36. Troy
August, Present Day
Maple Ridge
I parkmy truck in the visitor’s stall for Zara’s apartment building. It’s Friday night. Game Night.
I turn off the engine. Jess makes a move to open her door.
“Not yet.” I reach behind my seat and pull out the sealed medium-sized shipping box. Hopefully the contents will cheer her up. She seems sad, which is hardly surprising with everything going on, especially after protesters showed up at the library on Tuesday. “This is for you.” I hand it to her.
She takes it and stares at the brown box with my name and address on it, confusion wrinkling her forehead. “What is it?”
The beginnings of a smile twitch on my mouth. “If you open it, you’ll find out.”
She slowly opens the shipping box as if savoring the moment. As if getting a present is a foreign concept. It well may be, given how long it’s probably been since she last had a Christmas or birthday gift. Who knows if her late husband gave her anything when they were married—or if the gifts fell far and few between?
Jess removes the box containing the headphones I ordered the other day.
“You wanted a magical dome over your garden so you can work outside and not hear the protesters,” I explain. “I don’t know anything about getting one of those, but these noise-canceling headphones should do the trick too.”
Jess doesn’t look at me. She just stares at the box in her hand. “You…you didn’t have to do that.” Her whispered voice comes out rough and small, as if trying to disappear on itself.
I study her beautiful face, attempting to see past the gentle curve of her lips that turns down instead of up. Attempting to understand what the problem is. It hurts seeing her this way. All I wanted was to make her smile and to make things easier for her.
Her eyes squeeze shut, and her breath quickens. Like she’s having a panic attack.
I cover her hand with mine. Her hand jerks at the touch.
“Jess, what’s wrong?” It’s not as if I’ve given past girlfriends gifts like this one—this expensive—but when I did give them gifts, they didn’t result in panic attacks. My mind scrambles for a way to fix whatever I did wrong.
Her breath comes in faster, her eyes still squeezed shut.
“Jess, you’re hyperventilating. Cup your hands over your mouth and breathe in.” I gentle my voice so not to worsen her panic attack, but I also keep my tone firm in hopes it will get through to her.
She lifts her hands to her mouth and does as I suggest, inhaling and exhaling into her cupped hands until her breathing slows. She lowers her hands to the package on her lap, her gaze unfocused and lost somewhere outside the windshield.
“Any idea why you started hyperventilating?” I ask, needing to understand what just happened. There are times when I feel like I’m not only walking on eggshells with Jess’s past, I’m at risk of stepping on a land mine—and if that should happen, Jess and what we have between us will be the casualties.
Her gaze drops to the headphone box, and she traces over the picture on the front.
“I’m guessing it wasn’t the headphones themselves that caused the panic attack. Am I right? Headphones don’t scare you?”
She slowly nods but still doesn’t look at me. “He used to give me presents. It was part of the cycle.”
He, who? “What cycle?”
“According to Robyn, it’s called trauma bond. During the good times with my husband, he would shower me with gifts and affection. That’s why when he first hit me, I was surprised. He’d never done anything like that before. He’d been a great boyfriend and husband.”
Jess swallows, and her gaze returns to the windshield and whatever she’s staring at. “After he hit me, he apologized, said it had been a bad day at work. He promised it wouldn’t happen again. You know how it goes. He showered me with gifts and affection to make up for it. Things were fine after that…until the abuse cycle started. The hitting, the mean comments that made me feel bad about myself, followed by the period of gifts and intimacy and affection.”
Jess continues looking out the window as she traces over the surface of the headphone box. “Robyn told me the gifts and the periods of affection and intimacy were positive reinforcement.”
“Positive reinforcement for what?”
“The gifts and affection…” Jess turns her face to me. “According to Robyn, they caused my body to release dopamine. That’s like a happy hormone.”
The role of the hormone does sound familiar.
“Dopamine creates feelings of pleasure and can lead to addiction,” Jess explains. “The gifts and physical affection diminished the emotional hurt from the abuse, and that made it harder for me to leave my husband. Everything I did to try to please him was because I was desperate for that dopamine rush. Only I didn’t know it at the time.”
Shit.And here I am giving her noise-canceling headphones. I want to make her life easier, and her asshole of a dead husband has made that impossible. She’s scared of falling into that cycle of abuse again.
And now I have something new to worry about with Jess. It’s not just inadvertently setting off a PTSD trigger I have to worry about. She’s like a delicate flower poking through the pavement. Easily missed and stepped on. Easily damaged or destroyed, even though that’s not what I had intended.
“How about we start over? Those are my headphones”—I point to the box on her lap—“but I’m lending them to you if you want, so you can work on your book outside and not be bothered by the protesters?”
She worries her bottom lip. “That might work.” A small smile breaks through on her face. “It was a sweet gesture, Troy. And if I had been any other woman, you would have gotten a different response.” She leans in and kisses me on the cheek.
I want more than the chaste kiss. I want to pull her onto my lap and kiss her until her breaths come in fast but for a different reason this time. But I’m not sure if Jess also wants that, so I don’t push it.
I just keep reminding myself that Jess is like no other woman in so many ways.
She’s a woman who’s worth taking the time to get to know and fall in love with. A woman who’s still confronting so many challenges because of her past.
