by Jody Holford
He didn’t need happy. He needed to do his job. Or he’d lose that, too, and truly have nothing. He had the fleeting thought that the only thing he’d ever get the chance to go home to at night was emptiness. Shaking his head, he reminded himself he deserved nothing more.
Jimmy joined him again and said with a grimace, “Someone might want to let Jake out of the trunk.”
Chapter Eighteen
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Gabby passed Shay a mug of tea. Owen smiled at her as he pointed to his headset and walked down the hall. “He has a conference call.”
Shay took a small sip, burning her tongue. “It’s been six days, and I wasn’t hurt, Gabby. Just scraped up a little. You’re worse than my mom. I’m fine.” On the outside, anyway.
Gabby added more milk to her tea and took a drink before answering. “You’re very lucky you weren’t hurt worse.” Gabby shuddered. “I still can’t believe all of that went down while Owen and I were still inside. Have you talked to Wyatt?”
Shay looked down, like her cup had all the answers. It hurt to hear his name. A uniform had brought her and Brady home. He’d offered to stay with her, but Shay had never wanted to be alone more than she did that night. She needed no witnesses to the torment and sadness, the residual fear and adrenaline, that had shaken her and kept her awake all night. When Gabby had come by the following day, she’d said Brady filled her and Owen in on everything. All the parts he knew about anyway.
Glancing up with just her eyes, she answered the woman who’d become a good friend in the past few days. “No. I just needed some time to figure things out. I can’t go back and forth. If he doesn’t want to be with me, fine. But I can’t handle the hot and cold treatment. He doesn’t trust me, and I really don’t believe we can ever find equal footing.”
Though, he’d certainly tried to get ahold of her. Shay had ignored his calls and texts. She needed time to firm up her paper-thin resolve, because it would be so easy to let him tear it down.
When she lifted her head, she saw the understanding in Gabby’s eyes. “I know. And I don’t blame you. For what it’s worth, he went to talk to Brady.”
Shay froze, her hands tightening on her cup. “What? Why? Brady and I gave our statements to the same officer that night. Why did Wyatt need to talk to him?”
Gabby’s smile came slow. Unlike most smiles, hers started in her eyes and worked its way down to her lips. “To tell Brady that whatever interest he has in you, you’re off limits. You’re…what did he say? Spoken for.”
Shay slapped a hand down on the counter. Her mouth hung open as her thoughts collided. Where did he get off even thinking that, never mind saying it to Brady? “I can’t believe he would do that. He has no right.”
Any right he had, he’d tossed in her face like a bucket of ice. “Who does he think he is? What did Brady say?”
Gabby’s eyes darted down, then she turned and opened a cupboard. “You have to try these cookies that Owen’s sister sent me. They’re out of this world.” She opened the package and put a few on the plate, but Shay was still staring at her, arms crossed, when Gabby turned back around.
“Gabby. What did Brady say?”
Gabby picked up a cookie, started to take a bite, clearly enjoying Shay’s torment.
“Gabby!”
She set the cookie down. “He said that if Wyatt got his head out of his ass and took a look, right at you, he’d see that the only thing standing in his way was him. Not Brady, but his own stupidity. That he was a bigger idiot than Brady thought if he messed things up with you. That everybody, but Wyatt, already knew you were spoken for and your heart belonged to him. But if he hurt you again, Brady would knock his teeth out. With a tire iron.”
Shay’s mouth hung open. Wow. Brady didn’t mess around.
“Don’t be mad at Brady. He’s protective and he thinks of us as family. You included.”
“I’ve been here less than a month.”
Gabby shrugged and took a bite of her cookie. “Doesn’t matter. When you know, you know.”
Pressure settled on Shay’s chest and she nodded in agreement. She knew. That’s what made it hurt so badly. “I need to go.”
“No, don’t go. Have a cookie,” Gabby said.
