Текст книги "Hard Beat"
Автор книги: K. Bromberg
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
Chapter 15
“Smitten, huh?” I must be, because it’s been almost two weeks since Beaux and I fell back into the sack together, and she’s all I can think about.
“Yes. You definitely sound smitten with whoever she is,” my sister says, her voice holding a trace of amusement.
“It’s just different here. Same people day in, day out. It’s —”
“Six weeks’ time? Hmm, I’d call it accelerated dating.” I chuckle into the phone at her assessment of the situation that’s correct in a sense. “Well, I’m right, aren’t I? When there’s nothing to do but get to know each other and waste time together, it’s like a relationship on speed.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it a relationship,” I start, but then stop to think about the notion, because in a sense that’s exactly what Beaux and I have together.
“Uh-huh,” Rylee says, and I can tell she’s having fun with this, enjoying questioning me about whom I’m dating because I’ve never really cared before. I mean yeah, I’ve dated and fallen in what felt like love at the time, but no one has ever made me feel like a giddy teenager at the same time as we’ve shared such an intense connection. “Have you spent the night together?”
“Jesus Christ, Bubs.” I choke on my nickname for her because I am not discussing my sex life with my baby sister.
“Don’t Bubs me. That’s not going to get you out of this conversation.”
She’s got my number. Fuck. “You really want me to answer that?” My voice cracks on the last word.
“So that means yes.” She laughs thoroughly, and I picture her ticking off the first question on one of her always handy task lists. “Do you have a pet name for her?”
I swear silently into the empty room. “No, not a pet name. Just a nickname. And who are you to ask these questions, huh, little Miss Married?”
“And that’s another yes,” she says smugly. “Are you seeing anyone else?”
“Well, considering the options are slim here, what do you think?” She’s starting to get on my nerves. I love and I hate this inquisition from her all at the same time.
“True.” She snorts.
“Are we really doing this, Ry? I’d rather hear about home. How are Colton and the boys? Is the project still full steam ahead?” I attempt to change the topic and ask about the endeavor to build more houses for underprivileged boys; the project itself brought my sister and her now-husband together in an amusing set of circumstances.
“He’s good, the boys are great, and the project is challenging and incredible all at the same time. We can talk about them later. Don’t think for a minute I’m going to pass up the chance to make you squirm.” Her laugh is maniacal at best.
“You’re getting back at me for all the times I put those rubber snakes in your sheets, aren’t you?” The memory of her shrieking and throwing them at me brings a smile to my face some twenty years later.
“Paybacks are a bitch, aren’t they?” she says, her voice dripping in false sympathy. “Have you taken her on a proper date yet? I mean that’s super import —”
“Hey, Ry, I don’t mean to cut you off, but I have to go. Work’s on the other line,” I tell her as I glance quickly at my phone’s screen and see Sarge’s number.
“Convenient.” But I know she’s not really mad.
“Love you.”
“Love you too. Be safe.”
“Always,” I tell her before ending the call and accepting the new one. “Sarge? How goes it?”
“It’s going, brother. Another day in paradise, right?” he snorts, a sarcastic laugh following the noise.
“What can I do for you, man?” The hair on the back of my neck has started to stand up in anticipation as I hope for the holy grail here. Another embed mission where we can report in the thick of the action versus going out solo on our own to the safe and approved locations where you get the same old shit day in, day out.
“Just giving you a heads-up that things have gotten awfully quiet this week. Chatter is nil, so we’re thinking the meet’s going to happen soon.”
“And…?” I respond, knowing he’s asking something of me but wanting to make sure it’s exactly what I think it is. Need to know what chips I hold and how to play them to my advantage in the future when I need them.
“Just making sure that you pass along any information you may get from that source of yours. We wouldn’t want to get caught with our pants down.”
“Mmm-hmm.” It’s the only response I give him, my mind going a hundred miles an hour. Wondering if their intel has gone dry and now he’s fishing with me to see if I know something I’m not telling him.
“Hope to be talking to you soon, Thomas.”
“Sarge.” I know that’s his way of saying good-bye and giving me a warning all at the same time. Something’s going on, and now I just need to figure out what.
I sit on the edge of my bed and then lie back, eyes trained on the ceiling and the cracks I’ve memorized as I mull everything over. I guess the military is pretty desperate if they’re calling me up, trying to get information. It’s flattering and fucked up all at the same time. And not knowing what to make of it all other than Sarge is grasping at straws to get more information, I decide to do something that I never do. I text Omid.
