by Skye Jordan
“Ha.” I pick a date, write it on a card, and hand it to him. “Just call to change it if you need to.”
He slides the card into his pants pocket, shrugs into his uniform shirt, and shoves the tail into his pants, then fastens his buckle. This is a preview of the way he’d leave me after we had sex, and I rest my chin in my hand to suffer through every move. The only thing more powerful than his charm is the pain of losing him—as a friend and a lover.
“Man, I feel great,” he says, pulling out his wallet. “I mean, I’d feel better if you’d finished, but, yeah, you really loosened me up.”
“Put that away. This one’s on me.”
He tips his head and slides his wallet into his back pocket, smiling like he’s got a secret.
“Don’t look at me like that. This is just a friend helping out a friend.”
He puts both hands on the front edge of the counter and leans into them, holding my gaze. “Then I owe you one.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I’m thinking dinner would be a good start toward paying you back.”
“We’ve been over this. Not happening.”
“I’m always up for skipping straight to dessert.” His gaze is clearly saying I’m that dessert.
“Actually, there is something you can do for me.”
His grin is triumphant. “Name it.”
I smile and lean forward, pressing my torso against the counter until I get within a few inches of him. I lower my voice. “Why don’t you come over to my boat tonight?”
His eyes grow dark, and sparks fly between us. “I’ll be there. What time?”
“As soon as your shift ends.”
“You got it. Should I bring dinner?”
“No, I’ll feed you.”
“Damn.” His gaze lowers to my mouth. “I sure like the sound of that.”
I’m smiling when I reach out and slide one finger along his jaw. “I need your big, strong arms to help me carry three hundred welcome bags to the conference center.”
His gaze turns shell-shocked.
My work here is done. “Thanks, handsome.” I push off the counter and toss a smile over my shoulder as I head into the studio to close up. “See you tonight.”
I hear the thunk of his forehead hitting the counter followed by a few colorful curses. I’m already mopping the studio floor, sanitizing after sweaty yoga, when he passes the window with a smirk and a shake of his head. I blow him a kiss, and he turns away, smiling.
When his back is turned, I pause and lean on the mop handle as I watch him slide into the driver’s seat of his police car. My heart is heavy. I desperately want someone to share my life with. Laiyla, KT, and I turn thirty-one in a few days. They’ve found their forevers, and I’m thrilled for them. I love Levi and Ben and Ben’s girls. I guess it just makes me realize that I’m starting all over from scratch, so freaking damaged. I had come so far when I started a relationship with Bodhi. Healed so many wounds festering from my childhood. Then he broke them all open again. Now I don’t trust my heart with anyone. Not even Xavier, a man whom I’d trust with my life.
He backs his cruiser out of the parking space. He’s pulled on a department baseball hat and, God, he’s adorably delicious in it. The only thing I love better than him in that hat is when he’s goofing around and wears it backward. It’s like getting a glimpse of him as a kid.
He glances toward the studio before he puts the car into Drive, sees me, and stops. We hold each other’s gaze through the window. There’s no more flirtation in the air, just the real him and the real me, sharing a silent bond that’s too complicated to explain with words.
He tilts his head, as if to say Are you okay?
Now that he’s out of the studio and I’ve got my safe space back, it’s easier for me to acknowledge that I’m not okay. That I want him so badly, it terrifies me. And not just for the sex. I think he and I could be something really special—if he wasn’t a player, and I wasn’t damaged.
But he is and I am.
I press my open hand to the window. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the only safe way to express how much I care about him. From a distance.
I smile, blow him a kiss, and wave.
He hesitates, but then starts out of the parking lot, and I chew on my lip, watching until he turns out of sight. When he does, a little light leaves my heart. For the millionth time, I wonder if I’ll ever be whole enough to trust my judgment again.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to date a man like Xavier. The rumors running around town about him are scorching, but I haven’t been with anyone in so long, I think I’ve forgotten how to do anything—kiss, sex, all of it.
