Ready to Fall (A Second Chance Bad Boy Next Door Romance)

by Anne Connor

  I stand next to him, leaning against the car and crossing my arms in front of me, facing the grease-stained, dirty window.

  Maybe I do need a new beginning; maybe Alec is right. Maybe instead of reminding myself of everything I’ve been through, I need to shrug it off and allow myself to breathe. Allow myself to carry on, go forward, and leave all my shit in the past. Maybe that’s where it belongs.

  I close my eyes and lean back slightly on the hood of the car, allowing my mind to wander. It’s all for her - for Daisy. I can’t work out the best way to move forward. I can’t tell whether I need to keep reminding her of the good times we used to have, or if I should start fresh and show her all the happiness I can give her.

  One thing is for sure - I need to give her back the ring. It belongs on her finger. She needs to wear it.

  I need her in my bed, spread open and wanting more. Wanting only what I can give her.

  “Um, Travis?” Alec interrupts my thoughts and I open my eyes, tearing myself away from thoughts of her. He jabs his thumb over his shoulder toward the door. “Friend of yours?”

  Daisy’s father appears at the door, smiling and looking around the garage. When he sees me, his expression hardens and he freezes in place.

  I can feel the anger coming off of him. He isn’t just disgusted with me for what he thinks I did - his feelings are red-hot, unwavering. His lips turn down into a scowl as he pushes a hand through his grey salt-and-pepper hair.

  But he doesn’t scare me. Not one bit. Fuck, I’m not even mad at him. I’m not mad that he planted a seed of doubt in his daughter’s mind. I’m not mad that he thinks I’m not worthy of her.

  Because he’s right. I’m not worthy. That’s not going to stop me from trying, though.

  He walks over to me and Alec, leaving behind the old man. I know his car. It’s a flashy, white, expensive heap of metal.

  “I’m here to pick up my car,” he says. “It’s the -”

  “I know which one it is, Officer Mara,” I say coolly. I pass through the garage and go over to the old man, where he’s standing at the locker of keys. He retrieves Mr. Mara’s key from its hook and hands it to me.

  I walk back over to Daisy’s father. We’re face to face now, and he isn’t bigger than me anymore. I’m not the teenager I used to be, the kid who drank too much and drove too fast and corrupted his daughter. I’m not the boy from the broken home, the boy who didn’t have a strong man to look up to, the boy he knew would break his daughter’s heart.

  I am the man who broke his daughter’s heart. But I’m the only man who can make her happy.

  “Let me bring the car out front for you,” I say. I don’t want it to come out harsh, and it doesn’t. I keep my words even and calm. Kind, even. Like he’s actually my customer and I’m delivering the best service to him that I can.

  His expression softens beneath his harsh brow. His eyes are all Daisy’s. I can see the hurt behind them, too. The same hurt I saw in her eyes, I see in his.

  “Okay,” he says. “Thanks.”

  He turns around slowly, like he wants to say something else to me, but keeps moving toward the door. I follow a few steps behind him and start to manually open the garage door, pumping the pulley and letting the chains from the ceiling draw up the heavy wood and steel door.

  I pull his car out carefully and park it across the street. We trade places and he gets in, rolling the window down as he shifts into drive.

  “Travis,” he says, looking up at me. He exhales deeply and shakes his head. “You really hurt her. You know that, right?”

  I swallow thickly. Of course I know it. I hated myself every day for it.

  I just nod my agreement, looking down the road as it curves out of sight. The morning is crisp even though it’s warmer than it has been, and the sky is light blue and cloudless. All I want to do is throw Daisy over my shoulder and take her away from here.

  “I think it would be best if you just stay away from her.”

  His words hit me like a fist to the gut. They knock the wind out of me. The way he was acting, I thought maybe he would allow me to put all of the bullshit behind me. Even though I don’t want to forget what happened, I want her to forget all the pain I caused. I need her. I want her. And she still wants and needs me.

