Lovely Trigger

  He held still and let me, compliant, even passive, under my soothing hands, my forgiving lips.

  He was shivering relentlessly, and I warmed him with my touch. I warmed us both.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I was in his large foyer, about to leave for work the next morning, when he stopped me with a question.

  He said it from behind me. I’d left him soundly asleep and had hoped he’d stay that way for a few more hours. It had been a rough night. He needed it.

  Also, I’d wanted to avoid this.

  “Wh-what—“ his voice trembled, and I thought that perhaps he’d guessed the next part. “What changed to make you want to work things out?”

  The closest chair just seemed so far away. Like a limp doll, I leaned against the closest wall, then sank down to the floor.

  What could it hurt at this point to just tell him? What more damage could it possibly do? All of the damage had already been done. Of course, it had. Years ago. No one knew that better than I did.

  So why had I run so hard from telling him?

  We’d been on borrowed time, and I’d wanted to borrow more. Another minute. Another day. I wasn’t picky.

  No. Just greedy.

  I looked up at him as I answered. I could give him at least that much. “I was pregnant.”

  The words barely carried, and the journey seemed to take forever, but when they hit their mark, it was a solid blow.

  He just sort of folded in on himself, his shoulder hitting the wall next to him.

  I shuddered, looking away.

  A gross miscalculation. There was so very much left to damage here.

  Our ragged breaths were the only sounds to be heard for long, painful minutes.

  He came at me then in a way that I had not expected or prepared for.

  “How could you keep that from me? How could you hide that from me?”

  Was that anger in his voice?

  Outrage?

  I was outraged just to hear it, so my answer, when it came, was inflammatory. “I wasn’t hiding it. I didn’t need to hide it. It was no one’s business but mine.”

  He came at me then in a way that I had not expected or prepared for.

  “How dare you!” he shouted, his voice booming as he pointed at me. He didn’t come even one step closer to me, as though he couldn’t trust himself. “You had no right! No right to keep that from me!”

  I was shocked. I was appalled.

  Furious.

  “No right? I had every right!”

  “That was my child too! I had a right to know about its existence and of its loss. You kept it from me. That was wrong. You know it was wrong.” There was a fine tremor in his low, pain roughened voice and madness in his eyes.

  I shook my head, over and over, eyes wide on his face, studying it in hopes that I’d find something I could understand there, because his words were not something I could stomach. “You have the nerve to talk to me about rights? Maybe once, for a brief moment, you had a right,” I bit out scathingly. “And I did tell you. I came to your apartment and told you to your face, and that is when you sent me home in a car with a rapist. You lost all of your rights in that car, along with our child.”

  I was shaking in rage, in remorse. I hated myself for saying those things, even if they were true.

  I made my trembling way to a trembling stand, turning to leave, but his words stopped me.

  “Liar! You’re a liar!” he shouted, voice shaking with fury.

  I turned back, wondering what awful thing I was about to say or do, because I felt provoked beyond all reason. “What did you just say?”

  He crumpled where he stood, his knees hitting the floor hard, his hands pushing out in front of him to keep him upright.

  It was incongruous, a man so huge, so powerful, brought so low with a few awful words.

  He knelt, prostrate in front of me. His pose was a direct contradiction to his tone.

  “I called you a liar.” The shaking in his voice turned to a quaver. “You said you forgave me. You told me that six years ago, and you’ve told me since, and that was a lie. There is no forgiveness in the things you’re holding onto. You don’t even have a concept of what that word means. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  I took a few steps closer, fists clenched hard. Even in my fury, I could not help but want to comfort him in his pain.

  It was a sickness, I thought.

  “Forgiving is not forgetting.”

  “You are doing more than remembering, and you know it. I don’t remember that night. To this day, the vital parts still escape me, but I want to know. I hate myself for it. Don’t you see that? No matter how horrible, no matter how much it will damage me, I can’t move on, no more than you can, until I hear it all.”

  I sat down on the ground, slowly lowered myself until I mirrored his defeated pose just a few feet away from him. “I will tell you,” I conceded.

  We stayed how we were, on the floor, heads bowed for a very long time, and I told him almost everything.

  Almost.

  We huddled on the floor and cried together, though we did not move close enough to touch. I couldn’t stand any contact while I gasped out the sordid details, the painful losses, and he, I thought, didn’t have the courage to seek to comfort me just then.

  The sun was starting to rise, streaming into the window beside his front door, when we picked ourselves up, and made it to the kitchen table. We sat, not close, not touching, not looking.

  “Please,” he finally spoke, after I’d fallen silent, and been silent, for a very long time. “Everything we had, everything we planned for. All the things we talked about before I messed everything up. I want marriage, babies, forever. With you.”

  I looked at my hands. I couldn’t look at him. Not for this. No part of me wanted to tell him, but I’d gone long enough keeping it from him, and it wasn’t fair to go a step further, when we could never have what he was talking about.

  I took the deepest breath. “I can’t have children. I’m barren.”

  One furtive glance showed me the slightest shift in his expression as his head tilted up and his brows drew together. “How can you say that? You got pregnant twice.”

