Still Life With Taylor

::SIXTEEN::

She's safe. I'd say Matty and I were even. If I was keeping score. I always knew that Matty felt he owed me, after I took that shot for him in Montana. Never realized how far he would be willing to go to make it right. How hard he was willing to push back, just to go clean. Maybe he can't help it that he takes advantage, it's not like I've ever called him on it.

Put a contract out on anyone touching Christine. On anyone else too, but specifically Christine. I never realized how much he wanted out of it, until he was willing to put himself right back in it. For me.

"It's over, Taylor. It's done."

He pulls one of the chairs out, sitting, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. He's been my friend forever. I know tonight has nearly broken him.

Christine has put the shotgun on the table in front of her, her other hand on Matty's shoulder, next to mine. A quick look at her. She's a little pale, but she's not shaking. It's like the two of us are the only things holding him up right now. Touch her fingertips with mine.

Sal has her elbow now, making her sit down, fussing over her. Taking the shotgun off the table, putting it back behind the bar. Grabbing drinks for everyone. Sal would have been the connection to the Novo's. Matty would never have gone that far, I don't think.

We sit like that, around the big table, finish our drinks. We keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it's not. Maybe this will hold. Things are changing out there. The kind of connections we have mean less and less, every day, in the real world.

Christine gets up, to lock up everything in the back. The routine of closing the bar down. Locking up the kitchen. You'd never think we came close to a war in here.

"I know you didn't want this, Taylor. Are we all right." He hasn't lifted his head, doesn't have the energy. I can't stay mad at him. I never could. That he'd even ask shows how much all of this has hit him. "Yea, we're all right." I don't want to continue. With him, I don't need to.

"I want you to take her home, Taylor. She's safe, nothing's going to happen to her."

"I'm not lea...."

"I'm not asking you to leave her. I'm asking you to take her home, to be with her. You don't need to take care of me anymore, Taylor." He's looking right at me. I always was an open book to him. Hell, he's known it from moment one.

"I'll be back in a minute."

Across the street to the hotel, pack up. It doesn't take long. My van's in underground parking. Pull it around back. Everybody getting ready to leave. Sal, holding Christine by the elbow. He makes her smile when he does it, passes her to me.

"You make an honest woman of this one, Taylor." Shaking his finger at me. Can't help but smile at that, he's taking Matty out the front. Go to make sure the doors are locked. Christine, quiet as ever.

We do the drop, quickly, before I drive her home, taking things out of the back, carrying them up the stairs. I brought her painting back. It looked wrong, where it was, propped up against a chair in a generic hotel room.

"You don't like it?"

"I brought it back because it belongs here, not anywhere else." Her eyebrows pinch together, just slightly, a faint shadow over her green eyes.

" I belong here. Not anywhere else."