Protagonized

by Shannon Myers

  “I’m dangerous?” My voice went up an octave, and he cringed. “He’s the one who barged into my life and demanded a re-write; at gunpoint, I might add!”

  “Oh, what’s this? Dirt? I’m gonna go grab another shower.” Aaris fled the room, leaving me alone with the assassin.

  He watched her leave before pinching the bridge of his nose. “You call the shots. You’re in charge of his entire life. As a man, that’s pretty fucking emasculating, Hayden. He has to be able to trust you to keep you safe from whoever’s out there. Just remember that.”

  I quietly opened the apartment door and tiptoed in, doing my best not to disturb Jake. The couch was empty, so I tiptoed down the hallway to my bedroom.

  Bootsy lay on the bed with the tablet, happily watching what appeared to be a nature documentary. I gave her a quick scratch behind the ears before checking the bathroom.

  Empty.

  “Did Jake leave?” I asked the empty room. Bootsy looked up and gave a soft meow before going back to her movie.

  I walked back out into the living room. If he left, then I’d have to go and find him. The only problem was I didn’t have a phone number or even the slightest idea as to where he may have gone.

  The glowing ember of a lit cigarette caught my eye through the vertical blinds, and I stopped pacing.

  I slid the door open and stepped out into the cold to face the firing squad. I knew he heard me, but he kept his focus on the courtyard down below. “What happened to all that talk about cigarettes killing you?”

  Jake exhaled a stream of smoke. “It will, but maybe I needed to numb myself a little to stay alive, you know?”

  I did.

  “Which part are you numbing right now?”

  He took a long drag, still not looking at me. “Fear.”

  I laughed, but he continued to stare straight ahead. “C’mon, Jake. You’re a detective. What could you possibly be afraid of?”

  “You,” he exhaled. “You win. I’m tired of trying to prove that I’m not the guy you wrote. So, here we are. I’m smoking. Are you happy now?”

  You’re in charge of his entire fucking life.

  Jake was afraid of me. Given what I’d done to him at the restaurant, I couldn’t say that I blamed him.

  The smoke rings drifted off the balcony and disappeared before I found my words. “I don’t want to fight you anymore.”

  He stayed silent and for a moment, I thought that maybe he didn’t hear me. Then he rolled his eyes and my heart twisted in my chest and I knew that we were never going to be friends.

  In fact, we’d be lucky to make it through this alive.

  “Since when? You’ve been fighting me since I showed up. Why the sudden change of heart?”

  I sank down into the chair next to his. “Jake, please. What happened at the restaurant was me, I admit it. But, the kiss? I didn’t write that, I swear to you.”

  He pushed his lips out into a pout. “You wrote it. You didn’t. I don’t even know the difference anymore, Hayden. You want me to believe that you’re helping me, but then you pull the shit you did earlier. What am I supposed to think?”

  He turned to finally look at me and I was hit with the memory of our kiss. I’d had his hands on my ass twice now. His teeth had been on my lips. His tongue had done things to my tongue that I didn’t know were physically possible.

  It made me want to weep. I was never going to be kissed like that again. If I was lucky, I’d just live out my days with Bootsy, churning out novels as if I were an authority on love and relationships.

  If I proved my family right, then I’d be adding eight to ten cats to the mix, while living in a ratty bathrobe coated in Cheetos dust and cat hair.

  I wouldn’t even make it to the nursing home to regale the staff with my witty stories. I’d just be found a month or two after my death, half-eaten by my horde of cats.

  “Hayden?” Jake waved a hand in front of my face.

  “I don’t want to be eaten by pussies!” I blurted out.

  His mouth fell open. “What the fuck? What does that even mean?”

  I cleared my throat and settled back against the wicker chair. “Obviously, what I’m trying to say is that the pussies are a, um, metaphor for my books. And, eaten is, well, to be devoured. So, I don’t want to let this story devour my morals.”

  “Yeah, that makes absolutely no sense.”

