Fight or Flight

by Natalie J. Damschroder

  “Thank you.” Regan maneuvered to the shoulder and waited for the trooper, her shoulders burning with tension.

  “He’s still in the car,” she told the dispatcher.

  “Standard procedure, ma’am. He’s running your information.”

  Regan bent to get her registration and proof of insurance from the glove compartment. When she straightened, the flashing lights reflected directly into her eyes, making her squint. She adjusted the mirror toward the ceiling. Her head began to throb, and she ran through evasive maneuvers in her mind.

  A few minutes later the cop finally stepped out, adjusted his belt, and approached.

  “He’s nearly to my window,” she reported. She rolled the window down an inch as the officer bent.

  “Regan Miller?”

  “Yes, officer.” He’d no doubt got her name off the plate registration, but it was still unnerving.

  “May I see your license, registration, and proof of insurance, please?”

  She handed them over and studied his uniform, badge, and equipment belt. “What’s your unit number, officer?”

  He raised his eyebrows but didn’t look up from her documents. “Unit seventy-two, ma’am.”

  She relayed the number to the dispatcher, who confirmed it was correct. Regan thanked the woman and hung up, daring to relax enough for her shoulders and neck to ease up.

  “You’re a mite cautious.” Trooper Driscoll returned her information through the scant two-inch gap at the top of her window. “Any particular reason?”

  Any explanation close to the truth would sound stupid or take too long, so she blamed the internet. “You know how it is these days—every time you turn on the computer someone’s emailed you another frantic warning. But you can’t be too careful, right?”

  “Just get that bulb replaced, ma’am. Left rear light.” He scribbled on a form and slipped it through her window. “This must be completed and mailed back to us within five days to avoid a fine. Any questions?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Have a nice night.” He touched the brim of his hat and strode back to his car, mercifully flicking off the lights when he climbed in. Regan sighed and pulled out, more than ready to get home. Living life this way took a toll that she never got used to.

  She’d barely managed to unknot her shoulders when her phone rang. Panic surged through her like electricity. Kelsey. Something was wrong already. No, that’s foolish mother-worry. She’d probably just forgotten something and wanted her to send it.

  But the name on the screen wasn’t Kelsey’s. Regan sighed. “Hello, Alan,” she answered.

  “Hey, babe. How’re you doing?”

  “It was hard, but not more than I expected. I’m on my way home.”

  “How about I meet you there? We can find a way to distract you, I’m sure.”

  Regan knew Alan expected her to sleep with him now that Kelsey was out of the house, but he didn’t understand why she’d kept him at bay. He thought she was normal.

  Kelsey had asked for a puppy once. Regan said no, and Kelsey had thrown her first real fit. Only six, she’d tried to talk their neighbor into letting her take home one of their dog’s new litter. When Regan dragged her home empty-handed, Kelsey went on a hunger strike, forcing Regan to explain that they couldn’t take anything into their lives they weren’t willing to leave behind if they had to run away. Kelsey somehow understood enough not to ask more. She’d applied the philosophy to everything, a little at a time, until it became second nature, like it already was for her mother.

  Not that Regan maintained complete isolation. She gave in to loneliness or flirtation from time to time, but never let anything get to the level of a relationship. Never let anyone into the cocoon she wrapped around her daughter. Once, when Kelsey was about thirteen and they were struggling to fix the broken screen door themselves, she’d grumbled, “How about a guy you don’t mind leaving behind? Even they have their uses.”

  Then Kelsey started refereeing soccer, and Regan had met Alan, the ref coordinator. He asked her out, and Kelsey encouraged her to go.

  “You deserve to be happy, Mom, and I think I want one of these.” She’d gestured at a pair of five-year-old twins tussling on the soccer field.

  Regan finally gave in, not because she wanted to get married and give Kelsey siblings, but because it was an element of normalcy that might offset the strangeness of knowing the best routes to lose a pursuer when she left the field after a game. Balancing safety and normality was Regan’s biggest challenge.

