Crash Lights and Sirens, Book 1

by Unknown

  Jesse doesn’t call. Sometime after two in the morning, she and Nick abandon their post and sack out on the crappy pullout, bone tired and tangled together. They clean the bathroom first, making sure all reminders are gone for when kids wake up in the morning to pee, then take turns with quickie showers. As Taryn closes her eyes on the bare mattress, she smells L’Oreal Kids and Nick.

  “Our mom doesn’t work anymore,” she tells the pitch-black living room. Now that she’s started confessing she’s finding it hard to stop, all of it burbling up like water from behind a dam. It’s addictive, the way Nick just takes it in stride. Taryn’s getting off on his nonreaction. “That’s why I was shady about it at dinner when you asked. She gets a government check ’cause the kids are so little still. But she hasn’t worked full-time in years.”

  Taryn feels his nod more than she sees it, her head pillowed on his broad, sturdy chest. If anyone had told her six hours ago that she was going to end this night cuddling with Nick on the pullout while her brothers and sister slept upstairs, she would have laughed them clear over the state line into New York. Still, she doesn’t hate how it feels. “So you and Jesse—” he starts.

  “Me and Jesse, yeah,” Taryn tells him. She dragged the comforter off her bed and brought it down here, this ridiculous purple plaid she’s been sleeping under since she was Caitlin’s age. It’s warm, at least, but that could be a function of being under it with somebody else. “We’re always behind though. Like. In a pretty big way.”

  Nick rubs up and down her spine, paying extra attention to the knob right at the base, fingers slipping down into the waist of her pajama pants. “Mortgage?” he asks.

  “Among other things.” It’s not particularly sexy or anything, the easy way he’s touching her. Taryn shivers into it anyway. “But the mortgage is the big one.” She gives him the highlights, the breach letter and the way the bank has amped up proceedings, switching from mail to phone calls as of a week ago. She’s never said the word foreclosure to anybody except Jess. “I’m not saying this to you like it’s your problem,” she promises, lifting her head up to look at him, resting her chin on her hand so it doesn’t dig into his chest. Low-key or not, the last thing she wants is for him to think she expects him to fix any of it. “Seriously. This is my problem. I’ll figure it out.”

  Taryn actually half-expects him to contradict her with some rote Hallmark card sentiment, to tell her they’ll solve it together or it’s not as bad as it seems. Instead Nick doesn’t say anything at all. He lies there and he rubs her back and he listens, and before she falls asleep the last thing Taryn remembers hearing is the thud of his beating heart.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nick lies awake most of the night, postsex sleepiness no match for the lumpy mattress and the leftover adrenaline singing through his veins. He’s still not sure he’s got the whole story. He falls asleep sometime around dawn, then blinks alert less than an hour later, Taryn nudging gently but insistently at his side. “Sorry,” she murmurs, butting her head down close to his so he’ll kiss her good morning before he even opens his eyes. “Kids are gonna be up soon.”

  Nick nods, scrubbing a hand across his face and looking around at the chilly living room. Taryn’s face is pink and honest from sleep. What a nightmare last night was, though he still thinks he could get used to this, waking up with her hair across his pillow and her smell all around him, the warm weight of her breathing at his side. Don’t be a sad sack forever, Maddie said. Not for the first time, Nick wonders how long he’s supposed to mourn. Used to be he thought he’d be a lifelong widower, but.

  But.

  Seems like Taryn has been doing some math of her own. “Is it weird that we said it so soon?” she asks as they’re making breakfast, the younger Falveys banging through their morning routine upstairs. Nick is still amazed she hasn’t kicked him out. “I mean, I get it,” she adds, scooping out a spoonful of cheap, price-chopped margarine and dropping it to melt in the skillet. “This whole thing is fucked, but is that part weird?”

  Nick watches her. Breakfast is going to be egg in the basket, looks like, three slices of supermarket white bread with star-shaped cutouts. He gets the feeling it’s the Falvey family equivalent of his mother’s orange sweet, a dish that only ever seemed to come into rotation when Ioanna had chickenpox or the family cat died. Comfort food. Nick has the strange urge to make some now, slice up the sad clementine on the counter and drizzle it with honey. Present it to Mikey. Hey kid, sorry about your face.

