by Lauren Layne
But…this was Vincent. Doing the expected was not really his thing.
Vin nodded in the direction of Anthony who was currently locked in conversation with some of the other NYPD captains. “How long until you think he starts asking us to call him ‘Captain’ at family dinner.”
Luc snorted. “I think that’s already started. I asked him if he’d used the last of the milk this morning and he refused to answer me until I used his title.”
Anthony had finally gotten that damned promotion, and Luc couldn’t be happier for his big brother. In true Moretti fashion, they’d opted to skip all of the fancy banquet halls for the celebratory party and opted with the place they all felt most comfortable: the Darby Diner.
Although, the evening was emotional in another way too. In addition to celebrating Anthony’s promotion, they were also bidding farewell to Helen. The elderly waitress had told them last Sunday that she wanted to spend the rest of her days with her grandchildren in Houston, and the Morettis had insisted that she come to Anthony’s party…as a guest. It made for a bittersweet evening. The start of one person’s career. The end of another’s.
A petite, angel-faced blonde appeared between Luc and Vincent, linking arms with both of them and pretending to use their body weight to “swing” like a little kid.
Luc happily complied while Vincent jerked his arm away with an irritable growl. The pretty blonde blew Luc’s pissy brother a kiss, which he patently ignored.
Luc grinned, in spite of his bad mood.
Jill Henley was the darling of the NYPD. With her light blond hair, huge blue eyes, and heart-shaped face with matching dimples in each cheek, she had definitely hit the genetics jackpot. Her personality was equally compelling. She had the sort of friendly charm that had been known to coax even the roughest of suspects to start talking.
In other words, she was the perfect good cop, to Vin’s bad cop.
Which was damned convenient considering they were partners.
Jill ignored Vincent as she stood there, arms linked with Luc. “What’s up with your brother? Constipated again?”
Luc grinned down at her. “Which one?”
“Good point. Your big brothers must have left all the friendly genes in the womb for you to soak up.”
“Disgusting,” Vincent muttered.
Luc kind of agreed.
Jill’s eyes sought and found Anthony. “The captain’s dress uniform looks good on Anth. Really good.”
Vincent gave her a dark look. “You hitting on my brother?”
Jill batted her eyelashes. “You jealous?”
Vincent snarled, which Jill ignored. “Hey, did you guys meet Helen’s replacement?”
“Yeah,” Luc said distractedly. “Megan.”
“Maggie,” Jill corrected. “Poor thing dropped a pitcher of iced tea. Splattered all over Anth’s shoes. As you can imagine, he did that pissy, glaring thing, and she looked about ready to cry. Still, she’s cute, don’t you think?”
Luc searched the room until his eyes landed on the brunette woman who would be taking Helen’s place at the diner. She was a far cry from the hunched, motherly figure of her predecessor. The waitress looked to be around thirty, curvy in all the right places, with a wide friendly smile. Jill was right. She was cute, in the friendly, girl-next-door kind of way. Something that had appealed to him back before his tastes had idiotically shifted from soft and sweet to sharp and ambitious.
Maggie stopped to talk to Luc’s father, and Luc’s eyebrows lifted at the ease in which she drew his often-crusty father into laughing conversation. Impressive.
“Right?” Jill jabbed his side. “Cute.”
Luc shrugged.
“Drop it, Henley,” Vincent told Jill. “Bambino here no longer recognizes women whose names aren’t palindromes,” Vincent said.
Luc shot him the finger as Jill shifted her attention to Vincent. “What about you? Do you think she’s cute?”
Vincent merely glared at Jill and walked away.
Luc shook his head as he took a sip of his rapidly warming iced tea. “I don’t know how you two survive each other.”
“Right?” she said, her voice unperturbed. “I’m thinking we should totally have a TV show based on us. The dark, dickwad cop and his perfect, darling partner.”
Luc smiled. “The latter who is of course, unaware of her charm.”
“Naturally.”
“You have seen most male/female partner cop shows, right? You know how those generally end up.” Luc glanced down and wiggled his eyebrows.
Jill rolled her eyes. “Yeah, trust me. That’s not happening with your dearest brother.”
“No? How about with me?”
She arched an eyebrow, knowing he was joking. “Rumor has it you’re taken.”
Just like that, all the mirth, all the elation about his brother’s promotion, seeped out of him.
Ava. He hated that he knew exactly how many days it had been since he’d last seen her. Twelve.
Twelve of the shittiest days of his life.
Jill pointed across the diner to where his mom and sister stood talking to Nonna. “Does this have anything to do with why the women in your family aren’t speaking to you?”
“Oh, Nonna speaks to me,” Luc said. “This morning, in fact, I woke up to see her sitting on my bed where she sang the entire lyrics to ‘I Will Always Love You.’”
Jill glanced up at him. “Dolly Parton style or Whitney style?”
He gave her a look. “Really?”
She shrugged. “There’s a distinct difference. But I suppose that’s not the most important question, is it?”
He remained silent, but Jill didn’t take the back off hint.
“The more important question is how are you going to get them to start talking to you again,” she said, tapping a finger against her pouty mouth.
