Breaking Hearts

by Melissa Shirley

  I didn’t bump into him at the grocery store, the strip mall, or at the library where I’d spent a good many hours hiding from my parents’ enthusiasm. No. Running into my ex-boyfriend took on a whole new meaning, or more precisely, the Webster’s Dictionary meaning, and I did it with a fully licensed motor vehicle, plowing my mom’s front end into the rear of Simon’s patrol car as he waited for a stop light to turn green.

  I couldn’t claim distraction, since I hadn’t taken my eyes off the light bar on top of his fully decaled police cruiser from the minute it turned out in front of me. I’d continued to stare at the roof rather than his taillights, then smacked into the trunk as he’d stopped and Mom’s car kept rolling. He stepped out onto the pavement in a slow motion-unfolding of his long limbs. I blinked and swallowed hard as he strolled to where I white-knuckle gripped the steering wheel.

  “Mrs. Ranier?” I wanted to crawl into the trunk before he had a chance to reach the window. When he got closer, a smile lit up his face. “Dani?”

  Jeepers. His uniform inspired a quick bout of hot bonus fantasy--black cargo pants emphasizing every toned muscle, front and back, a T-shirt with the word POLICE between his shoulder blades and boots that could have belonged to a Hell’s Angel. He had a gun on one side of his belt and a badge on the other. If I ever had to be arrested, I wanted this guy to pat me down.

  “Hi, Simon.” Heat flooded my pores. I tried to open the door and get out, but the hood and front fenders of the car crinkled accordion style, against the door.

  “Are you okay?” He leaned closer, taking in the windshield, webbed where my head hit on impact.

  “Yeah, but I think I’m stuck.” I pulled the handle twice more to prove my problem.

  With most of his top half bent inside the window, he held on to my shoulder for a second until I wriggled from beneath his electric touch. “Can you climb out?” His radio crackled as he called for a tow truck and an ambulance.

  “I think so.” Holding my dress with one hand and grasping the passenger headrest with the other, I twisted my body and shimmied over the window ledge. His bulging eyes said my attempt at modesty had been much more attempt than success. I tugged at the skirt.

  He licked his lips, then brought his gaze to my face. “Oh, shit, Dani. You’re bleeding.” He dashed to his car, then jogged back to me. My eyelids fluttered shut as I inhaled the citrus-y scent of his cologne. I opened my eyes to find his face inches from mine while he investigated the gash on my head. “You’re probably gonna need a couple stitches.” With a gentle touch, he pressed a patch of fabric over the cut. “Does it hurt?”

  “No.” The tingling in the lower half of my body overpowered any northerly pain.

  I didn’t care that we were standing in the middle of the street or that he belonged to someone else. His soul-melting gaze held mine, and one hand cradled the nape of my neck as he used the other to stop the blood trickling in a thin stream from my hairline.

  Another police cruiser pulled up, and Simon dropped his hands and stepped away. He sprung into action, giving orders to divert traffic to make way for the ambulance he’d called. All-business Simon stirred my pulse with his in-my-face hotness. After about an hour, the cars had been towed off, a deputy retrieved and delivered Simon’s personal Jeep, and I sent the ambulance on its way. I could live with a scar if it meant leaving this whole humiliating experience behind me.

  We stood on the sidewalk facing each other, grinning like a couple of goofy teenagers waiting for our first big kiss. He reached out a hand to once again touch my face, and I closed my eyes, savoring the whisper of his hands on my skin. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I nodded, still under the power of his special brand of magic. Any words I might have spoken stuck in my throat. Breaking the spell, he cleared his throat and pulled away.

  I swallowed hard and stepped back from his car. “Well, thanks for not writing me a ticket.” I shuffled from one foot to the other, waiting for something. “I sh-I should go.” I turned and hurried away, past the jewelry store and the wedding shop. As I neared the beauty parlor his mother once owned, I slowed. Through the window reflection, I watched Simon’s gaze follow me.

  Probably thinking I’d turned into some sort of beauty parlor stalker, Gatlin waved from inside. The sight of someone friendly brought a small smile to my lips. Aside from Keaton, he’d been the one member of their little group I’d always gotten along with.

