Before We Fall

by Courtney Cole

  But then I notice that they’re all rushing to the bars, pressing their faces against the metal to get a good look at something.

  I take the opportunity to grab a seat on one of the empty benches, but I do strain my neck to see what the hell has them crowing like banshees.

  I quickly see that it’s a who, not a what.

  Specifically, it’s Dominic fucking Kinkaide.

  Dominic will do. I tend to drop the “fucking.” Unless of course, I’m actually fucking.

  The memory of his husky voice causes my breath to speed up a little as I watch him being escorted down the hall through the cells.

  Even with his face scraped up, he’s sexy. His hands dangle freely at his sides, no handcuffs, so he’s been bailed out. He pauses in front of my cell, standing in front of the bars, ignoring the frenzied women who are reaching out to him.

  Dominic, will you sign my arm?

  Dominic, can I kiss you?

  Dominic, touch me, touch me.

  “Just a second,” Dominic tells the cops. One nods and the other barks at the women, “Get back!”

  Dominic steps to the bars, staring at me. Unbidden and unconsciously, I get to my feet.

  His gaze is locked with mine, the arrogant green gaze that he’s famous for.

  He’s going to help me. He’s going to tell them that it’s all a big misunderstanding, that the drugs were his after all, and he’s going to get me out of here.

  I smile in relief as I approach him.

  But he doesn’t say anything. He just stares at my face, at the bruise that is forming on my cheek. He reaches through the bars and touches it lightly, his thumb just barely touching my skin.

  “Uh-uh,” one of the cops says. “No touching.”

  Dominic pulls his hand back, letting it fall limply to the side.

  The look on his face turns my stomach into knots… so vulnerable. So tired. So weary. World-weary.

  Everything about him is striking, though. Those cut fucking cheekbones… god, in spite of everything, I want to reach out my finger and trace the edges of them. His chiseled jaw covered with the sexiest of stubble, the dark hair tousled in an I-don’t-give-a-shit way. Unlike other wannabes, it actually seems like Dominic doesn’t give a shit. About anything.

  But most striking of all are those fucking green eyes, dark, dark, dark, but still somehow rimmed in golden hazel with interesting gold flecks in them. As his gaze stays locked with mine, it’s like he’s burning me, like I’m on fire. And he’s the only thing that can put me out.

  I know it’s stupid to say. But his gaze is that intense. It’s like he can see inside of me, deep into my most private thoughts, into where my secrets lie. But then his shoulders drop and his face turns expressionless.

  “I’m sorry,” he says simply.

  He looks away, like a camera lens shuttering closed. Like I don’t even exist to him, like I’m beneath him and not worth a second glance. The fire has been extinguished.

  He nods at his escorts and they continue on, walking toward freedom while I’m still stuck in here.

  Because of him.

  “Wait,” I call out after them. “Just a second. I don’t belong here!” But they ignore me and keep walking, and I shut the hell up because I’m not going to beg.

  Dominic fucking Kinkaide got us both arrested and then he gets bailed out within half an hour, just because he’s a freaking celebrity. And he left me here to fucking rot.

  I roll my eyes at his arrogance, at this situation, at my horrible luck. Life sucks so hard sometimes, and it gets suckier by the minute.

  As I slump against the cement wall again, I ponder my rotten luck. And my poor decisions which lead to my rotten luck. That, of course, brings me to thoughts of something else, my poorest decision of them all.

  My ex-boyfriend. Jared.

  He’d killed someone because of me and is currently in prison for vehicular manslaughter. I can’t help but marvel at the irony that we’re both cooped up in jail cells at this very moment.

  I swallow hard at the thought. I’m seriously in the same position as that little psychotic fuck. Oh. My. God.

  After everything I’ve done throughout the last couple of months to put him behind me… I’ve gotten counseling, I make conscious decisions every day to not be reckless or wild (both things are fundamental building blocks of my nature), and yet here I am… in the same situation as he is.

  Locked away.

  I gulp. Maybe it’s poetic justice. After all the trouble that he wreaked on my family and friends, maybe I deserve this. Maybe I’ll never get away from it no matter how hard I try. I sigh and watch the clock on the wall outside of the bars ticking down the minutes.

  Sixty worst-of-my-life minutes later, I finally hear the words I’ve been waiting for, called loudly through the cells.

  “Jacey Vincent. Your ride’s here.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief, and I realize that I’d honestly been worried that for the first time ever, maybe Brand wasn’t going to come to my rescue. That maybe he’d called Gabriel, and my brother had told him to let me stew for a while, to think about what I’d done or some bullshit.

  But he didn’t.

  Thank god.

  Once I see his face, though, after I’ve walked past all the hookers and drunks, down the long tiled corridor flanked by jail cells, I’m not sure that I should be thanking god for Brand’s rescue. I should probably be praying for my soul, because Brand’s furious, and from the look on his face it’s a real possibility that he might kill me.

  His enormous frame practically fills up the lobby where he’s waiting, and I’ve never seen him look quite as angry as he does right now. He’s got to be at least 6’5” and he’s built like a brick house, with not an ounce of fat on him, and that makes him a very intimidating presence, particularly when he’s pissed.

