Authors: Jay Crownover
the academy last year, so I’m a newbie cop, but still a cop.”
I let my disbelieving gaze drop to her silly shoes and flashy outfit. “Really?” I couldn’t picture her with
a badge and a gun to save my life.
“I’m still a girl, but yeah, I’m a patrol officer. That’s why my hours are so all over the place and why I
think I got a good read on people.”
There was a knock on the door and I went to retrieve the pizza. I put it down in front of her on the
coffee table and didn’t bother to find a plate. It wasn’t like I was trying to impress her or anything. She
rolled her eyes and fetched a slice.
“Well, your instinct that you had about Saint was way off. You said she was into me, had a crush, but
lately I feel like all she has me doing is chasing my own tail.”
Royal laughed a little and I thought really it meant something that I wasn’t the least bit attracted to her. I
was so hung up on Saint that even though I knew my neighbor was inarguably beautiful and fun, she just
wasn’t it for me.
“Nash, I’ve seen her. When she’s coming, when she’s going, she always has the same look on her face.
She’s excited to see you, to be with you, but underneath that she is terrified. I don’t know the whole story,
but if she’s making you chase your tail, believe me when I tell you there is no way she isn’t spinning herself
in just as many circles trying to catch her own as well.”
God, I hoped so, because if I was the only one feeling dizzy and nauseous, it made this ride way less
fun.
“We went to high school together, ran in pretty different circles. I bumped into her at the ER last year
when a buddy got into a bar fight. She had a thing for me back then and apparently thought I was saying
really terrible things about her and it left a mark on her. I was saying really terrible things because I was a
hothead and was kind of a jerk, but they weren’t about her. Now she can’t seem to get over it, even though
it feels like it was in another lifetime.”
She gave me a hard look and reached for another slice of pizza.
“A girl’s first love is a big deal. We never really get over it.”
“I don’t think it was love.”
She pointed the top of her beer bottle at me and squinted her dark eyes. “I think you’re wrong. If she’s
holding on to it that tightly, still scared you’re going to turn on her, hurt her again even though you’ve
obviously changed and clearly care about her, it was first love.”
I wanted to argue, but I had seen how powerful first love could be. Shaw had loved Rule since the first
time she laid her eyes on him, and even though it had taken years for him to see it, she had never wavered
in her devotion to him. Cora’s first love had broken her heart by being unfaithful and abandoning her, it
had almost cost her the perfect love she was searching for when Rome came barreling into her life. First
love was indeed powerful, and if I had really tarnished it for Saint, there stood a really good chance she
might never let me in, would never trust me enough.
I was going to tell my pretty neighbor how much I thought that sucked when there was a light knock on
the door. Thinking it was the locksmith, I got up and swung the door open. I felt my jaw go slack in
surprise when I came face-to-face with the girl I couldn’t get off my mind. She looked like she had just
come from work. Her hair was up in a bun on the top of her head and she still had her scrubs on. I was
going to ask her how she had gotten off so early but her gaze was locked on Royal and her mouth was a
tight, flat line. She didn’t even glance at me.
“Hey.”
Those storm-cloud-colored eyes flicked up to mine and a soft pink flooded into her face.
“Hey.”
“You got off work early.”
Her gaze shot back to Royal, who had gotten up and wandered over to the door.
“I did. One of the other girls came in early by chance, and I was worried about how you were doing
after your visit.” There was a definite thread of accusation in her tone.
I frowned down at her, hurt she thought I would just substitute time spent with her with anyone that
would do. She was the only one who made me feel better after visiting with Phil. I wished I could make her
believe that. Royal peeked around both of us as the front security door swung open and a guy in work
clothes carrying a toolbox poked his head in.
“Someone locked out?”
Saint shifted nervously in front of me as Royal slid past both of us. She winked at me and patted Saint
on the shoulder as she walked toward her own door.
“Thanks for the rescue, Nash. He’s a good one, girlie, don’t let him get away.”
I took a step back and watched, literally watched, while Saint struggled with whether she was going to
follow me inside or not. It was all over her pale face, and the indecision made me feel slightly sick. I
decided if she didn’t come in, then this was it. I couldn’t do it anymore. I liked her—hell, way more than
liked her—but this unknown, this chase, was just one more thing in my life that was heaping with
complications. As much as I wanted this to work, just plain wanted
her,
at some point she was going to
have to give me something solid to hold on to.
She reached up and started to pull out the tie holding all her copper hair up. She looked away from me
and scooted by so that our chests barely brushed together. I closed the door and followed her over to where
she sat on the arm of the couch.
“Thanks for coming over.”
She nodded a little by dipping her chin down.
“It has to be getting harder. Phil’s prognosis wasn’t very good when he left the hospital.”
I stopped by her side and reached out to put a finger under her chin. I forced her to look up at me, to
meet my gaze. There were darker slate shadows behind the pearly gray as she looked up at me.
“I was just helping a neighbor out, you know that, right?”
She let her lids droop down so that I couldn’t really see what was going on in that complex mind of
hers.
“It doesn’t matter. We don’t have that kind of claim on each other.”
There it was. I wanted more and she didn’t want anything. I felt my stomach drop and I stepped away
from her. She followed the movement and frowned at me.
“That’s too bad, Saint. I wanted that kind of claim. I don’t know what this”—I motioned between us
with a hand—“is all about, but it means something to me, and if you can’t say the same, then I don’t want
to just be the dude you hook up with because I can get you off and no one else can. That’s not enough for
me anymore, and frankly it makes me feel like shit.”