  “Was it really that fast though?” he asks instead, twisting his coffee cup. “I mean. Depends on when you count from.”

  Falvey flushes. They both slept in their clothes and she looks rumpled and young, coppery hair knotted around itself at the base of her neck. “Sure,” she says, trying to play it off. “Right. Good point.” Nick can tell she doesn’t hate hearing it, that she was under his skin from the start. He sure as shit knows when he counts from.

  Still. “You want me to take off before they come down?” he asks, draining his coffee. It’s not what he wants—he can’t shake the queasy feeling that there’s another shoe yet to drop, all his instincts screaming at him to stick around—but he remembers enough from Maddie’s slow decline to know when nonfamily members need to beat it. “I can come back after shift, see how you are.” Already he’s planning to stop by the diner tonight and grab a pizza or something, cheese and pepperoni, friendly for little mouths. He doesn’t know what her plans are, if she’s going to take the kids by the hospital or not, but it’s a safe bet they’ll need to eat.

  Falvey nods. She’s already taken the day off work, first call of the morning. “You don’t have to or anything,” she adds quickly. “It’ll probably just be a boring movie night.”

  Nick raises his eyebrows. Even now, she’s tetchy about people doing her a solid. “I’ll be by around eight,” he says, cupping her neck for a goodbye kiss and making his way out.

  He doesn’t get far. He’s just pulling on his boots when the front door bangs open, bringing in a gust of spring wind and a tall, frantic-looking kid. “Who the fuck are you?” he spits at Nick, stopping up short. Then he sees the paramedic uniform. “Shit, sorry, man. On edge. Is my mom okay? Hospital?”

  Jesse, then. He’s got the same carroty hair as Mikey and more freckles than Nick’s ever seen on a person. Nick’s guessing the kid finally checked his messages. “She’s at Berkshire,” he confirms slowly, taking in Jesse’s raggedy sweatshirt and bloodshot eyes. “But yeah, she’s doing okay. Your sister’s in the kitchen.” Wondering where the fuck you’ve been, he doesn’t add. This boy is none of his business. “I’m Nick.”

  Jesse nods slowly, bleary eyes flicking over Nick’s face like he’s trying to fit the pieces of a puzzle together upside-down. “Nick,” he repeats, suddenly alert. “Hey.”

  That other shoe Nick was waiting for? He’s pretty sure this kid is wearing it.

  He doesn’t have time to sort out exactly what it is that’s clanging the alarm bells, because here’s Taryn slamming through the door from the kitchen, spatula still clutched in one hand. “The hell have you been?” she demands, angrier than Nick’s ever seen her. “Where?”

  “I was out,” Jesse says, sullen. “My phone was on silent. How’s Ma?”

  Taryn ignores the question. “Your phone was on silent the whole fucking—are you high right now?” she hisses, glancing over at the staircase. “I swear to Christ, Jesse, if you’re fucked up right now you can just—”

  “I’m not,” Jesse protests immediately, hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Screw you, I’m not. Are the kids okay?”

  “Screw you.” Taryn shakes her head. “Where were you?” she asks again, sounding honestly heartbroken. “I called you and called you, and you didn’t even—she beat the crap out of them, Jesse. And you couldn’t even be bothered to pick up your phone.”

  All at once, Jesse’s face goes white. “She what?” he repeats softly, and that—yeah. That’s definitely Nick’s cue.
He slips out the front door as unobtrusively as he can, wanting to give them privacy as much as he doesn’t want to leave her alone. Jesse’s her brother, Nick tries to remind himself as he unlocks the truck door—Lyn had one of the rooks come drop it off last night, pick up the bus—and there’s no point in jumping to conclusions about the kid five seconds after Taryn finally cracked and let him in.

  He calls both his sisters on the way back to the house though. Just to say hello.

  He does bring a pizza back that night, plus burgers on Thursday, along with some cold cuts and a dozen eggs he grabbed from the diner fridge on his way through. “You didn’t have to do that,” Taryn tells him roughly fourteen times, but she takes the container of rice pudding he hands her with a wry, pretty smile. It’s possible he doesn’t want to let her out of his sight.

  It seems mutual, at least. do you want to grab dinner tomorrow? Taryn texts after he leaves. really quick. my treat.