Usually I wait for him to make contact with me; I don’t want to cause him any trouble should someone see a text, but I take the risk. The minute I hit Send, I wince and wish I could take it back, as my need to know doesn’t feel as strong as the need to not cause him trouble; in this place, that could mean the unspeakable. I don’t expect a response right away, and know if I lie here much longer, I’m going to go crazy.
Restless energy hums through me as I enter the lobby and look for Beaux to tell her what’s going on, but I can’t find her anywhere.
“Hey, Pauly?”
“Yeah. What’s up?” he asks as he looks up from his laptop with a cup of coffee in one hand and a Cup Noodles in the other.
“You seen BJ?” He twists his lips momentarily as his eyes try to gauge whether I have some hot story and I’m looking for her so that we can sneak off to cover it without anyone knowing. I don’t say anything further because he won’t believe me anyway.
All’s fair in friendship and reporting.
“Last I saw her was about two hours ago.” He sets his coffee down and glances at his watch. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. She’s been begging me to get out and do some human interest shots. And, man, I’m getting bored and antsy… Thought that maybe getting out in the city a bit would help some.”
“I hear that, brother. I hear that. If you go, just make sure one of us knows where you go… safety and all that,” he says with a wave of his hand.
“Thanks, Pauly,” I say with a smile, appreciating his friendship as I stride from the lobby.
By the time I reach Beaux’s floor, my texts to her have remained unanswered. A lick of panic creeps its way into my thoughts, but I shove it away, knowing she’s probably safe and sound in her room, in the shower or something.
But when I knock on her door and don’t get an answer, I immediately turn the handle. And the door is locked, but when I push against the door, it opens because the latch never clicked into place. I hesitate momentarily, the door a few inches open, deciding whether I should enter.
“Beaux?” I call out into her room, knowing damn well if she doesn’t answer I’m going in because it’s not like I’ve never been in her room before. Shit, I’ve slept in here on and off over the past few weeks, but it’s more the invasion of privacy factor that causes me to hesitate.
When she doesn’t respond, I enter cautiously and yet hopeful that she’s just so dead to the world asleep that she doesn’t hear me, but the bed’s made and the room is completely in order. I hate that I immediately worry, hate that for a split second I wonder if she’s with one of our other male colleagues.
Telling myself to calm down, that she’s perfectly fine and more than capable of taking care of herself, I wage an internal war over whether to leave the room and search the hotel floor by floor until I find her or slow the fuck down, take stock, and sit here and wait her out. Make her come to me so that I don’t look like some sap losing his shit when I have no reason to feel so concerned about her safety.
But holding on to your dignity is a hard task when worry rules your mind. It’d be ten times easier if I were foreign to this environment and hadn’t seen the atrocities and disrespect shown to Westerners, let alone their own people. So I sit and wait. Bide my time by watching the world below outside her hotel room window as I sit in a chair next to a table cluttered with cameras.
Minutes stretch into what feel like hours although very little time has passed. My elbow hits a camera beside me and draws my attention. My original intention when I turn the Canon on is to pass time. See if there are any photos on the memory card that will allow me to get lost in the world as Beaux sees it until she gets back. Save myself some worry by looking at the beauty she’s captured.
And I do for a moment. I scroll through pictures of dirty-faced children playing ball in a dirt parking lot, of women at the market with their arms around small children while armed soldiers stand nearby. Groups of shots of men gathered around a table, playing a card game, and wasting away the afternoon.
She focuses on eyes and facial features, wrinkles etched in skin that tell a story all on their own. I get so lost in the images that I forget to question when she took them until I notice in the background of one of the images a minaret a few miles from the outskirts of town. The picture was taken near dawn, the sun rising over the mountains behind it and a group of men kneeling on their prayer rugs.
At first I notice the unique perspective of the shot; then I swipe the digital touch screen of the camera to get more details on the picture. And when I see the date is from two days ago, I immediately think the camera must have the wrong time stamp. It has to.
And then I become almost obsessive, going through the pictures on the camera card again to look at the time stamps. Again I see the wrong date that can’t be right. Once I’m done with the pictures on that camera, I pick up the one beside it and start the process all over again. Normally I’d get caught up in the new images that are just as incredible as the ones the first camera held, but this time around my mind is running a million miles an hour.
By the time I’m done, I’ve noticed that the time stamps on all of these images fall on the nights that Beaux didn’t spend with me. I’m immediately taken back to how I felt day one with her, like I’ve been played – and yet I know she isn’t playing me. She’s explained this all to me… but then in the same breath she promised she wasn’t going to go out on her own anymore.
What the fuck?
