With his fork Ian reached over to Soledad's plate, lifted some of the lettuce. Blue cheese dressing sloshed from the leaves, the cheese falling like boulders in a goo-slide."That's too much. What's the point of eating healthy if you're going to use that much dressing?"
" 'Cause it's good for you."
"It's nothing but fat."
"The salad's good for you."
"But you've got more dressing than salad."
Soledad speared a forkful of lettuce, lifted it slow to her mouth. Dressing dripped, dripped from her lips and chin. It was funny. Was sexy too. For a sec Ian wished he was the kind of guy, ballsy enough, to slap their trays to the floor, put Soledad on the table and make love to her right there.
They were doing that now. They'd graduated from having sex to making love. From sharing space and screwing to sharing themselves and having something like a relationship. Something like. All that made Ian happy. When it didn't make him scared.
"You just want," Soledad's mouth full of blue cheese dressing and some very little bit of salad,"to eat at Johnny Rocket's."
"I don't want to eat at Johnny Rocket's. I'm just saying if you're going to eat healthy, eat healthy; otherwise… Actually, yeah, I do want to eat at Johnny Rocket's. That crap's good. Life's too short to try and eat healthy and live forever."
"Am I a bigot?"
"We're all bigots." As left field as Soledad's question was, Ian didn't miss a beat answering."I don't care what anybody says, we all carry some baggage in us."
"Am I worse than most?"
"It's all bad, so how do you—"
"Answer me straight. Please."
Now Ian took his time. Thought. Asked: "Why do you care?"
"Served a warrant on a freak. It said I was no better than people who hated Jews and gays. Blacks."
"Hate is hate. So, no, I don't think your hate is any better—"
"You've never talked about how you fall on things," cutting him off, getting a little sharp."You soft for freaks?"
"We're talking about you."
"You are soft for them."
"You asked me a question. Don't take the conversation somewhere else when you don't like the answers I give."
And for a second it was Soledad looking hard at Ian, Ian looking hard right back to her. Then Soledad sat back in her chair, realizing, just then, how forward her little outburst had carried her.
"I think," Ian said,"some of the hurt you have, the reasons you feel the way you do… I understand it, even though it's intangible." Some kind of little laugh from Ian."I shouldn't be—"
"Go on. Say what you're going to say."
"I know why you have it, but I wish you didn't have the hate you do. For what it does to other people, but mostly for what it does to yourself. If I'd known how you felt first off, we wouldn't… there's no way I could've been with you. But I was, I guess I was lucky; I got a chance to see the good in you first. And now, that this metanor-mal would say things to you, that you would care what it said, that you would care what I think… Even in the time I've known you, you've changed, Soledad."
"Well, fuck. Everything around me's changed."
"What? Things aren't supposed to? That's a shock to you they do?"
"Yes, Ian. It is. From half a city being torn away right up to people I thought had my back selling me out." Soledad used a cold, factual tone to make her point."There is no gentle transformation in any of that, so, yeah, I'm shocked."
"Sometimes it's not; sometimes it's not gentle. But however it came, you've changed too. You have. You'll change more. You and me both. And hard as things are for us, for trying to get along in our relationship, or whatever you want to call it… hard as it is, I want to be around when all your hurt is gone. I live for that."
And Soledad smiled. It was a sweet one that warmed across her lips. She leaned over the table, getting dressing on her sleeve and not caring, put her mouth to Ian's. Kissed him.
Yeah. He definitely wished he was a ballsier kind of guy.
And as he thought that, he let himself be.
"Let's go away," Ian said.
"I've got days owed. Maybe we could get lost for a couple of—"
"I'm not talking a vacation. Where would you be happy? Canada? Hawaii? Australia? How far away do we have to be from the rest of the world for you to smile all the time? Just tell me and I'll take you there."
Soledad put down her fork."If we're going to do this, if you and me are going to be together… it won't work with you worrying about me getting killed."
"That's not why I'm… Yeah, I think about that. I'd be lying if I said I didn't. But as I come to know you more I worry less. Sometimes I think nothing could kill you."
"Then why—"
"Look at us: two people stumbling along in life. The only way we even hooked up was by accident. Really by accident. Baggage for days, pasts we don't want to talk about. A world of people we don't even want to know. So, fine. Let's leave all that. Let's… It's like we're no good for anyone but us. And we're no good at all except anywhere but here."
"Here?" Edging forward again: "So get away from here, you mean: get away from hunting freaks."
Ian looked down at the table."From… everything."
"I don't… One second we're talking about salad dressing, then you're asking me to give it all up."
"Give all of what up?"
"My job, my life."
"An obsession as much as a job."
"You don't like what I do—"
"You're the one who said that. Not me. And a job doing what, hunting people down? You sit there asking me if I think you're a bigot, then you go right back to having no problem doing what you're doing."
"Being a cop and being a bigot are not the same thing."
"They are if it's the reason you became a cop: to have a legal excuse to kill the people you hate."
"You know what?" Soledad was already half up out of her chair."This conversation needs to end and you need to get out of my face."
Ian reached out. Ian grabbed Soledad by the wrist, pulled her back down into her seat. In the time that she'd known, yet barely known him, Soledad had always thought of Ian as a sensitive guy. Sensitive a euphemism for timid, but timid not being a pejorative. He was quiet, little on the nervous side. She remembered his panicked look when he caught a glimpse of her off-duty piece the afternoon their cars collided. Soledad remembered his halting, breathy request for a first date. Things that made him more human than the hard guys she mixed with daily on the force.
But all previous concepts of Ian got shoved to the side by the strong hand that latched on to Soledad's wrist with a firm, firm grip. It surprised Soledad. It was unexpected; hard but not harsh. It directed her to shut up, sit down and listen. It also revealed to Soledad an as-yet-undiscovered attractiveness in Ian.
Ian said: "What did your job," again, derisive there,"give you except months of getting slow-roasted over coals? The same people who were supposed to be supporting you were ready to hang you, couldn't turn their backs fast enough on you. Lied, Soledad. They lied to your face."
Ian eased up his grip. Soledad was almost sorry for it.
He said: "I don't want you to give up your life. That's not what I'm asking. What I want… I want you to start a life with me. I want us to start one together."
"What are you saying?"
"What I'm… I'm trying… I'm telling you…" Fumbling, fumbling."I'm saying what people say to people every day. I'm saying what you said to me. I'm saying I love you."
"… Fuck…"
"I tell you I love you, and you say fuck?"
"… Yeah…"
"You told me you loved me. It's only supposed to work one way?"
"No, but… Fuck…"
Ian laughed some."Sucks, doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
"You love somebody, it's nothing. Easy. All you've got to do is sit there and love them. Somebody loves you… that's obligation you're feeling."
"Fuck. Thought love was supposed to feel good."