by Reina Torres
Lissa couldn’t hold on to her frustration in the face of her brother’s silliness. Her laughter broke a little of the mood. “I’m sorry, Rook. I know I’ve been a jerk tonight.”
He shook his head. “I’m just trying to figure out what I’ve done. I’d like to at least apologize.”
Sighing, she leaned back against the railing and gave him a weak smile. “It’s not me, really. I mean, I’ve always thought you were a fairly decent guy.”
Warren coughed and held up his hands in surrender when his sister turned her dark eyes on him. “What? I was agreeing with you. Just sad that you think he’s only ‘fairly decent.’ That’s got to hurt a guy.”
Stillman kept his gaze on Lissa. “Please, continue.”
“What is it with you heroic guys, anyway? You sweep in, drag a girl out of a burning building, and then when you rock her world you act stupid and push her off onto another guy.”
Stillman turned to look at Warren who waved him off.
“Don’t look at me, Rook. She’s talking to you.”
“Seriously?” He turned away from Lissa for a moment. When he turned back, he had his jaw set tightly. “Your brother is a firefighter.”
“Duh!” She shot back.
Leaning forward, bracing his forearms on his knees, Stillman tried to plead his case. “You know how dangerous it is.”
She shrugged. “You think she doesn’t?”
Warren nodded. “Her dad is the Chief.”
“Recently adopted dad,” he argued back. “She’s probably still getting used to the idea. What happens the first time we’re involved in a blaze and something happens to the Chief or me? What happens if it’s both?”
“What happens,” Lissa continued, “when nothing happens? You’re stuck on a worst-case scenario, Rook? What if you guys go out and then you break up? Life goes on, but right now you’re not even trying.”
“Look,” he blew out a breath, “I already explained to her that I was wrong for staying out of her life, okay? I’m going to be her friend. I’m going to be there if she needs me. No matter what, I’m there. Okay? Isn’t that enough?”
Warren started up again. “Is that enough for you, Rook?”
Rook hung his head down. “Seriously?”
“I’m asking the question,” Warren continued. “I’m guessing that you think everyone around you doesn’t know that you’re in love with her. I mean, it goes without saying that Aylin doesn’t know.”
“She doesn’t,” Lissa confirmed.
“If she did, she’d probably kick your ass for making her worry and wonder.”
“She thinks you care for her like a friend, Rook.”
“I do.”
“Oh My God! Warren, you see what I’m talking about, right?”
Warren hesitated for a moment. “It’s female logic, man. You really can’t fight it.”
“She has a chance,” Rook dug in deeper, “at something bigger than a life freaking out when a siren goes by. She’s going to get the degree I didn’t have the money to get. She’s going to be someone, and I need to give her the distance to do it.”
“First,” Lissa held up her pointer finger, but by the look in her eyes, Rook knew she was probably wanting to flip him off, “she’s already somebody, and you must know that somewhere in your addled brain.
“Second,” she continued on, “you’re someone too. We’d all suffer if we lost you, but you know it goes deeper with her.”
“She’s young.” He was sure that she’d listen to that.
“Sure, but so are you. We all are, but you can’t tell me that just because she’s young that she’s stupid. Aylin’s been through a lot. She’s not liked the people in some of our classes where they’re all about having a kick ass party or getting sloshed just to pretend she’s having a good time. I think she should get credit for life experience, don’t you?”
Stillman didn’t have much to say. He could already hear where Lissa was going with her argument, and she was picking apart his own.
“I’m keeping away from her for good reasons, Lissa. I promise. I’m not trying to hurt her. I’m trying to protect her.”
“You mean, you’re trying to protect yourself.”
Warren opened his mouth and Lissa gave him a withering look. “Don’t you dare take his side.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Stillman turned to look at Warren, his eyes narrowed. “I thought you understood what I was doing?”
Leaning back against the railing on his side of the steps he nodded. “Sure, I understand it, Rook. I just don’t particularly agree with it.”
“Really?”
Warren gave him a wincing smile. “You’re my brother. I’ve got your back. I’m here to support you and keep you safe, but Aylin’s like my sister. She’s family. Just because she’s the Chief’s daughter doesn’t mean she doesn’t get to make her own decisions.”
Rook latched on to part of his argument. “She’s like a sister to me too!”
Something hit his back and he turned around. Looking at Lissa, he noticed that one of her shoes was missing. A quick perusal of the nearby steps showed him where the shoe ended up after smacking him between the shoulder blades.
“What the hell?”
Lissa folded her arms and glared at him. “If you looked at your sister the way you look at Aylin, I’d have to shoot you. Look, pull your head out of your backside and come to grips with the fact that you’re in love with her, and she’s in love with you, so we can all live happily ever after, okay?”
There were too many thoughts in his head for Stillman to make sense of anything.
Getting up from the steps, he pulled his keys out of his pocket. “I need some time to think.”
He saw Warren shoot his sister a look that she shot right back at him.
Warren spoke first. “Please, don’t feel the need to leave because of this.”
