Just One Moment (Just One Song #4)

by Stacey Lynn

  I told Candace about my own parents, about my dad once upon a time being the governor of Minnesota. I told her about feeling like I had to leave Minnesota to go to college, although I kept the reason for that to myself. I told her about my job in Chicago, the fact that I still see my parents several times a year. I told her all about Kennedy and how we met in college, and how I was the one who bought her the tickets to his fight in Vegas, which is where I met Lynx and where Kennedy and Grayson began their rocky reconciliation.

  By the time breakfast was done and Candace called her husband and Lynx to the table, I had almost blurted my entire life story to Lynx's mom.

  She made it easy.

  Someone had called Landon, because he showed up right as we were beginning to fix our plates.

  As the afternoon went on and Lynx's family lingered, it became totally clear that this was a family who loved each other fiercely. They were loud. They were obnoxious. Landon gave Lynx constant shit, which was equally returned.

  My stomach hurt from laughing so much.

  And when it was almost time to go and Lynx's dad walked right up to me, wrapped his hand around the side of my neck and squeezed it firmly, he then whispered, "Pleasure to meet you, sweetheart. Thanks for giving my woman some peace about her son. You've done well," and then walked away, it was safe to say I was completely in love.

  Not only with Lynx's family, but with Lynx.

  He had shown me often the kind of man he was.

  But throughout the day, I saw the kind of man he would become, too.

  There wasn't a single thing about him or his family that I didn't become absolutely enamored with.

  Now there is nothing left to do except follow the desire I had this morning to stop living in fear and go for what I want.

  Kennedy can do it.

  Grayson can do it.

  Clearly, Lynx is trying to do it, too.

  It's time for me to join the program as well and get over all the stuff in my past that's holding me back.

  "Yeah," I tell Lynx, finally responding to his earlier question. "That wasn't so bad."

  "So." He drops his arms from his chest and walks toward me, wrapping one arm around my waist and pulling me to his chest. "Earlier I said we'd talk, and now it's later. You want to do this now or are you ready to run from this place screaming from the insanity you witnessed earlier?"

  I chuckle and drop my forehead onto his chest, unable to keep from laughing at the memory of his mom threatening to throw a knife at her husband. He had rudely proclaimed that the women needed to quit gabbing and get to cooking because he was fucking starving. By the way he hadn’t flinched at the large knife, I assumed it wasn’t the first time Candace had made that threat.

  It was a bit intense, but even during their threatening and bickering, I saw the love Candace and Jax clearly have for one another.

  "I'm not running yet," I whisper and wrap my arms around Lynx's waist to hug him tighter to me.

  His lips hit the top of my head for a moment before he pulls away. "Take a seat on the couch and I'll get us some drinks. I think I might need one."

  I watch, dumbfounded, as he walks away from me and into the kitchen, and then I head to the couch like he asked.

  I know a lot about Lynx.

  I'm also aware enough to realize that a few months of screwing around doesn't mean we know each other's deep, dark secrets—although he definitely knows mine.

  With trepidation filling me at whatever he needs to talk about, I take a seat at the far edge of his couch. Curling my feet under me, I tuck my knees close to my tummy and lean against the armrest.

  I don't know if I could make myself into a smaller ball if I tried.

  "So," he says, walking back into the room and setting a glass of wine on the table next to me. "I was in the army."

  I reach for the wine and hold it in my hands, not yet drinking it.

  Since I already know this about him, I don't think this is what he wants to talk about specifically.

  After several moments, Lynx tosses back his tumbler that’s half-filled with amber liquid.

  The ice clinks against the glass when he sets it down on the coffee table in front of him.

  He reaches for the bottle of alcohol and refills his glass.

  "Lynx," I whisper as I see the tendons in his neck pop. "Whatever you have to say, it can't be worse than what I've told you."

  He laughs, but it's cold and sends a chill down my spine.

  "Told you about that woman with a kid on her hip a sniper took out, yeah?"

  I shiver at the memory of his words that night after I'd admitted I'd killed someone. Two someones.

