Undercover: An Out of Line Novel

by McLaughlin, Jennifer

  “But I—”

  He walked past me without another word.

  I watched him go, my heart throbbing, and reminded myself that his rejection had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with him and his recent loss. He was hurting and pushing me away because he had to focus on himself and his sisters. I got that, I honestly did.

  But it hurt.

  “Are you okay?” Carrie asked, her voice low.

  I hadn’t heard her come up behind me. “Why does everyone keep asking me that? I’m not the one who lost a family member.”

  “Who else asked you?” she asked.

  “Who cares?”

  Her eyes widened. “Okay, then.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just…” Confused. Sad. Falling in love with a man who refuses to look at me. “…worried about Joseph.”

  “He’ll be okay. He’s got a family who loves him, and friends that love him almost as much.” She rested her hand on my upper back. “How’d your visit upstate go? I never got to ask you.”

  “It was fine. Everything was fine.”

  Joseph stood behind his sister. We locked eyes, but he immediately turned away. My chest felt heavy, as if someone was sitting on it, weighing me down.

  “Did…anything happen?”

  “You and your husband just won’t give up, will you?” I crossed my arms, anger chasing away the emptiness in my aching chest. I clung on to it gratefully. “We went to a convention. We talked. We hung out. We came home to a dead grandma. Even if something happened…it would all be over now, wouldn’t it?”

  Carrie blinked, pushing her red hair out of her eyes. “Marie…”

  “God, I-I need some air.”

  I moved past her, heading for the nearest exit. The second I crossed the threshold, I leaned against the brick wall, evening out my breathing. I wasn’t sure why I was out of breath. I hadn’t run or fought, or…oh God, I was about to cry. I hadn’t cried in…I didn’t even know how long.

  The door opened, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “I’ve known you for a long time, Marie,” Carrie said, resting a hand on my shoulder. “And I can tell when something is wrong. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I…” I swallowed. I couldn’t.

  Because I didn’t know how Joseph felt anymore. If he didn’t feel the same way about me that I did about him, then I couldn’t blurt out that we’d had sex and agreed to a secret relationship.

  “You tell me everything,” Carrie said, pushing my hair off my shoulder. “Why should this be any different? Is it because it’s about him?”

  “Not everything is about Joseph and me,” I snapped.

  She nodded. “Fine. It’s not him. You two didn’t hook up and never will.”

  “About time you accepted that,” I said, my voice thick as I opened my eyes and turned toward my best friend. I had to end this conversation before I lost control and blurted out that I was pretty sure I was madly in love with Joseph Hernandez. “Joseph and I will never be a couple because he’s too complicated for me—” I broke off, choking on the word.

  There, behind Carrie, was Joseph.

  And he looked as if I’d struck him.

  When we locked eyes, he nodded once at me, as if accepting something for himself. “Joseph—” I started to say.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” he said flatly. “My life is way too complicated for anyone now.”

  Carrie looked at both of us with wide eyes.

  I took a step toward him, but he gave me a hard look, turned, and went back inside. I stared at the closed door, heart thudding, legs trembling.

  “What? What is it?” Carrie asked, confused.

  “Nothing,” I said shakily. “It’s absolutely nothing.”

  21

  Hernandez

  I was maybe, hypothetically, possibly drunk…

  Yeah, never mind. I was fucking wasted.

  This was the first time I’d gotten the chance to be alone since everything in my life changed. Meggie was sleeping at Lynne’s dorm—something I wasn’t sure was a good idea because I had no damn clue how to be a parent, or what was right, so I’d just agreed, then gotten drunk—something else that probably wasn’t a good idea. But here I was. Wasted. Feeling sorry for myself in my dark living room over two women…one dead, and one very much alive.

  He’s too complicated for me.

  That’s what Marie had said.