Bodhi pulverized my self-esteem, and that’s not something that just grows back without effort, like weeds. It’s more like an orchid, needing constant attention and just the right conditions to blossom.
As soon as my mind turns that direction, an emotional brick wall appears, and I stop just short of running into it—my psyche reminding me that Xavier is exactly the kind of man I don’t want.
“What’s so interesting?”
The voice jolts me, and I jump. “Oh my God.” I spin toward KT, hand against my chest. “Where did you come from? I didn’t even hear you come in.”
“I can see that.” She follows my line of sight. “What are you all lost in thought about?”
I shake my head and return the mop to the bucket. “What have you got in the bag?”
“Show me yours,” she says with a teasing singsong, “I’ll show you mine.”
Since I don’t want to show her mine, I glance toward the parking lot. “Where’s your truck?”
“Right beside your car. I picked up sandwiches for dinner. Ben’s working a night shift.” Ben is KT’s boyfriend and an ER doctor in town, and with him working, that means KT’s watching his three daughters. “Are you done with classes for the day?”
“Yeah. That was the last one I’m teaching until after the retreat.”
I move the mop and bucket into a closet, pick up my purse, keys, and sandwich, and lock up the studio. Then KT and I wander toward our vehicles together. It’s a gorgeous almost-summer day—blue sky and mild heat. On the rolling hillsides surrounding Wildfire, oak trees dot the golden mountains.
“So, what’s going on inside that head of yours?” KT asks. “And don’t even do that whole ‘nothing’ song and dance.”
When I don’t immediately answer, KT says, “Are you stressed over the retreat? You know we’ve got every minute of the next ten days nailed down to the wire.”
“I know. I am nervous, but in a good way.”
“Then what’s this”—she gestures toward me, indicating my mood—“about?”
I’m not sure I want to get into it with her. She and Laiyla are founding members of the do-Xavier team.
“It’s Wednesday early afternoon,” KT says, filling the silence, “which means you just finished a hot yoga class and hung out with Z while he ate lunch.”
We reach our vehicles, and when I turn to face her, I see movement in the alley running behind the storefronts of Main Street. Looks like a handful of teenagers hanging out.
“Is he dating someone again?” KT’s question draws my attention back. “You always get moody when he starts dating someone new.”
“I do not.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not up for the you’re-so-totally-secretly-in-love-with-the-man speech.”
“Good. It’s a waste of your energy.”
“If my hands were empty. I’d plug my ears and sing la-la-la-la-la to keep out the lies.” KT gets a wicked little smile. “Hey, have you seen his bod since he started CrossFit with Ben? That boy is ripped.”
My mind instantly slides backward thirty minutes, to a sheet across his lap and all the bronze skin against the white sheets. And, yes, he is most definitely ripped. “Not what I need to hear.”
KT rests her bag on the roof of my car, crosses her arms and leans against the door. Behind her, on
e of the kids moves out from behind another, and I recognize Xavier’s goddaughter, Piper, who, by Xavier’s estimation, should be in calculus.
“You know, he hasn’t put in for his transfer yet,” KT says.
“He’s waiting to see how Piper fares over the summer.” My gaze focuses on the e-cigarette someone just handed her. “And by the looks of it, I’d say she’s not starting off on the right foot.”
KT glances over her shoulder. “Ah, those were the days, cutting class, smoking dope—”
“As if you’d know,” I tease. “They’re probably just vaping.”
KT had an incredibly involved father who always knew exactly where his daughter was and spent every spare minute with her, right up until he passed away from lung cancer. I, on the other hand, had an alcoholic father who was either drunk or passed out. I knew exactly how to get into trouble, way worse than the kind Piper is currently flirting with.
“Back to Z.” She meets my gaze again. Her long brown hair is in one braid, her light blue eyes piercing. “By not getting involved with him, you’re all but ensuring he leaves town. I bet you could easily sway him from returning to big-city policing, because, you know, you are pretty smokin’ hot.”
