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“Barba,” Liv said, looking at him standing outside her door. He had snow in his hair and stuck to his shoulders. His nose and cheeks were pink from the cold wind, and he was carrying a big plastic bag in his gloved hands. “What’re you doing here?” The question sounded ruder than she’d intended, but she certainly hadn’t been expecting to see him at her apartment door at seven p.m. on Christmas Eve without so much as a text first.
A small frown creased his forehead at her words, but he said, “Sorry to bother you. I just wanted to drop something off.” He held up the bag and then, seeming to realize she might not invite him inside, started to extend it toward her.
She wasn’t unhappy to see him. In fact, she hated the way her stomach still fluttered pleasantly at the sight of him, despite everything. After three Christmases with nothing more than a mailed card, she wasn’t sure why he was bringing gifts, but the last thing she wanted was more animosity between them.
“I’m sorry, you just surprised me. Come on in,” she said, stepping aside.
He looked wary as he walked into the apartment, holding the wet plastic bag in front of himself, but he said, “Thanks. Sorry, I should’ve called, I just wanted to bring this over for Noah before it got too late, and with the weather getting worse it seemed…” He trailed off, noting the quiet apartment, the Hallmark movie muted on the television, the takeout cartons on the coffee table beside a bottle of wine.
“Noah’s not here,” she said unnecessarily as she closed the door, “but there’s a travel advisory. The delivery guy said it’s pretty bad out there.”
“Yeah. Yes,” he agreed, giving himself a mental shake and turning his attention back to her, “my Lyft driver’s a nervous wreck. Where’s Noah? I know it’s none of my business—”
“He’s spending the night with his brother’s family.”
Barba stared at her, blinking as melting snow dripped from his hair onto his face. “I’m sorry? His what?”
“He has a half-brother. He, uh…found him through an ancestry thing online.” She smiled, but it was a tired smile that didn’t reach her eyes, an expression he’d seen too many times on her face.
“So Langan just really sucks at his job.”
“Noah thinks this is the best thing that’s ever happened.”
“And how do you feel about it?”
She reached for the bag. “I’m happy he’s happy. They seem nice.” She pulled the large box, wrapped in red paper, from the bag. “What is this?”
“Hm? Oh. An Xbox.”
She looked at him in surprise. “That’s expensive.”
“I won it in a raffle. I…didn’t have anyone else…You can tell him it’s from you, or Santa Claus, if you want.”
“Connor’s parents gave him a PlayStation.”
“Oh.” He hesitated, unsure how he was supposed to react. “I can donate it somewhere if you don’t want him to have—”
“No, no, he’ll be excited. It was nice of you to think of him, thank you.” She walked into the other room to lay the box under the Christmas tree with the other presents. “And of course I’ll tell him it’s from you. He misses you.”
“Yeah. Yeah, me too. Um, listen, what if—” He stopped when his phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out with a frown. “Sorry, I—” His frown deepened into a scowl.
“Everything alright?” she asked, watching him pull off his gloves so he could type out a quick response.
“My car left,” he muttered, sending another message. He drew a deep breath through his nose and released it slowly. “And…it’s an estimated three-hour wait for another.”
“The weather?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face, clearly agitated but trying to suppress the feeling. “I told her it would only be five minutes, she couldn’t wait five—” He stopped again and looked at Liv. “Sorry. Not your problem. Merry Christmas, Liv.” He turned toward the door, because the sooner he got to the subway the more likely he was to actually make it home instead of freezing to death in a pile of slush on the sidewalk somewhere.
“I can give you a ride.”
“Thanks,” he said without looking back, “but there’s no point in both of us being cold and wet and miserable. I’m already two of those, I might as well—”
“I don’t want you to be miserable, Rafael.”
He hesitated near the door. “It hasn’t really seemed like that,” he said quietly, turning his head but still not quite looking at her. “I do hope you can forgive me someday, though.”
“Yes, well. Being angry isn’t the same as wanting you to be miserable. I don’t stop caring about a friend just because they hurt me.”
“How is Stabler, anyway?”
