High Reward

by Brenna Aubrey

  I replied, That’s great! When?

  A few minutes later, I got the answer. Next week.

  I responded that I was happy to hear it and looking forward to seeing them. Then I tucked my phone away, sobered by the fact that the first thing I wanted to do was go tell Gray they were coming. But that constant ache, that hollowness inside, reminded me that the less I said to her, the better.

  I needed a bit of a break from that empty feeling. Slipping into my living room, I approached the wet bar, careful to ensure that she was nowhere near and was unable to see me.

  I told myself I’d pour one shot. Just one. To help me cope a little with this shitty day, this shitty week—soon to be shitty month. Soon to be the next long string of shitty days that would blur one into the other.

  But as I uncapped the bottle and poised it to pour into a shot glass, I spied the little Sharpie hash marks she’d put onto the bottle.

  My breath escaped jerkily, and I recapped the bottle, leaving the vodka undisturbed.

  Her crafty plan had worked. I hadn’t touched the stuff since the day she’d marked the levels—over a month ago.

  And now I was just not going to do it out of stubbornness. But I realized how clever she had been in even that, too. I ran a hand through my hair, bending my fingers and pulling at the roots, wincing slightly but not from the dull pain in my scalp.

  I was finding it hard to breathe, thinking about her. I was finding it hard not to go out there and sit beside her under the moonlight. Except now it was dark, and I couldn’t stand the thought of being in the dark, even if it meant I could be close to her.

  And really, I couldn’t even brave the dark for her, my clever, beautiful girl—not mine, but mine. If I couldn’t brave the dark for her…

  I’d never deserve her at all.

  Chapter 6

  Gray

  I missed him. So much. But I was treading a thin line here, trying to be a calming influence still, trying to be emotionally mature. Trying to be accommodating of the fact that I had willfully chosen to stay and live under his roof even after a romantic breakup.

  I was aware that he might be under some distress.

  But I, too, was nursing wounds.

  So that night, I watched the moon rise pale and silvery, bathing the dark canyon below in deep purples and the darkest shades of gray. I wondered when I’d transition to the next stage of grief.

  It had only been a few days, yet I was still pathetically weeping into my pillow at night when I could no longer hold it in, waking up every morning with stinging eyes and a sore nose.

  I told myself it would pass soon, right? Time could only dull the pain, as with a physical wound.

  The next step, justified anger, was right around the corner.

  And I happened to turn that corner the following afternoon, as a matter of fact.

  When I got back from work, I rushed to get some time in the pool before Ryan returned for the day. But I had to search for my swimsuit. Nothing was where it was supposed to be because of the hurried packing and unpacking job I’d done when Ryan had asked me to leave.

  I wanted a swim, goddammit. But the suit was evading me under a pile somewhere.

  Thus, I lost my temper.

  In my frustration, I indulged in a full-blown tantrum.

  Second Stage: Anger

  I broke my glasses. Not accidentally. No. I stomped on them.

  I was frustrated. Or maybe I was pretending the glasses were Ryan’s face.

  That crunch was oh so satisfying until I realized my backup pair was also broken. That teeny tiny little screw had fallen out of them, and I had meant to take them to be repaired and never got around to it.

  Crappity crap. I went for a dip anyway, to calm myself down, to take out my anger on swimming laps, and to brainstorm a solution to my sudden eyewear issue.

  It came to me as I was toweling off. I’d use duct tape. I found it easily in one of Ryan’s utility drawers and ripped off a small section of it, returning to my room.

  Apart from looking like crap, I’d fixed them up almost good as new. I made a face at myself in the mirror. I looked like Harry Potter after a particularly trying summer with the Dursleys. Maybe I’d start a trend.

  Now if only I could force myself to forget about what an idiot I was to get satisfaction from the crunch of those lenses under my shoe as I pictured Ryan’s skull.

  Not that I’d actually crush his skull, of course.

  But imagining it helped a little.

