Unleashed_Case of the Collie Flour

by Erik Schubach

  I squeaked, and Calvin bounded happily and barked when Jane crossed a leg behind her to kick my butt. I responded in kind as I grinned.

  I really love New York.

  We got home, and true to her word, after stowing her gun in the cabinet above the fridge, and shedding her boots and jacket, she ordered up some pizza.

  She cocked that frigging eyebrow of hers when I went about labeling a peg at the door for her jacket and organized her boots tidily against the baseboard below it. I pointed my label maker menacingly at her, and she just chuckled and held her hands up in surrender.

  I'll get her trained up nicely yet.

  Calvin was already way ahead of us and had hopped up onto the couch to curl up. It had been a long and stressful day for the poor boy.

  She looked over at me from where she leaned a hip on the counter as I replaced my labeler in the drawer. She held up her cell and mouthed, “Toppings?” Then Cocked her eyebrow and smirked. “Vegetarian?”

  I blurted, “Just how Mary Sue do you think I am?” Then I raised my chin in defiance and said, “Canadian bacon and sausage. About anything else just no fungus.” Though vegetarian did sound good, she didn't need to know that.

  She grinned and spoke to the person on the line, “Extra large, Canadian bacon, sausage...” Then she paused and looked a question at me as she continued, “Black olives, onion.”

  I smiled and nodded as I headed to my room to get into something more comfortable. Then snorted when I heard Jane add, “And mushrooms on half.” She had raised her voice on the word mushrooms to be sure I heard her putting the disgusting fungus on her half. I shivered.

  As we were not planning on going out about on the town tonight, I thought I'd just slip into my pajamas and fuzzy slippers. I closed my door and took a step, then reversed and locked my door to the amused chuckle of Detective McLeary.

  A moment later Calvin came trotting in from the bathroom. I rolled my eyes and started for the door but paused. She knew I was changing and wouldn't come walking in, I don't know why I was being so random. I could lie to myself all I wanted and ignore the tiny part of me who wanted her to. I was so confused that the woman both excited and scared me, knowing she liked girls.

  I asked Calvin, “What am I doing?”

  He – didn't answer.

  I ruffled his ears and then quickly got into Finnegan, lounge around lazy mode version 1.0.

  I stepped back out, Calvin trailing behind, to find her looking into the fridge, her arm draped lazily over the door. She looked back at me. “Water? Pepsi? Apple juice?” Then she smirked, “You really have each shelf labeled in here?”

  I pulled Cal's food out from the lower cupboard, where I needed to reorganize things since it would be a permanent addition to my system now. Not looking at her as I growled out, “Shut up.” Then added quietly, “Apple juice is fine, thank you.”

  She grabbed one and a Pepsi and shut the door as I scooped exactly two leveled cups of food into Calvin's dish. He sat beside me, his jowls drooling and his tail swishing along the floor behind him. He had impeccable manners, and I was glad Abigail had him so well trained.

  I smiled at him as I put the dog food away, hesitating, I'd need a label for that. Then I retrieved his water dish and rinsed it out and filled it. Once I placed it beside his food; I’d need a little mat there to keep the area tidy; I told him, “Go ahead, boy.” He almost dove on the food. It had been a hectic day, and I didn't blame him.

  I looked up and froze. Those gorgeous brown eyes of McLeary were trained on me, studying me from where she was leaning her hip against the counter again. She slid the apple juice toward me on the counter, and I took it. “What?”

  She smiled and walked off toward the couch. “Nothing pajama girl, just wondering if you were going to label the spot for the dog food is all.”

  I looked at her retreating back, and my junk drawer then snapped out in frustration, “I hate you.” Then retrieved the labeler and labeled the spot. She knew mentioning it would put it in my head, drive me crazy. I could always move the label later once I reorganized the cupboard if needed.

  I hesitated and looked back at her when she opened her Pepsi and pointed the remote at the TV and turned it on. She had known that... was she... playing with me? Were we becoming friends? My other roommates never became my friends. Well, I considered them friends, but I don't think it was reciprocated. They all said I drove them crazy.

