All I have now is Grumpy Grump and his two-stepping fake sex and no conversation. He doesn’t even ask about my work. He just went out and bought me a sketchpad and pencils and told me to keep busy while he “works.”
The only thing I feel happy about is that he has no clue where to look next for his target—my would-be murderer. I say happy, because it means I’ll have to stay in Mayberry longer if he can’t close this, and that is something at least. If I don’t kill him and end up in an orange jumpsuit eating questionable meat that may or may not be donkey, monkey, or another human being.
“Jericho.”
“Goddammit, Evie! Just think about it at least.”
I’m currently stretched out on a lounger, taking in some sun while my brother sits on the lounger beside me and tries to argue me to death.
“I already owe you money, Jericho. I will not add more to that total just because you think it’s your duty to give me whatever I want from life. Blaze made a good point the other day, and I can do this by myself. Kimber was not nice about my change of heart, but I can handle that, and I can handle taking a loan from my bank. Geek makes enough that I can pay it back and still live comfortably.”
“You don’t have to,” he argues, throwing Blaze a searing glare.
I just ignore him and keep grinning at Cleo until he jumps up with a curse and storms off to go rail at Blaze. It serves the ass right for inviting Jericho in the first place.
“Ignore him, Evie He’s just raw because you refused to move in with us is all. Not that I don’t love you and want you in our home, but the man likes sex and he’s used to just jumping on me. I’d rather be flayed alive than have you walk in on us that way. Plus, well you might kill him, and I do love the big galoot.”
I laugh at her and shake my head ruefully as Blaze starts gesturing wildly with the fork and yells something that has Jericho scowling.
“They both still think they’re in the Army the way they bark orders at everyone. Blaze has been freaking impossible to stomach the last few days, and I swear to holy heaven the only reason I haven’t beat his ass is because the fool is so cute.”
Cleo snorts and gives me a knowing look, filled with more knowledge and sadness than I want to see at the moment. She knows all the men in the Watchers—yeah, Blaze finally told me all about his little crew—and she probably knows a lot more about Blaze than I do since she married Jericho who, incidentally, gossips worse than a girl.
“Be careful, Evie. Blaze is a good guy, but the man is not emotionally available. Jericho told me all about his past and how he changed from this vibrant, happy-go-lucky prankster to this brooding bear we all know. He’s not open to more, and I don’t want to see you hurt.”
I snort past the hurt that starts rearing its ugly head again and shake my head at the hopelessness of my situation. I know this, hell Blaze has proven it to me over and over for the last while by refusing to touch me the way I know he wants to.
He’s pulled away and gone back into that cage he erected for himself, and all I get is who he gives to everyone else. That in itself is all I need to warn me off, because yes, I know he’s warning me off in the gentlest way he possibly can.
“I know, Cleo. Trust me girl, I know.” I sigh, taking a long drink of the wine Cleo keeps topping up for me. “I just don’t want to miss the time I have with him, ya know. It’s going to be over before I wipe my eyes out, and then where will I be?”
“Oh, honey.”
“Yeah. You know the best part of this though? Thinking about him letting me go got me thinking about everything else, and I made a few life decisions that I am actually looking forward to. Like splitting from Kimber, even though I hate the anger between us at the moment. And then there’s that big lug. I’ve been thinking about moving here to be closer—”
“Oh yay!”
“Shh, I don’t want him to know yet,” I hiss, looking over to see the men still arguing. “I want to do it on my own, so he can’t control it all and, well, I’m a little scared to be honest.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to be more to him, and I’m afraid he won’t know how to handle that,” I say starkly, meeting her eyes with a sad smile.
“He loves you, Evie.”
“Oh, I know that, Cleo. The big asshole tells me all the time. I just…we aren’t all that close, but I would like to be. I want him to see me as a sister to love and want around, not a responsibility, which I know is what he feels more than not.”
