by Tessa Bailey
That was never going to happen. Not any of it.
Sunshine glints off the water, my vision making the whole scene blur. My mother’s laugh floats back over her shoulder, tempting a smile from my mouth, but it collapses almost immediately. Oh man, he did a number on me, didn’t he? I’m not so stubborn to believe I was faultless. I made a bad decision—one that locked Greer out. But was it so dumb of me to think our feelings for each other would stand that test? I’m ten million miles from perfect, but he already knew that. Wasn’t he supposed to want me in spite of my faults?
Yes. So I’m going to put my head down, push through the final week of the academy, barrel through graduation without making direct eye contact with the lieutenant . . . and put the Grim Reaper behind me. Keeping myself intact along the way is going to be a mega challenge. I’m in love with someone who dropped me like a bad habit.
Here’s the thing, though. I’m stronger now than I was the day Greer bailed me out of Central Booking. I’ve learned a lot about myself. What I will and won’t accept, how to let go of my need to control everything and most important of all, I’m not invincible. I have limitations. And I’m not going to forget those lessons, just because the man responsible for teaching them no longer wants me. That would be the ultimate act of stubbornness, and it’s apparently where I’m going to draw the line.
My mother coasts to a stop, putting her right foot on the ground to stabilize herself. She lifts her face to the sun, closing her eyes to soak it in. I do the same for a while, but move us toward a bench when passing joggers start to grumble over us blocking the path.
“Are you ready to talk yet?” My mother snaps off her helmet and sets it on her lap. Carefully, she crosses her hands on top of the shiny, black surface. “That man hurt you, didn’t he?”
I keep my face lifted to the sun. “Yes.”
When my parents came home after the near-fatal invasion of their apartment, the cops were long gone, and I was lying on the couch. I explained to them what happened, leaving out the part about my breakup with Greer—hell, they hadn’t even known we were together—but my perceptive mother continued to prod for more. I haven’t been forthcoming until now. Maybe it’s the change of scenery or I’m just willing to try anything to scab over my wounds, but keeping the hurt inside is beginning to be excruciating.
“Talk to me, Danika.”
“There’s not a lot to say.” I plant my hands behind me on the stone bench. “I made the classic mistake of trying to fix a man. It didn’t take. And now it’s over.”
She’s quiet a moment. “It’s not like you to give in.”
“It’s a losing battle,” I blurt, before taking a deep breath. “Greer is . . . afraid to feel. Afraid if he lets someone in, he’ll lose them. It wasn’t an intentional test, but I threw the possibility of losing me at him way too soon. He didn’t pass it. He wouldn’t have passed it in five years, either. So maybe I just lucked out getting it over with early.”
My mother turns to me on the bench. “So let me get this straight. Greer is staying away from you because he likes you too much.” Misery clamps down on my vocal cords, so I can’t answer, but she interprets my silence as a yes. Even though it’s way more complicated than that. Fear, control and trust hang in the balance. “Lord, but youth is wasted on the young.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” I bend forward and brace my elbows on my knees. “It’s not just him with the problem, Mom.”
“Oh no?”
Her sarcasm isn’t lost on me, but I ignore it, in favor of the pressure building in my chest. “No. I think . . . maybe it was wrong of me to expect so much out of Greer. I was holding back, too, right?” Finally, I take off my own helmet and sling it over the handlebars of my rented bike. “I hold back a lot. From everyone. When I’m stressed out or have too many responsibilities, I just keep my mouth shut. And I don’t think I realized until now that suffering in silence hurts, instead of helps. I don’t want to feel obligated toward the people I love. I just want to love them. You know?”
Her hand strokes the back of my hair, causing my throat to clog. “We’re not just talking about Greer anymore.”
I shake my head and look out over the water. There’s already a loosening of the strings inside of me. Strings that have been tied and knotted in so many different locations, they’ve gotten tangled. Since I can remember, I’ve considered everyone else’s problems my own. Mine to fix. It was my privilege to be counted on. Somewhere along the line, though, I pushed myself too far down the list of important things. While I was trying to be invincible, I started to believe it and I let others think I was, too.
But I’m not. No one is. If I want to be a successful cop, daughter and friend, it’s time I start letting people in on my secrets. Stop pretending I don’t have a breaking point. Because I do. Maybe I didn’t hit it completely until Greer walked away from me. Is losing him the final lesson that’s going to change things inside me? If so, as much as I want to ride twice as hard on my stubbornness to combat my heartbreak, I can’t let what I’ve learned about myself go to waste. I won’t.
“Do you think, maybe we could just do things like this once in a while? Do things together without any other commitments?”
My mother pulls me sideways, into an embrace. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“What?” I ask, confused. “Ask to spend time together?”
She sighs. “Since you were a little girl, you’ve always needed a purpose. Something to focus on. Something to fix.” Her body moves in a shrug. “I thought if I asked you to come over and do nothing, just talk or go for a bike ride, you’d tell me you were busy. To call back when I had a real problem.” She shifts on the bench. “Don’t kill me, but I broke that dining room chair on purpose, just so you’d have to come over. We like having you around. If I’d known my requests were making you unhappy, I would have stopped.”