A woman who’s dealing with so many losses—some of which she’s unsure if she’ll ever be able to move on from.
* * *
“I’ll be back in a moment.”Jess’s breath brushes my ear. “I just need some air.”
She gets up from Zara’s couch and walks to the balcony door. Bailey goes with her.
I can’t leave tomorrow morning. All week, I’ve been hoping the protesters will be gone before the next Warriors weekend, but it seems they’re committed to the cause. And I won’t be here to protect her.
Jess steps onto the balcony and closes the door behind her.
Zara is in the kitchen. Emily, Kellan, Lucas, and Garrett are sitting on the couch and armchairs discussing…I have no idea what. I haven’t been paying attention.
Simone walks over from the kitchen island with a glass of white wine in her hand and sits next to me. Her gaze goes to Jess. “I’d ask you if she’s okay,” Simone says, her voice low, “but clearly she isn’t.”
“It’s been a rough week for her. And it won’t get any easier if things don’t change with those idiots outside her house.”
“Do they ever go home?”
I nod, the movement robotic. “Fortunately, they’re not nocturnal. She gets a break from them at night, but they’re waiting for her first thing in the morning when I pick her up.”
“Why doesn’t she sleep at your place?”
“She’s worried they’ll follow her there and nothing will change…except the protesters will irritate my neighbors instead of hers.” I watch Jess for a beat looking out at the mountains; then I push to my feet. “I’m gonna check on her.”
I step onto the balcony, but part of me wonders if I’m making a mistake in joining Jess. There are so many things I need to be aware of with her. So many booby traps I need to defuse without accidentally detonating them.
She glances over her shoulder and gives me a smile that makes me wish I didn’t have to leave her tomorrow. The curve of her mouth and her expression are surprisingly blissful, content. I can’t remember the last time she looked that way.
She turns back to the view. The setting sun has turned the mountain face golden, the deep shadows highlighting the rugged terrain. In a few months, those same mountains will be covered in snow.
I slide the balcony door shut behind me. “Okay if I join you?” I never want to take anything for granted with Jess.
“Of course.” The smile in her voice doesn’t completely obliterate the sadness clinging to her.
I pull her to me, my arms securing her to my body. She fits so perfectly, her back against my front. I kiss her cheek, wanting and needing to keep her safe and happy, hating that I’m failing.
“It’s so peaceful,” she whispers.
It’s not really. Noises leak from the various apartments on this side of the five-story building, including Zara’s. Laughter and talking. Cheering for what sounds like a football game the apartment below us is watching.
But compared to the loud chanting from the sidewalk in front of Jess’s house, it is quiet here.
We stay like this for a few minutes, not saying anything. Just enjoying the view.
I kiss the side of her head. “I’m canceling going with the guys tomorrow.”
Jess turns in my arms. “Is your shoulder bothering you?” She tenderly touches the shoulder that’s recovering from the recent injuries, including the dislocation from over two months ago.
“No, it’s fine. I’ve been a good boy, following doctor’s orders, doing PT with Lucas.” I give her a Boy Scout salute. “Promise.”
“So why are you canceling?”
“I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone in that house.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me while you’re away. I won’t even leave the house if that makes you happy.” She mimics my Boy Scout salute. “Promise.”
“It doesn’t make me happy. I hate that they’ve turned your home into another form of prison.” A helluva lot nicer prison than the one she’d spent a good portion of her incarceration in, but a prison no less.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be making the most of the time working on my book. And when you get back, I’ll make the most of the time I’m with you.” She plants a soft kiss on my lips. “I’ll be thinking of you while you’re gone.”
“I’ll be thinking about you too.” I lean closer, my mouth caressing the shell of her ear. “I’ll be thinking of all the dirty things I want to do to you.”
A rough, sexy laugh tumbles from between her parted lips, and her beautiful golden-brown eyes turn dark. “And I’ll be thinking naughty thoughts about you, Mr. Carson. I’ll be thinking of all the naughty things I want to do to you as a way of thanking you for lending me your noise-canceling headphones.”
I groan playfully, my cock getting excited at the possibility. “You make me sound like your dirty boss.”
“Well, you are my boss. And you do have a dirty mind at times.” She leans to the side and looks past me. “Time to go back inside. I think everyone’s ready to start the game.”
Screw that.
All this talk about the naughty things Jess wants to do to me has me in no rush to join our friends. I cover her mouth with mine and kiss her thoroughly, giving her a taste of what I plan to do to her after we leave here. Giving her all of my heart. Trying to erase the sadness she’s wrapped up in.
We’re both panting for air by the time we pull apart.
“Let me know if you change your mind about me going away for the weekend,” I say, my hand still on her neck, my thumb stroking her jaw.
She smiles, her eyes a little unfocused after the kiss, a reaction I’d usually feel smug about, but not this time. “Never. Those veterans need you. I’ll be fine, Troy. I’m a big girl now. And I’ve survived worse than what those protesters can do to me.”
“Doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t have to put up with them. You should never have been forced to survive worse than that.”
“I know. But whoever said life is fair?” She pulls away from me and walks to the balcony door as if she doesn’t have a care in the world.
More than anything, I wish that were true.