“Fuck you,” she said, walking past him to get her coat from the coatrack beside the door. “You keep working at trying to earn my forgiveness, I’ll let you know when you’re getting close.” She shoved her arms into her coat, her movements jerky and full of controlled anger. She grabbed her purse and slipped the strap over her shoulder.
“You’ll need a scarf—” he started.
“Worry about your own neck,” she snapped, opening the door and waiting for him to walk through. Barba sighed softly and stepped into the hallway. “And for your information, Elliot invited me to spend the holiday with his family. He didn’t need to win a game in some raffle as an excuse to—”
“I’ve texted you three times in the last month and you haven’t answered me once. Don’t act like I’m the one who’s not reaching out.”
She closed the door behind herself with a little more force than necessary. “No, I’ve noticed your conscience getting to you.” She started toward the elevator and he fell into step beside her, looking at her profile.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Oh, you’re a smart guy, Barba, I’m sure you can figure it out.” She jabbed the elevator button and stepped inside as soon as the doors slid open. She turned to face him, glaring at him as he stood outside the elevator looking in at her. “Did it occur to you that maybe I wasn’t ready to talk to you?”
“Yes,” he hissed, “and it occurred to me that—” He threw out an arm to stop the elevator doors when they tried to close. They stared at each other for several seconds, but he didn’t finish his sentence. Instead, he stepped into the elevator and turned, standing silently beside her as the doors slid shut.
“Say what you were going to say,” she told him as they dropped toward the ground floor.
“Doesn’t matter. You’re right, I told you I’d be around when you were ready, you weren’t ready, I kept pushing.”
She digested that in silence until the doors slid open. “I wasn’t actively ignoring you, I just didn’t know how to respond.”
“A simple ‘no’ would’ve sufficed,” he said, waiting for her to leave the elevator ahead of him.
“Except it isn’t simple, not when I don’t know your motives for asking.”
“My motives?”
“Evening, Ms. Benson.”
“Harry,” she answered the doorman, casting an apprehensive look past him toward the blizzard raging beyond the glass door.
“I don’t recommend venturing out,” Harry said. He gestured toward the snow piling up against the bottom corners of the door. “Roads are a mess, sidewalks even worse. Pert near everything gonna be shut down.”
“I just need to take him home.”
“Just stay here, Liv,” Barba said, tightening his scarf and tugging it up over the bottoms of his ears. “I can get the subway, it’ll probably be quicker anyway.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Barba,” Harry said doubtfully, “buncha stops’re closed ‘cause so much snow’s drifted.”
Barba stood for a moment, watching the streaks of white and listening to the shriek of wind. “Well. I’m sure there’re a few intrepid cabbies…”
“Stay here, come back upstairs,” Liv said. “It’s supposed to let up after midnight.”
Barba turned to look at her. She didn’t seem thrilled by the idea of him staying. He wasn’t sure where he was more likely to freeze to death: out in the winter storm, or in her apartment while getting the cold shoulder. He kept the thought to himself; he’d known her for ten years and had never once heard her say ‘fuck you’ to anyone, and he was still trying to process the pain of that particular dagger.
Even if he deserved it.
“It’s fine,” he started, “I can—” He stopped, flinching and looking back over his hunched shoulder when something thudded loudly against the door. There were two people, bundled up to their eyeballs and covered in snow, trying to get into the building. Harry hurried over to help them open the door, fighting against the wind, and snow swirled around them as they stumbled inside with loud exclamations of relief.
“Jesus Christ on a cracker,” one of them gasped, trying to stomp snow from his boots.
Barba looked at Liv.
“You were saying?” she challenged, eyebrows going up, and he clenched his jaw. Maybe because she knew him well enough to know his stubbornness might actually endanger his life, she relented almost immediately: “Come on, Rafael,” she said quietly, sounding suddenly tired, “it’s Christmas. Just stay here until it lets up.”
He was already cold, the melted snow leaking into his collar and socks, and he didn’t want to go outside. Harry was talking to the half-frozen couple behind him, so Barba nodded and headed back toward the elevator with Liv.
“Thanks,” he said as they stood side by side, watching the doors slide closed.
“Doesn’t look like you’ll make it to midnight mass.”
“No. My mom’s home sick anyway, probably only the third time in my life she hasn’t gone.”