  “Just give me a second,” I snapped. “It made sense in my head.”

  “Look, I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I just want this” —he gestured around the balcony— “to be resolved. I can’t hold up my end if you’re fucking with the script.”

  “I wasn’t fucking with the script,” I hissed. “I wanted to kiss you, damn it! Is it really that hard to believe that I’d want to kiss you and maybe, just maybe, you’d want to kiss me back?” A bubble of a sob rose up, and I slapped my palm over my mouth to stifle it.

  Now was not the time for hysterics.

  “Don’t cry.” Jake rubbed the back of his neck roughly and frowned.

  I forced a laugh. “I’m not. That was nothing. It’s not like it really matters to you whether I’m happy or not anyway.”

  Silence filled the space again, my pulse the only sound in my ears. I looked away from his intense stare and picked at the warped pieces of wicker, poking out from the chair like spikes.

  “It does matter to me, Hayden,” he finally admitted. “I don’t know why, but it does. Maybe it’s because you make me laugh. Maybe it’s because you’re unapologetically you, with your crazy crystals and mantras. Or maybe, it’s simply because you know everything about me and it feels like we should be friends. I don’t want to see my friends hurting.”

  I nodded along, feeling the arrows of humiliation as they pierced my skin. I wasn’t sure what I expected; maybe for him to admit that he’d wanted to kiss me? That it hadn’t been something he was forced into?

  But, friends?

  I didn’t want to be his friend.

  I felt a jolt of shock. I didn’t want to be just his friend. I wanted more. But, I couldn’t have it.

  Max had been right. I had the upper hand. A relationship could never work under those circumstances.

  I couldn’t say that, so I settled for, “I don’t know everything about you! Surely there are a few secrets you have.”

  Jake stubbed out the butt of the cigarette and immediately lit up another one. There was a small pile of them on the table between us, giving me the impression that he’d been out here a while.

  “I do smoke. I’ve been using the patch since I got here, but tonight I just needed a little more.”

  I nodded, encouraging him to continue. “And?”

  “I don’t know, Hayden. I think you know the rest.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t know who your best friend is or your favorite food. Just because I wrote it doesn’t mean that it has to be true. Like, like… I didn’t write that you have glasses, but you do!” I knew I was grasping at straws and judging by the bemused expression on his face, he knew it too.

  “Alright. Did you know that I was going to ask Addison to marry me?”

  I pushed down the swell of indignant anger. How could he tell me that after we were so close just a couple of hours ago?

  Oh, right. Because I literally just asked him to do that very thing.

  Obviously, that had been a stupid, horrible decision.

  “Is that so?” I folded my arms across my chest to stop them from shaking. It had everything to do with the cold and nothing at all to do with the hurt his words had caused.

  He bit down on his lip and looked away. “Yeah. She was single and my mom was pressuring me to settle down and give her grandkids. Said she knew that Jessa wasn’t ever going to let herself get tied down to some guy, so it was up to me.”

  “Did you love her?” I asked nonchalantly.

  Please say no.

  Jake frowned and pursed his lips. “I don’t know. We came from the same line of work
, so we didn’t annoy each other by getting overprotective when one of us needed to work late. It just made sense, you know?”

  I nodded and tried to inject as much disinterest as I could into my words. “Yeah, sounds like you two would’ve been happy. Is that why you came here? So, I’d write you back into the story, I mean? You could find out what really happened to her.”

  “I never thought about it like that. I guess I never imagined that there was a chance that she was still alive. I just wanted my life back, but if she’s out there, it changes things.”

  “Does it?” I realized that I was breathing heavier than normal and focused on getting my inhales and exhales into a normal cadence again.

  He looked back at me. “Yeah. Look, I’m sorry about accusing you earlier, with the kiss.”

  I laughed quickly and jerkily waved my hand in the air. “Oh, that? It was bound to happen. Two people stuck in the same small space for so long. We were either going out like that or in body bags, am I right?”

