Chapter Fifteen
Left… left… left, right, left.
Liam didn’t know why his old drill instructor’s monotone bark came back to mind as thunder rumbled in the distance.
Maybe because he’d teased Chelsea earlier while they walked down the same path.
Or maybe he needed a simple way to keep his head clear.
The night was over, and despite a few moments of unsettling clarity, it had been a good time, exactly what he needed to blow off tension.
With the marching words playing in his head, he put one foot in front of the other on the worn path as they returned to Julia’s—or rather, Chelsea’s—condominium complex.
He swallowed hard, uneasy about the raw past and the new interest that had caught him unaware. What was going on?
Hell if he knew. But those few seconds he’d had Chelsea wrapped in his arm were the only sane ones he could remember recently.
His eyes drifted down Chelsea’s back as they marched along the path. Her butt swayed, not as if she were swaggering or shaking it, but just the hypnotic cadence of her hips and the enticing curve of her ass.
His mind flashed, and he wondered what was under her pants. He pictured dark lace underwear that stretched across a backside he could hold onto. A hot sweat broke out on his chest despite the cool, windy night that promised storms later that night.
Liam tried to ignore thoughts about Chelsea’s ass. He didn’t need to picture her—not naked, not clothed, and not in lacy undergarments that gave a tease about what was beneath.
“Shit,” he muttered and focused on the comfort of boot-camp ditties.
Don’t stop. Don’t ask. Don’t think. He would keep moving no matter the questions or discomfort. If he could do that in boot camp, he could do that walking across a damn path.
Her dark hair hung below her shoulders. It swayed in the same rhythm as her ass, and he pinched his eyes shut. It wasn’t as if she were wearing anything new or different. Any time he’d seen her after work, she wore the exact same thing, a dark jacket over a blouse and pants, almost like a uniform.
“Why do you wear the same clothes every day?” he asked, wanting to focus on anything but how everything on her swayed.
She turned abruptly, and he bumped into her.
“Shit, sorry,” he said.
Chelsea balanced, bracing on his forearm, then jumped back as if she’d touched fire. “I don’t.”
He eyed her clothes, unable to see detail in the dark but recalled every time he could. “It looks the same.”
She shifted uncomfortably and shrugged. “You’re now a fashionista to boot?”
His eyebrows pinched. “To boot, what?”
“Military something or another.” She ticked off a finger. “Dart master and, now, fashionista.”
He chuckled. “Fair enough. And I’m a contractor.”
“Whatever that means.”
Chelsea turned back to the path, and he fell into stride next to her. She had a point. His job was hard to define. He was more like a military freelancer for special teams, and he liked it that way.
“Is your Glock part of your uniform?” he asked.
She glanced at him and shook her head. “Not necessarily.”
“You didn’t change before you went out tonight, but no gun?”
“How would you know?”
“Because I’m a military something or another.”
Chelsea chuckled. “Interesting job talent.”
“I’m known for a variety of skills.”
“How do you know my gun is not safely tucked somewhere within reach?”
“Because…”
He stopped, and she did too. His gaze swept from neck to ankles, inspecting what he already knew.
Not once, not twice, not any specific number of times that he could recall, Liam had watched how she moved, the way her pants fit over her thighs, and how they tapered down her leg.
He’d studied her shoulders, her posture, her chest. Even if he hadn’t realized what he’d done, Liam knew that he could recall a three-hundred-sixty-degree memory of how she looked.
But on top of that, he’d been close enough to smell the lemon in her shampoo and had touched her, learning that she had power under her layered uniform.
“I would’ve felt it.”
Chelsea’s lips parted.
Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Appropriate conversation had never been his strong point, and when bourbon and beer were thrown in, sometimes the truth came out.
And maybe he also shouldn’t have thought about her body, but he had, to the point of distraction, and he didn’t know why he’d never noticed a hundred things about her that he’d noticed that night.
The recall of their every connection filtered through his thoughts with such intensity that it made him crave their closeness again. Instead, he stepped back.
“My service weapon is locked in a small gun safe in my condo.” Her eyes darted around and finally landed on his shoulder, settling for a moment before she turned, walking again.
They stepped onto the sidewalk and wound through the complex. Thunder rumbled again, and he noted that the weather report had been wrong by about half a day. Friday’s thunderstorms had arrived early.
Lightning cracked far off in the sky, and the amber light of the neighborhood lampposts illuminated their familiar walk.
The sidewalk came to a T intersection, and Liam turned right—alone.
Momentarily confused, he pivoted. “Hey—”
Chelsea faced him on the opposite side, each a step away from where the sidewalk split. Julia’s condo had been to the right, and Chelsea’s was to the left. Turning had been a habit, even if it had been a while since he made the journey.
“Shit.” Memories splintered him from the inside out.
“Are you okay?” Chelsea asked with genuine concern.
His throat ached, and he inhaled and rubbed his hands into his hair. What am I supposed to say? A year had gone by, and he still hadn’t learned the words that could explain the void.
Chelsea waited, and he shrugged. Neither moved, as though there were an invisible line between them.
Finally, she said, “Call your Lyft from here. I’ll wait with you.”
He stepped to her side of the T, and they walked toward her parking lot, where their night had started. She angled them toward a bench.
“I’m going to sit out here for a bit,” he offered. “Until I’m okay to drive.”
Thunder cracked, as if God were laughing at him.
Tipping her chin up, she said, “That’s not going to happen.”
His forehead pinched. “I want to go home.”
“Want to or need to?”
“What I don’t want to do is split hairs.”
“Fine.” She crossed her arms. “Lyft. Uber. Whatever else is out there. A taxi. I don’t care. But you’re not driving.”
