“Because Will is my friend, and when he finds out how I’ve treated you, he’s liable to knock my teeth down my throat.”
Georgia swallowed hard. Is. When. All present and future tense. God, she wished for Isaac’s certainty. Wished that she didn’t find it easier to believe the bad than the good. Wished hoping didn’t hurt so damn much.
“I’m perfectly capable of defending myself, thanks.” Though he would have been—would be—happy to get between her and the rest of the world, Will had always made a point to ensure Georgia could stand on her own.
“And that’s why I’m here,” Isaac said, his voice turning soft and guarded. “There was a time you were one of my very best friends, and I hope someday we can gain some of that back. But what I have to say can’t wait for that to happen.”
“What are you talking about?” Georgia asked, dropping her tea bag into the sink with a wet plop.
“You’re screwing up, Georgie.”
“Don’t call me that,” Georgia said, pinning him with a glare. She was screwing up? Seriously? “This is some apology, Isaac.”
“I’ve made my apology. Now I’m going to be who I should have been since Will . . . in Will’s absence—your friend.” He placed his fork on his plate and stared her down. “You’re screwing up, and I’m about the only person who knows you well enough to say so. I only hope you’re willing to put aside our past and hear me out.” When she didn’t say anything, he took a deep breath and continued. “Where’s Parker, Georgia?”
Her hand trembled as she brought her mug to her mouth. “Don’t know. Don’t care.” She took a long gulp, rinsing the bitter lie from her mouth.
“The hell you don’t.” Isaac held up a hand, forestalling the smart remark she wanted to let fly. “You forget just how long I’ve known you. So don’t lie to me, and definitely stop lying to yourself. You care so much you’re terrified.” Isaac stared her down, his moss-green eyes unwavering, the smile lines beside his mouth relaxed grooves that barely marked his face. “You’re in love with him.”
Georgia shook her head but couldn’t force the words past her suddenly tight throat.
“Yes. You are. And it’s got you so twisted up inside you’re about to make the worst mistake of your life.”
“He lied to me. He knew how close Will and I—” She swallowed hard around the word are. Present tense. Why was it so damn hard to hold on to the hope? When had that become scarier than the alternative? “He knew. I told him everything. I gave him everything.”
“So what?” Isaac said. “You shared part of yourself—good for you. But what, you thought that was it? You’d just blurt out the worst parts of your life, share a few fears and insecurities, and boom: relationship?”
Isaac actually had the audacity to laugh at her.
“Life’s not that easy, Georgia. Relationships take work—”
“How would you know?” she snapped.
The vein at Isaac’s temple, the one that always throbbed when she said or did something to deliberately infuriate him, pulsed. “I fucked up. I apologized. That’s done.”
Of course it was, because the great Isaac Flores said so. At least he’d returned to form and someone she recognized.
“This is about you and your persistent expectation that people are going to hurt you, fail you, betray you.”
“Because they do!” Anger, frustration, and a loneliness she’d always hoped to outgrow tore at her. “Parker lied to me about the only thing that’s ever mattered!”
“Bullshit,” Isaac roared. “Parker spared you. He knew what the knowledge would do to you. That it would eat at you. That you’d let it consume you.” Casting a judgmental glance around her apartment, Isaac said, “And from the looks of things, he was right.”
“Get out.”
He grabbed her wrist as she went to stand. “I’m not done yet.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock.
“Parker lied because he didn’t want to hurt you. Maybe he shouldn’t have. Maybe it was a mistake. But what would it have changed? You couldn’t have done anything but worry. Telling you would have only hurt you.” Isaac scowled. “The only thing that man cared about was you.”
Georgia tried to pull away. “How would you know?”
“Because,” Isaac said, releasing her hand, “he did what I could never have done.”
“Yeah,” Georgia said, rubbing the bare skin of her wrist. “What’s that?”
“He called me.”