  She asked as I moved over to join her, “So no beer? Any alcohol in the place?”

  I absently thought about page three of the rules, wondering if it were smart for us to have thrown them out.

  I supplied as I moved over and sat on the far side of the couch from her, “I don't drink.”

  She nodded as if in understanding. “You have to be in control of yourself.” She flipped through the channels.

  Why was I embarrassed about that? It was true but – hey! She was doing that cop thing again! I pretended it hadn't hit the mark and tried to be casual as I offered, “I can pick up some beer for you.” Ignore the rules Finnegan, you're making new ones now, remember?

  She hesitated, turned to me, and cocked her head, the cockiness replaced by questioning. “I'm not saying that, Finnegan. I'm just trying to get to know you, see what makes you tick. Understand you more so I know where the boundaries are. If we're going to be roommates, we should know each other's likes, dislikes, or triggers.”

  Oh.

  I nodded as I opened my apple juice. “That makes sense.”

  She added with that smirk of hers, “That's not saying I won't bring in a six pack from time to time mind you.”

  I nodded, I could live with that. It wasn't like I would be drinking it or anything. “Compromise.”

  She nodded and raised her Pepsi can toward me in salute. “To compromise.”

  I tapped my plastic apple juice bottle against it and found myself smiling.

  Smugly I said as I snatched the remote from her hand and offered in the spirit of getting to know each other, “You're one of my triggers. Jerk.”

  She chuckled out in amusement. “Brat.”

  I cued up Netflix and asked as I smiled at the banter, “What kind of movie?” Then added tongue in cheek, “Cop flick?”

  She shot back easily, “Not a chick flick.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. But chick flicks were my drug of choice, romantic comedies my lifeblood. Jane swiped the remote from my hand and gave me a 'so there' look, and she paused at an epic fantasy and raised an eyebrow in question at me. Compromise. Action with a little romance mixed in.

  When I kicked off my slippers and curled my legs up on the couch, she smiled and selected it. This felt nice, sharing a lazy evening with someone without any expectations. Calvin thought so too as he joined us after finishing his supper. Sitting his butt on my feet and laying his head on Jane's lap. He was an equal opportunity touch monger.

  I hugged myself as the show started, this felt like – home.

  Chapter 8 – Liberty

  The next morning I awoke feeling warm and safe, the scent of lilac and leather surrounding me. Someone was running their fingers through my hair, and it felt sinfully erotic. I opened my bleary eyes and stretched... then sat up in a rush when I fully woke with the realization that I wasn't in my bed. I had fallen asleep on the couch watching movies with Jane after we ate our pizza when it was delivered. Sneaking pieces of Canadian bacon to Cal.

  I had somehow wound up laying across Jane, my head in her lap, Calvin tucked in neatly in front of me. She smiled at my shock and disorientation. “Ah, Sleeping Beauty awakens. God, I think my legs are asleep now.” Calvin licked my face then hopped down, whining.

  I got my bearings and blushed at Jane then told Cal with a yawn. “Just a minute boy. I'll take you out in a second. Gotta get dressed.”

  I slid off the couch and looked at our in house detective as she started massaging her legs while she grinned at me, her feet twisting in circles sluggishly. Oh lord, her legs did go to slee
p, how long had I been laying on her? I looked down sheepishly as I shuffled past her and half whispered, “I’m so sorry. How long was I like that? You could have woke me.”

  She shook her head, that smug look and amusement twinkling in those big browns of hers. “Almost the entire night. Don’t worry about it, you were too cute to move, I didn’t want to wake you. You had a traumatic day.”

  All night? Why hadn’t she… wait, cute? I shuffled faster to my room. I wasn’t cute. I shut my door behind me, and predictably, Cal came trotting in through the bathroom. I smiled at him and asked, “Why didn’t you wake me, traitor? I was laying in her lap!”

  I swear the fuzzy turncoat gave a doggy smile as he hopped up on my bed and curled in. How could you be upset with that? I sighed and quickly got dressed for a walk, I’d shower after I got Calvin out to do his thing before he exploded.

