Something Worth Saving (29 page)

“I can’t take you two anywhere.” Kari looked disgusted. “Now what’s your plan?”

“We should go back.” I didn’t like dark alleys. Especially in Seattle. “I’m sure we’ve lost the cop by now.”

Lauren looked around the dumpster we were hiding by and then covered her nose. “My God, did something die in there?”

“Probably a body,” Kari added, moving behind me to block the smell and using my sweatshirt as her nose guard.

“He looked athletic.” Lauren took the sleeve of her hoodie and wiped her chin. “But your boy was on the couch with Brooke.”

“We should just leave. I don’t—” I stopped mid-sentence when I realized what she’d just said. “Say what?”

Kari rolled her eyes. “Now she’s alarmed.”

Lauren laughed. “I think I need stitches.”

“Focus.” I grabbed Lauren’s face between my shaking palms. “He was on the couch with her?”

She slapped my now bloody hands away, both of us wiping away red. “Yes, they were on the couch with beers in hand.”

I panicked yet again, ready to break down Brooke’s door, when Lauren took off running down the alley to our left.

This time her idea was slightly better. Adjacent to Brooke’s condo was another set of condominiums under construction, only they had open walls on the side facing her apartment.

Why we hadn’t seen that before was beyond me. This I could work with.

We hadn’t made it up one flight of stairs before I slipped. The roof wasn’t entirely done, and the rain had created slippery steps. And it was icy.

The thought wasn’t far from my mind that if I did plunge to my death here, the Seattle Fire Department would be called.

Then what?

I would be stuck explaining myself.

Soaked from the rain, bleeding from my lip and mascara running down my face, I white-knuckled it as I tried to climb four flights of stairs.

At some point I thought,
What do I have to gain from this?
But once I was climbing, my logic was gone.

I can pinpoint the moment the logic really left. It was when we started running from the cop. That was when. I was sure of it.

Kari wasn’t much more coordinated than I was. She slipped, too, and tumbled backward down two flights of stairs, and then stood immediately, pumping her fists in the air. “I’m good. Christ almighty, I’m good.”

Lauren turned to look, then began up the steps again. “And she says I’m the unstable one.”

We weren’t able to get close enough, but we could get a glimpse into the French doors that led out to her balcony.

Brooke and Jace weren’t on the couch anymore. Nearly falling off the edge of the building, I had to push Lauren’s skinny ass up to the fourth floor because the stairs weren’t finished. “Cut back on the McDonalds.”

Kari stayed below. I think her stair-surfing rang her bell a little more than she cared to admit.

Even getting higher to the fourth floor didn’t help. We still couldn’t see.

Lauren pulled a flask from her knee-high boots. “Maybe they moved to the bedroom?”

“Fuck you, they did.” I kicked at her, but lost my footing and landed on my ass. Again. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.” It was then that I thought I’d broken my ass. “How have I resorted to this?”

“You. You’re doing this,” Lauren pointed out. “Let’s make that clear. I’m a hostage.”

“Amen, sister,” Kari yelled up at us.

“Hardly.” I tried to get up again but slipped. Lauren and Kari both acted as if that was the funniest thing they had ever seen. More than likely the sound was what was entertaining.

The sound of my ass hitting the plywood floors made a slap like I’d smacked my bare ass. After tonight, if someone saw me naked they probably would have thought I joined Fight Club and got the shit beat out of me. Or tried cross-fit again. Both were about the same, if you asked me.

With all Lauren’s laughing, she dropped her sippy cup. With no amount of amusement, her thumb ran over her nose, giving it a flick. “That was Gavin’s favorite sippy cup.”

“You think it’s less obvious that you’re drinking in public by drinking from a sippy cup?” I kicked her again. This time she kicked back. “It’s pretty obvious that you’re drinking when you don’t have a kid and you’re carrying a kid’s cup.”

“Ma’am?”

Shit
.

All three of us immediately stopped laughing.

The officer was back, clanking his flashlight against the side of the building two stories down. “You girls need to get down from there.”

“Time’s up bitch. We’re caught.” Lauren swayed as she stood, her face twisting into a scowl. “What are the rules on being drunk in public?”

“We’re about to find out.” I didn’t care if I was arrested at that point.

My head hurt so badly, and I wanted to just go home and take a Xanax or something.

Not only was I not feeling very confident about my actions, but my heart hurt so much, thinking that Jace would turn to Brooke. And that she would let him. On both levels it hurt badly.

I understood why they were seeking comfort from each other. The pain was very much real for both of them, but why couldn’t he talk to me?

Dispatch to command, where’s the male in custody? And what’s the position of the firefighter whose PASS was activated?

Command to dispatch, we’re finding out now.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Jace

W
HEN THAT
alarm goes off at the station, I’m ready and willing to give my life to save a nameless face. Why is it that I struggle with my own and can’t seem to give the life I depend on to breathe what she needs?

It was Sunday night, and I should have been there with her, saying all the things I was saying to Brooke to Aubrey instead.

“Her mom is a real piece of work, and it’s taken a part of her.”

“So that’s why you guys never talk?”

“That’s not entirely why,” I said, leaving it at that. I wasn’t ready to talk about it, but then again, this was my best friend’s wife. She knew everything about me.

“You can talk to me,” she said, sensing my hesitation.

