Текст книги "Hard Beat"
Автор книги: K. Bromberg
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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
Even though my heart’s not in it, and my head is warring over whether I’m giving up too easily on Beaux, I dial the phone to return his call.
I was raised to fight for what I believe in and to not give up until I get it, so what do I do now?
“Tanner.” Rafe greets me, his tone curt and his impatience more than obvious.
“What gives?” I ask before realizing this is the first time we’ve actually spoken in more than ten days, and a part of me cringes at the sound of his voice.
“What the fuck are you trying to pull, Tan?”
Whiplash hits me full force because I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Come again?”
“You’re in Kansas?” He yells into the phone as my hand falls off the steering wheel and into my lap while the shock and confusion over how he knows I’m here rifles through me. “You couldn’t let it go, could you?”
“What in the fuck are you talking about?” I shout back, my mind coming up blank on how he knows I’m here. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going or what I was doing.
“Don’t try and play me for a fool, man. Beaux. You tracked her down? What in the hell were you thinking?”
I open my mouth and close it before something I can’t take back comes out of it. “Rafe… you don’t understand. I’m just —”
“You’re just getting a restraining order filed against you is what you’re doing.”
My head whips up in complete bewilderment because there’s no way he just said what I think he said. “What are you talking about?” I feel like we’re having two completely separate conversations, and neither of them looks promising for me.
“I just got a call from Beaux. She’s filed a restraining order against you.”
“What?” I feel like the word screams through my head in a tornado of bewilderment, but my voice comes out even and quiet.
“Yeah. She wanted you to know that if you show up at her house again you’ll be arrested because she’s already filed one against you.”
I laugh long and hard, the edges of the sound tinged with hysteria that I won’t even deny as I sag against the seat, my head dropping back as I attempt to fathom how we went from the intimate murmurs in the foyer of her house to the tearful good-bye after sex to me being threatened with arrest. I’m at a complete loss and in utter shock.
“She did what?” I finally say into the phone as I try to piece together what in the fuck she’s trying to prove here.
“I’m not joking, Tanner, and I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you’re scaring me. Forget what I said before when I was talking as your boss and ordered you to come home. Listen to me right now as I speak to you as a friend. Dude, you’re losing your shit. You just tracked down a married woman, visited her house when she didn’t want you there, and did who knows what, but whatever it was is bad enough for her to spend the last few hours taking legal action to prevent you from doing it again. It’s called stalking, Tanner.”
“Stalking?” I say as I run a hand through my hair. This entire conversation is comical on so many levels, considering I believe I accused her of the same exact thing those first few days after we met when she was everywhere I turned. The irony is just too good to be true. “Oh that’s rich.” I’m dumbfounded as the laughter won’t subside. “She’s out of her damn mind.”
“Yeah, well maybe you should knock it the fuck off. Honestly, dude, I think you’re way off base here. Not acting like the person I know at all, but what do I know? Maybe she’s the crazy one. Maybe you need to get the fuck away from her. What if she accuses you of something worse?” he says.
“Not Beaux. No way. She wouldn’t do that.” I reject his implications immediately. He wasn’t there, doesn’t know what just happened… but then again I was, and now she’s filing a fucking restraining order? I pinch the bridge of my nose, welcome the pain of it as I try to wrap my head around the incredible highs and staggering lows of the day, and shut out the thoughts that he’s planting.
“I sound like a broken record, but you need to get on a plane and get home. She’s banking on the probability that you’ll be rational and listen to me. That you’ll leave Kansas and her alone or else she’ll go to the boss men next time, and you know what that means.” He blows out a frustrated sigh.
“I’m trying to figure out when it became your job to manage my private life, Rafe.”
“Well when you keep risking your job for a piece of ass who’s obviously playing you and going to get you fired, then it’s my job.”
“Are you threatening me?” I shout incredulously, purposefully ignoring the first part of his statement and the need to defend that she was so much more than just a piece of ass.
“If she goes to the brass and it comes down to it, man… I’ll have to fire you.”
“Then fire me,” I challenge. The buzz is already gone for me anyway.
“Really, Tan? You’re going to throw away all of your hard work and killer career for a woman who doesn’t want you? Who lied to you?”
“She does want me, though.” I cringe when I realize I spoke my thoughts aloud. “Something’s off here, Rafe. My gut instinct tells me that —”
“Stop! Please just stop and come home. It’s one thing to throw yourself into the fire when you’re trying to save something, but there is nothing to be saved here. Do you really want to be burned at the stake for nothing?” he rants as I fall silent and try to digest everything and question parts of my own sanity. How long am I going to chase a woman who loves me but obviously won’t let me into her life? “Tanner?” Rafe’s concerned voice breaks through my musings.
