by Jackie May
“He talked about his sister?”
She gives an emphatic arch of the brow. “Which is another thing. He usually don’t be throwing her name out lightly, if ever. But now it’s Haley this and that. I’m saying to you, he ain’t himself. So don’t tell me them bruises is nothing. I know somebody knocked him good upside the head.”
My mind goes into overdrive, plucking a comment from the conversation I just had with Director West. And now inquiring minds, she had said, have dragged Henry Stadther down to the police station! If Henry was at the police station… If he saw Brenner there…
I know it’s rude. I know this woman will be offended. But I don’t wait to hear the rest of what she has to say. Jerking the door open, I rush into the backyard.
After five more rapid push-ups, the teenager hops to his feet, brushing his hands off on a basketball jersey. “Somebody call the cops, ’cause this a crime scene now. I just killed you!”
Brenner hangs his head, fighting for breath. “You try doing this with half your ribs bruised.”
“All day long. Ribs bruised, legs broken, from Pops’s wheelchair, I still be whoopin’ you.” He helps Brenner to his feet.
When they see me, Brenner’s face is hard to read. Mostly blank. The kid says under his breath, “Good golly, Brenner,” and he gets slapped in the stomach for it. On his way inside, the kid stops to shake my hand. With a dazzling smile and a horrible French accent, he says “Enchanté.” The back door tears open, and his mom snaps, “Get your big head inside.” He wipes the smile from his face and hurries in.
“I like them,” I say. “You rent a room here?”
“No, the house is mine. They needed a place, so…there’s a whole story to it.” For the next book, he means.
We regard each other for a moment in silence. I wish I could enjoy the view—shirtless, with jeans and a tool belt—but I can only look back and forth between his eyes, trying to find him in there somewhere.
He says, “No Tigers jacket?” And I can tell by the bounce in his voice…it’s not him. I mean, it’s him, but the other him.
I don’t even try to hold back the emotion in my eyes. Looking at each other now, our role reversal is complete. Brenner is breezy, alert, eyes clear; I’m haggard, beaten down, eyes haunted and bloodshot.
He steps forward. “You okay?”
“I’m sorry,” I blurt. “I shouldn’t have left you. Not even for a second, I…but there was so much happening at once—”
“Hey.” He takes me by the elbow and steadies me with easy eyes. So light. So not Brenner. “Hey, it’s fine. Stadther was at the station. He apologized for his men. There was some kind of mix-up—a guy had killed two of his cocktail waitresses earlier that night, and I fit the description. That’s why his staff thought they’d seen me before. But you already knew that.”
“I know, but still…” My vision is blurred with tears. “So you remember being at the casino with me, and then…?”
“Not much after that.”
I can’t take this anymore. I want to leave. I want to run away. But I don’t. I remember driving away after the shooting at Dario’s place. Brenner was oblivious, couldn’t even remember where his car was, and I drove away without a second thought. That was only two days ago. Might as well be a lifetime. Everything’s changed. I can’t leave him again. I won’t. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” He looks amused.
I’m such a mess right now, I don’t even know who I’m really mad at. Everybody, I guess. The whole world. Everybody but Brenner. “You really don’t remember? Anything?”
Brenner’s eyes work through several variations between confusion and concern.
“Brenner, say something. Please…just say something.” My eyes are stinging in the cold.
He steps in close, arresting me with a penetrating gaze. “You lied.”
“What, I…what?”
“You promised. But you wouldn’t do it, would you? You promised to shoot me if I ever forgot again, but you won’t really do it.”
All at once, my fears are released. They come rushing out, sweeping from my heart down both arms.
And into my fists.
I pound at his chest. “You son of a bitch, I will shoot you! I’ll do it right now, give me a gun!” I go for the hammer in his tool belt, but he pulls me to his chest and wraps his arms tightly around me. Without hesitation, I do the same, clutching at him, pressing my cheek into his jaw. It’s scratchy from two days without shaving.
“I tried to go see you,” he says. I can feel the reverberations of his voice rumbling against my chest. “Yesterday, I went to your place, but the guys…”
“Nolan?”
“Yeah, he’s…intense.”
“I know.” I don’t know what else to say. I’m reminded that Brenner really doesn’t know anything about me. There’s still so much neither of us knows. We were thrown into a whirlwind for a day—our hearts have definitely outpaced our heads. We’re doing it backward. “I hope you don’t mind me tracking you down. I wanted to ask you about something, and I couldn’t wait longer.”
“Oh, a big deal, huh?” He tries to pull away, but I tighten my hold on him.
