The only response I give him is a low “Mmm-hmm.”
“So you hoof it back to your assignment, and have been there for what, a week? And you’re still desk jockeying the shit out of recycled material instead of following up on the story. Can you tell me what’s wrong with this picture?”
The buzz is gone, I almost say but catch myself. I got back here and I had no desire to get back in the game. Zilch. Zero. I had no desire to contact Omid or to get on an embed mission with Sarge despite his calling me about exactly that to assuage his own unfounded guilt over the blast. Nothing. That live by the sword, die by the sword buzz I’ve used for over ten years to propel me to become the top foreign war correspondent is nowhere in sight.
“There’s most definitely not a picture, Rafe. None whatsoever, considering I don’t have a photographer to take one until she comes back,” I state evenly to try to hide from the fact that he’s absolutely fucking right.
“Is that what this is? Are you waiting for her to come back, Tanner?” He sounds so much like my father giving my teenage self a lecture that it’s comical. “Screw her stuff that was stolen. It’s insured, and I’ll have the hotel staff pack up what’s left. She isn’t coming back.”
The breath I didn’t even realize I was holding whooshes out in a deceptively even draw as the wind is knocked out of me. There goes that stupid little thread of hope that I had held on to for some reason that she’d come back, see me, and we’d be good again. It shatters me.
“She’s not?” I ask, making sure my voice is calm although my insides are screaming.
“No. Her condition is improving. She just needs some more monitoring and to take it easy, so she was moved stateside.”
Silence fills the line as a part of me breathes a sigh of relief. “When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Where?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t give you that information.”
“What do you mean, you can’t give me that information?” My voice escalates on the question.
“Not your business.”
“What the fuck, Rafe? What’s your problem? I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s okay. Hear me tell you that. And now hear this: You’re too close right now, so what’s going to happen next is you’re going to pack your shit up and come home. I have —”
“No.” I spit out the refusal, but there’s not a single ounce of conviction behind it. First Stella, now Beaux… I couldn’t save either of them, and the one that’s still here doesn’t want me. How’s that for a blow to the male ego? Even scarier, though, is the will to fight for her was left behind at the hospital. It’s no use fighting for someone who doesn’t need your fight.
“I have transport coming to get you in one hour,” he says evenly, ignoring my outburst. “You’re either on that flight home, Tanner, or you can look for another job.”
“This is bullshit!” For the first time I feel fire blazing within me, and maybe it’s because I don’t want to leave the only thing that’s connecting me to her now.
“No. We can talk about bullshit all day, Tanner, but it’d start with you. I’m worried about you. You took a big knock, physically, emotionally, and I know you hate me right now, but I’m just looking out for your own good. You’ll see that someday.”
I blow out a breath and start to pace the room. My foot hits something under the unmade bed we abandoned when Pauly interrupted us. The sight of the empty bottle of bubbles that bounces against the dresser when I kick it is like a knife wound to an already ailing heart, reinforcing the truth I just can’t face right now: This was all a lie. One more final fuck you from Beaux.
The bubble has burst.
“I’ll be on the flight.”
There’s nothing more I can say.
Chapter 25
R
afe’s words still ring in my ears as I sit at home in the dark. Even though my name’s on the title, the place feels so much more foreign than a hotel. The shades are drawn, I’ve got a beer in my hand, and my thoughts are still back on a woman I should let go but just can’t.
I’ve made a career living on gut instinct, and my instinct is telling me that something is off here. But isn’t that the same feeling I’ve had since day one when it comes to Beaux?
I ignore the knock on the front door. The only people who know I’ve touched down on U.S. soil besides those at work are Rylee and my parents. And I bit the bullet and saw my parents yesterday, faked my way through why I came home, blamed it on needing some recovery time – because let’s face it, you don’t really tell your parents who have been together since they were in their early teens that you fell in love with a married woman. It’s not exactly a crowning moment of their parenthood regardless of whether I knew she was married or not.
So the persistent knock on the door has to be Rylee. And of course if it is her, she will have driven the two hours south from Los Angeles to San Diego, so that means she won’t go away easily.
Besides, she has a key.
I sink back farther into the couch and close my eyes only to immediately open them because damn it to hell, Beaux’s there too. She’s fucking everywhere. And nowhere.
The rattle of a key in the lock tells me I was correct in my assumption about the visitor’s identity. “Tan?”
“In here,” I say, not eager for company.
“You becoming a vampire or something?” she asks at the same time as blinds start opening in my kitchen and the telltale sounds of the ocean crashing on the cliffs below filter in once she’s opened the windows.