“I’m on sabbatical, remember?” There’s resignation front and center in my voice as I end the call without another word. Let him worry about what I’m going to do next since it’s none of his damn business. Fuck. I blow out a breath and rest my head against the steering wheel to try to come to grips with my warring thoughts and what he said.
Nothing makes sense, and yet I gave it all I’ve got. I can’t keep throwing good after bad no matter how much it hurts to walk away.
But that’s what I’m going to do. It’s what I have to do. I’m not a man who grovels. I’m a man who falls in and out of love at the flick of a switch, a paradox as Stella called me, and so I’m just going to get my shit from my hotel room, hop on a plane, and leave everything I thought I wanted behind so that I can force myself to fall back out of love.
It can’t be that hard to do. I’ve done it a hundred times before.
Even I don’t believe my own lies this time.
Chapter 28
“Are you seriously going to pass up that wave, Thomas?” the voice calls out behind me in a tone that has me rolling my eyes and raising my middle finger to my brother-in-law when he paddles up behind me.
“It wasn’t good.”
“That’s what you said about the one before that and then the one before that. That photographer still have your dick in a twist?”
“Humph.” Even two weeks after my visit to Kansas, I still don’t understand things any better than I did that night. I can’t tell if the whole situation is killing me or making me stronger, but I know that the hurt’s turned to anger and the disbelief to resentment. The one thing I know for sure is that the unknown still looms like a weight in my chest that I’m slowly ignoring more and more, bit by bit, day by day.
But that twist? It’s still there.
“So more like kinked than twisted now?” he says, earning a smile from me.
“Something like that.” I exhale loudly, not in the mood to talk, not in the mood to surf either now that I think about it. But there’s nothing like getting out in the water to clear your head. The sun feels good on my face, and the water steadily lapping over my legs on the board unwinds me bit by bit. I almost don’t even care if I catch a wave or not because for the first time in forever it feels like I can relax – ironic in itself since I haven’t gone on a story in almost two months.
And usually that’s the only thing that can relax me.
“Kink can be good, brother,” he says, and lifts one eyebrow with a smirk.
I flash him a warning look. “I don’t want to know,” I say, drawing a laugh because I sure as hell don’t want to even remotely know anything about my sister’s sex life. Our eyes hold for a minute, and I can see him trying to figure out how to get to whatever he wants to say. “Just lay it on me, man,” I finally tell him. As much as I’ll take a day surfing at Trestles, I also know that Colton had an ulterior motive when he asked me to meet him here.
His was the same motive my sister’s had with every phone call she’s made in the two weeks since I’ve been back from Kansas: to see how I’m doing or try to get me out of the house. To make sure I’m not wallowing in whatever it is I’m supposedly wallowing in.
Oh yeah, heartbreak. That’s what it’s called.
“Lay what on you? Your brother-in-law can’t invite you to go surfing without a reason?” he asks, and earns a long, disbelieving laugh from me.
“Look, any excuse to get out in the water is a good one, especially here of all places,” I say as I look toward the renowned Southern California beach before looking back to him. “But remember, I grew up with my sister. I know from experience how well she can assert her will to get you to do what she wants.”
Colton throws his head back and laughs and doesn’t need to say a single word to tell me that I’m right. “Ah, God, she’s a trip, but I love her to death,” he says, making me smile because I feel the same way. And it’s good to know that he does.
I debate how to play this, wondering if he’s really going to go to that place men don’t go, to talking, and yet it feels good to be out of the house and hanging with someone I like since everyone else I know is still on assignment somewhere. “You don’t have to do this, Colton. I appreciate you inviting me to meet up, but if Ry wants to fish and see how I’m doing, she doesn’t need you to do her dirty work for her.”
“I know,” he says, and ruffles a hand through his hair to shake the water from it. “Look, it’s none of my business, but what the fuck, man? You’re a good judge of character… Didn’t you see crazy coming from a mile away?” he asks incredulously with a half laugh.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.” I shake my head, still at a loss over everything but slowly moving on.
“Dude, we are talking about women, right?” he jokes, and garners an amen from me. “When it comes to women, what you believe gets thrown out the window and whirls around in a little eddy I call the estrogen vortex. It sucks you into their crazy and spits you out completely dazed, confused, and questioning why you ever stepped close enough to begin with… well besides the tits and ass and curves…”
“You can say that again.”
“It’s the mythical blooming onion.”
“The what?” I question.
