by Isabel Wroth
She must have decided that she was working the wrong angle, and tried another, going all tough. Wet kitten tough, and not nearly as cute. “Let go, or I’ll call security.” He snorted, stepping closer to her, towering over her and not in the least bit sorry to be putting that look of fear in her eyes. “Actually, that’s a great idea. You can then explain to them why you’ll be wearing handcuffs and getting arrested, for stealing my fucking mail. Did you know, that’s a federal offense? Which equals federal jail time? Minimum, eight years.” She froze, the façade slipping for just a minute, “W-what? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wouldn’t-“
He gave her arm a little shake, squeezing a little harder, just shy of bruising her muscles, but hard enough that she’d be feeling it for a few days. “Don’t. This hospital has digital security cameras. Which means it’s stored off site, online, where someone with skills can recover it. Also, you idiot, you signed the Federal Express slips in your own name, when my woman sent me packages. Slips that the company retains, and could be used in a court of law to send you away for much longer, than eight years. Especially when a jury hears that you intercepted and stole the letters of a paralyzed veteran. So I’ll ask you once, where are they? My letters to her, hers to me, those packages.”
Her bottom lip trembled, but to anyone in the hallway, it would just look like the two of us were having a quiet, intimate moment. In the back of his head, he had a moment to freak that somehow, if Nasa could get hold of the hospital security camera footage, so could Athena. And she’d see this, and assume that he had a thing on the side with Shirley. Fuck! He should have just told her. She’d have been here, kicking Shirley’s ass right alongside him. “At my house,” Shirley rasped meekly, flinching when he growled at her. “You read them?”
“Y-yes.” Fucking bitch!
“How many?”
“All of them. We could go get them, together. Now.”
“You are un-fucking-believable. You’re going to go home, alone, and by the time I’m done with my appointment, you better be right here with every single fucking letter. Every candle. If you’re not, the cops are getting every piece of evidence I have, right here in my pocket, and you’re going fucking down.”
“It was just mail. Stupid love letters,”
He was tempted to strangle the fucking life out of her, but settled for squeezing her wrist hard enough to grind the bones together and make her whimper. “They were not yours to read. But since you did, you know that it wasn’t just mail. Wasn’t just love letters. Someone she loved, died. She needed me, and because you’re a crazy, stupid bitch, I wasn’t there, and she was alone. If you had a dick, I would beat the fuck out of you so bad, that you’d be the one in that hospital bed, living for the moment that letter from someone who loved you, came in the mail.” She shuddered, having curled in on herself in fear, “I b-burned most of the c-candles.” He snorted derisively, enjoying how she flinched. “Of course you did. My woman’s shit is phenomenal. You know she sells those things for fifteen bucks a piece?” Shirley shook her head quickly, “Way I see it, you owe her fifteen for every single one of those candles you burned. Seventy two candles, that’s one thousand and eighty dollars, minus whatever you haven’t burned. So I want our letters, what candles are left, and cash for the rest.”
“But I don’t-“
“Or you can go to federal prison. Your choice. I have an appointment to keep.”
Two hours later, he walked out of the doctor’s office relieved that the surgery wasn’t failing and he wasn’t going to go back to being paralyzed. That the numbness was normal, his nerves trying to adjust and regenerate or some shit. The doc was pleased as punch with his progress, the scans and x-rays were apparently within normal limits, and overall he was very happy. Which made him even happier. That lasted until he walked out of the appointment and saw Shirley waiting with a backpack over her shoulder and a big box under one arm, gnawing on her lip, looking nervously around the corridor, jumping when she saw him. “All the letters,” She handed over the backpack, “There’s um, twenty candles left. Cash in the envelope for the rest. I just wanted you to keep being nice to me, so I thought-“ He took the box, and the backpack and thumbed through the cash to count it. “Don’t give a single fuck, what you wanted.”
He left the hospital and didn’t look back, eager to get the fuck home so he could slap Athena’s ass pink for turning her phone off, and then apologize for not telling her about this trip, or about how Shirley was responsible for stealing their letters to one another.
EIGHTEEN
The only reason he knew that Athena had gotten her shit packed up completely and had gotten a flight to Austin, was because Ever called him to give him a heads up that Athena was pissed at him for abandoning Cruncher at her place. Athena still didn’t have her phone turned on, and every time she didn’t answer, the burning pain in his chest got worse. He got that she was pissed at him, truth, he’d fucked up, but not bad enough for her to go completely radio silent. He beat her to the airport in Austin by fifteen minutes. The look on her face when she saw him sitting on the baggage claim carousel? Priceless. “I bribed Ruckus to hold Cruncher hostage until tomorrow morning. We need to talk.”
She’d been surprised, wary, but now she was pissed. Her eyes narrowed, spitting furious purple sparks at him and he could practically see her hair catch fire. He was sick, because watching her cheeks turn pink and the way her temper lit her up, made his dick harder than granite. She ran her tongue underneath her lip and gripped the strap on her purse tighter, flinging the tail of her braid over her shoulder. So fuckin sexy.
