Changed

by Alicia Renee Kline

  The mystery was solved when I traipsed down the hallway to the sound of my washing machine in mid-cycle. For whatever reason, the thought of him taking it upon himself to do my laundry endeared him to me even more. And his approval rating went over the top when I rounded the threshold of the kitchen to see him putting dinner in the oven.

  I took a seat at the kitchen table. The hard, wooden chair did nothing for the soreness that was threatening to make itself known. I discreetly grabbed the bottle of ibuprofen from its resting place next to his gun and administered myself another dose. Will caught me, but said nothing.

  “When did you become so domestic?” I asked before he could question me about things I didn’t want to discuss.

  “Number one, I’ve had to learn many things since the divorce. So I don’t practice them all of the time, but I’m not inept. Chris told me about your fondness for that outfit. It needed to be washed right away if you were hoping for any chance of saving it. And dinner’s just a frozen pizza, because that’s the only thing I could find that sounded good.”

  “Have you been shot at before?” I asked, totally changing the subject. But seeing the gun had reminded me and the question had just popped out, regardless of whether or not I wanted to know the answer.

  “What?” I wasn’t the only one that surprised. His eyes swung over to the table and he nodded, understanding what brought that up. “No.”

  I nodded, releasing the air that I’d been holding in my lungs. “Have you shot somebody?”

  “No.”

  I digested that information, feeling slightly more at ease than I had a moment ago. “Do you worry that someday the answers may be different?”

  He leaned over the kitchen counter, resting his chin on his hand. “I guess I think about it sometimes. Not because of me, but because of Emma. If I went to work every day scared out of my mind at all of the stuff that could happen, I’d never be able to do my job. Trust me, I know what I’ve gotten myself into. And I know that no matter how good I am with a gun in a controlled area, in a training exercise, all that expertise is going to fly out the window in the heat of the moment. And I just have to believe that when that time comes, which it will at some point, that my instincts are good enough to overcome the fear.”

  “I’m sure they will be.”

  “I’m not.”

  Because he’d brought her up, I didn’t feel overly guilty dragging Emma into the conversation. “I bet Emma’s scared for you, too. But also extremely proud.”

  He laughed. “She’s a teenager. There’s no hero worship of her dad any more. Maybe ten years ago, but not now.”

  I bit my tongue but said nothing. If I was in her shoes, I’d think my dad was pretty badass. Unless, of course, he began to make a big show of cleaning said gun whenever a suitor came over.

  “She seems like a nice girl,” I mused. It sounded lame, but I meant it.

  “She is.”

  Emma was sweet. Emma was untouchable. Back off. End of story. That being said, we slid into a long, awkward pause.

  I propped my elbows on the table, clutching fistfuls of my damp hair in an attempt to not make things worse than they already were. So many things flooded through my brain that I was dying to ask him, but none of them could be seen as innocent.

  For his part, he hovered in the kitchen, the counter a barrier between us that he wasn’t willing or able to cross. Instead, he paced back and forth in the small space it afforded while he fixed his eyes on the oven timer. He seemed to be counting down along with it, but to what I wasn’t certain.

  “Why are you here?” I said before I thought better of it. So much for not making things worse.

  Mid-stride, Will stopped and turned to me. A hand reached up and ran through his hair. He closed his eyes and took the deepest breath ever known to man.

  “Do you want me to go?” he asked finally.

  No.

  “Do you want to go?” I said instead.

  Chris would be pissed, of course. He’d find out that I’d scared off Will and he’d send Blake over. Or someone would call up Lauren and she’d come and take me back to her place. I had options, options that didn’t include him. But how I wanted them to. I hoped he didn’t call my bluff, because I wasn’t convinced that I wouldn’t leap from my chair and do something utterly mortifying, like wrap my arms around his leg and cling to him like there was no tomorrow.

  “I wouldn’t have volunteered to do this if I didn’t want to be here.”

  “You hate me.”

  “You were the one who walked out on me.”

  “You hurt me!”

  He knew my accusation was the truth, and opened his mouth to provide some sort of rebuttal, but was effectively cut off by the timer buzzing. Then the moment was gone and he took out his frustration on our dinner and my appliances, yanking the pizza from the oven and slamming the door shut afterward.

  Then it was on to the cabinets, where again he only needed one try to find my plates. The silverware drawer earned the same treatment, protesting with a bang as he extricated my pizza cutter.

  Seconds later, he served me a couple slices and a can of soda, practically throwing them down on the table in front of me without a word. Before I could debate on offering him thanks, he grabbed his own meal and drink and stalked out into the living room.

  The television turned on, loudly, though while I sat by myself in the other room I heard no sound. All I could feel was tension, perhaps spiked with a healthy dose of unrealistic expectations. On both of our parts, and this was the problem.

  I ate, but didn’t taste. I knew I had to, that my stomach would get upset if I kept taking medicine and didn’t eat any food. Ironically enough, my insides were already unsettled, but it had nothing to do with lack of sustenance. Before I knew it, I stared down at an empty plate and had nothing to do with it besides take it to the dishwasher. Which I did, delaying the inevitable as much as possible.

