His Surrender

by Jaclyn Osborn

“Come on, Jay. Sit up.” I patted his thigh. “I need to get your shirt off.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, you do. Take my pants off while you’re at it. And yours.”

  I sighed. Though it was a struggle, I managed to take off his shirt before it got too wrinkled, his dress shoes, and his pants, leaving him in his briefs. Jay rolled under the cover and stared at me with sleepy eyes as I removed my clothes and set them on the ottoman beside his.

  “Sorry I drank so much,” he mumbled once I was beside him in bed. “I’m an asshole. I shouldn’t drink around you.”

  “It’s okay.” I rubbed his forearm as he threw it around my stomach and pulled me closer, burying his face in my hair. “Being around it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to when I first stopped.”

  “Still. I shouldn’t tempt you.”

  Oh, he tempted me plenty, but not with alcohol.

  Jay kissed my nape and wound his arm tighter around me, speaking in Russian.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “That I’m happy you’re here with me right now,” Jay responded. Another kiss to my neck. “Then I cursed my stupid heart for letting you in.” He nuzzled my temple. “You’re warm and caring and so damn incredible. You fix my broken pieces. I think I love you, Remi Barnett.”

  He’s drunk, I told myself before I could get carried away. Sober Jay would think differently in the morning.

  “Go to sleep,” I said.

  When he exhaled, his breath tickled my neck. Quiet snores reached me moments later. I took in a shaky breath, my calm façade slipping away now that he was asleep. Hearing about Andrew had caused an ache in my heart that refused to fade. I loathed the man for hurting Jay.

  I woke first in the morning. The open blinds brought in the sun, and I squinted against it as I got out of bed and padded to the bathroom to relieve myself. While in there, I stripped down and took a quick shower. I changed into skinny jeans and a simple blue tee afterward, not bothering to fix my hair yet and leaving it damp.

  Jay had rolled to his other side when I came back into the bedroom. I sat beside him and carefully brushed the blond bangs from his brow.

  “Dobroe utro,” he said, cracking open his lids.

  “Good morning,” I said back to him. “Want some coffee?”

  “Please.” He groaned as he scrubbed his hands over his face. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. A big bus. Like a double-decker one.”

  I knew the feeling. I’d woken up with countless hangovers in my life.

  The room had a small coffeepot, so I put some on to brew. As it did, I went over to Jay and smoothed a hand down his warm back.

  “How about a shower?”

  “With you?” He smirked.

  “I already took one.”

  He grumbled before sitting up and rubbing at his sleepy eyes. After giving me a quick peck on the lips, he stood from the bed and walked to the bathroom, closing the door behind him. I stared at the door and put a hand to the center of my chest where it’d started to tighten. We were leaving New Orleans that day, and I didn’t know how things would be once we got back home.

  One thing I knew for sure?

  This trip had changed us both.

  ***

  “I spy with my gorgeous eyes something that is…” Jay scrunched up his face as he surveyed the area we drove through. “Blue.”

  “The sky.”

  “Fuck you.”

  I laughed. “I like how you changed it to gorgeous eyes.”

  “Well, they are gorgeous.”

  I shook my head and focused back on the road.

  Instead of flying back home, Jay had decided to ride with me. I was glad. You learned more about a person when stuck with them in a small space for hours on end, and I learned a lot about Jay. Like how he drummed his fingers on the dashboard to the beat of his favorite songs and how he had a sweet tooth. We’d stopped several times so he could get a bag of M&Ms or an iced coffee from Starbucks.

  “Sorry again for last night,” Jay said. “I won’t drink like that again. It was just a lot for me to process with… Andrew… being there.”

  “It’s okay,” I told him for the third time. He’d apologized that morning after getting out the shower and once more when we were checking out of the hotel. “No harm was done.”

  “Except to my pride.”

  “Eh.” I shrugged. “Your pride can afford being knocked down a few pegs.”

