The Switch

by Jc Emery

  “Neither do I,” I whisper.

  At least I’m trying to convince myself that I have no idea what I’m doing, but in reality I know all too well. I had a serious knack for going after the guys who were either unattainable or just plain all wrong for me. But this takes the cake.

  In all likelihood when this is said and done, Chase is going to have to arrest me for my part in everything that’s gone down. Having feelings for this man is dangerous, and even though I know I should try to fight them, I can’t. I’m not strong enough to tell myself no, to do right by Chase, and to keep this strictly business.

  “I like this,” I say. My right hand slides up his neck and hooks them from the back. I keep them there close to me not wanting to let him get away. I can’t exactly explain what it is about Chase that draws me to him. But every minute I spend in his presence, the stronger it gets and the less able I am to let him walk away. I tip my chin up and run my nose along his jaw, my body begging for more contact. Chase barely reacts, but I hear it—the sound of his beating heart.

  “This is a bad fucking idea.” His voice washes over the side of my face, sending tingles up my spine.

  I want to correct them and tell him that he’s wrong. But I can’t.

  “Then tell me to stop,” I say.

  But he doesn’t.

  CHAPTER 11

  Chase

  You won’t want me if I tell you.

  SHELBY GIVES ME the out I need to end this. I’m not delusional or stupid. It’s not like I think I’m in love with the girl or that I want to marry her. She’s hot and she keeps throwing out the signals, and normally I’d be all over that. She’s got this smoking bod—I’m talking from her head down to the chipped nail polish on her toes. Shelby Brignac is exactly the kind girl I’d meet in a bar, hook up with, and maybe even take out on a date. But we didn’t meet in a bar. No, we met in the commission of a fucking felony. And at one point, before I entered the Academy, that might have sounded exciting.

  Now, though, I have bills to pay, and at some point I’d like to even be able to move out of my mother’s house. Getting kicked off the force because I couldn’t keep it in my pants is going to land me breading chicken at the Popeye’s around the block from the house. And no matter how hot she is, how naked, and how bad I want to yank that blanket off her smooth skin, it’s not bad enough to fuck up the future I just barely got a taste of.

  “Why do you want this?” My voice sounds foreign to my own ears—rough and gravelly, with a slight pitch. I practically sound desperate. Maybe I am.

  I still don’t trust this chick no matter how much I want to. I use my free hand to find a place to put my ass on the edge of the couch and I sit down. I keep my face close to Shelby’s, my hand ensuring she doesn’t create a distance between us, and I stroke my thumb just below the line of her jaw. She sucks in a breath, which excites me. The thought that my simple touch sends shivers down her spine and sends her heart racing has me at half-mast. Seeing her reaction to my touch weakens my resolve, and for a split second, I let myself get sucked in.

  “You’re good,” she whispers. She speaks so quietly I can barely hear the words. “I’m not used to good, but I like it. I want more of it.”

  I’ve given this woman more of myself than I had intended, and she’s given me practically nothing.

  While she was passed out, I made the rounds of the cabin, multiple times, surveying my surroundings. They are not obvious, but in small corners, tucked away, are family photos. On the wall behind the front door is a photograph of whom I assume to be Shelby’s parents. It’s framed, but from the quality, it appears to be from a few decades ago. On the wall near the bathroom door facing the bed is another framed photo of the same couple.

  The man in both photos looks to be around medium height, not especially tall, with a healthy beer belly. The woman with him looks how I would imagine Shelby to be a good two decades from now. Her hair is dark brown with highlights, likely from the sun, and she has large gray eyes. Her gaze is on the man beside her, who I’m guessing this her husband. The longer I looked at the photos, the more resemblance I could see between Shelby and the man who is probably her father.

  While she clearly got her coloring, frame, and eyes from her mother, she got her thin lips and short upturned nose from her father. Across the room, in the living area, there are more photos of the couple spanning a few decades. In some, they’re very young and obviously in love. In others, they’re a few years older, this time with the child in tow. None of the frames are larger than four by six, and they’re easy to miss at first. But the more I looked around, the more I saw how important this cabin has been in her family’s life.

