TNT

by Lagomarsino, Giulia

  I cursed myself for thinking of her as sweet when I was trying to break up with her. Damnit, I would not be forced to date a woman that I really liked. Fuck, I was screwed. I marched into the kitchen and slapped my hand down on the countertop.

  “Listen, Molly, this is over between us. I’m not going to let you tell me that we’re not breaking up, because we are so breaking up. I’m walking out that door and you will not follow me. You will not bring me food at work, and you will not call me later tonight to ask where I am. Do you know why?”

  She smiled at me. “Because you think we’re breaking up.”

  “Yes. No!” I shouted. “I don’t think we’re breaking up. We are in actuality breaking up. It’s for sure. Not a possibility or a probability. We are one hundred percent broken up, as of right now,” I said, punctuating the statement by punching the counter with my pointer finger.

  She nodded, her eyes wide with a very serious expression on her face. “I hear you. I want you to know that I really do hear you, but it’s just not possible for us to break up. We have that dinner with Momma and Daddy tomorrow, and they already planned dinner. Momma did all her shopping and got everything we could possibly need for your favorite dinner.”

  “What dinner?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Tacos,” she grinned.

  “Fucking hell,” I said, throwing my hands up in the air. “I’m not even fucking Mexican!”

  “I know,” she smiled. “Oh, and by the way, I convinced the guys to give you a new nickname. TNT, what do you think?”

  I already knew about the fucking nickname, and the fact that it was all a fucking joke. What had she done to convince them to call me TNT? She hurried around me, grabbing her purse and her shoes before rushing to the door.

  “I have to get to work. Lock up behind you. Oh!” She dug into her purse and pulled out a key, tossing it my way. “I had a spare made for you. See you tonight!”

  The door slammed and she was gone. I stared at the key and tried to think of something, anything to say to myself to assure myself that this wasn’t really happening. I had broken up with her- a few times- and if she didn’t believe it, that wasn’t on me. Right? Something brushed against my leg and I glared down at the cat.

  “We are most definitely broken up.”

  ✯✯✯✯✯

  “Hey! It’s TNT!” Storm shouted from across the training center.

  “TNT?” Coop asked as I walked closer. “Can’t we stick with Tacos?”

  Storm shrugged. “I like it.”

  “Nah, I like Tony Tacos better. Besides, TNT is too long.”

  “You can all shut the fuck up,” I growled. “I already know.”

  “Know what?” Storm asked, playing dumb.

  “I know that you were all just fucking with me. And you know what pisses me off the most? I only had that nickname for like five minutes. Fucking Maggie. She just couldn’t give me a whole fucking day.”

  “It was a good nickname though,” Coop grinned.

  I glared at Storm. This was all his doing. “Tony’s Nachos Tacos,” I bit out. “That’s a good nickname?”

  Coop pulled his lips between his teeth and shook his head slightly. “That’s not funny.”

  “Yes, it is,” Storm laughed.

  “No, it’s not,” I insisted. “You couldn’t just give me that? You had to go and ruin it.”

  “So, we’re not using TNT?” Coop asked. I swung an angry gaze over to him and he held up his hands. “I’m just asking.”

  “I say we stick with Tony Tacos,” Storm shrugged. “Besides, I already gave your girlfriend a nickname.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “I named her Taco sauce,” he grinned.

  “I like it. It fits,” Coop agreed.

  “She’s not Taco sauce. You know why? Because Tony Tacos doesn’t have a girlfriend. There is no Taco sauce to go with my tacos. Got it?”

  They both nodded, but they were laughing at me. Fuck them. I started stretching to get ready for a run. If possible, we ran together so we could push each other faster every time. Since we weren’t going out on any jobs, our training schedules kind of went in opposite directions, especially Coop’s. He was always running off to check on his daughter and Becky. Personally, I thought he let Becky off too easily. It wasn’t that I wanted her to die or anything, but after she betrayed not only Coop, but Reed Security, I couldn’t understand why he was living with her, let alone allowing her back in his life. But that was his business. I wasn’t the one that had to sleep in bed with her.

