CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
“Is there too much sugar in your tea?” Hayden asked as he walked toward me from his car.
I was sitting on my porch, my healing leg itching inside the cast. “My tea has the right amount of sugar, thank you.”
He walked up the stairs, still looking thinner than usual. Behind him, the sun was setting, painting the sky in streaks of orange and red. He leaned down for a kiss, then sat beside me, a folder tucked under his arm. “How’s the leg?”
“It itches, but it doesn’t hurt.” During my stay at the hospital, the tracker had been surgically removed, accompanied by a flood of questions I refused to answer until they finally stopped asking. I’d likely have a limp for the rest of my life, and, as someone had recently told me, my running days were behind me.
“At least it looks nice,” Hayden said.
I glanced down at my cast, covered in cat drawings. “It’s grotesque. How’s Tammy?”
“She’ll be out of the hospital by the end of the week, unless they kick her out sooner. There are only so many times she can get caught smoking in the bathroom.”
I snickered and finished my tea. “Stubbornness runs in your family.”
“True.” He glanced at me. “How are you with the news?”
The news. “I don’t know.”
“You’re allowed to mourn.”
“Am I?” I’d wished him dead for years, and now I couldn’t shake an unwanted sense of loss, which left me frustrated.
Hayden held my hand. “Do you think he did it?”
“Took his own life? Yes, I think so.” I remembered the hollow look in his eyes after his brother’s death. I hated Eliot, but a part of me never stopped loving him, and that part was mourning, remembering the joy he’d brought into my life before taking it all away.
“Did you talk to Nick?” Hayden asked.
“Yes. He’s doing better. His parents are sending him to Italy to rest.”
“Well, that sounds…”
“Rich?”
He nodded. “That’s the word.”
Nick had promised not to tell what had happened to him, and I hoped he’d stay true to his word. The Chief had done his part in pushing back any attempts to investigate what happened.
Hayden cleared his throat. “I resigned today.”
I frowned at him. “What?”
“I’m no longer with the LAPD.”
“Why?”
“Why?” He chuckled without humor. “Joe, come on. I can’t work with the Chief after what happened.”
“What did he say about it?”
“Not much. He hasn’t been able to look me in the eye since I got back, so I’m sure he’s relieved to see me go. It feels like the right time for a fresh start.” He exhaled, and I realized how nervous he was.
I looked down at the folder under his arm. “What’s in there?”
“A fresh start, if you’re willing.” He handed me the folder.
I hesitated before opening the cover because things were finally stable, and wasn’t that enough of a fresh start? With the cover open, I frowned at the stack of photos, flipping through houses, rooms, and backyards.
“What am I looking at?”
He cleared his throat. “Those are houses in Phoenix that we can rent. Not all of them, obviously—one will do. They all have space for your studio.”
My studio. My house. My mountain.
Hayden caught my hesitation, though it felt more like panic.
“We’ll stay here if you don’t want to move,” he said, and I believed that he meant it. “I just thought that after everything that happened, you’d want to leave LA behind.”
It made sense for him to think that. For years, I hadn’t allowed myself to ponder the possibility of leaving, scared of the looming consequences. Even now, with the tracker no longer a part of my body, such thoughts felt dangerous.
And there was another thing standing in my way, floating between us and yet to be discussed. “In Bo’s office, you heard things about me. About what I did.”
“I might have heard a thing or two.”
“I killed a man, Hayden.”
“As did I, more than once.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
He was letting me off the hook too easily, and I didn’t want him to. “You have the right to ask questions.”
“Do I also have the right to trust that you did what you had to do and not let it matter to me?”
“Well, yeah, I suppose you have that right.”
“Okay, then. But I want you to promise that if you ever feel like using a needle, you talk to me first. Let me try to help.”
Feeling transparent under his gaze, I nodded in acceptance. I flipped through the photos again, taking my time as Hayden sat still beside me, radiating tension. My initial panic slowly subsided, and through the cloud of dread, I began to see glimpses of what he was offering—for us to have a life together, unshackled by our past.
Though it would be foolish to think that our past wouldn’t cast a shadow over our lives. Hayden hadn’t returned the same from his time at the estate. A new heaviness hung over him, moments when the light in his eyes would dim, and he’d turn silent and thoughtful.
“We didn’t talk about what happened to you,” I said quietly, feeling hypocritical because I had kept similar information from him for much longer.
“It was hell,” he said flatly. “A nightmare that I need to work through. When I have a bit more distance from what happened, I’ll share more with you. That’s a promise.”
“Okay. I won’t push. But what about your career? Do you think you’ll find work in Phoenix?”
“The force there would love to have me back.”
“It won’t be as exciting as LA.”
“True, which means we’ll need to have more sex.”
“I don’t follow your logic, but I’m sure it makes sense to you.” I held up the photo of a house with a white porch and tall windows. “I like this one.”
“Well, shoot, that’s the most expensive one.”
“I don’t come cheap, mister.” I put the photo down and ran my fingers over it, trying to picture myself living in that house. I couldn’t quite make it work, but I was willing to keep trying. “You’ll need to be with me when I tell Jenny.”
“You play a dirty game, Jonah. Is that a yes, then?”
I watched the setting sun, just as I had done countless times from my fortress of solitude. I was scared of risking what little I had, but I couldn’t think of a risk more worth taking.
“It’s a yes,” I said, and the world fe lt bigger.