Love Is Beautiful (Chelsea & Max)

by Abby Brooks

  “It’s a real thing,” he says without even a hint of humor. “And they’re telling me that you could use a little help right about now.”

  “Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine.” There’s a little part of me that wants to ask him how to go about filing the assault charges. Wants to ask what problems I might run into, accusing a rich athlete with access to powerful lawyers of attempted rape and blaming my bruises on him. What if June doesn’t corroborate the story? What if Hudson chickens out and won’t be my witness? What if the whole world thinks I’m a slut or that I somehow earned what happened to me? But Friday night taught me all I needed to know about mixing business with my personal life. If I need answers to those questions, I’ll wait to ask the officer I file my report with.

  Once I’ve got the TENS unit set up properly, I leave him stretched out on the table and busy myself with some paperwork while the machine does his job. The whole time, I find that I can’t keep my eyes off the guy. He’s handsome, in a beastly kind of way. And even though he pegged his concern for me on being a cop, the look in his eyes said it came from some deeper, more personal part of him. Would it really be unprofessional of me to ask this guy what to expect when I go to press charges?

  I head his way as the TENS unit finishes its program and unhook the electrodes from around his knee. “How’s that feeling?” I ask, avoiding his eyes.

  “That thing is bizarre.”

  I giggle a little as he stares at his knee. “It is, isn’t it?”

  “It feels a little better now, but I might hate that thing.” He gestures to the machine as I put it away.

  “Oh yeah?” I frown, wondering if I had the settings up too high. “It didn’t hurt, did it?” The TENS unit sends little electrical impulses across the surface of the skin and along nerve endings. It should tingle and it definitely causes the muscles in the area to alternately clench and relax as the machine does its job, but not enough to hurt.

  Mr. Santoro shakes his head dismissively. “Nah. Not even a little. It tensed my muscles for me. I’m not sure I like how that felt.”

  Ahhh. A control freak. Of course. “It can be unnerving to feel your body moving without you telling it to. But, how does it feel now? Better right?”

  He straightens his knee, and I stare at the highly defined quadriceps poking out of the edge of his pants. I said it last week, but I mean it even more today. This guy has a body that could rival Hudson’s and that’s saying a lot.

  “Yeah. I guess it does.” He smiles at me and, silly me, I like it. “So what now, doc? Now that I’m all better, are you gonna let me loose on the machines?” He gestures towards the exercise equipment behind us.

  “First of all, I’m not a doctor. And second of all, you’re not all better. And third of all, I don’t want you doing anything active for at least a week.”

  His eyebrows raise. “I can’t promise that.”

  “Walking is fine, but pain is your body’s stop sign. If what you’re doing hurts, you need to stop. At least until we’ve got you further along in the healing process.”

  He glowers at me, all the friendliness from earlier draining from his face. And I use that term broadly. I’m not sure ‘friendly’ could ever be used to describe Max Santoro. “Fine.”

  I nod my head as if that settled everything. “Good.” And then, in a very un-Chelsea-like, spur of the moment way, I speak without thinking. “I was assaulted Friday night.”

  Well. So much for professionalism. I can just hear my job going down the toilet.

  “What happened?”

  I explain, giving him the highlights and avoid naming names, ever so aware that I’m in a huge room surrounded by my colleagues and their patients. “And I guess I really don’t know what to do next.”

  “Have you filed a report?”

  I shake my head.

  His frown deepens. “Did you go to the hospital?”

  “Yeah. A friend took me.” I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call Hudson a friend, but I’m not ready to name him.

  “Well at least there’s that.” Max studies my face. Catches my gaze and raises his eyebrows and shows me his palm. A warning. And then, ever so gently, he captures my chin between his thumb and forefinger and turns my face to get a better look at my cheek. “Anything else hurt?” His voice is low. Gentle. There’s something heartbreaking about the disquiet in his tone.

