Page 43 of Dirty Cops Next Door

15

Grant

“She’s goingto leave us both, Grant. Not just you, or me, both of us. You have to talk to her!”

I stared at myself in the mirror. I was walking again, but with a cane. I was slowly coming back to myself, but fear still held me in its grip.

Snow was on the ground and there were Christmas trees in the windows of all the houses when David took me out for my physical therapy appointments. I’d missed the magic of Halloween, the gorging of Thanksgiving, and now I was staring down the barrel of a Christmas without the woman I loved. Maybe permanently, if what David said was true.

“What do you mean?” I turned away from the bathroom mirror and waited. I could shave the beard off later.

“She was offered a job at Newport News. Better pay, better stories, more recognition. I think she’s going to take it.”

“Why would she leave New Hope? You’re here.” I paced out of the bathroom and down to the living room.

“Yeah,” he said as he followed. “I’m here and that’s not what she signed up for. She signed up for both of us.”

“That’s crazy, you’re man enough for both of us. Why does she need us both?” I couldn’t look him in the eye as I said it. It hurt too much to push them both away like this, but I had to.

“She wants us both, that’s why! Toni deserves to get what she wants, not to be totally rejected like some piece of trash. You’re really starting to piss me off, mate. You could at least give me a reason!”

“I don’t have to do anything.” I know I sounded like a two-year-old, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell him about the fear.

“Grant, why can’t you talk to me? We’ve been through hell together. We’ve been there for each other always, and now you don’t want that anymore?”

“David, look, I just can’t, alright? I have to deal with this on my own.”

“That’s just it, you don’t have to deal with it on your own. You have two people who care about you. We want to help.”

“Maybe I don’t want help, okay?” I shouted the words louder than I’d intended, but it shocked David so much he shut up at last. I got up and left the room.

We’d gone round and round on this, he wanted me to get back to work, he wanted me to go and see Toni, he wanted me to go out to eat. I couldn’t do it. The world was outside and it was a dangerous place, a place where I might die and leave Toni and David alone. Where they’d have to suffer because someone took my life. If I cut myself off before that, maybe I could save them both some heartache.

I went back to my room and locked my door when I shut it. The carefree guy they’d both known died in that building the day I’d been shot. Now, a coward sat in his place. A coward too afraid to live. I’d tried to shake him off, tried to dig up and resurrect the old Grant, but this one refused to budge. If I didn’t go back to work soon I’d lose my job, but even losing the one thing I’d worked so hard for wouldn’t shift the cowardly, sniveling idiot that had taken over the old Grant.

I hid away instead. I didn’t answer my phone anymore. I didn’t need the women that wanted to come and ‘get me back in the saddle’. That would feel too much like a betrayal of Toni, even if I was trying to drive her away. I didn’t want to visit my old buddies, I didn’t want to see the chief. I just wanted to watch television and be safe in my bed.

I knew David was pushing for a psychiatric evaluation, and so far, the push had saved my job, but I kept canceling the appointments. I’d have to go out for them. I only went out now for my physical therapy. I had to get back on my feet properly, to go back to work, to live. It hadn’t been fair to keep David from going out as often as he liked because he had to take care of me. At least now those assistants weren’t here every day anymore.

David could leave me to go to work, but he rarely left me alone at night. I think he knew about the nightmares. They plagued my sleep and sometimes, he’d bang around outside my bedroom until I called out to him to tell him to be quiet. I think that was his way of letting me know he was there if I needed him.

“Grant, you can’t keep hiding, mate. This isn’t living, it’s…” he paused on the other side of my door. “This is just existence. You don’t deserve this. Come back out here and let’s talk. Please?”

I stared at the spot where I imagined his head was. I could picture his face, covered in my blood as the impact from the bullet spun me around. It came back to me in slow motion. I could still see Toni curled up on that crappy chair, tears streaming down her face in her sleep. The way she’d clung to me that night in the hospital.

If I thought about it hard, I remembered the way she’d felt when I slid into her, the way she’d shivered beneath me, but the one that plagued me, the one that skittered around in my brain, was the memory of her tears.

“You know she loves you, right? That she loves us both.”

I sighed again, the weight of the world pressing me down onto my bed.

How did I make this go away? How could I be the man I used to be?

“Do you remember that night, Grant? The way she was so eager for you? The way she moved on your mouth? The way she tastes? Because I remember it, I remember it well.”

I knew he’d gone to her several times since I’d come home but he didn’t brag about it. I think he felt bad, but I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t jealous, I was glad they had each other more than anything.

His words played in my head. The way she tasted, the way her thighs had clamped down around my head. Her fingers tangled in my hair, holding my head in just the right spot as she writhed on my tongue. I was hard in an instant.