  But his words betray his true thoughts.

  “I can’t do that. I’m sorry,” I reply. My words cut through the air like a knife, slicing through the tension. But they do nothing to soften things between us. He holds his gaze on me, hard as steel.

  “I don’t want to tell you again, son. You hurt her. You tore her apart. She almost dropped out of her master’s program. She’s lucky I got her the job at the station.”

  “With all due respect,” I reply, my chest heating with anger, “I think she’s capable of getting a job on her own.”

  He lets out a petulant laugh, his knuckles becoming white on the steering wheel.

  “She only has that job because of my position there. She couldn’t get anything else. She didn’t even try. And that’s your fault,” he adds, his attention shifting from the road in front of him up to my eyes. “It’s your fault.”

  I clear my throat and feel my fists clench and unclench.

  “She can do whatever the hell she wants,” I say. I keep my voice steady and even, fighting to hide my anger.

  “Don’t make me have to talk to you again,” he says, rolling up his window. He drives off, leaving me to stand in the middle of the road, alone with my anger. I pull a cigarette out of my pack and light up, sucking down the nicotine with unquenchable thirst. I need to steady my nerves.

  A long, fast drive on a narrow, winding road sounds really fucking good right about now.

  Daisy

  All I do these days is think of him. All I do is think of him, and regret the past year.

  But then I remember it’s what’s brought us here.

  My confusion remains, though.

  It’s not confusion over whether he was justified in what he did. It’s confusion over how I should feel. Because as much as he made the right choice, I can’t ignore my pain.

  But I can begin to heal. I can begin to let him in again, chip away at the walls I’ve erected over the past twelve months.

  The seasons used to be our favorite. We loved the changes. The change from summer to fall, and then fall to winter. That change happened the fastest. Just as we were starting to love autumn, everything became icy. It’s different, though, this year. I don’t know if it’s some kind of cosmic force over us, but I have to laugh as I pull my hoodie up around my neck tighter.

  It’s like time is moving backwards. The season is undoing itself. It’s getting warmer before it had a chance to get cold.

  Sarah’s already on my front porch when I get home. I just ran out to get bagels for us. It’s our Sunday morning routine, and we’re having it at my house this week. I’m hoping Mom and Dad will be able to join us, though between my mom’s morning jogs and my dad working on a house he recently purchased a little farther upstate, I don’t know if they’re each getting ready to leave for the day.

  “I’m surprised we were able to get together,” Sarah says, picking herself off the edge of the top step. “I can’t believe you aren’t holed up at the lake cabin.”

  I walk with her up the steps to my house and throw her a little smirk.

  “I am not going to drop my whole life just because he’s back.”

  “Are you going to drop your whole life because you missed him, though?”

  “Um, no,” I say. We get inside and walk into the kitchen. “I’m not dropping everything, period.”

  I put the warm bag of bagels on the counter and grab a few plates and a serrated knife, while Sarah starts pulling some juice, butter and cream cheese out of the refrigerator.

  “And how’s work going?” she asks, settling down into one of the kitchen chairs.

  I sigh, bringing the platter of bagels over and setting it in the middle of the table.

&nbs
p; “Honestly,” I say, “it’s not what I expected. It’s kind of boring.”

  “You wish you lived in a dangerous community, then? A place with a lot of crime?”

  “No,” I say slowly, rolling my eyes at her. “There’s just not much going on, you know? It’s still mostly paperwork. I’m basically doing the same stuff as I was doing before I got my master’s.”

  “Yeah,” Sarah says. “Sounds a little boring.”

  “It’s just frustrating, you know? I do still like it. I never would have decided to stay there if I didn’t like it. But I just wish I was making more of a difference.”

  “And you’d never take the exam to become a cop?” Her eyes brighten slightly at her suggestion.

  I thought I wanted to be a cop; growing up, I admired my father and the men and women he worked with. But I couldn’t imagine myself handling a gun. I can’t imagine myself having to be in a position to make life and death choices. Even the sleepiest town has its occasional tragedy.