  “You really think that’s all it was? Just the result of us spending too much time together?”

  “Yep,” I squeaked through the tears that were being held back only by sheer willpower. “We just need to hold up our end of the agreement; no more stupid mistakes. Truce?”

  I held out my hand and he looked at it strangely. I bit down on my lower lip when he finally reached out, completely engulfing my hand in his.

  “Truce,” he said roughly.

  I snatched my hand back and stood up. “Well.” My voice cracked. “I have to get some sleep now.”

  “Hey, are you sure you’re okay?” Jake touched my shoulder. “I could come back in with you.”

  I shook my head. “No, stay. I’ll be fine.”

  I slid the door closed and we watched each other through the glass; less than a foot apart, but separated by an impenetrable barrier.

  I made it to my room before completely losing my shit. I curled up next to Bootsy and held a pillow over my face to muffle the sounds of my sobbing.

  I’d messed it all up and there was no way to fix it other than to give Jake the story he wanted. He’d needed to start chain-smoking again to numb himself to me. If I wanted to do the same, I’d be buying out an entire dispensary.

  Bootsy’s meowing grew louder as she moved under the pillow with me, her rough sandpaper tongue lapping up my tears as they ran down my cheeks.

  “I’m an asshole, Bootsy girl,” I whispered. “I just want to fast forward to the part where I’m married to a great guy—who’s real, obviously—and wearing his shirt while I make him pancakes in the morning. Is that too much to ask?”

  I’d have to learn how to make pancakes, but maybe I’d start with frozen waffles and work my way up.

  She carelessly flicked her tail and settled back down in front of her movie. I lay next to her, hoping the monotonous narration on bird migratory habits would lull me to sleep, but all it managed was to stir up feelings of guilt.

  He hadn’t given much away, but what little he did was earth-shattering. Addison. I never imagined. I’d always pictured her as this blonde supermodel type, so it made sense that he’d want to marry her.

  I just knew that if I visited their home, the dishes in the cabinets would all match and everything would be white: the carpets, the towels—even the walls. They would’ve had two gazelle-like children and worn matching sweaters for their holiday photos. Even their fancy dog would be sitting perfectly in a red plaid sweater, smiling for the camera.

  Meanwhile, my last holiday card had been made using a Snapchat filter where Bootsy and I looked like reindeer. Obviously, I was not in the same realm.

  My perfect guy would probably be someone with interests that were a little more… enlightened. He’d wear his hair in a man bun, and we’d do yoga together every morning. It wouldn’t be sexual like it was with Jake either. We’d respectfully align our chakras and open our minds before heading out to visit Damien at the coffee shop.

  He’d proudly tell everyone that visited his shop that I wrote books as he wove rugs on a loom.

  I frowned.

  Obviously, that last part was a mistake. He would do something more interesting than rug-making. Maybe he ran a wildlife sanctuary and instead of magazines in the waiting area, there’d be copies of my books.

  Yes. Maybe that was it.

  I’d probably visit him there on the weekends and do readings from my latest work and one day I would realize that my life was incredibly boring—no, that wasn’t right.

  I’d realize that my man, Dusk Marley, was a much better fit for me than Jake ever was. In fact, I probably wouldn’t even remember Jake’s name. He would just be some nameless character I wrote ages ago.

  He sounds boring as fuck, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Jake’s said in my head.

  I was outraged on Dusk Marley’s behalf. Obviously, he was just trying to provide the best life he could for me and our three cats: Bootsy, Gypsy, and Leaf.

  Jake couldn’t understand a love like mine and Dusk’s. It was messy and imperfect; all the things he hated. I was a free spirit, and I needed to find someone who was the same instead of worrying about what some uptight cop thought about me.

  I belatedly realized that he’d never once asked me about myself out on the balcony; proving that our encounter had been just that; a drunken incident that we’d both work to forget in the days and weeks to come.

  I hoped.

