AS I DRIVE TO OPAL’S house, I try to tell myself how stupid it is, how dumb I am. But even knowing so doesn’t make it any better. We said that was it the night of the wedding, and as I’ve kept my promise, so has she. Which isn’t surprising since I woke up to a note. A freaking note telling me thank you for a memorable night.
But at least now I know why she’s so closed off. I saw the pain in her eyes, and it hasn’t left me since she left my bed two weeks ago. It also makes me understand that she’s not ready for another relationship, so staying here would be pointless. I might like the chase, but I’m also smart enough to know when to wave that white flag. She doesn’t want more. And I can’t make her.
After what she told me, I swear a part of my soul bled for her and the pain she’d been through. I’m leaving tomorrow, and before I go, I selfishly want to see her once more. I just want to hold her. At least say goodbye to her in person.
I knock on her door and see a shadow pass over the peephole.
“Uh, hi.” She steps back and motions for me to come in. When she closes the door, she immediately puts the chain on and clicks the deadbolt, her eyes bouncing around the room and her hands fidgety.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. What are you doing here? I thought you went home after the wedding.”
“I was supposed to.” But again, I couldn’t bring myself to go.
She crosses her ankles and bites her lip, gently swaying her body. “Did your job get extended or something?”
“Yeah. Or something.”
“Hi, Ryan!” Olivia runs out of the kitchen and straight to me with her mismatched cowboy boots and a princess crown.
I scoop her up. “Hey, shortie. How’s it goin’?”
“Are you here to eat with us? Mommy’s making corn dogs.”
Opal laughs nervously. “That’s not the kind of meal you invite someone to, Olivia.”
Using a child’s innocence is low, and I know it’s wrong, but I do it anyway. “I would love to stay for a corn dog.”
“Yay.” She wiggles out of my hold, and Opal presses her lips together. “I’ll getchu a plate. Mommy, I can’t reach the glasses.”
“I’ll get it in a second.”
Olivia runs back to the kitchen, and Opal crosses her arms. “What are you doing here, Ryan?” She asks the question with no heart behind it.
The real answer is I never booked a flight after their wedding. But when it was clear she moved on and didn’t care to contact me, I decided it was time for me to go. My pride can’t take any more rejection from her. Plus, I’ve got my mother on my ass to get home.
“I’ve got a flight tomorrow night, and I just wanted to say goodbye, Opal. I know I said I’d leave you alone, but I couldn’t leave without seeing you one more time.”
Her face falls, and her arms drop to her sides. “Oh. Wow.” She clears her throat and then comes right to me and wraps her arms around my waist. I put mine around her back and hold her tight, remembering how damn good we fit together.
Ask me to stay.
But she doesn’t.
“Well, I’ve got some corn dogs to make.” She pulls back, and before she can walk away, I grab her hand so she turns back around. “Yeah?”
“I like you a lot. You know that, right?”
She nods. “Yeah. I know, Ryan. But it’s better this way.” She doesn’t have to say more; her eyes tell me everything she’s thinking.
“Want help in the kitchen?”
“No.” She laughs. “I can manage some corn dogs. You can hang out with Olivia.”
I don’t let her hand go until she pulls it away when she gets to the kitchen. “Hey, sweetie, why don’t you take Ryan into the living room and play for a bit while I make dinner?”
“Okay.” She grabs the hand that was just holding Opal’s and pulls me with a strength that surprises me. “Come on, Ryan.”
I help her start a movie, and she jumps right up in my lap. I’m not surprised it’s some kind of princess cartoon. Her detail in explaining who the characters are and what will happen to them is ridiculously adorable. It makes me wonder if Opal is the same way when she watches movies or not.
There’s a scene where a window is broken, and Olivia jumps. “If I did that, Mommy would be mad if she had to clean up more glass.”
“Have you been clumsy lately?”
“No. The window broke. See.” She points at the window behind the TV, and I get up to push the curtain back.
“What happened?” I ask, shaking my head at how unsafe a fucking piece of cardboard and some duct tape is. I don’t know how the hell I didn’t notice that when I walked up to her house.
She sits up but doesn’t look at me, just continues watching the movie. “A rock accident broke it.”
A what? I mull over her statement. “You mean a rock accidentally broke it?”
“Uh-huh.”
Okay, my protective instincts are so loud they’re almost deafening, but before I can ask her anything else, Opal calls that dinner is ready. I don’t want to freak Olivia out, so I reserve my inquisition for after she’s asleep. Because Opal and I are talking about this. Rocks don’t accidentally break windows.
Much to Opal’s dismay, Olivia and I pretend our corn dogs are swords, and when she hits mine and it breaks in half, she can’t hide her laugh when I grab it off the table and throw it in my mouth.
