RJ

I knew she’d leave. She was never meant to stay. Hell, she was only supposed to take my story and go.

Andy wanted her because he thought she’d be a friendly face with a personal touch. Someone who could help smooth my jagged edges and help me shine a little again.

I didn’t want to talk. When Andy came at me with the idea, I shut him down. The whole reason I disappeared was the protection that darkness offered. Why the fuck would I want to drag myself into the spotlight again?

“You don’t have to tell her everything,” he’d said. “Don’t even bring up Len. Keep it basic. Your books, the Vikings’ shitty play-off game...hell, talk about the weather.”

I snort and drop my head to the back of my parents’ couch. Basic, my ass. One look at that girl and I wanted to tell her about my childhood addiction to Ghostbusters, born right here in this living room. How I used to blast those goddamn ghosts with my mom’s twist mop between spoonfuls of Fruity Pebbles, while wearing nothing but my orange plaid boxers, because they had ghost radar. 

I never had a chance in hell of keeping it simple with Julianna. I never saw her coming and I sure as shit never saw her walking out like she did. Leaving? Yeah. But taking such a big fucking piece of me with her? Ha!

“You look exhausted.” Mom leans into the doorway, drying her hands on a dishtowel.

“Long day.” I sigh and pat my stomach. “Might be part food coma, too. That lasagna was killer. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You know I have to make sure you’re fed every chance I get. Can never be sure when you’ll get tied up in a story and forget to feed yourself.” She winks and I chuckle. It’s an empty laugh, though. I’m too emotionally spent for it to be anything more.

“Hey, Ma, can I talk to you something?”

She nods, a crease between her brow. “Of course. What’s going on?”

What’s going on is I’m thirty-three-years-old and I think I just suffered my first heartbreak.

“Uh, it’s a long story. Maybe you should sit.” I gesture to her chair.

“Let me get us some coffee.”

“Sure.” In her world, everything is solved with a cup of coffee. In mine, avoidance usually works best. Denial, too. Until they bite me in the ass.

“Something happen with your friend today?” she asks when she returns with two steamy mugs. “I hope she’s okay.”

She will be. That’s what so special about Crash. She’s resilient as fuck.

“She’s fine,” I say, but the assumption immediately sours my stomach. “Actually, I don’t know that for sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“She didn’t come back with me. I pissed her off and she got a rental car. Pretty sure she thinks I’m the most pathetic piece of shit she’s ever met.”

Mom’s eyes narrow. “RJ Cole, what did you do?”

“That’s not my name anymore, Ma.”

“It’ll always be your name. I gave it to you. Your father gave it to you.”

“And in return I gave you hell.”

She doesn’t even question what I’m talking about. She and my old man know the guilt I carry. “What happened, sweetie?”

Elbows on my knees, I blow out a heavy breath and tell her everything right up until Julianna told me to have a nice life. I withhold certain details, but from her raised eyebrow, I know she’s figured that part out on her own.

“You took her to bed and never told her who you were?”

“Ma!” Is there anything more awkward than looking your mother in the eyes, knowing she knows you put your dick in someone?

Whack! Her hand connects with the back of my head before she stabs that damn finger in my face like I’m a kid again. “You may be a grown man, but you will not disrespect a woman while I’m above ground.”

Yeah, well, too late for that.

“You will fix this, RJ.” And that’s an order, not a question.

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You will,” she says again, and I sigh.

“How?”

“Damned if I know,” she scoffs. “You screwed this up, you figure it out.”

And that’s my mother. Laying down the law without batting an eye. Just like Julianna.

“Tell me this...” She finally sits again, but the tension in her expression remains. “Do you care about her?”

“I don’t know. Can you really care about someone after a couple days?”

She blinks at me. I’ve seen the look before, but never on her, which means I’ve really fucked this one up if even she thinks I’m a moron. “Bless your heart, honey.”

Fuck, I’m an idiot.

“Your lady problems aren’t my only worry, RJ.”

Yep, saw this coming, too.

“Your father doesn’t blame you for what happened, so why do you still blame yourself?” When I don’t answer—I can’t with this fucking pain in my chest—she places a hand on my knee. “You couldn’t have known that some crazy person would react to your words that way. Yes, you may have some social responsibility not to intentionally trigger people, but there are hundreds of books out there liked that. It could have just as easily been another author’s work that set this guy off. Another person who suffered his wrath. In a way, we’re lucky it was your dad.”

