Giving In (The Sandy Cove Series Book 1) (34 page)

“Hint? I can’t take a hint. What are you trying
to say, Cruz?” My heart accelerates. I can feel the beat of it
inside my head, through my ears. I swallow hard trying to get rid
of the lump that has formed in my throat. Searching inside my heart
for a reason he’s being like this.

He throws his arms up towards me in
desperation.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Harlow. Let me get it
into that big brain of yours.” Finally, he steps to the other side
of the sofa, meeting me, looking at me, but not really looking at
me.

“You knew what you were getting when we started
this whole thing.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Tears
threaten to spill, but I hold back. I’m waiting for the validation.
The words that will make me walk away. He’s silent. Maybe thinking
of the next bullshit excuse to give me.

“No, apparently I didn’t. So tell me, be the
tough, macho guy you are, and just tell me. And don’t you dare
fucking hold back on me, Cruz. That’s not who you are. Just say
it.”

My tone is still calm as the words leave my
lips.

“Just say what?” His tone the opposite of mine,
and I’m startled by the rage that’s obvious in his voice.

“Just say what you really are. What this all
was. I need to hear you say it. I’m not answering what your
perception was of what I was getting when we got together.”

He smirks, arrogantly.

“Oh, please. Like you don’t know. I’m exactly
the same person I was when you met me last year.”

I yell. My arms folded over my chest because
he’s lying.

“Bullshit.”

“Bullshit?” He questions back at me.

I nod.

“Fine. You think that all you want, but the
truth is you were just a fuck. I didn’t have time to go out and
explore my options, so I thought you’d be a willing and able
candidate. I mean really, how convenient, living next door to
me.”

Self-righteous is the only description I can use
to decipher his words. I don’t believe him, not a word. This can’t
actually be how he’s thinking. Maybe he’s drunk, maybe he’s high.
That’s not possible. It can’t be possible. I talk myself out of
every scenario. I observe every part of his body language, and I
know he’s neither one of those things.

I lean against the wall near the sofa, crossing
my feet and arms. “I think you’re a liar.” I chuckle as the words
come out.

He looks at me confused, dipping his head
towards the side and bracing himself on the back of the sofa.

“Excuse me?” He asks.

“You heard me.” I uncross my feet and make my
way towards him step by step.

“You. Heard. Me. There’s no way in hell that
this was just some fling for you. I’m not just a fuck. We both know
that.” As I keep up my movements, stepping towards him, he backs
up, not meeting my eyes but his feet move backing up against my
steps until he hits the counter of the kitchen.

“I love you and you’re scared because you love
me. You’re just too afraid to admit it. I feel your love
everywhere, even when we’re not together.” I grab his hand and
place it over my heart. He hesitates and I can feel it warily. His
hand shakes beneath mine but I don’t give up. My strength
overpowers his for a change.

“That’s my heart. You feel it? It doesn’t belong
to me anymore… It’s yours. You replaced all the sadness I’ve felt.
You made me feel things again. You made me feel whole.”

His eyes finally meet mine, his mouth agape. I
see a bit of the sparkle in his eyes and the tension in his hand
subsides, and I think he’s coming back to me. He’s out of the
trance, and now he won’t be afraid to love me, to tell me.

He closes his eyes, feeling my heartbeat beneath
his hand.

I whisper to him, “I know you love me.”

His relaxation is temporary, because now I see
the darkness return as his eyes open.

He winces and pulls his hand back.

“Woman, you are delusional. I don’t love you,
Harlow. Fucking is not love. You must be confused with someone
else. See that’s what I do. I fuck, then I leave.”

I shake my head. “No, you don’t mean that. I
changed you. You changed me. There’s no way you mean what you say.
You do love me. You don’t do the things you do to someone whom you
don’t love. You don’t surprise them with visits, or Christmas
winter wonderlands, or come to family weddings with them and say
the things you said if you didn’t love them.” I wish I could step
into his brain and permanently implant my words into his brain.

He goes to the refrigerator, pulls out a beer
and flips off the cap, tossing it into the sink.

