by Marni Mann
“I can’t,” was all I heard.
Some nights, he didn’t leave.
Tonight just wasn’t one.
“Dylan, I love you.”
I didn’t get a response, so I looked over my shoulder. He wasn’t in here, and the bedroom door was closed.
He was gone.
Nine
Dylan
Three Years and One Month Ago
“Hi,” Alix said as she moved across the sidewalk. She closed the gap between us and stopped when she was about a foot away.
She was still dressed in her uniform—a white button-down and khakis and large black boots.
Somehow, she made it look sexy.
“You’re here.”
She glanced behind her at the stairs she had just climbed, and then her stare slowly returned to me. “I’m a little shocked, honestly.”
I leaned my side into the brick exterior of the train station. “Why?”
She gazed up at me through her lashes.
She was shy.
That was something I’d noticed at the restaurant. I just hadn’t realized how reserved she really was.
“Well, when I called, I didn’t think you’d answer, so I just planned on leaving a message.” Her voice was soft.
She needed to understand something, and because I was more forward than her, I said, “Listen to me, Alix. You can always say no to me.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
As I looked into her eyes, the truth behind that statement revealed itself to me.
She felt the same way I did.
I didn’t know what to call it.
I couldn’t even describe it.
But it was something.
I’d known that from the moment I stood next to her at the restaurant.
Even more so when I wrote my number on her hand.
And, now, the feeling was even more intense than ever.
Enough that I needed to start walking or my fucking hands were going to reach for her.
I couldn’t let that happen yet.
“Follow me.” My hand went to her shoulder, moving her closer, before I led her toward State Street.
Just as I took a step, I heard, “Wait.”
I glanced at my side, our eyes locking.
“I need to know something first.”
“What?”
“Is she still in the picture?”
She.
The girl I had been with that night.
It was a fair question.
“She’s long gone.” My lids narrowed as I took her in. “Let me assure you of something, Alix. Had my assistant not called, dragging me away from that dinner, I still would have ended up at your table; it just might have taken me a few minutes longer to get there.”
Her cheeks flushed.
Her body seemed even tenser than before.
“You don’t need to charm me.”
I laughed.
I wasn’t sure how men typically acted around her. With how gorgeous she was, I assumed they hit on her all the time.
That wasn’t what I was doing.
“I’m just telling you the truth.” Instead of waiting for her to respond, I looked straight ahead and began to walk, bringing her over the cobblestones toward Quincy Market. Once we were well past the train station, I asked, “Are you hungry?”
She shrugged. “I’m the kind of girl who can always eat.”
“That’s the kind of girl I like.”
Her cheeks flushed again.
It was a sight I’d never grow tired of.
“I’m about to feed you the best lunch you’ve ever had in Boston.” Rather than going into Quincy Market, I took her around the side of the building to the last pushcart in the row and stood with her in the short line.
“I feel like you really believe that.” She was nervous, fidgeting with her hands, shifting her weight between her feet.
“When it comes to food, I’m an expert,” I told her. “Trust me.”
A smile was the only response I got.
But what I liked was that there was nothing simple about that movement of her lips. Her grin traveled as high as her eyes, and it changed the color in her cheeks and caused a tiny twitch in her nose.
It was all so genuine.
When we reached the front of the line and it was my turn to order, I asked for two extra-crispy gyros.
The preparation started with tzatziki sauce slathered onto the pitas, followed by an assembly line of vegetables and meat, which had been stuck back on the grill to cook the way I’d requested.
Once both were wrapped in foil and paid for, I said to Alix, “One more stop,” and I backtracked four carts.
There, I ordered fries from a vendor who sliced the potatoes right in front of us and dropped them into a fryer. When they were golden brown and placed in a large bowl, I handed him some cash and went over to the condiments.
“Vinegar?” Alix said as I lifted the bottle.
I looked at her. “You’ve never had it on your fries?”
She shook her head, and I glanced back down, drizzling the vinegar over the whole bowl, adding in some salt and a large squirt of ketchup.
“Once you have them like this, you’ll never eat them any other way.”
I moved us over to a vacant bench, and as I put the fries between us, my hand gently grazed the outer edge of her thigh. The small gasp she made was just the sound I’d wanted to hear.
I pulled my fingers away and said, “Go ahead; try them.”
She wasn’t careful about the way she dipped one into the pool of ketchup or how she popped it into her mouth. She also wasn’t afraid to get her fingers dirty.
I liked that.
“Wow.” She chewed and took another fry, drowning it in ketchup first. “These really are the best I’ve ever had.”
“I know.” I handed her a gyro and bit off the corner of mine, watching as she eventually did the same to hers. “What do you think?”