  “I’m sorry, Alan,” she said now. “I just want to be alone. You know, walk around aimlessly and look at her things, sniffle over the photo album.”

  “Sure, hon, I understand.” His voice softened, as it always did when she played Suburban Single Mom. She had no intention of walking around aimlessly, staring at the stuff her daughter had deemed too unimportant to take with her. But it was something an empty nester would do, and something Alan would understand. It would keep him away, at least for tonight.

  “I’ll call you,” she told him, and tried to convince herself it was time to break things off. She was starting to enjoy his kisses and gentle caresses, and was afraid if it went further, Alan would become the first thing she didn’t want to leave behind.

  Chapter Two

  Kelsey checked her watch and picked up the pace. Less than two weeks into her first term and she’d already been late to her English class twice. Rookie mistake, scheduling back-to-back classes on opposite sides of the campus, but an excuse her prof didn’t accept. Dammit. She was not going to flunk out!

  Her cell phone buzzed, sparking an answering buzz of annoyance. The text message would be her mother with one of her daily check-ins, poorly disguised as a cheery message about her garden or something funny their neighbor had said. Kelsey didn’t bother to answer.

  Cutting across the grass, she swung around the corner of the stone building, legs burning with the effort. She’d skip the super-slow elevator and kill herself on the stairs right inside the door. But she was going to make it.

  Wham!

  She slammed into something hard and flew backward, landing on her ass and smacking the base of her skull against the corner of a book in her backpack. Stars did a chorus line across her vision, but she could see the hand reaching down for her. With a rush of adrenaline, she instinctively batted it to the inside with her left hand, then grabbed it and yanked with her right. Her attacker crashed to the ground beside her with an oof. She jumped to her feet without an ounce of grace, due to her hefty backpack, and whirled on her attacker, lifting her foot, ready to stomp him.

  “Wait, wait! I’m sorry!” The guy who’d knocked her over pulled his knees up to shield her target and waved his arms, palms out. “I didn’t mean to run you over! It was an accident!”

  She froze, her brain catching up to her training. Then she realized who lay at her feet. And prayed for a natural disaster to end her sudden and unrelenting misery.

  “God, I’m sorry.” She reached to help him up. “I don’t—I mean, my mother… Hell.” Heat rushed to her face, and she stared at the ground, totally mortified.

  “It’s okay.” The captain of the football team, their best inside linebacker, dusted himself off. “I get it. Most moms want their kids to take self-defense training nowadays. I’m impressed, actually. We’ve got an opening on the team.” He flashed his amazingly sexy grin, and Kelsey got lost for a moment in his bright blue eyes. His shaggy haircut only half hid them. He was gorgeous, and she was an idiot. She didn’t even know what to say.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” he assured her. Then he frowned. “Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you when I knocked you over, did I?”

  “Hurt me?” She put her hand to the spot at the top of her neck without thinking.

  His frown deepened and he stepped closer, touching her neck and then retreating quickly when she winced. “I’m really sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay, I—” A bell rang inside the building. “Shit,
I’m late.” She started to run, but he caught her arm.

  “Wait! I’m Tom!”

  “I know,” she yelled back, shaking him off and running faster. No way in hell was she giving him her name. She might be the joke of the week at the frat party that night, but no one had to know it was her.

  Still, she couldn’t help smiling. Maybe she’d made an idiot of herself, but she had taken down the school’s record-setting tackler.

  ***

  “Nice buds.”

  Regan snapped her phone shut and shoved it guiltily into her pocket. Kelsey had been at school for weeks, and you’d think she’d have adjusted by now. But it didn’t matter how many times she told herself to leave Kelsey alone, she couldn’t go more than a few hours without checking on her. It was borderline psychotic.

  But not something she wanted to explain to the man lounging against the wooden fence between their yards, leering at her. She groaned at his lame attempt at innuendo and shielded her eyes from the sun.

  “That was really bad,” she told him.

  “I know. They’re not buds, they’re bulbs.”

