10. Jack
10
JACK
FISH PIZZA
T wenty-four hours felt like twenty-four years. From the moment I set foot in the station, the crew didn’t slow down. Tones dropped all night long, keeping us running on shitty coffee and exhaustion.
By the time I dragged my body home, I was dead.
I skipped the shower meatloaf, but not the shower. I had a rule about getting in bed after work. I had to rinse off, even if it was quick. I didn’t want to bring the smell and grime of the shift into my sheets.
Begrudgingly, I washed off and nearly fell asleep against the slick tile wall. I cut the water and toweled off before I cracked my head open by dozing off on my feet.
I tucked the towel around my hips and walked over to the window to yank the curtains closed. The light stung. I grabbed the edge of the fabric, then froze.
Something—or rather, someone—was curled up on the edge of my boardwalk. Anyone was welcome to use the beach, but it was generally frowned upon to hang out around someone’s private entrance.
I was half-tempted to ignore whoever it was. They weren’t bothering me or fucking around on my property. It was a nice view. I could share.
Then the wind blew and picked up her hair. Light brown strands looked bronze in the morning sun. Aurora’s .
What the hell was she doing? Sleeping out there? Did something happen at the house?
Exhaustion was overpowered by adrenaline.
I grabbed a pair of shorts and yanked them on before jogging down the stairs and out the door.
“Roar!” I shouted.
She didn’t move.
Fuck. Was she injured?
“Aurora!” I bellowed as the wood slats of the boardwalk creaked with each heavy step that slammed into them.
The little lump shifted as I came to a skidding stop in front of her. My heart raced as I smoothed my hands over her back and shoulders, checking her over.
“What the hell?” she said with a yawn. “ Jack? —”
“What are you doing out here?” I snapped as I cupped her jaw to get a good look at her face. She seemed dazed, but it could have just been tiredness. Her pupils weren’t dilated or constricted.
She blinked. “ What time is it? I thought you were on duty.”
“It’s just after seven. Are you hurt?”
“Seven . . .” Her eyes flicked down as she worked it over in her mind. “ In the morning? Did I sleep out here all night?”
“Looks that way,” I said as I offered a hand to help her up.
Aurora groaned as her joints creaked and cracked. “ Oh my god. I’m too old for this. I thought I left my ‘falling asleep in unlikely places’ days behind me in college.”
“Don’t tell me you got drunk and went into the water,” I said with a sharp edge to my voice.
“What?” Stormy eyes met mine. “ No . I didn’t get drunk.” She sighed. “ I wanted to, but I’m on a budget and I don’t like cheap beer. I was just having a bad night and came out to get some air.”
“Sounds like my night,” I muttered.
Aurora cocked her head. Mussed hair speckled with sand spilled to the side. “ Bad shift?”
“Something like that.”
Her eyes softened. “ You okay?”
“Are you?”
She opened her mouth, probably to deny it, then snapped it shut. Aurora turned to face the ocean and crossed her arms, breathing in the morning air. “ No ,” she admitted. “ I’m not.”
Instead of sitting down beside her, I sat behind her and wrapped my arms around her.
Aurora didn’t hesitate. She leaned back into me and closed her eyes. “ Tell me about your night.”
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to put that burden on her. Some people could handle the harsh reality of what first responders saw, but others couldn’t. Aurora had her own shit going on at the moment. I didn’t want to put that weight on her.
“Just busy,” I said as I rested my chin on top of her head. Something about her closeness turned the incomparable exhaustion into gentle tiredness.
Aurora hummed under her breath. “ Do you know anything about the kind of books I used to write?”
I hated her talking about it in the past tense, but I wasn’t about to argue with her. “ No ,” I admitted. “ I thought about Googling you, but I didn’t want to piss you off.”
She laughed softly. “ I used to write romances that centered around organized crime. The dark stuff. It got pretty gory and horrific sometimes. I do a lot of research so I’m up to speed on what gunshot wounds look like. How long people can stay alive while being tortured. I immersed myself in it. I’ve probably given the FBI and NSA quite a few heart attacks with my internet search history. I’m used to being in that kind of headspace for months at a time.”