The quiet admission hit her with the force of a sucker punch. Unexpected. Powerful. Parker had called Isaac? They’d spent all of an hour together and engaged in some ego-driven pissing contest. There was no love lost there. No mutual respect between them.
“Yeah. Surprised the hell out of me, too.” Isaac shook his head. “I wanted to hang up on the bastard. He had what I wanted—your attention.”
“You had that once, too,” Georgia offered quietly.
“No, not like this. I saw you in that office, Georgia. Saw the way you looked at him, the way you reached for him, even when you weren’t aware of it.” Isaac smiled sadly. “And when you realized what he’d done—I thought I’d seen all your expressions. Seen the depth of your passion, your loyalty. Turns out I’d only seen the barest glimmer of the surface.”
Had she worn her feelings so plainly? Had she been so obvious? It certainly hadn’t felt that way. Everything had happened so fast—like a tsunami that rushed in, dragged her under, and spit her back out in a totally unfamiliar landscape. Nothing felt the same. She wondered if it ever would.
“And so, what, you felt sorry for the guy?” she asked.
“No,” Isaac admitted with a frustrated grunt. “But he was worried about you. So worried, in fact, that when you stopped responding to Ethan’s texts or e-mails, Parker broke down and called me. Begged me to check on you.”
But that didn’t make any sense. Parker hadn’t reached out. Hadn’t called or texted.
“And so out of the goodness of your heart, here you are?”
“Hardly.” Isaac snorted. “I hung up, figured good riddance, he was out of your life.”
“But?”
“But that’s when it hit me.” He stood from his stool. “I was prepared to ignore his request, just to spite a man I considered competition. But you deserve better than that. You deserve a man who puts your needs first, who cares more about you than he does his own ego. A man who’d call someone he hates just to make sure you’re all right.” Isaac ran a hand through his perfectly cut hair. “It’s something I’m going to have to work on.”
“Well, you’re here. You can see I’m fine,” she said, waving a hand over herself.
“I can see you’re self-destructing.”
Frustrated, Georgia snatched the pastry box off the counter and stalked into the living room, collapsing on the couch on a heavy sigh. “Aside from the fact that I may very well eat this entire box of baked crack, I am not self-destructing.”
“That you don’t see it doesn’t make it any less true.” Isaac joined her in the living room, hitching up his jeans as if they were custom-made pants before he sat on the coffee table in front of her. “So I’ll make this fast, then leave you to it.”
“Oh, please do,” she said, snatching something liberally coated with chocolate from the box.
“You’re pissed as hell, and you’re taking it out on the people around you.”
“He lied to me, Isaac—”
“I’m not talking about Parker.” When she didn’t say anything, he sighed. “Will, Georgia. You’re furious with your brother for abandoning you, and you can’t even see it. And until you find a way to deal with it, to move past it, you’re not going to be happy.”
What. The. Fuck.
“Will did not abandon me,” she yelled, dumping the pastry box to the floor as she surged to her feet. “He loves me.”
“Just not enough to come home.”
“Go fuck yourself.” Tears burned at her eyes, and she slapped away the
hands that reached for her.
“You’ve never forgiven him for not coming home, Georgia. It’s why you kept looking for answers, looking for reasons. You needed proof he died for a reason—something, anything, that could justify the fact that he left you behind.”
She shook her head, fighting the sob that tried to claw its way up her throat. “He isn’t dead.”
“But for months you thought he was. People leave. That’s what life’s taught you. They leave. Even people like Will, who are supposed to always, always put you first.”
Tears, fat and wet, leaked from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She brushed them away in a jerky, angry motion. Yeah. People left. So what? Knowing that didn’t make her self-destructive; it made her smart. Kept her expectations in check. Kept her from shattering into such tiny pieces she’d never be able to pull herself back together.
“You put so much faith in Will that when he failed you”—he shook his head when she tried to speak—“he did, Georgia. By his choice or not, he left you. And if Will, the standard by which all others are to be measured, could fuck up, what hope do any of the rest of us have?”
