9. Ian
9
IAN
“Who wants another shot?” Emma holds up the world’s smallest bottle of tequila in one hand and a saltshaker in the other.
“She’s drunk.” Dom burps loudly before going back to his beer as we sit around the fire. “But damn, if she isn’t the hottest woman I’ve ever met in my entire life.”
“That’s what you get for daring her to take three shots in a row,” I point out logically. “Now how’s she supposed to help us get the mattress out?”
“Like that.” Dom points his beer bottle subtly in Emma’s direction, where she is handing the bottle to Ben with a grin. “Girl knows exactly what she’s doing. You think three shots’ll take her under the table? That girl can kick half the department’s ass in real life. And she can drink the other half under the table. I don’t know what her and Mama have gotten into at home, but she’s a train. I don’t even mess with her when she’s on a roll.”
“You sound proud of her.”
“I am.” Dom leaves it at that. I don’t expect him to say much more, though, because he’s never been much of a talker.
“Just like you when you talk about Chloe,” Linc points out as he takes the seat on the other side of me. “Remy’s taking Parker to bed before she turns into a pumpkin and decides to fall asleep.” He eyes me speculatively. “Have you talked to her about any of it? Have you even gotten a chance to yet?”
I look over to where Kennedy and Chloe are currently chugging Bud Light like it’s going out of style, or like we’re about to run out, and I shake my head. “She’s tried to say something a few times, and honestly, I’m afraid for what’s going to come out of her mouth. It can’t be good. Nothing that she has to say to me can be good at this point. I just… I need to hold on to the idea that we might end up together. At least until we get through this week. Then I’ll give her up if that’s what she wants.” My words die on my lips as the woman we are talking about looks up from her drink with a smile and flushed cheeks.
With that smile, I know I’m lying to my friends and myself. There’ll be no chance I’ll ever give her up. She’s the love of my… well, my everything. I can’t walk away until I’m dead in the ground.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see her smile again.” Logan appears out of the darkness behind us. If I were a lesser man, I’d be a little bitch and scream. But I’m not, so I take another sip of my beer and laugh internally as the others flinch at his arrival like a ghost. “When I dropped off Kevin’s uniform and the stuff she needed after the funeral, she looked dead inside. Like nothing would ever make anything better.” His voice drops an octave. “If you and Chloe can’t make it, Ian, there’s no hope for the rest of us.”
My heart lurches at his words.
“Speak for yourself.” Linc takes a long pull off his beer. “But he’s right, too. I shoved Kennedy away for years after Danny died, and if I could take it back, I would.”
“I didn’t do that stupid shit,” Dom snickers. “But I did keep a secret from Emma. One that almost ruined our life together.”
“Yeah, dumbass.” Linc slaps the other man upside his head. “You think she wouldn’t have a complex when her brother died overseas? Huh? That would be like Ian getting shipped over there again. After everything Chloe’s lost… it would destroy her.”
My throat convulses at his words. “I thought about re-enlisting.” The admission hits deep. “After Kevin died, she gave me the ring. I thought about leaving, going back over as a private contractor.”
“What?”
“Why?”
“Dumbass.” That one comes from Logan.
“Because my life doesn’t mean anything without her. And the only thing I’ve ever been good at is helping other people. I could go overseas and do that.”
“Bullshit.”
Those words surprise me because I expect Emma to be drinking with Ben still. Instead, she’s behind us, and I turn to see her standing there with her hands on her hips and fire in her eyes. Here we all thought Logan was the scary and creepy one, but she’s scarier than all of us put together. Even if she is half our size and a foot or more shorter.
“You’re an idiot,” she hisses with her voice lowered, “if you think you’re not helping people here. I’m not saying that you’re perfect, because even though you’ve got the body of a god, you’re not. I’m saying that you helped all these men, Dom included. Kennedy told me that Linc still sees you, and I know Dom does. I’m assuming that Logan does, ’cause he’s the most fucked-up person I know, and since he joined our department, it seems like he’s getting better. So don’t you ever —” Emma burps loudly. “Oop. Excuse me. Don’t you ever say that you’re not helping anyone here.” She finishes her rant by poking me in the chest.