  She shook her head and stood. “Why do I put up with you, Tyler Sloane?”

  “You don’t have a choice.” He paced her down the fence as she walked to the end and grabbed another handful of bulbs. “Where’d you get those moves, anyway?”

  She frowned and returned to her original spot. “What moves?”

  “You stood up all at once. You know, one move. You used to be a dancer or something?”

  Regan sighed. Ever since Tyler had moved in next door two years ago, he’d quizzed her like this. She never told him anything—had, in fact, fed him quite a few contradictory lies. He seemed to find the game delightful. She was tired of it.

  “Not a dancer? Maybe a ninja.”

  She snorted. “Leave me alone or this dirt I’m digging might fly a little far afield.”

  “Yeah, right. You can’t get me from there.”

  She flipped the trowel, and lumps of dirt hit him in the chest.

  “Damn.”

  “Told you.”

  “All right, I give.” His bantering tone disappeared. “Actually, I wanted to ask you a favor.”

  “You can ask.”

  “I’ll be going out of town soon. Can you pick up my mail and paper and water my plants while I’m gone?”

  “You don’t get the paper and you don’t have any plants.” She’d caught him stealing her newspaper enough times, and he just wasn’t the kind of guy to nurture houseplants.

  “Oh, yeah, right. Mail, then? And just keep an eye on the house?”

  “Sure.”

  He didn’t say anything else, and she stopped digging to look up. He stood there, studying her.

  “You still seeing that Alan geek?”

  “He’s not a geek, and yes. Why, you interested?”

  “Definitely.”

  She laughed, but he didn’t. She set down the trowel. “Seriously?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You never were before.”

  He shook his head, the smile sitting sadly on his mouth. “You weren’t paying attention. Anyway, thanks for taking care of the mail. I’ll bring you a key before I leave.” He tapped a fist on the top rail of the fence and turned to go into the house.

  Regan watched him, frowning. She’d always been aware he was a good-looking guy, but hadn’t exactly analyzed his parts. Now she saw they weren’t too bad. His butt was tight enough, and looked good in the faded jeans he always wore. He had broad shoulders, his muscles falling squarely between lean and bulky. Solid. He wore a T-shirt, as he usually did, but she bet he had a six-pack. And most women probably found his sun-streaked longish hair sexy. Hmm. Funny how she hadn’t paid attention to him that way.

  Of course, she’d pegged him on day one as a constant flirt, which was why his seriousness now surprised her. He gave everyone nicknames and winked his way through conversations. She never paid much attention to people like him. They’d become sort-of-friends only because of proximity and a tendency to drag their trashcans to the curb at the same time.

  She sat, still watching, as his screen door banged closed behind him, and wondered if ignoring him had been a mistake.

  Her phone chimed, making her jump and then her heart leap. Kelsey had texted her back. She dropped her trowel and pulled the phone from her pocket, frowning at the words on the screen. In class. Lay off. I M fine.

  Oh, well. Regan sighed and returned to the bulb planting. She’d known her daughter would only put up with it for so long. She was outside Regan’s influence now, as well as outside her protection, and there wasn’t anything she could do about that. She wasn’t going to be able to completely eliminate her neurosis, but she could at least switch to email.

  ***

  “For a little person, you sure sneeze loudly.” Kelsey frowned at her roommate. Van was bundled in flannel pajamas, a chenille bathrobe and a fleece blanket, looking utterly miserable but still trying to keep up with her homework. “You should be in bed.”

  Van snuffled and burrowed deeper into the blanket. “I hape cobes,” she groaned, her stuffed sinuses making her words difficult to understand. “And tests. But I can’t believe you haven’t gotten it. I…I…” She sneezed again, trying to cover her face with the blanket and not entirely succeeding.

  “I have a good immune system, I guess.” Kelsey turned back to her laptop and typed a quick email to her mother, reassuring her that everything was fine. She added a snide reference to something only she’d know about, so her mother would know she hadn’t been abducted and her email hijacked. Annoyance that her mother made her do this drove the snideness; guilt at being annoyed kept her from being completely generic. “I never get sick,” she added absentmindedly.