“You know… She’s got all kinds of layers you can’t wait to taste, but then once you peel them away, your gut feels like shit and you’re left with a bad taste in your mouth.”
I snort and roll my eyes while we fall into a comfortable silence as the set of swells on the horizon dies down some.
“Bad taste is right. Shit, I didn’t see any of it coming, Colton, not at all. I feel like a fucking chump. No idea she was married. Didn’t realize the sneaking away in the middle of the night to take pictures was a cover because she was calling her husband. Not the text she sent me where I tracked her to Kansas, thinking she was leaving me a goddamn clue to come and save her. Not the sex we had when I found her that she used as a final good-bye before filing a fucking restraining order against me…” My voice trails off, incredulity in my tone and frustration reflected in my posture.
“That’s cold, man,” Colton says with a shake of his head. “I had a woman do that to me once. Have sex as her way of saying good-bye.”
“What did you do to get over her?” I’ll admit I’m surprised the infamous ladies’ man Colton Donavan was played like I was. Makes me feel a little better.
“I married her,” he deadpans, causing my head to whip over to meet his eyes as he throws his head back in a laugh.
“Rylee did that shit to you?” I ask, completely surprised by the ballsy move on my sister’s part. “You probably deserved it, though.”
“Yes, I did.” He smirks at a memory, but the way his face softens tells me that it was a good one and that he wouldn’t want it any other way because he got the girl in the end.
“For some reason, though, I think the restraining order tells me that I won’t have the same ending.” I laugh at myself because there’s not much else I can do.
“Would you really want one, though? Legal action is kind of an extreme move to play in the game of hard to get.”
“True,” I murmur.
“What’s her deal? I’m assuming you dug into her background.”
“Couldn’t find anything. Not even mortgage records for the house, nothing. So either they have a friend on the force who buried their information, or I’m getting rusty. I’ve got to be careful, though. Don’t want to get caught snooping between losing my job at Worldwide and the restraining order… so who knows…”
“You should have checked the asylums.” His comment earns a snort from me in response. “I mean the only advice I can give you is the next time you fall in love, make sure that you’re the crazy one.”
My laugh comes out long and deep. Such a typical comment from the former playboy himself. “Well some say love is a serious mental disease,” I say with a shrug. “Guess that proves something I’ve spent a lifetime trying to prove.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
“That my sister is crazy,” I state matter of factly.
He laughs and shakes his head before staring out to the ocean around us. “Look, man, I know how hard it is… but everyone’s life is like a story. Maybe that chapter of your book is closed…,” he says, his voice fading off. “Then again, maybe you need to open the damn book back up and rewrite the shit you didn’t like. Don’t accept it, Tanner. Some people say you can’t change your fate. I’m living proof that you can. If you don’t like the ending, change it,” he finishes with a shrug before duck-diving under a wave as I’m pushed toward shore, my mind toying with the truth in his words.
Colton’s analogy rings in my ears but brings a smile to my lips as I make the drive home down the coastline. My mood is the best it’s been in a while, so I’m glad I took the offer of a day on the water to get away from my doldrums right now. After the guy talk, I feel like my head is back on straighter than it has been in the last month, an affirmation that I need to hold on to the anger a little tighter and let go of the want a little more, because what I need to do is forget all about her.
My cell rings through the Bluetooth as I exit the freeway, and for the first time in two weeks I decide to pick up Rafe’s call.
“You’re finally talking to me again?” he asks with a chuckle, and I feel the smile tug at the corners of my mouth.
“I’m slowly forgiving you.”
“For what? Saving your ass? Thank you is what you should be saying.”
I sigh into the line. “Don’t press your luck.”
“Regardless, you sound good.”
“I feel good,” I answer as I try to figure out where he’s going with this.
“Feel good enough to head back into action?” he asks, which stuns the hell out of me so much that I miss my own street.
“What do you mean?” There is a cautious tone to my voice, and I’m not sure exactly where it’s coming from. Maybe getting back on assignment is just what I need to distract me from the temptation of seeing her again.
“You haven’t seen the news today, have you?”
“What do you mean?” I ask as I turn down my street, noticing William finally moved his beast of a car because I can actually see my house when I turn on the road. Thank God. At least some other neighbor was the asshole and told him to move it before I did.
“The U.S. embassy was bombed. On your old stomping grounds. An ambassador and an agent lost. Figured you’d want a chance to report —”
“When?” Immediately I’m sitting taller in my seat because it’s been a long time since this has happened; it’s usually a precursor to a military campaign of some kind. And a military campaign means I have something to occupy me overseas to avoid the temptation of knowing where she is and that she doesn’t want me. Somehow distance seems like it will help.