I gulp against the ache lodged in my throat and shake my head. “How can you say that?”

“He’s a strong man, RJ. So are you. You’re both loyal to a fault when it comes to family. Too loyal, sometimes.”

“When is that ever a bad thing?”

She smiles sadly. “When it means being disloyal to yourself.”

***

Six beers in and I can’t stop staring at her luggage stacked up by the fireplace.

I got her number from Andy, but I haven’t worked up the courage to call. The sooner her stuff is gone, the sooner she’ll out of my life for good. I’m not ready for that.

“We done fucked up, Eddie ol’ boy.” I reach for the mutt as he saunters past the couch, but doesn’t stop until he’s by her stuff.  Then he flops his ass down with a huff. “What the hell? You’re pissed at me, too?”

The dog closes his eyes and ignores me.

“I knew you freaking liked her more than me.” Bastard. Tipping back the bottle, I take a swig and glance at my phone on the coffee table.

I should be writing instead of lying here, waiting for a call that’s never going to come. I have her number, but that doesn’t mean she has mine. Or that she’d even want it. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had her sister come for her shit before she got in touch with me herself.

I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. I just didn’t expect it hurt so fucking much.

Arm folded behind my head, I shut my eyes and force myself to think about the shitty plot twist in my current work-in-progress. Maybe I can bore myself long enough to pass out. Or at least long enough that I forget that, when I crawl into bed tonight, my sheets are going to smell just like her.

I’d wash them, but—

“Ughhh!”

All eighty-five pounds of Eddie’s traitorous ass dig into my gut when he launches himself over the back of the couch on a mad dash for the front door.

“Fucking dog!”

And then I see the headlights on the ceiling.

Not loud enough for Ben and not my folks because I just left their place a couple hours ago.

Shit.

I’m nowhere near drunk enough for this.

***

Julianna

He leans in the open front door, arms folded across his chest, when I get out of the car. With the kitchen light shining behind him, he’s just as broodingly sexy as he was last night by the campfire. Only tonight, there’s no mischief in his eyes. Just quiet despondence.

“Hi.” I take the porch steps one at a time, feeling as exhausted as he looks. “I tried to call, but this stretch of highway really does have the crappiest cell reception.”

He doesn’t move other than watching me and I start to worry he won’t say anything at all, when he finally clears his throat.

“Now you know why I come here to unplug. Easier to keep the distractions at bay.” 

“I thought about that today. I can see you being productive here.”

He dips his chin, just barely, and then the awkward silence slips back in again. Him, watching me, me, watching him. So much to say, but so few words.

“I was just hoping to grab my stuff. If that’s okay.”

“Why wouldn’t it be okay? It’s your shit,” he snaps, and I flinch. I get that he’s pissed...or hurt...or just freaking tired...but he did this to himself.

“Sorry to put you out, but if you’d just step aside, I’ll grab it and go.” And hope to God I can do it without falling apart all over again. It took everything I had in me to take the car out of park at the end of the road and actually drive in.

“I can freaking get it.” Grumbling, he turns and stalks into the cabin while Eddie bumps my hand with his nose for the twentieth time.

“Sorry, buddy. Not ignoring you.” I bend to kiss his nose and ruffle his fur, and a wave of emotion steals my breath. “Gonna miss you,” I whisper.

And I’m not just talking about the dog.

***

RJ

Way to be an ass, dude. And you wonder why she walked?

I glance back when I don’t hear her behind me and her arms are wrapped around Eddie’s neck, her face buried in his fur. She murmurs something I can’t hear and a stabbing ache pierces my chest.

I don’t even know what she’s saying, but I’d kick my own dog if it meant she’d hold me like that instead.

I grab the biggest of her things and she quietly gathers the rest, following me out to the car and waiting while I pack her stuff into the trunk.

“Crap,” she mutters when I shut the door. “I have stuff in the bathroom, too.”

“I’ll get it.”

“It’s cold and you’re not wearing a coat. You can’t keep coming out here like this.”

I do my damnedest not to make more of that than it is and follow her back inside. 

She comes out of the bathroom a few minutes later and sets her things on the island, lingering, like she’s at war with herself on what comes next.

“You got everything?” It’s okay if you want to stay.

“Yep.” She presses her lips together, then opens her mouth like she wants to say something only to snap it shut again.

