Chapter 23 #3
Jamie sets her tea on the table, her eyes turning serious. “Did you tell him?”
“Tell him what?” I play dumb.
I don’t want to get into this again. Track’s little speech was enough for one day, and my body and mind need a break before I have to pick Cole up.
Her hands wrap around her mug. “That guarding pretty football players is only a temporary sentence, and your regular duties involve—”
I’m saved by the bell as the door swings open, and Jamie’s regular lunch crew enters. A band of firefighters stationed across the street files in and takes up residence at their usual table.
She stands, grabbing the empty mugs and plates off the table. She eyes me. “This conversation is only paused.”
She waves to the captain as he takes his seat at a large table across the room.
Jos leans in close, her arms crossing on the table in front of her. “The tall blond asked Jamie out last week.”
I watch his eyes trail Jamie before they meet mine, and I glare.
Bud, his captain, has been coming in for years and has always watched out for her, ensuring his guys are kind and respectful.
“She told him no,” Jos adds as Van and I turn our attention back to her.
I make a mental note to ask her about it. “Good. I don’t like the way he looks at her.”
“I don’t like the way he looks, period,” Van sneers.
Something we agree on.
“All right, I’ve got to pick up The Assignment soon,” I say.
“I’ve gotta run, too.” Van pulls her purse off the chair next to her. “I have a meeting.”
I nod at Jos. “You’re hanging out at The Oasis with TJ while Track and Hope are gone?”
“Yeah. Talk about a sentence. He’s been extra pissy lately.”
Van snorts. “Good luck with that. All he does is groan and grump.”
“What in the hell is your deal with him?” I ask. “Seriously, you guys have been at each other’s throats.”
She digs around in her purse, searching for something. “Nothing. He just doesn’t know how to mind his own damn business.”
Van is guarded and private. She was the last one to join our pack. She doesn’t talk much about her past.
She stands. “Oh, I’ve talked to Lyla a few times. I think she’s good, but I’ll be in New York in two weeks, so I’ll see for myself. All she said was that guy, Cole’s friend, reminded her of someone.”
I frown, knowing bullshit when I hear it, but I keep that to myself.
“I love you guys,” she says, heading for the door.
“Even when we don’t.” Jos and I reply.
Jos balls her napkin and shoots it toward the trash, sinking her shot. “I’m out. I’ve got some work to do at the shop, then Kelsey and I are going to the gym.”
“Good. Might be a good idea to get her to the range, too.” We stand, and I punch her shoulder. “Save some sparring power for me.”
“Bring it on. I’m ready.” She holds up her fists as she walks backward toward the exit. “Tell James I’ll see her later.”
I nod at Bud on my way to the kitchen. Jamie stands at the counter, filling bowls with soup while someone else assembles sandwiches.
I bump her hip with mine. “Hey, what’s this I hear about you being asked out?”
She glances at me and then back at the six paper cartons of soup in front of her. “He’s asked me out three times, but it’s not happening.”
“Good. I don’t like the way he watched you walk back here.”
She shrugs. “He’s nice, but I don’t know. I think he likes himself more than he’s capable of liking anyone else.”
I laugh. “Good eye. I’d agree.”
“Besides, even if I could, I wouldn’t date one of Bud’s guys.” The ache in her tone causes the new one in me to flicker to life.
I don’t know what the hell is happening, but I need it to stop.
I help her place the soup on small metal trays beside the sandwiches. “Anything new with the place upstairs?”
She plates chips and then a pickle. “Someone signed a lease with first and last month’s rent. They couldn’t pass that up, but they said the tenant across the hall got engaged and wants out of her lease. She’s moving out of state and would sublease it to me, so I have to decide quickly.”
“What do you think?”
She side-eyes me. “I’m scared to want it, but. . .” She turns toward me, wiping her hands on the apron tied around her waist. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life afraid. What happened has taken enough. I don’t want it to take my future, too.”
I smile, studying the space that makes Jamie happy. This place gave her hope and a safe place to come to when she needed one.
“Sign that lease.”
She scrunches her nose, a smile pulling at her lips. “Really?”
I nod. “Yeah. Get those puppies you’ve always wanted. You’re right. What happened. . .it won’t take your future. I won’t let it.”
She throws her arms around me. “Will you stay with me sometimes?”
“Just don’t go out with that tool out there.”
She laughs. “Don’t worry. Bud put the kibosh on it and told him not to ask again, or he’d have to find another station.” She squeezes me tight again and then pulls back, her hands remaining on my shoulders. “Tell him.”
I frown. “What?”
“Tell Cole. Let him in. Let him see who you are, Ryder.”
I pull away, my skin prickling in retaliation to the change in focus.
Her blue-gray eyes bore into mine. “Someday, someone is going to be worth the risk. Maybe he is. Maybe not.” She shakes her head. “Just don’t hide in fear. No one deserves that kind of power anymore. It’s time to not give a single fuck what someone might think.”
Jamie’s use of that word catches me off guard, but I know she means it. My body grows uncomfortably warm and sticky.
Her smile is weak. “I know it’s scary, but you. . . You’re still standing here, still fighting, despite having every reason not to be.”
I can’t breathe as a burn scorches the lining of my throat. “I don’t want to give a fuck,” I whisper because it’s all I can do.
She pushes her lips to the side. “Then don’t. Just. . .don’t.”
Her eyes flick between mine for only a moment before she gathers the trays, and I follow her out of the kitchen, unable to hear or say anything more.
I don’t want to be afraid, but this is an assignment, and when it’s over, life goes on.
Cole will keep playing football, and I’ll go back to fighting a world people can’t bear to believe exists.
I climb in my car, heading for the practice facility. Cole asked me what I saw, and I told him. I just didn’t tell him everything.
There’s a point of no return in letting someone see the places I’ve been and the things I've survived. Cole is too good to ever let walk into a world he’ll never walk back out of unchanged and unaffected. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to see it—what it might do to him.
Innocent ignorance can be the most beautiful thing that some never had the chance to experience. How could I steal that from him?
The problem is, something is happening way deep down inside me.
Something new and so, so subtle. It’s quiet, like a whisper, but also painful.
So damn painful. Everything in me wants to pretend it’s not there, tugging and tearing, resurrecting what’s been long dead and gone—rotted through and through.
I don’t want to give a fuck, but for some reason, with Cole, I give a lot of fucks, and I hate it. It has me wanting to believe that if I did tell him, if I did let him see, he’d still be standing there just the same, asking me to dance.