“A few hours ago. There’s a briefing first thing in the morning in D.C. with intelligence officials to explain the objective of the mission, make sure it is spelled out and not misrepresented,” he says.
“So basically the government’s inviting the press to handle the image we’ll portray in regard to what’s happening,” I say, discouraged and frustrated all at the same time, but I know my reputation precedes me. If Rafe’s calling me, he knows the story he’ll get from me, that I won’t bow to the pretty wrapping of the package they are trying to tie up for me. “I’ll go. No one is going to tell me what I can and can’t report, though.”
Rafe chuckles. “That’s exactly what I was hoping you were going to say. You know my rules – report the truth; I’ll worry about the rest. When can you leave?”
For the first time ever in my life, I hesitate before answering him. And that I don’t know why makes it even worse. Is it because I’ve gotten the longest taste of normal life that I’ve had in forever? Or is it because a small part of me is still hanging on to the hope that regardless of how much I tell myself that whatever was between Beaux and me is dead, I still have the slimmest margins of hope that she’ll call?
And that thought alone spurs me to respond immediately.
“I’m turning down my street. Give me two hours tops to pack my shit and take care of a few things, then I’ll head to the airport. I’ll start making calls with my sources on location while I’m waiting for my flight. See what I can dig up to get ahead of the story,” I say as I turn into my driveway.
I hang up the phone, my thoughts running faster than my mind can process as I grab the bag of stuff Rylee gave Colton to give me, get out of my 1976 restored Bronco, and pull my surfboard from the open back. I quickly hang my wet suit up in the garage and rinse my board off, acting as if I won’t be coming back for a while.
The funny thing is, I’m going through the motions of things I’ve done so many times in my life, and yet they seem so halfhearted compared to normal. There is no urgency, no hurried movements, just more a quiet resignation that I’ve never felt before. My mind travels to thoughts of clapboard houses on quiet streets and teaching a little girl with long dark hair and amethyst eyes how to ride a bike without training wheels. Shit, I never thought it would happen until much later in life, but for the first time ever, I find myself wondering how much I’m missing, how many memories I’m missing out on making, because of my career choices.
Sure, the rush of getting the story first is such a fucking high, so then why don’t I feel anything close to that right now? Why isn’t my blood humming and my mind already back in the dirt and dust of a foreign country that doesn’t seem inviting right now?
I enter the house from the door in the garage and toss my shit on the table, cursing when the bag from Rylee falls on its side, the contents spilling out. A card, as well as some random get-well presents from the boys that they made me after the blast that are so sweet they make me smile, tug on those heartstrings a tad more, but it’s the bottle of bubbles that rolls to the edge of the table and falls to the floor that causes my bittersweet smile.
As soon as I pick them up, memories of Rylee using them to work out her life’s disappointments and then the laughs Beaux and I shared on the rooftop that last night when everything seemed so crystal clear assault me. Too bad I didn’t know it was all murky as fuck. Without thinking of the bags I have to pack, the phone calls I have to make, the task of emptying my refrigerator so that nothing spoils in case I’m gone more than a couple of days, I open the bubbles and blow a few into the empty space of my living room. Perfectly round, they float in a mix of colors, before they pop, each memory, good and bad, disappearing with them.
There’s something about watching them that brings some kind of closure, one that’s tinged with sadness. Stupid in the grand scheme of things when I should be packing, but it’s there nonetheless.
I stand from the couch feeling like an idiot, a grown man blowing bubbles and not wanting to let go of the woman he loves. “God, Thomas. You’re acting like a schmuck. Get over it. Get over her. Pack your shit and leave her behind.”
But I don’t want to leave her behind. The bubbles make me think of Beaux. Of rib-hurting laughter and sigh-worthy sex. Of her undeniable feistiness contrasted with her incredible tenderness. Of just how much I want to rewrite the last chapter or the whole fucking book if that’s what it takes, because I want her in my life.
I blow out a breath, knowing I have so much shit to do and I’ve wasted a fair amount of time with a childish novelty, but I have to do one more thing. I pick up the phone and dial.
“Hello?”
“Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I picked up a story and am gonna hop on a flight. Should be gone a couple of days, but you know what?” I say to my sister, so amped up by my decision, I know by that alone that it’s the right one. That I’m being true to myself.
“Tanner… A story? So soon? I thought you were taking a break. What’s going on?”
“Never mind the story. It’s not important, because I figured it all out. Bubbles. It was the damn bubbles.” I’m rambling and don’t care if she thinks I’m losing my mind. I’ve lost it and found it, and everything is so damn crystal clear to me for the first time in far too long.
