by Mandy Rosko
Maybe that was too strong a word, but this wasn’t the lively, flirty, fun girl he knew from all those years ago.
How much of her he even knew was debatable. How much of that attitude and bravery had been her real personality? And how much of it had just been a front she’d put on to defend herself against all the dangerous people she’d been surrounded by was anyone’s guess.
Even if it had been her actual personality, that was almost ten years ago. She’d been a girl back then, still nineteen. Her personality could have changed. People changed all the time just from the passing of time. Alice had bigger reasons to change. The sense of invincibility young people had when they were doing dangerous shit could have left her. Hell, he wasn’t kidding himself; it had left her, and that was a good thing.
Okay, so if it wasn’t that, then the years of being on the run could’ve gotten to her. Her life had been on hold ever since she’d been forced into taking on her father’s debts.
Putting Bobby away, along with the men he’d been trying to impress, was supposed to end that. When Jake let her go instead of arresting her, when he’d vouched for her during his hours and hours of questioning and interviewing, it was also supposed to end that.
And yet, there they were.
He didn’t like seeing her so sad.
Jake barely realized he’d stopped talking, that the laughter that had started up when he’d been telling his stories had died down. When he blinked out of it, turned away from Alice, and looked back at his new friends, with the exception of Rickman, everyone smiled some knowing smile at him.
Fuck.
Rickman cleared his throat and reached for his wallet. “I think we’re done with breakfast,” he said, tossing some bills onto the table. His other officers did the same as they got up from their chairs.
Jake reached for his own wallet as he got to his feet, but Rickman shook his head. “You’re both on me. You’re still my guests in this town.”
“Thanks. Anything fun to do around here?”
Rickman smiled. “Lots, but most of it’s seasonal. You should stick around for Halloween. That’s gonna be something.”
Halloween? Maybe they had something geared toward the shifters.
“We’ve got some things for the ladies, though,” said Officer…Jake couldn’t remember his name. “There’s Mora’s Massage. My wife likes it there, and then Carter’s Books and Gifts. We’ve got fishing, too.”
“Sounds great,” Jake said, and he looked to Alice, knowing she wasn’t much of a fisher. “What do you say?”
Good girl that she was, she forced a smile, not wanting to insult their hosts. “All those sound nice.”
*****
Jake wanted to take her to the bookstore first. He wasn’t sure why, but he wanted to buy her something. Bobby and his goons had destroyed a lot of what she’d left in her room back at the inn, and for some reason, walking with her like this, even knowing there was a cop car slowly following twenty feet behind them, it made him feel like he was on the first date he’d had in years.
“Pick out whatever you want. Within reason,” he added, smiling. “On me.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to,” Jake said, but he didn’t want to ruin it by making it all uncomfortable. “Seriously, I need to pick up some stuff here anyway, maps of the area, and I don’t think I ever gave you a proper thank you for, you know, saving my life and everything.”
He couldn’t believe how much of a hard time he had just getting those words out. His entire body felt warmer. He was still wearing his leather jacket, but it wasn’t like it was hot out. Fall was coming, the leaves were yellowing, and it was a cool morning, even for being late summer.
He expected some push back for that, for Alice to fight him on it. She didn’t.
“Okay,” she said.
The last time she’d sounded so shy to him was back when he first realized she was starting to like him, back when he was still undercover, and back when he knew how much of a problem it would be if he acted on the feelings he had growing inside of him, too.
He pushed that thought out of his mind. He probably imagined it.
The bookstore was a nice, cozy sort of place. Just the kind of place he imagined a small town to have.
They had enough maps to make him happy, along with books on the local wildlife he and Alice would need to watch out for if they shifted again.
He especially wanted to find out what the predators were for squirrels around the area. In the city, the most she had to watch out for were dogs and cats. Out here, there were snakes, hawks, dogs…all sorts of animals he didn’t want to think about that wanted to get their claws and teeth into her.
He had himself a nice little stack by the time he walked up to the counter, and when he looked back and spotted Alice down an aisle, he saw she had something in her arms as well.
Good. He’d worried that she’d make him remind her to buy something.
When she looked up and saw that he was ready, those perfect, blue-grey eyes widened, and she hurried to the front.
At first, he thought she had a couple of books, but then he realized that the black spiral book was actually a sketchbook. Alice had picked up something called Drawing Secrets and a book on anatomy that had been in the discount bin, and a small case of pencils.
“Is this okay?” she asked, clearly seeing that he was staring at her selection. She pulled back, as though getting ready to put something away.
Jake blinked and shook his head. “No, I mean, yeah, yeah, it’s definitely fine.” He couldn’t help but smile. “I didn’t know you liked to draw.”
Now that he thought about it, she did have a couple of little doodles in her notebooks before. She’d also done the teenager thing from time to time and put some small temporary tattoos on her hands and wrists with blue pens.
And she was blushing and looking away from him again. “I’m not very good. I still want to learn. Figured I should get some skills if I’m ever going to get a job doing, you know, anything else.”