Stillman gave his friend a hug and clapped him on the back. “It’s okay, man. I just need to think, really.” Turning around he hesitated before approaching Lissa.
She rolled her eyes. “Come here. I’m not going to castrate you. Give me a hug.”
Warren coughed. “Wow. Ringing endorsement, Liss.”
Lissa shrugged. “Relax. Besides, mama would be mad if I tried. Blood doesn’t come up easy from painted wood. They’d luminol these babies and we’d be in deep trouble.”
Stillman pointed at his car. “I’m going to leave now.”
Warren waved after him. “You go, I’ll hold her here! Run, man, run!”
As he drove down the road, Stillman realized that there was one solid piece of advice that he could hold onto at that moment.
Run.
It was time for him to take to the road and get rid of some of his worry and a bunch of the calories that the Vidal family had fed him.
Flan, man... it’s no joke.
Chapter 10
For the better part of an hour they just drove around, going further and further away from the Country Club and every mile helped her breathe freer.
“Are you mad at Wes?”
She turned and had to bring a hand up to keep her curls from whipping her in the face. “No, honestly, I don’t blame him. I know what it’s like to be blamed for something I didn’t do. Wes didn’t know that I’m related to Craig. I forget most of the time myself. It’s not something I brag about, because to me his life isn’t something to brag about.”
“Yeah, we’re all stuck with our parents.”
“I... never mind.” She wasn’t going to try to set Sean straight about her feelings. He didn’t seem like he was listening anyway. “Maybe... do you think you could drop me off of my apartment?”
He just kept driving. “In a little bit. I’m thirsty. Driving with the top down always makes me thirsty.”
Aylin thought she saw him give her a once over, but she blew it out. He was always saying inappropriate things and overtly sexual things. Kat said it was part of his charm that he was so open
with his sexuality.
Aylin and Lissa thought it was crass, but Kat seemed to enjoy his comments. Go figure.
They blew past a Sonic and she turned to look at him. “When you said thirsty... what exactly did you mean?”
Sean pointed down the road to a brightly lit neon sign. It was a chain liquor store that seemed to be everywhere. “I thought I’d get us something to toast our not-so-fun families.”
She waved him off. “I’m fine with a bottle of water or a Coke. Really, don’t bother on my account.”
He turned and smiled at her for a moment before he signaled to turn into the parking lot. “Wes said you were easy. I mean easy to please.”
“Yeah, well,” she was still reeling from what she thought he’d said, “I’m pretty simple in my tastes.”
“Then I’ll get you something simple.”
He threw the car in park and stepped out of the car and into the store so fast she didn’t have the time to offer to go in with him.
Sitting in the car she pulled out her phone. She started to dial a call to Stillman’s phone and then stopped. She’d call him in the morning. Before his shift.
That would be better.
It was late enough that he was probably already in bed knowing he had a twenty-four-hour shift coming up. If Sean wanted a drink let him get something, she just wanted to get home where she could decompress. Jotting down a quick note to her mom, she said she’d call her in the morning instead of going back to her house.
Even though Aylin was well on the way to being over the whole crazy night, she really didn’t want to answer questions she knew her mother was going to ask.
Some of the answers, Aylin didn’t even know yet. She was still mulling over what this meant for her relationship to her biological father.
“Look what I got!”
Sean walked out with two open bottles and a heavy plastic bag on his arm.
When he got to the car, he stopped at the passenger side of the Jag and handed her a bottle. “Here, hold onto this.”
Aylin took the bottle and stared at it. HOLLOWAY ORCHARD HARD CIDER.
Sean set the plastic bag down into the back of the car on the floor and then got into the driver’s seat. He took a long drink of the cider and set the bottle in the cupholder with a loud satisfied sigh. “Go ahead,” he gave her a nod and waved his hand. Take a taste. It says hard, but it’s like that cider they sell at the farmer’s markets.”
“How did you open the bottles inside?” She looked over at the open door and saw the clerk busy behind the counter. “Isn’t it illegal to have the bottles open outside?”
“I thought you said your dad was a firefighter. You sound like he’s a policeman.”
She shrugged. “I know a lot of officers because of my dad’s work but also from the time my mom and I spent at Helping Hearts when we were pulling our lives together. S.A.P.D., Texas Rangers, Deputies, even FBI. It’s a pretty tight-knit community here. Everyone knows everyone else.”
She looked over at Sean who’d gone quiet and she thought she saw his complexion blanche a little. “It’s no big deal, but I learn a lot from them.”
He turned on the car and backed out of the lot. “You think they’d be upset if you had a drink after a night like this.”
“It’s not going to look good if someone pulls us over.”
She didn’t put the drink down, she just fiddled with it in her hands, in her lap. “Of course, it won’t. My parents will flip!”
“But you’d get off, right? You’d just flash some kind of membership card and no harm, no foul, right?”
What was left of her good mood was quickly flying away behind her. “It’s not like that.”
He laughed the sound seemed overly loud to her ears. “What’s the fun in knowing more than your fair share of cops if you can’t use it to your advantage, huh?”