That wasn’t fair . . . Was it? Because yeah, Will had always been larger than life to her, always perfect in her eyes, but so what? He’d earned that regard from her.
“And now here you are,” Isaac continued, “so in love you can’t see straight. But for the first time ever, you have the opportunity to leave first. You aren’t mad at Parker, not really. But it feels safer, smarter, easier to push him away before he has a chance to leave.”
Georgia stared down at Isaac, who hadn’t moved from his spot on the coffee table, not even to brush the crumbs from his shoes.
“Don’t do it, Georgie,” Isaac whispered. “You, more than anyone I know, deserve to be happy.”
“This doesn’t feel like happiness,” she croaked, the truth tearing her to pieces.
Isaac stood, pulling her into his arms. “Because it’s a leap of faith, and you know just how far down the drop is—and how much it hurts when you hit the bottom.” He kissed the top of her head. “It’s scary as hell, but the best things usually are.”
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough.” What Isaac wanted, what he was suggesting, was so much more than a leap of faith. She could so very easily love Parker . . . but what if he didn’t love her back? What if she wasn’t enough for him? With Brandt dead, Parker didn’t need her anymore.
“Well, if that’s true, we’re all fucked.” Isaac leaned back, brushed away her tears with his thumbs. “You’re the strongest person I know. If you can’t do this, can’t put yourself out there . . . well, then, God help the rest of us.”
She looked up at him through watery eyes. “I shot Brandt,” she said, giving voice to the guilt that had been dogging her. “Killed him without a second thought.”
“So?” Isaac said, looking at her as if she’d told him she’d crushed a roach beneath her heel.
“He was the only person who could have told us where Will is. What if . . .” She swallowed hard, fear and remorse and uncertainty riding her. “What if I killed the only person who could bring Will home?”
Isaac stared at her for a long time. Finally, when he’d studied every inch of her, considered every angle as he always did, he said, “Brandt was never going to leave that room alive, Georgia. You know that.”
She thought she did. But what if . . . ?
“And that’s not what’s really bothering you.”
It wasn’t?
“You’re worried that when push came to shove, when you had to choose, you chose Parker. Saved Parker.” Isaac gripped her shoulders, holding her in place. “And, in so doing, left Will to die.”
“Yes,” she whispered, the word little more than a breath.
“If your places had been reversed, if Will had walked into that room, what would he have done?” he asked.
“Taken the shot.” The answer hadn’t required even a second’s thought. Will would have done the right thing, saved the person who needed him then.
“It was never a choice, Georgia. It was instinct and training and the machinations of a greedy bastard who had no intention of backing down.” Isaac stepped away. “You didn’t choose Parker over Will, then. And despite whatever’s rolling around in your brain, no one’s asking you to choose now. You can care about them both. Loving Parker doesn’t jeopardize your loyalty to Will.”
“He might not feel the same way,” she said, if only because she didn’t really know what else was left. Isaac made it all look so simple.
“I’m standing here, aren’t I?”
He was. Because Parker had sent him. For her.
“Why didn’t he come himself?” she asked, voicing the last lingering doubt she had. How could she know this wasn’t just misguided loyalty? She’d saved Parker’s life; it’d be natural for him to feel some sort of need to make sure she was okay.
“Because Parker knows that this has to be your choice.” Isaac stepped away. “He has to trust that at the end of the day, you choose him.”
Did she? Choose him? “Isn’t this supposed to be easy?” she wondered aloud. Seemed like that was the party line. Love: when it’s right, you know it. Simple. Uncomplicated.
“Would you want it if it was?”
She had always thought that crap sounded boring as hell. And nothing about Parker would ever be easy. Or boring. It wasn’t who he was.
It wasn’t who she was, either.
“Give it some thought,” Isaac said, brushing a kiss against her cheek, then heading toward the door.
