"And?"
"And that bastard only had five files on his desk," he said, sounding awestruck at the very idea.
"I guess that is why he's the boss," I mused as we decided to forego the car, take a walk down the street toward She's Bean Around.
"Jenny?" Noah asked when he realized I had fallen back a few steps, my gaze fixed toward a side street. "What's the matter?" he asked, his gaze following mine, seeing nothing but the storefronts. "Did you see someone?" he pressed when I said nothing, finding myself suddenly paralyzed, everything within me numb. "Sweetheart?" he asked, moving in front of me, reaching to snag my chin, tilting it up. "Who was it?" he pressed.
A ghost.
A ghost from my past.
The last time I had seen his face was on the most shameful day of my life, my body and mind slow and thick - molasses trying to climb upward, an impossible feat.
He'd been sitting behind a table in a black suit, his face overgrown with at least a week's worth of a beard, his face sunken, his eyes trained on the wood in front of him.
Listening to me lie.
Listening to me save myself by condemning him.
There wasn't a day in my life that I didn't think of him, didn't think of the verdict I heard, the life he must have led behind bars.
It was the constant, ever-present weight on my shoulders I couldn't have shrugged off if I wanted to. But I didn't. I wanted it there, dragging me down into the ground a bit. I deserved that. I deserved worse than that.
"Mallick," Noah guessed, the name making my head snap up, finding his worried gaze on me.
More brown than green in concern, in this light.
"His wife owns Phallus-ophy," he said, the words not quite registering. "The local sex toy shop," he added. "It's down that street. He's probably visiting her at work. Jenny, wait," he called, reaching to try to grab my wrist as I turned, started moving toward the crosswalk. "Maybe think this through," he urged, holding a hand up to a car that laid on its horn as I moved out without really stopping to look.
It was useless though.
I couldn't listen to reason, not at that moment, not knowing that I had never done it.
Apologized.
Begged for his forgiveness.
Even if I didn't deserve it.
I was vaguely aware of a giant penis statue to my side as I walked in the door, the line of strap-ons displayed under a 'Buy one, get one half off' sign.
At the counter ahead, two heads turned, the woman's smile warm and welcoming - the smile any shop employee or owner gave a potential customer.
The man's gaze moved over me, then shot a light-blue-eyed confused look at Smith before they settled on me again, recognizing, understanding.
He pushed away from the desk, moving to take a step toward me as my feet carried me forward.
I wasn't sure what my plan was, what words I had wanted to say.
All I knew was something within me shattered when I was close to this man whose life I had ruined, whose family I had destroyed, whose future I had irrevocably changed because I hadn't been strong enough to endure, hadn't been brave enough to put a foot down, accept whatever consequences might come my way.
It was the pain of a thousand bones breaking all at once, reducing me to dust, stealing any strength left in my legs, sending me crumbling forward as the tears appeared and streamed out of nowhere.
"I'm so sorry."
The words sobbed out of me as I fell.
Hands caught me before I hit the ground.
But not from behind.
Not the ever-present arms of Noah.
No.
These closed around me from in front of me, pulling me close to an unfamiliar chest that didn't smell like sawdust.
I was pulled back up onto my feet, supported fully by his arm anchoring me to his chest, his other hand going to the back of my head as the words tumbled out over and over.
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry.
I was vaguely aware of a low, soothing sound of someone shushing me as my cheek rested on a shirt wet through with my tears.
"It's okay," Eli said when I was finally silent.
"It's not," I objected, pulling against his hold, scrubbing furiously at my cheeks, angry at myself for accepting comfort from a man from whom I didn't deserve it.
"Don't know how well you remember that night," he said, tilting my chin up. "Can't imagine it was well. You were barely conscious by the time I came upon you, face beaten unrecognizable. He was going to kill you," he added. "I don't know what he was on, but he was out of his mind. And he was going to kill you."
"I lied on the stand," I told him, trying to keep it together even if the urge to cry until I was dried out was almost overwhelming. "The only reason you lost almost a decade of your life was because of me."
"No," he said, shaking his head, giving me a small smile. "The reason I went to prison was because I beat a man. I was guilty of that, Jennifer," he said, shrugging. "I was guilty of that hundreds of times over. I can't even tell you how many men I have beaten in my life. And got off Scot-free. No consequences. Even when someone had to pull me off of someone before I killed them in my rage. Going away was only a matter of time. I'm glad if I had to go away, I did it for a reason. Not just because it was the family business. And I was too chickenshit to tell them that I wanted to follow a different path."
"You might never have gone to prison if it wasn't for me. You don't know that."
"Maybe not," he agreed, knowing there was no way we could know what life had in store for us. "But if I didn't go away when I did, my dog would never have been left alone outside a coffeeshop, this woman," he said, waving a hand toward the woman at the desk behind him, "never would have taken him in, cared for him, let me know that he was okay. If you didn't get on that stand, I never would have met Autumn. I would never have known love and happiness and a path that didn't involve senseless violence that never came naturally to me."
"You spent years of your life in a jail cell."
