by J. Lynn
They’d sneak outside to have a beer and some time together.
I glanced down at my bottle and toyed with the label. My heart rate kicked up a little, because this—this felt so very real and that . . . wow, that scared me.
Needing to distract myself, I asked, “Do you really think Henry has nothing to do with what’s been happening?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Ugh.
“I know you don’t like the fact I talked to him. It wasn’t like we were having drinks. I wanted to make sure you were safe from him,” he explained. “And like I said, wanting to make amends doesn’t make up for what he did, but isn’t feeling remorse for one’s own actions better than having none?”
I frowned as I mulled that over. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Guess so?”
“I mean, how do you really know if someone feels remorse? Or guilt? Or if it’s just because they got caught and are in trouble?”
“You know, I saw a lot of messed-up shit when I was in the sandbox,” Reece said, jarring me with the unexpected comment. “I saw what happened when someone got hit by an IED. I saw bodies of guys I considered friends riddled with bullets, some losing their legs or arms—their lives. I saw people who when it was all said and done didn’t have much of anything to ship back to their families. You kind of get used to it—the anger every time your group loses someone. Doesn’t make it easier, but you’re at war. I guess that helps you compartmentalize the shit that’s going down, what you got to do to make sure everyone survives.”
He paused, taking a long swallow. “When I left the academy and started working here, I thought I could do the same. Compartmentalize the bullshit, the annoying traffic stops and the domestics at the same house every Friday, and the god-awful traffic accidents, the senseless overdoses, and dumbass-on-dumbass violence. Packed that shit away where it belongs. I was doing it. So I thought having to shoot someone would be no different from being at war or just doing my job. I was wrong.”
I lowered the bottle to my lap, shocked into silence. He was talking about the shooting. Reece never talked about the shooting. I didn’t dare to breathe too loudly for fear of him stopping.
“It was a normal call. A fight outside of Spades Bar and Grill. I got there at the same time as another officer did. The fight was in the parking lot, and it took us a few to make it through the crowd.” He shook his head slowly. “The kid—his name was Drew Walker. Only eighteen. He was beating the shit out of an older guy. To the point that when we got there, the dude was knocked the fuck out. You know, he had a broken jaw, shattered nose, and eye. A cracked skull. That’s what that kid did to him.”
Reece tipped his bottle away from him, eyeing the label with a look of concentration. “He was on meth and some kind of other fucked-up drug. We yelled at him to stop and when he did . . . man, he was covered in blood. Like something straight out of a horror film. The kid had a gun. He had a gun the entire time. That’s what he was beating the guy with. Not his fists. The handle of the Glock.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered. Recalling the details the press had reported on the shooting, that part had either been glossed over or never told.
He pursed his lips. “Instinct. The second he aimed that gun, it was instinct. Both of us fired, but it was my shot that killed him—my bullet from my gun that did it was what the investigation showed.”
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say.
“I had to go face-to-face with that boy’s mom. She smacked me. Not once.” He laughed, but there was no humor. “Twice. She just didn’t understand. He damn near killed the guy he was beating and he was on a crazy combination of drugs. I don’t blame her, though, for hating me. And she does. Still does. Always will. He was her son. I get that, but man, it’s not like overseas. You don’t see family members then. You aren’t staring them in the eyes.”
My chest ached for him—ached for the whole situation. I got the what-ifs that surrounded the incident. What if the boy hadn’t been on drugs? What if he hadn’t gotten into the fight? What if it had been the other officer’s bullet? I’d asked myself those kinds of questions a thousand times. What if I hadn’t dragged Charlie to the football game so I could catch a glimpse of Reece? What if we had decided to stay the entire game? What if I had simply walked away and not gotten into it with Henry?
“There was a lot of anger.” He looked at me then and sighed. “A lot. Like why was I the one who got the call? Why was it my bullet? Did I make the right decision? Was there something else that could’ve been done?”
“You did what you were supposed to do,” I told him, believing every single word.
A small smile appeared. “Whenever there’s an officer-involved shooting, there’s always an investigation. I was cleared of any wrongdoing, but that doesn’t make it easier, knowing you took a life of a kid who wasn’t even old enough to buy this beer I’m drinking.” He raised his bottle to that and then said, “Because doing the right thing isn’t always the . . . well, the easiest thing to live with. Living with that kind of anger and guilt is a bitter combination.”
Boy, didn’t I know that. I took a sip of my beer. I knew there was very little I could say that would make a huge difference, but I said what I thought was true. “You are not a bad person, Reece. What you had to do was hard and he was a kid, but—”
“But it happened, babe. It was something that I had to deal with—still dealing with, so I know it when I see it.”
I tensed.
“I see it when I talk to Henry. And I see it in you, but Roxy, you’ve got no ownership to that. You understand that?”
I nodded, mainly because it was hard to explain why I felt such guilt over Charlie. “I’m glad you talked to me about what happened,” I said after a couple of moments. “I know it’s not easy to talk about.”
“It’s not. So you know that door is two-way, right?”
I raised my brows.