  When she noticed me, her face had paled, and she’d looked as if she’d licked the bottom of a dirty shoe. Was it because I’d heard her lie to her best friend, or because she had meant it but hadn’t wanted me to listen to the truth? Did it really fucking matter? Either way, she’d been right.

  I was way too complicated for her.

  Muttering under my breath, I filled my glass with more whiskey, my hand trembling. Why was my hand trembling? Because you’re drunk, dumbass.

  “Shit,” I mumbled, setting the bottle down.

  It clunked against the table.

  The half-filled tumbler should have joined it, but instead I lifted the glass to my lips and took a long sip. Anything to make me stop thinking. Anything to forget.

  Closing my eyes, I tried to focus on something mundane, but my mind went where it always did when it was quiet, and I was alone—to Marie. I hadn’t been able to get her off my mind, even while gripped in the loss of a woman I loved like family. I kept going back to that morning we left the hotel. We’d woken up at the same time, and she’d opened those bright eyes of hers, caught me staring, and smiled. “What are you looking at?” she’d asked, yawning.

  I’d reached out, smoothed her hair out of her eyes, and whispered, “Perfection.”

  She, of course, had rolled her eyes because the girl could never take a compliment, and she’d snorted as she laughed. That moment, that morning, had been the best morning I’d ever had. It hadn’t been anything huge. Just a second shared between us where she had been beautifully soft and sleepy, but I’d never forget it. It would haunt me for the rest of my miserable life, probably because at that moment as I’d woken up in the same bed as Marie, I’d thought I could have it all.

  Damn, I’d been wrong.

  The front door to my house opened, and I lurched to my feet, heart pounding. If Meggie came home and saw me like this… “Meggie?” I called out carefully, trying my best to sound sober but the room was spinning at a hundred miles per hour, so I probably failed.

  “No. It’s me.”

  Shit, fuck, damn.

  “Marie?” I squeaked. I looked at the almost empty bottle on the table, ran my hands through my hair, and smoothed my shirt. It was useless. I looked wasted, and a hastily unwrinkled shirt wouldn’t fix that. “How’d you get in?”

  She walked into the living room in a tan rain jacket, her hair damp. She held up her keychain, a silver key between her fingers. “You gave me a key three years ago when we all exchanged keys in case there was an emergency. I dug it out before coming over.”

  Well, shit. I’d forgotten all about that.

  The last thing I needed was to drunkenly blurt something out that I shouldn’t and mess everything up. I had to get rid of her…again, without fucking everything up.

  Wait. Was there anything left to fuck up?

  “Your hair,” I said slowly, blinking.

  Had I drunk that much or…?

  “Yeah. I went back to blonde.” She touched it, her cheeks pink. “Well, closer to blonde. My hairdresser said it’ll take a few tries to get back to where I used to be. I guess impulsively dying my hair brown wasn’t the best idea.”

  “It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

  She licked her lips. “No, I’m not. But you are.”

  “Uh...” My brain wasn’t quick enough after a bottle of booze to be sure which part to comment on—her not agreeing with her beauty, or her thinking I was attractive. “Look, this isn’t a good—”

  “Wow.” She walked over to the almost empty whiskey bottle and
picked it up. Next to it lay the crumpled up paper bag I’d gotten it in earlier today. “You hit this hard.”

  “Meggie’s at Lynne’s,” I said somewhat defensively.

  “Ah.” She set the bottle down and locked eyes with me. “Good.”

  I swallowed hard. “Good?”

  “Yeah.” She undid the belt to her jacket. “It’s a pleasant surprise because it’s best we have the place to ourselves for what I have planned.”

  My cock hardened, but… “I’m pretty wasted. You should go.”

  “I don’t mind.” She undid the button of her jacket. “I’m sober enough for the both of us.”

  Warning bells went off in my head. I wanted what she was offering. Obviously. But being around her like this was a bad idea. “Marie…”

  She kept undoing buttons, and despite myself, I stared as each one came undone. What was she wearing under that thing? A dress? Lingerie? Nothing?