“Stop playing with your food and eat.” She tries to scold Olivia, and I wink at her as she pouts.
I don’t look around the table and imagine that this could be my life every night. I don’t pretend that it wouldn’t be the best fuckin’ thing in the world to be able to come home to these two every single day. Because if I pretend, I just want it more. And I stopped wanting more a long time ago. All I’ve ever wanted is more, and every time I’ve tried to give that to someone, she’s destroyed it. Opal is no different.
I refuse, absolutely refuse to beg for a woman to drag me around by the balls. I’ve done that, more than once, and unless Opal tells me that she wants me as badly as I want her, that she’d be willing to at least try, I won’t make the same mistakes I’ve made in the past.
Two serious relationships and they both ended bad. Real bad. Fucked up thing, they were mirror images of each other. You’d think I’d have learned from the first, but it took the latter to make me realize most women are the same.
Sweet and nice one minute. Talkin’ about family and the future the next, giving me hope that I could have it with them one day. Then making me feel like shit because I had to leave them alone for work. Wiping tears when I walk out the door. Telling me they don’t know if they can date someone who gets shot at for a living. Even though I’d tell ’em it’s not a goddamn movie and shit like that doesn’t happen every day, they still guilted me for leaving them.
It’s not like it was months at a time. I’d be gone a couple of weeks every few months or so.
God, I felt so much guilt I didn’t see it. I was desperate for what my sister had. Wanted what my brother did, what my parents still have. And I fell for their lies. The protector in me, the man I am down to my bones fell for that goddamn shit. Because soon as I was gone on assignment, they’d find someone else to warm my motherfuckin’ bed.
Fool me once and all that… but I fell for that shit twice.
I don’t think for a second Opal’d be that kind of bitch. She’s too goddamn sweet to play me like that. But what she is, is a woman. And I’ve learned the hard way even sweet and warm can turn to ice real quick. I’ve given her openings—more than enough of them for her to just ask me—but she hasn’t. So I’m done. I’ve been done tryin’ for a few years now… at least, that was what I told myself until about five months ago when I saw a goddamn angel standing on the sidewalk.
But she doesn’t want what I have to give. She doesn’t want me. Got screwed over by women who said they wanted me, so what kind of fool would I be to give everything up for one who openly admits she doesn’t?
For the little cutie currently curled up in my arms, I wish things were different. I so wish things were different because for her mama, I’d try again to find what I gave up looking for.
I set Olivia in her bed and read a little bit of the story she fell asleep to last time I was here. Her eyes get droopy, so I close the book and push some of her hair off her face.
I hate having to tell her this, but it’s the right thing to do. “Before you fall asleep, I wanted to say goodbye.”
She opens her heavy eye lids. “Where are you going?”
“Back home.”
“Are you coming back?”
“I might to visit Jay.” Lie. But I can’t tell that to her face. My pride won’t let me come back.
Her little yawn makes me yawn, too. “Can you stay longer?”
Can I? Yes. Do I have a reason to? No.
“I wish I could, short stuff, but I need to go. My family misses me, and I miss them.”
She snuggles deeper into her pillow. “Mommy’s scared, Ryan. Don’t leave.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. My stomach drops, corn dog swirling and threatening to come back up thinking for even a second that Opal’s in danger; that Olivia knows her mom is scared means Opal must really be freaked about something. “Why is your mommy scared?”
Her chest rises and falls. “They’re so loud sometimes, and I cried. We can hear them in my room and I hafta sleep in her bed sometimes.” She yawns again. “She says it’s going to be okay because we’ll be moving, but I know she’s scared, too.”
Jesus Christ. “You’re scared?”
“Can you sweep here?” She barely lifts her eye lids but does it enough to look at me. “Then I won’t be scared.”
Despite the anger and unwanted fear weighing me down right now, I push it aside and kiss the top of her head after she drifts off, then go downstairs where Opal is washing dishes.
Coming up behind her, I shut the water off and spin her around. Before she has the chance to protest, I put a finger over her mouth. “What is Olivia talking about saying you’re scared?”
Her eyes widen and then become misty. I drop my hand, and she dries hers on her jeans. “After they arrested the neighbor kid, I’ve—”
“What the fuck?” She flinches at the sheer anger in my tone.
“Sorry, I thought maybe Jay would have told you.”
“He obviously fuckin’ didn’t.”
“Oh, well, I got a new neighbor, and his son and his friends were breaking beer bottles and being loud one night. I called the cops, and they arrested the son for underage drinking, and I guess his friends had pot on them or something, too. The dad is a jerk and super creepy. Anyway, the kid and his friends are really loud sometimes, despite me asking them to quiet down, but if we sleep in my room with the door closed, I can’t hear them.”