Cleo sighs and nods slowly, chewing her lip in contemplation before looking over at me with narrowed eyes.
“I get that. He’s great and so loving with me that sometimes I don’t always see how closed off he can be with everyone else. It’s not that he doesn’t love you or want more for you, Evie. He’s just not that trusting about his feelings. His parents were royal assholes, and I think he sometimes struggles to remember that he isn’t them or anywhere like them. He’ll come around, you just have to keep chipping away at that rock.”
“I know. I’d just really like to do it from my own house across town where he can’t plan my diet and meet my dates with a shotgun,” I joke, needing to lighten the mood before depression sets in.
Damn men, what the hell is wrong with them? My brother is an emotionally stunted idiot, who is afraid to get too close to me in case I hurt him, and Blaze is an emotional wasteland with tumbleweeds rolling across his scene.
They’re idiots, and since I can’t exactly force them to change the way things are, I have to change things so that they’ll appreciate me. That will start with the move, and it’s one reason why I haven’t had a nervous breakdown and started bawling my love for Blaze à la “A Streetcar Named Desire.”
I fully intend to move here and start my life as my own person, and then I will tackle Jericho and somehow get Blaze to see me. It won’t be simple since the man is as stubborn as a mule, but I refuse—refuse—to allow him to pine for some skanky hofo when he could have me.
I can make him happy. I can show him real love and commitment, and I can most definitely make him see that sometimes a second chance is the best thing that ever happened to you. Even it if comes as a result of your hurt and anguish.
His ex did not deserve him, but I do, and you know why? Simply because I am great. I have love in spades, and I never quit—no matter what—because yes, I can fail with dignity, but why even think that way when I can win if I just keep going?
I want him, I see him, and therefore I will have him. And I feel so optimistic about this whole plan that no amount of scowling, ignoring me, or pulling away from me can make me give up.
Oh optimism, my friend, I have missed you so, I think as I smile at Cleo and toast her silently.
“Evie! Tell this fucking ape you share DNA with that he’s being an ass.”
I roll my eyes and stand, sauntering over in my bikini as Blaze scowls and tries not to notice my assets while Jericho just frowns and starts looking around for a cover-up.
“Forget it. It’s just you and Cleo here, and old self-denial Sally,” I mutter, grunting at Blaze’s curse. “What is the freaking problem now?”
“He’s thinking you should go home with him, and I told him not to bother asking because you don’t seem inclined.”
Huh!
Now he’s acting as if he wants me around, huh? He couldn’t say that this morning when I was feeling low after he asked me to sleep in a guestroom because I keep him awake with the light on all night?
Yeah. It’s tragic, but ever since things started going down the drain for me when Blaze pulled away, I’ve been too scared to sleep in the dark again. Some shrink somewhere would probably have a field day with this and diagnose me up to the freaking wazoo for it.
It is what it is, okay? I get that I feel insecure, so it’s coming out in the form of fear and my new phobia of the dark. It seriously did not help when he said that to me. It hurt. I feel rejected, and dammit, I’m still afraid and I don’t want to sleep alone.
&n
bsp; I moved my shit into a guestroom though, because I get the fucking message already. Silver lining aside, I have pride. I’ll never give up on Blaze. I can’t. I love him and need him, and I will never be fulfilled without him, even if he is a freaking dickhead.
But I have feeeeeelings and the darn things took a knock this morning.
So instead of settling his ass down, I turn to Jericho with a small smile.
“You want me to move in with you?”
He rolls his eyes and throws up his hands.
“She finally gets it. Yes!”
“Hmm, I mean that is so sweet and all, but I don’t know, Jericho…the light may be a problem,” I drawl, throwing Blaze a sardonic look. “I could maybe be convinced if you get Blaze to go fetch me my buddy bear.”
The man chokes and starts coughing while my brother frowns and nods, a little confused.
“Your teddy bear? Is this a new thing, needing an old bear to sleep with?” Jericho asks with a frown.