  “Hey, Dani, wait a second.”

  I couldn’t have walked another step if I tried. My legs went weak at the curiosity and the slight trace of urgency in his voice as he Dukes of Hazard slid over the hood of his car toward me.

  “Wanna get together? Have some lunch? Maybe catch up?”

  “Don’t you have a girlfriend?” My heart pounded at the idea of catching up with Simon, but I’d turned over a new leaf, and boyfriend stealing had a big red line through the list of acceptable behaviors I kept on the keep-Kieran-proud Post-it in my mind.

  “I asked if you wanted to catch up.” A smile tipped the corner of his lips heavenward. “Not have an orgy.”

  Orgy? Hardly. If I ever got my hands on him again…one on one…for hours. Instead of voicing my thoughts, I cleared my throat and shrugged at him. “Well, you gotta clarify. Catching up with you could mean a lot of things, and it puts pictures in a girl’s mind.”

  He chuckled as I tapped my forehead with my finger.

  “Pretty pictures.” I over-exaggerated my sigh. Okay. So, my reformation had a ways to go.

  He ducked his head and color brightened his cheeks while I chewed my lip for a split second.

  “Catching up sounds good.”

  With the gentle pressure of his hand at the middle of my lower back, he guided me to the passenger side of his SUV. After his chauffeur’s flourish and bow, I climbed in and breathed deep. The car smelled like him, had little touches of Simon all over it--including a picture of Jocelyn with Keaton attached to his dashboard.

  Almost before I knew it, we arrived at Hood’s Hideaway, a new restaurant on the outskirts of Storybook that my mother raved about for an hour the previous evening. The glorified tree house bordered on the resort property where Keaton worked. It had a thatched roof over top of steel beams. Fake vines and plants “grew” inside. A trunk reached up through the middle of the floor, dividing the room into fours.

  After our waitress served frothy coffee concoctions with whipped cream and sprinkles in primitive designed grog cups, she strolled away, leaving us alone, shielded by artfully placed foliage. I took a sip of the hot brew and swallowed quickly. My chest burned as the scalding liquid made its way down to my stomach. I sucked in a breath and blew it out. “Wooh. Wow.” I cleared my blistered throat. “So, what happened with you and Hollywood?” I wasn’t after the down and dirty details, but a bit of clarification would lighten the weight on my chest when I thought of them.

  He smiled a little, and an old familiar longing bounced around in my chest. “She decided to stay in California and I decided to stay here.”

  What kind of girl chose a crappy magazine job over Simon? The fool. Blind fool. While Keaton might have been beautiful, Simon was more. More handsome, more sociable, more affectionate, more…everything I wanted in one finely muscled package.

  He took a big drink of coffee, pulled his lower lip between his teeth, and smiled. “That’s hot.”

  I nodded. “I could have told you to drink slow.” I dialed the conversation back to his relationship status--the only information I cared about, anyway. “And now you’re consoling yourself with a sweet from the bakery?” I gave myself a mental thumbs-up for the confidence with which I’d said it, for the wit, without a single hint of jealousy or malice for the friend of Jocelyn’s he’d started dating.

  “Such a way with words.” He grinned. “And I’m not consoling myself with Lizette. I really like her.” He narrowed his eyes and glared at me for a moment before his face relaxed.

  I held
up my hands in surrender. “Okay. You made a love connection. I’m happy for you.” But my stomach turned at the thought of Simon--my Simon--with any other woman.

  “And what about you? Anybody lighting your fire these days?”

  I shook my head and ran my thumb around the rim of my cup. Keaton and I never discussed how or the amount of details we would give Simon about our time together. They’d been best friends for years. I didn’t want to be the one to destroy such a lasting bond.

  “So, you and Keats are finished?”

  “What? I, um, I, what?” I knocked my coffee over in surprise, then quickly snatched my white linen napkin off the table and began sopping up the cooling brown liquid.

  “Simon says you can’t keep secrets from a guy like me, Dani.” He chuckled and took another drink. Smaller this time. “I’m his go-to guy for everything. Plus, Joss is my sister and I don’t want to see her get hurt, so I asked him.”

