Resisting Love

by Christine Zolendz

  “I don’t want to hear about—” I started, but Max cut me right off.

  “But it’s something we have to talk about,” he rumbled. Max and I were pretty close, and he never pulled the boss card on me, even though he was my superior, but the look he gave me made me feel otherwise for the first time ever. “Look, Dean, I know you and Thomas were close, but if he was into to something, they’re looking at all of us. I just want to know, so I can protect the rest of us.”

  “He was a good cop, Max. A good one,” I said. How could he think differently?

  Ryan leaned forward and wrapped his hand of cards along the top of the table, “I know I’m just the replacement, and I didn’t know him, but I heard he got questioned over some missing money that was supposed to be vouchered and never was.”

  I knew Thomas and Lucy were having money problems, but not enough that he’d steal money from an arrest. Right? I looked at Max for confirmation. “Did you hear anything about that?”

  “I know he had a CCRB, a day before his death,” Max replied.

  CCRB was the civilian complaint review board and going before it meant someone had filed a complaint against him personally. “What did they say? You have to know,” I asked Max.

  He shrugged, “I don’t. I don’t have any idea what the complaint was. No paperwork came past me. That’s why I thought he might have told you something.”

  Jack chugged his beer and laid it noisily on the table, “If they were looking at him, then they’re looking at the whole team. I can’t give up any more days. I don’t have any.”

  “But no one has called the rest of us on the carpet,” Callie said. “Maybe it’s got nothing to do with the squad. Maybe it was just him.”

  “I went to go see Lucy today,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. I didn’t want to have this conversation. I called them over, because I wanted to forget. Why was I letting this continue?

  “And?” Max asked, seriously.

  “She thinks that he was cheating on her. She found his phone and went through it. There were a ton of calls to someone named Katherine Meyers.”

  “No way,” Callie snapped. “Maybe she was a lawyer—if he was in trouble at work—because he was crazy about Lucy, and he would have never done that.”

  I stood up, shaking my head. “But you think he’d steal money? He wasn’t like that either,” I said, throwing down my cards. It was a shitty hand anyway. “I’m going out to smoke a cigar. I need air.”

  “Sounds good,” Ryan nodded at me, “I’m right behind you.”

  Behind us, the rest of them started packing up the plates of food and cards. I guess shitty poker night was over.

  Ryan and I made ourselves comfortable on the Adirondack chairs on the porch. It was cold out, but the sky was clear and the cigars were good.

  Jack, Max, and Callie came out and said their goodbyes quickly. Each one of them giving me suspicious looks, like I knew what the fuck was going on and just wasn’t letting them in on it. Ridiculous. They all pissed me off.

  Ryan and I watched them drive away, taillights fading into the distance.

  “You really don’t know what was going on with him, do you?” Ryan asked, taking a deep pull from his cigar. The tip burned cherry red and smoke drifted up around his head.

  “No, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to know,” I grumbled over my cigar.

  “Nah, man. If it were me—I’d want to clear my friend’s name. Prove everyone wrong,” he shrugged, leaning his head back against the chair. “You believe in him so much? You know he was a good cop? Put your money where your mouth is.”

  Shiiit. The asshole was right.

  So was Liv.

  I wanted to find out anything I could. I had to call that Katherine Meyers and ask questions. Thomas wasn’t bad. He was a good cop with a big heart, and I’d clear his name to anyone that thought differently.

  I hoped.

  “Whoa,” Max said, as someone walked out of the front door. I was so lost in my own mind that I had no idea who it could be.

  “Hey, we called an Uber,” Brooke said, “It’ll be here in two minutes, and then, we’ll be out of your way.”

  Liv stood behind Brooke, her eyes locked on mine, an angry scowl across her face. Even though she offered a sullen frown, she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She was always beautiful, even when she was an awkward gangly preteen with two crooked pigtails bursting out of the sides of her head.

  But she wasn’t a kid anymore.