  The only photograph not framed is in one of the two cupboards in the kitchenette. It’s inside the cupboard door, directly across from the cans of red beans. It’s a photograph, now well-aged, of the man as he holds in his arms a little girl with dark brown hair, big gray eyes, thin lips, and a toothy grin. They’re laughing about something, and their love for each other is obvious.

  Every tiny piece of Shelby’s history I run across breaks down my walls a little bit more. I feel like I’ve gotten to know her, more through the photographs than by the words she’s spoken. How she went from a little girl with a toothy grin, staring up at her father with the utmost amount of respect and love, to a woman who pulls a gun on a cop, I’ll never know. And it’s this kind shift that’s fucking me up.

  The dichotomy between who she was and who she appears to be now is what worries me. I know of people who were once good and then turned bad for one reason or another. I never could wrap my head around it, even though I spent years trying. Friends, family, and even classmates. I spent too much time trying to keep my buddies out of trouble and ended up in trouble myself. When I finally figured out that wasn’t working for me, I made a commitment to myself that I wasn’t going to do it anymore. And I didn’t. That is, until Shelby ran into the restaurant and stared up at me with her big gray eyes begging for my help. I should’ve known I was fucking sunk right then and there.

  “I need to trust you. I know there’s more that you’re not telling me. You have to tell me.”

  “I can’t.”

  I pull away, but her grip on my neck tightens and I don’t get too far. Mere inches from her face, I’m forced to look into her eyes.

  “You won’t want me if I tell you. I’ll be in trouble and you won’t want me.”

  “You won’t be in trouble if you didn’t have another choice. I’ll make sure of that, baby. You just have to trust me enough to tell me the truth.”

  I rub the spot below her jaw with my thumb once more, and she lets out a heavy sigh. A tear slips from her eye, and she pulls in a shaky breath. It’s almost like she’s crumbling right before me, breaking apart at the seams, and I don’t really know what to do about it.

  I kiss her cheek where her tear fell and whispering to her skin, “Tell me, baby. Please.”

  She shakes her head, and this time she’s the one is trying to pull away. I’m on the verge of getting through to her, and I don’t want to risk missing out on this opportunity to get to know her a little bit better, but I’m afraid if I push too hard she’ll clam up and won’t tell me anything.

  A few more tears fall, and I kiss each one away. I need her to trust me enough to tell me whatever secret it is she so closely guarding. It’s like she’s Fort Knox, and for a moment, I consider that she’s never going to break. And then she does.

  It all comes out as a rambling mess, but she’s talking. She tells me about her job waitressing at the little café and how she and Becca have just recently moved into our own place. It’s a little second floor walk-up right off Magazine Street in the Irish channel. Nothing fancy, she says, just two small bedrooms, an outdated bath and kitchen, and no living room. It’s a shotgun, and she says this like she expects me to turn my nose up at it. Still, the rent is high on a waitress’s income. And when the chance came in to earn a few extra bucks through Victor’s business
, she couldn’t help but jump at the chance. A little stowaway money, she calls it.

  She tells me about how easy it was, being with Victor. He’s thirty-four, and Shelby says according to a few of his men, he’s been doing this—running paintings in and out of the Caribbean—since high school. At first, she tells me, she thought he was just unloading stolen artwork. Not that stolen anything is good, she says. But it was when she found out there were drugs in the paintings that it all seemed a little less glamorous. By that time, she was already too deep in it with Victor. And when Victor thought she was pulling away, he offered to help her out and let her earn some money since she wouldn’t take it from him as a gift.

  The whole story is as unbelievable as the situation I’ve found myself in. But I know it must be true, because stowed away under a tacky porcelain cat across the room is the purple diamond. And under the sofa cushion is the gun she pulled on me. In between the mattresses of the bed is the gun Victor’s goon used to point at my head.

