Free Come Out Tonight by Bonnie Rozanski Page A

anything.   And I had a hunch that when I’d called Phillip Pollack’s cell, the traffic noises I’d heard in the background were New York City .
     
*     *     *
     
    I got back to my apartment around five to find Julian kicking back on the sofa in front of my TV.   “I let myself in,” he told me, unnecessarily.   Behind him I could see three matched Louis Vuitton bags parked in the hallway that led to the bedroom.
    “You never gave me back my key, as you said you would,” I said, unobtrusively kicking my beat-up canvas tote beneath the sofa table.
    “You never changed the lock, as you said you would,” he answered, smiling.
    “Touch é ,” I said.   Repartee was one of the things we still enjoyed with one another.
    Julian’s dark hair was longer than I remembered, and he hadn’t bothered to shave today.   But under the ripped jeans and waffle-weave T, I could see he was lanky but muscular.   He looked good: too good for me, who was pushing forty and never had much inclination to do much with what I had, anyway.   I wondered whether he was frequenting the gym.   It wouldn’t be beyond Julian to be without an apartment but to still own a gym membership.  
    In any case, he wasn’t dressing up for me.   It just wasn’t that way with us anymore.   We knew each other too well for artifice.   We’d been through all the wars that men and women wage.   I remembered how he could go for days without showering; he’d seen me when I got out of bed in the morning, my hair flattened to my head and a pillow crease on my cheek.   I knew how smart he was, but how without compunctions when it came to getting ahead.   He’d seen what a stickler I could be at work, but what a pushover at home.   With all we had learned about each other, we knew full well to keep out of each other’s hair.   But it never seemed to stop us from getting entangled in it over and over again.  
    I sat down on the wing chair across from him and kicked off my shoes.   “So, why do you not have a job?” I asked.
    “Still get right to the point, don’t you, Donna?” Julian grinned.
    “It’s my job,” I said.   “And you’re trying to put me off the track.   Just answer the question.”
    “You’re not at the precinct, Donna.   Don’t interrogate me.”
    “You’re staying at my place.   All I’m trying to do, Julian, is to get a sense of why you’re here.”
    He sighed.   “You think I want to be out of work?   Wall Street’s just recovering from the biggest dip since the great depression.   Anyway, I’ve got a few interviews lined up.   Goldman Sachs at the end of the week.   They’re hiring again, and I still have connections there.”
    “Okay, good.   And then you can go out and look for a place.   Because, Julian, you’ve got a…month here, tops.   I mean it.”
    He stood up and crossed the distance to where I was sitting.   Planting his big hands around the deltoids of my upper arms, he lifted me up to a standing position.   I’m not a small person at 5’10”, but at 6’3” Julian looks down at me.   It always used to thrill me to feel small in comparison.   “Don’t be a bully,” he said, leaning down to kiss me.
    I felt Julian’s lips rough against on mine, his arms enfolding me, embracing me, his lower body crushed hard against mine.   “Don’t do this,” I told myself.   “Do. Not. Do. This.”   But obviously, my body had other ideas.   Without any resistance, it simply melted into his: the tough, hard-boiled exterior of the Detective Second Grade who had battled her way up to, if not through, the glass ceiling of the NYPD, softening, then liquefying, dripping down Julian’s body like honey, evaporating from the heat of our fire into steam.
    “God, I missed you,” he breathed, hot and heavy in my ear.
    No, No came out “Yesssohyesss.”  
    We were on the floor, thrashing around, ripping off our clothing, when the phone rang.   For a nanosecond the