  “I still like TNT,” Storm responded. “And it’s not just because your woman came up with the name.”

  He grinned at me. I wondered if she came up with TNT or Tony’s Nachos Tacos. And why were they all becoming so friendly with her? She was a fake girlfriend. A non-girlfriend. And now they had her in on their jokes, coming up with nicknames and joining in with all the guys. She was becoming a part of our group and she had only been in my life for a week.

  “You know, I really like her,” Storm continued. “I mean, at first I thought she was just a little weird, but I’m starting to really come around to her. She’s nice. Sweet.”

  “She’s psychotic,” I corrected. “You know, this morning I tried to break up with her and she told me that she understood, but we weren’t breaking up.”

  “Are you sure you did it right?” Coop asked.

  I stared at him like he was a fucking idiot. “Of course, I did it right. There are only so many ways that you can tell a person that you don’t want to see her again.”

  “Well, which way did you do it?” Storm asked.

  “I said, Molly, this isn’t working. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  Storm hissed in a breath. “Damn, that’s harsh.”

  “Not harsh enough. She just brushed it off like it meant nothing to her. So, I tried again two more times. You know what she did?” They both shook their heads. “She told me we couldn’t break up because we had Momma and Daddy’s dinner and then she tossed me a key to her apartment.”

  “That’s illegal,” Coop pointed out.

  Storm slapped him upside the head. “That’s besides the point.”

  “No, that’s exactly the point. That’s how people get shit stolen. They start handing out keys to people and they forget who. And you never get those keys back. I wouldn’t be surprised if you wake up one morning with some random dude standing over you,” Coop said.

  “No, the point is,” Storm stressed, “that she’s taking things to the next level. You don’t just have a clinger on your hands. You have a woman that’s ready for all of it. I guarantee that by next week she’s going to have you talking about babies with her. And it’ll be under some guise of wanting to set boundaries for the future or some shit, but what she’s really doing is planning shit out in her head for the pace of the relationship.”

  “Well, there wouldn’t be anything to worry about if you hadn’t given her that bullshit excuse of me pulling your ass out of a fire.”

  Storm glared at me. “Don’t put this on me. You’re the pussy that can’t break up with his girlfriend.”

  “I tried! And she’s not my girlfriend. I never actually asked her to date me. She just started showing up. She’s like athlete’s foot or something. I just can’t get rid of her.”

  “Have you tried Actin Tinactin?” Coop asked. I glared at him. “What? It’s good shit. For athlete’s foot, I mean. I have no idea how it would work on getting rid of a woman.”

  “Can we be serious for all of five minutes here? If I don’t figure out how to shake this woman, I’m gonna end up married by the end of the month!”

  “Would it really be that bad?” Storm asked. “I mean, hear me out. You would have a woman to fuck every night, and based on what you told us about her, it would never be boring.”

  “And she would cook for you all the time,” Coop jumped in.

  “And I’d be dead by the end of the first week if I ate her food,” I
ground out.

  “Well, at least you would be rid of her,” Coop said in jest.

  “Or…we could come up with a way to get rid of her that doesn’t include me dying.”

  “Look,” Storm said, placing a hand on my shoulder. I glared at the offending hand and he pulled back, raising up his hands as he backed away. “I just think you’re rushing into this whole thing. I think you should give it a chance. I mean, really, what’s so wrong with her, other than the fact that she really likes you and wants to spend time with you?”

  “You want a list? Okay, first, she can’t cook to save her life. If I don’t come into work one day, it’ll be because I died of food poisoning the night before. And it won’t be that an assassin came after me. No, it’ll be that my woman is such a bad cook, that my body gave out from all the poisons that she’s constantly feeding me. Two, she’s way too damn nice, especially for a guy like me. I mean, she took a guy home from the bar last night because he was drunk off his ass. Apparently, she thought he was trustworthy and just needed a place to cool off for the night. So, she let him sleep on her couch. I would go insane with a woman like that!”