Shay stood up, pushed the bar stool in, and grabbed her purse. If she stayed, she’d fall apart in front of Gabby. She’d rather do it alone. “I can’t. I have to make some phone calls.”
Gabby walked her to the door and gave her a hard hug. “We can watch a movie later if you want?”
“Maybe. I’ll text you,” Shay said. Walking through the door, she turned and looked back at her friend. “Thanks, Gabby.”
“For what?”
“For making me feel like I belong. For being my friend.”
Gabby’s eyes lit up. “Back at you.”
Shay should have been answering emails. Her inbox had four new ones and a quick response time was one of the things people had complimented her on so far. She’d changed into pajamas when she came back from Gabby’s and decided that her phone calls, her errands, and everything else could just wait. Grabbing a huge fleece blanket from her closet, she brought it to the couch. Walking over to her movie collection, she trailed her finger along the spines, picking her favorites. She’d been going non-stop since last weekend, trying to block Wyatt out of her mind. It hadn’t worked. So she was going to give in to the wallowing. Six hours of sappy movies and that was it. After that, she’d function properly again and would stop feeling numb.
She was debating what snacks to grab when the doorbell rang. Her heart hammered. Wyatt had only shown up once, and she’d stood on her side of the door, drinking him in through the peephole while tears streamed silently down her face. She’d just given in to the urge to pity herself—now was not a good time for him to show up.
Looking through the hole, she was relieved to see it wasn’t Wyatt. Mostly relieved. She opened the door to see Gabby had her hands full.
“Hey,” Shay said, hoping her voice sounded cheerier than she felt.
“Hi. I know you said you had some things to do, but I’ve also been exactly where you are, so I came to help.”
Shay let her in, closing the door behind her. She eyed the chips and bag of cookies Gabby had in a brown wicker basket.
“Help with what?”
Gabby looked her over from head to toe then nodded and turned for the kitchen. “Okay. You have the cozy clothes. You need the snacks and the movies now and once you get a good cry going, we’ll figure out what you should do from here.”
Shay laughed but it sounded empty to her own ears. “I was actually just setting up For Love of the Game. How did you know?”
Gabby unloaded several chocolate bars, a few bags of candies, the chips, and the cookies onto Shay’s counter. “Been there.”
“I’m not going to cry.”
Gabby turned to look at her. “Okay. But you want to fix this, right?”
“Gabby.” She couldn’t do this. Gabby genuinely cared for Wyatt, and Shay understood that, but she didn’t want to talk about him.
Gabby grabbed a couple of the candy bags and walked into the living room. Shay followed, noticing that her friend was dressed in cozy lounge pants and a baggy sweater. She curled up on the couch and motioned for Shay to take the spot she’d already planned to take. What the heck? When did Gabby get so bossy?
Gabby opened the bag of little red candies. “I know we don’t know each other super well, but we’re going to be good friends.”
“I’d like that.” She took one of the candies when Gabby offered.
“Wyatt messed up. He has to fix his part. You have to fix yours.”
Shay nearly choked on the candy. “I didn’t do anything!”
“Maybe not. But relationships take effort and communication and a commitment to working things out.”
No longer feeling so friendly, Shay sat up straight and stared at the television. The screen was paused on the opening credits.
“I’m not a kid, Gabby. I know how relationships work.”
Her neighbor had the nerve to scoot a bit closer and touch her back. Shay stiffened.
“You can tell me to go if you want to, but I really do understand how you’re feeling. The thing is, Wyatt is trying to communicate. Things went wrong, and he’s reaching out. If you love him, why won’t you let him fix it?”
Tears welled in Shay’s eyes. Was it that obvious? Apparently her brother and Wyatt were right about her stubborn streak because she scoffed. “Who says I love him?”
Gabby gave her a smile that could melt ice. “Aw, sweetie.”
Her throat tightened. She could lie to herself and say she didn’t, but clearly Gabby saw through her. “This can’t be fixed. He’ll just give me an apology and then the same thing will happen again. He’ll shut me out or keep things from me. Everyone in my life does that. Like I can’t handle the truth or bad news will simply knock me over. I’m tired of being protected from everything.”