  Will’s eyes were on me as soon as I appeared in the doorway. Clearly, he expected me to spout off some smart remark or come sit beside him on the couch and fume. But I didn’t. I walked right past him, in front of the television, and proceeded down the hall.

  “Where are you going?” he called behind me.

  Good question.

  “I’m going to bed.”

  “It’s six at night.”

  “I’ve had a really bad day and I just want it to be over.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  I stormed off the rest of the way to my bedroom. I was tempted to slam the door behind me and lock it for good measure, but I decided against it. We were already being childish enough.

  Since I’d thrown on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt after my shower, I didn’t bother changing before I peeled back the comforter and climbed into bed. No way was I going to risk sleeping in the nude tonight, nor was I going to slip on something seductive or flirty. Neither extreme seemed fitting considering what was going on. Or what wasn’t.

  Seriously, had I really thought that things could change between us? One totaled car and a pity fuck or two did not a relationship make. At least not a healthy one. I couldn’t snap my fingers and contort him into the man I wished he was. I couldn’t expect that of him when I wasn’t willing to give it myself.

  Though my eyes were shut, I was wide awake when Will opened the door roughly half an hour later. I had anticipated him doing this, the public service duty part of him too strong to let a silly argument get in the way. It’s why I hadn’t locked myself in. I knew that he’d poke his head in to check on me.

  What I didn’t prepare myself for was him coming fully into my room. Or him dragging in one of the chairs from my kitchen table and setting it between the wall and my bed. He perched on top of it, his arms crossed over his chest in indignation.

  Traces of the early evening sun spilled through my sheer curtains, outlining his silhouette. I watched him, sitting there staring at me. He still hadn’t announced his presence and I wasn’t ent
irely sure that he knew I was aware of him.

  So I took the chance to study him for the second time that day. To memorize him, so that I could close my eyes and see him before me. So I could remember what intense pleasure it had been to ever feel like I mattered to him. So I could remind myself why exactly I loved him.

  And then it was too much. The car wreck, him showing up on the scene, our falling back into bed with each other, the anger. His weird bedside vigil thing that he was doing. The knowledge that this was it - he would never let me get any further than this. Sure, he could lead me on with glimmers of concern and plenty of sex, but he’d stop short of putting anything real into it.

  I began to shake uncontrollably. Embarrassed, I snatched up the comforter and pulled it tightly around me, a virtual cocoon. It didn’t help; it made it harder to breathe.

  “Jesus, Gracie,” Will said.

  Before I understood what was happening, the chair was vacated and the mattress was dipping down underneath his weight.

  “Do you need to go to the hospital?”

  “No.”

  He cleared his throat and tried something else. “Do you want me to call Chris?”

  The way his voice broke on his friend’s name spoke volumes. It also reminded me of earlier, when a look akin to jealousy had flashed across his face at the sight of us together, locked in an embrace. That he could be possessive of me while at the same time pushing me away boggled my mind. And that he would offer to call in the object of his misplaced ire to help said something even stronger.

  I shook my head, knowing he could feel it. When we wanted to be, we were firmly on the same wavelength. He’d alluded to it so many times I couldn’t even count them any more. In another place, in different circumstances, we would have been made for one another. The punch line to that sick joke was that we weren’t living in either the right place or the right time for that to happen.

  And maybe I also knew because he had taken the opportunity to mount me. His leg was slung over me, his arms pulled me tightly against his chest. As if he could shield me from whatever it was that I was battling. Did he realize that he wasn’t able to protect me from himself?

  “You need to calm down, darling,” he whispered into my hair. “You won’t do yourself any good if you hyperventilate.”

  “Hyperventilating would imply that I can breathe in the first place,” I managed.

  He snorted. “You never turn the humor off, do you? I’m beginning to think it’s a defense mechanism.”

  “If it is, it sucks.”

  I could practically feel the grin spread across his face. The coarse hair of his goatee tickled the back of my neck as he moved. I tried to blame the goose bumps that erupted on my skin as a reaction to my inner turmoil and not his touch. I failed.

  “We’ll do it together.”

  “We never do anything together.”

  He sighed. I knew I had scored a dig, but it didn’t make me proud.

  “Then we’ll start right now. Just focus on my breathing and try to match yours to mine, okay?”

  The thought of doing that made me shake even harder.

  “Please, Gracie, do it for me?”

  I wanted to roll over, look him square in the face and tell him that I would do anything for him. That in fact, I had walked away from him because it was what he’d told me he wanted - though not in so many words. That if things were all about me, if I’d done what I wanted to do, I would have begged him to let me stay. I would have pleaded with him to put a name to what we had, to shout it from the rooftops.

  But instead I just nodded.

  “Close your eyes, darling.”

  I did, then concentrated on the steady rise and fall of his chest. It took more than a few minutes before my own breathing was in sync, and a few more after that before the shivering stopped.

  “Better now?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not on your life.”

  “Fair enough.”

