by Anna Brooks
Her mouth snaps shut; she swallows loudly and then presses her lips together.
“There ain’t a damn thing, nothing,”—I emphasize. She really needs to hear me on this—“that you could tell me that would change the way I feel about you. Do you get me? I fell for you the moment I saw you... and I’ve never had that kind of reaction to anyone in my life. And getting to know you, seeing you smile and laugh, that is what I care about. Everything else is trivial, Mellie. But this doubt you seem to have about me needs to end.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“I don’t want you to apologize. I only want you to trust me. I want you to be happy. You were the one who came back to me, right?” I continue without giving her the chance to answer. “We didn’t even have to confess how we felt out loud for you to come back, because it’s so fuckin’ deep we didn’t need the words. But now we have them, right? So there doesn’t need to be doubt. You’ve just gotta trust that, trust me to take care of you and make you happy.”
“Okay.” Her voice stronger now, she nods. “Okay.”
“Good. All right.” I kiss her nose. “Take a shower, and I’ll make breakfast.”
“I’ll be down shortly.” Before I can respond, she closes the door, and I walk downstairs to make breakfast.
“Shit,” I mumble to myself. I forgot to ask her how she liked her eggs. I’m about to knock on the door, hoping to catch her before she gets in the shower, but her cries stop me. Instead of barging in and pulling her into my arms like I want to, I lean my forehead against the door. She shouldn’t have to be alone, and even though she doesn’t know I’m here with her—for her—she’ll soon learn what unconditional means.
When her sobs subside after a few minutes and I hear the shower curtain slide open, I go to the kitchen. I put some bacon on a sheet and set it in the oven. My phone rings just as I’m about to start scrambling the eggs.
“Yeah?”
“Please tell me she’s still okay?” asks Jay, practically panting.
“Yeah, bud. I’ve got her.”
“Smith. This case… God, this is fuckin’ brutal. One of my men turned out to be a goddamned traitor and…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. “I have never, ever let Mel down, and the fact that I did is doing shit to me, man. If something happens to her again, I don’t know what the fuck I’d do.”
“She’s okay.” I leave out the part about last night, because he’s obviously stressed as hell and I don’t need to add to it. The last thing I want to do is give him another reason to lose focus on his case. Plus, I’m taking care of it. She’s not his responsibility anymore. She’s mine.
“What’s going on with you two? My sister is not the kind of person who risks danger to fly to a man she barely knows.”
“Can’t explain it, bro.” I crack some eggs and begin scrambling them in the bowl.
“Just… I don’t want to give the big brother speech, but please don’t hurt her. She’s been through enough.”
I respect him and his lecture, and I wait for him to finish. If my sister were still alive, I’d be the same way. “I won’t.”
“You might not intentionally, but she’s... very naïve, Smith. I don’t want to make her seem like an invalid or anything, but after it happened, she completely changed. She used to be so full of life and was funny as hell, but her outgoing personality just... left her. I mean, she wasn’t even the same person. She was diagnosed with agoraphobia, did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“She didn’t leave her room for six months unless it was to pee. Then she went from only showering once a month during that time to showering four, five, sometimes six times a day. She didn’t get her GED until she was twenty, man.”
Standing there with the bowl in my hand, I stop stirring and swallow the bile in my throat. “Jesus.”
“The past year has been great. The year before that was good. She finally moved out of my place—not that I kicked her out or anything. She just woke up one morning and said she wanted to. She’s twenty-two, but in a lot of ways, she’s still a sixteen-year-old girl who was raped by a forty-two-year-old man.”
I set the bowl down and sit on a stool. “I don’t see the girl you’re talking about, Jay.” I think about her bright smile when she walked across the street with a bunch of sandwiches. I think about her face when she lets go. I think about how good she feels in my arms, my bed, and my life. “I see a woman who is scared, no doubt. But I don’t see someone who’s so afraid she doesn’t want to live her life. If anything, she’s trying to live now more than ever, and I want to be the man by her side when she discovers herself again.”
“He’s a fucking monster. I don’t know how the goddamned legal system failed on this, but he’s still out there. And I don’t have a doubt in my mind that he wants to finish what he started.”
“He won’t.”
“He’s going to try.”
“I won’t let him,” I practically growl.
“He’s smart, Smith. Really fucking smart.” Jay lets out a large breath. “I can’t find him. He’s gone. Just vanished. He’s coming for her, man. I promise you that.”
The pitter-patter of her bare feet makes me turn around, and it takes everything in me not to crush her against me and never let her go. She smiles. Her hair is slightly darker from the wetness and her cheeks flushed from the shower.
“I’ve gotta go.”
“Tell my sister I said hi.” He chuckles. “As soon as I wrap up here, I’ll come up and we’ll figure out what she’s going to do.”
“Not anything to figure out.” She’s staying with me.
He hesitates, and after a beat, he clears his throat. “We’ll talk.”
“Whatever. But I already know the outcome, so unless you want to piss her off more than you already did a week and a half ago, I suggest bringing her stuff when you come up.”
Mellie’s eyes widen. I walk up to her and run a finger along her jawline. “She’s not going back there.”