“Holy shit,” she said as she swallowed.
I smiled at her response and at the way she was eyeing the sandwich.
“This is incredible, Dylan.” She spoke behind her hand, so I couldn’t see the sauce that I knew was on her lips.
It was fucking adorable.
She grabbed several more fries and added, “I’m starting to believe you’re the expert you said you were.”
“It only gets better.”
“The food?”
“All of it.”
It was a promise.
One I intended on keeping.
As she processed what I’d just told her, I went over to one of the carts and grabbed some extra napkins, handing her several as I returned to the bench.
“Why don’t you tell me about you?” she said as I sat back down.
Her shyness was resurfacing, and she wanted the attention off of her.
I wiped my mouth and held the gyro close to my lap. “You know I’m a pilot. What you don’t know is, I own a private airline.”
“Wow.” Shock registered on her face even though half of it was hidden behind a handful of napkins.
“I’ve been in the air since I was a kid,” I told her. “My father was a pilot and my grandfather, too, so it’s in my blood. But I enjoy the business side just as much as flying; therefore, I knew one over the other would never be enough.”
“So, naturally, you went and opened your own airline. That makes perfect sense.”
Her sarcasm made me laugh.
It sounded so hot, coming out of her.
So did the giggle.
God, that girl is fucking beautiful.
“None of it came easy,” I told her. “It took years to build what I have now and a hell of a lot of people who believed in my dream and had the money to back it. Fortunately, Embassy Jets has done better than the investors and I projected.”
She set down the gyro and ate several fries. “What about your family? Are they in Boston?”
“I have a sister in Seattle, and my parents are in So
merville, in the same house I grew up in. Dad’s retired now. Mom, too. They play bridge every Tuesday. It’s a whole lot of fucking normal.”
She swallowed the fries. “Same—except I’m an only child, neither of my parents are pilots, and I grew up in southern Maine.”
“Portland?”
“Falmouth.”
“Even nicer,” I said. I knew the area well, as I’d flown into Portland many times and checked out the surrounding cities. “There’s a corner store in Falmouth. I can’t remember the name, but it has the best whoopie pies I’ve ever tasted.”
“Nina’s Variety, and you’re right; they do.”
Her lips parted as she lifted the gyro and took a bite.
A mouthful so big, it made me proud of her.
Alix was cool.
Much more than just a pretty face.
This girl had substance.
She had a story.
It was one I wanted to hear.
And one I wanted to be a part of.
“I want to do this again,” I said.
“Me, too.”
Once I got up, I reached down to help her stand. “You ready for dessert?”
She showed me her sandwich, which she’d only eaten half of. “I don’t think I can fit in another bite.”
“Find the room.” I tossed her gyro into a trash bin along with the rest of mine and the empty bowl of fries. Then, I placed my hand on her lower back and led her toward the entrance of Quincy Market. “I’m about to feed you some chocolate cake that will blow your mind.”
Her laugh was sweet this time. “I believe you.”
“You do like chocolate, don’t you?” I opened the door for her to enter, and I walked in behind her. It was then that I realized I hadn’t asked if she liked gyros or the vegetables they’d put on her sandwich or even French fries.
“It’s my favorite,” she replied.
Damn it.
I liked her even more now.
Ten
Alix
Present Day
I arrived at the police headquarters several minutes before my shift started and went straight to my desk, immediately logging into the system.
I hadn’t come early to pick up overtime. I had come to read the notes the paramedics had left in Joe’s file.
Regardless of what they said, I wouldn’t change the way I’d handled things last night.
It was a moment.
One I’d celebrated.
But I needed to know if the paramedics agreed with my assessment, so I typed Joe’s name into the search bar and watched his chart load. I skimmed all the stats the medics had entered—visible symptoms, vitals, the medication that had been administered.
They’d treated him for an overdose.
When they’d dropped him off at the hospital, he’d been alive and semi-responsive. I didn’t have access to whatever had happened once he was there.
But what I had come to see was if their evaluation matched mine.
And it did.
I’d done everything right.
I found myself taking a deep breath, my lungs feeling looser than they had all day. Air began to pass through even easier as I reread their notes a second and third time, finally comfortable enough to exit his chart.
I still had a few minutes before I needed to clock in, but I did anyway, and I put on the headset. Then, I clicked the screen that allowed me to answer inbound calls, and one came through almost immediately.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” I said.
And then it was back.
The ritual.
Inhaling wasn’t so easy anymore.
My thumb tapped the space bar.
My body tensed.
My toes ground into the bottom of my shoes.
“My husband!” an older woman shouted into the phone. “I think he’s having a heart attack.”