“I hear it’s all the rage these days,” I snort as she snaps open the blinds in the family room where I sit, causing me to wince at the brightness even through my closed eyelids. I track her movements through sound, know she plops on the love seat catty-corner to me by the squeak of the leather, and then feel the weight of her stare as she waits me out. I don’t budge.
“You look like shit.”
“Thank you,” I say with a nod, finally opening my eyes and meeting hers, which are identical to mine in their amethyst color. And shit, she’s my sister and I’m in a crappy mood, but it doesn’t stop me from shaking my head at how beautiful she is. She always has been, but since she married Colton, she has this newfound confidence that makes her radiate. It’s cool to see on her and frustrating as fuck to me all at once, because it makes me remember what I’ve recently lost.
“Well that’s sugarcoating it, but I thought I wouldn’t kick you while you were down.” There’s humor in her voice as she rises from her seat and sits down next to me and cuddles into my side so that she can rest her head on my arm. It’s a simple gesture, but just feeling her here next to me makes the emotions well up in my throat. She reaches out and pats the top of my thigh. “So how are you doing? I mean you at least have pants on… That’s a good sign. Colton told me that if you were sulking in your underwear, I should just back out quietly and let you be.”
“He’s got that about right. Good thing I got up a few hours ago and pulled some jeans on.” She laughs low and rich, a sound from my childhood that brings back so many memories of backyard forts and riding bikes until the streetlights came on.
“So talk to me. Tell me where your head’s at, what’s going on… I’m here to listen and shut my mouth.”
I snort. “That’s pretty comical. You? Quiet?”
“Shh, I can listen with the best of them – just don’t spill that secret to Colton. So, anything new?”
I shove up off the couch, toss my beer bottle in the trash, and get an unsatisfactory clink as it hits the others inside before I look out the kitchen window to the neighborhood beyond. “Anything new? Well, Wendy had her baby while I was gone, cute little boy named Timothy,” I say, referring to my next-door neighbor. “And what else? It seems that William down the street bought some black eyesore of an SUV that he won’t park in his damn driveway, so it sits on the curb over there blocking the view some. And then there’s Mike on the other side who
—”
“Tanner,” she says in warning to let me know that she’s not amused by my sarcasm whatsoever.
“I don’t want to talk about Beaux,” I say with a firm look even though she’s all I want to talk about because I can’t get her out of my fucking head despite having been back home for almost two weeks.
“Your place looks nice. You look good.”
I grunt in response because I know she’s lying since I look like shit and she’s already said as much. “Not much else to do besides clean a place no one lives in and take long runs on the beach to fill time because… well because I can, seeing that I’m not in a war zone with land mines and such.” There’s a bite to my words that I didn’t intend but don’t apologize for. She gets it, I know she does, but that doesn’t mean that she deserves this treatment or that I even deserve the effort she’s putting forward to try to connect with me.
I walk toward the patio door to the backyard that Rylee opened, see the ocean, feel the sun in the sky, but I’m completely indifferent to it. My phone alerts a text from where it’s pressed into the cracks in the sofa cushions, and I choose to ignore it, knowing it’s yet another from Rafe or my parents. I don’t want to speak with anyone right now since my hand’s being forced as it is with Ry here.
“All I’ve done is think about her, about us. Run back through our conversations and the time we spent together over and over in my head to try to search for the clues I missed… but there’s nothing concrete I can pinpoint. I mean sure there’re things she kept private, certain things she didn’t address, but isn’t that how all relationships go?” With her behind me, it’s easier to talk for some reason.
“Yeah. It takes time to open the closet of skeletons… but married, Tanner? Tanner, that’s not a skeleton in a closet. That’s a ring on your finger. That’s the person you look forward to seeing every morning even when they annoy you or you’re fighting. It’s your other half. Marriage is made —”
“Marriage is made in Heaven,” I say, giving her one of my favorite Clint Eastwood quotes, “but so are thunder and lightning.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks, and I can hear the annoyance in her newlywed voice.
I walk outside and take a seat in a lounge chair where I know she’ll follow me. “It means that we grew up with Mom and Dad’s marriage as an example. You have Colton. Not all marriages are like yours. What if there’s something wrong in hers? What if she’s trapped and can’t get out of it? What if he’s abusive and —”
“That’s a long stretch, Tanner. It sounds like you’re just trying to justify her actions.” She takes the chair across from me, her face toward the ocean, but her words are sharp. “Love makes you more of who you are, not less… and right now, her lies? Are definitely not making you more.”
I let her words sink in, tell myself I’m reaching for something to hold on to when I just need to let go and free-fall into the pain. Take the rough landing and broken heart in one fell swoop so that I can heal all at once instead of piece by piece where hope ties each one together with the thinnest of strings.
