The Problem with Peace: Greenstone Security #3

by Malcom, Anne

  I saw them.

  I wanted to help. More than anything.

  I didn’t want to be a princess, wasn’t looking for a crown, I was looking for a sword, a freaking butter knife to help my sister slay her dragons. And Rosie, my adopted sister. But not even Excalibur could slay the fire-breathing demons that darkened their doors.

  And I had nothing on them.

  My two brave heroines slayed the dragons they could and made friends with the ones they couldn’t. Their hot hubbies had a hand in it, to be sure, but they did most of the work themselves, they were never damsels.

  Me?

  I was the damsel.

  From pretty much the start of my life. And definitely from the start of the ending that was Heath and me.

  “I don’t think I’m ready,” I croaked. “To...go there.” It was a lame excuse, considering ‘there’ the past and I basically lived in it these days. I just pretended I didn’t.

  Lucy squeezed my hand. “I know, sweetheart.” There was a comfortable silence.

  Or what I thought was a comfortable silence until I remembered who my sister was, pregnant or not.

  “No blowing up his car,” I demanded.

  Lucy gave me faux innocent eyes. “I wouldn’t dare.”

  “Or his house,” I added.

  The eyes narrowed, and Lucy huffed out a sigh. “Fine.”

  She squeezed my hand again.

  I almost felt whole.

  If I ignored the gaping and jagged wound in my chest where my heart used to be.

  Chapter Eight

  One Week Later

  Lucy had forgiven me for getting drunk and then spending the rest of the day hungover at her house. We had an Audrey Hepburn marathon.

  My sister had seen every movie at least twice.

  And so had I, but I wasn’t complaining since I was mostly trying not to barf the entire day. And cry.

  Plus, I got to curl up on the sofa with the sister I’d missed fiercely, revel in her glow, her happiness and let it fill me up the best it could.

  Keltan hadn’t gotten off quite as easy.

  But he’d disappeared and come back with grapes, Fruit Loops, and burrito and suddenly all was forgiven.

  “Okay, I love you again,” Lucy said, snatching the strange assortment of objects.

  He was grinning as he leaned down to kiss her forehead and then her belly. “Again?” he teased.

  “Or I’ve loved you all along, whatever,” she said, ripping into the Fruit Loop box, grabbing a handful, then a handful of grapes and shoving them in her mouth.

  I screwed up my nose not just because the food was offensive to my delicate stomach.

  “Pregnancy cravings,” Keltan explained, settling next to her and resting his hand on the small swell of her stomach.

  My own stomach roiled, for reasons that had nothing to do with the hangover.

  But then I met my sister’s happy eyes and it settled again.

  I settled again.

  I’d figure out how to find my peace. Even if I didn’t get it, the most important people in my world did and that was something.

  Mom and Dad had come and gone.

  Mom had looked through all my new travel purchases and tutted about me not buying enough. Lucy had echoed this.

  My dad had taken me out to my favorite vegetarian restaurant while Mom and Lucy were baby shopping. He demanded I recount every detail of the trip. My dad had an adventurous soul just like mine. He soaked up all of my stories without judgments about how safe it was to take overnight trains through Africa or sleep under the stars by the sea in Italy.

  I knew he worried, because he was my father. But he kept it to himself. Because he loved me enough to know that to try and stop me from doing these things was to stop me from being me. And he’d always nurtured my crazy soul.

  Neither he or Mom mentioned Craig.

  I knew they wanted to.

  But they didn’t. Because they were treating me with Polly gloves.

  And that’s why I was equal parts relieved and sad when they left. I adored them. But I couldn’t take them handling me with that much care for any longer. Because when people handled you with care, it was impossible to forget just how broken you were.

  I’d spent the rest of the week catching up with friends, learning about Rain’s newest gig, helping out with some projects that my favorite charities needed extra hands on. Checked in with my favorite yoga center about what classes they had coming up.

  I’d been determined to keep the week full, so I didn’t think about the emptiness of Heath’s stare.

  I hadn’t seen him since then.

  But his ghost followed me everywhere.

  I’d only just gotten back to the apartment from a yoga class when Rosie barraged in with snacks and a grin.

  And then she’d dropped a bomb on me.

  Not a literal one, it was important to distinguish with her.

  “You’re pregnant too?” I all but screamed after she’d detonated the verbal explosive.

  “Yes, but I am not deaf,” she replied, rubbing her ears. “Or at least I wasn’t.”

  I ignored this and yanked her into my arms, happiness spreading through me with a purity that was rare these days. I wanted to hold onto it. Bask in the happiness for my sister who had gone through so much pain and turmoil and somehow come out of it.

  “Stop squeezing me,” she protested, pushing back. “The baby isn’t meant to come out for like another five months.”

  “You’re four months,” I said, gaping at her nearly flat stomach. I hadn’t even noticed the slight swell to it until now.

  Rosie grinned. “I know, Lucy like hates me because we’re only a few weeks apart and her ankles are already swelling.” She flopped down on the sofa and lifted her stiletto-clad foot. “Still slim and beautiful on this end.”

  I walked over to the fridge to get wine for me and water for Rosie. She would likely hate me for drinking wine in front of her, but I needed it these days.