“Nothing serious, I hope?”
“The flu that’s going around. Not Covid again, thankfully. And she’s on the upswing now.”
“Is that a baseball metaphor?”
“I have no idea,” he said, smiling when she laughed quietly. It was a small laugh, but better than nothing.
“Tell her I said hi and I hope she feels better.”
“Thank you.” As the elevator stopped, he drew a deep breath. “My only motives were that I missed you, and I’m sorry, because yes, it occurred to me that you weren’t ready to forgive me yet but it also occurred to me that you might never be ready and…I panicked.” He gave her a look, eyebrows raised and lips curved in a small, humorless smile, and shrugged. “I panicked,” he repeated, “and I just thought, I don’t know, that if I could get you to share a drink with me then maybe I could make you remember all the times you didn’t hate me.” He put out his arm to stop the doors again. “So, I am sorry. For whatever that’s worth now.”
He stepped out of the elevator, keeping his arm up to block the doors until she’d followed him into the hallway. “I could never hate you,” she said as she passed him and started toward her apartment. Her eyes were shining with unshed tears, and he stuffed his hands into his coat pockets as he fell into step beside her. He wanted to touch her, to pull her into a hug that could somehow magically ease all the pain they were both feeling.
She unlocked her door and he followed her inside, stripping out of his winter gear while she locked the door behind him. They hung their coats and left their boots—his wet, hers dry—on the rug by the door, and then they stood there for a few seconds without quite looking at each other.
“You can help yourself to anything in the kitchen if you’re hungry,” she said. “There are extra toothbrushes and toiletries in the bathroom drawers, and…I can find you something to wear.”
He didn’t bother protesting; even if the storm let up at midnight, it didn’t make much sense for him to risk trying to get home before road crews had a chance to do their jobs. “Thanks.”
“You can have the couch or Noah’s bed. I just changed his sheets this morning, took off the Christmas ones…” She trailed off.
“Must be hard, not having him here tonight.”
She sighed, offered him a sad half-smile and a brief look into his eyes, and said, “He’s happy, that’s all that matters.” She moved past him, headed toward her bedroom, and asked, “T-shirt or sweatshirt?”
“Oh, um. Whatever.” He hesitated. “Your happiness matters, too.”
“I’ll find a sweatshirt, you’re always cold,” she said without looking back, and he watched her until she’d disappeared into her room.
“You mind if I scrounge up some alcohol?” he called after her, eyeing the bottle of wine beside her unfinished dinner. There was no glass in sight, which meant she’d been drinking directly from the bottle—but she couldn’t be too far in or she wouldn’t have offered to drive him home.
“There’s a new bottle of scotch in the cupboard.” He heard her opening and closing dresser drawers, somewhere out of sight. “I only ever kept it on hand for you,” she added.
He walked toward the kitchen, grimacing as he stepped in a cold puddle of melted snow that soaked the bottom of his sock. He found the scotch and got it opened while Liv returned to the living room. He glanced back and she gestured with the clothes before setting them on the back of the sofa. Then she gathered up her takeout and carried it to the kitchen.
He pulled two plates from the cupboard and set one on the counter for her. She dumped her food out of the cartons and slid the plate into the microwave for a minute. Barba pulled the sliced turkey and cheese, mustard, and mayonnaise from the refrigerator, got two pieces of bread from the loaf on the counter, and set about quickly making himself a sandwich.
“You want me to cook you something?” she asked as she pulled her own food from the microwave.
He shot her a sideways smile. “This is fine, but thank you. I do know how to cook, by the way.”
She made a small sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Oh, I’m sure. I always imagined you to be a good cook, actually. I’m sure your grandmother taught you a thing or two.”
His smile softened, and she didn’t miss the wistfulness in his expression as he turned his attention back to his sandwich. “She did,” he agreed. He wanted to offer to cook a meal for her and Noah sometime, but he kept the words to himself. “You need anything out of here?” he asked instead as he started putting the condiments away in the refrigerator.
“No. Thank you.” She headed toward the living room with her food. He poured himself a glass of scotch and left the bottle on the counter to avoid temptation; drinking himself into oblivion on her couch wasn’t likely to make things less tense between them.