My temper is rising. The restless energy I felt earlier after Sarge’s call returns with a vengeance so that the minute I hear the key in the lock, my posture is stiff and I’m primed for a fight.
Beaux pushes open the door and startles when she sees me sitting in her room with a look of complete disdain aimed solely on her. My elbows are on my knees, hands clasped in the center, and my eyes are laser focused on hers.
“Argh!” she yelps. “You scared the shit out of me!” I remain still as I wait to see how she’s going to play this because all that worry I felt is still there, but the anger and frustration are a hundred times stronger.
“Sorry,” I say, my voice lacking all emotion.
“Did something happen? Do we have a story? Why do you look so upset?” She asks the questions in rapid succession as she sets her key on the dresser and takes a step toward me.
“Don’t.” The one-word warning reflects so many things I feel inside me right now. Don’t come closer. Don’t bullshit me. Don’t think you can lie to me. Don’t make me feel like this: angry, confused, worried, conflicted, wanting to pull you close because now I know you’re safe and wanting to hold you at arm’s length because I don’t want to get hurt by you.
“Tanner?”
The cautious nature of how she says my name tells me she knows I’m pissed, but the confused look in her eyes and parted lips tug on the sucker side of me. And no one likes to be a sucker.
“Where were you? And don’t tell me you were downstairs in the lobby.”
“I was… out. I went for a walk, needed some fresh air.”
“Was the fresh air so thick that you couldn’t hear your cell ring?” Her eyes widen, but her mouth stays shut. Smart woman. I lower my head for a moment, stare at my hands as I try to rein in the urge to shake the truth out of her, but I know it won’t do any good.
“Whose idea was it to take nights off?” I ask, referring to our agreement to not spend every night in each other’s bed as I lift my head up to meet her eyes again. I see that the change of direction in the conversation throws her by the furrow in her brow.
“I don’t remember. It just kind of came up, didn’t it?”
“You tell me.” I honestly don’t remember because my brain was probably fogged up from the incredible sex we’d just had when the topic arose as we lay spent and panting a few weeks ago. But right now, I have a deep, unsettling feeling that she’s the culprit of starting the conversation. That she created a way out to have nights to herself to get away and do whatever the fuck she does.
“I don’t know. Maybe I did. I honestly don’t remember.”
“Convenient,” I snort.
“What’s so wrong with not wanting to smother each other? With knowing a damn good thing when I see one and not wanting you to get sick of me? Of wanting to keep this thing between us healthy for both work reasons and for whatever this is between us? I don’t understand where you’re going with this, Tanner.”
“Where I’m going with this?” My voice rises in volume for the first time since she’s entered the room although it feels like I’ve been screaming in my head the entire time. “Where am I going? How about where are you going? That’s a more fitting question.” When she just stares, her eyes blinking and fingers hanging over the edge of the dresser where her hips lean, I continue. “You promised me you weren’t going to go out anymore at nighttime.”
“Yeah…”
Letting the silence hang between us, I give her a chance to fess up even though I know from her eyes there is nothing to tell because she thinks she did nothing wrong. I gesture nonchalantly to the cameras on the table beside me. “The pictures on the cameras… they’re good. When’d you take them?”
C’mon, Beaux, don’t lie to me. I need her to be up front with me, need to know that I mean enough to her to come clean now even though she lied to me when she left to take them. It’s screwed-up logic at best but something I need to hang on to.
“When I was out.”
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“About?”
“Well I sure as hell wasn’t with you when you took these pictures.”
“True.” She raises her eyebrows and crosses her arms over her chest like she’s losing patience with me, and all I can do is chuckle at the irony in her body language. “Why don’t you just come out and ask what you want to ask, Tanner?”
“Did you go out by yourself to take pictures?”
“Not since the last time you told me not to,” she lies as she makes a show of looking at her watch, “which was two minutes ago.”
Her sarcasm infuriates me even though a part of me admires her all at the same time. It’s a fucked-up mix, and that I respect her for standing her ground makes me even more pissed. The goddamn woman is going to be the death of me. “You’re a horrible liar.”
She just lifts her eyebrows in a “yeah, so what” gesture that causes me to grit my teeth.
“And I believe you promised me you weren’t going to go out by yourself anymore, let alone at night, and yet the time stamp on these pictures says you did just that.” I wait for a reaction, wait for her to disagree with me, offer an explanation, but she doesn’t. She just stands there and ever so slowly nods her head in agreement with my statement. “What the fuck are you doing, Beaux? Trying to get yourself killed?” I can’t contain my frustration anymore. I push up out of the chair, shove my hands through my hair in a useless gesture, and pace the floor in front of her to abate some of the restless energy that feels like it’s eating me alive.
