Find Me in Manhattan (Finding #3) (14 page)

His eyes flicked back and forth between mine, and I held my breath as I waited for his answer. “No.” I didn’t realize there was room for it, but I took a little more air into my lungs then froze when he spoke again. “But I don’t know how to do this. You know better than anyone that things still aren’t…that I’m not…well, you know.” He paused and rubbed his face. “I want to be the kind of guy you deserve. I don’t want to be this screwed-up guy who’s afraid to fall asleep at night.” He paused and rested his elbows on his knees letting his head drop down. “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

I let out the breath I was holding. “Good for you,” I said surprising him. I was burying every feeling I had about him as far down as I could while I looked at him for what he was, a lost boy.

A professor I had in undergrad had taught us about soldiers coming back from war. He said some soldiers have all these preconceived notions about battle. They saw the commercials and the propaganda and thought they could help save the world. Once they got there, they realized it was a series of slow days and routine jobs and very little action. The action they did receive was devastating. Not only did they lose friends and watch people suffer, but they realized they weren’t saving the world. They saw the worst side of it, instead. They came home disillusioned only to realize no one at home understood what they went through. Finally, someone called them a hero or told them they were proud of them. That was when the guilt set in. Survivor’s guilt. The guilt of an anti-hero. He’d said, “Suddenly these men who left our country with a mission come home with nothing. They’re simply lost boys with no Peter Pan to guide them.” It was the saddest story I’d ever heard.

“What?” Michael asked. “Why is that good?”

“I think that was the most honest you have ever been with me.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “But?”

“But nothing.” I paused for a second and took a breath to help maintain my even temper. “I appreciate your honesty, and you’re right. What’s between us should be easy. I think right now you should focus on you, not me and my drama. I don’t need someone to watch over me. I don’t need you or my brother making decisions for me, and I certainly don’t need any more men in my life who think they can charm their way in only to realize I’m not what they want for the long haul. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” I looked back down at my computer. “Close the door on your way out.”

I could feel the weight of his eyes on me, but I refused to look. A part of me pleaded with him to tell me that I was wrong, but a bigger part of me knew I wasn’t. He might have held my hand and laughed at my jokes, but his protective instincts kicked in the second he saw Jameson’s hands on me. That was all this was. That was all this would ever be. I wanted a man who wanted me so much that nothing would stand in his way of being with me. Was that too much to ask?

When I heard the door click shut, I didn’t allow the disappointment set in. I’d been through this before. Guys letting me down. Same ol’ thing, if you think about it. The only men who hadn’t let me down were Daddy and Seth.

I knew work wasn’t going to happen, so I threw my head back against my pillows and closed my eyes. What was it about me that screamed
temporary
? Blond hair, slightly larger than average cup size, a little junk in my trunk? I was pretty, naturally so, and I didn’t mind saying so. All dolled up for pageants, I could pull off beauty queen better than any girl in six counties, but mostly I just looked like Sarah. Simple, sometimes sweet, mostly stubborn Sarah.

As I lay there pondering whether I should call Maggie or continue to wallow in my self-pity, my door flew open. “This is bullshit,” Michael growled.

My eyes snapped open, and I sat up to find him pacing my room. “Pardon?”

“I like you, you know that. Of course, you do. I’ve walked around holding your hand for Christ’s sake. I don’t hold girl’s hands, but yet, I can’t help but hold yours. I want to be close to you, but I can’t be like Phil and Amy. I can’t see past today. It’s all blank. Therapy didn’t work for me like it did for him, so I can’t be that guy for you even if I wanted to be. I would let you down. I can watch out for you like a friend would.” He took a deep breath and added, “I’d really like to be your friend.”

“You want to be my friend?”

“Is that such a bad thing?” He looked so distressed, so lost.

“No, it’s not a bad thing at all. I just don’t need added security if that’s what you are planning. I have enough men watching over me. I don’t need another.”