  I swallowed, not knowing how to broach this part. I knew I’d make a mess of it either way, so I just told him all of it. “I told you that I lost the second baby in the accident. I haven’t explained just how.

  Right before impact, Dean was trying to…touch me. I had a framed picture in my hands—”

  “The one I gave you back that night?” His voice was choked, as though he couldn’t quite believe it.

  “Yes. That one. I had the picture in my lap, and I used it to block his hands from going up my skirt. I was focused only on that. On stopping him. I didn’t see the accident coming. I had no time to brace myself.”

  He made a soft grunt of a noise, and one stolen glance showed me that his shoulders were shaking with silent sobs.

  I hadn’t been even close to crying. I’d been feeling pretty numb, actually. I was only cataloging facts for him, after all, but watching one big tear fall from his thick lashes and hit the table had me tearing up.

  I took a few long moments to compose myself before I spoke again, castigating myself the entire time. This wasn’t about making him feel bad. I had only meant to tell him what he needed to know. This was my curse: to always say too much, and say it all wrong.

  “The collision smashed in my side of the car. This crushed my leg, my knee, but that was actually just one of the injuries. The impact also broke the picture into sharp pieces of wood and glass, and several of the pieces stabbed deep into my abdomen.”

  He gasped in a harsh breath so violently that I found myself breathing with him, as though I couldn’t suck air into my lungs fast enough, as though we were both suffocating with my confession.

  “It did enough damage that the doctors knew right away that I could never get pregnant again. It is not just unlikely for me to get pregnant, it is impossible. I
was hemorrhaging badly. They were forced to perform a hysterectomy.”

  This little reunion had been a hopeless fantasy from the start.

  He was sobbing now. Brokenly. I’d never seen a grown man cry like that, great heaving sobs, as though the world were ending, and there was no earthly reason to hold back the despair. He hadn’t even been like this for Jared, and we had both done our share of crying for his dear brother.

  “It was a long time ago, Tristan, and it was nobody’s fault. It was a tragic string of events that no one could have seen coming, let alone stopped, and we’ve both suffered enough for that night. Please stop blaming yourself. I did a long time ago.” I was sobbing by the end, right along with him.

  He was inconsolable. I tried to talk at first, making good, valid points to him between my own sobs, but he seemed to hear none of it, just cried as though he’d never cried before, the dam had broken, and he would never stop.

  Finally, back bent, body slumped, I went to him. It was a hard thing for me to do, because I knew that at the end of this, I’d be saying goodbye to him and letting myself comfort and take comfort from his touch would only make it harder. I wasn’t going to try to hold onto him forever through his guilt.

  I knew more than anyone how much he wanted children.

  As much as I did.

  I would let him go. I was capable of that much, at least.

  I touched his head softly as I finally reached him. Two arms had never been so grateful as the ones he wrapped around me. His face burrowed into my neck. He said the same thing, over and over, between those raw, awful, gasping, wrenching, sobs. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  I stroked his hair, tears flowing freely down my face and into the soft strands. I tried words again. “Things worked out how they were supposed to work out.”

  He shook his head, his face in my belly. “No. No. No. This is not how things were supposed to work out. I wanted that baby. Our baby. Our babies.” He sobbed brokenly for torturous minutes, before he continued. “I wanted our family. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.”

  I took a few deep, steadying breaths, wondering how I would do this, how I would be able to collect myself enough to walk away.

  I had to try.

  “It’s not in the cards,” I began, haltingly, gasping with the effort, as though my body were so at war that my lungs would not cooperate, and my vocal cords would no longer take direction from my brain. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this anymore. It’s not an option. I know you think I’m good for you. I get that now. But can’t you see that you aren’t good for me? I’m trading my peace of mind for split seconds of bliss here. I look at you, and I remember. I remember what I’ve lost, what I should have been, what I could have had. Some of it feels good, but just as much of it is near unbearable for me. I could find someone, someone else, who didn’t only remind me of the things I’m not. Of the things I’ve lost. In fact, I intend to. And you, you can find someone else that doesn’t make you remember, either, doesn’t tear you up with guilt. Some relationship without a lifetime’s worth of baggage, weighing it down. I’m sorry, but I can’t see you anymore. I wish you the best in your life, and so I’m setting you free.”

  Somehow, I peeled myself away from him and left.

  He let me.

  I couldn’t even look at him after that last bit, so I had no clue what it cost him to keep his silence while I sliced us both open and walked away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I did what I always did when I was too weak to stand. I went home.

  Bev welcomed me with her warm heart and her open arms, as she always had.

  I poured my heart out to her and told her everything I’d avoided telling since Tristan and I had started seeing each other again.

  She took it well, didn’t judge, only soothed and listened and soothed some more.

  I hadn’t even been there for five hours when Frankie showed up, and I wasn’t at all surprised. It seemed to be her MO.

  She was like our combat nurse, always showing up after a battle to help each side nurse its wounds. I must have been the one she’d decided was more badly injured, if she’d found me this fast.

