Conflict of Interest

by Jae

  Silently, they strolled back to the apartment side by side, some of the children following behind them. Dawn opened the front door for them.

  "Aunt Dawn!" Jamie cried excitedly.

  Both adults stopped and looked back at the gesticulating girl. "What?"

  "You're under the mistletoe!" Jamie jumped up and down, pointing at the twig hanging above them in the doorway.

  "So what?" Aiden tried to ignore the obvious meaning.

  "You have to kiss."

  Aiden tugged the girl closer and bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek while Dawn did the same to Jamie's other cheek. "Voílà, one kiss. Can we enter now?"

  "No!" The girl stomped her foot. "You have to kiss each other, not me. I'm not under the mistletoe."

  Aiden's gaze flitted to Dawn's face and then back to the girl. Dawn looked as indecisive as she felt. Beyond a quick peck on the cheek, they hadn't exchanged kisses, and Aiden didn't want Dawn to feel pressured to take the next step in their relationship just because of a Christmas tradition. "Jamie, look, I'm in a bit of a hurry right now. Can't I kiss her later?"

  "No, that's not allowed," Jamie insisted.

  "How come a nine-year-old girl knows so much about the rules of kissing under the mistletoe?" Aiden wondered.

  Dawn rolled her eyes. "I think we have Del to thank for that particular pearl of wisdom. Del told her that if an unmarried woman is not kissed under the mistletoe, she'll remain single for the next year. But that doesn't help us now, so..." Dawn rested one hand against Aiden's shoulder and lifted herself up on her tiptoes.

  Aiden forgot to breathe as Dawn's face came closer to her own. In return, all of her other systems went into overdrive. She held still as Dawn's lips touched her own for one beat of her thudding heart. Then it was already over, and Aiden had to blink a few times to break her rigor. I thought a kiss was what woke Sleeping Beauty from her spell, not what put her under it.

  Aiden stepped back when she saw Grace come out of the living room. She thanked the hostess, said good-bye to the rest of the family, and then walked toward the door again, this time careful not to step through it at the same time as anyone else.

  Dawn followed her silently, stopping when Aiden did, right in front of the apartment. She raised a hand and tugged Aiden's scarf more tightly around her neck. "Be careful, please."

  A nod and a quick glance back, and Aiden was on her way.

  * * *

  Del entered the kitchen, balancing a stack of dirty dishes in her hands.

  The kitchen was empty except for Grace, who stood in front of the sink, her back to Del.

  "Hey." Del set the stack of dishes down next to Grace. If she hadn't known the woman for twenty years, she probably would have missed the slight jump and the tension in the slender shoulders. "You okay? You look a little tense."

  "It's just all these dirty dishes." Grace busied herself with scrubbing cranberry sauce from another plate. "Remind me next year to accept all offers to help with cleaning up."

  Del stepped closer. She could sense that all the dirty dishes were not really what was upsetting her old friend. She picked up a dish towel and began to dry. "Do you need to talk?"

  A plate sank into the soapy water as Grace let go of it and turned to look at Del. "You know me so well," she said with a sigh.

  Del smiled. "We had some of our best talks over piles of dirty dishes," she reminded her. It had been in the kitchen where Grace had cried endless tears over the loss of her husband in Del's arms; it had been the place where Grace had convinced Del that she should be the one to walk Dawn down the aisle; and here Del had patiently answered questions when Grace had first suspected that her daughter might be gay. "So, you better start talking before the last plate is clean."

  Grace laughed but just for a second. "It's about Dawn..."

  That didn't surprise Del, but she felt a glimmer of concern rise in herself anyway. Sometimes it felt as if they had raised Dawn together as co-parents. "Don't worry about her." She slung the dish towel across her shoulders in order to lift her hands to Grace's tense neck. "Dawn is doing well, considering it hasn't even been three months since –"

  "This is not about... the rape." Grace leaned into the touch of Del's gently kneading hands.

  Del began to rub stiff shoulders and felt Grace lean back into her. "What is it then?" she asked and ducked her head to look into the familiar face. Suddenly, she understood. "You've seen her with Carlisle."

  "Why do you cops always pretend not to have first names?" Grace's complaint was two decades old.

  "Probably because not all of our parents had such good taste in naming their offspring as yours did," Del answered with a grin.

  Grace's head fell back onto Del's shoulder. "Charmer," she groaned when Del's hands worked on a particularly tense spot. "I've tried to ignore it for a while, but when I saw her saying good-bye to Aiden tonight..." Grace dried her hands on the towel and then tossed it on the counter with a sigh before she turned around to face Del. "Dawn told her to be careful, and I had a sudden déjà vu of me standing in the same place, telling Jim that very same thing."

  Del closed her eyes, and for a moment they shared their pain in silence.

  "Dawn cares about her," Grace finally said.

  "And that's a bad thing?"

  Grace shrugged. "It could be. It would kill Dawn to lose another person she loves to the job."

  "You can't choose who you love, Gracita," Del pointed out. "You just... do."

  A sigh came from Grace. "I know. I just wish..."

