Damaged Goods (Don't Call Me Hero Book 2) (22 page)

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The Fourth Precinct wasn’t big enough to have its own gym, so most of us wound up back at the police academy’s facilities when we wanted to work out. Once you passed your original fitness test to get admitted to the academy, there was little incentive to stay in shape, especially for cadets who ended up with desk duty. It was why I saw so many cops with bellies that hung over their utility belts. I didn’t want that same fate for myself and my diet was far from ideal, which meant I had to religiously exercise.

After running a few miles on the academy’s indoor track, I made my way to the gymnasium area that cadets used for hand-to-hand combat training. A number of wrestling mats provided space for people to partner up and throw each other around. Free weights littered the floor along with boxing equipment like speed and heavy bags. In the center of the space was a boxing ring where two young recruits sparred while older trainers barked instructions from the wings.

I dropped my gear near a heavy bag and a shelf of free weights. I stretched out my arms and shoulders and idly scanned the gym. Because of the early hour, there were only a few people working out, and as usual, I appeared to be the only female in the vicinity.

I slipped on a pair of lightweight boxing gloves and peppered one of the red heavy bags with short jabs. With each punch that landed, I could feel the pull and strain on my triceps and biceps. I fell into a comfortable rhythm: short, explosive jabs with my left arm and slower, broader swings with my right. The sound of leather striking leather lulled me into a kind of trance until I felt the sharp, unexpected slap of a hand to my ass.

I whirled around on whomever had struck me, ready to fight back.

Angie hopped out of the way of an instinctive swing. “Woah there. Take it easy, Miller.”

I swiped my arm across my forehead to dislodge some of the beaded sweat that threatened to fall into my eyes. “Then stop mishandling the goods,” I deflected, “I know it’s hard for you to keep your hands off me, but show a little restraint.”

Angie snorted. “You wish.”

I was surprised to see her, not just because she’d snuck up on me. She wore the same outfit—the academy’s grey t-shirt and blue gym shorts—and her hands were wrapped with athletic tape.

“Isn’t this your shift?”

“Usually,” she confirmed, “but I’m off today.”

“Coming in on your day off?” I clucked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “You really are the department’s golden child.”

“Nah,” Angie shook her head. “My sleep schedule’s all fucked up from working third shift. I’d just be home staring at the walls, so I might as well be doing something productive.”

“You ladies want next?” a voice called to us. A giant man, head polished free of hair until it shone under the overhead lights leered at us from inside the boxing ring. He reminded me of a sinister version of Mr. Clean, minus the gold hoop earrings.

“No thanks, man. We’re good,” I called back.

Angie nudged me in the ribs. “You scared, Miller?” she egged me on.

In a fight, I had no doubt I could top my friend—I’d never say that to her, though. But I had at least twenty pounds on her, a four-inch reach, and my hand-to-hand combat training as a Marine had been far more intensive than what we’d received in the police academy. It wouldn’t have been a fair fight, even just sparring, but more than that there was no way I was going to bring unnecessary attention to myself. I was a police officer, not a spectacle.

“Not in a fighting mood,” I replied with a shrug. “I’ve had enough of that going on at home.”

I resumed my workout, landing successive combinations to the heavy bag.

Angie stood behind the punching bag and held it still for me. “Uh oh. Trouble in paradise?”

“Not really. Just regular relationship growing pains.”

I had no idea if that were true or not. Julia was officially the longest relationship I’d ever been in, largely because I’d never been in an actual relationship before. The fights were starting to pile up, and I had no point of reference, no previous experience from which to draw comparisons. And I wasn’t exactly the opening up and sharing kind of person.

I gave the heavy bag one more sound beating until my arms and lungs burned and I was forced to stop.

Angie sat down on a nearby bench and began to unravel the athletic tape wrapped around her hands. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you, but I didn’t want to ask with the other guys around.”

“What’s up?”

“How are you doing? Like, really doing? We haven’t talked much since your first day back.”

“I’m good,” I said noncommittally.

“I just mean with your, uh, condition?”

“It’s okay, Ang. You can say the word; you’re not going to offend me.”

I carried with me a palpable sense of worry that the people I worked with would discover the real reason why I’d taken myself off of active duty months ago. Only Inspector Garnett and my therapist, Dr. Landsen, were supposed to know, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t slip out unintentionally. The only reason Angie and the rest of my group of friends knew about my PTSD was because they’d been witness to my first flashback. We’d been at a minor league baseball game in St. Paul over the Fourth of July. When the fireworks started, I’d freaked out. Angie had hung out with me in the women’s bathroom for the better part of the game until I’d pulled myself together. We hadn’t talked about it afterwards, for which I was thankful. It had been embarrassing enough without having to relive that moment. I hated being treated differently. I didn’t want to be seen as broken.

She regarded me for a moment. “Are you sure?”

My phone chose that moment to buzz in my duffle bag with a new text message. I grabbed my phone out of the nylon bag and inspected the screen instead of answering Angie’s uncomfortable question.

Will you be home tonight for dinner?

Depends,
I quickly replied.
What are you making me?

I’ve got a lime and tequila. Interested?

I couldn’t resist the upward tug that coerced my mouth into a smile.

“Is that your old lady checking in on you?” Angie asked.

I tossed the phone back into my duffle bag. “Yeah, just asking about dinner tonight.”

“It must be nice to have a wife,” Angie sighed. “To have dinner waiting for you on the table after a long day. I’ve got nothing but frozen pizza waiting for me when I get home.”