  He served in the Army Rangers with my brother and he looks like he just stepped out of uniform, even though it’s been almost two years now. He’s let his blond hair grow, so now it’s fashionably shaggy and grazes his collar line. If he didn’t seem like a brother to me, I’d say he was hot. The women in the reception area seem to agree. Every female eye in the place is glued on him. But his are glued on me.

  His blue eyes are hard and glittering as he watches me approach.

  He’s pissed.

  I gulp.

  “It’s not what you think,” I tell him preemptively when I reach him. “They weren’t my drugs.”

  His gaze is fixed on my cheek.

  “Are you okay?” he asks harshly. I nod, my fingers brushing across my cheek self-consciously.

  “I’m fine… I tried to break up a fight, but—”

  Brand cuts me off by grabbing my arm and dragging me toward the door.

  “It’s not what I think? So I didn’t just get called to the police station at four A.M. to bail your ass out? Then I get here and your face is swollen and you’re dressed like a fucking prostitute. At the moment, I almost don’t give a fuck what you did or didn’t do, Jacey. You were supposed to quit Saffron. Gabriel’s going to shit.”

  “Don’t tell him,” I plead as he holds the door open. And even though Brand’s pissed, I can’t help but notice that he’s shielding my body with his, hiding me from the people in the lobby. As if that can somehow take away my shame for being here. Even still, it’s a sweet gesture, especially since he’s so mad.

  Brand stares at me icily. “Your brother’s gonna know about this,” he tells me firmly. “Jesus, Jacey. After everything that happened with Jared, and the therapy that you’ve gone through already… We were starting to think that you were actually going to get your shit together. But now you’re assaulting police officers. Christ. If that Kinkaide kid hadn’t pulled some sort of strings, you’d still be rotting in jail. They don’t let people out who assault cops.”

  This stops me in my tracks.

  “Dominic got the charges dropped?” I ask in shock. Why didn’t he say anything when he stood there stari
ng at me? All he said was… I’m sorry. And what the fuck was he sorry for? Smacking me in the face? Getting me arrested? Leaving me to rot in jail?

  Brand leads me to his truck and opens the door, purposely looking away from my ass as I climb in.

  “Yeah. I don’t know how he did it, all I know is what they told me when I arrived. You’re only facing possession of marijuana charges now. You’re lucky. Well, lucky until Gabe hears about this. He’s going to kick your ass. You’re dressed like a hooker, you make tips by flirting with Saffron customers… you might as well be a stripper, for god’s sake. Gabe’s done everything he can think of to help you, Jacey. We don’t even know what to do with you anymore.”

  He slams my door and I do feel guilty.

  After everything went down in flames with Jared, Gabe paid for therapy for me. He and Maddy let me cry on their shoulders for hours and hours. They held my hand as I was taking baby steps to stand on my own two feet.

  And since I lost my job working for Maddy when she sold her restaurant, they put down the deposit for my apartment in Chicago, with the understanding that I would find another part-time job to pay my bills while I finished school. Saffron wasn’t exactly what they had in mind.

  As Brand swings into the truck, I turn to him.

  “It’s not my fault that I’m still at Saffron,” I snap defensively. “I tried to get a normal waitressing job. But I can’t make enough money to pay my bills doing that while I’m in school. Working at Saffron is no different than working at Hooters or someplace. All I have to do is flirt and serve champagne to rich people at private parties.”

  “You mean, rich men at private parties.” Brand scowls as he jams his keys into the ignition. “You’re only one step above a stripper, Jacey, and you know it.”

  “I’ve only got one class left,” I tell him quietly. “And I’m taking it online. I’ll have my business degree in just a few weeks. I’m working on it, Brand. I’m working on everything. I’m doing the best I can.” As I turn to face Brand even more squarely, the smell of his aftershave floods over me. That familiar scent, symbolizing something warm and safe, someone warm and safe, makes me realize that I’m okay. I’m no longer in a Chicago jail.

  I’m safe.

  I’m safe with Brand.

  He’s rather die than let anything hurt me.

  Then why can’t I stop the waterworks that suddenly overwhelm me?

  There’s no reason to cry now, but no matter how much I try to stop the tears, I can’t. My sobs well up into a wail that erupts into a shoulder-shaking crying jag.

  As I cry inconsolably, I know that with every sob and every quaking breath I take, I’m Brand’s worst nightmare.

  Chapter Four

  Jacey

  Brand stares at me in horror.

  “Jesus Christ, Jace. Calm down. You’re fine. Everything’s fine.” He tries to soothe me as he awkwardly pats my back, his large hands thumping too hard on my shoulders. “It’s okay. I know you’re trying. And you’ve been doing a good job. Everything’s fine.”

  He keeps repeating himself, because he doesn’t know what to say. A woman crying is his kryptonite. He has no idea how to handle it.

  I launch myself into his arms, burying my face into his shirt. I know I’m getting snot on him, but I don’t care. I’m just so happy to be here right now, in this truck with Brand. But more importantly, I’m so happy to be out of jail. I hadn’t realized until this very minute how scared I’d been.