Carrying his glass and plate into the living room, he hesitated near the end of the sofa. She’d moved over to one end, and with a quick glance up at him she indicated the empty cushions for him to sit.
“Hey, Rudolph,” he said as he settled onto the other end of the couch, gesturing toward the muted television with his glass.
“You can change it if you want.”
He leaned forward to unmute with the remote on the coffee table. “We can relive our childhoods,” he suggested. She hummed noncommittally.
They ate without talking, watching the animated special in relatively comfortable companionship. She took a few drinks from her wine bottle, and he didn’t comment. He sipped his scotch between bites of turkey sandwich. They could hear the wind rattling the windows, and the loud slap of wet snow, but the usual sounds of the city were almost nonexistent. Liv’s apartment was warm and felt safe from the storm raging outside.
“Maybe we should hook up the Xbox,” he suggested when they’d set their empty plates aside. “Try it out.” It was mostly a joke; a conversation tester, if not starter.
“I think it’s a little beyond me, but you can if you want,” she said.
“I only know how to play Mario, anyway.”
“He’s got a newer one for his Wii, he taught me how to play it. It’s fun, actually.” She hesitated, and he was afraid to hope. She looked at him. “I can show you.” The offer had obvious undertones of ‘what else are we supposed to do?’ but he didn’t care. He grabbed eagerly for the olive branch.
“Sure, sounds fun.”
She nodded and leaned forward to grab the wine bottle, taking a couple of swallows before returning it to the table and pushing to her feet. “You can switch the input on the remote.”
“I can do that,” he agreed, pushing the button. He drank the last of his scotch. “Do you mind if I change?”
“Go ahead. I’ll find the disc.”
Barba got up and grabbed the clothes she’d left folded on the back of the sofa, carrying them toward the bathroom. He was glad to note she’d given him a pair of thick socks, because his feet were freezing. He was grateful but not surprised, because Liv was kind and generous and thoughtful.
He changed his clothes quickly, folding his own garments into a neat stack and pulling on the sweatpants, sweatshirt, and socks that she’d provided. Everything fit pretty well and he did his absolute best not to wonder if they were actually hers or if they’d been left behind by someone.
In a few minutes, they were sitting on the sofa with Wii remotes in their hands, and he watched while she maneuvered through the menu. “I’m Mario,” she told him without looking at him. “You can be Luigi or one of the little mushroom things.”
“Well they don’t look very useful. I’ll be Luigi. Do we take turns or what?”
“No, we play at the same time. Here, watch, just follow me until you get used to the buttons.”
“Ooh, I’m taller than you, I like this.” He made Luigi jump a few times and run back and forth. “Yeah, this feels pretty familiar.”
“There are some differences, I’ll show you when it’s time to fly.”
“We can fly? That’s Super Mario Three level-shit.”
She made a sound of amusement. “Here, catch one of these mushrooms so you get bigger.”
“This brings back memories,” he said. “One of the guys in our dorm had a Nintendo hooked up to this dinky little tv—”
“Okay, slow down, look. See the big gold coin up there? Noah says you’re supposed to collect them all in each level.”
“Got it!” he exclaimed a few moments later after jumping up to get the floating coin. “When do we fly? Hey—You can pick me up? What—” He stopped, watching the screen in disbelief before turning his head to look at her. “You just threw me off a cliff.”
“Mhm.”
“I thought we were playing as a team.”
“More or less,” she said without looking at him. He turned his attention to the screen, where she was flying up to a platform.
“I’m in a bubble,” he muttered as he saw Luigi floating across the screen. “Why am I in a bubble?”
“Shake your remote and your bubble will come to me, I’ll let you out.”
“Shake…Oh. Okay, thank you,” he said when Luigi was standing on the ground beside Mario. “Where do I—”
She picked him up and threw him into another bottomless pit.
“Is this making you feel better?” he asked.
“Surprisingly, yes.”
He snorted.
“If you shake the remote when I pick you up, you can get away,” she told him, a bit grudgingly.
“No, no, by all means. Commit your fratricide,” he said, and she laughed quietly beside him.
They played in silence for several minutes, Barba mostly following her lead and gathering coins while she stomped on turtles and grumpy mushrooms. She got a flower that let her shoot little fireballs but Barba was relieved that she didn’t seem to be able to shoot him.
