Narcos…

It was raining outside. The disciplinary hearing room had windows, sitting on the ninth floor of city hall. I stood in front of the panel with my union rep at my side and waited to hear them out, see what I would be facing. I was nervous, but not too bad. I think Everleigh was dealing with enough anxiety for the both of us. She was sitting behind us in the gallery with Driller, wringing her hands, her bottom lip worried between her teeth.

“It is our decision that you be moved out of Narcotics to the Robbery division,” the spokesman said. “A disciplinary letter regarding this matter will be placed in your permanent jacket. Your suspension has already been served.”

I was okay with that, all of it, but my union rep went to work, did his job and got at least half of my pay from that suspension returned. All in all, it wasn’t much of a punishment. I expected the letter in my jacket, and I’d wanted to go to Robbery, so I was chalking this up as a win.

Out in the hall, Everleigh burrowed into the front of my body and hid her face. I knew her tears were tears of relief, but when one of the panel members came out into the hall and saw us, sympathy crushed his expression and I couldn’t resist playing it for what it was worth.

“It’s not your fault, babe,” I murmured, and hugged her tight.

“Young lady, I assure you, as bad as it sounds, Detective Rutledge was let off comparatively light, considering what could have happened.”

Everleigh nodded against my dress blues and I said, “He’s right, and thank you, sir.”

“My pleasure. Try not to think about it,” he said and trailed up the hall away from us.

Driller grinned and shook his head saying under his breath, “He bought that hook, line, and sinker.”

“Yeah, well, hopefully he’ll remember it when it’s your turn,” I muttered.

“True that,” Driller commented. He was in deeper shit, technically being my superior officer and being willfully insubordinate. We’d see sometime next week, or the week after, what was going to happen to him. His union rep was still duking it out for him.

“Let’s go home,” Everleigh moaned and pulled back to wipe at her face. Driller shook out a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.

“Which one?” he asked.

“Home,” Everleigh repeated with emphasis.

“Gotta change first,” Driller said.

“Yep, let’s go.”

We went back to Driller’s apartment first and changed into comfortable clothes we didn’t care about. We’d been making mad progress on the house with the club’s help, and if we were lucky, it would be ready to move into by midsummer.

The bedrooms were finished except for paint, and the bathrooms were under construction, along with the kitchen, but right now, our focus was dry walling the attic and laying a floor up there.

“You ready?” she asked quietly and I could tell she had a renewed vigor where getting the house worked on was concerned.

I captured her gaze with mine and smiled teasing her gently when I asked, “What’s your hurry?”

Her expression, to my surprise, sobered and she went very still. She cocked her head and said, “I feel like we just cleared yet another hurdle and the finish line feels like its right there, you know?”

Driller paused behind her and straightened up, pulling on his jeans the rest of the way. He cocked his head and said, “Talk to us, Bright Eyes…”

“I guess I’m excited,” she said. “I just never realized how much excitement and anxiety had in common.”

I chuckled and went to her, drawing her into my arms and said, “Are you telling me you just can’t wait to start our lives together?” I asked.

She nodded and said emphatically, “Yes.”

Driller laughed outright and said, “Baby, the house being done or not, you’re here. Your life together has already started.”

She stopped and it was like she was having some difficulty processing that. She said reluctantly, “I know…” but I could tell she wasn’t quite convinced. Like the front of her brain, logically, knew that it was true, but the back of her brain, her emotions, hadn’t quite caught up to the notion.

“We’ll get there,” I promised, and she smiled up at me.

“I know, I just guess that being there, working on it with you guys, it’s my favorite place to be, you know?”

I nodded slowly and said, “Yeah, it’s ours, not his, or mine, or yours.”

“Exactly.”

Driller nodded slowly and came up behind her and pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and trembled and he murmured low in her ear, “I can’t wait until we can do this in your house… for real, you know?”

“Our house,” she whispered, and turned in my arms to face my best friend. She kissed him gently and I went rock hard.

He drew back and searched her face and said, “You start us down that road, we won’t make it to the house today.”

