20. Libby #2
He laughs and takes another sip. “I would have married you already if I knew the fire that was inside your heart. I mean, we probably wouldn’t survive it, and lord knows we’d divorce by the seventh year, because no amount of fucking could make it tolerable to have a chick in my apartment around the clock.
But I’d have tried. For you and that rockin’ body, I’d have tried. ”
My heart races with odd nerves. Tiffany comes out of the file room with a meek smile, dashes back to the hall and drops into her squeaky chair, but despite the distraction she provides, my heart still races.
“That might be one of the most romantic things I ever heard. Like, I think once you find your girl with the fire, you might even go longer than seven years.”
His chuckle is so throaty, so warm and cuddly, that I sit back at my chair and snuggle in.
“So, that brings me around to my call.”
I snort. “Of course it does. I thought you were calling for ass?”
“Nah.” He moves around on his end, gets more comfortable, then sits back again. “Tell me, Lizbeth , why your man is on TV right now.”
“What?”
I shoot up from what could have been the perfect posture for napping, toss my phone down and dash around my desk, and without even thinking to use my computer, I race across the office and into the boardroom.
The station’s facilities are nothing like those at Checkmate.
They have expensive, top-of-the-line technology – ironically, all Griffin – whereas we often settle for five-year-old throwbacks from bigger stations.
It’s still Griffin technology, but it’s old, and when those other, bigger stations get upgrades, we get their hand-me-downs and a morale boost, since five-year-old devices are still better than the ten-year-old stuff we would otherwise be using.
I scramble along the boardroom table and snatch up the remote for the TV mounted to the wall, and flicking it on, I channel surf at lightning speed – click, click, click, click – until the logo makes my heart stop and I drop my hands.
The phone on my desk hangs from the cord, but Drake wouldn’t be Drake without making a second call and having it transferred to the new line.
The trilling sound coming from the phone on the boardroom table hurts my brain as I watch Gunner work to avoid the cameras parked outside Griffin Plaza.
He walks with another man – young, perhaps Tiffany’s age, icy blond hair, dark blue eyes, and a body hidden under a suit that I know for sure sees the inside of a gym.
He’s not large, but he definitely has a regular membership to a gym somewhere, and when he stands beside Gunner, or more accurately, in front of Gunner, the two men have similar shapes.
Similar height. Similar widths. The other guy is smaller than Gunner, but not by a lot.
The phone continues to ring, buzzing inside my brain and insisting on attention, so while staring at the screen and refusing to look away, I blindly grope, swearing when I knock it over and it crashes to the table.
I snatch it up in a hurry, and slam it to my ear without peeling my eyes away from the TV for a single second. “Yeah.”
“Hi, Tate. I have an Officer Banks on line two for you.”
“Yeah. I got it, thanks.” I hang up and grieve the second it takes to look away from Gunner’s handsome form, then to locate the flashing number two and hit it. “Yeah.”
“You threw me!”
“Hush, stop whining.” I can’t not take notice of the sneaky tattoos that creep along Gunner’s neck and peek out from the top of his collared shirt.
I can’t ignore his strong jaw, the way it ticks with anger, or his watchful eyes scanning the crowd as the blond friend tries to help him shuffle through the horde of people.
Never has Gunner accidentally been caught by the media outside his building. Not once in all the years since Griffin became an industry leader, so why now? Why today?
“What’s going on, darlin’?”
“I don’t know.” I walk to the end of the table so I’m closer to the TV, and stretch the phone cord as far as it’ll go so I can sit. “It’s strange, isn’t it?”
“Sure is. In all these years, he’s never been on TV.” And that’s why he’s a good cop. He thinks the way I think, he acts the way I act. “I feel a little starstruck. That dude was in my living room only a week ago.”
“Shut the hell up.” I pull the end chair out from the table and rest my feet on it so they don’t dangle. “You’re not starstruck. He’s not a celebrity. He’s just…”
“Theo Griffin…?” I hear the smile in his voice. “Who’s the blond?”
I shrug. “I think it might be his driver. Olly someone. G–Uh…” I pause and silently chastise myself for slipping.
“Theo mentioned him a few times. Best friends, family, all that sort of stuff. Dude looks like he works out, so I’m thinking maybe his job title is driver, but the details skew more toward security. ”
“Two in one,” Drake chuckles. “Saves on the expenses.”
I doubt Gunner needs to save his pennies. I suspect it’s more like the turkey meat thing; he’s cheap because he can be, not because he must be. Or maybe in his mind, he still thinks he must be. The hungry boy from so long ago can’t bear to waste.
“What does that mean?” I read the moving headlines. “ Zhang and associates indicted on federal charges. Statements to follow ?”
“Zhang’s a military supplier, no? Those are the shares Griffin dumped?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure. I’m a cop, not a business mogul.”