"Made some interesting friends," Eli said, giving me a smile that didn't have any restraint, genuinely not holding onto any hard feelings. "Got good at art. Found the strength to tell my family I wanted a different life when I got out. Blessings come in unexpected packages sometimes, honey. Getting locked up, in the fucked up way that fate works, was the best thing that ever happened to me. So there's no reason for you to feel so guilty. If there is one thing I've learned in life, it's that shit happens for a reason. This all happened for a reason."
He made it sound so easy to believe.
I wanted so badly to believe it.
"Listen, bitch," a new voice entered the space from a back room, bringing with her the smell of Chinese food. "The next time you send me to pick up your food, the least you can do is put it under my name so they don't have a shitfit like I am some Chinese food thief. Who pays for the food just to throw them off my scent. Oh, hey," she said, dropping the bags on the counter with a flourish, reaching up to yank the hood off her head, revealing mermaid-colored hair. "It's always fun when couples come in. Are you guys in the market for a good cock ring? I have some recommendations."
"Peyton," Autumn hissed.
"What? I'm trying to help make a sale here. What's the problem? We're all a bunch of pervs here. Are you not cock ring fans? Are you here for a solid spreader bar? Because Autumn has a good recommendation for that."
"Oh, God," Autumn said, shaking her head, making her blonde hair dance.
"Did somebody die or something?" Peyton asked, clearly not one for 'reading a room.'
"Her husband actually," Autumn said, giving the woman a hard look.
"And you're up on some new strange already?" Peyton asked, eyeing up Noah appreciatively. "Good for you, girl. You do you. Or, more accurately, let him do you."
I wasn't sure, but I could have sworn I heard Autumn mutter something about manners.
"Peyton," Eli said, clearly trying to hold back a smile. "This is Jennifer Ericsson."
"Ericsson. Ericsson. Why do I know that... oh," she said, pressing her lips together, looking entirely guilty, but amused at her own faux pas. "Whoops. So, yeah, I'm, Peyton. Autumn's sister. Eli's favorite sister-in-law. It's okay," she said to Eli, patting his arm. "I know you can't say it out loud, but you tell me with your eyes all the time. So anyway. Congratulations on your husband's death. I see you have upgraded fantastically."
"I would apologize for her, but that would probably only encourage her, to be perfectly honest," Autumn said, shaking her head.
"It's okay," I told her, feeling the last of the tears dry on my lashes. "I admire her candor," I added. "I'm sorry. I'm being so rude. This is," I started, half-turning so that Noah could move in beside me.
"Smith," Eli supplied, making Noah's brow raise. "Might not be in the game anymore, but my brothers are. Her man is," he added, waving a hand toward Peyton. "So are Mark's in-laws. So I am still kept pretty up-to-date on all the players in town. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you finally realized you had some power after all. That's why this particular man is standing here with you. I'm happy for you."
"Eli..." I started, head shaking, feeling guilty all over again that he would be so gracious as to be happy for me and my freedom.
"I worried about you," he cut me off. "Sitting inside. I worried about you just about every day. Knowing that fuck still had control over you. You could barely move your mouth in court," he added, giving me a knowing look. "It was too long after the night I beat him. It wasn't from that beating you took. He beat you again. To get you to testify, I always imagined."
"Yes." The sound was a whisper, but he heard me in the small space.
"I couldn't figure out why they had to testify when I wasn't exactly fighting the charges," he admitted.
"Bertram didn't want it hitting the news circuits that Teddy beat me.
"Fuck," he growled, hands curling up into fists before he took a few deep breaths, seeming to try to calm himself back down. It was a fascinating sight. Like Bruce Banner trying to hold back the Hulk. "Guess it doesn't look good for re-election that you raised a wife-beating bastard of a son."
"Exactly,"I agreed even though something within me cringed. I wondered when I would be seen as something other than a battered woman, when people would stop looking at me with pity.
Time.
It would just take time.
As all things did.
"I'm glad you came here," Eli said, reaching out to squeeze my wrist. "I wanted to reach out so many times, but I figured it would only be worse for you if I tried."
It would have been.
"I'm sorry I cried all over you."
He waved his hand at that. "I figure you have a lot on your plate now, but one day, we should catch up. I'd like to be in touch."
"I'd like that too," I admitted, knowing that this only assuaged a small bit of my guilt, that maybe if I saw him more, if I saw him happy, saw him with his people, I would feel better about the whole situation, would maybe even start to see it as he did. Fate. A horrible thing that led to other things we never could have foreseen.
Maybe there was a reason for everything.
Maybe there was a grander design.
And maybe, possibly, the man I had thought I had condemned to an unfair fate could be the one to show that to me.
"Take care of her," Eli added, looking over at Noah, his tone fierce.
"Ooh, he's getting good at that," Peyton said, smiling. "The protective big brother thing," she clarified to our blank looks. "It was nice meeting you guys too. And, hey, when the honeymoon phase of nonstop fuckery wears off, stop back in. We cater to all kinks. We even have stuff for vanilla people," she added with just the slightest bit of confusion in her tone, as though being vanilla in her cotton candy world was something that made no sense whatsoever.