“It could be, depending on what you say. Maybe you won’t like it.”
“Hey, you’re the boss.”
“No. Not anymore. I mean it. Look, you said so yourself, I won’t shoot you. You’re right, I won’t keep that promise, so you don’t owe me anything, got it? I want you to do what you want to do, not because I want you to.”
“Okay. But what is it, exactly, that you want for me to want to do?”
“Work with me. Like, partners. I have a badge now. The Agency already approved it.”
Despite my resistance, he pulls back. “Oh.” He doesn’t sound excited.
Wait, wait, wait. Oh? All he says is, Oh? “I’m not saying, like, quit your job,” I explain quickly. “Obviously you’re going to keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, but we can sometimes…do it together.” I stop talking, because of the way he’s looking at me. That complex look of his that gets my heart hammering.
“You know I’m in,” he says.
“Okay.”
“But there’s something we should do before I say yes.”
“What?” I have no idea what he means, until his green eyes lower to my lips and he leans in close. Then it’s my turn to say, “Oh.”
He presses his lips to mine. Instantly, any last remnant of unfamiliarity melts in the hot breath we exchange. He leans into me. I push back, gripping his warm neck with icy hands and the soft whimper of a fox begging for scraps. I realize that I’ve come to know something about Brenner. Maybe he’s not the brightest, and he may not always know what to do, but when he does decide to trust himself, there’s no going back. You get all of him. That lady in the house is right; something has happened to him. He’s not either of the Brenners I’ve met before, but somewhere in between. I have to say, for the first time I don’t mind taking some credit, if this is how he gives it.
The kiss ends as abruptly as it began.
“Okay,” he murmurs, “now we can be partners, and we don’t have to do that whole thing where we wonder, you know…”
Wonder what? Whether there would be any fireworks if we kissed? Because now we know the answer is hell yes. My head is still swimming. “But we can still do that sometimes, right?”
“No.” He’s not teasing. He’s dead serious.
“Sure,” I insist. “We could be partners with benefits.”
He winces. “Doesn’t work that way.”
“Says who? It’s not like we have a company policy or anything.”
“Look, you asked what I want, and I want to work with you. We can’t do both.”
“Well, since when do we care what you want? I’m the boss, so I say—”
“But you just said!”
I feel like screaming. Why did I let him off the leash? What was I thinking? Where’s that hammer? “Fi
ne, then tell me this: why is it that you won’t shoot at a dog, but you’re just fine throwing rocks at a fox, huh?”
“It’s not you, Shayne. It’s me.”
“Don’t! Don’t you dare feed me that line.”
“Fine, how about this: we just met two days ago!”
“Oh, that’s right, I was supposed to wait three days, and even then I could only send a casual text! And there’s no way that’s your rule, by the way. That sounds like Haley.”
“Obviously.”
When his eyes twinkle adorably, I forget what I was going to say next. I’m caught between a frown and a smile. I can’t really be mad at him. “So, it’s not me, huh?”
He lets go a long breath full of heavy meaning. It tells me more than any words he might have said. There’s history here. There’s complication. More baggage. I feel embarrassed now. Duh, did I really expect to know everything about this guy in two days? He could be married, for all I know. And that long breath, I know what it says. It says, Don’t ask me now. Give it some time.
I commit to the frown.
“You’ve never had a partner before, have you?” His eyes turn grave. The return of that haunted quality.
“So?”
“So…” He shakes his head, like a teacher pitying a naïve student. “So partners know everything about each other, and there’s something about me I haven’t told you yet.”
Oh my gosh, he’s married. He’s married! Or—nooo!—something worse: “You have a dog.”
“No. It’s my team.”
Blank stare. Not sinking in.
“Chicago White Sox, to my dying day.”
I can’t keep my body from convulsing with horror. The White Sox are the sworn enemy of the Tigers. I hate them with a hate that most people reserve for spiders and product labels that don’t peel off cleanly. It’s generous of him, to give me an out like this, to soften the blow of rejection. I put my hands up in surrender. “Partners is good, actually. Let’s stick with that.”
He smiles at me. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen this Brenner make any kind of face besides worried, or broken. It’s a subtle thing, more in his eyes than his mouth, an evening sun setting blaze to the underside of dark storm clouds. It’s absolutely devastating.
Oh, this is going to be so much hell.
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Jackie May
Jackie May is a pseudonym for a husband and wife writing team. Josh and Kelly live in Phoenix, Arizona with their four children and their cat, Mr. Darcy. Jackie May is their only daughter. (And she keeps asking for her cut of the profits since we’re using her name).
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