“I didn’t do it.” Leaning back in my chair so she can’t poke me again, I turn to her husband. “You gonna grab her?”
“Nah.” Dom shakes his head and finishes his beer. “She’s right and she knows it. Besides, have you forgotten that you’ve seen her fight? I wasn’t kidding about her kicking ass. There’s a reason she’s a cop.”
“I didn’t mean that.” But Emma has already rushed to the edge of the deck. “I meant I think she was about to hurl.”
Dom drops his beer when she starts heaving and holds back her hair. “I got you, bonita .”
“Well, they’re done for the night.” Logan steals his seat to get closer to the fire. “I’m sure Dom will be back to help with Operation Parent Trap but not until Emma’s sacked out.”
“Do you think?—”
I can’t even finish my sentence before Ben is knocking on the shingles on the side of the house as he walks by us. “I’m headed to bed. Emma just dared me to finish that bottle, and if I don’t knock out soon, I’m gonna get shit-faced and try to do something extremely stupid. Like swim across the fuckin’ lake in the middle of the night and freeze my dick off.”
“Night.”
“See ya.”
“Don’t pee the bed.”
Ben flips us off and leaves.
Chloe and Kennedy have moved away from the Bud Light and walk down toward the beach with a small wave toward Poppy, who is already relaxing down at the shore with a giant lantern sitting next to her.
Good. It means they’re further away from our conversation, and I’m not in any danger of Chloe overhearing.
“Back to the good stuff.” Linc turns his chair toward me, and Logan pushes his way into the circle too, taking Dom’s abandoned seat.
“You two are worse than girls.” I reach down under my seat for another beer and crack it open. If I have to listen to their bullshit, at least I can have a drink while I do.
“Nah.” Linc waves me off. “We’re not gonna talk about Chloe, even though that’s a treasure trove of information to dive into. What the hell do you think Kevin was up to? Use your shrink brain and tell us. Sending us all up here wasn’t for us. We know how to handle death.”
“He did it for her.” I point my beer at Chloe. “I don’t think he ever told you what happened after their parents died, did he?”
Two heads shake in the negative.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Chloe shut down. Like she did at the funeral. Like she did for weeks after the funeral. She wouldn’t talk. Wouldn’t say a fuckin’ word. Half the time, we had to force her to eat. My mom bribed her to get food into her stomach after her parents died. I’m pretty sure she was over there after Kevin’s funeral too, making sure she didn’t waste away. As it is, you can tell that she’s lost weight she didn’t have to lose. Chloe… doesn’t handle death well. Kevin knew if anything happened to him that it would kill her. Literally kill her. You know that’s how their mom died, right?”
Again, they shake their heads.
“She died of a literal broken heart. A month after their dad. Kevin knew that if something happened to him, Chloe would follow him. That’s why.” I clear my throat. “If I had to guess.”
It’s not like I’ve obsessed over that very question, wondering why Kevin would pull some straight-up sappy bullshit for Chloe. But it is working.
Chloe is more alive than I’ve seen her since we were informed of his death.
Kevin, even in death, knows exactly what to do to help his sister.
And I’m jealous because I didn’t have a clue how to do it myself. He had to fix this mess from beyond the grave.
“You guys gonna go swimming?” Kennedy’s voice echoes against the walls of the house as she calls up to us, and we’re up before she finishes her sentence.
“When’s the last time you got in a lake in the middle of the night?” Logan looks over at me while we walk down onto the beach.
“I dunno, probably high school?” I shrug.
“Same.”
That doesn’t stop him from picking Poppy up and flipping her over his shoulder as he walks right in.
“So help me, Logan, if you don’t put me down, I’m going to put a lobster in your bed tonight.”