  Nick smiles. Sure, he hammers back.

  At home, he takes Atlas for a long, ambling walk before heading up to bed. Now that he’s finally started ripping up the carpet in the master bedroom, he has to leave his boots on while he goes through his nighttime routine, the nail-ridden subfloor not fit to step on. Nick wonders what Taryn would say if she could see him, brushing his teeth in his boxers and Timberlands. He smiles.

  As he’s lying down, he catches a glimpse of the date on his alarm clock and sits bolt upright in bed. He tilts the bright analog face toward him, checking again.

  Sure enough, there it is: March 22.

  Nick stays awake as the clock ticks over to midnight, the numbers scrolling to March 23.

  Then he stays awake some more.

  Taryn gets to the restaurant at five minutes to seven, perching herself on a barstool to wait. “Need a menu?” the bartender asks, setting her beer down.

  Taryn shakes her head. “I’m meeting somebody, thanks.”

  At least, she’s supposed to be. By the time she’s finished her Harpoon, Nick still hasn’t shown up, and Taryn orders a water so she’s not already half in the bag when he gets here. At seven twenty she shoots him a where you at? text. There’s a couple on a blind date a little ways down the bar from her, and she listens to the guy talk about auto insurance for a while. She feels profoundly bad for the girl.

  At seven thirty she’s irritated. By a quarter of eight she’s scared.

  She pays for her beer and dials his number while she’s walking to the parking lot, getting his voicemail and the beep for her trouble. Taryn doesn’t bother leaving a message. Instead she guns the engine and heads for his house. “What the fuck, Nick?” she says out loud.

  The front of the Craftsman is dark when she arrives, the overhung porch deep in shadow and no lights in the windows. Taryn jumps out of the car, banging up the front steps in her dress heels. Every clatter is like a gunshot.

  The first thing she finds inside is Atlas, whining at the front door. “You need to pee, buddy?” Taryn asks, reaching down for his collar. “Nick!” Christ, the whole mother-fucking house is dark. For a brief second, she wonders if the Falvey family circus actually inspired him to skip town. “Nick! You home?”

  “Up here,” comes the reply.

  All at once Taryn’s hugely relieved and mad as hell in equal measure—he’s not dead or maimed or disappeared, which means he just totally blew her off for dinner three nights after he supposedly said—well. What he said. She kicks her heels off and takes the steps two at a time. “What are you doing?” she demands, heart still pounding like a bass drum inside her chest. “I waited at the goddamn bar for—”

  Taryn stops short at the door to the bedroom. Nick’s up here, all right, barefoot in jeans and an undershirt, kneeling on the floor over the carpet. The old carpet, Taryn realizes—he’s putting back the pieces he ripped out. The seams between them are ragged. Taryn blinks. “What are you doing?” she asks again.

  Nick turns his head and stares at her blankly. Just for a second, Taryn’s pretty sure he has no idea who she is.

  “I’m sorry I missed dinner,” he says finally.

  Taryn sets her purse down on the canopy bed. “So why did you?” she asks. She wants to sit down herself, but the duvet is covered with sliced-up strips of old pink carpet she’s pretty sure were in the back of the Tahoe yesterday, consigned for the dump heap. They’re neatly arranged so they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. “Did you, like. Forget?” There’s sticky paste on the bottom of her right foot. When she tries to take a step, the tarp he’s set down on the subfloor comes with her.

  “I’m sorry,” Nick repeats. “I had to use glue to get them to stay pieced together.” He goes down on both knees to free her. The dark crown of his head is all Taryn can see of his face.

  “Nick.” His thumb is on her instep, scraping away the paste. Taryn swallows. “Is this something to do with Maddie?” It’s the first time she’s said the name aloud. It rings like a bell off her tongue.

  Nick flinches. Taryn does too. She can still feel her pulse beating thickly at the back of her mouth.

  “S’three years,” he says finally, sitting back on his heels and looking up at her. “S’three years tonight, and I just, I didn’t—” He stops and it’s like he can’t even believe it, like somebody who came home and found a hole where his house used to be. “I forgot.”

  Taryn puts her hands on the top of his head, gentle. The kids aside, other people’s emotions usually gross her out—she remembers once Pete tried to tell her about his family cat that died and she, like, could not get out of there fast enough. This feels different, though. This—yeah. This doesn’t feel like that.