  With the glasses issue temporarily resolved, I took a shower to get the pool water out of my hair and off my skin.

  But seeing as Ryan wouldn’t be home for hours yet, I dressed and followed up my dumb stunt with an even dumber one.

  One right out of the Beginners Guide to Stalking handbook.

  I wandered into his bedroom.

  In all honesty, I’d left a couple things in his en suite bathroom, so it started innocently enough, grabbing my stick of deodorant and some make-up remover.

  On my way out of the bathroom, I slowed when walking by the bed. Ryan always made the bed. Always. Without a wrinkle, the sheet and comforter pulled perfectly straight and tight. It must have been all that time in the military when it had been drilled into his brain.

  I reached out and touched his pillow. Then, like any perfectly sane, non-stalkery woman, I bent down and buried my face in it, inhaling his smell deeply and feeling that perfect rush of emotions wash over me. Memories of his kisses, his hands on my body, of waking up with my body pulled tight against his.

  I set my things aside on the nightstand and sat down on the bed, pulling the pillow into my lap so I could hug it while getting a few more good whiffs.

  It smelled like him. Seashells. Lime. The smell of his skin, his hair.

  In spite of everything, I still worried that he wasn’t getting enough sleep without me there to help him.

  I missed feeling his body next to mine in bed. Our affair—I refused to label it a relationship—had only lasted a few short, amazing weeks, but I’d grown used to sleeping beside him very quickly. Too quickly.

  I’d lost my heart even quicker than that.

  When tears prickled the backs of my eyes, I stopped, forcibly replacing the pillow and willing some sanity back into my brain. But no, apparently I wasn’t ready for that yet.

  Instead I went into his large walk-in closet. What I was hoping to find there, I had no idea. I just knew I wasn’t ready to leave his room yet. All his clothing in there was laundered, so it didn’t smell like him, but I fingered some of the shirts I’d once enjoyed taking off of him during frenzied make out sessions. Unbuttoning the buttons slowly, kissing my way down his solid torso.

  I ran my fingers amongst all the different textures of fabric, wondering why Elizabeth Kubler Ross had not written about temporary insanity in her treatise on the stages of grief.

  My hand stopped when I reached a thick, utilitarian material at the very end of a long line of clothing on hangers. Royal blue, adorned with patches—most notably the dark blue rectangular patch edged with gold and bearing the Eagle and Trident emblem of the Navy SEALs. Beneath, in the same gold, denoting an astronaut from the Navy, was his full name, Ryan Tyler.

  There were several of them hanging beside each other, including the plain one he’d been given to wear the day he’d fulfilled a Make-A-Wish Foundation promise. With him, we’d all toured the Space Center in Houston with an adorable, young cancer survivor, Francisco.

  Without even thinking about what I was doing, I pressed my face to his NASA flight suit. Of course, it didn’t smell like him. Likely it had been laundered since he last wore it. When I pulled back, I traced the ISS Expedition mission patches with my fingertip. Another minute passed, and I was out of my own clothes and zipping up his flight suit around my body.

  It was huge, of course. Ryan was a lot taller than me and had a muscular build. I swam inside that thing, but I had to admit, ill-fitting or not, it gave me a massive thrill to wear a real
live astronaut flight suit. I ran my hands over the material again, imagining it was my own perfectly fitting suit and I’d just returned from a mission to the ISS.

  Rolling up the pants and the sleeves helped a bit, along with grabbing one of his belts and fastening it around my waist. I made my way back to his bedroom to look at the full-length mirror on the bathroom door, turning this way and that.

  Sure, I’d been feeling like crap, but this was a sudden glimmer of happy in the middle of my day. I hugged myself and then straightened as if at attention. As if posing for the cameras in the press.

  Why yes, indeed, I was merely aiming at being the best darn flight psychologist out there, but they insisted I train as an astronaut for the first trip to Mars. I flicked my head arrogantly in the mirror and laughed at myself.