“I know there’s stuff you’ve got that isn’t easy to talk about, but you need to try, and when you do, I’ll be here.” He pulled his feet off the railing and stood. “Want another beer?”
Blinking, I glanced down at my almost empty beer. “Sure.”
As he moved to go back inside, he stopped beside me and curled his fingers under my chin. Tilting my head back, he dipped down and kissed me like he had all the time in the world. Slowly at first, just a brushing of his mouth against mine, and then deeper, parting my lips with his tongue. It wasn’t just a kiss. Not when his tongue danced over mine or the way he tasted me. Reece turned kissing into an art form, and if I had to attach a color to it, to get it on canvas, it would be supple shades of reds and purples.
I was still dazed from the kiss when Reece returned with more beer. We ended up talking into the wee hours of the morning, sometimes about nothing important, and after about the third beer, the conversation got a little more serious. I might have admitted to locking my younger brother in a chest once. Then I admitted that I hated taking the design classes in college. “The guys are freaking snots to deal with,” I told him. “Like you need a dick to know code or work in design, when in reality, any thirteen-year-old with a computer can design a decent website.”
Reece frowned over at me. “Then why do you do it? It’s a serious question.”
I shrugged. “I should get a degree.”
“You should do what you want.”
“It is what I want.”
He snorted. “Whatever.”
I stuck my tongue out, and he laughed, which made me smile, because I really liked the sound of his laugh. As I watched him finish off his beer, I thought about what he shared with me tonight. It made sense why he was able to look at everything objectively when it came to Henry. Didn’t mean I agreed, but I got where he was coming from.
“How did you finally let go of the anger, Reece?�
� I asked.
One shoulder rose. “Do you ever really let go of that? Completely? The anger and guilt? Nah. I think it cuts deep enough that it leaves scars that don’t heal. You just learn how to manage before you hit rock bottom with it.”
“And have . . . have you hit rock bottom with it?”
A long time passed before I realized he wasn’t going to answer that question. Maybe because he didn’t know the answer. Reece looked away, his jaw flexing as he stared into the woods, seemingly at nothing. Silence descended, and I knew deep down there was something he wasn’t sharing with me. Something he didn’t want me to know.
Chapter 22
It was a week after the break-in and I wasn’t really thinking about that at the moment, because it was a little weird to be going to a cookout at Jax’s place, because I felt like this was the first time Reece and I were really stepping out as . . . as something like a legit couple. I guessed that’s what we actually were. We talked like we were. We had sex like we were. He had the extra key to my apartment. Mainly because if I was working when the guy wired my place, he’d be able to let him in, but whatever. We were like a couple, and that made me feel kind of stupid for being so weird about it in the first place.
But my head had been all over the place this past week. I wasn’t used to being around a guy as much as I was with Reece, and I thought I’d be annoyed with the lack of space, but I wasn’t. I actually missed him when he wasn’t around, which was odd, because when he wasn’t working, he was with me. I really liked it when Reece came home.
He was always very hands-on when he got off work.
And if I counted the amount of time that passed from when he hit the bed to when he was inside me, it was probably around a couple of minutes. If that. Which was also something I had a hard time wrapping my head around. With other guys, I needed foreplay, lots of foreplay. With Reece, just the feel of his skin moving against mine aroused me enough for some between-the-sheets shenanigans.
I also discovered that he hadn’t been joking when he’d said he only slept a few hours here and there. There’d been a few times when he’d gotten up before me, even after falling asleep after me. On Thursday, I’d woken up to find him gone, sitting out on the balcony, his feet kicked up on the railing and his expression far away, focused on something he hadn’t really been willing to share with me, but the shadows in his eyes told me it had to do with that shooting.
It still haunted him, and I hated that I had no idea how to help him with that. Or if he wanted my help. That morning, when I tried to talk to him, it had been a no-go, so I resorted to one way that I knew put that carefree smile back on his handsome face. I’d gotten on my knees between him and that balcony railing . . . and we definitely broke some public decency laws.
If my dumb nervousness was showing on the way to Jax’s—which it had to be because I was as twitchy as a tweeker—Reece didn’t let on that he noticed. Instead, he kept the conversation light, steering away from talk about Charlie, Henry, and the whole angry, creepy stalker dude who may or may not be Henry.
All we did know was that it wasn’t Dean Zook. Colton had interviewed him after the break-in, and apparently just the sight of a detective showing up at his place had caused the guy to break out in hives. According to Colton, Dean might be persistent and rude, but he wasn’t getting a stalker vibe from him and he doubted that I’d hear from Dean again.
Okay. I wasn’t going to think about that—any of that. Tonight was going to be normal and fun and all things good.
When we pulled into the parking lot and Reece killed the engine, I felt my stomach drop and land on my feet as my gaze locked with a cerulean one. “Did I tell you that you look beautiful today?” he said.
My lips parted as I nodded. He had. That morning.
“Oh. I’m going to tell you again. You look beautiful.”
Wordless, all I could do was stare at him. He was so handsome, but it was the openness in his steady gaze, the acceptance of me and all my crazy that really undid me.