“Smith, man. You can’t—”
“I can.”
He waits for a beat. “Fuck. You love her or some shit, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I do.” The fact that I don’t hesitate makes him curse, but my focus on our conversation is long gone. “Later.” I hang up the phone and toss it onto the counter. “Feeling better?” I ask her.
“Was that Jay?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he want?”
“To tell me that when he’s done with his case, he’s going to come up here and talk to you about what you want to do.”
“Oh.” She licks her lips but doesn’t take her eyes off mine. “And what did you tell him?”
“You heard what I told him. But Mellie, if this isn’t what you want, then you need to tell me.”
“Is it weird that I don’t have any doubts that this is what I want?” She reaches up and places her hand on my chest. “That you’re what I want?”
“No. Not at all, because there’s not a doubt in my mind that you’re exactly what I want.” This morning is getting a little too heavy. I don’t want to start it off talking about Jay’s concerns or warnings. “Sit. I’ll finish breakfast.”
I back away and pull out a chair at the table, finish the eggs, and pull the bacon out of the oven. She sits, and Mouse jumps up on her lap.
“So I thought maybe you could come with me when I go to the house on Monday.”
“Yeah? I never did get to see the inside…” She trails off, and I can practically see her reliving what happened on the porch.
“I do have some stuff to ask you about, so maybe you can just bring your laptop and work there, so you’re available if I need you.”
“Yeah, sure. That’s fine.”
Dammit. She’s already closing down because of that fucking memory. I plate our breakfast, pour some juice, and then sit across from her.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
“Um, do you have any syr
up?”
I raise my brows in confusion.
“I like syrup on my eggs. And on my bacon.”
“That’s disgusting. You know that, right?”
She laughs. “It is not. It’s really good.”
I get up and grab the syrup for her. When she takes a bite of syrup covered eggs, I cringe.
“It’s so good,” she says, scooping up another bite and holding it out for me. “Here, try it.”
I lean forward and slide the eggs off her fork, gagging when the taste hits my tongue. “Nope. Disgusting.” Somehow, I manage to swallow the whole bite. I take a large drink of OJ to wash it down.
“It’s not that bad,” Mellie argues.
“Yeah, sunshine, it is.”
“Why do you call me that? Is it because of my blonde hair?”
“Partly,” I tell her. “But mainly because when I look at you, I see so much light.” The only light I’ve seen in years.
A shy smile floats across her face as she looks down, and we both continue eating. Once we finish, she insists on cleaning up, so I head upstairs and take a quick shower.
By the time I make it back down, she’s cuddled on the couch with Mouse, searching through the channels. “Hey.” She leans her head back and smiles at me.
“Hey.”
“Did you have anything you wanted to do today?”
“Nah,” I shrug. “We can just hang out.”
“Cool.”
When I sit next to her, Mouse jumps down, so I pull Mellie’s feet onto my lap. She wordlessly flips through the stations until she lands on HGTV. “Oh, I love this show.” The Property Brothers come on and I groan internally. Nothing is worse than watching work crap when I’m not at work.
I suffer through it, but learn a lot about what she likes and dislikes about decorating a house. Images of us painting a nursery room flash through my mind and it doesn’t freak me out. At all.
We watch about three episodes before I order pizza for lunch. When it comes, she asks for ranch dressing. “Why?”
“To dip my pizza in.”
I grab the bottle for her and set it on the kitchen counter next to her plate, shaking my head. “I’ve gotta know what the hell other disgusting combinations you’re into.”
“This is not disgusting.” She makes a show of scooping the dressing onto her pizza before she takes a bite. “We’re from the Midwest; we put ranch on everything, and I’m ashamed for you that you don’t.”
“You’re ruining perfectly good food.”
“Not ruining. Enhancing.”
“Whatever.” I chuckle. “You always make a really good dinner, so this revelation is shocking.”
“What? That I have discovered how to have a food explosion in my mouth?”
I love this carefree side to her. “Are you one of those chicks who dips your fries in ice cream, too?”
She gasps. “You don’t?”
“No!” I laugh and reach for another slice of pizza. “What else? What other monstrosities do you choose to ruin perfectly good food with?”
“Okay. Let’s see. I dip my pickles in ketchup.” She holds up her fingers to count them off. “Potato chips on my peanut butter sandwich. Or pickles instead of the chips. Cinnamon sugar on a bologna sandwich. But you have to use butter. I put salt on cantaloupe. And sometimes, I’ll put chocolate syrup in my Coke.”
As I stare at her in disbelief, I can’t help the churning in my stomach. Those combinations are sickening. I set the rest of my pizza down and shake my head. “That is terrifying.”
“What?” She laughs.
“I’m suddenly full.”
“Stop! I swear it’s not as bad as it sounds. Have you ever even tried any of them?”
“I was forced to try syrup and eggs this morning.”
She shakes her head and licks some dressing off her thumb. “Okay. I’ll admit some of them might be a bit... unusual. But I swear the fries in ice cream is the best.”
“Doubtful,” I mumble.
She stands and puts the rest of the pizza in the fridge. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To get some fries and ice cream. A Frosty, preferably.”