Alice glanced over at the cashier waiting patiently for them to make their decisions, clearly not wanting to say too much about her old life.
Jake just smiled at her. “Yeah, that makes sense,” he said, and already he was thinking about all the schools she could attend, all the places that would be able to teach her everything she wanted to know about art, if that’s what she wanted.
Except for the big fat reminder that she couldn’t go to any of those places, not so long as she was on the run and had no money.
He’d need to help her with that, too.
Jake rang their purchases up, using his debit card, since Bobby knew they were here anyway. At least until they tried to fake that they were leaving. He still needed to make a proper decision on what they were going to do on that front.
Pretend to leave, or just stay and bank on the fact that Bobby wouldn’t risk getting thrown back in prison for screwing around on his parole officer too much?
And that was assuming the man wasn’t already in Bobby’s pocket.
So he knew something else about Alice now. He knew that she liked to draw and doodle, and that she had dreams of being a well-trained artist one day. He also knew that her smile when she was insanely happy about something was just as beautiful as it had always been. That was something he knew about her now.
They left the store with their purchases in hand, making their way to Mora’s Massage. Jake wasn’t too sure about this place. He’d never gotten a massage before, and his mind was instantly in the gutter about the possible services that could be offered from such a place.
It seemed professional enough when they walked in, and the woman in charge seemed more than happy to list her services, as well as show off her collection of scented oils.
It was only a little awkward when she mistook them for a couple. Thankfully, Alice wasn’t the type of woman who was overly interested in a massage. They browsed the oils a little while longer just to
be polite, but then quickly left.
“I don’t think I want to lie down on my front with my back exposed and not be able to see who’s coming through the door,” she said.
Jake could understand that perfectly. “I once dated a woman who convinced me to get a facial with her.”
“What?” Alice had that sparkly look in her eyes as she smiled.
“Don’t laugh. She said a lot of men do it,” Jake said.
“So that’s why you have such baby-soft skin beneath that scruffy beard.”
She hadn’t touched his face in years, so how could she know? Unless she was just basing that on what his skin looked like.
Mentioning that seemed like it would be giving away way too much, so he didn’t mention it at all.
“Anyway, I never got it done,” he said.
“What? Why not?”
Jake smirked. “Wanted the ammo to make fun of me with, did you?”
“Of course,” she replied, but her smile had melted away. “Was it because you would’ve had to shut your eyes?”
“Yeah,” Jake admitted, clenching his jaw.
“I watched them do her, and having hands touching my face and throat, and then having to close my eyes for fifteen or twenty minutes while they put that goop on and let it dry…” He shook his head, barely suppressing a shiver. “No way. There was no way I was letting anyone do that.”
He’d had a paranoid fear that any one of the women working there could’ve been hired and planted by any number of the drug dealers he’d helped put away, and that they were just waiting for him to lower his guard for a second so they could slit his throat.
It was ridiculous, and even back then, he knew it was a stupid thing to be thinking about. After all, how could they have known that his then girlfriend would spontaneously want him to have a facial with her?
But he couldn’t exactly help himself. He’d seen people die in weird enough ways to be suspicious of pretty much everyone.
“Are you still…with her now?”
“Who? Oh, no, that was a long time ago,” Jake said. “It wasn’t a bad breakup, but it was hard. I just couldn’t do anything with her. She was too spontaneous and adventurous, and I was closed off for the longest time.”
“Oh.”
“It’s not a sad ending, though. We’re still friends on social media, and last I heard, she was getting married to some guy who was going to travel around the world and see all the sights for free or something. Don’t know how he was going to do that, but he seemed to make her happy enough.”
At least, that was the impression Jake got when he looked at the pictures she’d sent.
What he wasn’t about to tell Alice was that part of the reason for the breakup was because his ex had known Jake was hung up on someone else. She’d been patient enough with his downer moods. He’d told her what he used to do for a living, and to be fair, she was more than tolerant with him. Probably more than he deserved, and they’d hung onto that relationship for longer than what was probably healthy.
She’d been able to see through his depression, his inability to see the good in most people, and in the world in general, but she hadn’t been able to overlook the fact that Jake had still been looking for Alice.
He glanced to the side, noting the tiny frown that was pulling down Alice’s brows.
“Does it bug you? That I still talk with my ex?”
“What?” She looked up at him quickly. “God, no, of course not. There’s nothing between us anyway, so it would be weird if I was jealous.”
She laughed at that, but it sounded forced.
And all of a sudden, Jake was having a hard time breathing. He felt like he needed to defend himself, like he’d just cheated on her or something.
“I mean, she really saw me through some dark times. I guess I needed a free spirit around to remind me that everyone on the planet wasn’t a rotten asshole out to get ahead.”
He’d needed someone who had reminded him of Alice, though now that he’d found her, it was just to see that her light had become a little darker, too. He hoped she hadn’t fallen as low as he had.
Alice nodded. “Well, good. I…I thought about you sometimes,” she said.