  Long, dark hair cascaded in wavy strands around her shoulders. Her skin glowed in the moonlight, silky and smooth. She’d lost all her freckles somewhere along the path of adulthood, and gained curves of perfect flesh in all the right places.

  Where did she get that dress? Where did she get those legs?

  “Liv,” I said, nodding a hello. My voice was quiet and even, though it felt the contrary. “You look beautiful.”

  She sighed and blinked her eyes slowly, “Thank you.” I had to look away, fighting the sudden urge to make her stay.

  Headlights turned down the block and a horn beeped. I was still speechless. Afraid of opening my mouth. Nothing good would come out of it. Nothing.

  Brooke flew down the stairs toward the car as Liv sashayed behind.

  “Shit, your sister is—”

  “I will poke your eyes out,” I growled at him.

  “Hot as fuck. Your sister is hot as fuck. Poke my eyes out, bro. It’s worth it if she’s the last thing I see.”

  “Shut up,” I rumbled. The scent of her perfume whirled around me, lingering and teasing.

  “No way, man,” he said, nudging my arm, “And her friend just looked at you like she knew what you’d be making her for breakfast tomorrow. Look at the girl’s legs, Dean.”

  I didn’t need him to point them out. I’d been thinking about them all day, wrapped around me. Liv looked back toward the house, right at me. I knew it was too dark for her to see that I was looking right back at her. “Yeah, I know. She’s…she’s perfect.”

  “Is that the girl who is staying here?”

  “Yeah,” I sighed, watching her walk quickly down the front walkway toward the waiting car. Were they going out dancing? Would one of those legs be hooked around some other guy’s waist later? Would she go home with someone? The thoughts had me sitting up, almost propelling me off of my chair.

  “Hey!” the loud mouth next to me called, “Where you two going?”

  Brooke opened the door, tilted her head back and smiled. “Boozers,” she yelled out and slid into the car. Liv’s long legs climbed in next, and Ryan shot up next to me.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Your sister dressed like that? Means she’s looking for attention.” He stubbed his cigar out into the bottom of his shoe, and almost lost his balance. “I’d rather her get it from me than anyone else tonight.”

  Shit. Even he was thinking it. Someone else definitely would be giving attention to Liv.

  “Yeah, look at that face,” he laughed, looking down at me. “You don’t want her friend banging some stranger later, right below your bedroom do you? When it could be you?”

  My lips pulled back, and my teeth clenched like a rabid dog, “Shut up.”

  There was a sudden, strange pounding in my ear that made me feel on edge.

  Why did the thought of Liv with someone else bother me?

  I didn’t want her banging some stranger.

  Was I jealous?

  Strangers were not safe, and she might not know how to handle some pushy guy. Strangers could turn out to be axe-murdering savages, who slip roofies in her drinks. That’s it. That’s all it was. I wasn’t jealous, just protective—in a brotherly way.

  She needed protection.

  Protection from axe-murdering, roofie-slipping thugs. That’s all. “Yeah,” I said, jumping up and straightening my shirt. “Yeah, let’s go to Boozer’s.”

  Chapter 10

  Liv

  “I love
this band,” I said, sipping at my drink, but Brooke wasn’t listening. She was looking over her shoulder, scanning the crowd of people, completely ignoring me.

  Boozer’s was packed, as it always had been. The house band, Mad World, was playing—the lead singer Shane Maxton, grinding up against the microphone, making all the girls in the bar scream and chant his name. I hadn’t been there in years, probably since my twenty-first birthday, when I got the Shane Maxton to sign my boobs, and got to know Brayden the bass player in a bathroom stall almost biblically. Both of us were too drunk to work his zipper, but I still kept in touch with him on social media. He and the guys were a ton of fun. Too much fun, honestly.

  Brooke tilted her head back and gulped down her drink. She wiped the back of her hand across her lips and slid the drink over the bar top and waved for another one.