It definitely was not sexy, the way she kept her silence and tried to hide from him how her eyes were also, brimming with tears while she moved around him to yank her bag from the belt. Turning her shoulders away from him when he made to take it from her, denying his touch, denying him the responsibility of taking care of her by carrying her duffle. His gut clenched, having anticipated the anger, but not the hurt. Anger could be calmed, hurt was a whole other ball game, and one he wasn’t equipped to play due to lack of practice.
The silence all the way back to the house was painful. He was torn with pulling over to have it out with her, or letting her take her time to get into it. He’d surprised her at the airport, and evidently that had been the wrong thing to do. Or maybe the very right thing, because if her attitude was anything to go by, she’d have gotten Cruncher and blown him the fuck off. Maybe permanently. Which was a little excessive to his way of thinking, but maybe he hadn’t realized just how much his stretching of the truth had hurt her. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all, she’d hung up on him right after hearing Shirley greet him like they were long lost lovers. Fuck. Fuck.
Half panicked, the next red light he hit, he reached back and pulled out the stack of letters he’d already wrapped up, his letters to her, and gently placed them on her lap. “The business I went up there on was half medical follow up, half to get those back. Nasa tracked down the package numbers and who delivered them to the hospital, questioned the guys and got a name. The nurse that took care of me while I didn’t have my legs, signed for the letters and boxes you sent me, and never put those in the mail.” The light turned green and he had to focus on the road, on not hitting any deer. “They’re open,” First words she’d spoken to him yet, and they were soft, a little hoarse. “She took it upon herself to read all of them.”
The next half hour, the silence was a little less tense, broken only by the sound of the road falling away under the tires, and the soft whisper of her fingertips tracing her name on the top envelop. He’d organized them by date, had hers in the backpack in the same order, and the envelope of cash to pay for the candles she’d made, especially for him. She didn’t say anything else, having slumped deeper into the seat and just seemed to have deflated. The anger gone, leaving only the hurt, and he fucking hated that. Fucking hated, that because he hadn’t had the balls to tell her about something that looking back, was nothing, she was hurti
He pulled into the driveway next to her Jeep and parked. He’d intended to lay it out there for her, tell her everything, but she beat him to it, staring at the stack of letters in her lap. “In the scheme of things, you not telling me about your doctor’s appointments is not a big deal. We’re not married, and you’re not obligated to tell me anything. I made the decision to move here, and I admit that like some stupid teenager with a crush, I based a lot of that choice on being with you. I asked Ever what it meant by the way, club business, and she explained in a way that left no misunderstandings. But it wasn’t club business. It was your business, slightly our business, and you making it sound like my feelings for you were a hindrance, or an inconvenience, then add on top of that a woman’s voice, eagerly telling you she was off in an hour and ready to go when you were?” She rolled her lips together, shook her head and put the packet of his letters on the console between them. “If you had slapped me and tried to throw me down a flight of stairs like the last asshole, I think that might have hurt less. Right now I kind of don’t care why you didn’t tell me. Right now I’m just angry, and I’m tired, and it hurts.”
Truth. Funny how it had the power to rip out your fucking guts. The only comparable sensation he could apply to what hearing her tell him she didn’t care, that she was angry, tired, and hurting, was feeling the shrapnel from that roadside bomb tearing into his body. “Athena,” She pushed out of the car and headed for the house, huddled into the big sweater she was wearing like she was freezing. She kicked the door mat aside and bent to get the key, letting herself in while the enormity of what his stupid, truly unnecessary lie had wrought. The snowball of shit it had turned into.
By the time he managed to haul his sorry ass out of the car and get into the house behind her, she’d already kicked her shoes off and left a trail of her things from the door to the bedroom. He locked them in and found her curled up in what he’d come to think of and would always think of, as their bed, her back to him, a miserable little bump under the covers. In the scheme of things, him not telling her about the appointment, that Nasa had tracked down their letters, it wasn’t a big deal. Which is what made his reaction to her finding out about it, all that much worse. He scrubbed his hand through his hair and kicked his boots off, climbing up beside her to sit with his back against the headboard. “I told you no, when you asked to visit me in the hospital, before the surgery, because I didn’t want you to see me like that. Weak. I thought you’d see me in that damn bed, or in a wheelchair, and remember me being weak, paralyzed, forever.”
He reached out, testing how deep she’d let him past the wall she’d put up, stroking his hand down the tail of her hair, twirling the little tuft at the end of her braid around and around his fingers. That she didn’t shove him away was enough to make him hope. “You being confined to a wheelchair, wouldn’t have changed a thing about how I feel. And that’s bullshit, because the surgery wasn’t a guarantee,” There it was, a little bit of fire coming back to her, and one of the hundred knots twisting up his guts, released to hear it. “No, it wasn’t a guarantee. It was just a chance that I could be that guy I was before,”
“That guy who figured he couldn’t be loved unless he was able to walk like a real boy?”