“Girl. You’re nuts.” I huff as I stand but grab my keys and wallet anyway. “Let’s get this over with.”
Chapter 14
Mellie
When he licks his lips, it does funny things to my belly. “Good, right?”
He wipes his fingers on a napkin and tosses it on the table. “So good.”
“Yes!” I throw my hands in the air and squeal. “I knew you’d love it.”
The smile he’s trying to hide makes me laugh even harder. He steals some of my fries since he devoured his dipping them in his Frosty. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
I wipe the salt off my fingertips and grab my trash to throw it in the garbage can. “I’ll be right back.” As I head to the restroom, I have to force the smile from my face. That just looks weird walking into the bathroom. By the time I get out, Smith is waiting for me right outside the door. He’s talking on the phone, and the call doesn’t seem to be going well.
“Yeah. Thanks.” He hangs up and grabs my hand.
“What’s wrong?”
It isn’t until we get in his truck and are headed back to his place that he talks again. “That was Gerald.”
My look must convey that I don’t know who he’s talking about.
“Family friend. The mayor.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Seems our neighbor friend has decided to head out of town for business.”
“Oh… Well, that’s good, right?”
“Yeah. He dropped the charges before he flew out.”
Why does he seem so mad still? “Did we overreact last night or something?”
“No. That guy’s a creep.”
“But he—”
“Don’t try to make it seem like what he did to you was okay. He had you cornered, and he can say he’s not, but I know he was that same Dale fucker as before. He’s gone now, and that’s good, but he’s still a creep who won’t be coming near you again.” He takes a breath. “I’m going to get this house done, and you’re going to sell it and wash your hands of it. For now, just trust me when I say he’s not going to get anywhere near you, okay? Especially since that Polly woman is there and gives me the finger every time she sees me. So it’s more than just him.”
I’m not surprised that she’s angry with Smith. “But unless you have somebody following him twenty-four-seven, that’s not going to happen. You can’t guarantee anything.”
He doesn’t answer, pressing his lips together instead.
“Oh, my God. You did. You’re having someone follow him, aren’t you?”
“Just trust me to take care of you, okay?”
I close my mouth and stay silent for the rest of the way back to his house. Part of me is sick of being ‘taken care of,’ but the other part really likes that Smith is the one doing it. Maybe because it’s not my brother. I don’t know. Hell, I don’t know anything right now.
That’s not completely true. I know that when I’m with Smith, or even thinking about him, he makes me forget I need to be more cautious. I’ve been focusing on him and being careless. I guess that’s what happens when you fall in love... nothing else exists. He takes away the pain. He gives me hope.
But also, I know that I’m sick and tired of being on edge. I’m pissed that this has become my life and when I finally find a man who I want to be around, he’s gotta be on guard, too. The anger that I haven’t felt in a while is surfacing, and that is pissing me off, too.
When we get home, I go right to the liquor cabinet, pour a glass of rum, add a splash of Coke in it, then head to sit on the couch. He comes into the living room after running upstairs for something.
“What the hell did I ever do? I have two creepos I need to be afraid of, and I didn’t even do anything!”
Smith sits next to me and pulls me close, his arm wrapped around my shoulde
r. “You don’t need to be afraid.”
“You make me forget about them, but you can’t protect me from—”
“I can, and I will.” He interrupts me. “I will.”
The alcohol burns a little as it slides down my throat, but I love it. I’m feeling lighter and lighter as the minutes pass. My face heats up, and I slam the rest of it. Smith takes the glass and sets it on the coffee table in front of me.
“He worked at the apartment building doing maintenance. I saw him often, but it started to become more frequent as time went on. I didn’t think much of it, at first. But hindsight and all that.
“Jay left me alone a lot when he worked, which was fine. I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Our parents died when I was thirteen, and Jay was twenty-two. He did such a good job raising me, but he always treated me like the thirteen-year-old girl I was when he took custody of me. In fact, before he left for work that afternoon, we got into an argument. I wanted a later curfew since I was turning seventeen the next day, but he wouldn’t budge. I went to school, I worked, and I paid my car payment.”
I was always stubbornly independent. Too much for my own good. “That night, I got home from a date at eleven thirty and went right to bed. I heard a noise in the other room and thought it was Jay, so I didn’t even look up when my bedroom door opened. Norman pinned me down and put a gag in my mouth before I even knew what was happening. I did try to fight, but I couldn’t move. He kept telling me to stop crying, saying he didn’t want to hurt me.”
“I’m so sorry, Mellie.”
“When I heard Jay come home umm… during it, I thought he’d come to my room right away to check on me like usual, but he finally gave me the space I’d fought for. He took a shower, probably watched the news or something, too. That gave Norman enough time to... umm, do it again.” I laugh. “I always gave Jay shit for treating me like I was a kid, but the one time I wanted him to, he didn’t check on me. I even heard him close his bedroom door. I honestly thought I was going to die that night. I couldn’t scream, and the more I pleaded through the gag, the more he hurt me. I was chanting in my head, begging him to stop even though I knew he couldn’t hear me. The nightstand was so close to me, and I thought if I could just try to knock it over and make some noise, then surely Jay would come in, because I didn’t want to die.”