Chapter 19 Love Spells #3
"Chief, I didn't know that they would send you. This is just a simple vandalism case," she waved to the living room.
His nod was his answer as his eyes stayed locked on her.
"I mean, we don't...it's not that big of a deal," Tilly stammered. Her earlier rage, frustration, and overwhelm seemed to have dissipated.
He tilted his head as she cleared her throat. Freida watched the exchange with raised eyebrows and her light green sparkly eyeshadow-painted eyes wide.
Tilly turned to Freida with a tight smile. "Freida, why don't you go do inventory for tomorrow?"
"Sure," she replied, flicking her eyes between the two one last time before she moseyed slowly down the hallway and through that swinging door that Tilly watched every second of. When she looked back at the chief he was still staring at her.
"Um, so-"
"You're avoiding me again."
"I'm not," she said with a frown.
"No?"
"No." She crossed her arms and tilted her chin up as they stared off.
"I rescue you-"
"I had that under control," she interrupted.
"Sure. I came along once you had things under control after being kidnapped-"
"It was hardly a kidnapping. It was like a relocation."
One of his eyebrows moved up the slightest. "You passed out. I carried you to my house."
"Which could definitely be considered kidnapping."
"And then," he continued not acknowledging her words, "I fed you, made sure you were alright, we had a nice night and then I got you safely home. Am I missing anything?"
She thought about him standing behind her in the floor-length mirror, his dangerous mouth doing things to her she'd never experienced before.
Just his mouth against the thin skin of her neck, his hands not roaming her body, simply holding her against him.
She thought of his dark words telling her he'd been able to see him make her melt against him in the mirror.
He left that out.
And she felt heated at the memory. A memory that she'd allowed herself to think about only when she was alone in bed at night.
A heat began again and she hoped she wouldn't have another hot flash.
"The vandalism," she blurted out, instead of answering his question.
But he smiled the slightest, a glint in his dark eyes telling her that he knew exactly what he had left out and where her mind had taken her.
"I saw it walking up. I took pictures and I'll write a report. It's window paint-easy to remove. But I'm going to have cops make this street part of their rounds for the next few days and I want you to call if anything else happens."
"Thank you." She frowned and when she felt his warm hand reach out, running his thumb over her brow, a sudden flood of relief fell over her. It was like being lowered into a warm bath, the suddenness and gentleness of it.
The wall she had up concerning him vanished. Maybe that was why she avoided him.
She had been a child who learned to read her mother's face for what was going to happen next before she learned to read words on a page; always holding her arms in close and her breath soft in rooms that weren't hers.
She learned that asking for attention was selfish and in that a certain brand of loneliness had found her. In every relationship.
She wasn't sure what to do with simple kindness- it caused chaos inside of her. When Theo looked at her, she was scared of what he saw. Of all the things in her eyes no one had thought to look for before.
"Tell me what you are thinking," he said softly, but the command was what pulled the fear from her chest.
"Astra, she and the others, they're targeting us. The whole town, they're turning against us, Theo. I feel," she balled her fists, her nails biting into the fleshy palms, grounding her. "I feel like we don't know what to do, how to fight this. This feels big."
His eyes moved over her face, his hand tucking a piece of emerald hair behind her ear before he dropped it to his side.
"When do you leave?"
"Uh, I usually leave around now."
A nod. "Go check on Freida, do whatever you need to. I'm going to call the station and put everything in order, then I'm going to walk you home."
"Oh, I don't need-"
"Tilly." Her name was another command on his lips and it stopped her words short.
She nodded, then mentally thought through getting a bucket with soapy water to clean off the window as she checked on Freida who was deep into inventory and back to her grumpy self.
She told her to call the cops if anything else happened, then to call her.
Freida mumbled something under her breath that sounded a lot like an accusation, but for tonight Tilly was done with confrontation.
Fae was blissfully asleep, a black silk sleeping mask over her eyes, arms haphazardly thrown wide and mouth open as whatever pill she'd taken had done its job.
But as she was about to gather the supplies to clean off the window, Theo walked through the front door with a red bucket in hand. She looked at the window, the newly cleaned window, and then back at him.
"You didn't have to do that."
"I know."
But he took the bucket to the kitchen without saying anything else and then escorted her out of the inn.
"Why don't you have a jacket?"
"Hot flash." Though now she was regretting leaving her cardigan behind in the small closet office.
For late July, it felt more like the middle of October and her skin broke out in goosebumps.
She was wearing a blue and white floral pleated skater dress with blue flats, thinking she would have to pull out her boots and thick socks if the weather continued this unnatural trajectory.
When she felt something fall over her shoulders she startled and looked up at him placing his police jacket gently over her.
She had been avoiding him. He was right.
He scared her. And not because he was a vampire. Not because he was a predator in more ways than the natural man already was.
She was scared that if she opened herself to him, settled in, let down her guard, he would take a look around and see whatever it was that others had seen and made them not choose her.
What did her mother see when she looked at Tilly? A nuisance, perhaps. Lacking in talent or skill, not amounting to much for the Nguyen name.
And her ex-husband? Therapy had taught her that she didn't need to know why he had cheated, what he had found lacking. It had more to do with him than with her.
But still, there was that voice, the one that chipped away at her self-worth with chisels in increments that didn't seem too harmful until one day she looked up and wondered that question that too many people wondered - what is wrong with me?
She gripped the front of the jacket in her fist and gave him a soft thank you, his warmth surrounding her so gently that she felt exposed.
He smelled like the woods and cool air. A black bird jumped through the branches above them and she smiled at Portia as she and Theo walked in companionable silence.
It was the kind of calm ease that she hadn't felt next to another man in too many years.
She had given him a piece of her anxiety, having to unload just a portion before she was overtaken and he recognized that.
He'd taken it, and she felt like he carried it now in his pocket, holding it away from her as he walked beside her.
It was a particular kind of kindness, holding someone else's worries in your hands and tucking it away so that they didn't have to see or hold it any longer.
Maybe that was what she'd been missing in this kind of relationship.
With her friends it was natural, an ease with which they exchanged pain and worries, passing them back and forth like cards.
Joys and happiness too, mixed in with the deck.
That was how women were, so naturally sitting at a table together, picking up their hand and playing the game without knowledge of what the result would be, but ready to put in whatever ante was needed to keep going.
She'd never had that with a man. What she'd had was vertiginous hope that the deck wouldn't tumble down; a house of cards instead of a back-and-forth game.
This soft silence wasn't stirring her anxiety; she wasn't wondering what he was thinking about her or if she would screw it up. It was just what it was - simple. She smiled.
Laughter and a shout broke into their gentle world, drawing their attention to a group of six men playing basketball across the street on the court in the park.
One of them she recognized and before she could hope that he didn't recognize her, his head turned and their eyes caught.