I walked to the front door, ready to pull it open and send her on her way for good. I was mad and upset
and not bothering to hide it. I wasn’t in any kind of head space to separate how much of it had to do with
her and how much of it had to do with what I was feeling because of Phil.
“I wanted to spend the night with you tonight because the only person that ever made me feel like I was
worth anything is dying and I have to watch it and do nothing about it. Nothing makes that better. Nothing
fixes it, but when I’m with you …”—I rubbed a hand over my face and used it to grab the back of my neck
—“it hurts just a fraction less. You make me want to focus on the good, on the memories I have that make
me happy, but this clearly doesn’t mean the same thing to you. You can’t even be bothered to stay the entire
night with me, Saint. I get it, you aren’t into this the way I am, so you can go. Thanks for coming by.”
I had my hand on the knob and a sweltering heat was pulsing under my skin. I hated to see her go, but
for my sanity and peace of mind, it was the right call. I was getting ready to yank the door open when she
was suddenly between me and the wood. She put her hands on the center of my chest and splayed her
fingers wide open. My heart sped up, started thumping harder, like it was trying to burst out of my chest
and put itself in her hands.
“Nash.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“I can’t do it anymore, Saint. I don’t even know what
it
is.”
“I’m sorry. I really am. I don’t mean to push you away, to dismiss whatever it is we have. I just don’t
know how to do this with you. I don’t want to be the jealous, fearful girl, but I am. I saw Royal and wanted
to turn right around and never come back.”
Her hands moved up my chest and cupped each side of my face.
“It makes me feel better to think it wouldn’t matter if you were doing something questionable with her
because we don’t mean anything to each other. It can’t hurt if we don’t have any kind of real feelings for
each other.”
Her logic was ridiculous. Of course it could still hurt, because even if she convinced herself she didn’t
have any feelings for me, her reactions still tore me up because I sure as shit had feelings for her.
“All I can see is you. Why can’t you understand that? No one shines as bright as you in the sky I’m
looking at. To me there is no sun, no moon, and no stars in the sky, just endless miles of storm clouds and
pretty, pretty gray.”
She moved her hands up higher and used her fingers to trace over the flames above my ears. She was
trying to soothe me, trying to make the frayed edges come back together and put sutures in the wounds she
had unwittingly inflicted.
“I want to believe that so badly, Nash. I can’t explain it to you, but part of me wants so much to see me
the way you do, but a bigger, louder part refuses to believe it’s possible.”
I put my hands around her delicate wrists. My fingers overlapped because her wrists were so fragile,
and I felt her pulse hammering under her pale skin.
“What do you want, Saint? What do you really want?”
She moved her hands off of my head and let them rest on my shoulders. Her eyes were swirling gray as
she fought for control of the emotion whipping in the depths.
“I want your dad to be okay and for you not to have to watch him suffer. I want to be able to enjoy the
time we spend together like a normal person and not constantly be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I
want to get promoted at work. I want my mom to get over my dad and stop hurting. Mostly I want to make
sure that this thing we’re doing doesn’t leave either one of us sad and full of regret.”
I couldn’t fault her honesty, but I also couldn’t give her any kind of guarantee or affirmation that any of
those things she wanted were possible. In fact I knew some of them weren’t.
“What do you want from me?” I sounded a little like I was being strangled. I was already stripped to the
live nerve center of my emotional threshold for the day. Doing this with her was the last thing I needed or
wanted.
She sighed and finally all the shadows and fog in her eyes cleared and left behind the crystalline gray.
“I want you, Nash. I always want you; this is just the only way I know how to do it and feel
comfortable.”
“Why are you so certain I’m going to hurt you? That I’m going to fuck up and disappoint you?”
She gave me a lopsided smile and she worked her hands under the collar of my shirt so she could
stroke the base of my neck.
“Because it’s bound to happen, but I really want to enjoy what we have before then.”
How did I fight against that? How did I convince her when she seemed so certain that if she let go and
trusted the feelings building between us instead of worrying about what might happen or what had
happened, we could make the here and now something that lasted forever?
I wanted to keep arguing, to keep pushing her to see that this was more than a fling, more than two
people who were sexually compatible. I wanted her to feel, to know I wouldn’t have been able to make it
through everything going on with Phil and the shop without her kindness, her gentleness and care.
However, she had her hands under my clothes and her mouth settled over mine, and even though I knew
she was trying to distract me from the conversation, I decided not to stop her.
If this was the only way she was going to let me connect to her, I would just have to make do with it for
now. I was a guy after all … and there were far worse things in life than having a gorgeous girl want you
for sex. Plus, she wanted me, had proven that time and time again. I guess I would just have to ultimately
decide if what she wanted me for was going to be enough when I felt like I needed to give her everything
else I had.
I was going to screw all of this up. I felt it all the way down to the marrow of my bones.
I had to touch him. Had to try and soothe the way I was cutting into him and making him bleed. There
was no hiding the way my hesitation, my resistance, made his eyes go dark and his mouth go hard. Even
with his obvious disappointment, he never lashed out, never got nasty, which made everything even more
convoluted in my head. I did what I knew would make it all go away for a while, I kissed him, started
pulling at his clothes and pressed up against his hard body. He was stiff and unresponsive for a half of a