When he tried to jump on a turtle, he accidentally kicked it toward her. “Oh shit,” he blurted, running after it.
“Hey!” she exclaimed as the sliding shell hit her, robbing her of her firepower, and she turned an accusatory look toward Barba.
“Sorry,” he said, and she made a sound—not quite a laugh—at whatever she saw in his expression.
She turned her focus back to the game without comment, hopping up onto a platform in pursuit of one of the big coins. She jumped a few times without success, but she couldn’t reach it.
“We can’t fly?” he asked.
“No,” she said, but absently as she considered the screen.
“Here, pick me up,” he suggested, jumping up onto her level.
“Hm,” she answered. He watched as Mario picked up Luigi, and then jumped so Luigi could nab the coin. For a moment, Barba was pretty sure she was going to throw him off the nearest cliff, but she tossed him onto the ground in front of herself. “Good thinking,” she said.
They played in silence for a few minutes longer, working together without comment. They collected coins, discovered hidden passageways, and took turns smashing the bad guys. Barba found himself having more fun than he’d had in a long time, despite his inability to keep Luigi big—or even alive—for very long. Liv seemed to be relaxing beside him even as she worked the remote with more vigor than necessary.
When Barba misjudged a jump and sent Luigi plummeting down to the character’s final death, he thought he was going to be relegated to watching Liv continue the game without him. “Game over,” he lamented.
“Oh, you can continue. You’ll get new lives.”
“Sweet,” he said, and she laughed—the most genuine laugh he’d heard from her all evening. “But I’m little again.”
“We can find you a flower or helicopter head.”
“Helicopter head,” he repeated with something very close to a giggle. “Oh, gimme, yes…How do I—ooh look, I can fly!” He felt her looking at him and glanced over. She was smiling, with a genuine affection that he’d missed more than he could put into words. He smiled but turned his attention back to the tv, afraid to hope for too much.
When they beat the bad guy in the first castle, the teamwork felt like a real triumph. Barba sacrificed his helicopter head to keep her from being hit by the dragon dude’s spinning shell, but Liv let him deliver the final blow and claim the resulting key.
“I think I’m going to bed,” she announced after they’d finished the level, and he couldn’t help the stab of disappointment he felt.
He smiled anyway and said, “Yeah, it’s getting late. Thanks for the tutorial, this was fun.”
“You can keep playing if you want.”
“No, I think I’ll sleep,” he answered, not feeling remotely tired. “Hope for better weather in the morning…”
“Right.” She got up and turned off the game and television. “Do you want Noah’s bed?”
“I’ll sleep here, no sense dirtying the clean sheets.”
“I’ve never known you to be dirty.” She seemed to regret the choice of words and he was pretty sure he saw a hint of color gathering in her cheeks as she turned away, but he didn’t comment. “I’ll get you some blankets.”
“Thanks.” He gathered up their plates and his glass and carried them to the kitchen sink, washing them quickly and setting them in the dish rack to dry.
When Liv returned to the living room with two folded blankets and a pillow in her arms, she stopped for a few moments and watched Barba, wearing her old sweats and washing her dishes. The sight made her chest ache enough to momentarily steal her breath, and she swallowed against the lump of emotion climbing her throat.
He dried his hands on the dish towel and turned, catching sight of her. He smiled, but with a touch of wariness. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that she’d treated him unfairly when she knew that he had never, and would never, intentionally hurt her. But intentionally or not, he had hurt her.
She cleared her throat as he crossed slowly toward her. “If you need anything else just help yourself or let me know if you can’t find it.” She walked over and set the stack on the sofa. “I’ll give you a ride home in the morning, when the roads are clear…”
“Thank you for being a friend, even when you don’t like me very much. Merry Christmas, Liv.”
She nodded and turned away but hesitated. “Of course we’re friends,” she said without looking at him. “I don’t want you to disappear from my life.”
“I’m never more than a phone call away.”