“You did?” Interesting. Very interesting. Please, keep talking. Say more.
She nodded. “Yeah. I, ah, used to wonder about where you went after, well, after everything. I thought you were dead for a while.”
“What?” She couldn’t have shocked him more if she’d punched him in the gut.
“You did?”
She didn’t look at him when she nodded. “Yeah.”
Jake blew out a hard breath, and then he realized what happened and he groaned. “Motherfucker,” he said. He rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes until he saw bright squares. “I know what happened. Fuck. I’m sorry. I don’t know why it never occurred to me…”
Alice nodded. “That Jake the Snake had to die in order for Jake Christopher Redfield to go back to his normal life?”
He nodded. “Fuck me. That’s so messed up.”
Of course his drug dealing, thug persona had to die. The fact that Jake had been shot had only made things easier to fake. He couldn’t even figure out why he’d thought that Alice would’ve thought differently.
“How did you find out I was alive?” he asked.
He’d wondered why she hadn’t tried to even send him messages when he was in the hospital. He waited for them, thinking for sure that she would’ve found a way to get a letter, a card, or an email to him.
No letters came from names he didn’t know, and no cards came that didn’t have names or addresses attached to them. He knew all the people who sent him get well cards and even balloons. Nothing to make him think that Alice had sent him anything, or had found a way to visit when he’d slept. He’d requested the nurses leave the window open at night, knowing the large tree several feet away would help her glide into his room if she needed to.
Still nothing.
“I don’t know,” Alice said. "It was almost a year after you were gone, and then I started thinking about it. You were a cop. You told me you were a cop, so it wasn’t like I was making guesses about it,” she said. “And I started to think about all the movies I saw where the cop dies at the end, just to actually be alive. I’m not the best with computers, but enough weeks of Googling your name as I knew it, and I finally found an actual picture of you from the academy, and then I got your real name, and then I found out you were still alive.” The blooming color returned to her cheeks. “I couldn’t find out anything else. I tried to find out where you lived, where you worked, but I couldn’t get anything else. I even hired someone to help me, and he couldn’t get anything either.”
“The fact that you found anything at all is impressive.”
And sloppy on the part of the guys in charge of erasing his life.
“I thought about trying to contact you, but when I couldn’t find…” She shrugged. “I guess I just figured I would let it go. None of what happened really mattered anyway.”
“Hey, no, that’s not true.” Jake grabbed her by the arm, stopping her. He had no idea where they were. It seemed they’d just been walking aimlessly, and now there was grass and trees everywhere, and what looked like a school in the distance, but the cop car was still tailing them, so they were safe. She was still safe, and he needed to have this conversation with her.
Might as well have it when he didn’t have to worry about someone jumping out at them with a gun.
Or while in the shape of a giant dog.
Her eyes were so damned wide as Alice stared up at him. Her pink lips were parted, and Jake barely held back a groan, because it had been so long since he had her this close.
He was holding her, gripping her really tightly by the arms. He might even be bruising her, but all he could see was her mouth.
He leaned in and kissed her, taking advantage of her parted lips. Talking was overrated.
It took Alice’s brain a couple of lon
g seconds to catch up with what that burning sensation on her mouth was. The taste of Jake’s tongue in her mouth, which was exactly the same as she remembered it, thanks to the fact that he still drank his coffee the way he had nearly ten years ago—with lots of sugar—made her head swim.
Alice felt like she was eight feet under water. Everything was quiet. There were no noises, not even the sound of the wind or the police cruiser she knew was still not far away. Just them.
Just like in every romance novel, comic, manga, or movie she’d ever read or seen since they’d parted ways.
Yeah, she read manga. For artistic purposes, of course.
Alice wanted to lose herself in everything that was happening, but at the same time, she wanted to catalogue everything. Ten years ago, she’d lost herself in his kisses, in the way his hands touched her when he made love to her, and in the way his tongue had dipped into her belly button, and when she thought he’d died from the gunshot, a gunshot that should have been hers had he not jumped in the way, she’d wished more than anything that she had catalogued those feelings.
She’d wished that she kept better track of just how much his touches had made her burn up inside, because once he was out of her life, once she thought he was dead and gone forever, she’d wanted nothing more than to relive each and every one of those sensations.
She tried; she really did, but she was being swept away in it. Jake’s fingers on her cheek and chin gently pushed her head to tilt back, giving him even better access than he had before. She moaned and completely lost herself in the warm slide of his tongue inside her mouth.
It felt like he was tracing small letters in there as he licked her deep. He’d always been so damned good at this. No other man she’d kissed had ever felt like this. Alice thought she’d found one or two who could compare over the years, but now that she had Jake again, she knew there was no comparing this. Apples to oranges, or something like that. She couldn’t think properly at that moment.
When he pulled back from her, but still kept so close that their noses were almost touching and his hands were still on her face, it felt like she’d finally come up for air from that eight-foot deep pool she’d sunk into. Her entire body was warm, and it took her a second to realize what that horrible feeling was in her gut.