“Tanner… you’re overreacting.”
“Don’t Tanner me, and don’t you dare make light of this! It’s not like you’re out on some goddamn Sunday stroll.” I stop walking and square my shoulders to her with my face inches from hers. And she just continues to hold my stare but doesn’t give me an inkling of what she’s feeling on the inside and damn it to hell I want to know. “This isn’t some city back home, rookie, wherever the fuck you’re from that you aren’t telling me about. Not by a long fucking shot. Do you have any clue what…” I stop midsentence as I realize what I just said to her. As everything comes clear over why I’m so pissed at her disappearing into the night by herself in this dangerous city. That it’s not just her going out by herself, no, but rather having these feelings like I did from when Stella disappeared churned up in addition to everything Beaux’s still keeping from me after all of this time we’ve spent together.
How I still feel like I know so little about her since she continually changes the subject any and every time we talk about home.
My anger collides with my insecurity and makes me realize just why I’m so upset. No one likes to be made to feel like a fool, and right now it’s exactly how I feel. My life, my past, my everything, has been completely opened to her, and while I don’t expect her to give me a blow-by-blow of her past, shouldn’t she at least offer more than the generalities that I do know?
I run a hand down the back of my neck while I stare into those deep green eyes of hers, needing to step the fuck away from her so that I can gather my thoughts and figure out where my heart and head are, because obviously they are a hell of a lot more invested than hers are.
“Just forget it,” I tell her in a voice eerily similar to her emotionless tone.
I walk from the room without another word and head up the stairwell, needing my space to clear my head, take stock, and be by myself. Too much, too damn fast.
I can’t help but laugh, though, the sounds dying in the heat of the day as I shove open the door to the rooftop and make my way to my sanctuary. Stella was so damn right, it’s comical. I sure as hell feel a lot more than just lust for Beaux right now, and even though I refuse to say the L-word that Stella was so damn fond of using, it doesn’t mean my head doesn’t see it lurking on the horizon.
“Fuck!” I bark to no one, knowing it’s going to be hotter than hell up here right now and not caring, because I just need a few moments, some time not to feel so fucking scattered.
First of all there’s Beaux and her lack of emotional investment in this. And the minute the thought crosses my mind, I reject it just as quickly because that’s a total bullshit statement. I know she’s invested in what’s between us. I can see it in her eyes, feel it in her touch. I just wish I knew what the fuck it is that’s keeping her from opening up to me. Whatever it is that’s holding her back is so damn strong, it’s almost tangible.
Maybe I’ll call Rafe and ask him more about her. It’s not the first time the thought’s crossed my mind, but I keep telling myself I need to wait her out, let her tell me in her own time. The question is, how much longer do I wait? At what point will I have to step back to prevent myself from getting hurt?
Except I have the sinking feeling I’m pretty much all in at this point, or else I wouldn’t have just reacted like I did.
I scrub my hands over my face. This emotional overload like I’m a damn teenager can stop anytime now.
Fuck. I close my eyes and lean my head against the wall behind me as I take refuge in the tiny bit of shade from the wall the mattress is pushed up against. I haven’t been this worked up in a long time, and I feel stupid yet validated in my feelings.
“Tanner?”
“Go away, Beaux.”
“We need to talk.”
My mind flashes back to the last time I was up here with Stella and the talk we had that led to the kiss.
“No, we don’t. You’re stubborn, clearly going to do whatever you want without any worry for your own safety, and I just… I’ve already lost one person I cared about because of that lack of caution, and I can’t go through that again. Simple as that.”
Silence settles around us as if she really heard what I said and recognized the sincerity in my tone. “Is that what this is all about?” She lowers herself beside me on the mattress, yet I refuse to glance over at her.
With so many emotions churning within me, I shouldn’t be surprised that I just gave her an insight into Stella’s death. And I recognize that was just the tip of the iceberg in a sense, because it’s time I finally talk about it. How can I expect her to want to be open with me when I can’t be with her?
“This is about you wanting to be partners, but you shut down anytime the discussion turns to you. This is about you promising me one thing and then going out and doing the opposite. This is about losing my best friend because she got caught up in an idea and never saw danger coming until it was too damn late.” I shake my head, needing to purge all of my explanations at once, and yet the last one is harder to readily admit than the others. “This is about the fact that you mean something to me and yet you have no regard for your own safety.”
Once I’ve finished, I appreciate that she remains silent, but the hitch of her breath tells me that she heard me loud and clear. She reaches over and laces her fingers with mine, her touch bringing comfort and a little more security in the midst of the sudden isolation I’ve felt.