Gabby rubbed slow circles on Shay’s back and the tension eased out of her neck. She sighed.
“Have you ever asked yourself why people keep things from you?”
Shay turned her head and stared at Gabby, her mouth open a little. “What? You think there’s a reason to hold back with someone you care about? That not telling them the truth is okay as long as you’re just trying to protect them?”
“No. I don’t. But I’m asking you if you’ve ever wondered why people feel that need to protect you.”
Shay felt the anger swirling in the pit of her stomach, but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about the question. She’d let her family carry her for so long. It was her role. She was the baby. The one who bounced from one thing to another, and home—her family—was always her place to land. Her safety net. It had taken the embarrassment of being with a married man to break her out of her habits, and even then, she’d run into the arms of another family who treated her like one of their own.
She hadn’t stood up to her parents and brothers and demanded she be treated like them. She hadn’t shown them she could handle it when things got rough. Instead, she started things and didn’t always finish them. She moved all the way to Boston instead of just telling her family she wasn’t a kid anymore. Because around them, it was too easy to fall back into that role. She let it happen as much as they had.
“He’s been trying all week to get a hold of me.” And she’d run in the other direction, convincing herself to move on at the first sign of trouble.
“I know.”
“I run.”
“What?”
She looked at Gabby and swiped her fingers over the wetness on her cheeks. “I run. If something is too hard or gets to be too much, I start something new. I told myself I just hadn’t found what I was looking for yet, but I think that was just an excuse to try something new. Other than this job, the event planning, it’s been a struggle to stick with anything. And even though I don’t plan on going home, it’s always in the back of my mind that I can. Even today, I have emails I need to send and I…I just pushed them aside. Because in the back of my mind, I always know my parents and my brothers will take care of me.”
“You’re very lucky to have such a supportive family.”
She gave a part laugh, part sob. “I am. Instead of telling them that and appreciating it, I felt suffocated and was too weak to insist I needed to stand on my own two feet. And maybe there are things I could have done differently with Wyatt, but nothing changes the fact that when I gave him the chance, he lied to me. I don’t know how to get around that. Not even for someone I l—” Her voice broke as the word lodged in her throat.
Shay stood up, restlessness trailing over her skin like raindrops down a window.
Gabby spoke from behind her. “It’s not easy to change who you are, but Wyatt’s different than he was, just since you moved in.”
“It’s not enough,” Shay said, leaning her head against the cool glass.
“Maybe not. But whether it’s Wyatt or someone else, one day when you’ve found the one, knowing that, even saying it, doesn’t mean it’s an easy road. If you want someone to know for sure they can turn to you, it’s important to be there when they do. We all mess up, Shay. The amazing thing about loving someone, truly being in love with someone, is that they have your back. No matter what. It’s unconditional. It becomes a matter not of ‘will we get past this?’ but how?”
Shay thought about that. Wyatt would definitely have her back. She had no doubt he’d protect her with his own life. But she needed more. She deserved more. Sighing, she moved back to the couch and sank down beside her friend. “How do you know all this?”
“Another time, I’ll tell you about Owen and me. For now, why don’t we watch a movie?”
She wanted to curl up on her couch, alone. But that wouldn’t help her move forward. “Sure.”
Gabby squeezed her hand. “Give it time. Sometimes the best things are the ones we never saw coming or didn’t believe we would have.”
Not wanting to debate it, Shay didn’t tell Gabby that she wasn’t sure what she believed in anymore.
Gabby’s eyes sparkled, making Shay wary. “What?”
“Nothing. Just know that sometimes people withhold information because they’re trying to protect you.”
Shay made a huffing sound and rolled her eyes. “Trust me, I know that.”
“But in order to do that, if they want to protect you, it’s because they care. Sometimes even more than you can imagine.”