His face changed from distressed and flustered to softer and a little coy. The way he was looking at me had me squirming in my seat and regretting the whole idea of friendship. Then he spoke, and I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy being his friend. “Sarah, you need a whole army watching over you. Men, women, the works.”

“I told you not to try and charm your way into my life.”

“Sorry, sweetheart. I’m already there,” he said with a wink.

Michael

“You were in pageants?” I asked with a small laugh. I was at Sarah’s apartment eating a home cooked meal with Sarah and Seth the next night. Seth had invited me the night before, and I think this was honestly a job interview to see if he felt he could leave her in my hands when he went back to Alabama.

“Why is that so hard to believe?” She sounded offended, which made this whole thing even funnier. Seth was even laughing from behind his beer.

“Her senior year they asked her to be a judge because she hadn’t been beaten since she started competing as a kid.”

“What? Please tell me you have pictures.”

“Dude, Google it. It’s all online.”

Sarah stomped her foot and shot an angry glare toward her brother then me. “Seth, I will kill you. Michael, you Google it and this friendship is over.”

“My favorite’s the year she wore the hot pink dress.”

“Did she ever wear anything other than pink?” I asked already knowing the answer.

“Nah, man, but do you know how many different pinks there are? My mom can name at least fifty shades.”

“Fifty shades of pink. If they make a biography of your life, I insist you call it that,” I told her.

She pushed me and told me to go to hell. Then she turned to her brother and said, “I hate you.”

He laughed at her. “You love me.”

“You know what I love?” I asked them then waited for them to look my way. “Pink.” That earned me a slap in the face with a pillow, so I pulled her off the couch onto the floor so I could tickle her until she begged me to stop. Friends did this kind of shit, right? Because this sure as hell felt natural to me. It was the most fun I’d had in a really long time.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Seth warned. “She peed on me once.”

“Seth!” she screamed and tried to sit up. “I was six and had been in the car for five hours!”

“Doesn’t mean I’ll ever forget the day of the tinkle tickle.”

“Mama told you not to call it that!”

“Mama’s the one who named it!” he fired back. I was really starting to like Seth. One minute, he fiercely protected his sister, and the next, he had her showing her true colors. She was currently pouting and stomping her foot, somehow making the tantrum look sexy as hell.

Suddenly, the hurt in her eyes switched to fierce determination, and she took off after her brother. “Don’t you do it!” he called out and ran away from her. He leaped over the table while she dashed around the couch. I could imagine her crashing to the ground, so I decided to stop the chaos before someone ended up in the hospital. Right as I went to stand up, she stepped in my way. Her foot caught on my knee causing her to trip. To keep her face from smashing down on the wood floors, I quickly moved to catch her. We fell together and landed nose-to-nose with her laying on my chest and my back on the floor. The pain in my back flared like a wildfire through my veins, so I held her on me while I breathed through it. Focusing on her helped me quickly forget why the pain was there in the first place.

“Don’t need anyone, my ass,” Seth muttered as he headed over to the kitchen to grab a beer. I didn’t care where he went; I couldn’t take my eyes off the pair of blue ones that were currently inches away from mine.

“Sorry ‘bout my brother. We have a love-hate relationship.” Her smile made me forget everything but her. Sarah was truly stunning in an all-American girl kind of way.

“That’s cool. My sister and I have a never-talk-to-each-other kind of relationship.” I closed my eyes as soon as I heard the admission come out of my mouth. It slipped out of me, just like the night before. I despised how being around Sarah had me spilling my guts like a girl. I was not about to get in touch with my emotional side. Sarah would be running for the hills if she saw what was really behind those doors.

“Why?” she asked without moving from her place atop my body.
Maybe she wouldn’t run
, I thought just as she slightly shifted, giving me another problem to worry about. Soon it would be difficult to hide my growing arousal from her. Something about the lack of sex over the past few weeks and having her laid out across my body like I had imagined a million times. Or maybe it was the way Sarah held eye contact that made me unable to keep my brain in control of my body. I had the urge to run my hands down her body and feel her beneath her tight jeans and white t-shirt.