Oh, now this is incredible. Only my mother.
Only me, too. Because I totally understand her logic.
“I like being depended on,” I murmur. “But it’s okay for me to depend on someone else once in a while. Or just go ride a bike.”
My mother hugs me tighter. “Good. Now we can do this every week.”
“Don’t push it.”
Our bodies shake as we laugh together, but it’s not long before what I’ve gained today reminds me of what I lost in order to learn something valuable about myself. How long will this lesson haunt me? If my heart feeling like it’s being pulverized in a blender is any indication, there’s not going to be a quick end to this pain. Here’s hoping that being honest with myself, with others, will start to make it more manageable soon. So I can move forward feeling whole again, with some sense of closure.
As we ride back toward the Kitchen, Greer’s voice floats into my ear.
I’m fucking yours, you know that? I just want to be yours, Danika.
This closure I’m hoping for? Yeah. Not likely.
Greer
Here’s the reason I don’t watch television crime shows. A case almost never wraps up as fast as they portray. There’s about a thousand hours of detective work and dead-end leads that don’t make it onto the screen. It’s grueling and it requires patience.
Right now, while I’m standing outside Danika’s building with a hangover to beat the band, I’d love to try and solve this case. The case of us. Every muscle in my body is screaming at me to climb the goddamn fire escape and bang on her window, where I would beg her to take me back. But I have to put in my hours first. She deserves the extra time I’m going to put in, because she’s not getting half-ass from me again. No way. I’m coming in strong.
After Jack left the other night, I drank more tequila. And when I woke up, my brain was trying to squeeze out through my left eye socket, so I slept some more. The second time I woke up—this morning—I had to deal with a hard truth.
I’m not good enough to win her back yet.
There are things in my life I’ve neglected, besides her. My brother is on
e of them, and doing something about it is long past due.
There will never stop being a chance that I could lose him. But—as galling as this is to admit—Jack kicked my ball of common sense and got it rolling in a new direction. If I lost my brother tomorrow, I would still have all of the pain . . . but not enough good memories. In fact, the only recent ones I have are him showing up unannounced and forcing me to acknowledge how much I care about him.
Now it’s my turn.
Unfortunately, I’ve just lost the love of my life, and I’m in a downward tailspin, so the memory my brother and I will make today isn’t going to be sunshine and roses. Actually, it’s going to be pretty damn smelly. But this is where I’m at right now. This is where I’m at. And even though I’ve pushed Charlie away, I have every confidence he’s going to be onboard. Because he’s a good man and I could learn a lot from him. We could learn a lot from each other. And starting today, I’m going to do my best to make that happen.
If I’m going to be what Danika needs, my will to be better needs to extend to every corner of my life. So I’m taking a page from her book and repairing what needs fixing for my family. Unlike a television show, this isn’t going to be a fast fix. I need her to know I mean it. That I’m going to be a good man who’s not afraid to change.
I called Charlie three minutes ago to let him know I was outside. He’s still pulling on a wrinkled T-shirt when he walks out of the building. I don’t comment on the red claw marks all over his shoulders and chest, but it’s pretty obvious how he was spending his Sunday.
“Hey.” With a yawn, he scrubs a hand over his hair. “What’s up?”
“Do you own rubber gloves?”
He’s awake now. And looking at me like I’m crazy. “Er . . . like the cleaning kind? I don’t think so. Why?”
“I need your help.”
Christ. He reacts like I just asked him to be my best man, and hell, something sharp sticks in my side. After clearing his throat several times, he’s still gathering a response. It hits me hard that I’m no better than Danika at letting people in my life know I need them. I haven’t even admitted to myself until now that I do. Sure, I understand things like following protocol, safety procedures and calling for backup, but when it comes to real life—right here and now—I’ve been living in solitude and relying only on myself for anything non-work-related. At least Danika lets those around her know she loves them. I give nothing.
“There’s a ninety-nine cent store around the corner,” Charlie says, finally. “We could grab some gloves there.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what they’re for?”
He shakes his head. “If you need my help, you’re going to get it.”
Now I’m clearing my throat. “You should say no. I’ve been a shitty brother, and you should tell me to go to hell, so you can get back to your Sunday.”
I’ve shocked him. Maybe I’ve even shocked myself a little, but my shoulders already feel lighter, saying the truth out loud. Making myself own it. “Is that what you want me to do?”
My swallow gets caught. “No. I want you to get used to me showing up.”
Charlie rolls his eyes, but I can see the sheen in them. The smile he’s battling. “As long as it doesn’t involve rubber gloves every time, I think I can get used to that.”
“Deal.”
We’re turning toward the corner, in a silent agreement to go buy gloves at the ninety-nine cent store, when I see Danika. She doesn’t spot us at first and maybe that’s a good thing. My features aren’t schooled, and it’s probably nothing but naked agony at having her so close, knowing I don’t have the option to hold her.
I’m not alone. I have you.
No you don’t.
When the world turns against you, all you’re left holding is a bat and an ego.
My gut burns with regret. No, touching her is not an option until I’ve restored the confidence I ripped out of her on Friday. In us, in herself. I won’t allow myself the chance to win her back until there’s not a shadow of doubt that I want her, exactly as she is. And that I will never walk away from her again, no matter what kind of danger she faces.