  "Yeah, you told me." My voice is soft and I hate how distant he is from me.

  When I needed someone to help me beat back my panic attack, he was there for me. Before I can talk myself out of it, I slide onto the floor on my knees in front of him at the chair he'd chosen to sit in, far away from me.

  My hands rest on his knees.

  "Wasn't the only time we saw shit like that, you know?"

  I don't. I have no idea what men like him see while the rest of us are safe in our homes.

  He looks up, but not at me. His eyes go straight to his windows and I know that whatever he's seeing, it's not me in the safety of his loft. He's gone somewhere in his memories. I squeeze his knees again to let him know I'm here, waiting for him.

  He drops his head, eyes closed, and one of his hands goes to the back of his head. "Fuck. I don't talk about this shit."

  "You don't have to."

  My eyes begin to burn as I watch him open his eyes. They're no longer blank.

  They're tortured.

  I rise up on my knees further and press a hand to his chest. "You don't have to tell me, Lynx."

  "See, the thing is, is that I do." He sniffs and one of his hands covers mine on his chest. He holds my hand against him, and I can feel his heart begin to pound against it. "Last time we were out, I saw something. Or thought I did, but our CO had learned to trust my instincts that way. I just had that sense when shit wasn't right, and it wasn't. We'd been walking down a street, clearing buildings, ensuring they were already cleared, and I saw this flash of color. Fucking red,” he mutters. "I still hate that damn color. Never will wear it, don't want it in my house. It fucking sucks, the shit that sticks with you."

  I make a mental note to throw out anything red I own. "Lynx."

  He keeps speaking.

  I know what heartbreak feels like. I know what it feels like to know you can't ever get over what you've done.

  I have never felt what it's like to ache this way for someone else, though—but I learn, in this moment, that I'm not falling for Lynx...

  I'm completely gone for him.

  As his eyes open and he sets them right on me, that tortured expression burns straight to my heart.

  I feel his pain right along with him.

  "A kid, Sarah. A fucking young boy, seven or eight, I don't even now. But he walks out, wearing this bright red jacket. Nothing had color there anymore. All of it was covered with ash and soot and faded and it was all fucking brown. Everything except for that boy and his damn red jacket. He walks out of the building and we all start hurrying toward him, not fucking learning our lesson about that woman with the baby on her hip, because I saw the fear in his eyes. I saw that he knew death was coming for him, and he didn't fucking want it."

  His voice chokes and I watch his eyes fill with tears even as my own do the exact same damn thing.

  "He didn't fucking want to die, Sarah. He didn't even have the trigger. Someone strapped that shit straight to him and sent him out to our team, knowing what we'd do to him."

  "God," I choke out.

  "Yeah. Still wonder where the fuck He was that day, too."

  Moments pass. It might be hours. It might be seconds.

  Lynx clears his throat. "I had been daydreaming of bubble baths and pussy when we were suddenly charging this damn kid. I was so close. So damn cl
ose when he just fucking blew sky-high."

  A sob rips through my throat. I don't stay on my knees. I scramble to my feet until I'm on his lap, straddling him, and I press his head to my shoulder as I feel Lynx completely break beneath me.

  "He was standing near an already blown-out car when the bombs that were strapped to him detonated. I was so close to the car, scraps of it sliced through my gut. I woke up a few days later in Germany, sent home a few weeks later. One of the guys I was closest to, Munson…he was like a brother to me, and didn’t make it. I see that shit at night, Sarah. I dream of vengeance and my anger at the men who could put a kid, sometimes their own, through that kind of evil."

  His hands move to my waist and he pushes back, lifting his head off my shoulder.

  Wet streams slide down his cheeks.

  I brush them away and he licks his lips.

  "Dream of killing them with my bare fucking hands. No matter how much counseling I had when I got back, those dreams still come. Never spent the night with a woman...not because I don't fucking want a woman in my bed or in my life, but because it terrifies the fuck out of me to think of hurting a woman in that way."