I keep my face straight with difficulty and feel my eyes water when I throw Blaze a look from the side of my eye and shrug.
“Not really. Some nights I hold him for hours because he makes me feel good, and others I’m just too damn tired to even bother.”
“Evie, honey, I don’t want to be mean or sound insensitive, but aren’t you a little old to be relying on a childhood toy? You need to kick a bad habit before it becomes a problem.”
“I know,” I sigh, my tone aggrieved. “But I can cuddle him and not worry about feeling like a loser in the morning. Besides, at least he likes honey.”
I leave Blaze fuming while Jericho starts lecturing me about dependency and letting go of something that may not be good for me in the long run.
I totally agree, loudly, and throw Blaze a curled lip, flipping him the bird behind my back while Cleo tries to stifle her giggles. The dear knows all about buddy, since one of Lenny’s friends got that same model last year and we all laughed our asses off about me owning it first.
“Jericho, baby, I need you to sunblock my back,” Cleo calls out with a sexy purr, rescuing me from the lecture from hell.
I just sigh my relief when Blaze curls a hand around my upper arms and jerks my back into his chest.
“You’re pushing me, Evie.”
“Well, someone has to, three-minute man, or I may just die of boredom around here,” I say, laughing darkly. “Do me a favor, okay, you stay all tucked up in your bed in the dark, and I’ll keep my light for a little longer.”
He jerks away with a hiss, and I feel my throat burn when he walks away without even a word. I keep expecting him to react differently, and I’m always disappointed when he does what I don’t ever expect. Part of me keeps pushing because I want him to push back, but he never does. It’s almost as if it’s too much effort to even bother.
Silver lining, where art thou now?
Chapter Fourteen
Blaze
I’m angry and frustrated and so damn horny I can barely see straight as I toss and turn in my empty bed, longing for at least the mediocrity of the sex I’ve been having with Evie the last few days.
It’s been three days since the barbecue on Wednesday, and I’m starting to feel desperate as the end of the road draws near for Evie and me. Monday is her last meeting. At least, I think it is. I don’t even know anymore since she refuses to talk to me, but I heard her telling Cleo that she’s not into the whole boutique thing anymore.
I wish I knew what the hell was going on with her, but as of Wednesday, when I was such a dick, she’s been sleeping in the guestroom furthest away from my room, and she refuses to even acknowledge me half the time unless she needs to use the phone since I took hers away and tossed it in the safe, without the battery.
I can’t blame her one bit since I basically threw her out of my fucking bed like a used-up hooker. I have no defense for my actions but to say I was ready to explode by that time because I was so frustrated and unsatisfied with the new course I set.
I want her like I want life, and yet I won’t go to her the way I did before. If I do, I won’t be able to control myself, and for hell’s sake, I don’t want to do that again until I understand what I’m feeling.
I made a vow to myself years ago that one love, one marriage was enough for me, and I stick by that vow. But I also want Evie, and to have her I have to break that vow because no way can I keep her without offering her more.
I don’t have more.
I wish I did. God, how I wish I did, but I don’t trust anyone anymore, and that includes Evie. She’s perfect and so good, but she’s also human and that means she’s flawed.
That scares me because it means she could see everything inside me that is flawed too, and then she may not want me anymore. So I pushed her away.
It was cruel and cowardly, and it’s killing me, but it was the right thing to do when I saw her looking at me with more than lust or affection. She looked at me as if I may be more than what I let people see.
As if there was something there that she wanted.
She can’t want me, why would she? I’m grouchy and surly, and I’m set in my ways. If she stayed with me, I’d want her to move in with me and never leave, and she would never agree to that because she has all these plans for her business that would not fit with what I have in mind if ever I took a woman again.
If. Always if when I know it will be never. Not unless it’s her, and that’s not happening. She’s got her own plans and her own dreams, and they’re not for me.
