Sean Donheeney cracked some eggs into the frying pan as his wife Shannon watched over the morning papers. The big guy was really at home in the kitchen unlike her.
The whole apartment still held the lingering aroma of burnt toast; a reminder of her last efforts and how the alarms had sent all the building's residents out onto the sidewalks.
"Is Connor bringing Mindy tonight?" She asked her husband.
"No. I get the impression that's all over."
"Oh no..." She gasped ruefully. Sean's partner just had no luck with women. " I thought he thought she might be the one."
Sean shrugged his broad shoulders and rubbed a large hand over his baldhead, stopping to scratch the close shaven hair at the back. He gave his wife a look of resignation; his partner always thought the woman he was dating was the one and she never was.
"Mindy felt Connor was emotionally unavailable, apparently, so she's gone back to her husband...." Sean didn't need to tell Shannon the irony of leaving Connor for that creep, who had just been paroled.
"How's Connor taking it?"
Sean gestured expansively. The young man was hurting, as he always was after a break-up, but in a few days he'd be over it completely. Donheeney was almost envious of Murphy's easygoing personality.
"He'll get himself a good woman one of these days, like me, and he'll drift towards death in a blissful haze of great sex and household disasters..." Sean said jovially.
"Hey!" Shannon exclaimed with a smile.
Sean served up the eggs on his wife's plate and pinched the funny pages. He lent down and kissed her on the cheek.
"I'm going for my run." He said, scanning the cartoons.
Shannon looked up at her man, liking what she saw. His big, solid body looked good in the running vest and shorts, which showed off the carpet of his black chest hair and his muscles.
"You'll be late." Shannon cautioned, glancing at her watch.
"Not if I shower at the precinct." Sean figured, snatching up his pack and kissing her goodbye. "Have a good day, honey. Say hi to your mother for me."
+++++++++++++++++
"So who's this guy, Barker, we're watching?" Officer Murphy asked Officer Donheeney as they sat in their patrol car.
"Weren't you listening back at the station? He's a suspect in a disappearance. The detectives have got nothing on him so we get to sit here or follow him around." His partner replied.
"He's just gone in to his building." Connor stated.
Sean nodded. He'd seen it. He took a sip of his coffee. Connor seemed to have returned to his usual cheerful self.
His partner's problem was his good looks and bad taste in women. The bad girls took one look at Connor, a boyish clean-cut man in uniform and thought they could have a little fun but Connor always thought about marriage from the off. Mindy was part of a long line of women who'd wanted a nice guy, but only for a little while, before they chose the jerk instead.
Connor was naïve but he didn't deserve that treatment. He was good cop and a great guy and Sean wanted him to be happy, though so far he'd resisted Shannon's offers to set Connor up with a nice Irish girl.
+++++++++++++++
"The guy was hysterical, so I slapped him. It's what they do in the movies!" Sean recalled, telling his partner about the first case he'd worked on as a rookie.
"And the guy was going to make a complaint?" Connor asked.
"Yeah, till his boyfriend started slapping him too. I left them to it and heard no more about it."
Connor chuckled. He could just picture the scene. Big and burly Sean with the two fags, all confused and well meaning. His partner was a big-hearted dependable guy but to people who didn't know him he came across as intimidating.
"Dodged a bullet there, Irish. You know, hysteria can technically only affect women?" Connor informed Sean.
"How'd you figure that?" Sean asked.
"Hysteria means 'floating uterus' and last time I checked men don't have those."
"Makes sense, it's like hysterectomy, right? Go on."
"Anyway the old way to cure it was to get a doctor to make the woman cum..." Connor continued.
"Ha ha, lucky doctors!" Sean chuckled.
"No, apparently they found it distasteful and that's how vibrators got invented!" Officer Murphy concluded.
"How do the hell do you know all this stuff?" Officer Donheeney sighed, shaking his head incredulously.
"I read a lot and remember stuff. Maybe you would too, if you weren't illiterate..."
"Watch it, Pretty Boy! You only remember useless stuff, anyway." Sean growled. He knew that he wasn't as intelligent as his partner. It had been something of an issue when he and Murphy had been first paired together.
"Don't call me Pretty Boy, you know I hate it."
"Come on, admit it...you curl those eyelashes, don't you?" Sean loved to rile Connor. He was just so easily wound up.
"Fuck off."
"I've been to your apartment and seen all your beauty products, don't forget."
"It takes effort to look good. You've forgotten what its like when you're dating, because Shannon was crazy enough to marry you. If you had used some grooming products maybe you wouldn't have lost all your hair, Baldy!"
Sean grappled with his partner and got him in a headlock. Connor struggled briefly, pushing and flailing against Sean. He finally settled into a wary submission.
"Take that back, I'm warning you." Sean demanded, faux agitation in his voice. He actually liked his lack of hair; it suited his face and, most importantly, it drove Shannon wild.
"Yeah, I'm going to kick your ass." Connor yelled, with childish defiance.
Sean let go off the younger guy. They fell back into their seats and both laughed at the thought of the light and wiry Murphy taking on Donheeney.
Suddenly screaming filled the street. There was no mistaking it for anything other than a woman in fear of her life. Within seconds the two policemen were running from the car towards Barker's building and the source of the awful screaming.
Both drew their weapons as they entered the shabby residence, and Connor called for back up.
"On three." Donheeney whispered at Barker's door. The screaming had stopped and both men knew that did not bode well. Connor watched as Sean counted down on his fingers.