“Why is he super creepy?”
She bites her lip and looks away. “I’m sure I’m overreacting, but when I told him his son woke my daughter up, he asked how old she was and if he could babysit her.”
Hell, no.
“What the fuck, Opal? You didn’t tell Jay that shit, did you?” I answer my question for her. “No fuckin’ way he’d leave you two here alone if you did, so I know you didn’t.”
She still doesn’t look at me because she knows I’m right. She’s been hiding shit from Jay.
“There’s more to it than that,” I state.
“Well, someone threw a rock through my window. I don’t think it’s related, though.”
“Yes, you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have brought it up.”
Her throat moves when she swallows. “It’s just since then I’ve come home to a weird feeling. It’s nothing I can prove, but it just feels weird. And I’ve been looking for a different place, so it’s all good; we’ll move and we’ll be fine.”
Damn straight, she’s moving. They are not staying in a place where the landlord rents to some fucking piece of shit and his piece-of-shit son. My neck twitches, and I have to squeeze my hands together to keep from hitting something. I can’t believe she’s been living like this. “Do you set your alarm when you leave?”
“I always do.”
“Are your window sensors for any activity or just if they raise and lower?”
“Only when they open and close.”
I can’t believe this shit. Why didn’t she tell me? Or her brother-in-law. “Does Jay know about any of this?” When she doesn’t answer, I have mine. “Did you at least call the cops to report it?”
“Aside from the one time…” She nibbles on her lip and shakes her head.
“Why not?”
“Because like I said, it’s just a feeling, and technically, they’re not doing anything illegal. Not since the night of the beer bottles.”
“Rocks through your window aren’t just a fucking feeling.” I walk around her house, checking all the windows and doors. “Why didn’t you at least call Jay with the rock?”
“Hello, they just had a baby and all the wedding stuff. Besides, I was fine. I have an appointment for someone to give me an estimate next week.”
“Jesus, Opal. I know you’re smart, but I can’t believe you could be so careless about not only your safety but Olivia’s too.” I sit on a kitchen chair. “Your gut was telling you something was wrong, and you didn’t listen to it and now…” I leave off the part where I’m going to murder someone when I find out who’s been scaring her. And this fucker who asked about my little girl.
Shit. Damn. Fuck.
Olivia’s not mine.
Fuck that. Yes, she is.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in my career in law enforcement, it’s that your gut is never wrong. And Opal is a smart woman. No way would she be creeped out if it wasn’t warranted.
Speaking of. I kick the chair harder than I mean to when I head upstairs to her room to walk through and check the windows and closet. I stop in the hallway and push up on the attic door, which is locked from the inside. If she’s getting a weird feeling when she comes home, there’s a reason for it.
I go back downstairs and tell her I’ll be right back, and then go out to my truck. When I get back, I wait for her to reset the alarm and then I take my duffel bag upstairs.
She follows me and closes her bedroom door behind her. “What are you doing?”
“You are not”—I point at her—“going to be here alone when someone is scaring the shit out of you. So until I can have a chat with the neighbors, which you will not be here for, I’ll be here, making sure you guys can sleep easy.”
“It hasn’t happened in a while. I don’t think—”
“Some guy who gives you the creeps asks how old your daughter is and if he can babysit her, and you don’t think? Whatever asinine reason you have for not telling your fuckin’ brother-in-law, who is an outstanding detective, Opal, is not cool. You don’t have to do the thinkin’, all right? I’ll deal with it because I care a helluva lot about you and fuckin’ love that little girl who’s sleepin’ safe across the hall. And I’ll tell you this… ain’t no motherfucker gonna be near her who asks questions like that.” I take a breath, put my hands on my hips, and tilt my head back to look at the ceiling. “Are you gonna trust me to take care of this shit?”
She slowly nods, no doubt processing my goddamn speech. “You’re right. And I do. God, I’m so stupid, I—”
“You’re not stupid, doll. You’re stressed, and you’re terrified for more reasons than one. Let me help you.”
“But you’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Not anymore.”
“I can’t ask you to stay.”
I drop my duffel and close in on her. “You can; you just won’t. God forbid, you actually admit you need some fuckin’ help. Or that you feel something for me.”
She looks at the floor, and I decide to lay it all out for her. “All you have to fucking do is ask me, Opal. Ask me anything in the world, and I’d do it for you. I’d give it to you. I’d find a way. For you, baby doll, and for Olivia. I’d even stay. All you have to do is ask.”
At that, she looks back up, bright eyes red and lips quivering. “Ryan.”
“I get it, though. You don’t trust me enough. You don’t like me enough to take the risk. But what you don’t understand is it’s me who’s already lost everything because I’m losing you.”