  “It’s been a long week—”

  “And you don’t want to talk. I get it.” As she slid the last button through the hole, she bit down on her plump red lip. “But luckily for you, I’m not here to talk or to ask you if you’re okay for the millionth time. I’m here to make you okay, even if only for a little while, because I really want you to be okay. Okay?”

  My heart twisted painfully. I nodded, then shook my head, then nodded again.

  Christ, I was never drinking again.

  She pushed her jacket off her shoulders. She wasn’t naked under the thing—how could she be, when she’d thought Meggie was home?—but she wore my favorite dress. It was black, and tight, and hit right above her knee. There was just something about the way that dress hugged her curves that always made me want to trace them with my hands.

  Now I could…

  I was allowed.

  She crossed the room, closing the distance between us with each sway of her hips. My throat went dry, my chest tightened, and I couldn’t fucking breathe. Her hands closed over my shoulders, and she rose up on tiptoe, her mouth a few inches from my heated skin.

  She flicked her tongue over my racing pulse. “I’m here to make you forget everything except how good we are together.”

  Damn, she was right. We were good together, and she was admitting it finally.

  “No conversations. Just me, on my knees, taking you into my mouth. And then when I’m done...” She cupped my cock, squeezing. I groaned and let her have her way with me. “I’ll go.”

  That pulled me out of the stupor I’d fallen into.

  “You don’t owe me anything but your pleasure,” she whispered throatily.

  I stiffened, something inside of me cracking.

  She dropped to her knees and undid my pants. It would be so easy to close my eyes and take what she offered. To forget about everything. But she deserved better than that.

  And, damn it, so did I.

  “Stop.” The word came out hard. Harsh, even, but… “Get up.”

  She froze, still kneeling at my feet, and tipped her head back. There was something in her eyes that spoke of secrets and pain, and for some reason that angered me.

  Oh, right.

  Because I was drunk.

  “You need to go.” I clasped my pants with trembling hands. “Now.”

  “Did I…?” She stayed where she was, staring at me as if I’d struck her. “Did I do something wrong?”

  I picked up her jacket and held it out. “No.”

  “Okay…” Her lower lip trembled. She bit down on it hard. “If this is about what I said earlier to Carrie, I was just—”

  “It’s not. I don’t give a damn what you tell people about us,” I said flatly.

  “Then why…?”

  “Because it’s my fault she’s dead, Marie. Mine. Don’t you fucking see that? Every time I see you, I think of her. Of how she died when I was chasing after you like some lovesick fucking puppy, and the whole time you were eating it up, knowing you were never going to want to be with me because I was way too complicated for you, even before this shit all went down. It was all just a game for you, and I’m not playing anymore.”

  She shook her head, tears spilling over. “No, that’s not true. I care about you—”

  “I’m not buying it.”

  She broke off, her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Not buying—?”

  “That day, in the hospital, you let me stand there, alone, and you didn’t dare touch my hand in front of our friends. You let me go home alone, and didn’t say anything.” The words came out even though I didn’t want them to. Even though I knew I wasn’t speaking the truth. I couldn’t stop them. “You watched me in pain, and you turned away, but I’m supposed to believe you fucking care about me?”

  She wrung her hands in front of her stomach, her blue eyes swimming with tears that were streaming down her cheeks and down the front of her dress. “I didn’t know what to do. I—”

  “You need to go. Now.”

  She finally stood, taking her coat out of my hand. “I do care about you.”

  “Yeah, like you care about lost puppies or a stray kitten,” I countered, choking on the words as they came out…but they just kept coming. “I’m something for you to pity, or pet on the head as you walk by it in a cage, and nothing else.”

  She reared back, her pain morphing into something else now. Anger, maybe? If so, I didn’t blame her. I was pretty damn angry at myself right now, too. “That’s not true.”

  “Whatever you say, babe.” I dragged my hands down my face and then walked to my front door. Yanking it open, I stared at her as blankly as I could manage and said, “Get out of my house. Now.”