  Jay snorted a laugh and reached for his iced coffee in the cupholder between our seats. Five hours into the trip and he hadn’t mentioned saying he loved me the night before. He probably didn’t even remember. Or maybe he did and was just too embarrassed to say anything.

  We reached the Arkansas border around four that afternoon. Jay was snoozing in the passenger seat, wearing his sunglasses, but his little puffs of air told me he was asleep. I drove to his house and pulled into the driveway.

  “Hey, sleepyhead.” I touched his arm, and he inhaled and sat up straighter, looking around. “You’re home.”

  “Oh.” His voice was hoarse. He must’ve been sleeping hard. “Thanks for driving the whole way. Sorry I wasn’t more help.”

  “Hangovers will do that to you.”

  “True.” A laugh rumbled in his chest, and he took off his seat belt and opened the door before getting his suitcase out of the trunk. He walked around to my window and rested a hand on the roof of the car as he bent down to smile at me. “I’d invite you in, but I have to go pick up Sput from my parents’ house, and he’s going to be one angry kitty.”

  “Give him head scratches for me.”

  Jay’s smirk turned softer. “I will. See you later.”

  I waited until he went inside the house before I drove home. I checked my mailbox and sorted through the stack of junk mail and bills as I went up the stairs and into my apartment, lugging my bag over my shoulder and tossing it to the floor once inside. The apartment had a stuffy feel and smelled like stale air, so I opened the windows before plopping down on the couch.

  My phone dinged with a text.

  Jay sent a picture of him holding a very mad-looking orange Persian cat with a caption that read, Think he’ll murder me in my sleep tonight?

  I laughed and sent a reply. Want me to sleep over and keep you safe?

  I’ll cook you dinner as payment was his response.

  He wasn’t shutting me out like part of me had feared he would… so that was a good sign. I held the phone to my chest and smiled after he sent a picture of him winking.

  Falling in love with him had been scary at first, like trying to stop a train going full speed toward a break in the tracks. But I wasn’t afraid anymore. I knew the lever would put on the brakes and stop me from crashing and burning.

  Chapter 21

  Jay

  “Lindsey Wilson is not a murderer,” Emery said to the jury that Wednesday afternoon. All evidence had been shown, and every witness had testified. Now it was time for closing arguments, one last attempt to convince the jury. “She is a mother of two beautiful little girls, a charitable woman who gives back to her community, and she is a victim of years of abuse from a husband who believed himself to be above the law.”

  Emery clicked the remote in his hand and brought up a family photo of the defendant standing beside Terry Wilson and their children. He touched on her kindness again as he went through the slideshow of photos.

  “This is what people saw when they looked at this family. A couple who looked to be in love. Happy.” And then he got to one Lindsey had taken herself. Bruises in the shape of fingerprints covered her neck, and her eyes were puffy and red. “But this was Lindsey Wilson’s true reality. Behind closed doors, the perfect family didn’t exist. She lived in constant terror. On the night of November fifteenth, Terry Wilson got drunk, went upstairs to his sleeping wife, drug her out of bed by her hair, and proceeded to hit her.”

  I sat with a hand at my mouth, bouncing my knee. Damn. Cross was good. I glanced at the jury to get a read on
them. Shit. They seemed to be eating up his every word.

  “Mrs. Wilson didn’t premediate killing her husband,” Emery continued. “She did what any of us would do in her position. She’s a survivor. Today, I ask you, the jurors, to give a verdict of not guilty. Thank you.”

  Emery returned to his seat and looked at me. It was my turn.

  Members of the Sebastian County police department sat behind me, and I saw some of them shift in their seats from the corner of my eye. The victim had been their colleague. Their friend. The pressure was on.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” I said, stepping toward them. “I won’t show you any more smiling photos of this family. I won’t argue whether the defendant is a caring, charitable woman. Because when it comes down to the facts, none of that matters.” I changed the slide to show a crime scene photo. Terry was facedown on the ground with a hole in the back of his head. Blood splattered on the wall, some of the splashes farther down and others going higher. “You’ve heard the expert testimony. Those splashes weren’t caused by a single hit. They were caused by many hits. Forceful ones. The degree of splatter shows the aggressiveness of the attack.”