  “So, move her in here,” Storm shrugged.

  “Third, she’s insane in the bedroom. I can’t keep up with the shit she wants to do. I mean, maybe for some guys, they get off on shit like that, but I’m not into strangling my woman with my cock.”

  “Seriously? How does that work?” Storm asked, gazing down at my crotch. “It’s not really that long, is it?”

  “Not-” I took a deep breath and calmed the fuck down. “Not literally. She likes to be deep throated, but way more than any woman I’ve ever been with. She held me against her face. I thought she was gonna pass out. And she liked it!”

  “Hey, don’t discriminate,” Coop cut in. “So what if she likes that shit. She’s not asking you to let her spank you, right?”

  “No, but-”

  “So, what’s the harm in it?”

  “It’s fucking weird,” I practically shouted. “And I’m even fucking weirder because I don’t like doing that shit, but I like how she gets off on it. It’s very twisted and I don’t like feeling so out of balance.”

  “Any other reasons?” Storm asked.

  “You need more?” I asked incredulously.

  “Well, let me put it this way,” he said. “There are two things that you’ve made very clear while telling us your reasons. First, you never once mentioned the fact that she just barged in and took over. In fact, the first thing you mentioned was her cooking.” He shrugged. “So, order takeout, or live here and let Susan cook. Not a big deal. But the fact that you haven’t even hinted that you don’t like her because of the fact that she just decided you’re dating tells me that you really like her and even want to be with her. But your head is fucking with you and telling you it’s wrong. But I’ve seen the guys around here. All of them seem to just decide that they want to be with a woman and find a way to make it happen. Look at Craig. That fucker kidnapped his woman and then tricked her into marrying him. Your woman hasn’t even done that yet. I mean, she could have tricked you into thinking she was pregnant or something, but she didn’t do that! She’s a good person that just wants to be with you!”

  “That’s your point?” I asked incredulously.

  “And second, you keep calling her your woman or your girlfriend. I think that alone says that deep down you want her to be your girlfriend. And it’s okay. She’s good for you.”

  “She’s good for hernias,” I pointed out.

  “I have to agree with Thunders here. I think she’s good for you. I mean, after everything that happened with Delaney, I think she’s getting you out of your head and making you live again.”

  “Thanks, Freud. I’m so glad you went and brought up my dead girlfriend. That brings me back to my initial thinking, that I should in no way be involved with anyone for any reason.”

  I spun around to leave and came face to face with Burg. The man was constantly hounding me, asking me if I was okay. And now he had just overheard a conversation with the guys about Molly. There was no way I was getting out of here without another lecture from him. Still, I shoved past him and fled the training center.

  He followed me toward the locker rooms. I was hoping that I could lose him by going to shower, but he just kept following me.

  “Why the fuck do you keep following me around? I told you I don’t fucking need someone to talk to.”

  I turned to storm away, but stopped dead when he spoke. “You didn’t love her, did you?” Burg asked.

  I couldn’t move. I was frozen, afraid that he was going to start in with the accusations and make me into even more of a douchebag than I already was.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I finally said.

  “Delaney. You didn’t love her, and you probably didn’t even like her as much as everyone thinks you did.”

  Part of me was relieved. It was nice for someone to finally know and listen to what I was saying. But the other part of me felt like a huge shitbag. I didn’t know how Burg was going to respond. Would he think I was a huge piece of shit for just wanting to move on with my life? “How did you know?”

  “Little things,” he shrugged. “When I cornered you in the locker room, you said the woman you were fucking was lying dead on the ground instead of the woman you love.”

  “I could have just been avoiding admitting it.”