  To dull the edges.

  Even on happy days like this, everything was a little too sharp, the past prodding at me with enough force to draw blood.

  “Did you guys plan this or something?” I asked, passing her water.

  As predicted, she glared at me like I was offering her some kind of dead animal, taking it reluctantly.

  “No, of course, we didn’t plan it, we’re not that lame,” she replied. “I wouldn’t put it past Luke and Keltan, though. Their bromance is going strong. Their cycles probably synced up or something.”

  I choked on my wine.

  She grinned. “That’s what you get for drinking wine in front of me. Ah, I love it when karma works instantly.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Whoever invented the no wine rule with pregnancy was a douchebag,” Rosie muttered.

  “Um, medical professionals didn’t invent it more so discover the side effects of alcohol on an unborn baby,” I said dryly.

  Rosie waved her hand in dismissal. “Yes but get this, Luke isn’t letting me work. He thinks because I’m growing a baby I can’t kick ass. I can kick ass until the day I pop this sucker out.”

  “He just cares about your safety, and the safety of his unborn child,” I said.

  “Whatever,” she muttered. “He’s got his safety to worry about if he thinks he can order me around.”

  “Love doesn’t know order or peace, it only knows itself, which is both or neither,” I murmured, sipping my wine.

  I looked up after a considerable silence to see Rosie blinking rapidly at me, and only half of it was to do with the fact she was coveting my wine.

  “Wow,” she said. “That was really deep.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, it was something my yoga teacher said this afternoon.”

  She screwed up her nose. “That was a trap,” she snapped. “I’m not supposed to agree with yoga teachers. I abhor everything they stand for.”

  I smirked. “What? Finding peace? Taking care of your body and mi
nd?”

  She scowled. “No, stretching your body into unnatural positions and not even getting an orgasm out of it.” She paused. “Speaking of orgasms, when was the last time you had one?”

  “Last night,” I replied.

  She narrowed her eyes. “One that didn’t come from a battery operated device.”

  It was my turn to scowl at her.

  “If you’re giving me that look then it’s been too long,” she observed, correctly.

  My last orgasm had come from my ex-husband.

  But it had been almost unintentional on his part. He wasn’t what I’d call a generous lover. He wasn’t what anyone would call a generous lover. He cared mostly about his own orgasm and making the motions of caring about mine. But he was never really one to get assertive when he finished, and I didn’t. Apparently, he didn’t think both parties needed an orgasm, every time.

  Thinking back on it, I realized it was somewhat of a metaphor for our whole relationship, an important example of the dynamics within it.

  But back then, I was so busy throwing myself into him, into this falsified idea of love, I convinced myself that things like him not caring about my needs inside—and outside, if we wanted to be really honest here—the bedroom was not a big deal. And I excused the fact he pulled out, rolled over and didn’t spend even a quarter of the amount of time I did ensuring my pleasure.

  He loved me.

  He said it.

  He showed it, sometimes, when he was in a good mood. And there was good sex. Not often, but often enough for me to trick myself into thinking that if we stayed together long enough, it might become more frequent.

  I’d tried to broach the subject to him, albeit after half a bottle of wine, so I didn’t exactly articulate myself that well. Plus, it was an awkward subject to take up with the man you loved. I didn’t want to hurt him. In fact, every decision I made, every word that came out of my mouth and everything I did was structured not to hurt him.

  Again, hindsight tells me that this is almost literally the definition of ‘walking on eggshells’ and one of the red flags to the beginning of emotional abuse.

  But love itself is emotional abuse, even the good versions of it. It’s hard to separate that from a person that was using that love to manipulate and control you.

  Which was what he did after I hesitatingly told him about the way his lack of effort in the bedroom toward me hurt me. First, I thought it might go well, with him being apologetic and loving. But then he turned. Then he talked about himself, and how sex wasn’t the most important thing in a relationship and I was young and childish and too focused on shallow things to notice that.

  I had immediately backed down, ended up apologizing to him, and then hating myself for not handling such a situation with my husband like a grown up. Another red flag signifying emotional abuse, the way another person can make you apologize for something they’ve done wrong. To make it seem like you’re the one in the wrong.

  It took him literally punching me in the face to see this.

  I toyed with myself—more like tortured myself—with scenarios of what would’ve happened had he not snapped that day. If he’d continued landing emotional blows, instead of a physical one.

  Would I have eventually found my strength, my truth and walked away? Or would he have whittled me down to nothing but a raw and exposed nerve, a shell of myself before I became too bad at hiding it and the people who loved me would’ve had to drag me out.

  Save Polly.

  Again.

  Ever the damsel.

  A snapping at my fingers distracted me from having to face the answer.

  I straightened. “What?” I asked Rosie’s fingers.

  “I said, you need to get yourself laid,” she decided, glaring at my wine.

  “No, I don’t,” I said firmly.

  Heath’s hands on mine, his mouth on mine, him inside me assaulted my brain before I could stop it, and I had to squeeze my thighs together out of the pure need to awakened.

  I had to stop wanting him.

  It just wasn’t healthy to want someone who legitimately hated you.