“I’m from a small town in the Midwest. Let’s see… There’s not much to tell really. I had a Norman Rockwell type of upbringing, nothing spectacular, and then my parents died and my world turned upside down.” Her voice cracks, and I squeeze her hand, hating myself for asking her to speak about her past and at the same time needing to know, to hear it so that I can connect with her. “I’ve never been back. I left that town because there were just too many memories there, too much pain in the idea of walking down Main Street to see where my dad used to take me for ice cream or where my mom and I would meet for lunch. Or the place where the drunk driver hit them head-on and they died. So to me it doesn’t exist anymore because it reminds me too much of the loss, and I’d rather keep those memories sacred.”
I exhale slowly in response to the grief in her voice; it’s so raw that I sense that she understands how I feel about Stella, that even after all of this time, she still hasn’t fully dealt with the losses in her life either.
The heat makes me sweat and causes my shirt to stick to my skin as I prepare myself to really talk about it for the first time.
“It was my birthday.” Those first words are the hardest to get out, namely the admission that I was the cause of Stella’s death. “I told Stella not to make a big deal about it, that we’d have a little celebration at the bar later. I told her that I wanted to Skype with my family and have the party downstairs and I was more than happy with that. She agreed…” My voice trails off as I recall the look on her face, the sound of her voice as she promised me that she wouldn’t do anything else because the city had been in some major unrest with the opposition making a few daring assaults in the city to make its power known.
“There were a few new freelancers, all eager beavers to get out there and pop their break-the-story cherry. From what I could gather after the fact, Stella was hell-bent on getting me a birthday present. She wanted to get decorations for the bar and pick me up something else. I didn’t know any of this obviously, or else I would have stopped… It wouldn’t have all happened.”
I pause for a second, the memory coming back to me clear as day. The party in full swing in the bar just as dusk fell. Stella snapping picture after picture, telling me, “Pictures make memories last forever,” every time I balked when she pointed the shutter my way. I can still feel the way her arms slid around my waist and how she looked up to me as Pauly took the picture that sits on the memory card in the camera on my dresser at home – I’ve never looked at it, but that image is forever burned in my memory.
“Halfway through the party she disappeared. I couldn’t find her. I guess she’d told some of the newbies that she was upset that I wouldn’t let her out of my sight long enough for her to surprise me with a birthday present. The new guys didn’t know me for shit except for my reputation, and so they wanted to get out in the city, experience the danger they’d come here to witness. She agreed. Said as long as they’d be out and back within thirty minutes so I didn’t notice she was gone.”
“Oh, Tanner.” It’s all Beaux says as she shifts her body so she can lean her head on my shoulder, but it’s just enough to tell me she knows what’s coming next. Understands the guilt that weighs so heavily on me.
“At some point I noticed that the camera was gone. I’d had enough to drink by then, but I remember thinking, Thank God Stella’s not taking pictures anymore. One thing led to another, and I found out what she was doing when I questioned another reporter who’d overheard them talking. I went apeshit. Ran out of the hotel, sobering up with each step because I swear, Beaux, it was like I knew I had to get to her, sensed something was going to happen to her… but it already had by the time I got there.” I clear my throat, trying to use my training as a journalist to tell the story, except it’s utterly impossible to keep my emotions out of it.
“I guess Stella wanted to get me this satchel thing she’d seen when we’d passed by the market earlier in the month. Nothing big, just something to make me feel like I was a little more at home having a normal birthday. Apparently some of the opposition had targeted the location, thought the shopkeeper had turned information or something over to the standing government here from what we can make out. They opened fire on the market when she was paying. Three people were inside. I got there a few minutes after it happened. Tried to save her.” I stop talking at that point, can’t say anything else for a moment as I turn my head away from her, not wanting her to see my eyes well up.
I use the back of my hand to wipe the tears away before they spill over as she runs her free hand up and down my arm. “I’m so sorry, Tanner. I don’t even know what… I’d tell you that it’s not your fault, but I know more than anyone those words are useless when you feel guilty anyway.”
“Yeah,” I agree, and turn to face her. “She promised me she’d never go out alone. It was one of the very few times she did…”
“And look what happened,” Beaux says, her eyes telling me she gets the correlation I’ve made between her and Stella, that every time she walks out without me knowing about it, I worry the same thing will happen to her.
We sit in silence, the temperature rising as the sun moves higher in the sky, and I come to terms with the fact that I feel better having told her about Stella and what happened and that maybe, just maybe, she’ll feel the same way and tell me her history someday.
