Hotline Fling

13: Something Else

Damian's POV

When I finally reached June, my palms sweated, I almost scratched off the skin on my chin, and my pulse raced fast enough to rupture my veins. My finger shook when I dialed her direct extension number. I didn't know if she even remembered me, but my ego appreciated that she had.

I finished my meatball sandwich and salad when I dialed her number. I ate out more meals than I preferred, and an IV line tapped into me would spew out coffee, but my breakfasts and Sunday dinner were eaten at home.

With my forearms resting on my island, I swung my bare feet swung from one of my black leather bar stools. June's soft voice sounded sincere when admitting she was happy to hear from me. Embarrassingly, my dick was sure excited hearing her voice again, swelling in my sweatpants before we got to any dirty talk.

Surprisingly, I was happy to talk to June. The soft excitement in her voice was a compliment I didn't deserve, given how long it took me to call her again. I couldn't share anything about the Patrol cases that gave me trouble and nothing about Vice. Undercover work required time and patience to coordinate with other Investigative resources.

An old-school cop, Willis was less than excited when I assigned him to coordinate with the Real Time Crime Center and SMART team for social media scanners. His bushy, gray-caterpillar eyebrows almost jumped off his forehead. The guy struggled using voicemail; instead, Shirley, my administrative assistant the last I checked, noted his calls. Which, of course, she denied with one of her signature witch cackles. In team meeting after meeting, I lost count of the number of times I autopiloted positivity.

"They're out there. We'll find them."

I also counted my number of failed contact attempts with June. Not sure what that said about me.

Patrol and Vice assignments kept me from calling her sooner. Usual Patrol shit after shit came up, but two particular experiences stuck hard. In one instance, a toddler was found deceased in an accident when his father, strung out on heroin, crashed his car into a public bus waiting area. This wouldn't cause much damage, except the piece of shit driver hadn't restrained his son in his car seat.

While we processed the strung-out father for vehicular manslaughter, an emergency call from a community coordinator reported a lost, disoriented, elderly man. With Dementia or some memory issue, the man got halfway dressed when he left his apartment. In a scary moment, he walked out his front door, dressed in a white undershirt, boxers, and house slippers with the full intention of going to work at a job he'd retired from more than twenty years ago. He hadn't been to an office in thirty years, with no idea where he was headed, memory of who he was, and ID on him. We kept 'Mystery Man' in the Precinct office, where I gave him an unused supply closet. Jenks built him a makeshift desk out of a chair and a stack of printer paper boxes to 'work in.'

Shirley gave me her best stink-eye look. "I don't like it, Sir."

"Hunkered down, surrounded by cops instead of wandering the streets alone? He's fine." I gave her some petty cash. "Now go buy him some pants, please."

With inaudible grumbles about supply closet labor conditions tossed over her shoulder, she bought him some spare clothes. Mystery Man worked at the 34th for two hours before, thankfully, a concerned neighbor reported his open apartment door. A few good Samaritans later, the man was reunited with his daughter in South Bronx. The entire situation was an honest mistake; the man's caretaker was on vacation, and the daughter, understandably distraught, had gotten the dates mixed up.

Or so she said.

Still deserved the angry rant I tossed at her.

Full disclosure, I felt terrible for the man's condition, but the cynic in me worried that, eventually, I ended up alone and like him, isolated and without a caretaker. My condo's usual silence greeted me upon entry, but the emptiness offered no comfort. My head throbbed, my breath shortened, and I felt suffocated, so I took the following day off.