  “S.E.X,” Rosie enunciated. “You need to be having it.” She held up her hand. “And even though I would be all about you doing it with Voldemort...”

  “Voldemort?”

  She sighed. “He Who Must Not Be Named. But I’m a badass like Harry and Dumbledore so I actually say his name.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “Is pregnancy turning you like, legit straight jacket crazy?”

  “Of course not,” she snapped. “I was born straight jacket crazy.” She winked. “But you’re obviously a little or a lot dense from lack of sex so you don’t get that Voldemort was Heath and I was trying to save your fragile little heart by not uttering his name but now I have and furthermore I’ve made a big show of it, so I’ve likely made it worse. I’m going to soldier on because that’s how I do.” She gave me a sharp look that was also full of kindness. “So as much as I want you and Voldemort to sort your shit and do the nasty, I’m thinking that maybe this isn’t one of those times that we’re used to. Like the time when shit works out. And I’m going to tell you, it breaks my heart. Because of everyone who deserves to have their shit sorted with their person, it’s you, my fairy-tale loving, yoga doing, mildly insane romantic.”

  She leaned forward to squeeze my hand, her eyes watering.

  Rosie never cried.

  Never.

  And now she was crying for me and my utterly tragic non-ending.

  “I’m still holding out hope because I had to wait thirty years for the man I loved to plant a baby in my womb, put a ring on my finger and make all these rules about how unsafe it is for me to build bombs with Gage while pregnant.” She rolled her eyes. “There were a lot of times I lost hope. And by lost hope I mean I slept with a lot of guys. There is no such thing as staying chaste and noble waiting for that lost love. That shit only happens in movies. It’s not healthy nor is it realistic to wait around with your legs crossed for the universe to get its cosmic shit together. So you, my dear are hot, young and I’m assuming great in bed, because Heath would not be doing his darnedest to become the world’s biggest asshole in pretending he’s not in love with you if you weren’t.” She winked to try and dull the blow of that sentence.

  It didn’t work.

  I poured more wine.

  That wouldn’t work either.

  But I still poured it.

  “I’m not ready.”

  Understatement of the century.

  I was crying myself to sleep every night, my fists clenched under my pillow to actively stop them from reaching for my phone. For reaching for someone who wouldn’t want me anyway.

  Just because he didn’t want me, it didn’t stop me from wanting him.

  That’s what was most tragic about Romeo and Juliet. Not the ending—that was just stupid and dramatic—no, not enough people focused on the real tragedy. Paris’s love. Unreturned.

  There was only one thing more painful than two people in love.

  It was one person in love while the other moved on with their life.

  That was the fricking tragedy.

  Especially since people believed in time being the ultimate healer. I used to be one of those people. Until I realized that time stretched into forever, exactly the same amount of time I’d be yearning for Heath.

  Tragic.

  “Of course you’re not ready,” Rosie agreed. “Which is why you have to do it. Everyone does things before they’re ready. All the best people anyway. Because if we waited until we were ready, we’d be waiting for death. And there’s only so much heartbreak that you can wallow in without at least pretending you’re moving on.” She gave me a look. “Take it from someone who knows. Maybe one day you might not even be pretending.” She shrugged. “Or maybe not. But not much can be worse than the way you’re feeling right now.”

  Crap.

  She totally had a point.

  I chewed my lip.

>   “You know I’m right,” she said smugly.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  Her own irises brightened. “Oh, a Polly glare,” she marveled. “I thought they were a myth when Lucy told me of them. You are peace, love, and fucking tofu, I didn’t think you had the ability to glare.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Well, I’ve changed.”

  Another understatement of the century.

  Rosie’s eyes dimmed slightly. “Yeah, honey. As much as I wished you’d stay our loving and cheerful Polly forever, there wasn’t a shot in hell for that. The fact you lasted as long as you did is a miracle. And it wasn’t even the asshole that punched you in the face that did that. It was the asshole of a different kind that punched you in the chest.”

  I didn’t correct her.

  That I was the one doing the punching.

  Because Rosie was protective of me. She and Lucy saw me through rose tinted glasses. I was always the damsel. No way would they ever believe I was the villain of this piece, even though the evidence was pretty damning.

  I married another man.

  Divorced that same man.

  Ran off to Europe for a year.

  Yet they were sure that Heath played a part in this. That it was his fault. They didn’t say anything because they wanted to protect me and talking about him was pretty much the most damaging thing they could ever do.

  “Even if you’re right—”

  “I’m always right,” Rosie interjected.

  “Well even if you are, it’s not like men are lining up at my door to date me.”

  She scoffed. “They would if they knew your address.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Do not do something like hand out my home address to strangers on the street.”

  She scowled. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  I raised my brow.

  “Well they wouldn’t be strangers, I’d ask their name, do a full background check and then give them your address,” she relented.

  “No.”

  “Fine,” she muttered. “But seriously, you know you’re a hot piece of ass. You’d get a date like that.” She clicked her fingers. “Plus, you’re not exactly new at the dating scene. You’ve had a boyfriend for every day of the week. You know where to find them.”

  “I knew,” I corrected. “Before...” I trailed off.