by Emilia Finn
“You’d snitch me out that easily?” he asks with a smile in his voice. “Seriously? I thought this town had a strict no-snitch policy?”
“You had your chance,” I rasp out. “You left, and you forgot about me.”
“No, I–”
I stop and frown when William’s breath comes out on a pained groan. “What are you doing?”
“Walking,” he answers quickly. “What are you doing?”
“Lying in bed, speaking to a suspected felon.”
He snorts and tries less to hide the way his breath works harder. “You’re such a good girl, Olivia. It must suck to always follow the rules the way you do.”
“Rules are important for a civilized world. Without them, chaos.”
“But chaos is when the fun stuff happens.”
“William…”
“Chaos is when you accidentally find a spring in the middle of the woods. Or a waterfall that you can stand under in the summer. Chaos is chasing your girl into the lake, watching her ass bounce while she runs, and then fucking her just as soon as you catch her at the end of the dock.”
“William—”
“Chaos is a criminal having feelings for a cop’s daughter. So that criminal does everything in his power to make it okay. He knows she would struggle to break the rules, so he smooths the way and opens doors that she can step through… soon.”
“Brenten wanted me to chat you up,” I admit on an explosive breath. Like tearing off a Band-Aid. “He thinks you have something to do with the Ripley stuff, which was essentially proven when we saw you with Pryor at the club. If Brenten can get something on you, he can get Ripley. So…” I hesitate. “He suggested that I get friendly with you, get the answers, and then he would be fast-tracked back into a corner office.”
William’s tone hardens in an instant. “So you’re telling me the guy you screech about being committed to, wants you to fuck someone else, all so he can further his career?”
“I don’t screech,” I huff. “I casually mention where I’m supposed to be in life. And he didn’t say fuck. He said bat my lashes. But you don’t understand, this is bigger than you and me, William, and it’s bigger than me and Brenten. It’s bigger than a corner office, or Ripley, or Pryor, or silly relationships and sleeping with the wrong person.”
“I’m gonna disrespectfully disagree,” he counters on a growl. “This is about me and you, whose bed you sleep in, and you calling me the wrong guy.”
“William, it’s not—”
“There’s a wrong guy here, Olivia. But it ain’t me. Fuck!” his breath explodes out on a pained grunt. A second later, I shoot up in bed at the sound of a body hitting the ground on his end.
“William?”
“Fuck!” he groans in pain. “Goddammit.”
“What’s going on? What are you doing?”
“I’m having a nap,” he grunts, and breathes the way I do when I’ve slammed my toe against the coffee table. “I just…” He pants through pain and sends my stomach roiling. “I need a second.”
“Where are you?”
“Dunno,” he grits out. “Somewhere in the dark. Are there bears in these woods?”
“The woods?” I toss my blankets aside and sprint across my room to get my jeans. “Yes, and why are you in the woods?”
“Walkin’,” he huffs. “Yes, there are bears?”
“Only the smaller kind. I’m gonna come get you. Where are you?”
“There are trees,” he murmurs. “Lots and lots of trees.”
“William!”
“Tree trunks,” he continues. “Leaves.”
“I’m gonna kick your ass.”
“A spring.”
“The spring?” My mind races back a bunch of years to my brother and Evie talking about a spring. No one else has found it, though it’s not from a lack of trying. “You found the spring?”
“Well,” he chuckles. “It found me. I kinda just fell for a little while, busted a few bones, landed by the water, and almost drowned.”
“You fell in?” I screech. I clutch the phone between my ear and shoulder, and work on buttoning my pants. “Are you all wet? You’re lucky it’s not winter!”
“I didn’t fall in,” he concedes on a chuckle. “I fell beside it. But my hand got wet.”
“So you didn’t nearly drown!” I slow my movements, though I still make my way out of my room and go in search of sneakers. “I’m coming to get you, but you have to tell me where the spring is.”
“I was on the road not so far from the fighters’ estate.”
“The Rollers? Okay.”
“Twenty minutes out…” Then he thinks. “Actually, maybe fifteen. Maybe you should just drive around until you see a dude on the road. Try not to hit me. That shit fuckin’ stings.”
“You got hit by a car?” I jam my feet into my sneakers, sprint through my kitchen, and snag keys on the way out the door. “How messed up are you?”
He makes an ‘I dunno’ sound in the back of his throat. “I’m not dead… but then again,” he adds. “I’m talking to you. So maybe I am, maybe this is Heaven.”
“You’re alive,” I snap. “If this was Heaven, I would be nicer. I’m heading downstairs now. You’re walking, right?”
“Yeah. It’s more of a skip-hop, but I’m moving.”
“Skip-hop your stupid ass to the road, and wait for me.”
“And if the bears get to me before you?”
“Then it was fate and out of my hands.”
“Cold,” he laughs. “Damn, Conner. You’re like ice.”
It takes half an hour, several laps along a dark road, and a single lap past police cruisers that I try my hardest not to think about before I pass a bend in the tree-lined road and find a man sitting on a fallen log. He’s like a gargoyle watching over a place of worship, the way his head is down, his shoulders bowed. All we’re missing is the gloomy rain and lightning.