  "That the object of your daughter's affections wouldn't be a cop." Del nodded in understanding. Both of them knew firsthand how difficult a relationship with a police officer could be.

  "Yeah, and being male wouldn't hurt either," Grace added quietly.

  Del studied stormy gray eyes. "And here I thought I had cured your homophobia."

  "I'm not homophobic," Grace protested.

  Del knew that to be the truth. Grace had never been uncomfortable with having a lesbian best friend.

  "As far as I'm concerned, love is love. It's just that being with a woman has so much potential to hurt her." Grace sighed. "I don't want my daughter to go through life as an outsider... to be stared at, or spit on, or laughed at by total strangers, to be hurt simply because of who she loves. Dawn has already been raped just because some homophobe didn't like her sexual orientation. That's not the life a mother would choose for her daughter."

  "That's just it – it's not your choice," Del reminded. "It's not even Dawn's really. Being gay isn't a choice at all but a part of Dawn like the color of her eyes or her shoe size. The only choice is whether or not to have the courage to be open and honest about that part of her life. Living a lie, always hiding who she is, will hurt her, too."

  Grace's hand came up and tugged at a few still blond locks in desperation. "I know, and if she's really gay, I don't want her to feel like she has to hide it from me."

  "If she's really gay?" Del repeated with an incredulous laugh, reaching out to comb Grace's hair back into some semblance of order. "Darlin', I hate to point out the obvious, but she has lived in a lesbian relationship for over a year."

  Grace stubbornly shook her head. "There was no real chemistry between Maggie and Dawn."

  Del had to give her that. She had always suspected that the attraction between Dawn and the gallery owner had been more aesthetic than sexual, but that had more to do with Maggie's personality than with her gender. "The way she looks at Carlisle... at Aiden... doesn't leave much doubt about her sexual orientation either," Del said.

  "Dawn is going through a very hard and emotionally confusing time. How can we be sure that she's not just clinging to the first person who's been there for her and protected her?" Grace raised anxious eyes to search her friend's face for the answer.

  Del shook her head. "I don't think so. Sure, going through the aftermath of a rape may have changed the way Dawn looks at herself, at relationships, and at potential partners, and it in
tensifies every emotion, but I think whatever they have between them, it would have developed anyway. It happened despite Dawn being raped, not because of it."

  Grace sighed in defeat and let her forehead rest against Del's shoulder for a second. "You're right. It's just... I find myself thinking about Jim, about what he always wanted for his daughter."

  Through endless hours of patrol duty and surveillance, Del had gotten to know her partner really well, so she spoke without hesitation, "What he wanted first and foremost was for her to be happy – and I don't think she'll find that happiness with a man. He would have accepted any person Dawn wanted to spend her life with as long as he or she honestly loved and respected her."

  Grace picked her head off Del's shoulder to look into her eyes. "I know you're right, but he wanted her to experience motherhood, too – and so do I. I've been looking forward to having grandkids from Dawn since the day she married Cal."

  The picture of a lively little girl with blond pigtails appeared before Del's mind's eye. Her lips curled into a wistful smile. "Yeah, I'd love to bounce a little grasshopper junior on my knees, too," she admitted. "But Dawn being in a relationship with a woman doesn't have to mean that that won't happen someday. Just because Maggie had a major panic attack at the thought of smelly diapers or a toddler with crayons anywhere near her white designer couch doesn't mean that other lesbians don't want children. It looks like Aiden is really good with kids."

  "That doesn't mean she wants to have her own. She seems like one of those cops who are really only married to their jobs." Grace couldn't stop worrying.

  Del winked at her. "Oh, I think she's about to get a divorce. Our daughter is not a woman who would let herself be kept as a mistress." She felt heat rise up her chest and color her cheeks as she suddenly became aware of what she had just called Dawn. "I-I mean –"

  Grace's soft hand on her arm stopped her. "It's okay, Del, really. In many regards, she's as much your daughter as she's mine. You were always there for her even when I couldn't because I was too caught up in my own grief. Have I ever thanked you for that?"

  "You don't need to," Del said seriously. "Whatever I did for her, I didn't do it because I felt obligated to, but because I love her. I love both of you."

  "Hey," Dawn's blond head appeared in the doorway, "are you sure that I can't help with the dishes?"

  Del grinned at her. "Well, if you've finished pouting about your sweetie's absence, you're welcome to help."

  Dawn's eyes widened, and her gaze flitted to her mother.

  "It's all right," Grace said, handing her a dish towel. "I'm well aware that Aiden hasn't been slaving as your shopping Sherpa, Christmas tree advisor, and wall climbing trainer because the Police Bureau is paying her to."

  Nervous fingers fiddled with the dish towel. "And you're okay with that?"

  Grace's eyes flickered to Del's for reassurance and then focused on her daughter. "If you're sure that it's what you want?"

  "I've never been so sure of anything in my whole life, Mom."

  "Then I'm okay with it," Grace decided.

  Visibly more relaxed now, Dawn picked up a washed plate and dried it. "What were you doing in here? Discussing my love life? Is that why you always decline any help in the kitchen except for Del's, so you can gossip without interruption?"