So yeah, I pushed her to the point that she’s not smiling or teasing me anymore, and she doesn’t even bother to speak unless I grunt something at her about lunch or dinner.
Most days, I wake up in a panic, thinking she’s already gone. I only calm after I’ve run to her room to search her out. When I do find her there, it takes everything in me to walk away and not go to her.
I miss her softness and her sparkling laughter, and dammit, I would sever a limb just to taste her again.
Fool.
Yeah, but at least I’m a fool with all my pieces intact, even if they’re all messed up and disjointed. I’m still berating myself when I hear feet patter down the hall and hear my door hit the wall before a shivering ball of whimpering and limbs hits my chest.
“Please, can I sleep here? Please? I won’t even touch you or anything, I just…” she trails off on a sob, and I pull her closer, rolling to my side as her shaking starts to subside.
“Evie?”
“Nightmare. So bad. So bad. I’m scared,” she whispers brokenly, her hands grabbing at me as she continues to wet my chest with her tears.
Evie never cries. It’s the one thing that Jericho warned me about at the barbecue days ago. She laughs, she gets sad, she feels, but she never cries.
She once told him—when he asked about her one flaw—that she couldn’t do it without feeling weak. I remember her tears the night we made love, and now, feeling and hearing her cry, I feel my heart clench with pain.
Evie cries for me.
She cries for me and me alone.
“Shh, baby. I got you. I have you, Evie. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
Except me, I think with so much loathing I am sick to my stomach.
She calms finally after almost thirty minutes of hiccupping and broken sighs before sniffing loudly and pulling away.
“Thanks, uh, I feel better.”
When she goes to roll to the other side and leave, I pull her back in and tuck her back to my chest, my need to hold her too much to be denied.
“It’s okay, Evie. Stay here with me.”
Forever, I think silently, wishing that things were different and she wasn’t stiff as a board in my arms. We could be so different together right now if not for my asshole attitude and the fact that I pushed until she had no other option but to retreat.
I hate myself even more when she finally falls asleep and sighs my name with so much sadness it guts me. If not for me, she’d have been right here in my
bed where she felt safe and no nightmares touched her.
I don’t deserve whatever affection she feels for me, I really don’t, and it may be a far kinder thing to let her go than to try to hold onto her and stop her from wasting herself on a man who is too afraid to love.
***
Evie
The nightmare was bad, so bad I woke still gasping for breath with the feel of those hands wrapped around my throat. This time though, I didn’t kick or punch or do a damn thing to defend myself.
I just lay there, no matter how hard I yelled at my dream-self to do something. I was a lump of acceptance and numbness, as my throat closed up and weakness stole over me.
I woke screaming, but nothing would come out because I was almost blue with the need to breathe. That feeling, the hopelessness and stark terror when I realized I was trapped in my already dead body…
It scared me to the point that not even my anger at Blaze could keep me from needing him. I ran like hell, not as much to him as from myself because I didn’t want to cower in that bed, all alone, trying to dissect the reasons behind my acceptance of death.
He held me all night, and I eventually slept like the dead, safe, warm, and for once, not alone, because though we aren’t together, part of me knows and is grateful for the fact that he will always be there for me no matter what.
Just not in the way I want is all.
“Evie?”
I look up from my sketchpad as he hands me a bottle of water to combat the overwhelming heat, and I smile my thanks. Since last night’s little horror showing, we’ve been in this weirdly okay place.
He hasn’t said or done anything that may push me at all, but I know he’s dying to know why I was crying. I told Jericho a long time ago that I don’t cry, and at that time it was true for me.
I was cold inside after the fosters waved me off into the sunset, and as a child I learned to be happy because it made me more likeable than to be a little whiner who didn’t understand why no one actually loved me.
I cry now, though I have to say, that this last week has been a record if you count the fact that I’m not having a phantom period or reliving my old pink hair days. Yikes.
THE WATCHERS: 6 Military Romance Bundle Page 42