  “My shoulder was sore for a few days, but it’s better now. The other girl got a lot more of his … err … attention.” I shrug and meet his eyes. Time stops. This guy is looking straight into me and I feel bared to him. Like he can read my mind and see my soul. It’s overwhelming. I look away.

  “Has she pressed charges?”

  I shake my head, pulling my chin from his grasp. How can I miss the contact and be grateful to break it at the same time? “I don’t think she will. My friend knows her. Said he didn’t think this was her first rodeo.”

  Max frowns again, drawing his eyebrows together. “When are you done here?”

  “I work until four.”

  “Come down to the station afterwards. I’ll meet you there and you can file your report with me.”

  I want to tell him no. Or, at least, I feel like I should say no because I don’t know how that would affect our business relationship. But I don’t. I fight back tears of relief, inwardly yelling at myself for being so weak, and agree to meet him at four thirty.

  8

  I never thought I’d set foot in a police station before. I’m a good girl and good girls don’t end up in police stations. I feel like everyone’s staring at me as I step out of my car. It’s cold, colder even than when I left for work this evening and I pull my sweater up around my chin, thankful for a reason to hide my face. Because good girls don’t end up with big ass bruises on their faces, either.

  I am so effing tired of having thoughts like that in my head. I didn’t do anything wrong! I walked in on a bad man doing bad things and tried to stop him. That’s not bad; it’s good. So, maybe good girls do come to police stations when they’re trying to stop the bad guys.

  Or something like that. I’m not sure I believe that yet, but if I say it enough, maybe I will eventually.

  Officer Santoro is waiting for me just inside the front door and I take a moment to give a little whispered thank you to God for that. I might have just turned around and walked away if I had to sit down and wait for him to show up. He escorts me back to his desk and it feels really good to have him beside me, deflecting all the curious glances that keep coming my way. His size alone is comforting, but when he slides that imperious glare down over that strong face, well, only an idiot would consider challenging him, that much I know for sure.

  The process is straightforward and clinical and I do my best to relate the experience as if I was a detached outsider rather than the victim of a brutal attack. I go into detail and name names. Officer Santoro digests the information without judgement, only slightly raising an eye when I name Sloan Anderson as my attacker. Before long, all the details are taken care of and all I have to do is wait. He hands me a copy of the report and escorts me to the door.

  “You didn’t come in just for me?” I ask as he ushers me outside.

  “Sure did.”

  “Well, thank you. I really appreciate it.” And that’s the truth. I feel better for having done the right thing. “I bet you’re anxious to get back to your family.” Night fell while I was in the station, courtesy of the shorter fall days and the line of storms moving in through the area.

  “I’m not a family man.” His response is short and clipped and I feel like there’s so much more to this story than just a simple statement of fact.

  I swallow and stare out at the darkened parking lot, pools of light settling at the feet of the lampposts. “Well, then, I bet you’re just anxious to get home.” I shrug and smile, overwhelmed by the suddenly awkward encounter. I can’t keep up with this guy’s mood swings.

  He shrugs, a fluid movement of his massi
ve shoulders and again, I feel like there’s more to the story here. “My dog needs me to come home and let her out.”

  What am I supposed to say? He keeps on not heading towards his car and I keep on feeling compelled to stand here with him, but he’s not exactly easy to talk to.

  “I like dogs.”

  Wow. Did I really just stoop so low as to say I like dogs? I clear my throat and shake my head.

  “Well, Mister… I mean, Officer Santoro. Thank you for your help.” I become the first of us to move by taking a few steps out towards the parking lot.

  “Max,” he says and I stop in my tracks.

  I look over my shoulder and raise my eyebrows.

  “You can call me Max.”

  I smile. “Well then, you can call me Chelsea.”

  There’s something so raw and open in the smile he gives me in return. Something powerful that reaches down into my heart and opens it right up. This man is so closed he might as well be surrounded in barbed wire and in that one instant, that one smile, it was as if I got to see that part of him he’s guarding. It was just a glimpse, a tiny moment of sunshine peeking through the clouds. But it made me want to see it again.