You’ve fallen, an insidious voice whispered and I wanted to smack that dumb bitch upside her head, because another chirpier voice was pointing out that I probably fell when I was fifteen. It was just a long, slow-motion kind of fall at this point.
“You got the potato salad?”
“Huh?” I murmured, distracted by the warring voices in my head.
He gestured at my feet. “The potato salad that we bought at the store that you insisted on putting in another plastic container so it looked like you actually made it when I’m sure there’s no one here going to believe you actually made that.”
“Oh!” I bent over, scooping up the tub. “I totally made this.”
“Liar.”
“Shut up,” I hissed, yanking on the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. I rolled my eyes. “Can you unlock my door?”
He chuckled and hit the button. I all but fell out of the damn thing, and then was stunned that within a heartbeat, Reece was by my side, taking the potato salad out of my grasp and grabbing my hand with his.
We were holding hands.
Like boyfriend and girlfriend.
We were totally holding hands as we crossed the parking lot, and I was torn between punching myself in the lady bits and skipping like a schoolgirl.
I needed therapy.
The door to Jax’s townhome was unlocked, and as soon as we stepped inside the house, we almost plowed into a beautiful redhead coming down the stairs.
“Hey!” I squealed. “Avery!” Then I frowned. “Are you okay?”
Avery looked a little green as she gave me a wobbly smile. “Hey,” she replied in a much more subdued voice. “Sorry. I’m getting over a stomach bug. The stomach is still a little woozy, but I’m not contagious or anything.” She glanced at where my hand was mating with Reece’s, and her grin strengthened. “Hi, Reece.”
He nodded. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do we need to get Cam?”
Avery’s laugh was airy. “Yes, I’m sure. And besides, I doubt you’ll pull him away from the grill. I’m pretty sure he kicked Jax off grill duty. He does that everywhere we go. It’s weird.”
“Probably a good thing. Cam can cook, right?” I asked as we followed her to the kitchen and out the back door.
Her eyes got this dreamy look that was goofy and cute, and I wondered if I looked like that when people mentioned Reece. Probably not as adorable, and more whacked. “Yeah, he can cook.”
Reece squeezed my hand. “I bet his omelets aren’t as good as mine.”
I snorted.
His eyes narrowed on me as his lips twitched. “You wait and see if I make you another omelet anytime soon.”
Avery’s avid gaze bounced back and forth between us. “So you guys . . . um—”
“Joined the league of the incredibly good-looking couple secret organization of annoying hotness?” Katie appeared, popping out of a wall for all I knew. Dressed down today—sort of—she was wearing hot-pink jeans and an off-the-shoulder black shirt. “Yes. The answer would be yes.”
Reece raised his brows.
“What? I dare you to deny such label,” she challenged. “Do it. Make my day.”
I giggled.
“I wasn’t going to deny it,” Reece replied. “But thanks for stealing our thunder.”
Unabashed, Katie rocked back on what appeared to be six-inch heels. She spun around, clapping. “Reece and Roxy, whose names link together in an incredibly cute way, are totally doing it!”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, eyes wide.
“Well, that’s one way of making an announcement.” Reece sighed.
A whole bunch of heads turned in our direction. By the grill, Jax raised his hand and gave us a . . . he gave us a thumbs-up? Really?
“I’m so proud of our babies,” Nick commented from where he
sat near the grill, sprawled in a lawn chair he looked like he overgrew a few feet ago, a hoodie up over his head and rocking dark sunglasses. “They’re all grown up now. What shall we ever do?”
Calla walked to us, her long blond hair swishing in a ponytail. She grinned as she took the potato salad from us. “I have so many questions,” she said to me meaningfully. “But since Katie pretty much just put that all out there, I’ll wait.”
“Thanks,” I muttered dryly.
She laughed as she plopped the container on a card table someone must’ve dug up from a basement or a frat house, from the looks of it. “You make this?” Her brows rose.
“Yes,” I answered, not even blinking an eye.
Reece swallowed a laugh that earned him a strange look from Calla, and I pulled my hand free, shooting him a death glare over my shoulder. His grin spread.
“You totally didn’t make this,” she said, brows arched.
I sighed. “No.”
Calla laughed again. “I was going to say I didn’t know you peeled potatoes.”
“Peeling potatoes is hard,” I grumbled.
Avery joined Cam, who immediately draped an arm over her shoulders. “You feeling okay, shortcake?” he asked, concern evident in the way he stared at her. When she nodded, he dipped his head and kissed the tip of her nose and then looked up. “The hamburgers are almost done. Got some hot dogs on the grill, too. Wanted to grill some chicken, but Jase didn’t want to wait so long.”
Jase, the extremely good-looking one of the bunch, folded his arms. “Especially when you want to baste it like you’re fucking Betty Crocker or some shit.”
“Don’t hate on Betty Crocker,” Cam warned him.
Cam kind of made me nervous. Not in a bad way, but mainly because he was a pro soccer player—a freaking pro soccer player. I always felt out of my element when I was around him.
“They smell great.” Reece glanced at Jax. “Colton’s going to try to make it, but no promises.”
“Understandable,” he returned. He waved his hand at the numerous lawn chairs. “Help yourself.”