Suddenly very aware of being surrounded by dildos and vibrators and butt plugs, my cheeks went a little pink.
"I'll keep that in mind," I said, backing up a bit. "We'll let you get back to your food. Thank you for taking a moment to talk to me."
"Jennifer," Eli called, making me stop and turn back. "Get in touch with me sometime. He'll know how," he added, jerking his chin at Noah. "Or I am going to have to track you down."
With that, we moved back out of the store, walking in silence back up the side street onto the main road where I finally stopped, taking a deep breath.
"You okay?"
"I think I can finally answer that with a yes," I admitted, giving him a smile I felt down to my marrow.
And then Noah's arm went around me.
He leaned in to press a kiss to my temple.
And everything, everything was perfect.
EPILOGUE
Jenny - 3 weeks
Perfect was a funny thing.
An unrealistic thing.
But it was a strong feeling, one that could overwhelm you completely, cocoon you inside the sweet sensations, make you think they were permanent, unchangeable.
But perfect was a live thing, something that ebbed and flowed, ever-shifting as the sea. It crested,completely enveloped you, drowned you in it. Then just as effortlessly pulled back away, leaving you cold and wet and hyper-aware of the loss.
The first time the perfection was pierced, I hadn't even been aware it was happening at first.
Sleep had claimed me as it so often did, wrapped up in Noah's arms, tucking into his side, resting on his chest, warm, body contented with orgasms and peace, freedom.
But my dreams weren't always a safe place to be. Unconsciousness was a vast, endless void that left space for memories to come back where they didn't find room to do so while I was awake.
Teddy haunted me in my dreams. Not every night. But enough. I woke up on a gasp more than a few times, quiet enough that I didn't startle Noah awake.
It felt wrong to keep secrets, even one as small as my occasional nightmares.
But I hated it when Teddy came between us. It was inevitable on occasion. Like how we were still not acting as a couple. At least not outside the walls of my house or - more often - his.
Quin's rule.
He was being careful.
He wanted to make sure that nothing ever came of Teddy's death.
Three months seems fair.
That was what he'd said when we'd had a meeting the week before.
Three months.
In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't a long time. And just because we had an act to put on, it didn't mean we couldn't be together.
But it did mean that whenever I ran into someone outside the house, Teddy was always what they wanted to talk to me about, dragging him out, dusting him off, putting him right between Noah and me.
So I didn't want to bring him into our bed too.
Unfortunately, sometimes, you can't control the way your body acts to a bad dream, making you toss turn, talk, whine, cry. Enough to wake up the person in bed with you.
I startled awake with a gasp like I was used to at this point.
"Hey, it's okay," Noah soothed, reaching out to me.
"Don't touch me."
The words hissed out of me, low and lethal, a kill shot to Noah's good intentions.
He shocked back, eyes big, as I tried to pull in a few breaths, tried to remind myself that it was a dream.
Just a dream.
But dreams could feel so real.
Even awake, I could swear I felt the bruises pounded into me in the nightmare, making me feel sore, my body flooded with adrenaline.
"I'm sorry," I said, a cry in my voice when I realized how I had spoken to him. As though his arms disgusted me. As if I didn't want them near me ever again.
"Don't," he said, shaking his head. "I get it, sweetheart. I get nightmares too."
"I've never... I start
ed to object.
"The mornings you wake up alone, those are the nightmare nights for me," he explained, reaching out to touch my knee softly, only squeezing when I didn't jerk away.
Those mornings were frequent.
At least three a week.
I had just figured he was an early riser, that it was from his military days, that it was against his training to stay in bed burning daylight when you could be up and accomplishing something.
It never occurred to me that he had a secret, that he had a mind that brought back ugly memories when it was supposed to be resting.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, trying to make sure my voice wasn't accusatory.
"Some shit in my past is ugly, Jenny. Didn't want any of it rubbing off on you."
I thought on that for a long moment as the adrenaline started to get reabsorbed, leaving me calm, my brain clear.
"I don't think we can be in a relationship - a healthy relationship - if we try to keep our ugly from each other."
"That's probably true," he agreed. "Having nightmares about the beatings?" he asked, point-blank, something he never did, shocking enough to make me stiffen a bit, having to actively force myself to calm back down again.
"Yes. It's not usually that bad," I added. "Why do you get out of bed? Are you afraid you might hurt me?
"Christ, no," he said, sounding like the very idea pained him. "I just can't get back to sleep after one. And I've found I am less likely to have back-to-back nightmare nights if I don't stay in bed and harp on it, if I get up instead and get something accomplished. Workout. Go into the workshop. Something. What?" he asked when a completely inappropriate smile pulled at my lips.
"We're quite a pair, huh?" I asked, shaking my head.
His arm reached out, dragging me back to his side. "Our demons recognize each other," he said, kissing my temple. "I think that is a good thing."
And it was.
Smith - 5 weeks
"Get your ass in here," Quin's voice snapped in my ear, making me fold up in bed, wiping at my dry eyes as Jenny rolled over, looked up at me.
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