“What do you mean? I didn’t realize he got you another job.” I shake my head in confusion.
“SportsNews is making a documentary about this season, calling it ‘Victory after Scandal’ or some shit. It’s going to play on all the networks. Dad got me hired as a production assistant. But the call times were too early, I missed a bunch of shoots. They fired me after a week and a half.”
His flippant attitude about a paying job ruining his bullshit schedule has anger flitting through my veins. I have no idea what is wrong with him, how he got to this place. Sure, Sin has some shit, and we are the kids of rich parents, but his utter lack of responsibility boggles me.
And before I can try to pull him into a private room, sober him up, or at least talk to him out of the earshot of a hundred people, my brother is running for the backyard.
The pool is lit up blue and I can make out the steam coming off of it, meaning he’s got the heat jacked up to the highest level. There are others in the pool, and as Sinclair sprints, I assume to jump in, a herd of drunken morons follow him.
I’m scared he might break his neck with how absolutely wasted he is, so I follow at a speed walk.
Just before I near the edge of the pool, one of the girls who was running after him suddenly veers right toward me, bends over, and hurls the contents of her stomach at my feet. After which, my brother and his cronies promptly all cannonball into the pool, splashing water everywhere.
“Fuck this,” I grumble, trying to shake the puke from my shoe while wiping pool water from my face.
I haven’t even been here an hour and I can see how much I now loathe this scene. Once upon a time, I reveled in it. Hell, I’d be leading the naked charge into the pool. But I am over this; the nameless women, the hours lost in whiskey and vodka, the meaningless nights with even more meaningless people.
Now that I’ve touched her, had her to myself for an hour, even if it was in the worst of her tragedy, I want more. Specifically, with Hannah. I want all of her nights, all her meaningful mornings. I want to make a family with her, protect her, have her look at me the way I know I always look at her.
I chickened out the other night, but something stirred in me now. Checking my watch, I know it’s way too late to go over there.
But maybe, just maybe, her light would be on. Maybe I could … Jesus, throw rocks at it? Who am I, Romeo? Hell, I guess I am the very definition of star-crossed.
I shouldn’t do it, I should just let it rest until the morning when I’m not so keyed up by the argument with my brother or talking crazy about destiny and settling down.
That doesn’t stop me from getting in my truck, rolling the windows down, and heading for Hannah’s condo.
9
Hannah
The tree is scratching against my window again, depriving me of sleep and peace of mind.
Not that I really have either of those, though the sleep is coming a bit easier these days. With the exhaustion of working a little more than part-time and then coming home to play single mom full time, it’s led to some pass-out-as-my-head-hits-the-pillow nights.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I’ll get one of those tonight. I’m keyed up, for some reason, and that damn tree is making me sweat against the sheets. Rising from my bed, the first one I’ve occupied solo in a long time, I move to the window. With each passing day, I’m getting stronger, more brave. I can feel the chains that Shane had wound around me slowly unlocking themselves, from both my physical being and my mind. A month ago, I wouldn’t have been able to step foot out of bed in the dark … much like a scared child afraid of the monsters in the closet or the bogeyman under the bed.
Now I can walk to the window, my heart still pumping, but mostly confident I won’t find a lone figure standing on the sidewalk, casing the joint.
Part of the transformation comes from having my own time outside of the home for the first time in years. I’ve been working at Siesta for about a week, my shifts falling at different times or days so either Dahlia or I can cover the girl’s schedule. With Noelle in kindergarten this year, it’s a little bit easier. But then comes the homework, the drama of making new little friends, and all of her excited talking that she occupies us with until she finally passes out at bedtime. It’s amazing, and I love seeing her grow up, but school years just bring a whole other level of motherhood. And that’s one more thing I have to juggle with everything else going on in my life.