“What’s your point?” I murmured into her hair. She smelled like fresh air and sea breeze.
Aurora turned in my arms and lay her palms on my bare, shower-speckled chest. “ I’m not saying I understand what it’s like to see dark stuff first hand. And I’m not glorifying it or sensationalizing it. I can’t imagine what it feels like to have to actually walk into moments like that. I’m just saying, if you need to talk about it, whatever happened won’t faze me.”
“I just need to sleep this one off,” I admitted as my heart thumped against her palm. “ But you can tell me why you were sleeping on the beach.”
She rested her head on my chest, her light breaths dancing across my skin. “ I —um— I told my friends I was done writing. They’re authors too. It’s always been the three of us. They knew I had writer’s block, but I never told them how bad it was until last night. I just . . . I came to terms with losing my career and my identity and my successes. I never stopped to realize I would lose them too.”
My gut twisted as anger flared through me. “ If they cut you out because you admitted you were hurting, they’re shit friends.”
“No,” Aurora said with a shake of her head. “ They didn’t. I just told them what was going on and that I was done, and then I got off the call. They have deadlines. I don’t want to be responsible for them splitting their time and attention between their books and my early mid-life crisis.”
“Real friends will drop whatever they have going on to be there for you,” I said.
A small smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. “ And yet you won’t tell me what’s got you in a funk.”
I laughed as I tightened my arms around Aurora , holding her close. “ Did you just admit we’re friends?”
Aurora didn’t flinch. She didn’t smile. She didn’t roll her eyes. She didn’t swat me away. She stayed exactly as she was, letting me hold her. “ Yeah . I think you’re the only friend I have right now.”
Sleep crept in like an ink blot, slowly staining everything as it spread. The world started to swirl around me as my eyes grew heavy. I wanted to carry her inside, crawl into bed, and hide away from the world together.
“You alright, hotshot?” she asked softly.
“Tired,” I said as I closed my eyes and tilted my head to rest my cheek on top of her head. “ Wanna nap with me?”
“I slept all night.” She yawned. “ Outside , but it was sleep nonetheless. I need to use the daylight to tackle the overgrown jungle of a backyard and boardwalk that I own so I don’t have to trespass on yours.”
“You can trespass anytime. Just promise me you’ll be safe.”
Aurora peeled away and tried to smooth down her wind-swept waves. “ I can promise you that. I can’t promise you a lack of swear-screaming if the weeds don’t cooperate.”
I chuckled, trying to hide my disappointment. “ I’ll come over to help later.”
But she just shook her head before turning to walk back to her place. “ Sleep it off.”
* * *
The mental fog had lifted to a light haze when I awoke mid-afternoon. The sun hung high in the sky, slicing through the blackout curtains as the whirling ceiling fan made them dance from side to side.
I stretched, feeling the ache in my bones that resonated after a long shift. As much as I wanted to lie in bed until it was dark, I knew that I needed to get up and get going or my sleep cycle would be completely fucked.
Reluctantly, I pulled back one of the curtains that faced the old Whitlock place and winced at the sharp smack of sunlight. I peered through squinted lids to see if Aurora was still outside.
She was nowhere to be found, but her walkway from the house to the beach had been cleared. The boardwalk planks needed a lot of work, but I could handle that for her. I was almost out the door to see if she needed a hand when my stomach growled.
Food it was.
Nothing in the fridge sounded good, so I headed up the island to Ernie’s . Aurora’s comment about her beer preference lingered in my head while I waited for my order. After a quick stop at the grocery store, I headed back.
The front door to Aurora’s house was open when I pulled into my driveway. She had sheets hanging off the deck railing, pinned down with random objects from the house so they could air out without blowing away.
She was in the process of planting a creepy angel statue on the corner of a sheet as I climbed out.
“Hey,” I shouted as I hefted the pizza and beer out of the passenger seat.
Aurora’s head snapped up, and I swear I saw the faintest smile cross her lips. Loose strands of hair whipped around her face as the wind blew. Her cheeks were flushed a sunset coral.
