Two
ALISON
I close my eyes and count in my head, completing the square breathing exercise my grief counselor recommends for when I’m feeling particularly panicked and unsettled, but it does nothing to steady my racing heart.
Daniel will be here any minute, and I need to remain strong.
He looked so good yesterday, his sandy-blond hair cut close to his scalp and his tattoos barely visible underneath the sleeve of his shirt.
Seeing him was so painful I had to go straight to my office and lock myself away until I could stop the tears that burned in my eyes.
Breakups are never easy, but this one has been particularly brutal. Maybe because in the year we were together, I never envisioned breaking up with him. But that all changed when Mark died in a fire.
I always knew there was risk in Mark and Danny’s job, but I’d thought PTSD would be a bigger concern.
I’d seen more than one first responder struggle with the trauma they see on a daily basis—one even succumbed to their PTSD, leaving behind a wife and two teenaged children.
It was a devastating blow for their department, and was the last casualty they had before Mark.
I remember being out with Danny when I got the call from Pop, and the way he struggled to get the words out over his broken voice.
I’ve never felt such terror and utter devastation as I did in that moment.
That is, until I looked at the man standing next to me.
The man who, without hesitation, pulled me into his arms, hugging me tight as sobs racked my body.
The man who held my hand through the worst week of my life and helped organize everything for Mark’s funeral.
The man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with, until my nightmares about Mark’s death morphed into Danny’s face and his mangled and burned body instead of my brother’s.
I was barely getting through the loss of my brother; I knew I’d never survive losing Daniel.
Which probably makes it all the more ironic that I pushed him away. A week after Mark’s death, I broke up with Daniel in the hopes that ending things would mean I’d never have to feel such heartbreaking, soul-crushing pain again.
But being apart from him hurts in a different way.
And as hard as I’m trying to stay strong and keep my resolve that we’re better off apart, each time I see him, my resolve grows a little weaker.
He’s too handsome for his own good, and it certainly doesn’t help that he continues to look at me with such love and devotion in his eyes, even after I broke his heart.
I pace my living room, continuing my square breathing even though it’s not doing a damn thing to calm me down.
I need tonight to be our last interaction.
It’s too hard to see him all the time and still be tied to him.
We need a clean break so I can finally let him go and move on.
Then maybe it won’t hurt to breathe, and I won’t miss him quite so fiercely.
Maybe.
I hope so.
The doorbell rings, and I force myself to stay put for one…
two…three seconds before I take one step at a time in some weird, twisted version of a bridal march, extending the time it takes me to reach the door as long as I can.
If I open it too quickly, he’ll think I’m excited to see him, and I can’t give him false hope.
I take one more last breath—wishing it would actually give me strength—then steel my spine, lift my chin, compose my face, and open the door.
Goddamn him for always looking so good.
Whatever breath I had in my body is stolen as my gaze scans him from head to toe, admiring his fitted navy T-shirt that’s tight around his thick biceps and chest, but hangs looser down his abs.
He’s wearing a well-worn pair of jeans with frayed ends over his brown steel-toe boots.
When my gaze makes its way back to his face, his blue eyes are filled with longing and heat.
The same determination I saw on the field is present now, and I cross my arms in a pathetic attempt to create some kind of barrier between us.
When it doesn’t ease my quivering insides, I nibble on the inside of my lip until I taste the coppery flavor of my blood.
But even that small bite of pain can’t compete with Daniel and the way he always sucks me into his orbit.
I used to love that look in his eyes. It made me feel like I was the only woman in the world and no one would ever be able to tempt him away from me.
And having worked in an industry with a lot of men who aren’t always faithful to their women, I knew how special and significant that look was.
Now, it’s a reminder of what I can’t have—or what I refuse to allow myself to have, as my grief counselor has so kindly pointed out.
“Hey,” he says, his deep voice washing over me and sending sweet tingles down my spine and filling me with warmth.
“Hey,” I say back, proud of myself for not sounding at all fazed. “Come on in.”
I move aside and give him plenty of room to walk past me without touching, but of course he still manages to graze my arm.
In his hands is a big cardboard box, and I’m filled with a confusing mix of surprise and disappointment.
I don’t know why I thought he’d find a way to drag this out.
It’s been months. He’s obviously given up.
Which is good.
That’s what I want.
So why is that thought so depressing?
He moves past me and sets the box on my coffee table before standing up and looking around the room. I close the door and make my way over to him, trying not to fidget.
“Thanks for bringing this over.”
“Hmm,” he murmurs as he moves to the mantel over my small decorative fireplace.
His eyes linger on the picture of him, Mark, and me when we ran the Los Angeles Half Marathon last year.
I swallow the lump building in my throat and turn my attention to the box in front of me.
I peel away the top flaps and look inside.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask, my accusing gaze darting up to glare at him.
He glances over like he hasn’t a care in the world and raises his eyebrows in faux surprise. “Oh, that’s your favorite sweatshirt.”
I hold up the offending article of clothing. “It’s your sweatshirt.”
He smirks, and damn him if it doesn’t set my panties on fire to see that confident look on his face. “Okay, so it’s my favorite sweatshirt that you always love to wear. I figured you were probably missing it.”
My glare deepens, and then I let out an exasperated huff and look down at the other items in the box.
Un-fucking-believable.
“Are you serious right now?”
He leans back against the wall—casual and cool like this is all some kind of joke—and I swear to God I’m about to have smoke billowing out of my ears.
“Danny!”