He bristled, knowing he was wrong and stubborn but that his mind wouldn’t change. “I’ll sleep in my vehicle.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I believe that.”
Liam scowled, swaying at the most inconvenient moment. Shit.
Chelsea raised an eyebrow. “I’m not in the mood to bury two of my friends.”
Friends stuck out to him. They weren’t friends before, but maybe they were now, because of tonight. He liked that, in a possessive way, he could lump himself into her tightly guarded group of friends.
“So,” Chelsea continued, “be stubborn all you want, but I’m not going to let you drive drunk.”
His jaw set, and he wanted to explain he wasn’t drunk but didn’t want to lie.
Fat rain drops splatted, and she turned her face toward the sky. “As if I didn’t need another reason to let you drive.”
He silently lamented and pulled out his phone. The heavy plip plop of raindrops was few and far between, almost as if the storm were spitting at them. But begrudgingly, he cued up a ride-sharing app.
The first one reported that the closest ride was forty-three minutes away. The second nearly doubled that—definitely a con of living far out in suburbia on a work night. He sighed, scrolling for another option, then admitted, “I’m not keen on public transportation.”
Why was it so hard to admit that? He had never taken an Uber or Lyft and only had them on his phone to help a friend out.
It wasn’t that he had a fear of an unknown driver—more as if he’d seen too much random tragedy and couldn’t get comfortable with the idea of another person having that much control.
She stared as if he needed to explain, but he shut down. His lips flattened, and he crossed his arms. “Don’t worry about it. Never mind.”
He didn’t want to explain that, logically, he knew ride sharing was much safer than driving himself home. But he hated the lack of control the night Julia died on the Metro, when he couldn’t control who was around and where they went.
“Order your ride, and I’ll tell you something to take your mind off it,” she offered.
He wanted to protest again and explain there was nothing to ignore, but instead, curiosity got the best of him, and he wanted to hear her talk. Liam glanced at his options, choosing the one that let him have more time to listen to Chelsea. “Done.”
She stared at the low clouds. “My mother didn’t want me to work with the feds.”
That wasn’t what he’d expected her to say.
Liam watched her knot her fingers and study them with vexatious intensity. “I was supposed to be a lawyer.”
He grinned and could see her as a balls-busting attorney. “You’re tough and good at getting your way. A lawyer would be a good fit.”
Her self-deprecating laughter was almost inaudible. “Being a lawyer sounded awful after years of dreaming about a job I couldn’t have.”
“What was that?”
“Law enforcement.”
He lifted an eyebrow but kept his bevy of questions to himself.
“It wasn’t what my mom thought of as picture perfect, and after a lifetime under her regime, I broke free.” She snorted. “I’m so wild, huh? Rebelling against my mother, I jumped head first into law enforcement.”
“Admirable, if you ask me.”
Chelsea lifted a shoulder. “When the strongest force in your life tells you one thing—be a lawyer and you will matter—and then you don’t? It’s terrifying not to matter.”
“Of course you matter.”
She hesitated. “Not to her. Not as much as I could have.”
He didn’t know what to say, other than knowing how Chelsea followed her heart through that tough of a barrier elevated her even higher in his opinion.
Liam checked the app. Thirty-nine minutes to go. As the heavy raindrops picked up speed, he leaned back. “Why did you share that?”
Chewing the inside of her cheek, she shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never told anyone that before.”
He mulled that over. “Why me?”
Chelsea gave a sweet but uncomfortable grin. “Because I think you told me something tonight that made you feel vulnerable.”
His eyes shot to her as he wondered how in the hell she’d pulled out the truth from his passing remarks.
“I just thought it’d be easier if you weren’t the only one on this bench who felt exposed.”
She’d done him a solid, and it had worked. “Do you like your job?”
“Mostly. The paperwork and transport is boring but important. But I love when I’m able to focus on Zee Zee Mars. Though my boss and partner wish I’d let the FBI handle it.”
He shifted. “You know what?”
“Hm?”
“I say let it go. If you’re happy, then the naysayers can go screw off.”
“Hear! Hear!” Chelsea raised an imaginary glass as the rain began to fall hard enough to be annoying.
He checked the app—and shit—now the time showed an additional fifteen minutes.
She glanced at his phone. “We’ll drown by then.”
“You should go upstairs.” Why did I let her sit here in the rain, anyway? His mind wasn’t clear. “I promise I’ll wait for my ride.”
She wiped rain off her forehead and stood. “Come on. Crash on the couch.”
His heartbeat escalated, and the desire to stay closer to her far surpassed the benefit of not taking a ride with a stranger. He didn’t know what to do with that and couldn’t answer.
“Liam.” She touched his wrist. “Come on. The couch is calling for you.”
Chelsea left him, as if the only answer were to agree with her.
She didn’t look back when she reached the stairs.
Liam caught up. A minute later, they were inside her condo, and he’d been ordered to sit in a dining room chair as she turned the couch into a guest bed, piling blankets and pillows onto it.
He watched her re-fluff a pillow. “You know I’ve slept on a cement plat in a war-torn country before?”
“Oooh.” She feigned amazement. “You are such a tough cookie.”
He laughed. “I’m just saying…”
“You’ve also slept in a bed,” she said matter-of-factly. “If I can make the couch comfortable, I’m going to make it comfortable.”
When she was done, Chelsea stepped away from the couch, and he stayed in his chair. They exchanged looks of gratitude for the night out—and awkwardly ignored what had happened between them.
After too long of a silence, she offered, “Good night, Liam,” and disappeared down the hall with a wave.
He stared at the couch-turned-bed and the empty hallway then finally whispered, “Good night, Sunshine.”