I pull up twenty yards from where he sits, park the car, and slide out to the sound of… well, perfect silence. No bugs, no breeze, no rain or oncoming cars.
And thankfully, no bears.
Meandering forward, I slide my keys into my back pocket and try to take stock of the broad man who looks a little worse for wear. “Is there a reason you’re wearing a ski cap?”
“Cold ears.” He brushes the cap off and tucks it up behind the log he’s resting on. “It’s dark out, how is that the first thing you notice about me?”
I come closer and crouch down between his legs once I’m right in front of him. “It wasn’t the first thing I noticed.” I rest my hands on his thighs and look up to catch his blue eyes. “I noticed your shoulders first, then the fact you seem a little sad. I noticed your torn jeans, and the dirt on your jaw.” I reach up and try to smudge the mess away. “But then I noticed the ski cap and figured it will be exhibit A when we go to court over this.”
“I don’t see a ski cap.” He looks around with a playful smirk. “No clue what you’re talking about.”
“Mmhm.” I look down at his knee, and grimace at the nasty gash along the side. “What did you cut this on?”
“Bear?” He grins and grabs my hands to indicate for me to stand. When I’m tall again, he uses me to pull himself up. “I won’t make you carry all of my weight.”
And yet, I groan under the pressure when he pulls himself up. He buries his face in my hair once he’s steady, and laughs when I jab my elbow into his ribs to get him off.
“If you walked through the forest on your own, then you can walk to my car on your own.”
“I know.” He throws an arm over my shoulders and pulls me in close anyway. “But I really wanna lean on you a sec.”
We start off in the direction of the car, but on every second step, William hisses and makes a genuine attempt to cover his grunt of pain.
“You have to get your knee seen to at the hospital.” I have to use all of my strength not to fold under his weight each time we step. “Your injury isn’t clean, an
d the gash is crooked and gross.”
“I think you’re pretty, too.”
I roll my eyes and look to the twinkling stars in the sky. “You can’t let this go and pretend it won’t turn infectious.”
“You could fix it,” he taunts. “Peroxide and some sticky tape never hurt anybody.”
“Sure, I’ll try that first. Then I’ll tear the tape off and wax your leg hairs while I’m going. Then I’ll take you to the hospital like I originally suggested, you stupid ass.”
“I’m not the wrong guy.”
He changes everything, and presses a kiss to the top of my head.
“I know it looks that way right now, and I know it all seems wrong because of the whole law-breaking stuff, but like I said, I’ve been opening the right doors for us. You just have to be patient.” He rumbles as we step from forest floor and onto the road by my car. “And you gotta shake Pierce off. He’s a pussy. And he proved his worth when he figured you could flirt his way to a better job.”
“I don’t love him,” I admit on a whisper as we stop by the side of my car.
When Will leans on the roof with a groan, I open his door and step out of the way so he can squish his way in. But when I try to turn away to go to my side, William grabs my hand and yanks me down until my knee smacks the door frame and my breath races out.
“Ow. What are you—”
“Why are you with him?” He leans closer, closer in the darkness, until his breath flutters against my lips. “Why, Olivia?”
“It’s the way it has to be, but—”
“But you’re so full of passion,” he growls. “Fire, and attitude, and opinions, and snark. You can beat a guy up even if he’s twice your size, and you have this way of cutting me down and making it sound sweet. I just don’t understand why you’re settling for that idiot.”
“I already told you,” I whisper and try to look away. I can’t let him see the shame I feel. The disgust. “It’s bigger than me and you. It’s bigger than any of us, so I have to—”
“Do you sleep with him?” It’s like he’s manifested pain into a growing, living sound. “Do you go to bed with him, Olivia?”
“Would it upset you if I did?”
“Yes,” he answers immediately. “But,” he adds after a moment, “not entirely for the reasons you think.”
I frown and tilt my head. “I don’t understand.”
“I mean…” He looks down at our joined hands; he’s shy, when I had no clue he was capable of that. “I would be fucking furious about you sleeping with that guy when I’m already certain I’m in love with you.”
My gaze snaps back up. “What?”
“But more than that,” he continues on, “it would gut me to find out you’re sleeping with him when you don’t love him. It would mean you’re giving yourself to someone you don’t want. And that kind of thing eats away at your soul from the very first time. After that, it’s a type of erosion on your very core. And I don’t want this – whatever this thing you have going with him – to hurt your soul.”
He leans forward a little and presses his lips to mine. “When you let go of him, I want you to come to me whole. I don’t want him or anyone else to have a piece of you, especially when you didn’t mean to hand that piece over in the first place.”
“You seem so sure,” I murmur, “so certain that I’ll come to you, and you’ll get your own way.”
He scoffs and presses another kiss to my lips. “We already knew it was heading here. We’ve known for years. I’ve had you, Olivia. And I know you lay awake thinking about me. You come to me at two in the damn morning, in the middle of nowhere, and you hold my hand, even when you don’t have to. You worry about me, despite the fact I’m bigger, tougher, and I’m not going to cry over a busted knee.”