“What is it, Crash? If you’ve got something on your mind, you might as well say it.”

She hesitates for a moment, then, “The second bedroom. It’s where you work, isn’t it?”

Ah, I should’ve figured she’d be curious about that. “Yeah.” I stick my tongue in my cheek and rock back on my heels. “Would have been a dead giveaway if you’d opened that door.”

“Can I see?” Her dark eyes blink up at me. “Now that I know?”

“Uh, sure. If you want.” I wave a hand toward the hall, following a few paces behind her. There’s nothing in there that will be any big revelation to her. I’m a simple, straightforward guy in every aspect of my life, even when I’m Rush, the writer. I just prefer to keep some separation between work and play. It’s hard to do that when a book takes over your life and you spend months on end, living in that world. When I can put a barricade up between the real world and the ones in my head, I do it. 

“You sure?” She glances over her shoulder, hand on the door knob.

“Yep.” Knuckle to my nose, I sniff. “Have at it.”

Her eyes lock with mine, even as she turns the handle and steps inside.

With her silhouette in the doorway and the desk I wrote my last three novels as the backdrop, I realize my mistake, two seconds too late.

“RJ...” As her hand rises to her throat, mine goes dry. Her breathless reaction—my name wrapped inside of it—has now tainted once-sacred ground.

I’ll never be able to open that door again without thinking about her.

“I’m a simple guy, Crash. Never claimed to be otherwise.” I write on a plain, dark-stained table, in a cheap ass chair because it doesn’t hurt my back. I drink coffee from a Keurig like it’s my life breath and I listen to music when I’m in my groove. Usually rock. For this book, my playlist is Shinedown on repeat and usually over the sound system because I like the bass.

“You’ve been working...” She steps around the desk, dragging her fingers along the wood. My laptop is open, sitting where I left it two days ago.

“Nah, some other things came up.”

She glances back. “Me?”

I dip my chin. “Best kind of distraction.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Hands in my pockets, I shuffle a few steps into the room. “I’m a grown ass man. You didn’t keep me from anything I didn’t want to be kept from.”

She wets her lips, nods, and continues her trek around the room. When she reaches the bookshelves, she frowns and pulls a thick CIA reference manual from the row.

“Wait, are these yours?” She gestures to the other three shelves, filled with some of my favorite novels, memoirs, and reference books. Even a few on crafting a good story.  I have a similar library at home.

“Yep.”

“But...” Her frown deepens. “I thought...”

I scrub a hand over my beard and nod. “Yeah. I know. I am on vacation, but I actually bought the cabin from Ben not that long ago. I used it more than he did, so we worked something out. He still takes care of the place when I’m home in Rockford.”

“So, this really is...like a sanctuary for you.”

“I get a lot of shit done here.” Usually.

“Can I include this in the article? Or is it too personal? I’d understand if it were...”

I spilled my guts to her about Len, singlehandedly the worst part of my life, and she’s asking permission to share this?

“It’s just a place I write. Not a big deal.”

“Except it is. To you.” She’s looking at me like I should see the same significance she sees, but I don’t.

I lift a shoulder. “Your call, Crash.”

She puts the book back and lingers like she did in the kitchen.

“What’s on your mind, babe? Talk to me.”

Trailing her fingers along the shelf, she takes a couple deep breaths before she finally comes out with it. “I just want you to know that no matter what happened between us, I won’t let it taint this article. I’m a professional and I came here to do a job before anything else.”

I get it. Don’t like it, of course, because I’d rather I not be just a job anymore, but hey, she’s not spitting nails at me, so that’s something.

“I don’t hate you, either,” she admits quietly, and I swear to Christ I hear angels sing. “Do I wish you’d told me who you were? Yes. Would I change what happened between us? Not a chance.” Her face begins to flush and she glances away. Not before I see the tears. “Anyway, I should go. It’s getting late.”

“Stay.”

“I can’t,” she rasps, and I’m on her in a second, arms caging her in against the bookshelf.

“Why not, Crash? You know this isn’t done between us.” I can see it in her eyes and feel it every time she takes a breath and her body trembles against mine.

“This is me being selfish,” she says, fighting those tears. “Me being scared.” Balling my T-shirt in her hands, she begs. “Please don’t make my heart hurt more than it already does.”

Because I don’t want to be that guy—fuck, I never did—I do the only thing I can.

I let her go.