9. Theo #2
Once the gun clears my face and most of my instant-death spots, I begin to relax, to set the half-naked cops at ease.
“I didn’t offer to fuck your badge, Libby.
I said that I would fuck you . I would fuck the woman who has a six-pack, enviable shoulders, and dick-sucking lips.
” I snap my hand out when she lowers her guard, fold her wrist back until she cries out, and tear the gun from her hand.
I release the slide from the frame and let both pieces drop to the tile floor, then I lean in closer so all three of us are in the same space, and adrenaline skips from one body to the next.
“Don’t ever aim a gun at me again, Elizabeth.
Don’t you ever look at me like I’m your enemy. ”
I’m not a stupid man. I’m not na?ve, nor do I believe my money keeps me above the law. Coming to this apartment today was bad. I knew I risked arrest simply by following Libby – a cop – but when Drake turns out to be a cop too, I consider my freedom gone, if only for a little while.
But that’s not what happens. The guy who stands head and shoulders taller than Libby, whose hands splay across her belly, whose eyes watch me, merely smiles when Lib and I stand nose to nose like raging bulls ready to charge.
She’s mine, and she has been since she was nine years old. It’s like he knows this, somewhere deep in his heart, he knows who she belongs to, so he neither arrests me, nor does he challenge me to settle this like men .
Instead, he grins and passes Libby her shirt while she murders me with her eyes.
“I can see that, despite this being my apartment, maybe I’m intruding on something personal between you folks. Lizbeth, darling, you didn’t tell me your circumstances had become… complicated.”
“This is not complicated,” she snarls. “I met him for the first time in my life just two days ago. He has a staring problem, and boundary issues.”
“He sure looks like he knows you, darlin’. Are you scared of him?”
Her nostrils flare with rage. “No.”
“Has he ever hurt you?”
She sees the rage in my eyes. Hurt, that she would consider me the enemy when in reality, we’re the only two people on this team.
She doesn’t know that this is our team from forever ago, she’s blind to what I’m not, but she can’t know I’m that boy.
He’s dead, so she needs to get the fuck on this new team.
“No.”
“Do you want to talk it out with him? I see your inclination is to rearrange his face with federal ammo, but that’s against policy, baby girl.
He’s unarmed, and he looks hella invested in making sure you and I don’t fuck.
Somehow, I don’t think he’s here to toss my home.
He just wants you to not sit on my cock. ”
He paints these pictures in my head, these images of her riding him in bed, and forces more shots of rage through my blood.
He’s had something I never have. I claimed her when I was eleven, when I held her hand and sat with her in the cold.
But he claimed her body when she was a woman, and she’s so okay with it that she initiates it, and comes back after the first time.
“I do not want to discuss anything with him.” Lib steps back and takes her friend with her.
One step, then two. “I do not want to discuss anything with him. I’m going to file a report at work, I will document this evening, and I will begin the process of keeping him five-hundred yards from me at all times. ”
“Libby…” I step forward and try to take her hand. She holds it against her stomach, cradling it where I might have hurt it. “You just need to–”
“Nothing,” she inserts. “I need to do nothing. You have secrets, Theo. Big, ugly, horrible secrets that bring me nightmares.” She hurriedly pulls her top over her head and down over her torso.
Squatting fast to collect her gun, she puts it back together with a fast one-two slide and click, then she grabs her purse and meets my eyes.
She looks at me the way she looked at the sour-sisters a lifetime ago.
Untrusting. Hurt. “Stay away from me, Griffin. Go back to your home and stay there. There’s no room for you in my town. ”
Turning on her fuck-me heels and leaving behind only an air of perfume that my lungs crave, she rips the front door open and slams it again when she leaves.
“Dude.” Laughing, Drake walks across his living room, entirely too comfortable, considering I’m a stranger in his home. He flips lights on as he moves and gives me his back. “You’re a ballsy motherfucker.” He turns back. “You’re the Theo Griffin, right? Smart and rich. Computer guy?”
Instead of answering verbally, I give him a small nod. I give Libby all of my words, because she makes it so I want to talk, but the rest of the world gets silence unless I find I have something I wanna say.