  “You want to talk about whatever’s going on?” I asked, leaning closer to her. The music was loud, but back by the bar it wasn’t so bad that you couldn’t hold a decent conversation. Brooke and I had some pretty intense conversations here throughout the years whenever I visited back home.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, giving me a tight smile.

  “Yeah girl, that’s what I’m asking you. What’s going on?” I said, folding my arms across my chest. Something was up—I had two sips of my drink—she was on her third full glass. Plus, her eyes were all over the place—searching for something.

  “Nothing. I’m good,” she smiled and held up her glass, clinking it against mine. “I’m glad you’re here.” It could have been a trick of the lights, but it looked like her eyes were glazed over with tears.

  “Seriously. What’s going on? Come on, talk to me,” I said, taking the drink from her hands and pushing it away from her. “I know this is about the guy you were seeing. What happened?”

  Her shoulders slumped down, and she leaned against the countertop of the bar. “He just didn’t turn out to be the person I thought he was.” She reached across me and grabbed her drink back. “The problem is that I really liked him, and I don’t want to believe that he’s an asshole. I keep saying it’ll get better, and it’s not going to. It won’t.” Her words trailed off into whispers.

  “What won’t get better?” I asked, sipping more at my drink.

  She continued to whisper to herself and shake her head. “And the whole thing with the cadets missing. I was close to the one kid, you know?” She tapped her fingers against her glass. “He was fighting with his girlfriend. I even took him out for a burger to talk about it the other night. He was confused, but…I just hope he didn’t do something stupid.” She glanced down at her watch and sighed. “I just need to relax and forget about work…and asshole men who I work with that don’t know crap about relationships.”

  “So you work with him? The guy you were seeing?” I asked, surprised.

  Brooke’s entire body straightened and the corners of her mouth dipped into a frown, but she wasn’t reacting to me, or anything I said. Her eyes were locked on something in the crowd.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, shifting in my chair to try and figure out what she was seeing. It was just an enormous crowd of people dancing to a slow bullshit rock ballad about never ending love.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Really, I am,” she said, her shoulders relaxing a bit. “So,” she said through another sip of her drink, “What’s with you and my brother cooking you dinner? What was that?”

  “Nothing,” I said, choking down my drink. I coughed it down, spurting a few drips out as I gasped for breath.

  “You okay?” she smiled, patting my back. “I can’t believe you’re still crushing on Dean.”

  “I’m not still…I never really…He’s got a lot of anger issues,” I stammered.

  “Look Liv,” she said, finishing off another drink in one long swallow. “He’s not in a good place right now and—”

  “Brooke stop,” I interrupted, “You don’t need to warn me away from him.”

  “I just know you used to have a crush on him when we were younger.”

  “You knew?” I asked, stunned.

  “Everybody did; you were quite obvious,” she smiled.

  I laughed and waved my hands at her like it was nothing. “Yeah well, I’m not fifteen anymore, and I’m not going to be staying here for much longer. My mother doesn’t want me here. I’m just cleaning the house and making sure I do the right thing, so I don’t drown in all this guilt.”

  “Liv, I’m not saying I think you should stay away from him. I always thought you two would hook up someday.” She shrugged her shoulders, and slid her drink closer to the edge of the bar to get it refilled again. “I’m just saying that right now, he’s grieving, and I don’t think he’s been seeing things clearly.”

  “That’s understandable; he just lost his best friend.”

  “Yeah, and it’s not making him see straight. He’s not seeing you clearly.”

  “He doesn’t have to see me clearly,” I replied.

  “He should though, because he’s missing out. He always had a thing for you. When you came here after you graduated, he asked about you. He always asked about you. Every time you visited, after you left, he always asked when you were coming back.”

  “He was just being a good older brother and asking about your friend—”

  “Nope,” she cut me off with a wave of her hand. “Did you see the way he said you looked beautiful on the porch? How about the way he’s always following you with his eyes?”

  I had nothing to say to that. I was absolutely speechless and utterly shocked. Did any of it matter though? I wasn’t staying, and he wasn’t fighting to show his affection. He was fighting to steer clear of me. I just ended up looking like the pathetically desperate girl with a life-long crush.