  Her words dissolve into fractured mumbles, pain on the edge of tears, and that’s when I know I’ve heard enough. I needed to know this, her history. I needed to know her and what she’s about. Now that I do, I’m not sure I can trust her anymore, not that I did beforehand. At least now I know what I’m getting myself into.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “I've been arrested,” she blurts out, sounding panicked and crazed.

  My sigh of relief at hearing her story catches in my chest, and I go completely still. I have no idea if she’s going to tell me she’s been arrested for shoplifting or public indecency, or even muleing drugs. Really, with this woman, it could be anything. And still, I doubt that whatever she’s going to tell me is going to make a difference.

  There something about connecting to people in a way that brings you so close that very little could tear you part. It’s dangerous because there’s no coming back from it. And this is why, despite my better judgment, I want this woman. I don’t just want her body on a Saturday night—I want her smiles and yawns on Sunday morning, as well. I have no idea how far this could possibly go, but I’m willing to test the waters and give it a chance. The longer she waits to explain, though, the more nervous I become about my commitment to seeing this thing through.

  “The first time, I was in high school. Lori Breckmeyer called Becca a slut. It was my senior year, second semester, and I was just a few months off from graduating. The whole thing wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been for the fact that I had already turned eighteen and Lori was a minor. Anyway, that was the first time.”

  “And what exactly did you do?”

  Shelby looks sheepish. I can tell this is a story she’s been prodded to tell many times before, though it’s clearly not one she enjoyed. I kiss her cheek once and then move slowly down to her neck, kissing just below her ear. I wonder if she feels comfortable with me, safe enough to be honest, because if I’m going to be honest, I need the same from her. She practically melts into my touch and takes a deep breath, closing her eyes.

  “I hit her. I’m not proud of it, but I took a swing at her jaw. She had half the school calling Becca names and the other half praying for her soul. You went to school with boys, Chase. I don’t think you understand how awful Catholic schoolgirls can be.”

  She thinks I don’t understand what it’s like to deal with bullies in high school, but I do. One of the reasons I went to work offshore right out of high school was because all my buddies were doing it. The lure of being able to drink at eighteen while out at sea—not that it was legal, just nobody gave a shit—stay up as late as I wanted, and not have to answer to anyone—most especially my mother—was far too great, and I went for it. And I tell her this.

  I interrupt her confessional to explain to her that while she thinks I'm such a good guy, that I won’t want her because she thinks she’s bad, I have a past, too. At one point I was the guy, and I tell her this, who faked feelings to get a woman into bed. And like she’s not proud of her history, I’m not exactly proud of mine. Part of me wants to write apology letters to any of the girls that I’ve hurt along the way. Truth be told, the entire reason I don’t seriously consider it is that I’m terrified because I know that most of their fathers own shotguns. I want to repent for my sins—but not with a hole in my ass.

  We spend the next several minutes trading gruesome stories from high school. Things we’ve done, things that were done to us, things we regret, and things we don’t. Shelby spends most of that time telling me stories about how awesome Becca is and why she deserves the kind of loyalty Shelby is showing her. After a few minutes, I begin to get it, why this woman made the dumbass mistake of trying to take the law into her own hands. And I can’t judge her for it. I just wish I’d been there months back, before she met Victor.

  I wish I had met her first and swept her off her feet with my killer smile, patented charm, and abs that might have taken way too many hours in the gym to get. But I didn’t, and I wasn’t there to stop her from dating that douche canoe. Knowing that she was there, in that little café on Toulouse Street that I had always wanted to patronize but never made the time for, just bugs me. It feels like wasted time.

  Shelby was there, months back, serving Victor, and because he’s apparently charming, successful, and according to Shelby, not too bad to look at, she ended up falling for his lines. And all the violence and the awful things she’s done to right her wrongs can never be erased. And all because every time I went past the Café, I was too busy to stop in. I had no idea that four nights a week, Wednesday through Saturday, there was a sassy little brunette in short-shorts and a cut-off tank that hung way low—her uniform, apparently—that I should have been tipping way too much and begging to go out with my sorry ass. As these thoughts flood my brain, I realize how very fucked I am.