“What in the world are you —”
“I was blowing – never mind,” I say, speaking ahead of my thoughts that are running out of control. “Look… You were right. I’ve never walked away without a fight before, so why am I walking away now?” Rylee starts to speak, and I just step right over her. “I love Beaux. Like I’m whipped, want to do anything to make this work.”
“There’s a little thing called a restraining order,” Rylee says cautiously, trying to hide the sarcasm mixed with the need to protect me from her voice.
“My gut tells me that there’s more to it than what’s going on. I just need to get a handle on what it is.” I pace the length of my hallway as I agree with my own self-diagnosis that I’m crazy. “You told me you fight like hell for what you love… Colton told me to rewrite the chapter and —”
“Rewrite what chapter?” she asks, confused.
“Ask your husband,” I tell her, not wanting to waste any time. “But I love her like no one else I’ve ever been with before, and I know she feels the same way and damn it, I’m going to fight for her.”
“Well, okay.” She laughs. “But wait! You can’t tell me all of this, get on a plane, and leave on that note!”
“I’ll be back in a few days, Ry. The way I feel isn’t going to change, and neither is my determination to win her back. You said love’s crazy. Well now it’s my turn to be crazy, but this time? This time, crazy is going to get the girl!”
Her laughter fills the line. “Go get ’em, Tan!”
I hang up the phone with the incredible feeling that everything is falling into place. I’m going back to work, gonna do my job, get the story first, do it better than anyone else. Because like Beaux said, I’m the one. Then I’m going to fly back to Kansas and fight for the girl. Get her out of whatever situation she’s in with John that puts that constant worry and fear in her eyes. I may be the farthest thing from the white knight, but I sure as fuck can save the day.
But right now I need to get ready to leave.
I get everything packed, clothes, electronics, passport – all of the shit that sits in the closet waiting for the word go on a moment’s notice – but when I turn to take one last glance at my bedroom to make sure I’ve got everything, my feet falter as my eyes fall on Stella’s camera collecting dust on the top of my dresser. Conscious that time is limited, I walk over and reach out for it, my finger wiping away a streak of dust.
It’s been a little over nine months since I last saw her smile, heard her voice, laughed with her. For the first time since then, I think I’m ready to see the images from that night. I’m ready to face them.
Not to forget her, but just to say good-bye.
Because for the first time in forever, I can admit that guilt held me hostage from doing it. And not guilt because she was out buying me a birthday present when she was killed but instead for not protecting her long enough for her to find her once-in-a-lifetime. God yes, I loved her. Loved her company and her corny jokes and so many more things about her, but I wasn’t that person for her. It’s taken me the longest time to realize that. And maybe, just maybe, when the hurt fades from all of the shit with Beaux, I’ll be able to be thankful to her for that because learning that I loved Beaux, feeling the intensity of that connection, made me realize what that once-in-a-lifetime might possibly feel like.
And even though it still feels like a spilled beaker full of acid in my chest at times, I know it’s possible. And at least I know that I wasn’t cheating Stella out of that by not trying to rekindle what we might have had.
When I pick up the camera and turn it on, I’m surprised that the battery is still charged enough that when I click over to the slide show of pictures, it responds. The first image that pops up causes a lump to form in my throat but also a smile to come to my face. Stella has her arm around me, a silly cone-shaped party hat on her head, and her tongue stuck out at the camera while I’m beside her, an exasperated look on my face but a smirk on my lips. And of course the first picture captures us perfectly – our friendship, our partnership, everything – so much that it’s just what I need to see to know I’m right and at the same time to be able to say good-bye.
I flip through the rest of them quickly. Pauly dancing on the tabletop, Bob’s Pee-wee Herman dance that I’ll never forget, the shots lined up and down the bar top, the disaster of a birthday cake they made me, but none of them compares to the one time that Beaux stepped out from behind the camera for the picture of the two of us.
Feeling less burdened, I stare one more time at the image of two people lucky in friendship, carefree, and lost in the moment before I look up to catch my own reflection. The lines around my eyes are a little deeper now and my eyes a lot more weary, the curve of my mouth still holding on to the bitterness some. Reflections don’t lie. They magnify the truths you want to hide from, the reality you don’t want to face, the shit you need to get over.
They also make you want to punch the mirror so you don’t have to see anything you don’t want to.
Well, at least I’ve dealt with one of the two women who fucked me up. It’s still best if I don’t think about the other one too much.
Restraining order, my ass.