“Good luck with that. I don’t even think you can find a lobster in the middle of the night.” He snaps, then he puts her down. Right on her ass in the water. “But you’re fine. I’ll leave you here.”
A shriek fills the air for a millisecond until her head is under water.
“Don’t you dare.” Kennedy points at Linc. “I’m going in, on my own. Not because you decide to pick me up and throw me in.”
Linc grabs her hand and practically drags her into the water.
Ignoring them, I turn my attention to Chloe with a hesitant smile. “Want to swim?”
She winks and runs in with a scream, leaving me there watching as her ass bounces.
Only when she is completely under the water do I march out, hoping the cold will do something about the hard-on I have at seeing her body on display. I didn’t even realize she put on her swimsuit, let alone taken off the dress she must have been wearing as a cover.
We swim. Like kids without a care. Someone finds a beach ball, and at midnight we are splashing and throwing it around like we aren’t adults. Like we’re kids in the middle of summer vacation. Until our skin is pruned and even I am chattering my teeth from the cold, we stay in the water, hesitant to lose the magic we’ve somehow gained in the dark.
“This is what he wanted.” Chloe’s words hit me like a wrecking ball as we dry off on the beach. “He wanted us to laugh, to play, to think of him and smile.”
When I finish wiping the water from my body, I turn to see her wrapped in a towel and smiling up at the stars. Her face shines in the light they offer, and the glow of the moon reflecting off the water makes her even more magical than she already is.
Unable to help myself, I step closer, needing both her warmth and the magic I can practically feel floating off her body. When she doesn’t turn away or tell me to stop, I brush a strand of wet hair out of her face and behind her ear.
“He did.” I laugh. “That asshole had to go and tell all my greatest secrets, too.”
“No, he didn’t.” Chloe closes her eyes and turns her face away from the stars. “I always knew how you felt about me. You told me once, and I didn’t believe you. I think you were probably sixteen and I had just turned fourteen or something like that. You told me?—”
“One day, Chloe Marie, I’m going to marry you. When we’re grown and have the entire world at our feet.” I finish the sentence for her. “You’re gonna be my wife.”
I will never forget that day. And she’s right. It was my sixteenth birthday, and my parents threw a party which they insisted I invite our entire class to.
It was the last time I saw Chloe smile for a long time because her dad died the next day.
Even at fourteen, Chloe owned me. Heart, body, and soul. Hell, she’d owned me for an entire two years before that, and I’m absolutely certain she didn’t know my crush started that early.
“Do you remember why you said it?” She opens her eyes again and the emotion I see there almost knocks me back. “Why you stopped in the middle of your birthday party to single me out like that?”
I nod. “That twatwaffle, Janice Lowry, tried to kiss me in front of everyone, and she almost made you cry because she sucked.” I run a hand down Chloe’s arm, smiling at the way she shivers but still doesn’t pull away. “If Kevin hadn’t threatened to gut me like a fish a little while before that, I would have kissed you too. Right there in front of her to make sure that you knew you were mine.”
Chloe looks at me, her head cocked to the side, and I think this is the moment she’ll say something. Anything. Even if it is just to put me out of my misery. Instead, she blinks, and the moment between us is over.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Ian.” She finally steps away from me. “I meant what I said. About talking when the week is done, okay?”
I stand there, nodding, when all I want to do is rage. I don’t want to lose her, don’t want to spend my life with anyone else.
“Don’t give up on her.” Logan suddenly pops up out of the darkness again, his eyes never leaving the women as Poppy runs to catch up with Chloe on her way up the shore and onto the deck. “She might be damaged, but she’s not broken. Not like I broke Poppy, at least.”
I can’t answer him. Can’t bring myself to say the words.
Not until I see her face turned up against the light of the house, while she is looking for something in the stars.
I’m not sure if my words are for anyone else or if they’re just for me. “I never wanted her perfect, you know. I just want her.”