“No. I don’t. God damn it! What does it take or
what do I have to do to convince you?” He steps into my line of
sight, almost touching his nose to mine. My breathing falters. I
inhale, taking in every scent of the man I love.

“You did change me in a way. See, I never go
back for seconds. You were my first, but then I came to realize
that your pussy isn’t golden and it sure ain’t worth a two and a
half hour drive. If I want some, I can get it at any place, at any
time, at my immediate disposal.” Stepping away, he chugs the rest
of his beer, and Willow makes her way to him, fists clenched, and
ready to strike.

“You no good ass. I warned her about you. Porter
told me your deal and I warned her. Who the hell would even allow
you to fuck them with that probably diseased dick of yours?” She
turns to me. “Sorry, Har. I really didn’t mean you.”

Before he has a chance to answer her, I hear
something come from his bedroom. Something dropped, and then I wait
and hear it again.

He has someone here. He’s with someone else and
they’re in his room. I caught him. This is what this is all about.
When he realizes I heard what I heard, he shrugs. The look of total
satisfaction on his face. But it’s not his face.

“What did I tell you, any place at any time.” He
smugly smiles. “I’ll give you credit for a few things, Harlow. You
are one fantastic lay. You’re hot, but way too damaged for me. The
baggage you have well exceeds what I can handle. You told me
yourself you’re crazy. I’ve had my share of nutty women, but oh…
Man, you take the cake.”

I don’t even think the words leave his mouth
fully before I lunge my body at his.

I punch. I slap, and claw at him, not giving him
time to react because my movements are swift.

I scream at him not really hearing myself, but I
know the words that invade my brain, my soul, crushing it. Breaking
my heart.

“I can take you not wanting to be with me ‘cause
you think I’m crazy, but I won’t allow myself to be cheated on
again. I put up with it for years and years and I fought to be
first when I wasn’t. I want to be first. I’m tired of being second
choice. I don’t care who… who is in there. All I know is I’m second
choice again and I hate you for it. I really ha… ha… hate you.”

There’s no more strength left in my body to
fight anymore.

All I can get out is about a thousand more ‘I
hate you’s’. He stands there taking it until Willow pulls me away.
I fight her when she grabs my upper arms to get me away from him. I
really can’t make out his face through my tears.

He pushes off the counter.

“That’s right. Solidify how crazy you are. Keep
it up. Gives me all the more reason to be happy that this is over.
You just love to be in love, don’t you? Well, I don’t do love and
the quicker you get the fuck out of here and out of my life, the
better.”

I can’t breathe.

No air.

There’s no air.

There’s nothing.

Oh, God help me. Please someone, help me.

Willow pulls me to the door, as sweat pours from
my face. I will go. I’ll leave, but I have one last question for
him as I feel my heart shatter like a glass globe crashing to the
floor. I turn, looking at him for the last time. He seems
unaffected, just standing there with his arms folded across his
chest, feet spread apart in a defensive stance. I swallow my tears
hard, tasting the salt.

“Why?” I question him barely getting the word
out.

He pauses, looking at me, well really through
me, through my soul and answers. Finally.

“Because I can.”

***

“You know that I really wanted no part of
this collaboration, right?”

I nod my head at Max, who exits my bedroom.

“And you know that as soon as Harlow and Willow
go back home, Willow will tell Porter everything and he will kick
you out of here?”

Again, I nod.

“And you know that everything you just said to
her, you can never take back? She’s going to hate you.”

I exhale and look out the window to our dock,
and I know that everything Max just said is true.

“Cruz? You gonna talk, or are we just going to
stand here and wait for the apocalypse? “

Looking over at Max, the sick feeling in the pit
of my stomach returns.

“I’ve already packed most of my shit. I fully
expect to hear from Porter first thing tomorrow. I’m surprised Craw
didn’t call him in the first place after he left me that message
that Harlow was on her way here and I…”

I pause, thinking of the words I said to her.
How I just destroyed her. I destroyed the only thing in my life I
ever loved, that I was ever sure of. The one thing that loved me
back without thinking of the person I actually am.