  "Lynx," I breathe out on a whisper. I have nothing else to say, and one of his hands slides across my cheek until his fingers tangle in my hair.

  "You, fucking you that first night in Vegas, that night I called you up weeks later...those nights the dreams didn't come. Every night I'm with you, they're gone for days."

  "I'm not saving you, Lynx."

  "No." He shakes his head. "But you fucking help. I got ahold of a counselor Landon talked to when he got out. Said he helped him more than any other guy. But talking about this shit brings it on for me, reliving it makes it worse. I wanted to be in that bed with you in New Orleans. I wanted it bad, and it kills me you didn't ask, honey. But all this shit was too raw for me, and with Grayson being hurt...being in the hospital...I couldn't risk it."

  Through a dry throat, I scratch out, "I understand."

  I don't. Not fully.

  "I have them too," I admit and he blinks. "Nightmares. I relive it all the time. I'm not sure for people who have been through what we've seen, what we've lived through, we won't ever not have them."

  "Last night," he says, his lips lifting into a half-grin, "I didn't have that shit. And, more than that, I liked waking with you in my arms. I want you to know that I want you here, in my arms and in my life, but I might not always be able to put you there."

  My lids close slowly and I inhale a soft breath, trying to beat back my fear. I've lived for so long running from guilt and demons and the fear I'd hurt someone again, that it scares me.

  I push past it again, for the second time today, and open my eyes. When I do, his dark brown eyes are no longer blank and tortured.

  They're heated in a really good way.

  "I want to be wherever you want me," I admit.

  Lynx's half-grin turns into a full one.

  He pulls me into his arms, stands so I don't have a choice but to wrap my legs around his waist, and I hold on tight while he carries me up to his bed.

  There, he shows me exactly how much he means it when he says he wants me.

  ***

  I rub my lower back while I stand to my full height and groan.

  This week has been a killer. Between Mrs. Rodriguez and Marisa having it out in the office, shouting at each other in Spanglish over their disagreement about the flowers and centerpieces and music selections and tablecloths and napkins and every other single godforsaken thing I'd already finalized with the vendors, I fear this upcoming weekend's wedding might actually be worse.

  Because this bride knows exactly what she wants. Sounds like a good thing.

  It's not. There has to be room for some sort of flexibility in planning a wedding. A particular card stock color or embellishment might be out of stock, or we might only have two hundred navy blue napkins as opposed to the three hundred and twenty-five the event requires.

  Leigh Graves is driving me up the wall with her incessant harping about getting every exact detail for Saturday's reception. She's probably been planning it since she was old enough to order her father around, which is most likely when she was about two years old and realized she had him completely wrapped around her tiny toddler finger.

  "I swear," I moan, turning to Jamie, my co-worker and tonight's provider of wine in massive quantities. "If more people spent as much time working on their marriage as they do their wedding, the divorce rate in this country would plummet."

  "Hear, hear." She taps the rim of her wine glass against mine and winks. "Or working their partner."

  "No kidding."

  We've become adept at being able to determine which marriages will survive the first three years. With the scary kind of marriage-meter that Jamie possesses, she's been correct approximately ninety-five percent of the time—give or take a handful.

  This particular wedding couple will make it. Not because you can see they're so in love, but by the way they treat each other.

  Essentially, Leigh is the boss and she expects everyone to bow to her whims, regardless of how impossible they are. Her fiancé carries the stature of a man who's already been beaten down, has given up, and has decided that having a hot piece on his arm at his law firm's holiday parties is more important than being with a woman who respects and admires him.

  She's clearly beaten any admirable qualities out of the man in the seven years they've already been together.

  With another groan, I look over the seating arrangement we've been working on for the last several hours. Fortunately for me, Jamie is also single, only a few years older than I am, and had nothing better to do on a Wednesday night than to follow me home after work, where we’ve ordered in Chinese food and drunk wine and followed all of the bride's specifications.

  With over four hundred people attending, she has a list of rules of who can and cannot sit next to whom and what aunts need to sit separated, what cousins have slept with their family members’ boyfriends, and what friends need to be front and center.