I smirk. “My ego thanks you for the boost. It’s been neglected lately.”
“I’ve got your back, sister.”
“Z’s bored to tears here, and the way he goes through women, he’s going to eventually run out.”
KT laughs. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“I’ve got to get going,” I tell her. “I have a lot to do before the retreat starts tomorrow, and it looks like a little heart-to-heart with a teenager is in order.”
KT takes her bag from the roof of my car, and surveys the group—two girls, two boys. “I’d offer backup, but you could probably take all four of them.” She moves around to the driver’s side of her truck. “Just make sure there’s no surveillance cameras around, and try not to leave too many marks.”
KT’s grinning as she slides into her truck, and I start down the alley. As soon as I recognize the three kids Piper’s with, I can’t help but image how pissed Xavier would be if he saw this situation.
When I’m fifty feet away, their gazes turn toward me.
Piper swings the e-cigarette behind her back. “Hey, Chloe.”
She’s clearly the only one in the group concerned with an adult spotting them out and about town during school hours.
The boys are Smith Gunderson and Dale Hawthorne. Smith is eighteen and a second-time senior, just released from juvie where he was in jail for grand theft. Dale is the same age and has been in trouble for vandalism, shoplifting, and weed. Both boys are in danger of having their tongues fall out of their mouths as they look me up and down.
The girl is Willow Raven. She’s sixteen with tats and piercings and continues to pull on a vaping pen as I approach. She hasn’t been introduced to juvenile hall yet, but I see too much mirroring my troubled youth to think she’ll reach eighteen without an intimate introduction to the system.
Piper, on the other hand, is a wannabe, a groupie, the one who follows the others like a puppy, hoping to be taken into the fold. Any fold. Because it’s hard for a kid to feel like she doesn’t belong anywhere.
While Xavier might look at this as neighborhood crime in the making, all I see is a bunch of lost, neglected, hurting kids who didn’t get the attention, love, and discipline they needed when they were younger. And I’d know. I was one of them.
“Hey, guys,” I say to the group. “What’s going on here?”
Piper pulls in a breath to speak, but then just holds it, knowing she has no excuse that would work with me. She’s wearing way too much makeup and way too little skirt.
“We were just headed back to school.” Willow lazily pushes off the brick wall, pockets her vaping pen, and blows out the smoke, all while holding my gaze with defiance. “Come on, Piper.”
“I’ll take you,” I say. “You know, to make sure you get there all safe and sound.”
“Not me,” Willow says, then looks at Piper. “You coming or not?”
“She’s not,” I answer for Piper, tempering my compassion with a little steel. I can thank Bodhi for that. “I’ll be sure to catch your mom up on your extracurricular activities at her next yoga class.”
Willow huffs a laugh. “Go ahead. She couldn’t give a shit. Piper, come on.”
Piper darts a look between us, obviously in a no-win situation.
“You’re making that walk alone,” I tell Willow again. “And I’d suggest you all leave before I give Officer Wilde a call about loitering truant teens.”
Xavier’s made a name for himself in town as a hard-ass. Those close to him know he’s more bluster than bully, but there’s no hiding his by-the-book sharp edges. Often, all he has to do is show up for trouble to end. As expected, mentioning his name is enough to have all the kids shoving off the wall and walking away.
Piper hands her vaping pen to Willow, but doesn’t follow. As soon as the others are out of earshot, Piper turns those big brown eyes on me. “You’re not going to tell Uncle Z, are you?”
“That’s a lousy position to put me in.”
“If I’d known you were here, I would have gone somewhere else.”
“You’re missing the point. You shouldn’t be anywhere other than school. You’re smarter than this. Better than this.”
She turns a little surly. “You don’t know how hard it is to fit in somewhere new.”
“The hell I don’t. Don’t presume to know what happened in someone’s past based on how they appear to you in the present.”
