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“I think I’m done telling tales out of school,” Mark told her. “You’ll have to ask Caleb about her.”
Izzy nodded and threw back the sheets. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I think it’s time we both showed our hands.”
Chapter 28
Izzy climbed out of Caleb’s bed, crossed the room, and opened the closet door. She pulled one of his large T-shirts off a hanger and shrugged it on. There was no hope for her hair without a shower, so she gathered it at the back and secured it with a rubber band.
She left the bedroom and entered the living room. The quiet sound of Mark and Caleb talking told her they were in the kitchen. She walked past the scattered pile of her clothes on the floor. The disarray looked out of place in Caleb’s otherwise neatly organized home.
True enough, Izzy had come into Caleb’s life like a tornado. She’d disrupted his normally ordered—and sterile—existence. She hoped her presence, however chaotic, was a good thing.
She turned the corner and entered the kitchen. Caleb and Mark both turned toward her. They might have just been a pair of friends catching up on old times. Anyone would think that, before they caught the dour looks on both men’s faces.
“I’m heading home,” said Mark, pushing off the counter he was leaning against and heading toward the front door. “Call me if you need anything else,” he said over his shoulder. Izzy wasn’t sure whom he was talking to.
The door shut soundly behind him, almost echoing in the silence. Izzy turned to look at Caleb, who had large, dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. He also hadn’t shaved since the day before. Overall he had the wearied, disheveled appearance of an anxious yet exhausted man. It seemed as though Izzy’s presence had wrecked both the house and the man.
She moved toward him, reaching for him.
“Don’t,” he told her.
“Caleb—”
“Just don’t.”
“Look at me,” Izzy demanded. When he refused, she said it again. “You didn’t hurt me, Caleb. I’m fine.”
Caleb shook his head. “It’s not fine.”
Izzy crossed her arms in front of her. She’d rather be touching him but she didn’t want to force the issue right now. “I’m telling you it is. And I’m also telling you that trying to turn yourself in for a crime you haven’t committed is also bullshit. I won’t go along with it,” she told him. “I won’t say something that isn’t true.”
“I hurt you, Izzy!”
Izzy shook her head. “No, you didn’t.”
“I meant to!” he argued.
“No, you didn’t. You meant to scare me, but it didn’t work. I’m still here and I see exactly who you are, Caleb. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s crazy. You’re crazy!” He jabbed a finger into his own chest, “I’m not safe to be around, Izzy!”
“That’s crap. You’re the safest person I’ve ever been with.”
He gaped at her. “That’s… that’s…” He ran a hand through his uncombed hair and stared at her. “You don’t—”
“You don’t open doors for me,” she told him.
Caleb’s eyebrows furrowed and he stared at her. “What?”
“You don’t open doors for me. You go in ahead of me.”
“So… your argument that underneath it all I’m a nice guy is based on the fact that I’m an asshole? What? I go in first—”
Izzy shook her head. “Not first, primary. You are primary through the door, Caleb. Every time. No matter where we are. You always put yourself between me and potential danger. I don’t even think you know you’re doing it most of the time.”
“Izzy—”
Izzy moved closer and cupped his face in her hands. “Pop always said if you want to know someone, watch them when they don’t know you’re looking. The little things, the things they don’t even know they do, will tell you everything you need to know. It doesn’t matter what they say, or what they do for an audience, it’s what they do without having to think about it, that’s how you know what kind of person they are.”
“You’ve seen me at my worst, Izzy. You’ve seen the kind of damage I’m capable of. It’s inside me, Izzy. It’s always been there. It’s the only thing my piece-of-shit old man ever gave me.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said firmly. “People aren’t their parents, Caleb. What they do to us may shape who we are but we’re not them. We don’t have to be them.”
“Oh, that’s bullshit!” he snapped. “It’s absolutely who we are. It’s in our fucking DNA, Izzy! And you believe it. You know goddamn good and well that you believe it.”
“I do not—”
“Then why won’t you have kids, Izzy?” he challenged. “If you’re so sure that we’re not destined to be just like our parents, why won’t you have kids of your own?”
“Because I don’t want them!” she argued. “Because I don’t live the kind of life that has room for kids! My job is dirty and dangerous and I love it and it’s not a place for a kid. I don’t have kids because I don’t want kids, Caleb. Not because I’m afraid to have them! Is that what you think of me?” she demanded. “That I’d leave my kid alone, shitting themselves in a filthy fucking diaper, starving and terrified? You think for a second I’d ever do some shit like that?!”