  I’m falling for this girl—hard and fast—which is a little scary and a whole lot exciting. Maybe one day, when I’m no longer twenty-one, a little wiser, a little less stupid, I’ll realize what real love actually is. But for now, this feels off the charts real. It’s intense, filling up my abdomen with nervous energy and fogging over my brain with the need to have her and to keep her.

  CHAPTER 12

  Shelby

  Make love to me.

  SOMETHING HAS SHIFTED between us. We’ve broken through this dance we’ve been playing, caught somewhere between cop and crook.

  Chase shifts closer to me and brings his nose back to my jaw. Slowly, he guides it up my cheek and moves to the right. His lips hover over mine, and while he’s quiet and slow, I’m not nearly patient enough. I close the distance between us and press my lips to his.

  This time he doesn’t hesitate to react. Our lips slide effortlessly against one another’s, causing a burning friction between my thighs. I don’t let myself do that thing where I imagine what it would be like for us to be in another situation, in another time where I’m not the bad guy and I’m not injured. I stop myself from going to that place where Chase and I have adopted a rescue Yorkie, and he parades me around town as his girlfriend, and I even show my face in the department—and it’s not on a whiteboard as “Suspect #3.” No, our situation is way too screwed up to go there, so I just enjoy what we have right now.

  Chase pulls away, his breaths come in short pants, and his attention is focused on my swollen, tingling lips.

  “Make love to me,” I say, because I’ve always wanted to say those words aloud but have never had anyone I wanted to say them to.

  In my head, Chase tells me he wants to make love to me, but he’s worried about hurting me. I did get stabbed just yesterday—at least I think it was yesterday. He’s also concerned about my other hip that I landed on.

  But in the real world, he says nothing. He doesn’t do that thing where he asks if I’m sure and then practically begs me to say yes. He doesn’t say all of those things romance novels have convinced me he should say. Instead, he very carefully lifts me from the sofa and carries me to the bed, placing me as cl
ose to the center as he can without jostling me too much.

  I lean back into the pillow beneath my head and unclench my arms from the top of the thick wool blanket. I rub my thighs together slightly and find little discomfort in my good leg. The bandaged one is still sore and covered in that obnoxious, noisy plastic bag. But I don’t care about that. I’ll figure out a way to make this work, and somehow I know Chase will be gentle with me. Even though he’s said nothing, his light touch and deep, thoughtful eyes tell me everything I need to know—he is good, he is strong, and he’s going to take care of me.

  Very slowly, like he’s unwrapping a present during the holidays, Chase slides the blanket down my naked frame. I suck in a sharp breath as the wool scratches at my nipples, sending waves of excitement down my spine. As the blanket slowly disappears and I’m exposed to Chase, his appreciative gaze heats up. At my hips, he rips the blanket away entirely, apparently tired of his own game. He ghosts the tips of his fingers along my healthy leg and up to my hip, then back down to my knee. I squirm under his touch.

  Without preamble, he takes his shirt off and then slides down his pajama bottoms, exposing himself to me. Chase Guilliot’s towering frame is proportional—all the way around. I wet my lips in anticipation. This movement doesn’t escape his attention, and he sits on the bed beside me.

  He begins by tracing the contours of my breasts, the outline of my ribs made prominent by my arched back, and past my bellybutton. His hands manipulate my swollen flesh in ways that send me into such a frenzy of heat and lust and absolute need that I find myself panting, practically begging him to make love to me.

  He keeps one finger manipulating me and leans forward, bringing our lips together in an open-mouthed kiss. Gooseflesh appears on my skin from my ankles to my neck, and when he slides his tongue along mine, a moan escapes me that sounds feral at the very least.