  No, not just see it again. I want to cause it again. Something tells me Max Santoro needs a few more reasons to smile.

  “So how big was he?” Dakota is lounging in my favorite chair, sitting sideways in it so her legs are flung over the armrest. She’s got a margarita in her hand and a sparkle in her eye. It’s so damn good to see her.

  “Who? The cop?”

  She giggles and shakes her head. “No, you goober. The football player.” She exchanges a look with Maya while I blush furiously. Of course she meant Sloan. Why would I think she meant Max?

  “He’s big.” I say and take a drink to cover up the fact that I’m still thinking about Max Santoro. “He’s a friggen linebacker for heaven’s sake. Think like, six foot four, two hundred and fifty pounds.”

  “You got hit in the face by a linebacker?” Maya sounds incredulous and more than a little drunk. “Your face doesn’t really look all that bad, considering.”

  “Uhh? Thanks?” I arch an eyebrow.

  “You know what I mean. The pictures you sent were terrifying, but you’ve really healed up since then.”

  She’s right. The bruises have faded. The fear response has, too. I feel less and less like a victim and more and more like someone who managed to do something pretty amazing.

  “I just like giving you a hard time,” I say to Maya and raise my glass.

  Dakota rolls her eyes. “Ain’t that the truth?” She finishes her margarita and stares at the empty glass. “You guys ready for another?”

  I’m really not. The closer I get to thirty, the harder it is to recover the next day. But, this is a special occasion after all. Who knows when the three of us will be able to hang out like this again, what with Dakota traveling as much as she does now. I tell her I’m game for another, as does Maya, and Dakota hops up to do her bartender thing in the kitchen.

  “So, be honest,” she says as she pulls bottles out of the cabinet and sets them on the little island that separates my kitchen from my living room. “How badass do you feel?”

  Maya grins at me. “Yeah, for real. I mean, we all know you’ve got a ferocious streak, but did you ever think you’d be the one to walk in on a sexual assault, take a hit from a professional linebacker, and finish the story by kicking the guy in the balls?”

  “Honestly? If someone had told younger me that story was in my future, I would have laughed and called them crazy. But that’s exactly what I did. And then, to make it even better, I didn’t just hide under a rock and let fear freeze me. I went ahead and pressed charges. I took action. I am not a victim and that is such an empowering thing to know about myself. When the shit hits the fan, I’m the girl who’s going to kick it in the balls.”

  Dakota returns with margaritas and hands one first to Maya and then to me. “That has to feel good.”

  “You bet it does.”

  We chat for a while and Dakota fills us in on her new life with her new husband. In the past several weeks, they’ve been in three different countries, twice without anything but a tent to sleep in. She’s never been happier but I think that kind of uncertainty would upset me. I’m not sure I could handle the instability of it all, but one thing I’ve learned is that Dakota and I are cut from very different cloth.

  “So, tell me about the guy. Is he hot?” Dakota’s looking at me and it takes me a second to comprehend what she’s asking me. Surely she doesn’t care about Sloan’s looks? “The guy,” she says, waving her hand and looking for the right words. “The patient.”

  “Ohhh…” I smile. “Yeah, he’s pretty hot. Tall and dark with these amazing blue eyes and I swear he’s bigger than the football players. And he walks around with such an intense look on his face.” I close my eyes and envision Max Santoro’s somehow super sexy scowl. “I don’t usually go for the grumpy guys, but what can I say? I guess I’m branching out!”

  Dakota looks confused. “I thought he was a football player.” She turns to Maya. “She said he was a football player, right?”

  Maya nods. “Yeah. I thought so.”

  “No, sillies,” I say and pick at the salt on the rim of my margarita. “He’s a cop. The guy who took me to the club is a football player.”

  Maya and Dakota burst into laughter.

  “What?” I ask. “I don’t get it.”