“They’ll get over it.” He took a sip of iced tea, crunching moodily on one of the last remaining ice cubes.
“Maybe. But will you?”
“Don’t, Jill.”
She ignored him. She might as well be his sister for all she listened to him. “Or, you can see that maybe they’re right. That maybe you’re punishing this Ava woman and yourself for nothing.”
“You are aware that a couple weeks from now, there’s going to be a three-hour special on my life, right?”
She shrugged. “Not Ava’s fault you leaped into the East River to save a Barbie.”
“I didn’t—”
“I know, I know, joking. But seriously, Luc…aren’t you being hypocritical? You can’t on one hand keep telling yourself that you’ve forgiven her, for what was, admittedly, a shitty move on her part, while also refusing to let her into your life.”
“Cops don’t make good husbands, Jill.”
She patted his arm as she eased away. “Now now…who said anything about husbands?”
Shit.
Jill grinned. “Aw, bambino. You’re worse off than I thought.”
“How’s my son worse off?”
Luc and Jill turned around to see Luc’s father standing behind him. Tony was all smiles for Jill, although his gaze never really left Luc.
“Hey, Big T,” Jill said, standing on her toes and waiting until Luc’s father leaned down so she could kiss his cheek. “I was just telling your son here that he’s being an idiot.”
“Something you typically reserve for my other son,” Tony said with a smile. “Not that I disagree. Vincent can be…difficult.”
“Yeah, okay,” Jill said. “We’re just going to pretend that’s not a massive understatement. But don’t think you can distract me from the fact that Luc let a very good woman walk away.”
Luc glared at her. “You’ve never even met Ava.”
“Oh, and whose fault is that?”
Luc’s jaw worked for several seconds as he glanced around the room, looking for someone, or something, on which to fix his gaze. But his eyes couldn’t seem to focus on anything. Because the one person he wanted to be looking
at was nowhere around. Because he hadn’t invited her. Because she didn’t belong.
“Jill, can we have a minute?” Tony murmured quietly.
“Sure,” Jill said. She grabbed Luc’s hand as she passed. Squeezed. He squeezed back.
Luc stood shoulder to shoulder with his father for several minutes in silence.
“Is she right?” Tony said finally. “About Ava? You let her walk away?”
Luc glanced at his father. “I’d have thought you’d be thrilled.”
His father turned to face him. “Why the hell would you think that?”
“Maybe the fact that you were trying to warn me off of her every time we talked? I thought you’d be elated that she’s out of the picture.”
His father held his gaze before looking away. “I think maybe I was wrong about that.”
Luc’s head jerked back in surprise. His father had always been a fair, if not sometimes stubborn, man, but admitting he was wrong had never been one of his strong points.
“How so?” Luc asked warily.
His father rubbed a hand over his face. “Well, I don’t know that this will translate until you have kids of your own, but when you’re a parent, you can get…crazy. And you can do things you wouldn’t normally, say things you shouldn’t…whatever it takes to protect your own.”
“I know, Dad,” Luc said huskily. “You did what you did about Mike and Shayna because you thought it was right.”
“I’m not talking about that,” Tony said. “I mean, yes, I’d do that all over again, although I wouldn’t have kept it a secret from you. But what I’m trying to say, Luca…being a cop’s important. It’s damned well defined me and this family for decades. But it’s not the most important thing.”
“Dad—”
“I take it for granted,” Tony said, his voice sad. “I have your mother. And you kids. And I forget…I forget that you need space to find yours.”
“Find my what?” Luc asked, even though he already knew the answer.
His father met his eyes. “Your heart. The one who makes you a better cop because she makes you a better man.”
Luc swallowed, and he stared blindly at the crowd. “I think I already found her.”
His father’s hand landed on his shoulder. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
There were flowers on the grave.
They looked less than a week old, which struck Luc as odd considering he knew Shayna’s parents only came on the anniversary of her death.
He didn’t blame them for it.
Jasmine Johnson had said that they didn’t like the reminder that their vibrant little girl lay still and buried.
They preferred to let her live alive, laughing in their memory.
Coming to the cemetery ripped their wound wide open again, Jasmine had said.
Luc knew the feeling. He hated it.
But he also needed it.
He’d been coming the first Friday of every month since the funeral, and each time he felt like he was discovering her tiny body all over again.
Curiously, not today though.
Today he felt…at peace.
There was sadness, certainly. It was impossible to look at a gravestone celebrating a life of only seven years without feeling a pinch of remorse.
But there was something different today. The sorrow was gentler, not quite so eager to choke him in a vise.
“Hey, sweetie,” he said, kneeling in front of Shayna’s grave and putting a hand on the cold stone as he always did. “Looks like you’ve got some pretty tulips here. I always get you roses. Do you like the tulips better?”
He set the bouquet he’d bought against the slowly dying tulips.
“I bet you like both, huh? They’re pink. Your mom told me it was your favorite color.”
Luc stared at the flowers for a long minute. “It seems like forever since I’ve last been here. I know it’s been a month, but…a lot’s happened.” Luc let out a rough laugh. “A lot.”