  When I heard the key turn the bolt lock in the front door, I froze. Any other time and I would have laughed at the deer-in-the-headlights look on my reflection in the mirror. But right now, I was both a stalker and in a potentially very humiliating situation.

  Oh shit. Oh crap. Oh—all the other swear words besides the scatological ones!

  My eyes flew to the clock as I hurriedly jerked the zipper down my front to get out of it before he saw me. He was a little early, but not that much. In all my daydreaming, I’d lost track of time.

  Exactly what my plan was, I had no idea. My brain had apparently stopped functioning, frozen, like the damn zipper once it hit my waist and the belt. Panicking, I unzipped the top and pulled out of the sleeves before undoing the belt. But in the middle of all this, I decided I didn’t have enough time to undress, redress and hang up the flight suit before he came in the door—and ultimately into his room to change.

  He was only seconds from catching me in his bedroom wearing his clothes.

  My skin boiled at the thought of that level of embarrassment. It would be off the charts. So I did the most logical thing that popped into my frenzied brain and dashed out of his bedroom at a full run, hoping to make it back into my room before he opened the door and saw me wearing his flight suit.

  Alas, my spontaneous plan B—run and hide—was not to be.

  As I was racing through the front living room, headed for the hallway where I’d been staying, I had to pass right by the front door. And as I did so, I tripped on an unrolled pantleg and went flying.

  In my rushed panic, I had not pulled the top of the jumpsuit back on again. Therefore, I now had rugburn all across my chest. And of course, my upper body was completely bare.

  I blinked, reaching out in front of me for my glasses that had leaped off my nose—probably in disgust for me, at this point.

  Suddenly, a pair of black shoes came into view right in front of my face. Big black shoes.

  Man-sized shoes.

  Then a hand joined the shoes at my sight level as Ryan bent to pick up my glasses and placidly pass them to me. I reached up and took them, feeling my skin burn with embarrassment along with the friction burns from the rug.

  I mumbled my thanks through my humiliation, then cleared my throat as he undoubtedly took in the scene before him—me sprawled across his living room floor, half-naked with his unzipped NASA flight suit hanging off me.

  “This, uh, this isn’t what you’re thinking.”

  “It isn’t?”

  I sucked in a breath, trying to figure out how I could sit up without fully exposing myself, though that thought was pretty dumb. Less than a week ago we’d had sex on his kitchen counter and I had no problem being naked in front of him then.

  There was an awkward pause while I waited, facedown on the floor, trying to figure out how to leave the room with my dignity intact. Way too late for that, Gray!

  “So, uh, what am I thinking?”

  My face burned hotter, and I didn’t answer. A few seconds later, he seemed to detect the strong go away vibes I was mentally sending him. He had to step over me to go to his room, but he did it without further comment.

  When his door closed, I stood up and raced to my guest room and hurriedly removed the flight suit. Carefully folding it, I then dressed in something else—eschewing a bra on my poor, tender nipples. My yoga pants and t-shirt from earlier were still on the floor in his closet.

  I was sitting on my bed, fidgeting and deciding on a sudden stay-in-bedroom fast for the rest of the night, when he knocked lightly on the door.

  Licking my lips, I didn’t answer, still struggling for something to say

  “Gray,” he said through the door, “I have your things here.”

  Without a word, I scooped up his folded flight suit and his belt and went to the door. I cracked it open just wide enough to make the garment exchange, then started to close it.

  Ryan’s hand shot out to hold the door open. His eyes narrowed.

  “Are you okay?”

  I cleared my throat and willed myself in vain not to blush. “I’ll live.”

  “Can I…can we talk?”

  My eyebrows shot up. Well that was something. He finally wanted to talk?

  I checked my watch as if I had a million pressing appointments instead of some reports to write for work the next day—not more than an hour’s worth of work.

  “Uh, yeah, sure. Give me a minute. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  Minutes later, after I’d gone to the bathroom to calm down and splash some cold water on my face, we sat across the dining room table from each other. He’d pulled a beer out of the fridge for himself and, without asking, handed me a cold Dr. Pepper.