“It’s not about an advantage.”
“Okay, okay,” he shook his head. “I know I'm coming close to pissing you off. I’m sorry.”
She let out a breath. “Is this drink for you too? Is my coke in the bag?” Aylin reached back with one hand and pulled a can out of the bag. Some kind of fancy, completely overpriced energy drink.
“Oh yeah,” he shook his head, “shit. I forgot to get you a coke. Sorry about that. Go ahead and drink the cider it doesn’t taste like alcohol. Hardly.”
“Can we just go to my apartment, please?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. In a bit. I just need a little more open road medicine to soothe my nerves.” He reached down and picked up his bottle and downed the rest of it with a satisfied sigh. “That hits the spot.”
“Whatever pull you think I have, Sean? It’s not going to help you if we get pulled over for open alcohol containers.”
“Well, I don’t know much about containers,” he looked at her and shrugged, “but my dad’s got his share of lawyers on retainer. I think I’d be okay.” They continued driving and he gave her another look. “But you know how to make sure they don’t catch us with open containers?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Drink it. Look at the alcohol content, it’s hardly anything.”
Aylin looked at the bottle and turned it around so she could see the label. Sure enough there was hardly any alcohol content in it.
“It’s practically cider, just like I told you.”
She took a sip and it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t really good, either, but it wasn’t bad. A few sips later the world was passing by at light speed. The neon and the streetlights turned to long thin ribbons in the darkness.
“You know,” she drew in a deep breath and let it out, “this is just what I needed. The road, the wind, relaxation.”
“See?” He sounded awfully proud of himself. “I thought you’d like that cider. It’s light, relaxing.”
She hummed and started to lift the bottle to her lips, but she gave up halfway there. It was so heavy. Or maybe she was just tired and needing some sleep. “I really would like to go to my apartment.”
“Yeah, yeah, in a little bit. Just relax.”
“I am. But I want to sleep.”
She heard his laughter but just couldn’t seem to bother to turn her head.
“You look too pretty to go to bed just yet.”
She laughed but didn’t actually feel her voice in her throat. “I think you say things like that, but you don’t actually mean it, Sean.”
“Oh, yeah? Why would you say that?”
“’Cause you’re more like Kat than I think you know. You two will say anything if you think it will get you what you want. Or if you want to hurt someone.” She felt the skin between her eyebrows furrow. “Why did I just say that?”
“You meant it, right?”
She felt her frown pulling on her lips and she wiped the back of her free hand over her mouth. “Strange... I don’t feel...”
Something touched her leg and she dropped her chin to look at it. A hand.
Sean’s hand.
Was on her knee.
“I feel,” he told her as he used his fingertips to pinch the soft hem of her skirt, “and you will too.”
Stillman paused outside of the mini-mart and stretched his legs. He’d worked off a fair amount of the calorie rich meal he’d enjoyed, and his mind was clear.
Er.
Clearer.
He knew he’d messed up. He’d pushed Aylin away too many times.
His phone buzzed and he pulled it out of the pocket on the leg of his pants. Opening the text app, it was a photo from Lissa.
Aylin dressed up for the party at the Country Club.
The message that came in after it wasn’t necessary, but apparently, Lissa really wanted to dig her heel in.
WHAT YOU’RE MISSING
All of his good intentions were coming back to bite him in the ass. He couldn’t deny it anymore. While he’d been out pounding the pavement and running to clear his own mind, Aylin had been following him.
Her voice, her eyes, the scent of her skin and hair.
She was in his head, his heart, deep inside of him where no one else had ever been able to touch him.
He'd made every wrong step in trying to make things right.
“No good deed goes unpunished. The only problem is, you did this to yourself, man.”
“Are you talking to me?”
Stillman looked over at the old man standing beside him, his right arm wrapped around a brown paper sack. By the looks of it, there were all kinds of junk food in the bag. “Uh, no, sir. Sorry. I was just talking to myself.”
Nodding, the old man stepped down off of the curb in front of the store. “Any chance it’s about a woman?”
Stillman felt his cheeks flush with heat. “Actually, yes. How did you know?”
“I’ve been there a time or two myself.” Chuckling, the man started to walk off toward the old station wagon sitting at Pump Three. He raised a hand in farewell. “Do the right thing, son. Fall on your sword. Tell the girl you love her and beg her to give you a chance.”
Late night love life therapy at the gas station, who would believe it?
Looking at his phone again, Stillman realized the time. She was probably still at the Hillandale Country Club. He’d get up early and go to her apartment. Ask her to lunch or dinner on his next day off. Tell her he had something important to say. A big apology to make. Maybe that would be enough to give him a foot in the door.
Providing she didn’t slam her door on his foot.
That might hurt a little.
Okay. It would hurt. A lot.
Slipping his phone back into his pocket, he zipped it up and went inside. He’d pick up a bottle of water and get back on the road.
Apparently, he needed to do more running.
The wind.
It felt good for a while.
Brushing past. Pulling away all of her worries.
Refreshing.
But then.
The wind.