“Does it matter?”

She shifted, inadvertently rubbing her body harder against mine. I had to resist responding and instead focused on the way her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Of course, it matters. She’s your sister.”

“We never had a relationship like you and Seth.”

“So? It doesn’t mean you can’t talk to her.”

“No. Deciding to enlist did that.” Desire was gone. My head dropped to the floor, but I kept my hands on her waist while an anchor of guilt sunk in my gut at the memory of my parents and sister telling me it was stupid to enlist. “Only people with a death wish enlist,” my older sister, Lydia had said. My father had followed up with, “Stop with the foolish notion that you can save the world, son. You’re too old for heroes. Time to focus on a real career and stop being such a disappointment.” My mother just sat at the kitchen table and cried. She’d never even said a word. The day I signed with the recruiter was the last day I spoke to them. I was finished letting my father be disappointed in me. He had been my whole life, and at nineteen, I wasn’t going to take it any longer.

I remembered making the varsity baseball team as a sophomore. I was good, even though I didn’t love the sport. I wanted to spend all my time at the track, but my dad loved baseball. He was a huge Yankees fan. I couldn’t wait to tell him when I made the team. His response wasn’t what I had hoped for though. He patted my shoulder and said, “Yeah, we’ll see if you play. Youngest guy on the team usually sits the bench.” I never sat the bench, but he didn’t come to my games, not until the last one of the season. We were behind by one run when I was up to bat. The first pitch was a ball then a strike. I hit the third pitch. It was a perfect hit to the outfield between center and left field. Neither outfielders should have been able to pluck it out of the air like the centerfielder did, but it happened. The only thing my dad said after the game was, “Tough luck.” The centerfielder now plays for the White Sox, and I quit after that season. Instead I started hanging out with Joe more and gave up on sports altogether.

Things between my father and me never really improved. I used to wonder if he was waiting for the moment when he could disown me. Enlisting was his chance. He hated everything the military stood for as a self-proclaimed pacifist. I hated him for turning me away and then showing up when I woke up from my third back surgery to rub my failure in my face. I never gave him the chance though. The nurses were kind enough not to let him come back to my room. I didn’t need him in my life.

Tension spread throughout my limbs as Sarah waited for an answer to what should have been a simple question. I could feel myself teeter on the edge of control. Looking into Sarah’s worried eyes only made me feel worse. She didn’t need to concern herself with my family issues. Without knowing the truth, she was already looking at me with sadness in her eyes. Pity wasn’t something I could tolerate. “No frowning for me. Everything turned out okay.”

“Did it?”

While I didn’t want to continue a discussion full of emotional landmines, I couldn’t help but enjoy being this close to her. She didn’t need to worry about my story, but the way she cared made me believe more and more that she was a risk worth taking, or maybe I was the risk. I didn’t know. I might not have been the kind of guy I would want for her, but I wanted her. Sarah needed a man to stand up to her, with her, and for her. My head was still all over the place. I couldn’t be that man if I was having panic attacks, flashbacks, and night terrors. I would only disappoint her and me, yet the words were right there on my tongue.

“All right, you two. Enough with all that.” Seth had intervened before any more words were exchanged. “I’m only here for one more day. Let’s go see some of this New York nightlife I’ve heard so much about.”

“What do you mean?” Sarah immediately rolled off me and stood from the floor. I followed with a grimace feeling the pain still radiating through my back.

“You don’t need me here. Michael’s watching out for you, and the police know more now that you filed another report. I have to head back to work.”

“Who’s the girl, Seth?” Sarah’s hands crossed over her chest, and a foot shot out to the side and started tapping against the floor.

“No one special.”

She pointed at him. “I knew you weren’t on the phone with work, you ass.”