Danika’s steps falter when she sees us, her brown eyes shooting wide. There are earbuds in her ears, and she fumbles, trying to remove one. What is she listening to? God, I want to go back to the night she slept in my bed and start over, knowing what I know now. That I love her and I might as well already be dead without her in my life. That fact is so obvious right now, when my pulse is going haywire at the sight of her. My mouth is a desert, and I can’t stop staring. Staring at this loyal, beautiful, courageous girl who let me in, but I fucked it all up.
“Hey, D,” Charlie says into the charged silence. “Where’ve you been? Everyone thinks you’re still in bed.”
It only occurs to me now that she’s coming home from the night before, and my head starts to fucking melt, a bellow of denial building in my throat at the very notion she could have been with someone else. Until she answers and I’m dropped from the sky down into an ice bath. “I went on a bike ride with my mom.” She edges past us, as far away from me as she can get. “Um, hope you left me some coffee.”
She’s not even going to say hi to me. It’s the worst possible torture. Her cheeks are a little sunburned, and she’s got on a loose sweatshirt I’ve never seen. I’m holding myself back from pouncing on her . . . and no hello. Nothing. This is what I get. I totally earned her silence. I left.
In my periphery, I notice Charlie split a look between us. “D, can you let Ever know I’ll be out with my brother for a while?”
“Sure.” Finally, she gives me some eye contact, and just for a split second, I see everything there. Anger, sadness, frustration. She misses me and thank God for that. It might get me through the next couple days. “Where are you going?”
“To buy some rubber gloves,” I answer in a raw voice, gratified when she freezes in the act of unlocking the door. “Maybe a couple of nose plugs.”
“Whoa,” Charlie says. “This is the first I’m hearing about nose plugs.”
Danika pushes through the front door of the building. But not before she glances back over her shoulder and something passes between us. It’s more than a hint that there’s more to come. It’s a promise.
Chapter 31
Danika
The women’s locker room is my only refuge.
Seriously, I get a gun pulled on me one time, and my friends turn into psychotic babysitters. Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night to go pee, and when I came out, Ever was waiting for me with a glass of water and a smile. My efforts to convince them I’m fine are not working. Probably because I’m full of shit. I’m not fine.
Especially because Greer is on the academy schedule for the day.
I bend forward on the bench and stick my head between my knees, breathing hard, trying to calm my nerves. Yes, I saw him outside my building over the weekend, but I didn’t have time to psych myself out for that encounter. I’ve had more than enough time to get nervous about seeing him again at the academy. Especially because seeing him post-breakup was like a kick to the solar plexus. Seriously. He couldn’t have waited to break my heart until after graduation?
Charlie came home from being out with Greer, happy but tight-lipped. Why did he need rubber gloves and nose plugs? Did he return to the stamps lady’s apartment? Why?
Doesn’t matter. He’s running drills twice this week, then he’ll be at the commencement ceremony. After Saturday, forgetting about the lieutenant will get easier. I’ll only see him on the off chance he stops by the apartment to see Charlie. Making myself scarce won’t be difficult when that happens. I’ve got this. I’m on the road to heartbreak recovery.
Pay no attention to the girl hyperventilating in row three.
When I hear the locker room door open and shut, followed by the voices of some female recruits, I sit up straight and shake myself. “For the love of God. Pull yourself together, Silva.”
I sta
nd up on rubbery legs and run in place, ignoring strange looks from the new arrivals. A check of the clock tells me inspection is in eight minutes, so I can’t put off changing anymore. Taking deep breaths, I open my locker . . . and around a million books of stamps perform an avalanche, piling up around my feet.
“Damn, Silva. Are you some kind of hoarder?”
I’m too busy trying to swallow my heart to respond to the barb. There are so many stamps and at a glance, my expert eye tells me they’re not normal, run-of-the-mill ones. No, there are collector’s editions I’ve only ever seen on the Internet. Some foreign ones. There are more Elvis booklets, like the one Greer brought me before. And there’s no doubt Greer left these.
Did all of these come from the cat lady? No. Not all of them are available at the post office. At least not currently. He might have gotten some from her, but the majority would have had to be purchased on the Internet. After a lot of research.
But what does it mean?
Does he want me back?
No time to think about it now. Or ever. He thinks he can fix the situation with hundreds of . . . incredible, breathtaking stamps that I’m dying to add to my collection books? He’s got another think coming. I’m not hanging around for more pain. I have to remember what it felt like. When he turned and walked away while I was shaking from needing him.
I’m not alone. I have you.
No. You don’t.
The echo of those words propels me into a crouch. Jaw tight, I scoop the books of stamps into the locker before dressing at warp speed. Moments later, I’m walking into the gym, Charlie on one side of me, Jack on the other, like a couple of demented sentries.
“Brought you a water,” Jack says, dropping an ice-cold bottle of Poland Spring into my hand. “Make sure you hydrate.”
“Ever is making chocolate cream pie tonight,” Charlie chimes in. “Guess who’s getting the biggest slice?” He pokes me in the side. “This girl right here.”