“So, I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m also a cop, and what you just did, brother…” He shakes his head. “It was bad. It’s straight up hard time in the pen. The only reason you remain standing is because you were smart enough not to pull a weapon.” He pauses. “You’re carrying, aren’t you?”
I consider his words. I consider the Glock in the back of my jeans. Then I nod.
He grins. “I figured you would be. No genius is stupid enough to walk into another guy’s home without at least having something. But you were smart enough not to touch it, even when she was teeing up to blow your face off.”
“No point touching it. I’m never going to hurt her.”
He chuckles, grabs the remote, and plops down on the end of his long couch.
“Figured. I feel like there’s this massive miscommunication between the two of you.
Like…” He thinks it through as he flips channels.
“I dunno, like maybe you’re on the page at the end of the book.
You know how it’s gonna end, so you’re certain in your actions.
But she’s still at chapter one. You know what’s up, but she doesn’t, and your confidence scares her.
She doesn’t know you, man. But in your eyes, it’s already tied up. ”
He’s a good cop. “You’re very intuitive.”
Finally settling on a renovation show, Drake tosses his remote down and kicks his feet onto the coffee table.
“That’s why I get employee of the month every month for six consecutive years.
I’m the fun one, the easygoing dude that everyone loves.
” His eyes meet mine. “That’s why she comes to me; I’m not a complication for her.
I’m easy, I smile a lot, and there’s no stickiness or weird feelings when it’s done.
She’s drawn to my…” He considers his words.
“ Simplicity , I guess. I make it easy for her.”
“You need to stop talking about you and her. You need to block her number and pour bleach into your brain until you forget what she looks like naked. I don’t like what you see in your mind right now.”
He turns to me with a wolfish grin and sparkling eyes. “I can’t delete what I know. And even if I could, I’m not sure I would. She’s been fun for me too, Griffin. She was a hell of a good time.”
“I’m still carrying, motherfucker. I’m smart enough to doctor security footage of me ever being here. I will dispose of your body in the desert, and your mother will never know where you went.”
Scoffing, he settles back into the couch with a satisfied grunt.
“I’m playing nice, cowboy. But I’m the law, you best remember that.
Don’t threaten me, and don’t do anything to hurt her.
She might not be my girl, but I own a part of her.
It’s a small part, but it’ll forever be mine.
” He settles his hands on his toned stomach and lets his lips curl into a nostalgic grin. “You love her?”
His question shocks me. Like I’ve stuck my fingers in a power socket, his question jolts and stings beneath my skin. “Um…”
“Either you know, or you don’t. There’s no um around here.”
“She’s my family. It’s not the type of love like in the movies, but the type where my heart has beat for her for decades. She saved me and has no clue.”
He nods thoughtfully. He’s fully present in our conversation, but his eyes remain on the television. “You say decades. She says days. I see how your book is laid out; she’s got some catching up to do.”
“Are you in love with her?”
He chuckles. “Yup. She saved me too, and she has no clue.”
“Are we going to have a problem?” I step forward and sit on the coffee table. “This isn’t a competition where you get to step to the starting blocks. I will remove you long before she ever entertains the idea of returning your feelings.”
“No. I don’t do the kind of love where I’d want to shackle her down.
I love her like she’s my family too. I love her where I’d take a man out if he hurt her.
But…” he lets the word roll between us. “Loving her means I can see who else loves her. It means I don’t arrest you and send you away for a long time, but instead, I sit in my living room with the man who just cock-blocked me in the most brutal way, and I chat with him.
I ask his intentions and determine with my finely-honed detective skills if he’s telling the truth. ”
Finally, his eyes meet mine. “You’re not lying about your feelings, I see that, but I also see she has no damn clue.
She sees some dude stepping up, and Lib has never stepped down from what she perceives as a threat.
You need to change your approach and come in a different way, or you risk a bigger explosion next time.
She escalates; she’s a bomb, and she’ll blow if you keep going the way you are.
Show her your book, man. Show her the last page, and stop with the blindfolds. ”
I can’t. I won’t. I refuse to show her the real me.