He knows that better than anyone. He's memorized every saying for fate and luck and chance that there is, and he knows it's all in his head. The problem is that it is in his head, so there's little he can do about it.

Except flip a coin. And another. And another.

He has strict rules about how it goes, and there are procedures to follow. It's what he likes about police work - the procedures, the rules, the regulations. The problem always comes when life gets in the way, when there's a criminal who, by definition, doesn't follow the rules and he has to make a choice. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong and sometimes it's simply too late.

This is different, though he's certain it's just as dangerous. Tina's an unknown, filled with vices and contradictions. She's a hundred things he wants and even more that he doesn't, and he spends so much time picking up the mess she leaves in his life, he's not sure he can have her in it. He watches her and he watches Nicky, counting odds and movements. If they stop walking on an odd numbered step, then he'll approach them. If it's even, he'll stay where he is on the bench, weathering the wicked wind that blows off the sea.

Tina stops on odd and Nicky stops on even so he's caught in limbo, uncertain of what to do. He stands and wonders if they'll come to him, but then that's not right either, so he fingers the coin in his pocket and rubs his thumb over the face. Heads or tails. It's easy when you look at it like that. Heads or tails. Yes or no.

They start walking again and Max watches them go, counting steps. Left and right, an easy measured cadence, though Nicky changes it all, mixes it up by twirling and skipping, and acting like a child, dancing alongside her mother. Still, her movements make more sense to his head than Tina's, her swift, mincing steps all agitation, where Nicky's seem natural and flowing. She's a part of nature where Tina fights against it.

He takes the coin from his pocket and stares at it for a moment. Coins don't play tricks like people do, they're black and white, heads or tails. Always, every time.

He flips the coin and calls it in the air.

His room is, at first glance, exactly like he left it, but he's never been one for first glances. He looks deeper and he can see that things have been moved and put back as well as they could be, and almost perfect, but not, which is really the key to it all. That means it's Nicky, and not Tina, because Tina doesn't even bother to try, which in some ways is better. At least with her he knows what to expect, whereas Nicky keeps surprising him.

"What gave it away first?" He starts and looks at her, standing in the open door to the hallway, her smile bright and her head tilted. "I bet it was the books beside the bed, right? Was that it?"

"Season seven, episode twenty-five. The Trouble with Jamie. It's out of order."

She shakes her head. "How do you do that?"

"I don't know. Just do. You want to watch something?"

"Yeah." She comes over to the shelf and puts the box he'd mentioned back where it belongs then makes her way through all the episodes, mouthing the titles and touching each box. He shivers at the ritual, so similar to his own, and reminds himself that certain things are better left unnoticed. "How about this one? Season two, episode three."

"Badge Without Honor. The early ones are easy." He comes over to the couch and settles on it as she sets the tape in the machine and starts it. She settles beside him, leaning against him and Max has little choice but to put his arm around her. He can feel her smile, so he tightens his hold just enough to let her know he knows.

"You're going to have to rewatch it all from the beginning after I leave, aren't you?" She looks up at him, her smile still in place, and he can see the woman she's going to become in it, so he looks away, back at the screen. He knows all the dialogue by heart, but to miss some of it seems wrong, so he watches intently until he looks up at the door and Tina's standing there, smoke curling like a mock halo around her head.

"She's asleep."

"I can carry her to her room." He starts to stand and she waves him off, shaking her head barely enough to be discernable. "Don't bother. A night on the couch won't kill her." There's disapproval in her tone, and Max knows there's something he's done wrong, but everything feels right, so he's not sure what he's looking for to be out of place. Maybe it's him. Maybe he's the thing that isn't right in the room.

Two nights later is Friday and Nicky's gone off to stay the night with some friends, though Max isn't quite sure he believes that Nicky has friends. She seems different than the other girls that twitter like spring birds as they giggle their way past the police station, peering in the glass and pecking at it with their fingers, wondering which of them will make him look up. But still he's assured that she'll have a good time, and it won't be nearly the same as an evening with him, but fun nonetheless, and maybe he should have something like fun also. She laughs as she says it, full of being a teenager, and he rubs the coin in his pocket and wonders if she's laughing at him.

Tina shows up at his door after Nicky's gone. He can hear the fifteen steps between their rooms, and hear the last inhale of her fag before she knocks, stubbing the butt out with her other hand in the tray she keeps beside his door for just that reason. He's half undressed - shirt unbuttoned except for his sleeves and it's untucked as well, his nightly ritual caught up in measuring heartbeats between buttons. The door is open and she stands there, wearing a t-shirt and knickers and nothing else.

"Wanna get lucky, copper?"

He nods and she comes in and shuts the door. He can't think with her near, as she undoes his cuffs in the wrong order and tugs his boxers down with his trousers, out of sorts and wrong altogether, but her mouth is distracting and her naked breasts and eventually he can find a rhythm again, pushing inside her in his own time, at his own pace and away from whatever mess she might make of his life.