As for my own personal life? I finally have some adult, female conversation for once. It’s been years since I’ve gone on a girl’s night, much less a trip without my children. Honestly, it’s been years since I’ve actually had a friend. And not that the women at the salon are necessarily my friends, yet, but we do sit together during lunch breaks and gossip about frivolous things; reality TV, hair dyes they’re loving, dating problems and celebrity gossip. Thankfully, I haven’t been mentioned in the latter category, nor has anyone brought up my court cases or situation. Everyone who works at the salon is pretty friendly, with the exception of a few who seem to keep their distance from me.
But having a job, and an outlet for meaningless conversation, seems to be helping me more than I bargain for. Because as I stare out the window, I feel less like a mouse trapped and waiting for the lion to pounce, than I did just weeks ago. Now, I can feel myself on the offensive, daring someone to come in here and try something. Slowly, I’m becoming the lion, protecting my cubs and my den.
Then I spot it, the truck in a spot that I normally don’t see occupied. When you’re as paranoid as I am, you memorize your surroundings, hunting out anything that might be suspicious.
Except this truck isn’t unfamiliar. I’ve seen it dozens of times around Packton, or in the Piston’s stadium parking lot. That is Walker’s pickup, and what the heck is he doing here?
Unable to contain my curiosity, I sneak down the stairs, hoping my tiptoeing doesn’t wake Dahlia, who is asleep on the futon in the living room. It’s essentially become her bedroom, and I would feel horrible that she doesn’t have a proper space, but I need her so desperately to help with the girls that I can’t let it get to me.
Slipping on a pair of UGG boots and a fleece that’s hung by the front door, I walk out into the night.
As I near the pickup, I can make out a figure. When I get closer, I see it’s Walker asleep in his truck. Adrenaline, nervous flutters, and something close to admiration mix in my gut. What is he doing here?
Tapping on the window gently, I hope I don’t startle him, but I can’t just leave him sleeping outside my house. Plus, I’m too curious not to seek answers.
Sleepily, those denim-blue eyes open, blinking at me. His strong jaw clicks with a yawn, and he rolls his neck in a way that has my insides tensing before he fully focuses on me.
“Crap. I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” he says as he opens the driver’s side door.
The heat inside his truck pours out, warming my frigid bones. “Walker, what are you doing here?”
A blush creeps up his cheeks, and if it’s possible, makes him even more attractive. A man who is sheepish does something dangerous to my insides, because it means he’s not stomping around like some alpha, refusing to be vulnerable or embarrassed.
“Well … I, uh … wanted to just check in on you. But I don’t think you necessarily want me to do that, considering the last time I was here. So I thought I’d just check in. And I guess I was more tired than I thought, because I passed out. I swear, I’m not being a creep or anything.”
It’s kind of strange, how I don’t view this man as a threat whatsoever. I have a restraining order against a male I used to, and maybe still do, love. An order of protection so that he can’t come around me and do the very thing Walker is doing. That should make me skeptical of any man getting too close.
But for some reason, Walker sleeping outside my condo only gives me schoolgirl jitters, and doesn’t ring a single alarm bell in my brain.
“I didn’t think you were. But I am cautious
that you might be arrested for sleeping in your car.” I snort, the first true laugh I’ve had in weeks outside of with my girls.
“Wouldn’t that be something?” He raises an eyebrow. “Want to hop in for a minute?”
This feels like a scene out of a teenage movie, jumping into the passenger seat of a boy’s car late at night. But it’s not like I can invite him inside. For one, Dahlia is sleeping on the couch, just inches from the small galley kitchen. And I don’t even have any beer in the fridge to offer him. Also, I don’t want a man in our house, one my daughters might hear or tell their father about.
I probably should go back inside, but it’s warm in his truck and I can’t sleep and … I’ve been thinking about Walker since he left me standing on the sidewalk a couple weeks ago.
“Just for a minute.” I nod, hustling around to the other side as I hear him click open the locks.
I pull myself up, shivering as the cold retreats and the heat hits my frozen nose.
“What’re you doing up at this hour, might I ask?” Walker smiles, and it’s like one of those perfect dental commercials.