“Oh, don’t get it twisted—my freezer’s still stocked with pizza bagels and frozen dinners,” I clarified. “She’s just staying with me this week. I’ve got an old friend in town, and she’s letting him and his wife stay at her place.”

“That’s awfully generous,” Angie remarked.

I nodded at the truth in her words. “She’s good like that.”

“So when do we get to meet Miss Perfect?”

“Julia? You already did.”

“Not formally,” Angie said. “When we met her at that one bar, she was just a random pretty face. I didn’t realize we were meeting the Future Mrs. Cassidy Miller.”

“Whatever,” I scoffed to hide my embarrassment. “She’d never take my last name.”

“Oh, really?” Angie’s dark eyes perceptibly widened. “You sound like you’ve thought about this before. Next up: cat adoption.”

“How’s your rookie doing?” I asked, desperate to steer the conversation away from me. I could feel the blush on my cheeks, but hoped it would pass as residual exertion from the workout. “Still forgetting to park the car?”

“I think he’s afraid of me,” she said, laughing. “He uses the emergency parking break whenever he pulls to a stop.”

“That’s pretty generous of you to let him still drive,” I noted. “My FTO only gives me the car keys when I have to report a death to someone’s next-of-kin.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a story.”

“It’s nothing,” I dismissed. “I’ll just be happy when Mendez and I part ways.”

“It’s not forever. Keep reminding yourself that. That’s what I do, at least, when Boot’s driving me crazy,” she laughed.

I nodded. She was right. Just a few more weeks and Mendez would be someone else’s headache. “I should go get cleaned up.”

“Hey, I’m planning a cookout at the end of the summer. I expect you and Miss Perfect to both be there.”

“I’ll ask, but she’s got even weirder hours than we do.”

Angie arched an eyebrow. “They’ve got me on graveyard shift, Miller. I seriously doubt that.”

CHAPTER Fourteen

I met up with Pensacola later that day after I’d finished my shift and he’d completed his work at the hospital. We sat at a four-topper whose tabletop was permanently stained from condensation rings. I watched his eyes scan over the bar and its limited patrons. It was a typical late afternoon at Spencer’s. The Twins game played on the television, and a few off-duty cops sat at the U-shaped bar watching the game and drinking cheap Happy Hour beer.

“You really hang out here?” he asked me.

“Not like every day, but every now and again after work, sure.”

Pense was blunt. “It’s a total dump, Cass.”

“It’s got Old World charm,” I defended.

“I’ve been to bars in the Detroit projects that look better than this place.”

“I take you to dinner at one French restaurant and now you’re suddenly fancy?”

“I bet you’ve never taken Julia here,” Pense smirked before bringing a beer to his lips. He drank the same way as me and every other Marine I knew—index finger locked around the neck of the bottle like it was the trigger of a gun.

“No, I haven’t,” I admitted. “But I’m not trying to get you into bed.”

Pense snorted, almost choking on his mouthful of beer.

“How’s the clinical trial going?” I asked.

“It’s going good. You should stop by if you get the chance. You can laugh at me trying to stand up on those fake legs.”

“Next time they give me a day off,” I agreed. “I could use a good laugh.”

“Out with it.”

“What?”

“Stop stalling,” he said. “Claire asked you to talk to me.” Somehow he knew. “You don’t just take someone to Minneapolis’ finest establishment without having an agenda.”

There was no use pulling punches. “She’s worried, Pense. And from what she’s told me, I’m worried about you, too.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. And even if there was, I’ve got it under control.”

“Why don’t you ever talk to her about it?” I didn’t need to elaborate on
it
.

“I’d rather forget about that place,” he said. “It took enough from me. I don’t need to be opening up old wounds.”

“I thought that way, too,” I admitted. “I thought if I didn’t talk about it, I could pretend it never happened. But I couldn’t keep all that stuff locked up forever. Julia was the first person I ever opened up to about what it was like being over there. I think it’s been good for me, and I know for damn sure it’s been good for our relationship.”

Pense looked down at his hands. “Have you told her about Amir?”

My heart constricted. I saw Amir’s face nearly every night, but I hadn’t heard or spoken his name out loud in a long time. “No,” I managed to choke out.

“So you haven’t told her everything.”

“No. No, I guess not.”

Pense stared across the table, but his eyes appeared unfocused. It was like he was looking at a distant memory instead of anything actually in front of him. “I have dreams sometimes that I’m in my old body,” he said. “I’m not doing anything crazy—maybe playing basketball with some buddies, or hell, running up a flight of stairs.”

I swallowed hard. “Do you … do you ever regret coming back?”

“Coming back?”

“Yeah.” My voice wavered. “Do you ever resent me for dragging you out of that desert?”

With the question, Pense’s eyes regained their focus. “Shit no, Cass. That’s not what this is about. Sure the stump look took a while to get used to,” he said, thumping his closed fists on either thigh for effect, “but I never for one second resented you. I’m alive because of you. I’m gonna grow old with the only woman I’ve ever loved, and I get to see my baby boy grow up.”

I let out a shaky breath. “This is getting a little too sappy for me, Pense.”

“Aww, what’s the matter? Big Bad Marine doesn’t like to talk about emotions?”

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

He flashed me that broad, gapped-tooth grin. “Oh, I know. But listen, you don’t have to worry about me. It’s not the war that’s got me messed up,” he asserted, “it’s this kid.”