  Bev let her in and poured her a glass of red wine.

  “Why do I always take life so seriously?” I asked them both.

  Neither had an answer except to give me sympathetic looks.

  “You know, I’ve never smoked crack,” I told mostly Frankie, but of course, Bev had the stronger reaction.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” She sounded appalled.

  “We used to have this homeless guy that would creep into the gallery, like a couple of times a week.”

  “Dirty Jim,” Frankie guessed.

  I nodded.

  “He sounds charming,” Bev said, sounding appalled.

  “Not so much.”

  “He had Hep C,” Frankie added her two cents. “Liked to talk about it. In fact, he had a rap about it. Shit, I can’t remember what it was, but he actually found a word that rhymed with hepatitis.”

  “We’d always have him escorted out,” I continued, ignoring her. “Since he tended to shout obscenities at the other patrons. But whenever security would start to drag him out, his last line was always, ‘You haven’t lived until you’ve smoked crack.’ Hell, for all I know, he had a point.”

  They both stared at me like I was crazy, and that’s when I realized that I was drunk. I started laughing.

  “Now I remember! It was meningitis. That’s the word he used to rhyme with hepatitis in his rap. Not as clever of a rhyme as it seemed like at the time, but oh well. God, he was a crazy motherfucker. I shit you not, he asked me to tattoo some balls on his chin, like, a dozen times.”

  I shook my head at her, laughing harder.

  “He offered to pay for it by donating his sperm to the parlor. He was a dick, always trying to get on the TV show, but he never said anything that could get past the censors, the weirdo. The producers even tried to coach him, because they thought he’d be a funny touch for the show, but he couldn’t go two words with dropping the F-bomb.”

  I lost it.

  “I thought you both worked in a nice casino,” Bev gasped as if in outrage, but I could tell she was trying not to laugh.

  “You’ve been cooped up in your office too much,” Frankie told her. “This is Vegas. It’s like the weirdo capital of the universe. Just drive down Boulder Highway sometime, if you don’t believe me. There will be at least one crazy motherfucker wandering around in his boxers, looking like he just walked off the set of The Hangover. Guaranteed.”

  “Well, what does it say about all of us that we live here?” Bev asked.

  “We like spontaneity?” Frankie tried.

  “I hate spontaneity,” I pointed out. “God, I hate surprises. How did I get so screwed up?”

  I started bawling. Neither of them could seem to get to me fast enough, but it was Bev that got there first, pulling me into her, patting my back, and making soothing noises while I cried it out.

  I’d calmed considerably when she spoke.

  “I’ve never smoked crack, but I swear snorting coke helped me get through law school,” Bev revealed.

  We couldn’t stop laughing after that, and I hadn’t a clue if she was joking or not. I knew she’d been through some serious partying days, once upon a time, so it was anybody’s guess.

  “But I digress,” she continued, voice gone from wry to soft. “You don’t need to follow every impulse in life; you don’t need to take on every gamble. But some, even ones that have burned you before, well, some of them you do. Some of the sweetest moments in life come from second chances.” I knew this was Bev giving me her blessing, and I gave her a teary smile for that.

  Who knew better than Bev that second chances could work?

  He was dressed nicely in a plain navy suit. It was simple and severe, and he looked just gorgeous in it. His face was pretty neutral as I opened my front door. It was a su
rprise visit, and I was certainly surprised. Without even thinking, I opened the door to let him in. I’d missed him and had half expected never to see him again.

  “What’s going on?” I asked him, instantly suspicious by his smile. It was a sweet, bland smile, which made me think he was up to something.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you again,” I told him.

  “Oh Danika.” His soft voice was full of reproach. It was almost…comforting, as though nothing had changed since our last meeting.

  He was carrying a briefcase, something I’d never seen him do before. I was instantly suspicious.

  “What’s in the case?” I asked him. I automatically thought it must be for some kind of magic trick. That was, after all, what he did. “Don’t tell me. Magic, right?”

  The sweet smile got bigger, lost the bland, and became mischievous. “You could say that, I suppose.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  He moved immediately into my living room, making himself at home on my sofa. He set the briefcase on my coffee table, popping it open. He took out a small laptop that looked ridiculous as he opened it and started typing with those huge hands of his.

  I moved in front of him, one hand on my hip, the other pointing to the small black velvet bag in his case. It reeked of a magic trick.

  He just smiled, shaking his head. “It’s a surprise. Let me pull something up on here, and then I’ll show you.”

  I moved around him to look over his shoulder, trying to make out what he was looking at on his screen.

  “Step one: Pick an adoption agency. I already found one. I hope you don’t mind me just deciding. I’ve been doing nothing but researching it for the past week, so trust me when I say I’m making an informed decision.”

  My heart was trying to pound its way out of my chest, but I managed to keep my voice calm. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Step two: Choose the country of adoption. I’ve thought this over a lot, and I was thinking, and tell me if I’m wrong, that it doesn’t really matter. But I heard that the process goes faster if you choose a country yourself, so I went to the liberty of putting them all in a hat.”