  I moved to the next slide which was a copy of the coroner’s report. “The coroner labeled this death as a homicide. That’s a fact. Here’s another. The body was moved postmortem. Why? And since a judgment should be made on facts and not speculation… here’s another fact. The toxicology report says there was no alcohol found in the victim’s blood. If Terry Wilson was drunk as the defense claims, where’s the proof?”

  I paused to move my gaze along the jurors’ faces. “Self-defense is a valid claim in some cases. However, the defense has not given credible evidence to state that this was the case here. The evidence shows a man with no criminal record, no history of abuse, and who spent his free time going golfing with his friends and having cookouts in his backyard having been murdered in cold blood.”

  “You bastard!” a female voice exclaimed.

  I turned to see Lindsey Wilson jumping up from the defense table and charging toward me. Emery grabbed her, and she knocked him aside before being restrained by the bailiff.

  Judge Meyers yelled and banged his gavel.

  “How dare you defend that monster!” she spat at me. Her face was red, and tears glistened in her eyes. “I hope you burn in hell, you arrogant prick! He beat me until I couldn’t walk! He said no one would ever believe me because of who he is!”

  “Don’t say another word,” Emery said to her, his eyes wide.

  “One more outburst, Mrs. Wilson, and I’ll have you removed from my courtroom,” Judge Meyers said.

  “Yes I wanted him dead!” she shouted like a madwoman. “I killed the bastard just like he deserved! I don’t regret it either!”

  Judge Meyers ordered to have her taken from the room. The courtroom was then filled with people speaking and standing from their seats. The judge called for order. It was a goddamn disaster.

  “Counsel, meet me in my chambers,” Judge Meyers said before exiting through the door behind him.

  Emery and I exchanged a look before following him.

  “I move to have it declared a mistrial,” Emery said to the judge once we were in the room.

  “Well, I object to that,” I responded.

  “On what grounds?” Emery growled. “My client just incriminated herself! She has rights.”

  “She does,” I countered. “But she willingly said those things. No one forced her. She wasn’t testifying and offered the information willingly, so that protection doesn’t apply here. There was no violation of her rights.”

  “Enough,” Judge Meyers interjected, sitting in the chair behind his desk. He looked like he’d just aged ten years. “I will instruct the jury to disregard her statements.”

  “That’s not fair, Your Honor,” Emery said through clenched teeth. “The harm has already been done. There’s no justice to be had now.”

  The judge squeezed the bridge of his nose. “You are correct, Mr. Cross. It’s tainted, and I can’t in good faith allow the jury to render a verdict after witnessing such a circus.”

  After more back-and-forth, I proposed a plea bargain agreement, and Emery said he’d take the offer to his client once it was drafted to see if she’d accept it. So much time and resources had already been put into the case, and neither of us wanted to go through the motions of having another trial. I’d lose my damn mind.

  “How did it go?” Remi asked over the phone as I left the courtroom. School had just released.

  “It was going well for a while,” I said, unlocking my car before sliding inside and starting it. “Then it turned to shit.” I gave him a summary of what happened. “Now I have a headache from hell. How was your day?”

  “Better than yours. What do you say we order dinner in and relax at your place? I’d offer to cook, but we know how that will turn out.”

  I chuckled. A few days after we returned from New Orleans, Remi had invited me over to his apartment for dinner. He’d cooked pork chops and burned them so bad it smoked up the entire kitchen and made the fire alarm go off. We’d had to open the door and all the windows to usher the smoke out before the damn thing would shut off.

  It reminded me of the story Cason had told me about Emery burning steaks on one of their dates. Maybe it was a rite of passage for every relationship. I smiled at the thought. Then I had an idea.

  “Would it be okay if I invited Emery and Cason over?” I asked. “I’d like you to meet them.”

  “You sure you can stand being around Emery right now after the wonderful day you had with him?”

  He was such a smart-ass. I loved it.