  “Never?” The velvety voice came from the open doorway. “Sounds like a challenge to me.”

  Kelsey couldn’t stop her goofy grin when she saw Tom. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” He tapped Van on the top of the head as he passed, then bent and gave Kelsey a soft kiss. “I have a cold, too,” he whispered. “Wanna go in your room and see if I can give it to you?”

  She delighted in the shiver going up her spine. “That sounds like an idea. But I need to study for my physics exam.”

  “I’ll help you.” He nipped her cheek, then her earlobe. “You can have a kiss for every question you get right.” His lips slid down her neck, and the shiver turned into a shudder.

  “Umm. Van, we’ll be in the room studying, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Fine.” She blew her nose.

  Kelsey stood and reached for her book, but Tom grabbed it first. She smiled at him. “Just come in if you need something, or wanna go to bed, or whatever,” she told her roommate.

  “Don’ worry, I’m not shy.” She waved them off and went back to her book. “Don’t forget the raincoat, kids.”

  “Van!” Kelsey’s blush rose from her feet to her scalp all at once. “We’re not—” She couldn’t look at Tom. They hadn’t even talked about sex yet. It had only been a few weeks since Tom had tracked her down and asked her out. Anyway, no way would she do it with her roommate right on the other side of the wall.

  Tom didn’t seem to have the same inhibitions. “Don’t worry, Van, we won’t do anything you wouldn’t do.”

  Van snorted, which sent her into a coughing fit. “Get outta here.”

  Kelsey let Tom tug her into her room and slide the door shut. He took the book out of her hand and fell onto the bed, propping himself up on one elbow as he flipped pages. She sat, leaning against his abdomen, and he reached automatically for her hair, twirling a lock of it between his fingers. After a moment he flipped the book closed and looked up at her.

  “Sorry, Kels, but I don’t think I can concentrate on this right now.”

  Her breath caught at the look in his eyes. “I…um…have a test.”

  “I know.” He cupped the back of her head and guided her to lie do
wn beside him. “I’ll help.” He lowered his head. “Later, I promise,” he whispered. His mouth touched hers and she melted like she always did. His lips were hot and coaxing, his big hand stroking up over her hip, then tightening on her ribcage to pull her closer to him. His hard-on pressed against her left thigh, and her body quickened, making her want to lift up, rub herself against him. Something tensed low in her body, tightened. Her breasts ached.

  The kisses went on and on, his tongue dipping in and out of her mouth, his hand now cradling her head, his thumb stroking her jaw. He wasn’t pushing her, wasn’t getting any more urgent, but the moment came when she had to stop him or continue all the way through.

  Hating herself, panting, she pulled her head back and pushed at his shoulder just hard enough to break the kiss. She braced herself for his anger, annoyance, derision. She’d come to expect it whenever she put on the brakes with other guys.

  But he didn’t respond with any of those things. His eyes were soft beneath their heavy lids, and his mouth curved up in a tender smile.

  “Not yet, huh?”

  She shook her head, her gaze lowering to the V of his polo shirt. She toyed with the buttons. “Not yet.” Her voice was husky. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” He stroked a hand over her hair. Her heart seemed to fill her chest. “I’m not here just for the sex, Kels.”

  She snorted. “All guys are here just for the sex.”

  Tom looked around, mocking jealousy. “Where? I’ll beat their heads in.”

  Laughing, she shook her head again. “You can say it, but I know better. But it’s not why I’m holding out,” she hurried on, not wanting to argue about basic nature. “It’s more complicated.”

  He gave her the universal look guys get that says “women.”

  “I know, I know, we make it more complicated when you guys think it’s as simple as can be.” She sighed. “It’s my mom.”

  He frowned. “You don’t want to have sex with me because of your mom? No offense, but you’re an adult. I don’t think you need her permission.”