  He wanted me out. I could tell by the way he was looking at me, the way he was acting. This was not a reconciliation. This wasn’t even an explanation—which he still owed me. It was an expulsion.

  I popped the top on my soda can and took a sip while he twisted the cap off his beer bottle and set it aside without bringing it to his mouth. Then he laced his long fingers in front of him, elbows on the table and he studied his hands. He spoke without looking up but with measured words I was certain he’d repeated to himself several times beforehand.

  “Gray, we have to come to some kind of understanding.”

  I blinked, failing to look at him. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have gone into your room or put on your flight suit. I wasn’t being stalkery, I promise. I just—”

  “Gray,” he reached out his hand on the table to get my attention while the words spilled out of me faster than I could pronounce them.

  I looked up at him. His face was serious but not stern. “I don’t care about the flight suit. You can have that one if you want.”

  My brows pinched together, suddenly feeling struck with the pain of this situation. I shook my head and mumbled a miserable, “No, but thank you. That’s kind.”

  He sighed. “Okay, but there is something else I want to talk to you about.”

  I sat up. “What’s that?”

  His deep blue eyes flicked up to mine, and I could see it—every single barrier was up. He was well shielded. “About us living together like this… Before I say anything more, I want you to know that this wasn’t calculated. I didn’t start this in an attempt to manipulate you.”

  Oh, I wasn’t going to make this easy for him. No way. I rested my chin on a fist and fiddled with the metal top on my soda can, bending it backward and forward until it snapped off. “Why did you start this, then?”

  He did this strange sort of slow blink, like his eyes closed, held for a beat, and then snapped open again. Then he swallowed. “I was attracted to you. I sensed you were attracted to me. There was chemistry.”

  “And that’s not the case anymore?” I angled my head to emphasize the query, and he shifted in his seat.

  It didn’t take a PhD in Psychology to recognize that he instantly regretted initiating this conversation. That just made me less likely to let him off the hook.

  “I’m still attracted to you,” he said in a low, flat voice. “But there’s more to it now. Feelings are involved.”

  “Oh? You mean you have feelings?”


  His jaw tensed. “I was talking about your feelings.”

  Ouch. Shields up indeed…

  “Oh, okay. So, you don’t have feelings?”

  He gave another long pause. “I didn’t say that.”

  I frowned. “But they aren’t the same feelings as mine.”

  He pulled back from the table and leaned against his chair back, looking stiff and very uncomfortable. “I don’t want to talk about feelings right now.”

  His clear agitation told me we were getting close to something he wanted to avoid—or too far off the track from what he initially wanted to discuss. Or both.

  Without letting go the sigh I desperately wanted to release, I decided to cut to the chase. “So, does that mean you’re not going to tell me why you broke things off between us?”

  His eyes flickered off to the side, and his brows crunched together. It was a strange expression until his face flushed, and I could easily tell that he was fighting anger.

  I blinked, mystified. Was he getting pissed at me for forcing this? For not allowing him to deliver his canned speech and then shove me out the door?

  But when he looked back at me, it wasn’t with anger in his eyes. It was something else. Maybe he was frustrated. But not at me.

  I shook my head, confused.

  “Gray,” he gruffly whispered, and the way his voice trembled when he said my name plucked at my heart. “The last thing I want is for you to question or second guess yourself. You did nothing wrong.”

  Gritting my teeth, I fought my own wave of frustration. “How can you think that I won’t question myself? You know that’s impossible. Especially if you won’t give me any answers.”

  His fists balled on the table in front of him. “I’m fucked up right now. You know I am. I can’t do this. You deserve better.”

  I shook my head in protest. “But we were working on that. I was helping you…” My voice died out at the stone-cold expression on his face. “I thought I was, anyway.”

  He swallowed. “I need to keep my head in the game for all this training, the test flight, and the stuff with Keely. All of it. I can’t get distracted.” He shook his head, looking away.