  Her mother gently pinched Dawn's cheek. "I decline any help except for Del's because I learned the hard way that everyone else just wants to stay in the kitchen to sneak some more dessert."

  "Yeah, and I concentrate on drying the dishes because I want to keep my girlish figure." Del patted her slender hips with a grin. "And just for your information, your mother and I are perfectly able of conversing over doing the dishes without your name ever coming up, grasshopper." That's not to say that it didn't this time.

  Dawn looked skeptical but nodded. "Hand me another plate to dry, Del. I have to work on my figure."

  * * *

  Aiden leaned her head against the back of Dawn's couch and tried to sit still. It wasn't an easy task because she could feel Dawn sitting very close to her, so close that her breath warmed Aiden's skin whenever Dawn turned her head to talk to her but still not close enough to touch her. That's progress, huh? Last month she would have sat down in the easy chair or left at least a foot of space between us.

  Her body wanted to reach out and establish some kind of contact, but she forced herself to let Dawn be the one in control and distracted herself by looking at the Christmas tree. It was fully lit, making the decorations and tinsel hanging from its branches shine. It's not seven feet, but it's perfect nonetheless.

  "In case you're wondering about that lonely present under the tree," Dawn interrupted the comfortable silence, "it's yours, so if you want to open it..."

  Aiden reached down to pick up the bigger box resting next to the couch. "It just so happens that Santa left a little something for you, too."

  With a grin, Dawn studied the size of the present. "Seems like I've been really good this year, huh?"

  "It's not the size that counts, Doc," Aiden teased. She gently set the box down onto Dawn's lap. "Open it."

  Dawn didn't have to be told twice. She ripped into the red and green striped paper, tearing it from the box with childlike enthusiasm.

  Aiden looked on nervously. She didn't have much experience with buying gifts, and so she had spent hours searching for the right... the perfect present for Dawn.

  Dawn's impatient fingers stilled as she lifted the top off the box. She ran her hand along oil, watercolor, and acrylic painting brushes, over sketching chalks and tubes of color until her fingers finally closed around a drawing pencil. "Aiden! That's a complete set of art supplies! It must have cost –"

  "Hush." Aiden touched her index finger to Dawn's lips, drawing back when she saw Dawn flinch at the unexpected touch. "The price isn't important. Do you like it?"

  "Yes, of course." Dawn's fingers lovingly brushed over badger-hair bristles. "And what I like most of all is that you remembered how much drawing and painting means to me. I really missed it, and this will give me a reason to start again. Thank you." She leaned forward and placed a quick peck on Aiden's cheek.

  Aiden relaxed a little. "Buying these..." She pointed to the contents of the box. "...was a rather confusing experience. I told the salesclerk that I wanted art supplies, brushes and the like, and he asked me if I wanted hog hair, squirrel hair, badger hair, or a synthetic brush, and if it should be a 25-millimeter landscape brush or a 50-millimeter background brush." It had been embarrassing to realize how little she knew about something that had been her mother's biggest passion. To tell the truth, she had never really tried to learn more about it because she had felt that she would always fall short of her mother's expectations. "I didn't even know if you preferred oil, pastel, acrylic, or watercolors," Aiden admitted. "So I bought a little bit of everything." Standing in the art supplies store, she had felt like an idiot, but the smile on Dawn's lips made everything worth it.

  "I like a little bit of everything, so your present is just perfect," Dawn said. The tip of her finger carefully tested the pointed end of a pencil. "I'll have to draw you sometime. And now, you open yours." She handed Aiden a light blue envelope.

  Aiden pointed to the single present under the tree. "I thought that one was mine?"

  "It is," Dawn confirmed. "What's in the envelope is only partly from me. It's from Del and Mom, too."

  "They bought me a Christmas present?" Aiden felt herself blanch. "But I didn't buy them anything." She had never needed to buy more than half a dozen presents at Christmas, and having to think of gifts for Dawn's family was a little scary.

  "That doesn't matter. They wanted to give you this. Now open it!" Dawn urged.

  Slowly, hesitantly, Aiden slipped her index finger under the envelope and opened it. A gift certificate fell out. A tandem skydive? She arched a brow. "They want me to throw myself out of an airplane at ten thousand feet? Didn't you say that your mother approved of our relationship?"


  Dawn laughed. "She does. You'll have a parachute and an experienced tandem instructor. We thought that it was something that might interest you...?"

  Now Dawn sounded insecure, and Aiden hastened to answer. "I am interested. I've wanted to try it ever since Okada told me about his parachuting experiences."

  "Okada?" Dawn rubbed a finger over her chin. "Isn't that the Asian American detective with the dry sense of humor? He doesn't look like an adrenaline junkie."

  Aiden smiled. "He claims that it's where he met his third ex-wife."

  "The third?" Dawn's eyes widened. "How many ex-wives does he have?"

  "Nobody really knows, except for Okada and his accountant." Aiden chuckled. She looked down at the gift certificate again. "It's great. Thank you."