  “Yeah,” I answered, arriving at my house. I got out of the car and walked toward the front door. “Cross and I have a thing we do after each big case. We usually go to the 906 and have a few drinks. Winner buys.”

  “If you’d rather go out with him, you can.” A car door slammed on his end of the line, and I heard keys jingling. “I don’t want to break your tradition.”

  “Breaking tradition is good sometimes,” I said, thinking of how much better my life had been since breaking my own habits and opening myself up to the possibility of romance.

  After talking to Remi, I called Emery.

  “You and Cason have plans tonight?”

  “Not that I know of,” he answered. “I assumed you and I were going out for drinks. Though I don’t know who’s buying since we both got the shit end of the deal today.”

  “Come to my place,” I said, walking into my house and closing the door. A purring machine attacked me, rubbing against my leg. “I want you to meet Remi.”

  “So it’s really happened.”

  “What has?”

  “Jay Foley, playboy extraordinaire, has fallen in love.”

  “Shut up and get your ass over here.” I disconnected the call and bent down to greet Sputnik.

  Love. I had told Remi I loved him while drunk, and I’d meant every word. But I hadn’t mentioned it since then. I didn’t know how to bring it up, and I guess I was too much of a chicken to just blurt it out.

  The first man I’d ever said I love you to had left me. Those three words seemed small in theory, but they held the mass of the sun. They could crush you if you weren’t careful.

  I stripped out of my suit and freshened up in the bathroom before changing into jeans and a shirt. Instead of eating out, I’d wanted to cook. It relaxed me and helped clear my head. I had just dropped the noodles into the pot for the spaghetti when I heard a door slam. I walked over to see Remi walking toward the house. Emery’s Lexus pulled in right behind him. I returned to the stove as the meat in the skillet began to sizzle.

  “Door’s open,” I called from the kitchen once hearing a knock.

  “You don’t watch horror movies, do you?” Cason said, entering the kitchen like he owned the place. The kid had swagger. “I could’ve come in with guns blazin’. Or I could’ve been a serial killer who planned to abduct y
ou by throwing you into my trunk and driving you out to my secret run-down cabin in the middle of the woods.”

  I looked at Emery as he came to stand by his boyfriend. “You need to limit his movie time.”

  Emery chuckled before pulling Cason against his side and kissing his temple. “We like our crime documentaries.”

  “Hell yeah we do,” Cason said. “We just watched one about a dude who had a bunch of tigers.”

  Cason’s ramblings about the show turned to background noise as my gaze landed on Remi. He wore red skinny jeans, a black shirt with a pinstriped vest over it, and his hair was swooped back in a classic style. He looked like a little rocker, and my blood rushed south.

  I was suddenly thankful for my decision to put on jeans instead of the stretchy athletic pants I’d almost worn. There would’ve been no disguising the boner I was pitching.

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude,” Cason said, looking at Remi and holding out his hand. “I’m Cason.”

  Remi shook his hand. “I’m Remi. Nice to meet you.”

  I set the spatula on a napkin and walked over to greet Remi with a light kiss to his lips. He gripped my shirt when I started retreating and gave me another, this one lasting longer. When we pulled apart, Emery and Cason were watching us—Cason with wide eyes and Emery with a soft smile.

  “What?” I asked. “Why are you two staring at us like that?”

  “I just never thought I’d see the day when the blond bastard finally settled down,” Cason said.

  Remi snorted a laugh. “You weren’t kidding about the blond bastard thing.”

  Emery stuck out a hand to him, and he accepted it. “I know we’ve seen each other at the bar, but it’s nice to finally introduce myself.”

  “Likewise.” Remi beamed. “Jay has told me a lot about you.”

  “All bad, I’m guessing?” Emery’s blue eyes moved to me suspiciously.

  “You’re my best friend,” I said with a scoff. “If I don’t talk shit about you, there’s something wrong.”

  I returned to the stove and shut off the burner for the hamburger meat. The noodles still had a few minutes to boil, so I grabbed the block of parmesan cheese from the fridge and grated it.