  Gripping her jacket tightly, she hugged it against her chest, tears welling in her eyes. “I thought we had an agreement—”

  “To respect each other’s wishes?” I practically shouted. “You’re right, we did. And I wish for you to fucking leave me alone.”

  Before I screwed everything up even more.

  Tears rolled down her cheeks, and it was at that moment that I knew it was too late for that. I reached out for her, my heart pounding louder than the screaming voices in my head telling me that I was an idiot. “Marie—”

  She brushed past me without another word, not looking back.

  “Marie!” I shouted.

  Stopping, she fisted her hands at her sides. Without turning around, she said, “What?”

  “I’m sorry. I…” I made a sound. A weird one. A broken one. I wanted to chase after her, tell her I hadn’t meant any of it, and beg her to come back. I wanted to tell her I loved her, had always loved her, and ask her to give up her whole life for my sisters and me. But that’s why I couldn’t do that, because I loved her…and we weren’t what she was looking for. So I had to let her go. “I wasn’t counting on any of this happening when I kissed you.”

  A small laugh escaped her. “Funny, because I was.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Still without facing me, she said the words that would haunt me forever. “It means I knew if I fell for you that you were going to hurt me, but I did it anyway…and then you did.”

  And with that…she was gone.

  22

  Marie

  The next morning, I stared down at my coffee, watching the bubbles pop and disappear. Every time one sank to the bottom or exploded, I offered it a silent goodbye. If only it was so easy for the feelings inside of me to pop and go away. I’d feel a lot better about what happened last night at Joseph’s if they would. Swallowing hard, I watched another one disappear.

  Maybe that’s what I needed to do for a little while.

  Go on a vacation and disappear. Get over whatever had happened with Joseph last night, and come back ready to take on the world again. I refused to let this turn me back into what I’d been before we went away with one another. I still wanted what Carrie and Finn had.

  Just not with him.

  Someone sat beside me, and I tensed since I recognized the cologne immediately. “I’m
not sure what you’re about to drop on me, but be warned. I’m not in the mood.”

  “For what?” Finn asked me. He set down his own coffee and settled back in his seat as if he was in no rush to be anywhere. He wore a navy blue suit today, and a white dress shirt. “Nice hair.”

  I touched it. I knew how much Joseph liked my blonde hair, so I’d thought maybe it would make him smile again if…it didn’t matter what I’d imagined.

  It had been stupid, and so was I.

  “Thanks.”

  His blue eyes pinned me down. The man had a way of looking at you that made you want to confess all your deepest darkest secrets, and I had no interest in telling him mine, so I returned my attention to my coffee and the rapidly diminishing bubbles. “You okay?”

  “I’m great. How about you?”

  From the corner of my eyes, I saw him roll his eyes. “I might not be Carrie, but I know when you’re not okay, and you’re not okay.”

  “Then why bother to ask?”

  Finn shrugged. “That’s what girls do, right? Ask shit even when they already know the answer?”

  “Do we?” I asked intentionally.

  He motioned at me. “Exactly.”

  Despite myself, I grinned.

  “Wow, she can still smile.”

  It was my turn to roll my eyes. “I’m just tired. I was up late last night.”

  “You’re not the only one. Hernandez looked pretty shitty this morning.”

  I stiffened. I didn’t want to hear his name or even think about him. Over the past week or so, I’d kept telling myself he was only keeping his distance while he mourned, but last night…that dream had died. And so had we. It was over. It was so over.

  “Did Carrie send you to harass me?” I asked crankily.

  “No, I just saw you through the window, sitting alone and looking miserable, and figured I’d come to be miserable with you while I waited for Carrie to be done with her nine o’clock.”

  I snorted. “What do you have to be miserable about? You’ve got a wife who loves you more than life itself who is pregnant with your third child.”

  “She told you?” he asked, sitting up straight.