He shrugged. “If there’s one thing I know for certain, there’ll be another hot case right around the corner. It won’t kill me to sit one out.” Though it did make him feel guilty to sit one out while Sam was suspended. “How’d you get here?”

“I took a cab. I figured parking would be tough.”

He put his arm around her. “I’ll give you a ride.”

They were quiet on the way home. He thought about the session with Trulo and could only assume she was doing the same. They climbed the stairs to their apartment, their footsteps heavy against the treads. Everything felt heavy these days.

“What time do we have to get Alex?” he asked, taking her coat to hang it next to his in the closet.

“Angela has him until four,” she said of Sam’s sister, who watched Alex for them occasionally.

He forced a smile, trying to act the way he would have before. “That’s like two and a half hours from now.”

“Uh-huh.”

Not that he felt that he had the right after the way he’d behaved, but he went to her anyway, put his hands on her hips and drew her in close to him.

Sighing, she looped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his chest.

Holding her this way reminded him of how perfectly they fit, like she’d been made for him and vice versa. “I’m sorry, baby. If I could take back what I said the other night, I would. I hate that I hurt you.”

“I know it wasn’t you talking. It was the grief.”

“Still...that’s no excuse.”

She raised her head from his shoulder to offer a smile, but her eyes were still sad, and he hated that. “You’re forgiven.”

“You’re better than I deserve.”

She shook her head. “No,” she whispered, drawing him into a kiss that went from soft and gentle to desperate in a matter of seconds. “I love you so much, Tommy,” she whispered against his lips. “You’ll never know how much.”

Her words, words he didn’t feel he deserved after the things he’d said to her, moved him deeply. Keeping his arms around her, he walked her backward toward their bedroom and came down on top of her on their bed. It had been weeks since he’d touched her this way, and all the love and desire he’d always felt for her came roaring back to life in a flashpoint of heat that left him breathless.

He’d been so numb, so broken, that it was almost painful to feel so much all at once. And then to realize what could’ve been lost forever... He dropped his head to her shoulder, breathing through the ache inside him.