“The thing is . . . I want to marry Aubrey. I do.”

Just about the time I was feeling like this was some kind of intervention for me, or the therapy session they made me do at work the other day, Brooke asked, “Do you love Aubrey, Jace?”

“With all my heart.”

She knew by my answer, my instant, sure answer, that it was true. “Why are you with me . . . when she needs you, too?”

The question was something I had considered. A lot, actually. Why was I here?

More or less I wanted to make sure Brooke was okay. I wanted her to know someone was there for her. I wanted . . . I felt guilty. That was why I was here. If this had been me, and Brooke were Aubrey, I wanted to make sure she was okay. I wouldn’t want her to be alone.

I knew what the guys thought. They thought I was moving in on the widow and stepping out on Aubrey. I would
never
do that.

Tears rolled down Brooke’s cheeks as she watched Amelia sleeping on her lap, and my nerves returned. Amelia, bless her sweet innocent heart, had been so strong through all this.

A familiar devastating sadness came over me, the kind of pain that made you feel hollow.

“I . . . ” I stopped short of what I was about to say. She didn’t want to hear the words “I’m sorry” again. If anything, they meant nothing to her anymore. It didn’t change a goddamn thing.

“When are you going to marry her?” Her question caught me off guard, but it was what a lot of people were wondering these days. Especially after Logan died.

If I were to die in a fire, sure, my kids would be taken care of, but with Aubrey not being my wife, that left little help for her. In any situation, it made sense for us to be married. My problem wasn’t that I didn’t
want
to be married to her. It was that I didn’t see the point in a piece of paper for one, and I didn’t think she wanted that right now. Everything with Aubrey and me had been easy, just flowed naturally, aside from communication. I’ll admit the last four months hadn’t been, and that only complicated the situation. Her mom and Ridley, they were all putting doubt in her head when they had no idea what my intention really was.

I thought Aubrey knew, but lately, it didn’t seem that way.

“I don’t know if she even wants that,” I said.

“She wants to marry you.”

“How do you know?” Deep down I had a suspicion that Aubrey wanted marriage. Hell, we talked about it when we were younger, but we were kids. Life happened, and so did her mom. Like it or not, Georgia had done a number on Aubrey in ways she couldn’t see, or didn’t want to. Ridley did the same.

“I see it on her face. She wants you to marry her.”

You and me both.

I nodded. I’d seen, it too. It’s a look you don’t forget. It’s those long looks at girls with rings that remind me she does want that.

“I’m scared.” Never had I actually admitted that before, but I was. “I bought a ring two days ago and haven’t given it to her. The night I was going to give it to her, Ridley kissed her, and I went insane.”

“Did she want him to kiss her?”

“No. She slapped him, but it just got me thinking about how far we have gone in separate directions.”

“Jace, life is really short. Really fucking short. So marry that girl. Give her what she wants. Because tomorrow you may not get the chance. All this other crap going on with you guys could be fixed if you just talked to each other. Just talk. Don’t blame one another . . . just talk.”

Her words struck me right in the heart.

Would this ever get easier?

This time, would I say what I mean?

These were the questions I asked myself every day. And every day, I had no answer.

I would have given Aubrey anything she wanted. That goes without saying. But how can I ask her to marry me when I can’t even tell her that our problems, our lack of words, is because this tough guy I’m supposed to be breaks down every day at the shit I see.

And that scares me.

Command to dispatch, we’ve gotten confirmation from Medic 16 the male victim has died. He’s being transported now. No word on the firefighter lost on four. We have the team in there now.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Aubrey

E
VERYONE HAS
nightmares, right?

I had this one of Jace where I’m watching him walk away from me. I hate the dream because I’m screaming his name; he’s in full gear, but yet he doesn’t turn around. No matter how much I scream, he doesn’t even flinch. And then I wake up drenched in sweat.

Being here now, seeing him turn away from me, I feel like I’m living that nightmare.

He got home at ten-thirty that night and noticed immediately that my lip had been split.

“Why is your lip cracked?”

“For the same reason Lauren has stitches in her chin and Kari fell down two flights of stairs.” I said this so nonchalantly you would have laughed at my expression.

But Jace wasn’t laughing.

“What?”

“I was stalking you when you went to Brooke’s. I was paranoid that maybe you were looking for someone else to make you happy.” There. I said it. “And I was almost arrested.”

Despite the look of concern, he laughed. “Are you serious?”

“I wish I wasn’t.” If only he knew how shameful last night really had been for me . . . in so many ways.

When he laughed, I realized how much I’d missed the sound. How much I craved it.

The man before me with the dull blue eyes and dark circles, the one with the five-day beard and the mess of black hair in his eyes, this wasn’t Jace. Or . . . maybe it was. Maybe this was what I was left with when Logan died. Maybe this was who he’d become.

Everyone has been there. A place, a dark place where your life, and your relationship, isn’t what you wanted it to be. It resembles none of the elements it did in the beginning, and now you’re left wondering where it will end up.

It’s on the tip of your tongue and a warmth to your words you can’t put there. Instead it’s in the sharpness of your tone and the coldness that surrounds them.

We’ve been here so many times. It’s the same fire, same situation, but this time it’s different — the words, the fire he breathed that made me crazy. Made me want to rescue him.