“Fair enough,” she declared, but she had a hard time keeping her hands to herself despite it and I could tell, she was in the mood and wanted us both. I couldn’t wait until we could get moved in either, and every day we spent there working on it, got me closer to my goal, too. The one where I made Everleigh my wife.

With the rain, we piled into the truck I’d bought off a local guy for the purpose of making the renovations on our place easier. That, and when those renovations were done, Everleigh was going to need a vehicle to commute with, one capable of hauling materials for her beehives and whatever else she got into.

It wasn’t a very big truck, and she was snug between us for the trip across the bridge, not that she ever complained about that. She left her hand on top of my thigh as I drove and curled her other in Driller’s.

We arrived safely, the house just as we left it, and went inside. The majority of it was plastic and drywall dust, drop cloths and emptiness. Right now, it was just a house, but hopefully, soon it would be a home.

The bedrooms were done and carpeted in case we needed to move in before everything was totally completed. One of the bathrooms was close to finished, the sink and the toilet functional.

The kitchen had a sink, and the floors and tile backsplash and the walls were done, but it was still waiting for appliances, counters, and cabinetry.

We still had decisions to make before we put in the spiral staircase to get up to the attic. Namely, whether we were going to open up the floor and make it run from basement to attic. We were definitely putting the washer and dryer down in the basement, maybe an extra freezer and pantry space, too. Like I said, decisions. The biggest job for now was finishing the drywall and the flooring up in the attic, and for now, a simple A-frame ladder took care of getting up into and out of the space.

I went up first, and Driller stabilized the ladder for Everleigh. I reached down and helped her through the hatch, even though I didn’t really need to. She had it on her own, it was just nice to have any excuse to put my hands on her. Driller grinned and raised his eyebrows behind her back and I gave him a knowing smirk.

We got to work; the sheetrock was pretty much up, and the joints between the sheets mudded or whatever. We were in the land of never-ending sanding. The plywood sheets laid down for temporary flooring were covered in fine dust.

We put on our masks and eye protection and each grabbed our sandpaper tools and got to work. We were almost finished with this part, and while Driller and I sanded, Everleigh ran the shop-vac to mitigate the dust falling.

We had the windows open up here to help, too, while we worked and I was hoping we’d finish up the sanding today and be ready to prime next time. It was just another hurdle, albeit much smaller, for us to clear in building our new home.

I threw chin at Driller when the vacuum quit, and he pulled off his mask and said, “Hey, Bright Eyes.”

When Everleigh turned to him, I dropped to one knee behind her, slipping my fingers into my jeans pocket and plucking out the classy engagement ring Driller had helped me scour antique shops for, over the last couple of weeks.

When he was sure I was set, my best friend asked her, “Can you hand me that pack of sandpaper?” He pointed behind her and she turned, freezing, her hand falling on her breast as if to put her heart back in her chest when she saw me.

Her cat-green eyes widened and her face went slack with surprise as I held up the ring and said, “Everleigh Tate, would you please do me the honor of becoming Everleigh Rutledge, and make this house a home with me?”

The question hung between us, her voice frozen in her throat, tears springing to her eyes and making them luminous, even as they spilled in muddy tracks down her cheeks.

“Are you serious?” she asked, in barely a whisper, her voice filled to the brim with disbelief, which broke my heart just a little. I mean, how could she not know how much I wanted her?

“I’ve never been more serious in my life, babe. I want it to be you and me forever. I love you, and I want to show it to the whole damn world.”

She pressed her hands to her chest and crumbled. Dropping to her knees and throwing her arms around my neck, she said “Yes!” with such a desperate wanting I felt like my own heart was about to explode.

“Fuck, yes!” Driller cried and cheered as I held my woman tight in my arms, her lips finding mine, the kiss between us sealing our fate, our stars crossing in the sky, and they could have become their own constellation.

“I love you, babe,” I whispered, smoothing a hand through her dust coated hair.

“I love you forever,” she whispered back, and I held her tight and looked up at my best friend, whose own eyes were glassy and starting to brim.

“This counts as one of the best moments of my life, and I ain’t even in this,” he declared and I felt such a wholeness, such a completeness in that moment, you just don’t even know.