Georgia followed him, her thoughts and emotions a whirling dervish that made her dizzy.
“Georgia?”
“Yeah?”
“Parker wanted you to have that,” he said, gesturing to the envelope he’d left on the counter, then ducking into the hall and leaving her with a decision to make.
She turned, surveyed the disaster that was her apartment, and smiled, thinking of the first time she’d met Parker.
Grabbing her mug, she picked up the package Parker had sent and made her way back to the living room.
Time to get on with her life.
Parker sat up, peeling his face from the glass surface of his desk, and groaned. Back in his loft and back to his old habits, he’d fallen asleep coding sometime earlier that morning, and he had the crick in his neck to prove it. Stretching, he popped his back and yawned. He didn’t remember the desk being so damn uncomfortable. But then, he didn’t remember being lonely in his apartment, either.
PITA rose and stretched, deliberating knocking off the color-coded pile of Skittles by Parker’s elbow before jumping to the ground. Little bastard hadn’t forgiven Parker for leaving him in the loft. Dead body aside, Parker couldn’t understand why—there’d been plenty of food and water. Jumping to the kitchen counter, PITA chirped at Parker until he turned on the faucet and let the cat drink from the tap. Parker filled the bowl with kibble, then pulled a mug from the cabinet. He needed the restorative powers of caffeine before he tackled anything else this . . . morning? He glanced at his watch. Afternoon, apparently.
Whatever. It was nine in the morning somewhere.
A knock at the door tore Parker away from staring blankly at the variety of K-Cups littering his countertop. Dammit, he missed waking up with Georgia. A grunt here and a mumble there and a fresh cup of the French vanilla he preferred just magically appeared, ready to make everything all better.
Making his own coffee sucked.
Waking up alone sucked.
Life just sucked.
He pulled the door open, then stood there, stock-still and mystified.
Georgia.
Had he wished her into being? Was he having a pre-coffee hallucination?
He blinked. Then blinked again.
Still there.
“Can I come in?” she asked, a shy smile curling her mouth.
Parker nodded. Well, he thought he did. Whatever the case, it was enough, because
Georgia stepped in close, tipped her head to look at him. She pulled something away from his cheek. She held it up for him.
Damn Post-its. They stuck to everything.
“Brought you a red-eye.” She held up the coffee cup, the aroma of fresh-brewed intelligence infiltrating his nose and waking him up by gentle degrees. “Trade you for a conversation?”
“For coffee with an extra shot of espresso? You can have PITA,” he said, plucking the coffee from her hand and stepping aside. The moment the first sip hit his tongue, he could hear all his bells and whistles, motors and gears churning to life. He took Georgia in, noting she had her hair down and wild against her cheeks. His fingers itched, so he clutched his cup tighter and thrust his free hand into his pocket. Dressed in jeans and a half-zip hoodie with an embroidered Marine Corps insignia on the chest, she looked . . . relaxed. Casual. Like she probably smelled of crisp winter and warm fabric softener.
Like the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life waking up to. Stealing coffee from. Sharing candy with. Like his future and his heart and everything good he could ever hope to have.
Yeah, looking at her, wanting her, and not knowing if he’d ever actually be allowed to have her was about the worst kick to the balls he’d ever experienced.
“I had this all planned out in my head,” she mumbled, stroking PITA when he came over to investigate. As she scratched the back of his head, he purred, then rubbed his body up and against hers.
Traitor.
“I’m sorry. I guess that’s the first thing I should say.”
She was sorry? For what? Believing in him? Saving his life?
“For leaving. For taking the easy way out.” She shoved a hand through her curls.
It trembled, something he’d never seen before. Georgia had always been his rock. Steady. Confident. In charge. Even in vulnerability, she knew who she was. He ached that he’d brought this out in her. That he’d made her unsure. Ached, and yet hoped with every fiber of his being it meant she’d forgiven him. Meant she’d stay.
Defenseless (Somerton Security #1) Page 28