  “Oh.” My hands stilled as the waitress wiped our table clean, then left to get me another drink. She’d probably put it in a sippy cup. “I should have figured Keaton already told you.” These weren’t guys who kept things from each other. “But yeah, we’re over. To be honest, we never really began. He loves her too much to be with anybody else.”

  “Is your little boy his?”

  I’d been keeping this secret for so long I almost spilled it right there behind the fake vines hiding us from the other customers. Since he had a vested interest in knowing what I knew, I should have told, but I didn’t. I couldn’t tell him now. He was happy with someone else, and Kieran and I had almost ruined one relationship already. “I don’t want to talk about Kieran’s daddy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you have your life and I have mine, and we don’t share our secrets anymore.” I looked down at the table. “So, sheriff, huh?”

  He chuckled. All serious points of conversation came to a screeching halt. Instead, we chatted about Arizona’s dry air, his mom’s rekindling of her marriage to Alex Rogers, his move into Gatlin’s apartment, my dad’s new horses--everything except the one thing I wanted to discuss--us. Three hours and a couple pots of coffee later, he drove me back to my mom’s and pulled up in front of the house. “This reminds me of the old days.”

  Me too. How many nights had we sat out in front of the house, steaming up the windows to his car? Just the thought of air-fogging activities with Simon had my blood pressure climbing. “Yeah.”

  My body without any encouragement from my brain, maybe responding to the nostalgia, or maybe responding to Simon, leaned closer and our lips touched. Every pent-up feeling and emotion I’d ever suppressed washed over me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, losing myself in him.

  The kiss lasted forever and ended too quickly as he jerked away from me. “Dani, I can’t do this.”

  An ache throbbed in my chest.

  “I have a girlfriend.”

  I nodded. “I know.” My eyelids fluttered shut, and I dug my fingernails into my palms.

  “It’s not fair to her. No matter how much I want to sit out here and kiss you, I can’t do that to her.”

  Okay, already. No need to beat me over the head with it. “I have to go in.” I hopped out of his Jeep and counted the thirty-nine steps up the walk to keep from running, my pride insisting I not look back as he drove away.

  Three days later, Simon walked into a bank in the middle of a robbery.

  Chapter 8

  I knew the chances of being allowed in with Simon at the hospital hovered in the low-to-not-happening range, but I had to go. Knowing I might never see him again, drew me to the parking lot. It took ten minutes to talk myself into getting out of the car. Somewhere in the hospital, Simon lay broken, probably dying. My head pounded from the hours I’d spent crying. My heart ached at the thought the world--I--might never see his smile again.

  I rode to the fourth floor with no idea how I would be able to manage the walk into his room. As the doors whooshed open, I inhaled the smell of antiseptic and death. A sob tore from my throat, and the doors started to close while I breathed in and out through my nose, trying to get my shit together. The last thing I wanted was to fall apart here, in front of his family, the waiting room full of his friends, and most especially, his sister. I walked in, and Keaton stood to meet me.

  “How is he?”

  He rubbed a hand down my back. “He’s tough. He won’t leave us, Dani.”

  Simon’s mother put her hands in mine and tugged me in for a hug. “Thank you for coming.” She barely resembled the always put-together, perfectly made-up carpool mom I’d seen so often growing up. Her hair, instead of hanging straight and smooth, fuzzed with curls, and her eyes were puffy and red.

  I couldn’t do more than nod around the lump in my throat. “Can I see him?”

  She cupped my cheek with her palm. “Of course. Joss is in with him now, but when she gets back, you can go in.”

  Keaton led me to a seat next to him. Simon’s mother sat beside me on the other side. She huddled with her husband while I leaned in to talk to Keaton. “What have they said, Keats? Is he going to wake up?”

  He swallowed hard. The sound broke a little part of me. His eyes were shot with red from crying, and his hands shook as he reached out to comfort me.

  After a minute, I pulled out of his embrace. For Keaton to look so devastated, Simon was worse than I thought. They’d been almost inseparable for the biggest part of their lives.