  I shake my head, turning my attention to the bagels.

  “Nah,” I say. “Not for me. I don’t have a temperament.”

  “Everyone needs a bit of excitement, though,” she says casually.

  “Not that much excitement,” I say. “But you’re right.”

  “You think you’d ever try a different line of work?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, after everything that’s going on with Travis. I think I need to just get myself back to a level of normal.”

  I feel my face flush, my cheeks growing warm when I think about last night at the quarry.

  His lips on mine, his fingers digging into my flesh. I can feel him on the insides of my thighs when I imagine my legs wrapping around his waist slowly, his fingers pulling on my hair, his palm on the back of my neck.

  He is excitement, and risk, and newness. He is what my father warned me around. He’s unpredictable, he is putting yourself on the line for another person.

  The absolute last thing I want is to get back to normal.

  Heat washes over me and I look down, shaking my head. Tears begin to prick at the corners of my eyes.

  “Hey, hey,” Sarah gently puts her hand on mine. “What’s going on?”

  “I…”

  I want to tell her everything. I want to tell her about Travis taking the fall for Alec. Sarah knows how important Travis’ mom was to him, and she knows that what Alec did for Travis could only be repaid in that one way.

  But I can’t tell her. I don’t want her to think I’m a fool for giving into him so easily. No one knows that he walked away from me on purpose. And it has to stay that way.

  “It’s nothing,” I say, brushing my fingers under my eyes. “It’s just everything that’s going on.”

  “I can’t make things better,” she says. “But for the time being, take comfort in carbs.”

  I laugh and wipe my cheeks with the backs of my hands.

  “Good idea,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Good idea.”

  The sound of crunching gravel coming from the driveway interrupts our moment. I turn to look out the window of the living room, and see it’s Dad driving up.

  “Mm,” Sarah says between bites of her bagel, “let me make one for your dad. He likes the poppy seed ones, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, getting up. “Let me do it, though.”

  I pad over to the front door as my body starts to fill with anxiety. My head feels heavy already from the tears I’ve spilled and blinked away and tried to keep in. And I don’t want to tell him yet. I don’t want to tell him that I’ve been seeing Travis. I can’t yet.

  He comes up the driveway, and my body grows cold. I can sense that something’s wrong from the way he looks at me.

  He isn’t disappointed in me. It’s not that. I’ve had him give me that look before. He gave me that look when I told him I wanted to stay in my hometown and work at his station. He always imagined me going off to some place better. The city, maybe. Or maybe even Montreal. Someplace new. But when I told him I wanted to stay here, it made him think I was holding myself back.

  The look he’s giving me now, though...this is something else.

  “Dad?”

  I push open the screen door and he comes in, putting his hand on my shoulder. A silence descends on the house, and he locks his cold gaze to mine.

  “Daisy, good morning.”

  He puts his arm around me and kisses the top of my head. I always hated when he did that. It makes me feel like a little girl, someone who needs protecting. I loved when he did it when I actually was a little girl, but now it’s different. Now, it feels stifling. Like whatever I do won’t be satisfactory to him.

  “Dad, what’s the matter?” I say, my heart thrumming with nervous energy. “Everything alright?”

  He clears his throat and glances into the kitchen where Sarah’s sitting. She pulls her legs up underneath her and takes a sip of her water, quickly averting her eyes from us.

  “We should talk,” he says.

  My heart leaps into my throat and I try to push it down, swallowing thickly.

  “Dad, what’s the matter?” I say as he motions me over to the couch.

  “Honey, I know you’ve been spending time with Travis,” he starts, “and I don’t think he’s right for you.”

  I sigh and throw my hands into my lap as I sit down across from him. I’m used to hearing this, and I should have known this is what he wanted to discuss.

  “That’s fine,” I say, choking on my words. “You don’t have to.”