  “Thank you for bailing me out.” I sniff. “I didn’t really assault a police officer. It was a reflex… he went to grab me and I pushed his hand away. I didn’t mean to. And the drugs weren’t mine. They were in Dominic’s car.”

  Brand looks at me with sympathy as he steers us through the parking lot and out onto the dark street.

  “Tell me what happened,” he instructs. “Everything.”

  So I do. I tell him all of it. How Kaylie almost got forced into a blow job, how Dominic Kinkaide, the fucking actor, had stopped it, but then he’d turned right around and gotten into a fight which ended in both of us being arrested.

  “He fucking flipped out on this guy,” I tell Brand. “And the other guy clocked him hard in the temple, so I don’t know how he stayed standing up, but he still managed to kick the shit out of the dude. I jumped in to try and break it up and one of them accidentally smacked me.”

  One of them. It was Dominic. But I don’t want to tell Brand that.

  “And then the cops came and they found pot in his car. He said it wasn’t his and I know it wasn’t mine, so they decided to arrest us both. The other guy, Cris, told the cops that he didn’t want to press assault charges, so all Dominic had to do was admit the pot was his and they’d probably have let us go. But he was an asshole about it. God.”

  My head drops into my hands and Brand glances at me. “How do you know for sure it was his? Just because it wasn’t yours doesn’t mean it was his, you know.”

  I think about that for a second. I guess I hadn’t actually seen Dominic with drugs. The cops had just found it on his back floorboard. But still.

  “It was his car,” I finally insist. “It had to be his. But whatever. All I know for sure is that it wasn’t mine.”

  “Well, you’ll have a chance to speak up about that when you appear for court,” Brand tells me with a sigh. “You’ll need to find a lawyer.”

  I nod and lean my head against the window.

  We’re quiet for a while before Brand speaks again.

  “So you were actually in Sin Kinkaide’s house?”

  Even in the midst of all my drama, I can’t help but smile at the reverence in Brand’s voice. I happen to know that Devil’s Own is one of his favorite bands. He plays them all the time when he’s working out.

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “And Sin Kinkaide is pretty fucking awesome. He was so nice in person… way nicer than you’d expect him to be.”

  Brand raises an eyebrow. “Unlike Dominic?”

  I shrug, picturing Dominic’s brooding stare and the way he flipped out on his old friend. “I don’t know. Celebrities aren’t the same as us… they play by different rules. But he did save Kaylie’s ass, so he can’t be all bad.”

  Mentioning Kaylie reminds Brand of the matter at hand and he gets stern again.

  “Neither of you should be working there. I don’t care if it’s good money. Maybe you could come work for Gabe and me as our assistant. We need another one since our last one quit. Working at Saffron puts you into bad situations. Look at you tonight! Jumping into a fight, Jacey? I can’t even kick the shit out of someone for hurting you… because you did this to yourself. You know better than to get in the middle of a fight.”

  I stare at the floor, trying not to cry again. He’s probably right. I’m too gullible. I’ve fallen for the wrong guys a hundred times and I’m surprised by it every time. I’m a horrible judge of character. I get myself into the worst situations because of my bad judgment. But all of these things are issues that I’m working on. Because I think I’m already doing the best I can, I don’t even know what to say. Brand just doesn’t understand.

  “Are you listening to me?” Brand demands grumpily.

  I nod wearily. Being up all night, getting arrested, and listening to this endless lecture is taking its toll, and I can feel my shoulders droop more and more by the minute.

  “I don’t want to work for you and Gabe,” I tell him limply. “I need to stand on my own. That’s part of what I learned in therapy. Thank you for the offer, but I’ve got to make my own way.”

  I steel myself for another lecture, but thankfully, the end is in sight. Brand pulls up to the curb in front of my house and sits there for a second, staring first at his big hands, then at me.

  “It scared the fuck out of me, Jacey,” he admits quietly. “When you called and said you needed help, I mean. A hundred things went through my mind before you were able to tell me what was going on. Don’t do that shit. When Gabe moved to Hartford, I promised him
I would watch out for you, but you’re making it difficult.”

  He sighs and I swallow hard, hating that I caused him worry. He levels another gaze at me, his blond eyebrows knitted together in consternation.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he continues. “I know you’re trying, but try harder. You’ve got to make smarter decisions. Please. Your brother, me, Madison… we’ve all had enough drama to last us for a couple of lifetimes, okay?”

  The look on his face, serious and tired, makes my throat close up.

  He has had enough drama to last for two lifetimes. He and Gabe both, back when they were still in the Rangers. They’re fucking heroes and they don’t deserve to worry even a minute about me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper as I scoot over and kiss him on the cheek. “I’m sorry for not being good enough. I don’t know why I can’t seem to pull things together. Thank you for coming to get me, Brand. And thank you for always being someone I can count on.”

  I get choked up now, because honestly, there are very few people I can actually count on. My dad’s worthless, and my mom’s a flake. Brand is a pillar of strength and he always has been.