by Ranae Rose
In that moment, she felt strangely distant from him, almost as if the night on the beach – and his apartment – had happened between two other people instead of them.
The feeling was probably just a protective mechanism triggered by what she knew was coming next.
The sound of his voice diminished the feeling, causing faint heat to sweep down her spine.
“It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to invite her out this weekend,” he said. “Not with me there.”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s unfair, and it’s my fault for keeping the truth from her for so long. I just haven’t had the heart to tell her.”
“There’s no fault here; you don’t need to apologize.”
But she did. It wasn’t right to judge Elijah by his badge without knowing anything about him. She knew because that was exactly what she’d done when she’d first met him.
“I feel bad about it,” she said, “partially because I held your job against you too, when we first met.”
“You know, I kinda picked up on that vibe.” His lips curved in a wry smile.
“It was nothing personal, believe me. It took serious effort to pretend I didn’t notice how attracted I was to you.”
“Oh yeah? Tell me more about that.” He arched a brow, the weighted smile lingering.
She laughed, and it was mostly nervous laughter. She hadn’t told Madison the truth about Elijah, but she could at least confess to him – tell him the truth about why she’d judged him so harshly.
“Physically, anyway. I just assumed you were a power-tripping jerk from the get-go, so it took a little longer for me to realize how attracted I was to the rest of you.”
“But you are attracted to the rest of me. It’s not just the way I look in uniform that has you sneaking into the storage room with me?”
His smile was teasing, but she wanted him to know she was serious.
“Of course I am.” She did her best to smooth her expression. “I’m not the type to fall head over heels over a uniform, believe me.”
Or at least, she hadn’t been… Now that she’d gotten to know Elijah, she wasn’t so sure. That uniform was looking better and better every day.
“Mmm. That makes me feel special.”
He flashed her a grin, tripping an alarm that set off a fresh wave of guilt.
“I’m not normally one to judge people so blindly, just because of their job. You know how my sister lost her husband seven years ago?”
He nodded.
“There was no reason for her to lose him. Someone – well, several someones – made a mistake that cost him his life. They were cops.”
“What happened?”
“He was arrested one night for being drunk in public. Only he wasn’t drunk, he was diabetic. He was hypoglycemic. If someone had been with him, they could’ve told the police that, but he’d gone out on his own to buy a shower curtain, of all things. The trip was only supposed to take half an hour.”
“They booked him?”
“Yeah. It was pretty late on a Saturday night, and I guess they thought they’d throw him behind bars and let him sober up. Of course, he only got worse. Nobody even considered getting him checked out by medics, or a nurse, or whatever. He was incoherent and combative by the time they got him to the jail.”
Elijah’s gaze was fastened on hers. He didn’t say anything.
She looked away.
“He went unresponsive in a holding cell. By the time anyone realized something was wrong and got help, it was too late. He died the next day, in the hospital.”
She clenched her fists as she awaited his reaction. Her hands stung, like she was gripping fistfuls of angry bees.
“I’m sorry,” Elijah said. There was an edge to his voice, and it made her heart stutter.
When she finally met his gaze again, he didn’t look like he had just minutes ago. His face had furrowed at the brow and around the corners of his mouth, erasing his usual soft, deceptively young look. He looked older and more tired, the warm flecks in his hazel eyes gone cold. Until he looked at her.
His expression softened, then. It was clear he was angry, but not at her. There was no contempt in his gaze when he met her eyes, but there was definitely something troubled.
“It’s not like it’s your fault, Elijah.” She pointed out the obvious.
“No, but I’m still sorry it happened. It shouldn’t have. That’s—” His mouth sank at the corners. “That’s a goddamned shame. Makes me angry for you and your family.”
There was an element of fire in his voice. It made her look at him differently, like he was a stranger to her again.
This time, she saw beyond the uniform. The gun. The badge.
She felt his discontent radiating from him, and it struck a chord with hers. She didn’t feel far away from him anymore.
“What happened afterward? That couldn’t have been on the island; I would’ve heard all about it.”
“No, that happened in another part of the state. Peyton moved here afterward, with Jace. To live with me. It was in the news there. I don’t know about here. Anyway, my sister sued the department.”
“I assume the suit was successful.”
“Sort of.” Peyton bit down on her inner lip. “All the court crap was strung out over months and months. It really took a toll on Madison, and she was already suffering. Just like that, she was the single mother of a toddler. She was pregnant, too, although she lost the baby about a month after Billy’s death.”
Elijah’s eyes seemed to darken as he listened.
“The stress was too much for her, even with my help. She accepted an offer to settle out of court for less than what she was suing for. She deserved more, but it was still a significant amount of money. And there was no check big enough to bring Billy back, anyway.
“She used the money to support herself and Jace, and eventually to open Charmed with me. We’d both always dreamed of being entrepreneurs, and we decided to start fresh together.”
“And then there was the accident,” Elijah said.
“Yeah. The accident is the cherry on top of the shit sundae her life has been these past seven years.”
He nodded. “I get why you don’t want to tell her what I do for a living now.”
