CALEB
Derek rubs his jaw and looks off down the street for a second before coming back to me. I stand on the opposite side of my truck bed, leaning on the frame. We've been in his driveway talking for a half hour already and he's just not happy with what I have to say.
"You don't know her like I do. She's smart about this.
She knows how to make everything look fine on the surface, and that's what she's doing with you right now.
She smiles and makes you feel welcome, and meanwhile, my son's in a house with a woman who needs pills to get through the day and more pills to fall asleep at night. "
I hate how he simplifies this. It's like he thinks he's above needing medication.
In my opinion, antidepressants are just antibiotics but for the psyche.
If this man got strep throat, he'd be at his doctor in twenty-four hours asking for a prescription.
Yet he sees his ex-wife's depression as making her entirely unstable.
I haven't even seen the first hint of depression around her except last Sunday when she opened up a little.
"They're prescriptions, Derek. That doesn’t make her unfit."
"Maybe not on its own, but it's a pattern and it's getting worse." He drops his arms and steps back from the truck. "I'm paying you good money to find what's really going on in that house, Caleb. I need you to dig deeper."
No way this man is about to square off with me.
He hasn't seen a day of service time and I doubt he's spent an hour in the gym in years.
I almost roll my eyes at how he postures.
"You're paying me to observe and report, and that's what I'm doing.
If you want someone to fabricate a case against your ex-wife, you hired the wrong guy.
" I almost turn and walk away, but I'm afraid he'd just start shit with me.
So I stand there until he stomps off, walking back toward his house without saying goodnight.
The front door shuts behind him and then his lights flick off, like he's sending a clear message that I'm no longer welcome here.
I'm still paid for the next few weeks to get any more dirt that I can, but I don't see where anything else would pop up. Olivia is a good mom.
I climb in the truck and drive home. The streets are empty at this hour, which makes it peaceful, and I pull into my driveway and cut the engine.
It's past eleven and the rest of the houses on the street are dark, but that warm yellow glow from Olivia's kitchen window spills out across her side yard letting me know she's still awake.
I should go inside and write up my notes and go to bed, but something inside me just can't let this go.
I see clearly what Derek is trying to do, and I feel obligated to stop it.
I sit there staring at her house, stewing.
It's been chewing at my conscience for days now.
I should've seen it immediately the first interaction with her, but I'm always the person who needs all the facts before I act.
It makes me thorough, but sometimes, that's slow.
I want to walk over there and tell her everything—how Derek hired me, that I moved in next door on purpose, that every conversation we've had has been colored by the fact that I'm being paid to watch her. She deserves to know that, and every day I don't tell her makes it worse.
But telling her means losing the job, and losing the job means losing funding for the security firm before it even gets off the ground.
Reilly and the guys are counting on this money to keep things moving until they get out and we can start operating for real.
Besides the fact that if I'm not here, Bennett will just find some other loser to take my place, and who knows if the next guy will do whatever he says and just fabricate a case that would really hurt Olivia?
For some reason, I actually care whether she loses her child.
I have to stay and see this through if for no other reason than to make sure that kid gets to be with his mother.
I get out of the truck and walk to the fence line instead of going inside.
I lean on the new fence and stare out at her backyard.
I can see Ethan's soccer ball in the grass near the patio, and his bike is leaning against the garage wall with the helmet hanging off the handlebars.
It's the yard of a kid who is well taken care of and loved, not one in danger from the woman raising him.
It's just not right that Derek is trying to hurt her just to spite her because the judge gave her custody.
He's so immature, and I'm such a fool for not doing more investigating before I took this job.
It's a learning experience for me, which will make my firm better when it's all said and done, but Olivia's getting raked over the coals in the process.
"Caleb?" Olivia's voice is soft and surprised as she steps off the patio in bare feet and a sweatshirt that hangs past her hips, holding a mug in both hands. "What are you doing out here?" I never heard her walk out the back door, but God, is she beautiful in the moonlight.
"Couldn't sleep." It's not a lie, technically.
She walks across the grass and stops on her side of the fence, close enough that I can see the tired circles under her eyes in the faint light. She looks less put together, less sunny, like the version of herself she doesn't show anyone during the day.
"You shouldn't be out here this late," I tell her. "You should rest. Ethan will be up early for school."
"Well, I sit out here thinking sometimes." Her voice sounds distant, like she's been overthinking and I caught her.
"Still."
She shakes her head and takes a sip from her mug. I can smell the chamomile tea from where I'm standing. Another night that's hard to sleep, probably. "I come out here most nights after Ethan falls asleep. It's the only time the house is quiet and I can actually hear myself think."
"What do you think about?"
She looks at me over the rim of her mug. "You really want to know?"
"I asked, didn't I?" She opened up to me—me, of all people—last week, and I feel bad that my reaction was to get uncomfortable and walk off. She deserved better. I just felt so conflicted with hearing her be so real and knowing the lie I kept from her.
She leans her elbows on the fence and stares out at the dark street for a few seconds.
"I think about how scared I am most of the time.
Not of anything specific, just this constant, low hum of being afraid that I'm not doing enough or being enough for Ethan.
And I think about how lonely it is to be the only adult in a house and have no one to talk to after he goes to bed. "
She sounds so honest and raw. She's not looking for sympathy or performing vulnerability. This is the real her, the one Derek doesn't want me to see.
"You're doing enough," I tell her. Honestly, she's doing more for Ethan than my mom ever did for me.
I'd be proud to call her my mom, or my sister.
Olivia is bright and funny and warm, and she's strong too, pushing through a divorce to be a single mom while still providing a stable environment for her child. That's tough work.
I could reach out and touch her hand if I let myself. And right now, the spark of chemistry between us makes me want to, but I restrain myself. Though my fingers itch to reach up and let her hair out of that messy bun that's so tiny it barely qualifies.
"You don't know that," she says quietly.
"I know what I've seen."
"And what have you seen?"
The truth is right here on the tip of my tongue, ready to expose Derek Bennett for who he is, but I know holding back is better for her. I stay in place, and he doesn’t get a chance to hire a real jerk who could destroy Olivia's life.
"I've seen a woman who holds her shit together and never asks anyone to help her, and she’s damn good at it." The pull is too strong. I feel restless now, like if I don't walk away, we're gonna go down a path that might hurt her worse than just my deceit.
The mug stops halfway to her mouth, and she stares at me with her lips slightly parted.
There's a vulnerability in her eyes that has us staring at each other, oblivious to the world around us.
It's not like I told her how beautiful she is, though she is.
But maybe complimenting her right where her insecurity needs it is more powerful than saying she's pretty.
"That might be the nicest thing anyone's said to me in years," she says, almost whispering.
I force myself to look away so I don't get the urge to kiss her, because God, I want to kiss her.
I want to worship her from head to toe and let her know her true worth.
But she doesn't need a man to devour her sexually in order to show her how valuable she is.
What she needs is a man who can help her see herself the way she truly is, which is strong and capable.
And right now, that's going to make me want things I shouldn’t want.
"You should go inside," I tell her gruffly, though I don’t mean to sound like a jerk. I just have to shut this down or we'll regret it.
She doesn't flinch at the tone. She just smiles at me slowly. Apparently, she's so used to my grumpy ways, she doesn't mind when I grump at her now.
I felt the shift, though—the one where you've crossed a line with someone and you both know it. And for some stupid reason, I want to feel it.
Man, I'm in trouble.