I relaxed again, knowing that feeling would be brief and that I’d be repeating this process every few minutes for the next eight hours.
Tonight was a full moon.
The city would be even wilder.
Call counts would double.
Non-emergencies would turn life-threatening.
A shiver passed through me as I responded, “Help is on the way, ma’am.” I sucked in some air. “What’s your name, please?”
As she answered, I quickly glanced out the window, seeing the last speck of daylight.
It had been a sunny day.
I couldn’t be more grateful for that.
Eleven
Alix
Present Day
I wasn’t sure what time it was when I opened my eyes.
It didn’t really matter.
Sun was coming through the blinds in the bedroom, and I could feel it on my face.
It was the perfect way to wake up after last night, one of the most draining shifts I’d ever worked.
My chest was tight from all the times it had been hard to take a breath.
The side of my thumb was raw from continuously tapping it on the space bar.
My muscles were sore from tensing them.
My toes ached from grinding them into the bottom of my shoes.
And my heart throbbed as I looked over at the other side of the bed.
There was no indent in the pillow. The comforter was still pulled up to the top.
He hadn’t come home.
Goddamn it.
I grabbed his pillow and flung it across the room.
I needed him here.
He knew that.
It killed me every time he didn’t show up.
I pushed myself higher in the bed, and my back slammed against the headboard. I reached for my phone, and just as I was about to open my Contacts and make a call, my thumb accidentally hit an app.
Pictures began to fill my screen.
So did notifications.
A few hundred of them.
Some were likes. The rest were emojis.
All were in response to the photo I’d posted earlier today.
During my walk home from the train station, I’d come across a rainbow made of chalk that a child had drawn on the sidewalk. As I had snapped a shot of it, the sun had shone over my hand and the phone, creating a shadow of my body behind the picture.
My followers knew all about sunny days.
I’d been sharing them more often.
But none had ever included a rainbow.
I scrolled through the comments under the picture and saw one from Rose.
It was a picture of a fist.
A moment.
She was right.
I filled my lungs, my chest almost feeling bruised, and I pressed an icon on the bottom of the screen. I wasn’t sure what made me do it, but I typed Smith Reid, and I hit Search.
Only a handful of matches came up.
The first was a business account with a photo of him dressed in a suit. I clicked on the profile and learned he was a divorce attorney with a law firm in Downtown Crossing.
I knew the location well.
Dylan’s office was a few buildings over.
I backed out and clicked on the second listing, which was Smith’s personal profile. Even though I was a little hazy on what he and Joe looked like, I didn’t remember Smith being so handsome.
But he was and extremely easy to stare at.
His features were sharp and rich.
His smile was inviting.
He had a warmth to him where Dylan was so cold.
I focused on the pictures, and what I learned within the first several rows were that Smith was active and outdoorsy.
He biked.
Ran.
And he ate.
There were photos of food from restaurants all over the city.
The more I continued to explore, I saw shots that he’d taken from different spots around the world.
Japan.
Dubai.
Alaska.
Peru.
I scrolled through more.
Three.
Smith’s life was fascinating.
He didn’t waste a second.
He didn’t live with regret.
He just lived.
And he lived hard.
We certainly didn’t have that in common.
When I reached the end, I worked my way back to the last shot he’d posted.
It was of him and Joe.
At the bar.
The night I had found them in the alley.
I checked the comments. There was nothing in there that updated me on Joe’s status.
I had to know.
So, I tapped Smith’s profile and clicked Send Message, and then I started to type.
Me: Hi, Smith. I’m Alix Rayne. We met last night in the alley. Anyway, I just wanted to see how you and Joe are doing.
In all the years I’d worked for the city, I’d never followed up with anyone before.
It wasn’t that I didn’t care.
If anything, I cared too much. That was why I’d chosen this field.
It just wasn’t appropriate to reach out.
This situation was no different.
But it was.
Because I hadn’t been on the other end of the phone.
Because I had found them and offered help.
I set my cell on my lap and reached for the tablet on the nightstand.
The blinds fully opened after I pressed a button, and the TV turned on.
HGTV.
The show was about designing a new master bathroom.
Mindless.
Just the way I liked it.
I watched it for only a few seconds before a notification came across the screen of my phone.
Smith had replied.
Smith: Hey, Alix. Thanks for checking on us. Joe’s still in the hospital. If he continues to show progress, the doctor says he’ll be discharged in a few days.
Me: And you?
I shouldn’t have written back.
I should have closed out the app and continued watching bathroom remodels.
But I remembered the look in Smith’s eyes.
The pain, the helplessness.
Smith: I’m doing all right.
Me: I’m relieved to hear that—and about Joe, too.