A wrenching feeling flared in the center of Peyton’s chest, dividing her sympathies. She loved Madison. And she wanted to be with Elijah. But she failed to see how she could have her cake and eat it too.
“I don’t know how she’ll take it, but I know it won’t be well, and I can’t blame her.”
“Can’t say I do, either.” His expression was sober. “I’m surprised you agreed to go out with me.”
“I’m glad I said yes. I just don’t know what the best thing to do now is.” She felt frozen in her own choices, torn between two unacceptable options: confessing what would seem like a betrayal to Madison, or ending things between herself and Elijah so that she never had to tell her.
He reached across the table and took her hand.
His grip was strong and warm, almost to the point of being hot. Sheltering and sure. It took the edge off her nerves, but there was still the impossible decision wriggling in the pit of her belly like a nest of snakes.
“Forget I asked about the beach this weekend,” he said.
The writhing mass her stomach had become sank.
“Okay.”
Why did this sting so badly? She’d known it was coming. She and Elijah couldn’t continue to date if she wasn’t willing to actually – well, date him.
But now, that was more than just something she knew. It was something she felt, deep down, where the disappointment tangled with her nerves, making her eyes water.
She wanted to take back the bad things she’d thought about him at first – her snap judgements and her prejudice. But she couldn’t, and now that he’d proven her wrong, she couldn’t have him.
It was pretty damn ironic. She’d fallen for a cop, and now she was pushing him away not because she wanted t
o, but because she had little choice.
How could she rub more salt in her own sister’s wounds?
It was selfish of her to want Elijah, to crave the freedom to enjoy a relationship like the one Madison had been robbed of.
“Maybe you can go down to Blue Mile with your sister and your nephew this weekend,” he said.
“Yeah, maybe.” It wasn’t a bad idea, but her heart wasn’t in it. All she could think about now was that Elijah was going to leave and not come back. There would be no more lunches to look forward to, no more fooling around in the storage room.
Now that those things were about to come to an end, she realized that they’d become much more to her than a shoddy substitute for a real relationship.
It didn’t take fancy dinners, moonlit walks on the beach or movie-worthy romance to grow closer to someone. Elijah had swept her off her feet right here, behind the counter at Charmed.
The bell above the door jingled, and for once, it was the last sound Peyton wanted to hear.
Reluctantly, she pushed back her chair and stood.
Elijah remained in the breakroom as she greeted a woman looking to buy bras for her preteen daughter.
Peyton helped her on autopilot, her deeper thoughts fogged with regret. By the time the woman left with a bag of adorable bras wrapped in glittery lavender tissue paper, Elijah had emerged from behind the curtain.
His radio had come alive, chirping with electronic noise and scraping with voices and static. “Sorry, but I’ve gotta rush out of here.”
“Be safe.”
She watched him go, her chest hollow and her throat tight.
* * * * *
Elijah’s twelve hour shift seemed more like twenty-four. By the time he got home, his boots felt like they weighed fifty pounds each.
He walked into the kitchen, feeling the weight of the day with every step. It hadn’t been his worst day at work, but things that normally rolled off of him – more or less – had grated like sandpaper.
The dull hum of central air was the only noise in the kitchen. He still wasn’t quite used to that. Not that Jackson had been a loud roommate, but silence was more absolute when you lived alone.
He pulled a beer out of the fridge, cracked it open and sank down into a kitchen chair. It was a ritual he’d had for years, with and without Jackson.
He was still sweating, especially under his vest. He drank the beer before taking it off anyway.
Slowly, the superficial tension the day had left him with began to dissipate. His shoulders felt a little looser, his feet a little lighter against the linoleum.
Only a little, though.
He’d been with the island PD for years and knew better than to take the bullshit that came with the job too personally. Lots of people didn’t like cops, for whatever reason.
Yeah, it bothered him more than it should’ve. More than it seemed to bother most of his coworkers. Maybe because it was all he knew. His dad had been a cop, and he’d always wanted to follow in his footsteps. He’d been slapping plastic cuffs on his siblings and cousins since he’d been in diapers. Cops had been the people who’d come over in the summertime for barbeques, the people whose kids had come to his birthday parties.
The fact that some people saw red when they saw a uniform hadn’t really made sense to him until he’d grown up. By then, the reality had taken on new layers, and he had some perspective on why some people balked at the sight of him, just because of his badge.
What could he do, other than prove them wrong by doing the job right, the way his father had done for decades?
He’d made a sort of half-assed peace with the fact that there would always be people who resented him because of the job. Sometimes even hated or feared him. But today, it was an especially bitter pill to swallow.
Peyton’s story had carved a hole in some deep corner of his chest. A hole that had flooded with regret. The emotion sat beneath his breastbone like stagnant water, festering.
Peyton’s sister had every right to hate cops. There was no undoing what had been done; it was that simple.
Selfishly, he kept contemplating it, kept trying to think of some way to work around the gaping trench between himself and Peyton’s family – a trench that he knew no amount of platitudes or wishful thinking would fill.