“What?”
“This box is filled with your stuff, not mine.”
He sticks his neck out and glances into the box with a confused little furrow on his brow that is all for show. “Is it? I could’ve sworn that was all your stuff.” He looks up at me with an aw-shucks grin and has the audacity to say, “Oops. My bad.”
That’s it.
Months of pent-up emotions explode in a stunning display as I mash his sweatshirt into a ball and chuck it at him.
“You.”
Then an old band T-shirt that I used to sleep in.
“Infuriating.”
Then the CD he bought when we went to Hawaii that I loved listening to while I took a bubble bath in his claw-foot tub.
“Stubborn.”
Then the earmuffs I stole skiing at Big Bear.
“Man!”
Each item he catches casually with a shocked, yet giddy face. “You call me stubborn? I’m not the one who’s been pushing everyone away for the last five months.”
“Everyone? Everyone? Try just one person. You!”
His eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “Do you actually believe that lie? What about Mark’s girlfriend, Grace?
Or my sister, Sadie? Huh? What about when Ronan kept reaching out to you.
You know he was close to Mark and how much he looked up to him.
Mark’s the reason he became an EMT and has been studying to become a firefighter himself.
Don’t you dare lie to my face and say you only cut me out when you cut anyone with any connection to Mark.
Grace was devastated when he died. And my sister loved you like you were already family.
Does Sadie deserve your silent treatment? ”
He steps forward, and I step back to keep a distance between us, but that only works until he corners me.
He’s only a breath away from me when he leans down until our lips are almost touching, and my heart is pounding so hard I’m convinced he must hear it.
His voice is deep and low when he speaks, and I can’t help the goose bumps that prickle along my skin. “You’re not the only one hurting, Ali. We all miss him. Why won’t you let us all grieve together? Why won’t you let me be there for you when you need me most?”
“I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone,” I choke out, my voice a hoarse and unsteady whisper, and I regret the words immediately because they aren’t true. Not even a little bit.
But I regret them even more when I see how the blow lands on Danny’s shoulders.
They sag heavily as his eyes turn down, and he stares at me with all the heartbreak I see reflected in the mirror every morning when I wake up.
This look is different from the look he gave me when I broke up with him, or even the look on his face when we found out about Mark.
I can’t take it. I can’t stand watching his pain and knowing I put it there.
I wrap my hand around his neck and pull him into a fierce kiss.
He’s stiff for only a second before he wraps his hands around my waist and hauls me against his body, holding me firmly against him while my legs automatically wrap around his hips.
We kiss with such desperation it’s like it’ll be the last kiss of our lives.
For the first time in five months, I let go.
I let go of the heartbreak, the pain, the fear.
I let go and breathe him in. My lungs feel like they’re taking their first full breath in months, and it feels so good to be in his arms that I let my body do whatever it wants.
I don’t want to think, I just want to feel.
Feel him.
Feel this.
Feel us.
God, I’ve missed us. I’ve missed the way we fit together like two perfect puzzle pieces. The way our mouths mold together and our tongues swirl around each other in a dance they’ve perfected over months of make-out sessions. The way his big, strong hands carry me as if I weigh nothing.
The way he loves me with every ounce of himself.
He carries me through my house and straight to the bedroom where he lays me down and kisses my neck in the one spot that always made me weak in the knees for him. We don’t speak—I don’t know that I could find the right words anyway—and for once we let our bodies do the talking.
He kisses his way down my throat and chest before he sits up and pulls my shirt over my head, unhooking my bra and pulling it off before pushing me back against my soft comforter.
His hands are a tender caress against my heated skin.
Our eyes connect, an intensity shining in his that makes me wish I could allow myself to have him like this always.
I could, if only I could keep the fear away long enough.
He must see what he’s looking for—permission most likely, because even though he knows me better than I know myself, he would never force me to do something I didn’t want to do—and then he removes my shoes, socks, pants, and underwear like he’s unwrapping a long-awaited Christmas present.
He takes his time kissing every inch of my body from my toes, up my toned legs, bypassing that spot between my thighs that’s absolutely desperate for him, and then up my stomach until he reaches my breasts.
I’ve always had sensitive breasts, but no man had ever taken the time to find exactly what kind of breast play got me off.
Daniel did, and it quickly became his favorite way to give me my first orgasm. Tonight is clearly no different from all those other times. He laves my right nipple while tugging on my left, then switching sides and repeating his actions until stars explode behind my eyes.
My fingers claw at his shirt, anxious to get him as naked as I am. I need to feel him.
I need him. Period.
He stands up and rips his shirt over his head before his lips come back to mine, our tongues tangling as he kisses me with all the passion he possesses until we’re both panting.
He pulls away only long enough to strip out of the remainder of his clothes and grab a condom from where I’ve always kept them in the nightstand—even if I haven’t used them since the last time we were together—before he’s back on top of me and my legs are locked around his waist, my ankles crossed and pushing on his ass in a desperate attempt to get him inside me.
He slides home, and I suck in a sharp breath, relishing the stretch of him inside me after so many months of feeling achingly empty.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you so much. I love you, Ali. I fucking love you, and this is killing me. Please don’t push me away anymore.”
His thrusts are slow but steady, like he’s soaking in every slide inside while I fight back tears from his words. I want to give him what he wants, but I’m so fucking scared.
And fear is a powerful demon to overcome.
But right here, right now, wrapped in his arms as we find pleasure with our bodies, I can almost pretend I’m strong enough to overcome it.