  Ugh. I needed to erase his image from my head. I forced my eyes to survey the room. There had to be a good-looking guy to flirt with and maybe hook up with tonight.

  Behind Brooke, the crowd opened up, and my heart sped up, practically leaping out of my chest. Dean stood in the middle of the throng of people; his eyes searched the room slowly, as if he were looking for a particular person. Next to him stood his friend, the one who was sitting on the porch smoking a cigar before Brooke and I left the house.

  What the hell were they doing there?

  A mob of people walked past him, dozens of screaming and dancing girls moved between where he stood and where I sat.

  “Oh God,” I whispered, the words getting tangled in my throat as a wave of heat slammed across my chest. His gaze collided with mine, and the entire bar vanished around us. He was all I saw. “Shit. Shit. Shit,” I sputtered.

  “What?” Brooke asked, whirling her head in the direction I was cursing in. “Oh, damn girl. See! He’s here because of you! And check it out, he’s got that look,” she said, turning back to me, laughing.

  “What look?” I asked, trying to tear my eyes from him. I couldn’t not look at him. I willed myself to close my eyes, but my body wasn’t listening. My heart was drumming wildly, and my hands were clammy just knowing he had asked about me. Just having him in the same room as me was making it worse. My pants were actually sticking to the bar stool, because I was sweating so much.

  The world tilted and slid off its axis as Dean shifted forward and moved toward us. Why was he there? He knew where we were going and he came?

  “Holy crap Liv, did you already sleep with him?” Brooke giggled, clutching onto my arms.

  “Who? Dean?” I asked, in a shrilly-high voice. “No, of course not. Why would you even think that?”

  “Uh huh,” she mumbled dryly.

  I still couldn’t stop staring at him as he made his way toward us. He wore a pair of well-worn jeans and a dark shirt that hugged the muscles of his chest and arms. And his eyes? His eyes were still fixed on mine.

  He stood in front of my bar stool with a sexy smirk across his lips.

  “Why are you here?” I blurted out. Nice. Very sweet. Attractive. Not bitchy at all.<
br />
  “It was your long legs,” the guy standing next to him said, smiling down at me. He held out his right hand for a shake. “Hey, I’m Ryan Cage—the new guy in this very lonely, leg-obsessed guy’s squad.”

  I was too stunned to shake his hand, so I just kind of gawked at him with my mouth half open, replaying the words he had just said over in my head. Someone was obsessed with my legs? I wanted to kiss my tread climber.

  Ryan smiled wider and leaned close to Brooke, “And you,” he said, taking a long deep breath, “We really haven’t officially met outside of work. Ryan,” he said, gently lifting her hand up to his lips and kissing her knuckles.

  “Brooke,” she said, smiling back at him. “And the mute, long-legged girl is Liv.” Her gaze darted back and forth between Dean’s and Ryan’s. “What are you guys doing here?”

  Ryan moved even closer to her. “Your bother threatened the health of my eyes for looking at you before.” He gently pulled her off the chair and walked around her with a very arrogant smile. “Care to give this almost blind man some visuals I could take to my grave with a dance?”

  Neither of them looked back at us as they walked onto the packed danced floor.

  “I’m not even sure what I just witnessed. Was that real?” I smiled, trying to lighten the tight edges on Dean’s smile.

  “I’m sorry he just said that about your legs—”

  “So, he was making it up?” I asked, squeezing my eyes shut and gulping back my drink. I needed some liquid courage. I really just wanted to grab onto him and pull him into the heat of the dance floor.

  I sighed low and opened my eyes.

  He was staring at me, curiously, his hand balling into fists at his sides.

  The drink I had made me feel a bit brave. I stared back, waiting for him to look away, daring him to. He didn’t. Instead, his stare intensified, and his lips parted slightly. I tried to hold his gaze, but there was a building depth to it that made my fingers tremble. I was vaguely aware of the glass still in my hands.