  It's been exhausting, and my lower back aches with every small movement from being hunched over my small kitchen table for so long.

  My cell phone dings from the counter behind me, indicating a text message. Without looking, I feel my lips stretch.

  Jamie glances from the phone to me and her eyes go wide. "Ignoring someone?"

  I roll my eyes and reach for my wine. "Nope."

  "Who?" Her eyebrows waggle and she heads for the counter. "Is it the same person who sent you chocolates? Thanks for those, by the way. I'm not sure I thanked you properly for them the other day."

  "Hard to do with your mouth stuffed full," I mutter.

  The little witch stole half of them before I had even returned from my lunch hour and had a chance to see the full bouquet Lynx had sent. Needless to say, we are...trying... things. And Lynx has the relationship thing down pat. After giving him a blowjob to end all blowjobs on Monday, we had lain in my bed and joked about him owing me a present due to my incredible oral skills.

  The next day, a massive bouquet of chocolate from a local bakery arrived on my desk.

  I thanked him, but haven't had the heart to tell him I'm not a big fan of sweets.

  "Oh, looky here." She sings the words and waves the phone in front of my face. "Someone's getting a late-night visitor."

  She flashes me wide eyes, and I reach for my phone, but she hugs it against her chest.

  "Give me that."

  "No way." She grins. "Who is this guy? Between the chocolates, constant texting, and this weird, dreamy look you have on your face, something's up."

  I turn my eyes to the ceiling and puff out my cheeks. I've known Jamie for years, and while I know a lot about her and she's great fun to hang out with for drinks and to pick up guys, I've never exactly allowed her into my "inner circle”—that being reserved mostly for Kennedy only.

  But being with Lynx has me apparently stretching myself in oth
er ways, because I find myself muttering, "He's this guy I'm seeing. Now can I have my phone?"

  She presses her lips together to fight a smile and hands it over.

  Lynx: Be there in ten. Be naked.

  I make a choking sound and feel my cheeks heat.

  Despite seeing each other a few nights ago, we didn't have plans to see each other tonight. We text frequently during the day, but haven't started spending every night together. Not that we did before. Basically, I don't know what we are...a deeper level of fuck buddies that really, really like each other?

  Everything is still up in the air, and I haven't quite decided if I still like that idea or if I want to label it more distinctly.

  I've also been too scared to ask Lynx.

  "See?" I say. "Just a guy."

  "Mmhmm," Jamie says and begins picking up the seating chart we've finally finished. "I think those rosy cheeks are my cue to get out of here before I have to see you naked. Not to be crass or anything, you look like you've got a nice rack, but I'm not sure I need to see it."

  I laugh out loud and help her start putting everything away, clearing off my kitchen table and taking our wine glasses to the kitchen sink.

  "He's just a guy, Jamie."

  "Right. And I'm a nun."

  Another laugh, another round of picking up, and Jamie is just pulling on her jacket when a knocking sound rumbles from the other side of the door.

  She turns her bright blue eyes, shimmering with excitement, onto me. "Ohhh...can I get it?"

  The girl is nutty. Like a kid in a candy store.

  I wave her forward. "Go for it."

  I nod, preparing myself for the sight of Lynx. Just thinking of how good I know he has to look has my tummy feeling all sorts of funny.

  Jamie opens the door and I watch as her eyes drift higher and higher. From her profile, I see her cheeks grow pink and her eyes begin to glisten with female appreciation.

  Yeah. He does that to women.

  "Well, hello." She steps back, opening the door wider. "I expected someone sexy, but not this sexy."

  I roll my eyes and walk to the door, pushing her out of the way. "Hey, don't mind Jamie. She was just leaving."

  Lynx stands in the doorway, and my breath almost stalls again. He's just so damn sexy in his dark jeans, dark shirt, and simple black leather jacket. He's all dark and night and has bad boy stamped all over him. I almost wish he had tattoos so I could trace them with my tongue, but his skin is so flawless, ink might ruin the masterpiece.