“Sleep isn’t really my friend these days. And you? You’re just slacking off and goofing around now that the season is over?” I tease him just the tiniest bit.
Walker leans his head back against the seat and stretches his arms above his head. The dark red long sleeve he has on inches up, revealing a strip of muscled stomach. I try to avert my eyes, but it’s proving difficult.
“That’s me, slacker extraordinaire.” He thrusts a thumb at his chest. “Nah, I was over at Sinclair’s house. He’s just … well, you know my brother. Kind of. Then I got tired of it and decided to drive around. Truth be told, I am bored now that the season is over.”
Shane used to go through the same thing, this restlessness between either the playoffs or championships ending and the next season, or the training for one, starting anew. Idly, I wonder what he’s doing now that he no longer has baseball in his life. Days ago, that would have caused me immense guilt. But now, it’s simply an afterthought.
“You could always become my nanny. Or wait, don’t they need a new waiter at the Mexican restaurant in town? We both know you need the money,” I joke.
Until making light of his privilege, I forgot that this isn’t just a man, one who saved me in my darkest hour. No, once upon a time, Walker and I were actually friends. We would mingle at parties, he would come over just to barbecue with Shane and I before we were married. We had some inside jokes, and then there was that one dinner, back before I had a wedding band on my finger.
My mind drifts back to Charlotte, the road trip where Shane had to shoot a campaign in the middle. The way my fingers had drifted to the middle of the table, how Walker’s had, too …
Immense guilt used to fill me when I thought about that night, but now I only feel the crackling of chemistry between our bodies in the cold.
“I am pretty good at memorization. Think I could be one of those waiters who doesn’t use a pad, and just nods when you tell them the laundry list? I always marvel at those people.” His face is lit by the dashboard light, and I turn on my side, laying my head against the seat.
“Being a mom is kind of like that, trying to juggle sixty-five things in your brain at once.” I chuckle, because it’s true.
“How are Noelle and Breanna?” Walker smiles.
He’s always been good to my girls whenever he sees them. Getting down on their level, asking them questions relevant to that of a child’s brain.
I nod, as if I’m convincing myself. “They’re good, I’m pretty sure. Noelle started kindergarten and lost a tooth.”
“Big year for her.” Walker seems genuinely impressed.
“And we’ve started potty training for Breanna. Which isn’t as easy as it was with Noelle, but I think she’s getting the hang of it.”
I don’t miss the way his long, lean body tenses. “We?”
Crap. He thinks I’m talking about Shane. “Oh, um, my sister. Dahlia? I think you might have met her once or twice. She’s staying with me, helping out.”
Relief washes over his face, and I find myself leaning fractionally closer. “That’s really great. Good that you have family to lean on.”
I notice he doesn’t mention me leaning on him, like he did the first time he visited. He also doesn’t bring up anything about the trial, divorce, or Shane. For that, I’m thankful. I’m actually so tired of talking about it, between my family’s questions and the lawyer’s calls.
“I started working again,” I say quietly, because I’m not used to talking about myself.
Walker’s blue eyes light up with happiness, and a bit of surprise. “You did? Where, in a salon?”
Genuine shock moves through my chest. He remembered. I don’t even know the last time I talked about my hairdressing career, maybe back before I had the girls? But he remembered what I did.
“Yeah, as an apprentice,” I start, and launch into all of the workplace drama, and how happy it’s making me.
Walker lets me talk about myself, something I rarely ever do, and follows along excitedly, asking follow-up questions and teasing me lightheartedly. It’s the best talk I’ve had in months, and I don’t even notice the hours passing. We’re in our own little bubble, just him and I hiding out from the world and the cold.
I’m not sure how long we stay out there talking, but it’s a while. By the time I climb back into bed, thankful that tomorrow is a weekend and I don’t have a shift, the first rays of morning light are peeking through the curtain.
I drift off to sleep dreaming about Walker and me, alone in the dim light of his truck, talking about everything and nothing at all.
10
Hannah
“If at any time you feel unsafe, you alert me and I will summon the court officer.”