  “There’s something else. This isn’t coming from nowhere, Daisy.” He clears his throat and stands up, going over to the window facing the yard between our house and the Blooms’. “There was an incident. I can’t go into much detail, as it’s an ongoing case. But you should know that there’s a warrant out for Travis’ arrest.”

  I scoff and shrug, trying to show him that I don’t believe him. But inside, my body heats up.

  “It’s a mistake,” I say. “He’s done nothing but follow the rules since he’s been back. He’s checked in with Mrs. Drayton, he’s looking for a job. He has done nothing but play by the book since he’s been back.”

  “No, Daisy. No. He hasn’t.”

  “I don’t believe you. You’re just saying this. You don’t want me to be with him.”

  “That’s true, Daisy,” he says. He keeps his face turned away from me. He continues to peer out the window, his eyes narrowed, his shoulders tense and squared. “I don’t want you around him. He’s a criminal.”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “No. He isn’t. You don’t know him.”

  “I do know him, Daisy. That’s why this is so difficult. I don’t think he’s a bad person. He just got caught up with some less-than-good people, and I don’t want the same to happen to you.”

  A small glimmer of hope rises in my chest. My dad admits Travis isn’t a bad person.

  “So he went to prison, and he’s paid his debt, and he’s doing everything right. He’s doing everything exactly right. Why won’t you just forgive him?”

  “I don’t play around when it comes to the people I love,” he says, his voice rising. “I don’t care who he really is on the inside. A good person or not, he hurt you, and that’s all that matters.”

  “Dad,” I soften, walking toward him. I’m tired of this. I’m tired of all of it. I don’t want to have to keep trying to convince him that I can make my own choices. “You don’t know him like I do. You never did. You never gave him a chance.”

  “You know your mom and I used to be very good friends with the Blooms. Just like you were friends with Travis, we were friends with his parents.”

  “I know that,” I say, putting my hand on his shoulder gently. “I still don’t know what happened.”

  “They were a nice couple. They were good people. They raised their boy well. But I saw what happened after Mr. Bloom’s accident.”

  I peer out the window, watching the house across the yard as my dad does.
I never fully knew what happened. Travis never told me. I never wanted to ask. But I observed him when his father lost his job. He’d been injured. And he was never the same after that.

  “Dad, you don’t have to tell me. I can see this is hard for you, too.”

  “I didn’t like what happened between our families. I hated it.”

  I feel the anger growing inside him; it’s in his voice, in the way I can see his jaw grind as he looks out the window.

  “I understand,” I say. I do understand how he’s feeling. I understand how it is to lose a friend. That’s what happened a year ago, when Travis chose to go away.

  “You don’t,” he says, turning to me. “His mom told us we didn’t need her charity. We didn’t need to take pity on her. She was a proud woman. She didn’t want us looking over her shoulder to make sure Travis was okay. And it seemed that his path was set out for him long before his father left him.”

  I sit down on the edge of the couch, and I see Sarah coming over from the corner of my eye.

  “So when he went to prison, were you happy?” I say, blinking up at him. “You thought he was destined for that, right? Were you happy that he proved you right?”

  He turns away from me again, putting his hand on the window.

  “Of course not, Daisy. Of course not.”

  “Why didn’t you do more to help him, then? I mean back then, when he and I were kids? Wasn’t there anything you and mom could do?”

  “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. We did what we thought was right. We did keep an eye on him. But there’s only so much you can do for a person.”

  His words crash down on me like a cascade of asphalt. I feel like I’m suffocating, like I can’t breathe.

  “No,” I say. “You can always do more. I should have done more for him too, Dad.”

  Sarah sits down next to me gently.

  “It’s okay,” she says, rubbing my back. “It’s alright.”

  “No,” I say. “I have to go find him.”

  “Daisy,” my dad says, grabbing me gently by the wrist. He glowers down at me and nods his head softly. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I pull my hand away from him with a jerk and his eyes grow hard. But I still don’t know what he’s thinking.