I lifted the pizza box and case of beer. “ You hungry?”
She looked down at her cotton shorts, work boots, and sports bra. “ I need to change.”
“Nah. Come on over.” I cocked my head toward my house. “ My place tonight. It smells better.”
I heard her howling laugh as she turned and slipped back inside. I headed into the house and dropped the goods on the kitchen counter. A minute later, the slam of my front door was accompanied by footsteps.
“No knocking? No doorbell ringing?” I teased as I rummaged around for some paper plates.
“Why should I ?” Aurora sassed as she strutted through with a swing to her hips. “ You don’t knock when you show up at my house.”
“I could have been naked,” I countered as I slid a cold beer bottle into her hand.
She paused, those eyes flicking up and down, taking me in. “ And what a shame that would be.”
Before I could think of something coherent to say, she turned and took a long drink while she assessed the house.
“Make yourself at home,” I said as I cleared my throat. I couldn’t help but stare at her ass as she peered out the bay window at the ocean.
Aurora sipped her beer in silence as she snooped, pawing through my bookshelves and running her hand over the throw blankets on the couch. “ Nice place.”
I cracked a half-cocked smile. “ Took a few years of work.”
“You even have throw pillows.”
I chuckled as I handed her two slices of pizza on a paper plate. “ I am civilized, yes.”
She glanced around. “ Are you an ‘eat on the couch’ kind of guy, or a ‘food only belongs at the table’ kind of guy?”
I grabbed my plate and beer and cocked my head toward the living room. “ Couch .”
We settled, making small talk about the progress she had made on the house today while we ate.
“I’m curious,” she said as she wiped her fingers with a napkin and reached into the case for another bottle. “ How’d you know my favorite kind of beer?”
“I didn’t,” I said with a laugh. “ But it was the fanciest shit I could find at the store. Usually , it’s just silver bullets and Bud .”
Aurora popped the top, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes. Her bare stomach flexed, breasts straining at her bra as she slowly inhaled and exhaled. “ I needed this.”
“A beer? I’d say you’ve more than earned it.”
Thick lashes lifted as she tilted her head toward me and smiled. “ A beer with a friend.”
My gaze went to her lips as we tapped our bottles together. “ I’ll drink to that.”
From the moment we had met, Aurora had been on edge. On guard. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. But seeing her like this? Carefree and serene? It was like the ocean after a hurricane.
There was a massive respect for her power and an even greater appreciation for her gentleness.
I draped my arm around her shoulders. “ You didn’t find any more mysterious letters today without me, did you?”
She let out a birdsong laugh. “ No letters in the sand. I still don’t know what to think about the one we found in the floor, but I’m starting to think it was just a one-off.”
I tilted my head down. “ Maybe we should explore some more.”
Aurora sat in silent thought, sipping her beer until it was reduced to suds. “ I think I should stick to fixing what needs to be fixed and not break what’s not broken.”
“Come on, Colorado ,” I said as I set our bottles on the coffee table and sank back beside her. “ Live a little.”
She just snickered and shook her head. “ Thanks for the pizza. It kind of tasted like fried fish.”
“Ernie makes ‘em on the flat-top grill. We don’t have a pizza place out here, so it’s the best we can do. He makes a mean pie, though.”
Her eyes were soft as she studied my face. “ I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”
A speck of red sauce dotted the corner of her lip. “ You’ve got a little . . .” My voice trailed off as I cupped her chin, tenderly pressed my thumb to her lip, and wiped it away.
Aurora’s eyes grew heavy, and her breathing hitched. I brought my thumb to my mouth and sucked it off.
“Did you get it?” she whispered as her chin tipped up ever so slightly.
I was about to make an incredibly stupid decision, but the last few weeks of being in her orbit had me all kinds of messed up for her. I knew damn well that one touch, one kiss would be just the beginning. One taste of her would be the forbidden fruit that sealed my fate.
And I fucking wanted it. I wanted her.
Once wouldn’t be enough.
“No.” It was the last syllable I breathed before our mouths crashed together.