Seth clapped his hands and looked at me. “About that nightlife…”

“I know about some nightlife.” A voice from the door had us all turning our heads. Lana and Moretti were walking in, taking in the plates and beer bottle on the table and the three of us standing around the couch. The second they opened the door and Moretti heard the word nightlife, he lit up like a Christmas tree.

“All right then. Let’s go find somethin’ fun to do. I’m sick of seeing the inside of this tiny apartment.”

Sarah

I was sure Tony would have chosen a strip club as his idea of fun, but I was pleasantly surprised when he brought us to a pinball bar. He said it was more fun than going to a club with all the metrosexual guys grinding up on wannabe strippers. Okay, he might have called the guys a seriously derogatory term and the girls something an ignorant pig would say, but I understood his point. I was happy to leave the tension in the apartment from the push and pull of Michael. I didn’t think my lady parts could take another moment like the tickle tackle.

The bar was crowded for a Sunday, but the five of us squeezed around a
Taxi
pinball and a
Twilight Zone
pinball with a pitcher of beer. The whole night was exactly like the
Twilight Zone
, like I was back in college without a care or worry in the world. It was so not the New York I imagined before I moved here, but this bar was a nice mix of home and New York. It was comfortable, and comfort was exactly what I needed considering the roller coaster I had been riding lately.

Of course, it all came crashing down when I went up to the bar for another pitcher. People, primarily men, were filling all the space around the small wooden bar. I squeezed in the first break I saw in the crowd, which trapped me between two stools. I didn’t think twice about being this close to anyone. I was used to crowded bars. My college roommate was in a band for goodness’ sake. We were at the bar almost every weekend. Any time a guy would get handsy, I would slyly move away and tell him no. Maggie used to tell me that I could joke my way out of any situation, and I always knew if jokes weren’t enough, a swift knee to the nuts would work.

Never fearing men before, it surprised me when someone pressed against my back while I was waiting. I knew instantly it wasn’t Seth, Michael, or Tony. The guy was too short. Hair rose on the back of my neck and a feeling of uneasiness spread throughout my body. When his arm wrapped around me, I tried to squeeze out of the way. His hand pressed against my waist forcing me back against his body and what was definitely not a banana in his pocket.

“Let me get out of your way,” I shouted over the noise of the bar and bells and whistles of the pinball machines.

“You’re not in my way,” he said in my ear and pressed me harder against the bar. I knew I had to get away right then.
Screw the pitcher
. It was suddenly too hot and too crowded in the bar. I could feel the panic rising, and I literally had to remind myself not to be a drama queen and scream. This wasn’t like me. My brain was telling me to pull out one of my old tricks to get away, but my mouth and body were not responding like they used to do.

“Where’re you going, sweetheart?” the guy asked, pronouncing the pet name like
sweethaht
. I could smell the beer on his breath as he spoke against my cheek. The second his lips touched my face, my back went ramrod straight, and I froze.

“My boyfriend and brother,” I blurted out, hoping he’d let me go.

“I can be your boyfriend tonight.” His hand was starting to wander down to my jeans, over my rear, so I tried again to get away. I elbowed and fought in the small space he allowed me to move. He held tighter. I told him to let go. He responded with a tighter grip and a maniacal chuckle. 

This wasn’t right. It wasn’t like those times a drunken guy’s hand wandered too low or a guy didn’t get the first hint. This guy’s grip told me he could hurt me, just like Jameson had.
Jameson.
The reminder of what happened was too much, and I rapidly started to beg. “Please let me go.” If he didn’t, I was going to have to resort to screaming.

He didn’t even loosen his hold in the slightest when the guy next to us started to take notice of my plea.

“Maybe you should do what she says,” the guy next to us told him.

The one holding me didn’t take his unfocused eyes off me while he told the other guy, “Mind your own fucking business.” One hand gripped me tightly while the other traveled the front of my jeans past my zipper getting closer and closer to a place he had no right to touch. I worked harder now to squirm away, and just as I broke free from his arm around my waist, I saw the pair of black boots. A calm, commanding voice followed with, “Let her go, asshole.”