  Seventeen

  “Isn’t this place great?” Aaris sipped her sparkling water and looked around the table with a grin. “I can’t believe it took us a month to get reservations, but when it’s the new hip spot in the city, what can you do?”

  “Have we had a chance to look over the menu? Do we want to start with the tempeh stuffed avocado or maybe some walnut chorizo nachos?” our waiter asked the table with more enthusiasm than any one person should have.

  Max and Jake exchanged a glance over their menus; some unspoken code that civilians were not privy to.

  “Uh, I have a question.” Max waved him over. “Can you direct me to the meat section?”

  Aaris giggled at the same time our waiter muttered, “Oh, dear.”

  “Sweetie, Pure Love is a vegan place. We talked about this, remember?” She nodded at him encouragingly. He nodded back stiffly before turning back to the waiter with a plethora of questions.

  Jake shifted in his seat and his leg brushed up against mine. He hadn’t been acting much like himself lately. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his jaw was covered in heavy stubble that he refused to shave. It was painfully obvious that he hadn’t slept in days.

  He looked down at our legs touching and treated me to a smirk. It made me want to push him onto the table and straddle him until I couldn’t hold myself up any longer. The glassware would fall to the floor with a crash, but we’d be so lost in each other that we wouldn’t even care.

  It was safe to say that my silly little crush had morphed into quite the problem. Every touch, every look killed me with the realization that there would never be anything more between us.

  “So, are we stopping for a burger on the way home?” His eyes glinted mischievously.

  I shook my head discreetly. “No, why would you say that?”

  • Confession: Aaris told me that she was a vegetarian when we were in high school. Afraid to admit that I enjoyed eating the animals she was so fond of, I told a little white lie and convinced my parents to play along when she would come over for dinner. I meant to tell her the truth, but then one year turned into ten and it just didn’t seem to matter anymore. Until now.

  “Jake, Hayden is a vegetarian like me. Didn’t you know that?” Her head was cocked to the side, the way it did when she was trying to figure something, or someone, out.

  His massive thigh connected with mine again under the table, but I refused to look up at him.

  “Hayden.” His voice was low, taunting. “You never told me that you were a vegetarian.”

 
Aaris talked Max into a tofu burrito bowl before ordering the seitan chops for herself. “So, you’ve lived with Hayden for a month now and you didn’t realize that she wasn’t eating meat?”

  I jabbed Jake with my elbow. “You know him. So involved with the case that he can’t be bothered to notice anything else.”

  He grabbed the waiter’s attention as he passed by. “Uh, could she get a dirty vodka martini, top shelf?

  I took one look at Aaris’ stern expression and added, “In the biggest glass you have, please? Okay, thanks.”

  I turned back to see him watching me in fascination. “I notice a lot of things, but somehow, I missed that.”

  I tugged at my earring. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to bring Jake here.

  “You are aware of how inhumanely most animals in slaughterhouses are treated, right Jake?”

  Oh, good. Aaris had found her soapbox. Just when I thought the evening couldn’t get any worse.

  He looked up at her. “Is that why you don’t eat meat?” She nodded and he looked over at me. “And what about you?”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, obviously for the ethical reasons and the… spiritual ones, um, as well.”

  His lip twitched. “Obviously.”

  When Max and Aaris appeared to be deep in conversation, he leaned down until his mouth was right next to my ear. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”

  His warm breath tickled my neck and a shiver moved through my body. He moved closer and my panties began their migration to the floor. His lips moved into a pout like he knew the effect he had on me.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Men could just turn off all emotion while I was struck with the memory of our kiss every time he looked at me. I’d often wondered in the weeks that followed, if he’d obsessed over it like I had. If he lay awake at night, thinking about how I tasted and felt in his arms.

  Guys like him were probably kissed like that all the time though. There was nothing special about what happened. It was just another ordinary day for Jake Hopkins.

  I told myself that I was just in the right place at the right time, but when his leg was mashed up against mine and his arm was draped casually over the back of my chair, I pretended that it had meant something more. To both of us.