He’d long ago stopped feeling foolish talking to a gravestone, and a little girl who had never known him.
He kept talking anyway.
“Remember how I told you last time that I was kind of famous? Well, now I’m really famous. Like, national TV famous.”
His finger traced the S of her first name. “You’re a little bit famous too. I talked about you. How I couldn’t save you. How I wanted to more than anything.”
He inhaled.
“Your brother blames me, you know. That’s probably fair. I blamed me for a long time too.” Luc clasped his hands in front of him as he stared at the ground. “But you know what, Shayna? The only person to blame is the guy behind bars. And I helped put him there so he can’t hurt anyone else, okay, honey?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I did my best. You know that, don’t you? I did my best, I swear to God.”
His voice clogged. It always did when he was here.
“She knows.”
Luc’s head snapped around, his eyes taking in the rubber flip-flops through the haze of unshed tears, his gaze moving up long, slim legs to short-shorts, a fitted yellow tank, and…
Ava.
Slowly, he stood, his eyes looking beyond the casual clothes, beyond the fresh-faced girl-next-door look, with her ponytail and flip-flops.
His brain registered that this was a far cry from the polished, plastic Ava Sims she’d chased so desperately, but his heart registered that she was happy.
Which made him happy.
Luc didn’t even try to fight the realization that swept over him.
There was no fanfare, no blaring horn. Just quiet understanding and acceptance that his family was right.
He was so far gone over this woman it wasn’t even funny.
“Shayna knows you did your best,” Ava said again, her voice quiet but not condescending.
Luc’s eyes dropped to the flowers in her hands. Tulips.
“You brought the flowers,” he said.
“Last week,” she said, her eyes going beyond him to the small gravestone. “I wondered who the other were from. I assumed her parents.”
Luc shook his head, moving aside slightly so she could move past him, setting her flowers next to his. “They…it’s too hard. They carry her with them, always, but being here, her final resting place…I think it’s too raw for them.”
“But you come.” She laid her tulips next to his roses, then stood so they were standing shoulder to shoulder.
“As do you.” There was an unspoken question in his words. Why? You didn’t even know her.
“I probably don’t belong here.” Her voice wobbled. “I used those people’s pain for my own gain, Luc. And I hate myself for it. But even that’s not why I’m here. It’s just, a little girl died, you know? I couldn’t not come.”
He knew the feeling.
They were silent for a long while, lost in thoughts in a quiet, deserted cemetery in the Bronx.
“Mike was cremated,” Luc said eventually, breaking the silence.
Ava nodded.
“Bev scattered his ashes a ways off the coast of Maine. They used to go there every summer. It was his favorite place.”
At first he thought he imagined it. The soft brush of her pinkie against his. He glanced down to see her little finger reach for his, just briefly. In solidarity. In kindness.
Because despite what she thought about herself, Ava Sims was a kind woman. A good woman.
He saw his own pinkie brush back. Followed by his ring finger, then his third, until they were standing palm to palm, not quite holding hands, but almost. It was more intimate than holding hands, somehow. More intimate even than kissing.
“I’ve missed you,” he heard himself say.
Her hand twitched as her breath quickened a little, then it slowed, as though she forced herself not to react.
She said nothing.
Why should she? He’d all but planted his boot on her ass and kicke
d her out the door when she’d told him that she loved him.
Luc closed his eyes.
This woman loved him. And he’d thrown it back at her like a fucking grenade.
And not because he didn’t love her back.
He did.
Desperately.
It was strange, how one could spend months…years…believing one thing with every fiber of one’s being, only to have your entire paradigm changed in a moment.
This was that moment.
Luc was still more aware than ever that this could be his grave that Ava would one day be bringing flowers to. Although hopefully not pink tulips.
But on the other hand…
He loved her. He loved her too much to let her go.
“Sims.”
Her fingers flinched as though she wanted to jerk her hand away, but his fingers grasped at hers, clenching them, maybe just a little bit desperately. Okay, a lot desperately.
He pulled her around to face him. “Is it creepy that I’m about to do this in a cemetery?”
Ava licked her lips. “Do what?”
Luc swallowed and reached slowly for her other hand. “Not so long ago, the two of us were on the same page about relationships. They weren’t for us.”
“Right.” The word was bland, calm, betraying nothing.
“That night, at my house…you…” Luc cleared his throat. In all of his family’s constant interfering over the past couple of weeks, how had nobody told him how hard this was going to be?
“That night at my house,” he continued, “you made it seem, like maybe…maybe you’d changed your mind about wanting a relationship.”
Ava gave a soft, sad laugh. “I wasn’t looking for a diamond ring and babies, Luc.”
Luc lifted his chin to meet her eyes. “What if I told you I was?”
She blinked but said nothing, and Luc’s hands squeezed on hers, nervous as hell as he moved even closer.
“Look, Sims, I’m not proposing. I don’t want to freak you out, and I know you’re probably having second thoughts about wanting anything to do with me after the way I let you leave that day, but Sims…Sims…letting you leave was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. Pushing you away because of what happened to Mike, well that was the most cowardly thing I’ve ever done.”
God he was bad at this.
