Chapter Four: Two Step and Back

"'Lo?" His voice was groggy, and she considered briefly just hanging up the phone. "Abby?"

Dammit, she hated Caller ID.

"I didn't wake you, did I?" she tried, keeping her voice as casual as possible. "Too early to be asleep, even if it is a school night."

Pause. She could hear the twist and rustle of sheets and bedding. "What's wrong?" he asked.

She hesitated, not quite sure what she wanted to say and even less certain of why she called. Why the rumble of his quiet voice soothed the frayed edges of whatever it was that Kim stroked so deeply within her.

"Meet me at Loeb's," he said into the silence. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."

She put down the phone and once again contemplated her shaking hands. It was either a phone call or a bottle. Despite her words to Kim, her steady defiance that she could handle things, she knew she was too close to altogether too many edges.

She knew the air of inevitability that marked all their encounters was going to be her undoing one of these days. This evening, the familiar mixture of desire, fear and sheer need had surged into her throat when she recognized the low, hesitant tones of the woman on the other end of the line.It had drifted downward as they talked, floating her heart and soul in an ocean of tumult, until it settled somewhere deep between her legs as she had finally spoken the words aloud.

You... Tell me that I can have you...

Simple? Not exactly, but she was done trying to be the responsible one. From the sound of it, they all were.

And now with Luka. Her screwcorking open all the mess that he-- of the lot of them-- wanted the least to do with. Them all players in some Marx Brothers one-reel playing on the fringe of Shakespearean tragedy--her with her shaking hands and unslaked thirst; Kerry, her dogged stoicism and bleak eyes, unwilling to claim what she had and equally unwilling to let it go. And Kim-- back to that languid promise of succor, that smile with the barest hint of acid, just enough to sting. None of them knew what the hell they were doing, and why did she think Luka could help figure it out?

Why did she think he'd even want to try?

Mostly, Abby realized, because he was a good man-- as pained and hurt by the whole thing as the rest of them, but apparently better able to deal with it all.

Maybe she should get herself a dying Catholic bishop.

She had told him once, You watch me when we make love... as if he were afraid he wouldn't remember. Or as if-- she understood now-- he was afraid it would all be taken away from him again. So different than the righthererightnow intensity of the way Kim looked at her, not watching so much as seeing. And so it didn't matter what Abby had tried to conceal from her, everything fell away under the press of those long fingers inside her, that mouth upon her.

"Once an addict...." she murmured wryly to herself, picking up her keys and pulling the door firmly shut behind her.

Luka waiting, as promised, at Loeb's. She had to give him credit, at least the place he'd picked wasn't a fern bar. It had a slightly bluesy feel-- albeit somewhat manufactured-- but they played Bonnie Raitt instead of MaRainey. She would have preferred someplace a little darker, a little seedier, to suit her mood. Where the music was better and the smell of straight-up drinks lining the bar was only slightly less overwhelming than the smoke that haloed the row of fallen angels contemplating their lines of glass soldiers. The thought conjured up a phantom hand on the small of her back, urging her away from the respectable lights and tastefully shellacked wood veneer of the booth where Luka was waiting.

She shivered and turned to go but Luka was standing and waving her over, her chance to flee vanished before it had even truly materialized.

Their server-- a lithe girl whose pinced features and tight ponytail screamed "dancer" pounced almost immediately; and Abby could tell that Luka had been fending her off with polite, "No, I'm waiting for someone to join me's" for a little too long.

"Amstel Light, Johnnie Walker Black back," she said automatically, shrugging off her coat. Then stared at the server in alarm as Luka's eyebrows fluttered dramatically. "No... wait.. I mean... I want a Diet Coke. Okay?"

The dancer glanced at her skeptically, either hearing the lack of conviction in Abby's voice or reading something Abby didn't want to contemplate being visible. She nodded her acquiesence and glanced at Luka, this time with a little less interest than before. Apparently, visibly unraveling women were more intriguing than polite rebuffs, no matter how charming the accent delivering them.

"Should you be calling someone else instead of me?" Luka offered circumspectly. They had been together too long for him not to have noticed the steady stream of Diet Cokes that flowed along their dinners, but not long enough for her to actually say the words.

Luka, your lover's a drunk...

Confessions implied intimacy, and no matter how deeply he had thrust into her or how thoroughly he had made her come, their lovemaking had been about the sheer pleasure of physical release. When he wanted to make it about something more, she had pushed him away; just as he had done to her. Their timing had always been irrevocably off.

Not like Kim, who had been inside her from the very beginning-- who had taken in her pain and rage and Maggie's illness without flinching, who had first placed the possiblity of happy on the table for her once more.

Oh well, no secrets anymore. No use for them.

"My sponser moved to Alabama two years ago. I haven't heard from her since."

"You didn't find another one?"

"Didn't really think there was a need for it."

"Something's changed." Part question in the lilting end of the sentence. Part statement of fact, based on the call brought him out at eleven o'clock on a Thursday night.

She snorted cynically and eyed the Killian's Red that the server put in front of Luka, regarded her own soda with less enthusiasm. "Tell me one thing in the last three months that hasn't changed."

Luka's silence spoke volume enough for them both; then a brief smile flickered over his somber features. "Carter's still got it bad for you."

"Just my luck," she agreed wryly.

He held his smile a moment longer before regarding her more seriously. "I heard you two were going out."

She shrugged. "Seemed like the right thing to do."

"To make her jealous?" The question took her aback, and her startled eyes met his even gaze. "I don't think you called me out here to talk about him," he added, shrugging lightly.

"It's not working."

"Making her jealous."