“You’re not tougher.” I look back down to our hands and sniffle. “Bigger, yes, but that doesn’t automatically make you tougher.”
He snorts. “You’re dating some other idiot, but you don’t like him. Which means it’s some kind of duty thing, and for some reason, you feel obligated to do this. Fine. I don’t like it, but I can accept it. The whole town might believe you’re dating him, but it’s me you look for when we’re in the same room, it’s me your eyes go to, even in a crowded club.”
“William, I—”
“Hundreds of people inside that club that night, Olivia, and you had no clue I’d be there, and yet, the second you walked in, you found me.”
“And then you kissed me.”
“I waited years for it.” He pulls me closer and nibbles on my lips. “I love kissing you. You have such pouty lips, so plump and red, even without lipstick.”
“I feel duty-bound to tell you to stop kissing me, because I—”
“Have a boyfriend,” he chuckles. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. But you don’t really, do you?” He searches my eyes for the truth. “Do you?”
I shake my head, but this has been a plan that spans months. I don’t have the right to screw it all up now, all because I fell in love with a criminal.
“Take me home, Olivia. Please.”
“Hospital first,” I murmur. “We need to get your knee looked at.”
Three hours in the emergency room – which is actually pretty decent, when considering typical ER waiting times – twenty-seven stitches along the outside of William’s knee, and stretched ligaments that we can do nothing about but rest and wait to heal, we walk out together and pretend that the nurse who triaged us isn’t essentially sister to the cops.
I was raised to know her as Aunt Kari, and I went to her wedding when she married the EMT. And who stood at the top of the aisle that day, wearing fancy black suits and bad attitudes because they claimed the ties were too tight?
Alex Turner, chief of police, and Oz Franks, Alex’s trusty sidekick and my stepfather.
Which means Kari will have a decision to make once the sun comes up: adhere to patient confidentiality, or snitch on her friend’s daughter for being at the ER with the ‘wrong guy’.
William and I walk out of the hospital at close to five in the morning, and because it’s that time of the year, the sun is already teasing the horizon and readying to rise over the mountains.
“Come to my place?” He leans against me as we walk in the shifting darkness.
This is the best part of day, when the sky is black, but not pitch, when the birds are beginning to wake, so their song plays uninterrupted by the rest of the world. Bugs chirp, but it’s not a deafening screech yet, rather a soft lullaby on the cool air. The soft tang of William’s sweat tickles my nose, but it’s not an unpleasant smell. It’s mostly the smell of man, and hugs, and a prelude to sex, though I doubt we’ll be having any of that anytime soon.
“Olivia?”
“Sure. I don’t have to be anywhere for a few hours yet. Are you tired?”
He grunts in the back of his throat and leads me toward my car. “To the bone. Do you sleep naked?”
I look up and narrow my eyes. “What?”
“Because I do,” he continues. “Completely naked. Clothes are forbidden in my bed.”
“William…”
“I’d really like for you to strip down to your skin.”
“William!”
“Then we can slide into bed together, skin on skin, and snuggle the fuck outta this sleep.” He buries his nose against my throat just as soon as we reach my car, and inhaling until goosebumps race to my toes, his hands circle my waist and hold on. “Please, let’s snuggle? I don’t want you to leave, but I’m not up to fucking right this second. Which leaves us with—”
“Snuggling.” I sigh. “Sure, we can snuggle. But I have to set an alarm, and if my phone goes off a billion times and wakes us, just remember you asked for this.”
“Turn your phone to silent.” He groans and slides into the passenger seat of my car just as soon as I open the door. “Lock ‘em all out for a few hours.”
I bark out of loud laugh and slam the door closed. Moving a
round to the driver’s side, I slide in, and laugh again when he looks at me expectantly. “What?”
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because I don’t turn my phone to silent and lock them out. Ever. That would be horrible and unnecessary.”
“Not even for one day? Seriously?”
“And if your sister did that to you?” I switch the car engine on and pull out of our parking space. “If she was having a tough time, and hanging around a guy you didn’t approve of, would you be okay if she locked you out for a day?”
“No.” He grunts and turns to study the road. “I’d track her down, kill him for encouraging her to hide, then I’d shout at her till she said sorry, and we hugged it out.”
“That’s what I thought,” I snicker and make my way toward his apartment complex.
It’s not far; from the hospital, or from my place. Pulling into the parking lot not much different than mine, I switch the engine off and sit staring up at the brick building for a moment.
“I won’t block my family out, William. Because I love them very much. I respect them. And even if they annoy me, I don’t make them worry for no reason at all. So when they call in an hour, I’m going to talk to them. When Ben calls at six, and Mom calls at seven, then when Daddy calls at eight, nine, and ten, and so on until I drag my ass outta bed and just go to work like I’m supposed to…”
“So we’re not really getting sleep today?”
“No.” I unsnap my belt and climb out of the car. I’m not hurt, I’m not even exceptionally tired from the gym. But my body is tired, my muscles lethargic from zero sleep.
I close the car door quietly in an effort not to wake William’s neighbors, and moving around to his side, I take his hand and plant my feet while he holds on and tries to lever his way out of the too-small car.