  I looked at the door and repressed sticking out my tongue at it and selected my new red sundress. A few minutes later, after dressing and brushing my hair out quickly, I came out feeling embarrassed as we made our way to the door. I said to the floor, trying not to look at my roommate over by the coffee maker, “We’ll be back in a few, Cal needs his morning constitutional.”

  She waved at us as I harnessed… my dog. I had a dog you know. She said with a yawn, “Great, that’ll give me a chance to shower and get ready for the day.”

  I waved and slipped out with my silly border collie as I wondered just how she could look so good in the morning when I always looked like I had been in a life or death struggle with a weed whacker.

  True to her word, she was changed and smelling like soap, lilac, and leather when we returned. Gah, why did I find the combination so… so something?

  When we joined her in the kitchen, I saw my coffee cup sat on a coaster on the counter, full of steaming ambrosia. That was considerate of her. She looked up from over the rim of her cup, “Good walk?”

  I nodded. “Calvin was a champ and didn’t dawdle, just went straight to business.” I closed my eyes and sighed as the first of the hot invigorating liquid went down my throat.

  I opened my eyes and noted she was still looking over the rim of her coffee mug, looking smug. I snapped, “What?”

  She shrugged and placed her cup down… on a coaster, and then leaned her hip against the counter. “Nothing, just amused at your choice of clothing today.”

  I just gave her a toothy grin. Yes, that’s right, I was subtly thumbing my nose at the woman and was glad she had taken note of it. We shared a chuckle, and I looked toward the bathroom. “I should get ready for the day. I can whip up some breakfast when I get out. I’ll be stuck here for a couple hours, I gotta call my brother for a ride to visit my mom today up in Liberty. With Cal, I can’t take public transportation anymore.”

  She looked interested at that and offered, “Well I can watch Calvin for you, or better yet I can drive you and save your brother eight hours on the road making two back and forth trips today.”

  I hesitated. “You’d do that?”

  She shrugged. “I’m supposed to take a day off, and if I didn’t occupy myself with something, I’d be mulling over the evidence all day anyway. If the techs find anything in the new evidence, they’ll call. Flannery is a competent man and will follow up on our other sparse leads until I return.”

  Oh.

  I looked at Calvin. “What do you think?”

  He cocked his head, wagged his tail, and lolled his tongue out.

  I nodded. “Agreed.” Then looked up at her. “That sounds wonderful. Thank you.”

  She took her coffee cup and headed toward the living room where I saw her case files strewn all over the coffee table. “De nada.” She really would have obsessed with the case on her day off wouldn’t she have?

  I smiled. That made Jane more, I don’t know, human? To me just then. I teased as I headed to get cleaned up for the day, “Borderline obsessive compulsive?”

  I screamed and hustled to the bathroom when she threw a throw pillow from the couch at me. I chuckled to myself. Threw a throw pillow? Is that why they’re called that? Calvin barked once and bounded to her like it was a new great game.

  I made sure to lock the other two bathroom doors this time. I didn’t need to be parading around in my birthday suit around anyone again.

  After getting ready for the day and preparing bagels and cream cheese for us, we set out on the two-hour drive to mom’s. Calvin thought the window I cracked for him in the back seat was just as wonderful as stomping all over me in the passenger seat to stick his nose out my window. Silly boy, I’d have to discuss proper riding etiquette with him later.

  On the way there, Jane had been peppering me with questions about my family and my childhood. After the first half hour, I was feeling like I was being interrogated and had to pull up short. “Wait, wait, wait. I feel like I’m a perp in the squad room again. You have to barter for answers from here on out. I’ll answer one question for each you answer.”

  She cocked an eyebrow as we hit the interchange to head northwest. “Perp?” She cocked an eyebrow. “You do realize we don’t really talk like they do on the crime dramas on TV, don’t you? Well, for the most part anyway.”

  I shrugged. How the fluffy heck was I supposed to know?

  She prompted, “Fair enough. Shoot.”

  I scrunched my lips to the side as I thought. What would tell me more about Jane than the obvious, where were you born, where did you go to school questions. I tilted my head and asked, “Did you have a nickname in school?”

