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Worse, small sounds become a dark monster in the shadows. The flash of a headlight becomes a glint of a knife in the darkness. But it’s all in my head. All from the guilt and the knowledge of my failures, all fed by the nightmares.
Knowing doesn’t make anything easier for me.
Knowing doesn’t make anything go away.
And now, because of the storm, I’ll have to sleep in a gym with a bunch of other people who will hear any noise that I make.
Shit. I can’t dwell. It will only make things worse. Instead, I stare down at my silent phone.
There still aren’t any missed calls or texts or even email or social media notifications. Being alone normally isn’t bad, mostly, but at times like this… Someone waiting at home for me, worrying about me,needingme. Even a dog or a cat would be preferable to the silence that I know is going to greet me when I finally make it home.
It might chase the demons away, rid me of that haunted feeling of being watched at odd moments. The feeling that comes from guilt and loneliness and who knows what.
And being here in the gym brings that all slamming down onto my shoulders again.
I need a change. Maybe after we finish picking up the pieces from this storm, I can go to the animal shelter and adopt a dog or a cat. Not a dog. Dogs need time and exercise. Cats are easier to take care of. My eyes burn, and a pressure pushes against them, the tears I hate to admit I’m on the verge of, threaten to fall. I blink hard. If only I could be hard and cold like Travis, then maybe I’d never cry again.
But right now, I can’t stop it, can’t stop the spill of the tears, and with a gulp of air, I swipe them away. They refuse to stop.
Turning away from everyone else, I pretend to be engrossed with my phone while I struggle to get myself back under control.
It gets so bad that I have to press a hand against my mouth to keep from gasping.
The tears finally begin to stop just as a familiar low, rich voice says, “There you are. I need you.”
2
TRAVIS
Brandi’s been crying,and there’s not a damn thing I can or want to do to stop her tears.
At least, that’s the lie I’m going to tell myself and anyone else who asks.
I steel myself against the red-rimmed eyes that shimmer with the kind of vulnerability that makes me want to stake her in my arms and soothe her.
And if it was anyone but her… I would have.
I want to break something. I didn’t volunteer for this idiotic assignment and seeing Brandi in the class… it was nothing but a sucker punch straight to the gut.
It is hard enough having to work with her, a constant reminder of the one person I want to forget and can’t, but the attitude she seems to save only for me? No, she is the last person who’ll accept comfort from me.
If I could, I’d pick her up and lock her naked to my goddamn bed. But that’s a path down one twisted version of hell that I’ll never be able to escape.
So I stay far away.
Brandi’s so tiny. I’m not even sure she’s five feet tall, but she has long platinum-blonde hair with golden skin from her time in the sun. There shouldn’t be anything special about her. Nothing at all. And yet from the moment I laid eyes on her, I haven’t been able to look away.
Even after I saw those green eyes, the ones that stuck me like a knife.
Something ugly rose up when she blinked at me, something dark and sharp-edged from the pit of my stomach, and I immediately turned and walked away, avoiding her like the plague.
Yeah, then she started working dispatch and avoidance wasn’t something I could do. I tried to keep it professional, but every time I was around her, that same darkness rose. The same memories and haunted expressions that she couldn’t even control. I said whatever I had to, anything I needed to, just to get the fuck away.
Some might say it was actually a study in assholery.
Every single person in my life would be those people.
Every one of them called me out on it over the course of the last six months.