The district attorney, Laurel Phillipson, nods at me, reaching out to take my hand. I know she’s practiced this move, to keep victims or plaintiffs calm, but it’s not really working on me.
I feel like I could jump out of my skin at any moment. It’s the first time I have to see Shane, in person with my own two eyes, since he was arrested.
This hearing, a pre-trial hearing, was supposed to be two weeks to thirty days after Shane’s arraignment, where he entered a not guilty plea, but his lawyers kept getting it pushed back. Laurel told me it was so they could try to poke holes in a possible defense and get the charges dismissed, and not only did that piss me off but it made Shane look worse in my eyes. Not that he had any further to sink, really.
And while we are here to offer a deal, one I agreed to after Laurel talked to me about how likely sentencing would be for Shane if we took it to a bench or jury trial, the district attorney warned me that my husband’s side would try to get the charges dismissed on some grounds. I have to steel my heart to this, try not to react to it.
Shane, and his lawyers, are going to walk in here and try to act like this never happened. Like the man I loved the most in my life hadn’t been beating me to a pulp for the last five years. That he hadn’t put me down emotionally, verbally, even sexually. The man couldn’t even own up to what he’d done, which is how I know he isn’t only not sorry, but he still doesn’t give two shakes to my well-being. How had I missed that, so long ago? Was I just so infatuated, and fell in love so quickly, that I ignored the monstrous traits inside him?
My lawyer, the ones my parents are helping to pay for, can’t do much to help me in here, since this is the criminal trial. But Karla, that’s her name, still took time out of her day to come down and sit in the audience. She wants to see how this hearing will play out, so we can base our civil and divorce case on what she hears today.
That’s right. Over the last week, with all of the talks with Laurel and some serious talks with Dahlia over bottles of wine after the girls fell asleep, I decided it was time. I gradually melted into the idea. It wasn’t an all-at-once, anger-filled decision. It has taken me nearly two months after our domestic
violence scandal went public to land on the decision that my marriage, my life before this came to light, isn’t something I want to continue living in.
Secretly, in a confession I’ll admit only to myself, I also can no longer visualize coming home to Shane. Crawling into bed with him. Talking as two people in love, or even in like, do. Not that we’d done that much in the last couple years. I’ve come to that conclusion after spending hours in Walker’s truck, becoming infatuated with the cadence of his voice, and the pattern of our conversation. I imagine a life where I can do that freely. Maybe not with him, but with any man. Down the road, if I chose to take the chance on love, it will be with someone who didn’t deny hurting me. Who never thought about hurting me in the first place. I want to be with someone who cherishes me, who can sit in comfortable silence and just hold me on a cold winter’s night.
Shane will never be that for me, not anymore. When I think of my husband, all I think of is fear and pain. As much as I still love him, against all better judgment, rationally I know I cannot go back. My girls deserve a better role model, a better home to grow into themselves as young women.
“We’re agreed on this? You know if he takes this, there is no going back? He will go to jail. That will be on his record.” Laurel is nodding like she’s talking to a toddler, and I probably look like one.
I imagine my eyes are wide as saucers and I’m quaking in my boots, but I try to remain calm.
Gulping, I nod. “I know the consequences.”
Laurel has proposed a plea deal to Shane’s lawyers, six months in jail, two years’ probation, and a fifty-two week batterer’s program. It’s nothing compared to how he has hurt me and what he’s taken from our life, but Laurel, and I, are skeptical he’ll even get a punishment if we go to trial. Since it’s his first offense—technically the first I’ve reported though he’s been doing this for years—and he is who he is, with all of his public adoration, the district attorney is confident he’ll get off with a slap on the wrist. If his lawyers want to avoid the spectacle of a trial, and their chances at losing, they might be keen to take the deal. If I know Shane, he’ll be cocky enough to take his chances, so I’m not letting an ounce of hope of ending this all right here today into my heart.
Stealing Home (Callahan Family Book 2) Page 6