“Griffin ain’t in trouble,” Drake murmurs. “They want him to make a statement, but nowhere does it say he’s in trouble.”
“He won’t make the statement,” I whisper mostly to myself. “He doesn’t like to speak.” Except to me , my brain throws in my face. He doesn’t like to speak… except to me . “He won’t do it.”
“Hey, Tate? Can I ask you somethin’?”
“Sure.”
I rest my elbows on my knees and nibble on my thumbnail while Gunner’s eyes come to the camera. For the first time since I switched the TV on, he stares right into a camera rather than avoid it. He stares right into my eyes with such intensity that my breath stops.
“Lizbeth, you there?”
“Yeah, I already said yeah. What’s your question?”
“Why does he look at you the way he does? Why does he follow you to a cop’s house, refuse to pull a piece even after you do, and then stick around the cop’s house even after you leave, to politely discuss how we would share you in the future–”
“He… what? Share me?”
“Yeah.” He clears his throat and gives the impression that he’s smiling. “Yeah, it was something like, you’re his now, you always were his, you always will be his, and should I want to survive until my next birthday, I’m to never show you my dick again.”
“He said that?”
He chuckles. “I’m paraphrasing, but you get the gist. So tell me, Lizbeth.
Why the fire? Why the intensity? Only for you to be sitting all alone in a boardroom right now, talking to your ex fun-time, and he’s all the way over there, standing in the street with a dude and a bad attitude?
Why didn’t you go with him? Did you lovebirds have a fight? ”
“He and I always fight. In fact, I’m not sure we’ve ever been nice to each other.”
“Lizbeth… darling. You’re deflecting.”
“Why should I follow him?” I huff. “I worked hard for my position here. I busted my ass to gain respect and the cop family I have now. Why is it up to me to quit that?”
“Well… I hear you, but on the flip side, you expected him to do the same? Why is it his responsibility to give up everything he worked for?”
“Because he said he loves me! If he loved me, he would sacrifice for me.”
Drake lets out a low whistle. Mocking, and judgmental. “Did you tell him you love him too?”
“Yes.” I clear my throat and close my eyes when Gunner finally releases me from his stare. “Yes I did.”
“But you’re not sacrificing these things for him?
Lizbeth, honey. You’re my favorite chick in the most uncomplicated, zero-commitment kind of way.
But you’re a fucking hypocrite. There are police stations where he lives.
If you look hard enough, you might even find one that is understaffed and underbudgeted. ”
“But–”
“But there are no Griffin Plazas where you live. So really, it’s not the same trade, is it? You can still do your thing there, but he can’t do his thing here.”
“He ran away the first time.” My voice cracks as twenty years of grief sneak back up on me.
Or perhaps it’s not the twenty years at all, but just the past week.
“He ran the first time, Drake. He promised he would come back for me, but he didn’t.
I need him to come to me this time. I need him to choose me. ”
“You’re so fucking stubborn, Tate. Seriously. What the hell is wrong with you? There is a family wedding today, but did you go?”
“No, I had to work.”
“But you could have made it work if you really wanted to go. Your CO had a baby last year; how many times you babysit that snot?”
I scowl. “They’ve never asked. I would… I mean… Maybe I could…” I’ve developed a stutter. “I don’t know how to look after a baby!”
“I’m just saying, your family is your family.
I get that. I love the guys I work with too.
I love them dearly, and would lay my life down for them.
But while you love them, you’re still guarded when around them.
Eleven years in that station, Lib. Have you ever mentioned Theo to them?
It’s clear you didn’t meet two weeks ago, and when I asked, he told me a different story to the one you screamed about while half-naked in my living room. ”
“What did he say?”
“That he’s been in love with you since you were children, and that if I wanted to keep my hands, they were to never touch you again.
So if you’ve been his for decades, why does your squad not know about him?
Why did you volunteer to work today, rather than attend that wedding?
Why did you snuggle into his lap when you were hurt, despite swearing that you didn’t know him?
Why can’t you admit he’s the very spark to your fire, and without him, there are no more flames? ”
“Drake, I–”
“It’s not shameful to admit weakness, Elizabeth. It’s not such a bad thing to have a vulnerability, so long as your weak side is the side he guards. Stop being so fucking stubborn all the damn time. You know that man is waiting for you, and you know he’ll give you anything you want.”
“Drake, I can’t!”
“You say he ran first,” he pushes on, “but maybe he spent all that time waiting for you to find him? He was just a boy, no? Maybe he was waiting for you, and maybe he’s waiting for you now.
You’re the one breaking his heart. I know that if I looked at you the way he does, and you said no purely because of stubbornness and pride, I wouldn’t be able to function.
I’m just saying…” He pauses. “There’s a strong possibility that you’re the villain in this story, babe. ”