Wow. Her new friend didn’t pull any punches. It made Shay like her even more. Gabby mixed her compassion and her empathy with straight-up honesty. Because she believed Shay could handle it without crumpling.
She picked up the remote and pressed play. “I can’t guarantee my mind will be on the movie,” Shay admitted.
Gabby gave a dreamy sigh that made Shay laugh. “Me neither.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Would you just do it?” Wyatt put his hands on his hips in an effort to avoid strangling Brady.
“He’s just messing with you, man. We’ll do it.”
Brady turned and glared at his, obviously nicer, friend. “He didn’t ask you. This is no royal we. The weight of Shay and Wyatt’s future rests in my hands, and I intend to take that responsibility very seriously.”
He was a cop. He knew how to get rid of one body, even if Brady was a fairly large guy. Owen glanced over at him, standing in Brady’s living room, and shook his head.
“You’re so lucky he doesn’t have his gun on him,” Owen said.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Wyatt said, stepping closer to Brady.
The jackass held his ground, though, and if he wasn’t so wound up, so freaking on edge over Shay not answering his calls or his texts, maybe he would have found it funny. Wyatt let out a frustrated growl and shoved his hands through his hair. He walked over to the window. He was the jackass, and he knew it. Shay had wanted one thing from him—openness. And he’d been too selfish, too sure of the right thing to do, to give it to her. In the end, he’d not only broken her trust essentially, he’d put her in the exact danger he’d wanted to avoid.
“I’m just messing with you. Mostly. I do want to ask you a couple things, though,” Brady said.
Wyatt sighed and kept looking out at the bright, sunny day that held nothing but darkness for him. He’d even stopped by her place. She might not have been home, but his gut said she’d stared at him through the peephole.
“I’m trained to hold up under interrogation,” Wyatt said. He was mostly joking.
“Maybe in your professional life, but somehow, I think when it comes to Shay, you’re not holding up at all.”
He whirled, and Brady’s eyes widened. “Thanks, Smart Guy,” Wyatt said. “You figure that out on your own? I wouldn’t be here asking for your help if I was holding up.”
Brady crossed his arms over his chest, and Owen leaned back in the reclining chair. Wyatt sank
down on the couch and stared at the ground. “I want her back. She won’t let me close enough to tell her that. I hurt her. I get it. You guys aren’t my biggest fans. I get that, too. But if she gives me a chance, I’ll make this right.”
When he looked up again, both guys were staring at him with a mixture of pity and compassion. It made Wyatt want to punch something.
“Knock it off, Brady. What do you need us to do?” Owen picked up the glass of soda beside his chair and took a drink. He’d been here when Wyatt arrived.
“Again with the us and the we,” Brady said. But he sat down on the couch and turned to face Wyatt.
Wyatt held the other man’s stare. Brady must have seen his desperation because he caved. “All right. Tell us.”
Wyatt told them exactly what he needed and said a silent prayer that it would work. He thought he’d known what he wanted out of life. Now he couldn’t think of one thing that mattered other than Shay. And if he had to be buddies with these guys to make that happen? Well, at least they weren’t so bad. In fact, he could do a hell of a lot worse.
Chapter Twenty
The worst part of the days after the art show was waking up and realizing something was wrong, but not remembering what. The heaviness in her chest refused to lift, and she awoke every morning with a sadness that clung to her throughout the day.
She’d gone to bed after Gabby left last night fighting an urgency to reach out to him. Just to see him. But if she saw him, she’d want to touch him. And forgive him. How many times had he already apologized for who he was and the things he did? She had no right to try and change him. And clearly, being with her required too much of a change to his set ways.
She’d started to respond to some of the texts he’d sent her earlier in the week, but erased them all. She didn’t know what to say. His suit jacket still hung in her hall closet. When she’d realized that, she thought of taking it to him. Instead, she’d give it to Brady today. He’d called and insisted he needed to see her. She wasn’t sure what was so urgent, but it would do her good to get out of the apartment.
