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“Youare choosing your broken system over me,” she clarifies. “You made a vow to protect and serve, I get it. But your deity, Archer, the one you made a promise to, doesn’t keep their promise. The buck is passed from one overpaid asshole to another, and in the cracks, innocents are murdered.” Stepping onto her toes, Minka presses an achingly beautiful kiss to the corner of my lips. “The buck stops with me. And I vow to keep my promises.”
In a cloud of heartache and disaster and desperation and gentle brush-offs, Minka pulls me through her apartment and past her living room. Past the bottle of tequila and the switched-on TV, around Aubree’s discarded shoes, and through the kitchen. She leads me right to the door and into the hall, and while I’m still trying to understand how the fuck we’ve reached this point—and more importantly, how to come back off the ledge and fix what we’ve broken—Minka merely bends to collect the Chinese food a delivery guy left an hour ago.
Her eyes are soft, her hair wet. Her lips quiver and her jaw points forward. But we’ve reached an impasse, and neither of us will take down our flags and step to the other side of the line we’ve drawn.
“I want us to be kind to each other.” Minka’s voice crackles with agony as she hugs the lukewarm bag of food to her chest. “I genuinely do. It would break my heart if we have to see each other every day at work and we turn into enemies when we know there’s more here.”
“We know there’s more here, but we’re throwing it away.”
“We’re setting it aside,” she chokes out. “Gently, and without malice. We’re putting it on a shelf for safekeeping, and maybe someday, we’ll take it down again and see what’s left. But if we argue and fight…” her breath hitches, surprising us both and bringing Minka’s hand up to cup her mouth, “if we hurt each other more in our quest to soothe our own egos, then that might be the worst pain of all.”
“Friends?”
Two elegant tears roll free and slide along Minka’s cheeks. “Friends.” She sniffles and wipes her nose with her arm. “No benefits. No snide remarks. And hopefully, no added damage.”
“And you just…” I drop my hands into my pockets to keep myself from reaching out. “You just want me to walk away right now. Pretend this is what’s best for us?”
She swallows so her throat bobs, and more tears fall free. “I want you to do whatever you think is best for you. Walk away, go to your boss, tell Fletch, close your case or don’t. Whatever you think you need to do is whatever you’re going to do. But I won’t lie to you, and I won’t tell you I’m stopping when we both know that’s not true.”
“You won’t lie?”
She considers that for a moment, before licking her lips and shaking her head. “No.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“So when I see something on the news, when I think maybe you’re involved, or preparing to get involved, and I ask if that’s on you, you’ll tell the truth?”
Her glistening gaze flickers back and forth between mine. “Do you want me to tell you? Do you want to know those things, when it’s your sworn duty to stop me?”
“Yes.” I should say no. I should hand her over to Lieutenant Fabian, if only for her own safety. But that’s not what comes from my mouth. “Yes, if I ask, I would like you to tell me.”
“Then I will.” Taking a step back and setting her hand on the door, she drags her bottom lip between her teeth and studies me with enough intensity to send a chill along my spine. Almost like she’s getting one last glimpse. Her last chance to look. Almost like she never intends to see me again.
And that look, that hopeless glance, makes me want to spew.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Any time.” She slowly begins closing the door. “Goodbye, Archer.”
“Wait!” I jump forward and press my hand to the wood. “Just… wait.”
“Archer—”
“Was I alone?”
“What?” Her brows pinch closer. “Alone in what?”
“Love.” I breathe the word and pray to let it go with the exhalation. To exorcise it from my body and free myself from the ache of wanting someone who can’t be with me. “Was I stupid and alone in loving you? Or did you feel it too?”
“Archer, I—”
“Did you love me too?”
“Yes.” Her jaw quivers with the emotion she works so hard to lock down. “Yes, I loved you. I love you. It’s so silly and unnecessary. We hardly know each other, and I didn’t want to be in a relationship in the first place. But yes,” she stares deep into my soul, “I love too. And I’m hurting. And this isn’t the outcome I want. But it’s the outcome we get.”
Taking a step back, Minka drops her chin and whimpers under her breath as an almost silent sob works its way through her chest.
She doesn’t lift her gaze again. She doesn’t gift me one last look into her beautiful eyes. She only closes the door, one slow inch at a time, until the steel catches and the lockssnick, then she leaves me standing all alone in a deserted hallway. Cold and broken. A little lost, and a lot like the boy I was when I was sixteen and found myfriendshurting the girl I loved.