  “You could have,” he nodded, “but there were other times. The guys would say something, and it was the look on your face. Guilt. But not because she was dead and you didn’t stop the man that murdered her. It was guilt because they thought you were in love with Delaney, and you felt you’d be tarnishing her memory by admitting it was all a lie.”

  I sighed and sat down on the bench, holding my head in my hands.

  “And then there were the constant calls from her mother, begging you to come talk about Delaney with her. A man that was in love with a woman like Delaney would have wanted to go talk with her mom, to reassure her that Delaney was this fantastic woman that you loved. You’d want to give her that peace of mind. But how could you lie to her? Even if it would bring peace to her mother, you felt like you’d be betraying Delaney’s memory. So, you kept putting her off, and everyone around here assumes that it’s because it’s just too painful for you to deal with.”

  “I’m so tired of all of it,” I sighed, leaning back against the locker. “I just want to move on with life. Is that terrible of me?”

  “No. You didn’t love her, but she died, and now everyone expects you to mourn her. They expect you to be broken up over her death, which you are, but for different reasons.”

  “I failed her.”

  “No, you didn’t. You went to work. Even if you were madly in love with her, you couldn’t have known that there was a psycho hiding out in her house, waiting to murder her.”

  “But I could have checked the house for her.”

  “Yeah, were you going to drive in the car with her and check out all the bridges that she drove under?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked in confusion.

  “A buddy of mine, his wife was driving along to work one day. It was just a normal day. Her kid was in the back, and she was going to drop him off at daycare before heading into work. She was driving under an overpass when it collapsed. It smashed in the whole front of her car, killing her instantly. The kid died later in the hospital.”

  “What the fuck does that have to do with Delaney?” I asked angrily.

  “My buddy blamed himself every day for her death. He said the same shit, that it was his job to protect her. But anything can happen at any point in the day. You can try and do everything within your power to protect the person you love, but that doesn’t mean that the minute you turn your back, something bad won’t happen.”

  “But you’re talking about random shit that could happen. What happened to Delaney wasn’t random. If I had checked the fucking house-” />
  “It might have been clear,” he shouted. “What if the fucker broke in after you left? How would checking the house have done anything if he wasn’t already there? You’re coming up with reasons to blame yourself, but in the end, shit happens in this world that isn’t fair. Blaming yourself and making yourself feel like crap every day isn’t going to change what really happened.”

  “Look, I get that this is your twisted way of making me feel better, but it’s not, okay? I just want to be left alone. I want for everyone to mind their own fucking business and start acting like they used to around me. And I want everyone to stop trying to get me to move on with Molly. It’s not gonna happen.”

  “Because you don’t like her?”

  “I do, but-” I stopped myself. God, I felt so fucked up inside. But Burg already knew my deepest secrets, so what was one more? “I see her now instead of Delaney.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I used to dream about Delaney. I would see her dead body on the floor and it would freak me out. It made the guilt ten times worse, but this morning, I saw Molly. It was her dead eyes that were staring me down, and I realized that I’m not ready to be with anyone.” I sighed and ran a hand roughly across my face. “I didn’t protect Delaney and that really sucks, but now I’m seeing Molly’s face and that makes me think that I feel a hell of a lot more for her than I ever felt for Delaney, and that fucking scares me. I’m not ready to lose another person.”

  “Who says you will?”

  “I know that logically the odds are in my favor that this would never happen again, but I just can’t take that chance. Molly is a good person and-”

  “And you think you really like her,” he surmised.

  “I know I do,” I said quietly. “I like her way more than I want to admit. And I know it’s weird. I mean, she’s crazy. She’s been stalking me the whole week and all we did was spend one night together. But there’s something about her that just keeps pulling me back in. It’s fucking terrifying.”

  “You know what I think?” he said after a minute. “I think you need to go talk shit out with the therapist.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Just listen to me for a minute. There’s a reason that we have them on call. You have a lot of shit in your head right now. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn’t, but maybe it’ll at least help you sort through all the shit in your head.”