His heart skipped a beat, hearing her say the L word, well, sarcastically snark it. But it was better than the sad dejected tone. He’d take her pissed off rather than hurt, any day. “Something stupid like that, yeah.” She snorted, not unravelling from her little ball, or turning over to look at him. But she was listening, that was good, right? “I didn’t tell you about the appointment, because you’d have asked me why I needed one, and I’d have had to tell you I’d been feeling some weird, random numbness. I didn’t want you to worry, or freak out and make me eat more kale.” She stayed quiet, not responding when he’d tried to make a tiny little joke, because for real, her answer to everything was more kale. “And it wasn’t that your worry was a hindrance, or an inconvenience, I think it was just one of those macho asshole moments, where if I didn’t talk about how the numbness was freaking me out, it wouldn’t be real. I said that my reasons for not telling you were the move, and not wanting your worry, because that seemed easier to say than to tell you I was afraid and didn’t want you to know.”
She tucked her chin down, nuzzling into the pillow in a way that made him swallow thickly, hoping that she wasn’t crying. “And after you hung up on me, I stood there and had that epiphany. Realized I’d been a dumbass, because no lie, I hate that place. I hate how it smells, I hate the sounds, I hate how it made me feel to be back there. Saw some poor bastard in a wheelchair and my legs hurt from how tight I locked my knees to keep on my feet. Stood there staring at my phone and all I wanted was your hair in my face, so I could smell something other than death. You’d have been right there with me at the hospital, getting checked out, waiting to meet me when I came out of the MRI. I know that. I never once thought that what I’d said, how I said it, would hurt you so much and I’m so sorry, baby. I asked Shirley to meet me after my appointment, so I could rip her a new asshole and make threats without witnesses, not to fuck around with her. I love you, more than Cruncher does at breakfast time.”
And that’s what it took to make her explode.
She jackknifed up off the bed, grabbing her pillow on the way to slap him in the face with it. “You asshole!” She shrieked, and it was embarrassing, almost, how hard that made his dick. “You are god damn right I’d have been there with you! This whole time, you’ve been having random numbness, and you didn’t say anything, because you were afraid? Mother fucker, you got BLOWN UP! You weren’t walking for a year, and you think I would have judged you, thought you were weak, for being afraid that random numbness meant the surgery might not have worked? You think I’m that cruel? That shallow?”
She hit him again with the pillow, growled, threw it across the room and got up to stomp out of the bedroom in nothing but her tee and panties, that ass of hers bouncing with every pissed off step. “I am moving here. Moving here, to be with you, and you think that I wouldn’t understand, would think that you being fucking human, somehow equated to you losing your stupid fucking macho man status?”
“Athena,”
“I swear to fucking Christ, I would kick you in the balls until you were choking on them, but I don’t beat former cripples.”
He followed her into the kitchen and watched her yank open the fridge, tear out the giant bag of kale, slapping at him with it when he reached for her, and then stomped to the back door. She yanked open that door too, threw the kale in the trashcan and banged the lid down with a loud clang, slammed the door behind her hard enough to rattle the shade and glared at him with so much heat, his blood simmered. “Since my cooking is so displeasing, congratulations, the job is now alllllll yours.” He tried hard to keep from smiling, because that was surely not the way to calm her down, and she proved his suspicion correct when he lost control of his expression, and got the object closest to her hand thrown at his head. A book that made quite the bang when it hit the floor, missing him by a mile. A heavy fist pounded on the front door and he laughed, “Seems we might have woken up the neighbors, babe.”
“If it is, don’t think their untimely interruption will save you from a further ass chewing,”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
NINETEEN
It was not the neighbors. Surprisingly, it was a pair of uniform cops standing on his doorstep, one of them looking uncertain, the other all fired up and shit, with his hand way to close to his weapon. He assessed them both and pegged the nervous one as a rookie, and the other one, itching. Itching, for an excuse to draw his weapon. He kept himself in the doorway, just in case, every warning bell he had, clanging like a five alarm. “Evening, officers. Can I help you?” He drawled, wondering why the one with the wandering hand was trying so hard to look over his head and into the house. “We received a call to report to his residence. Some neighbors heard domestic disturbance, sir.” The nervous cop said, glancing at his partner with what looked like uncertainty. New partners maybe. “You mind if we come in, check things out for ourselves?” The itchy one asked, raking him over with glittering, hard, angry eyes. “Uh, yeah. I do mind.”
He did a quick look over his shoulder, not wanting to risk taking his eyes off the asshole cop for long, but the pallor of Athena’s face made him do a double take. “Why would you mind? Unless you’ve got something to hide,” The asshole cop tried to push his way inside, and he made sure to keep his hands plainly visible on either side of the door frame, noticing that the rookie had a camera attached to his vest. “Officer…Harding. That camera on? I hope so, because it seems like your partner here is trying to force his way into my residence without a warrant, and looks awfully eager to pull his weapon.” The asshole cop, with his blonde hair and frat boy good looks, stopped almost nose to nose with him, hand still on his gun. “We don’t need a warrant, the neighbors have reported a domestic disturbance, which gives us probable cause to enter.”
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