  “They said he’s hurt pretty bad, and every day he doesn’t wake up is…” He looked down at his shoes, then lifted his head and dropped a hand on my shoulder. “He’s tough, Dani.”

  Hearing it a second time--as though he needed to convince himself--didn’t calm the trembling in my hands.

  “And he has a lot of reasons to wake up.”

  “You doing okay?” A sob broke from one of us; I couldn’t be sure who, but tears streamed down his cheeks.

  “He’s my best friend.” His voice cracked. “I would trade places with him in a minute.”

  “He knows that. You guys are…” I couldn’t bear the thought of what we would all lose if Simon didn’t make it. “Just tell me he’s going to be okay.”

  “He’s gonna be great.”

  We sat quietly, wrapped in hope and grief until Jocelyn strolled around the corner from her visit with her brother. She stood in front of Keaton and her sadness drew him to his feet, guided his arms around her, his instincts taking over where his words could not.

  After a few moments, she moved away and looked at me. “What are you doing here?” Her voice held none of its usual venom or malice.

  “Can I see him?”

  The whir of the overhead fan provided the only sound in the room. All breathing and speaking stopped. “Why?”

  I blew out a breath and counted ten tiles in the floor before I could answer. “Because I love him too.”

  She opened her mouth. “Tha--”

  Before she could refute the statement with her warped Jocelyn logic, I shook my head and lifted my chin to meet her gaze. I wouldn’t hide how I felt about him to make her feel better. “And he loves me and you know it.” She snapped her lips shut, and I softened my voice, calling on the more-flies-with-honey theory. “Come on, Joss. Please. Let me see him. Then, I’ll go.”

  The tight lines in her face relaxed. Her fists unclenched, and she drooped in Keaton’s arms. “He’s only allowed visitors every two hours. It’ll be a while before anyone can go back in.”

  Relief flooded every nerve receptor I had. I stepped around her so she could sit by Keaton. “I’ll wait downstairs in the coffee shop.”

  She reached out and grabbed my arm as I started for the elevator. “You can wait with us.” Keaton smiled at me, then leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

  The clock ticked so slowly I checked and rechecked to make sure it still moved at all. No one spoke, and the silence in the room echoed louder than if we had
all started screaming. I waited, praying for news, for a sign, for something to happen to bring Simon back to me.

  When Joss stood, she looked over at me and nodded. Each step down the hall broke something inside me, and I swallowed a sob as she pulled the sliding glass door open. “You can’t stay long.”

  She left the door open, probably eavesdropped outside, but I didn’t care. I pulled back a curtain and held in a gasp, covering my mouth so the sound couldn’t escape. After a moment, I leaned over and pressed a kiss to the only spot on his face still visible under the gauze and bruises. “Simon.” I picked up his hand, brought it to my face, and closed my eyes, soaking in the warmth of it. “I miss you so much.” An ache started in my chest and spread down the entire rest of my body. I’d blown all my chances with him, and I shook with the recognition I might not get another. “Please, don’t die. I know things between us aren’t right, but the other day, in front of my house, all I wanted was the way it used to be. Please, fight for me. I need one more chance. There’s some stuff I have to tell you. It’s about more than you and me now. You have to wake up.”

  I wanted to crawl into the bed with him and wrap myself around his body, absorb whatever kept him asleep. Instead, I leaned over to lay my head next to his. “I know you’re in there, Simon. Just come back. If not for me, do it for Keaton and Joss…and your mom. You have so many reasons to wake up. If you only knew…” I couldn’t tell him. The words wouldn’t form. I sat quietly, listening to the sounds of his breathing. The monitors and pumps plugging him full of medicine whirred and beeped. I focused on those noises to block the sound of my heart breaking into pieces.

  “Oh, for the love of God, Simon. Does every single thing have to be so hard between us? Just once, can’t we do things the easy way? Open your eyes and let me know you’ll be okay.” When he didn’t move and the beeps remained steady, I huffed out a sigh. “You are so stubborn. It’s one of those things that drives me crazy about you and makes me love you so much more at the same time.”