  She nodded and said, “Now I get a question.”

  I waved her off with a fluttering hand and narrowed my eyes at the smart-butt. “Clarification. If you had a nickname in school, what was it?”

  She asked, “Got some lawyer blood in there somewhere?” Then she seemed to contemplate something as we rocketed past a slow car in the passing lane. My eyes widened, we were going eighty-five! Then she sighed. “Jane the Pain. That changed to Stretch in high school.”

  Jane the Pain? That was mean, but kids were mean. I understood. I got teased all the time. She started to explain, “I was always taller than the other kids and got into more than my fair share of fights growing up standing up for myself. The kids would say that I always brought the pain. That just morphed.”

  Then she cocked a curious eyebrow. “My turn. Same question.”

  I froze. I should have seen that coming. Stupid Fin, really stupid. I said, “I’m tired of questions. Want to listen to music?”

  I had always been teased because I always wanted to be like Garrett. He was never afraid of anything. The kids took to calling me Fin-dyke-again because I wore boy's clothes. Then I blanched. What would Jane think about me hating that nickname which followed me all the way through my senior year, even after I started wearing dresses? She wouldn’t think I thought that hating that terrible slur for a gay woman meant I hated gay women, would she? Oh god. I didn’t. I envied her for being brave enough to be herself no matter what bigots may say.

  I started breathing faster, and she glanced at me and then her eyes widened a bit in concern. “Sure. Music is good. We could just move onto another question. Any time either of us asks something, we’d rather not answer just say ‘next,' and we move on without comment.”

  I dropped my hand from where I was reaching for the radio. “Oh. Ok. Sorry for freaking out.”

  She shrugged. “We all have skeletons in our closet. No biggie, Finny. So, alternate question, Why New York? Just an observation, not a dig, but isn’t such a hectic ever-changing environment hard for you when the apartment is so sterile? Or is it your inner sanctorum? Like Superman.”

  I grinned and corrected, “That’s the Fortress of Solitude.”

  She grinned, and I realized she was baiting me. She teased, “Geek.”

  I shook my head at her and peeled the banana, showing her my middle finger, which rewarded me with her awesome laugh. Then I contemplated her question and shrugged. “New York City… Manhatta
n… Central Park! It is so alive, so full of life, excitement, and promise. Can it be overwhelming at times? Yes. But it is such an amazing place like no other, how can you not love the spectacular living metropolis. So full of sound and light and smells that just scream to you, 'I'm home.'”

  Then I admitted, “Yes, I use my apartment to decompress when I feel overloaded, so in a sense, it is my Fortress of Solitude, the one place I can control. But I also know that to truly live, I have to try to get out in the world instead of locking myself away when I'm not working. Thus the copious number of dates I go on. If only I could get past a first date...”

  She snorted. “Shortsighted people. How can a smart girl who looks like you be single?”

  I felt a blush blooming on my cheeks as my neck heated. A girl who looks like me? Has she seen herself?

  I bit the tip of my tongue, then noted in good humor, “A couple of relationship geniuses we are, huh?” I beamed when she snorted again.

  The question and answer game played out the rest of the way to mom's, and I found her being far less shallow and way more open than I had given her credit for on our first meeting at the 855 Building.

  Though she did lose points for never having had a dog in her life. I guess I could forgive her since she now had one by proxy as a result of the horrific demise of New York's Broadway darling. I smiled. Calvin certainly took a liking to her, and he has great taste, and I trust his judgment.

  Before long, I had her pulling into the familiar driveway on Cedar Street in Liberty. I always smiled while looking at the little robin's egg blue house with its striking white trim and door which always reminded me of frosting. Home was home, even if you had another home. A person could have more than one home, but the one in which you grew up in would always be your anchor home. I seem to be saying home a lot here, I should refrain from saying home for a bit.

  I said with a grin, “Home.” Shut up.

  She cocked her head and looked at the house and our little yard surrounded by the little cedar fence. I could hear Puddles barking in the house, and that just got Calvin excited as his whole body was wagging as he stuck his nose out the back window and started sniffing and snuffling the air.