He wanted Peyton, plain and simple. But he knew the value of family. He had parents and siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles spread all over the Lowcountry. He’d lay down his life for any one of them without a second thought.
Peyton only had her sister and nephew. At least, that was how she’d made it sound. He couldn’t ask her to betray her sister just so she’d be free to continue fucking him on her lunch breaks.
He couldn’t just give Peyton up though, either. Couldn’t do the gentlemanly thing and step aside to spare her the stress he caused her simply by being present in her life.
He wanted her too badly, admired her too much. And he was too selfish, when it came right down to it.
Every layer she let him peel away – every bit of her true self she showed him – was more appealing than the last. He was finally starting to see who she was at her core, beneath the patina left by tragedy. She was loyal, strong and so deeply devoted to caring for the people she held close that it made his chest ache on her behalf.
And damn it, that just made him want to get closer to her. She was as close to perfect as any woman he’d ever encountered, and he was selfish beyond redemption.
There had to be a way to be with her without burning the ground between her and her sister. Whatever it was, he’d make it happen. He just had to figure out what it was, first.
By the time he finished his beer, he couldn’t stand the way his gear was sticking to him any longer. After finally removing his vest, he unbuttoned his uniform shirt and draped it over the back of a chair, along with his undershirt.
His next breath felt like the deepest and purest one he’d taken all day. The freedom of his ribs being able to rise and fall without the weight of the world bearing down on them was always welcome after a day in uniform, but today it was especially sweet.
Because he felt trapped – trapped by circumstances others had created, years ago. The awfulness that’d touched Peyton’s family wasn’t his doing, but he couldn’t dodge the consequences if he was going to be with her. That much was clear, and as bitter of a pill as it was, he had to swallow it.
His phone rang just as he lowered his vest to the linoleum, propping it against an empty chair to dry.
His pulse quickened as he pulled his phone from a pocket, but it was Jackson calling, not Peyton.
* * * * *
“Hey, Madison. What do you think about getting out of the house this weekend?” Peyton sank onto the living room couch, one cushion away from her sister.
She tried to keep her voice light and breezy – like that upcoming Sunday was supposed to be on the island.
Madison looked up from her tablet. She’d gotten really into managing Charmed’s web presence lately and could rarely be found without a Wi-Fi connected device in hand, whether it was her phone, laptop, or something in between.
“What did you have in mind?”
“The weather’s supposed to be great Sunday. Sunny and in the low eighties, with a breeze. I was thinking we could hit the Blue Mile.”
“The beach?” Madison sounded intrigued, as if it were a novel suggestion.
Given how much time she’d spent indoors lately, it basically was.
“Yeah. I thought it might be the perfect cure for the cabin fever you’ve been talking about.”
“I probably won’t be able to walk up and down the beach or anything like that. My physical therapy’s going well, but not that great.”
“I figured we’d bring your chair. They have an access ramp, and if we get there earlier in the day, we’ll have our pick of spots near it. If nothing else, you can relax and enjoy the view.”
“Hmm, it would be nice to feel the breeze in my hair.” Madison ran
a hand through her dark locks. “And if I don’t get out in the light of day sometime soon, the neighbors are going to think I died in the accident and came back as a ghost.”
“You’re not that pale.”
Madison snorted. “My skin keeps getting whiter, and my hair keeps getting darker. I’m starting to look like Nosferatu.”
“I like it.” Peyton touched her sister’s hair. She’d always admired the chestnut brown color, and it was richer than ever lately. “We’ll just have to make sure to pack plenty of sunscreen.”
“Okay. Where’s Jace? He’ll be so excited about Sunday.”
Peyton allowed herself a small, genuine smile. “Hey, Jace!”
“What?” his voice echoed down the hall.
“Wanna go to the beach on Sunday?”
“Heck yeah!”
Madison snorted. “Told you.”
He came charging down the hall. “Can we go to Bianchi’s for lunch?”
Bianchi’s was a pizza place two blocks from the Blue Mile Pier.
Madison exchanged a glance with Peyton.
“Sure,” Peyton called. Jace deserved to enjoy Sunday. Madison deserved to enjoy Sunday.
They both deserved whatever happiness she could give them, and if all it took was pizza and a day at the beach, great.
Feeling a tiny bit better about herself, she retreated to the kitchen, where she heated a pre-cooked dinner in the oven and made a fresh salad. Twenty minutes later, she returned to the living room.
“Hey Madison, dinner’s ready.”
Madison wasn’t there.
Peyton slipped down the hall, stopping at Jace’s bedroom door. “Dinner’s on the table, Jace.”
“Okay.”
He bounded down the hall, and Peyton stopped at the threshold of Madison’s room.
It was cracked just enough for her to see that Madison was sitting on the bed, her back to the door. Half a dozen objects were spread in front of her on the comforter, and there was something stacked on top of a pillow.
A shoebox. Or rather, one of the decorative boxes they sold at craft stores that looked like a shoe box. The one on Madison’s bed had never held a pair of shoes; she’d always used it to keep photos in.