“I want her to hate me. It’s the only way.”

Max sits next to me on the couch after grabbing
the bottle of Jack out of the cabinet and a few shot glasses. I
can’t stop shaking. It’s like I’m outside the door in the twenty
degree weather, but I’m sitting here on this sofa not fully
comprehending what I just did. My knees shake so bad I can hear the
bones clang together.

“What did Craw’s message say?”

I lean back on the sofa and scratch my two day
old unshaven face.

“Called me a mother fucker and that I better not
be playing games with his sister or else he’ll kill me.”

Max shakes his head to agree.

“Craw’s pretty tough. Surprisingly, I wouldn’t
put it past him. I heard what he did to that asshole Knox.”

That asshole Knox ruined her, then she found me,
now she’s right back where she was and it’s going to kill me.

He pours two shots. “I’m pretty sure she bought
the fact that there was a girl in your room.” We don’t clink
glasses. We don’t cheer to the fact I just broke someone’s heart.
We just chase down the amber liquid hoping it warms my body and
stops it from shivering, but see I’m cold, everywhere. In my heart
and in my fucking soul.

“I know you feel as though you had to do what
you had to do, but she loved you, man, and I’m betting if you told
her about her Wicked Witch of the West Grandmother, she would have
put her foot down. I mean her mom went through something almost
similar, right? That’s what you told me.”

I nod, throwing back another shot. It burns. It
burns so bad.

“It’s better this way. I could never give her
what she wants, what she needs. I’m poor. I’m a cop, and I have a
record from when I was eighteen. I’m lucky I’m even a cop.”

Max looks at me confused and I remember he
doesn’t know.

“Oh that’s right. You don’t know the story. Tony
and I were busted when he was twenty and I was eighteen. Cops came
looking for my mom, they found her stash of weed. We told them it
was ours, so she wouldn’t get thrown in jail.”

“But you fucking hate your mom. Jail would’ve
been the best place for her. She could’ve sobered up there.”

Max is naïve.

“No, man, she’d be worse off. Drugs are so
easily accessible in there.” I’ve always felt the need to protect
that woman, as much as I despise her.

“I still have it on my record. That’s why I went
into the Marines.”

“I see.” He pours another shot. “So what
now?”

I close my eyes and imagine a future without
Harlow in it, and I hate it. It’s bleak and dark, like my
heart.

I take a letter out of my pocket and hand it to
Max.

He reads it, looks to me, then back to the
letter.

“You were hired by the North Ridge Police
Department? That’s like the next town over from Harlow. What the
fuck, man. When did you find out?”

I take it back from him and crumple it, tossing
it over my shoulder.

“I found out last week. I drove down there two
weeks ago for the interview without letting Harlow know. Then I got
the letter, which made me decide to do what I just did. We would
never be happy. Her grandmother would’ve crushed me and made our
lives miserable.”

“So your plan was to crush Harlow instead? You
love her, dude.”

I do love her, with my whole fucked up self.

“She’s better off without me. She’ll be happier.
I’m not good enough for her. I know it, and she’ll come to know
it.”

Max stands up and grabs his coat from the hook
in the hallway.

“I gotta go, man. I know you have your reasons
but I wish you’d at least given her the chance to make the decision
for herself. I think she would have understood the truth about the
way you grew up, about your mom… About everything. Truth is a
powerful thing, and you know what man, love… It’s the only truth.
Truth is love.” He gives me a pat on the shoulder and makes his way
out my door.

I can’t go back and change what I did. I’ll live
my life without her. Yea, a piece of me died, true, but I’d rather
live with the burden of my broken heart, than her having a lifetime
of hers broken because I couldn’t give her the life she deserves.
Our lives are so different, and mine would only wind up damaging
hers in the end.

She’ll be ok. She’ll move on, and it will be the
best thing for the both of us.

Yea, she’ll realize it. Maybe not tomorrow, but
she’ll forget about me.