “Don't even try that. What happened last night?”
    Evan opened his mouth to say something but couldn't quite put the evening into words. He dropped his gaze to his blotter, didn't look up. He could feel her eyes burning into his forehead. “Nothing,” he mumbled. “We're, uh, going to have drinks this week, talk it over.”
    “Oh. You didn't talk to her about it last night?”
    “No.”
    “Because it seemed like you were all gung ho on getting it over with.”
    “I didn't get the chance,” Evan said quietly, thinking that it was sort of impossible, what with Matt's tongue in his mouth.
    “You okay? Something's really got you dragging.”
    “I'm fine.”
    “Yeah right!”
    “Listen— I don't want to talk about it okay?! I can handle it. I'll let you know if I need your input.” It came out sharper than he meant it to and he winced at the look in Helena's eyes.
    “Excuse me. You wanted to talk about it yesterday.” She slammed around her desk for a moment, moving things that didn't need to be moved. “You don't want me to hover? Fine, I won't. I'm sorry if I'm concerned about you.” Obviously hurt and annoyed, she turned her chair around and began attacking a pile of folders.
    Her parting shot hurt the most because it was the dead on truth. “You're full of shit when you say you're handling it. And if I was the one going through something this... big, you'd be crawling up my ass trying to fix it.”
    They barely spoke for the rest of the day. Evan couldn't bring himself to say the words she wanted to hear.

    * * * *

    At six o'clock, Matt cleaned up his desk and left the office. He thought about stopping for dinner but realized he wasn't hungry. He just wanted to go and sit next to the phone and wait.
    At his apartment, he changed his clothes and lay down on the mattress. Stared up at the ceiling and thought, shit, I really do need furniture don't I? Waited, waited, waited.
    And then the phone rang.
    “Hey, it's me.”
    “Hi.” Matt heard the kids in the background and ached to be there.
    “Uh, sorry I fell asleep last night. I was exhausted.”
    “Not a problem. I'm just glad you got some rest. I worry about you.”
    Matt heard the pregnant pause through the line and held his breath; being the emotional one in this sort of situation was not his forte. He worried he'd crossed a line when Evan cleared his throat and started talking again.
    “Listen, I think you're right. We should get together and talk.”
    “Yeah.”
    “So I talked to my sister-in-law and she's going to take the kids out on Saturday. She said she'd pick them up on Friday after school. So uh, does Friday work for you?”
    Three fucking days. Matt thought he'd probably go crazy before then. “Friday's fine. I'll meet you at O'Malley's, eight o'clock?”
    “Fine.”
    “Great. So say hi to the kids. I'll see you Friday.”
    “Yeah.” Another long pause in Matt's ear. “See you then.”
    They breathed at one another for a long moment, then hung up.
    Matt rolled over onto his stomach and tried to pretend he didn't care about how distant Evan seemed to be.

    * * * *

    Evan and Helena maintained their cool attitudes for the rest of the week— they were all business. Everyone noticed and no one said a word to either of them. But it was the hot topic of conversation at lunch for the rest of the detectives. Good money said lover's spat— they'd