She sniffed, and his stomach clenched at the thought that she might be crying. He took a step closer and forced himself to stop. “I know,” she said, so quietly he barely heard her over the sudden slamming of his heart. She turned around and met his gaze, and his eyes burned in response to the unshed tears shimmering in hers. “I tried so many times to call Elliot when he left, and he never answered, never responded. So eventually I gave up. And knowing how that felt, there’s no excuse for me doing the same thing to you. I’m sorry, Rafael—”
“No, don’t do that,” he cut in, his voice rough, and she stopped. “Don’t apologize for being honest about your feelings. You told me what you needed from me and I didn’t listen and now it’s on me to earn your trust back.”
She drew a shuddery breath. “I don’t want you to give up on me,” she whispered.
“I couldn’t if I wanted to and I wouldn’t if I could.” She smiled a little at that, which was good. “I will love you until the day I die, even if you never speak to me again. And I swear I will never say another word about it after this, but you ‘giving up’ on him was not your fault. Him leaving was not your fault. And you don’t owe him—or me—a single goddamn thing, Liv. So like I said, I’ll be a phone call away when and if you want to talk.”
She stood there for several seconds, looking at him while tears rolled down her cheeks, and he wanted nothing more in the world than to give her whatever comfort she would accept. When she crossed the distance between them, he fought the urge to reach for her. “You’re here right now,” she said softly. He nodded because he didn’t trust himself to speak any more. “Is it okay if I hug you?” she asked, and the tremble in her lower lip made his face crinkle as he nodded again.
When she put her arms around him and pressed her face into his shoulder, he wrapped her in the tightest hug he’d ever given. He turned his face into her hair and held on, feeling the shake of her body as she cried against his borrowed shirt.
When she finally started to pull back he loosened the circle of his arms, but she didn’t step away. She looked at him, her eyes red and her face wet with tears, and reached up to cup her hands to his jaw. She met his watery gaze and he swallowed, holding his breath as she kissed him.
Her lips were firm against his, her mouth closed; the kiss was almost chaste, but he’d never in his life felt more connected to anyone. He could feel all of her pain, her hope, her love…
He slid a hand into her hair, cradling the back of her head as her lips lingered against his. When she finally shifted away from the kiss, she didn’t go far. With her hands still touching his face, fingertips at his temples and thumbs bracketing his mouth, she whispered his name.
“Rafa.”
Their lips met again, but something had changed. A dam had broken. This kiss was desperate, hungry, a touch frantic. His fingers tangled in her hair and she fumbled with the bottom of his sweatshirt, slipping her hands beneath to find bare skin. He wrapped his other arm around her, pulling her closer, and then they were stumbling awkwardly toward the bedroom. He kissed messily from her mouth down to her neck, thinking of nothing except how good she smelled and tasted and felt.
She wasn’t sure who was leading as they made their way into her bedroom; her hands were inside his shirt, clutching frantically at his warm skin, and all she wanted was to be closer to him, to remove the layers between them until they could feel nothing but each other.
She bumped a hip against her nightstand, nearly knocking over the lamp. She made a small sound; she was going to have a bruise, but the pain felt unimportant. She’d left the overhead light on, and she could clearly see the concern in Barba’s bright gaze when he lifted his head to look at her.
“Shit, you okay?”
Before she could answer, all the lights went off and the apartment was plunged into darkness and silence. They stood frozen, arms around each other, neither breathing for several seconds.
“Power’s out,” she said, unnecessarily.
“Thank god, I thought maybe you threw me into another pit.”
She laughed, sounding breathless, and said, “What’re we doing?”
“I don’t know.” He tipped his head, letting his lips hover near the corner of her mouth, giving her time to push him away. He couldn’t make out her features, but he felt her lips brush against his. “Liv,” he whispered.
“I miss you,” she murmured against his mouth. She’d already said it, but the three words meant so much more. She knew he would understand better than anyone.
“I’m sorry you won’t have Christmas morning with your son, but I’m glad I’m here.”
“Me, too,” she said softly, tugging on his sweatshirt as she backed toward the bed. “And not just because you’re trying to get in my pants.”
“I’m already wearing your pants,” he reminded her as he followed her down onto the mattress. He kissed her for a moment but lifted his head to look at her in the darkness. “If the power stays off it’ll get cold in here.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, pulling his head down for another kiss.