  “Okay,” she tells him. “It’s okay. You didn’t forget. It was an insane couple days, that’s all.” She sits down on the floor with him, probably getting paste all over the seat of her good jeans. “You want me to help you with this?” she asks, reaching over to pat the carpet. It’s in terrible shape, the joins of the ripped-up pieces frayed and obvious. Taryn swallows. “Looks like a two-person job.”

  Nick shakes his head. “It shouldn’t even be a one-person job,” he confesses. “I don’t know what I’m doing.” His voice is as flat and expressionless as tinted glass.

  “Okay.” Taryn picks dried glue off the bottom of one foot, thinking about the kids back at home with Jess. She isn’t jealous of a ghost. “You want me to go?”

  “No,” Nick says, right away and urgent. Then he rubs the bridge of his nose. The air smells like chemicals and dust. Belatedly, Taryn wonders if they shouldn’t be wearing masks. She knows Nick did when he first ripped the carpet up.

  “Okay,” she says.

  Nick sighs. “You don’t have to stay either, Falvey. This is a hell of a shitty date night, right here.” He holds out his arms to the sides and drops them, dead weight.

  Taryn smirks. “It is that.” She wants to though, she realizes slowly. She wants to be the kind of person who stays. With Nick, she wants that. “Have you eaten?” she asks, running one finger across his knee. “You want me to make you something?”

  The fog clears momentarily for a spark of dark amusement—in all the time they’ve been together, he’s always been the one who cooks. “Sure,” he says, serious eyes locked on hers. “I could eat.”

  Taryn nods and gets to her feet, saying a quick prayer he’s got stuff for sandwiches. Then she drops to her knees one more time and puts her arms around him, impulsive. “You’re a good guy, you know that?” she murmurs into his temple. “You’re like, the best guy.”

  Nick laughs, surprised and abrupt. “Sure, Falvey.” He turns his head, catching her mouth. “Let’s go downstairs.”

  So they do. Taryn makes a plate of tuna sandwiches that have too much mayonnaise and not enough salt, fishing a couple of sad, wrinkly pickles out of the bottom of a jar to go with them. Nick raises his eyebrows when she puts the plate in front of him, but he eats every last bite. As an afterthought, Taryn makes cocoa, her standard go-to when the kids are sad or sick. It ta
stes awful with the tuna.

  “Do you want to stay over?” Nick asks her afterward. His face is tired. The corners of his mouth drag down, sliding into his jaw.

  Taryn thinks about it. She has no change of clothes and too much mascara on. In the morning, her eyes will be gritty and her blouse will be rank. Jesse will complain. “Sure,” she says. “No problem.”

  The bedroom is still thick with carpet dust when they lie down, like breathing in a tomb. “M’glad you turned up,” Nick says once they’re settled. He’s flat on his back with Taryn curled around him, and she can feel his warm breath on top of her head. “Glad you came looking.”

  Taryn can hear his heart pumping away through his T-shirt, can feel the steady pulse against her cheek. “I’m glad too,” she tells him quietly. She rubs at the cliff of his collarbone until he falls asleep.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nick wakes up in the morning feeling almost hungover. The first thing he sees is the recarpeted section of floor, patched together like Frankenstein’s monster.

  The second thing he sees is Taryn.

  They have breakfast in his kitchen before dawn, Falvey wanting to get home before the kids are up. She brushes aside Nick’s apologies and borrows one of his T-shirts, the hem trailing halfway to her knees. “I mean it,” she says, looking almost embarrassed. “Shut up. You’re fine.”

  Nick doesn’t know if he feels fine. He visits Maddie’s grave with a bouquet of crocuses. He thinks about talking to her, but every time he opens his mouth he finds he doesn’t know what to say. He wants to explain about Taryn. He doesn’t know how. He thinks about Maddie telling him there was a statute of limitations on being a sad sack, and wonders again if this was what she meant.

  That weekend he convinces Taryn to bring the boys over to run around with the dog for a couple of hours, fresh air to take their minds off things. Nick’s hoping it might take his mind off things too. “Atlas sure is good with kids, huh?” Taryn asks, sitting down at the kitchen table.