Piper presses her lips together and looks at the ground. “Sorry.”
She follows me to my car and slides into the passenger’s seat. Once I’m behind the wheel, I look at her before starting the car. “What kills me is that you have so much—a mother who loves you, a nice home, intelligence, beauty, sweetness, a shit-ton of material possessions, not to mention an uncle who gave up his job and his home to move here just to be with you. Yet all you can focus on is what you don’t have.”
She’s staring at the floorboard. “My mother is more interested in her boyfriends than me. And I didn’t ask Uncle Z to move.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate the sacrifice he’s made for you. Honor that sacrifice by staying on the right path. It’s not exactly difficult. All you have to do is stop the stupid stuff, like hanging with trouble. You’ve got the brains for a scholarship, Piper. You’ll be sorry if you piss that away.”
She doesn’t respond, so I start the car and head toward the high school. I’m thinking about all the things KT now worries about with Ben’s three daughters—teachers, grades, tutors, friends, health, happiness. And some things KT doesn’t have to worry about yet—kids having sex, girls getting pregnant, venereal disease, police records, and college.
Despite what Piper thinks, I do understand how she’s hurting. I also know lecturing her is the perfect way to get her to shut down.
“Just so you know,” I tell Piper, “you can’t smoke and expect Z not to smell it. Even if you wash your clothes, he’ll pick up on that scent.”
“Nuh-uh. It’s not tobacco. The smoke is lighter and smells different.”
I take a deep breath through my nose, collecting the bizarre chemical, fruity scent of the vape flavor. “Frozen lime drop?”
Her shoulders drop. “Oh, shit.”
I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing at her shock, but sober as I give Piper some advice. “Not only does Z know what teens are into, he’s got a nose like a bloodhound. If you think you’re going to get much past him, you’re being naïve. And I was into enough trouble as a kid to know right where you’re headed if you don’t change your choices.”
She’s skeptical. “What were you into?”
“All of it. Drinking, drugs, sex. I barely graduated. Wouldn’t have graduated by today’s standards. So when I give you advice, it’s from experience.”
I pull up to the high school and stop.
She looks at the school, then me. “I don’t suppose you’d write me a note.”
“It sounds like you’re asking me to forge your mother’s signature.” I reach out and move a strand of hair back into alignment and soften my voice. “Here you may only get detention for that, but in real life, you’d go to jail.”
“You care about me more than my mom does.”
“I know it may seem like that to you right now, but based on every mother I’ve ever known, I’m reasonably sure that’s not true. Your mom’s suffering too. She lost her husband, and now she’s raising you alone. You won’t be able to understand how hard that is on a person until you’re older. One of the first lessons I learned as a kid is that every choice has a consequence. Some are good, some are bad, but they’re all within your power to choose.”
Her sadness is palpable. I reach over, take her chin gently, and turn her gaze toward me again. “Piper, you are loved. So, so loved. Don’t ever doubt that.”
“Why aren’t you and Uncle Z dating?”
Ugh. I lower my hand but hold her gaze. “I had a bad breakup a while back, and I’m learning to be happy and fulfilled on my own. I don’t feel ready to date yet.”
“But you like him, don’t you?”
“Very much.”
“And I know he likes you. I mean, like, crazy-likes you.”
“Sweetie, Xavier likes a lot of women.”
“Not the way he likes you.”
Oh, the innocence of youth. I don’t like the jaded side of me that has emerged since I discovered Bodhi’s betrayal, but I’ve come a long way toward reclaiming my positive outlook.
“What are you doing for the summer?” I ask her.
She crosses her arms and scowls out the windshield. “My mom will probably try to stick me in some stupid summer camp so she can work and sleep around.”
“No, Piper. I don’t allow that kind of mean negativity around me.”
She chews on the inside of her lower lip and looks away, but I see the glimmer of tears in her dark eyes. The girl takes me straight back to myself when I was her age. She’s lonely as hell and angry about it. I know how much that hurts.