  His grip on me loosened, though his leg still rested over mine. He pried the comforter away and began tracing lazy circles up and down my spine. The warmth of his fingertips through the cotton of my shirt was reassuring, bittersweet.

  We had been provided this one last chance to recapture what it was that we had back down in Indy. Tonight, his police car in my driveway was understandable. Him spending the night at my house was easily explained. And I could play along with the best of them, pretend that the last person I wanted to be with right now was him. That Will was a perfect stranger, an unexpected comrade. Hell, I even had him convinced.

  “I’m not mad at you,” he said finally, breaking the silence.

  “What?”

  “If that’s what this is all about. If you got all upset because I was mean to you out there. And I most certainly do not hate you.”

  “You didn’t deny it,” I reminded him.

  “You’ve got me there. I guess you just caught me off guard and I had no clue what to say.”

  “You’ve done that to me a few times yourself.”

  “Why did you tell Blake that I hated you?”

  Damn. I hadn’t realized that little nugget of truth would get back to him. Then again, I should have. If Blake and Chris operated anything like what I expected from a married couple, they told each other things like that. And of course, Chris would share the juiciest bits with Will.

  “Because she wants to set us up. Bet Chris didn’t tell you that part.”

  “Not exactly.”

  He toyed with a lock of my hair as I tried to gauge how he felt about it.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve called her off the trail. It was spur of the moment. That was the best thing I could come up with.”

  “Did you ever really think that? That I hated you?”

  “It crossed my mind.”

  “Oh, Gracie.”

  “It would be easier if you did. Then I would have a reason. I would have an answer as to why I wasn’t good enough. And don’t do the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ thing.”

  He exhaled sharply, because that’s exactly what he had been about to say.

  “It’s okay. You warned me. And I ended up getting hurt anyway.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.”

  The silence between us was less awkward than before, but still ripe with tension. Notably, he didn’t push away from me any further. He remained firmly pressed against my side, engulfing me with his presence, allowing me to etch this scene into my memory and hold it for posterity.

  Much later, likely when he figured I was already asleep, his knuckles slid along my jaw line.

  “Don’t you ever do that to me again,” he said softly.

  I stilled completely, a combination of his fingers and his admonishment. I could think of many things he’d be angry at me for doing: walking out on him, telling Blake he hated me, making any sort of contact with his daughter, joking to Lauren about us having sex when we really were. I didn’t want to piss him off with a round of conjecture, so I shut my mouth and waited for him to continue.

  “Today started out as just a normal day. I had just gotten off work and I was getting ready to get something to eat when I saw the accident. And I saw your car, and you weren’t in it, but there was blood everywhere and I freaked out.”

  “Let me get this straight. You’re a cop and you hate the sight of blood?”

  “No. It doesn’t bother me at all. Unless it’s yours.”

  Oh. Okay then.

  “And for a few horrible seconds, I didn’t know if you were okay or not. And I know I don’t have any right to feel this way, but I couldn’t imagine living in a world without you in it. You have no idea what it’s like to worry that much, to be scared to death that you’re never going to see someone again.”

  Because there were no words for that, I laced my fingers through his, bringing them to my lips. After I’d gently kissed his hand, I pressed it firmly aga
inst my heart.

  But he was wrong.

  I knew exactly what he meant.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Will woke me every hour on the hour, dutifully making certain that I was responsive. Chris must have drilled the fear of concussion into his head, but I couldn’t exactly blame either one of them. The way he did it varied; sometimes it was with a simple call of my name, sometimes more.

  “Gracie, are you still with me?” he’d asked once, and I’d frozen in place. Stunned, I’d not known the appropriate way to reply. Yes, I’d walked out on him, but in so many ways, I had never left.

  But he always kept pressing until I answered. And not just a moan or a grunt; I had to form a complete coherent sentence before he’d leave me alone again. So I’d mumbled a simple “yes” and he’d accepted that and let me be. Not that clinging to me was leaving me alone, but I wasn’t complaining. I snuggled against him like it was second nature, that he’d been missing from my bed for days instead of countless weeks.

  Somewhere along the course of the night, he’d assumed correctly that I wasn’t about to randomly stop breathing or even worse, slip into a coma. It was then that he’d allowed himself to drift off to sleep.

  So that was how I found him when my eyes popped open on their own. Sprawled out across my mattress, still in his uniform pants and white undershirt. I had rolled into him, pinned securely against his chest by his arm. One of his legs was draped possessively across both of mine. I knew without raising my eyes to his face that his mouth hung partially open, because that was just how he slept.

  I allowed myself a few moments to bask in the beauty of it, to pretend that this was how I greeted every morning. Every breath I took being one of his, the rhythm of his heart beating against my palm. The familiar smell of us, separate and together, filling my nostrils.

  Could you want to run away from something that you never imagined being without?

  Before I set myself up for another panic attack, I wrestled free from his grip. I’d done this so many times before, I knew exactly how to get away with a limited amount of struggle. Never had it been so final - but that was probably since the last time I’d done it, I’d fully intended to return.