  “She wasn’t asking about the cop.” Maya smiles at me, still laughing. “She was asking about the guy who took you to Aura in the first place.”

  “But,” says Dakota, swinging her legs back over the armrest of her chair. “Why don’t you go on about this cop because he very clearly is the one who has your attention instead of, you know, the professional athlete with the rockin’ bod on his way to fame and fortune.”

  “I don’t want to talk about the cop.” And I really don’t. I mean, clearly there’s some part of me that does, but I don’t really have anything to say about him. “He gave me a speeding ticket and I thought he was a jerk. But then there’s this softness to him … this … I don’t know. Softness isn’t the right word, that’s for sure. That’s definitely the wrong way to describe him. And he’s more closed down than anyone I’ve ever met. But when he saw my bruises, the only thing on his mind was how he could help me. And then he smiled and it was so beautiful I just wanted to keep on making him smile.”

  And now, thinking about Max’s smile, I’m smiling.

  “For someone who doesn’t want to talk about him, you sure have a lot to say on the topic.” Maya’s still laughing.

  “Yeah, well, he’s an enigma. I find him fascinating.”

  Maya and Dakota lose it again and I stare at them in shock.

  “Oh man,” Dakota says. “She’s really got it bad, doesn’t she?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this way.” Maya leans forward and touches my knee. “Have you considered asking him out?”

  “No. I’m not even a little interested in a date with Max Santoro.” But even as I say it, I realize that’s not exactly true. In fact, I realize that’s not true at all. The more I think about it, the more I realize that if Max Santoro asked me out on a date, I would say yes without hesitation.

  Why?

  I can’t exactly say. There’s just something about him, something that calls out to me, begging me to see him. Begging me to know him. And there’s that smile, the one that made me want to bring him so many more after that initial one.

  I slide forward so that I’m perched on the edge of my sofa. “Holy shit.” I swallow and look from Maya to Chelsea and back to Maya again. “I have a crush on the cop.”

  9

  This has been one hell of a boring couple days. I took Chelsea’s advice and have stayed off my feet. Lots of TV. Lots of reading. Lots of … not much. And not much is just not a good thing for me. Today, I meet Charlie at the park. As much as I typically look forward t
o spending time with the kid, I’m really looking forward to it today. I need the distraction. This will probably be the last time we can count on an outdoor activity because of the weather. I’ll need to start coming up with some indoor activities for us. I slip on my jacket, stuff Reagan’s ball into the pocket, clip her leash to her collar, and lead her out to the car.

  The wind is brutal. Slices right through my jacket as I let her in the backseat. I duck my chin into my collar and hop into the driver’s seat, grateful to shut the door against the wind. The gray skies don’t look like rain, just that awful slate-colored, sunless misery that’s all too common in Ohio in the winter. I swear, I was meant to live somewhere tropical. This place is fine, I guess. Better than New York at least. But it’s definitely not ideal. I check the weather before I pull out of the driveway, just in case I need to put Reagan back in the house and find something other than the park for today.

  No rain. Just gray skies and a lot of wind. We should be good, especially if Charlie is running around with Reagan. He’ll be nice and warm. It’ll be my ass that we’ll have to worry about while I sit on the bench and shiver. I stop on the way to the park and grab a cup of coffee for me and a hot cocoa for him. I never knew a kid who didn’t like hot cocoa.

  Of course, Charlie’s waiting for me. I recognize his bright blonde hair from the parking lot. His mom is supposed to hand him off to me, but after our first meeting, I haven’t seen her. Not once. Charlie always seems okay. He typically just waits for me on the bench, his wary eyes taking in everything all around him. I just don’t like the idea of a ten-year-old sitting alone very long. Not this close to downtown.

  “Hey man,” I say as I sit down beside him. Goosebumps raise down his thin arms as the wind bites into his exposed skin. “Where’s your jacket?”

  He shivers and draws his knees up to him. “I grow too fast.”