“You know, Ry,” I finally say, “I can handle being dumped for someone else. I’m a big boy who can handle rejection just fine… It’s this schizophrenic feeling that’s driving me crazy.” I run a hand through my hair and sigh. “How come I am so fucked up over this? How can I feel so strongly for someone after just a few months together? I mean one minute I miss her like crazy and feel like such a loser because I can’t let this go… and then the next minute I hate her guts and never want to see her again even if I had the chance to.”
She leans her head back against the chair and laughs before turning to meet my eyes, a knowing smile on her lips. “Because it’s love.”
“Do you care to elaborate since you think this is so funny?” I snip, not amused at all.
“It’s real love,” she says with a shrug that makes me uncomfortable instantly even though I could have assumed she’d say as much. But saying it aloud and feeling it in my own miserable silence are two different things. Once it’s out in the universe, you can’t take that shit back. “Real love messes you up no matter how long you’ve been with someone. Believe me. I’ve been there with Colton. We butted heads from day one, but there was something there I couldn’t deny no matter how hard I tried. Sometimes no matter how hard you fight it, it’s just there.” And of course my back immediately goes up that my brother-in-law made my little sister feel this way at some point. But at least I have comfort in knowing they obviously worked things out. “I can see you longing to work the Prince Charming angle, Tanner, but you can’t. Bad marriage or not, it’s her situation to deal with. You can’t go charging in on a white horse to save the day.”
“Why not?” I ask with more conviction than anything else I’ve said today.
“Do you love her?” I look at her like she’s crazy, because I definitely wouldn’t be this fucked up over a woman I didn’t love. “How do you know you love her, though?”
“Really, Ry? Are you going to treat me like an idiot now?” I’m getting more irritated by the minute.
“No,” she says, backpedaling. “You’ve loved lots of girlfriends, so why is she the one that you’re in love with? How do you know it’s real?”
“She knocked me on my ass, Ry.” The comment comes out before I can stop it, and I know I sound pathetic but don’t care because if I can be dead honest with anyone, it’s with my sister. “Because my heart races out of control at just the thought of getting to see her again. Because she’s all I – never mind.” I stop, knowing how ridiculous I sound.
“I get it. Believe me, I get it. You may love her, but unless she gives you something to go off now, unless she contacts you, then you have no right to be in her business. It sucks and it’s brutal and I know that feeling when your chest aches so damn bad you can’t breathe… but that’s love. It makes you crazy insane and doesn’t always work out.”
The flip side of being so comfortable talking to my sister is that she’s just as honest with feedback even when I don’t want to hear it. Like right now.
“You’re making no sense,” I mutter, not having expected her to solve my problems but at least wanting something a little more clear to go on.
“How so?”
“Well in one breath you say that it’s real love and imply how rare it is, which makes me think it’s worth fighting for, and in the next you tell me I can’t fight for it unless she gives me a reason to. Talk about fucking confusing.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s all you’re going to give me?” I groan through the smile that graces my lips for the first time in what feels like forever. “You suck at this because you’re deliriously happy.”
“Yep on all accounts,” she says as she scoots to the edge of her chair. “This is so hard for me because I’m trying to be objective, to tell you that if you really feel how you feel and if she gives you a single opening, you need to fight like hell for her, and at the same time I hate her because she did this to you. She doesn’t deserve you, Tanner. You know what Mom says, ‘Cheating on a good person is like throwing away a diamond and picking up a rock.’”
“The question is, am I the diamond or am I the rock?” I murmur as she steps forward and presses a kiss to the top of my head.
I watch the ocean for a long time after she leaves, lost in my thoughts and not sure if I want to hold on or to purge the memories that are still so vivid I can taste them. I wander into the house, grab a beer, and settle down on the couch, Rylee’s comment about me not being Prince Charming on constant repeat for some reason.
Maybe it’s by the third beer in that I realize she’s right. Completely right. I’m the farthest thing from Prince Charming. I’m a reporter who rides an adrenaline rush instead of a horse. I have nothing to offer someone long term except for constant worry for my safety, missed birthdays, lonely anniversaries, and middle-of-the-night phone calls due to time zone differences. Dating casually is one thing, but th
ere is no room for happily-ever-afters in my world. Look at Pauly and the number of wives he’s lost count of because they couldn’t handle the loneliness.
And even if I did rush in to try and save the day, who exactly am I saving her from? A husband who flew thousands of miles in a heartbeat because his wife was injured? Yeah, because that screams, “I’m a husband who doesn’t care.” Not.
Suck it up, Thomas. You were played. Now man up and get over it.
“Fuck,” I sigh out into the empty room, feeling so out of place in my own home. Setting my empty beer bottle down, I shift on the couch so that my head is on one armrest and my feet are on the other. The problem is when I look up toward my ceiling, the cracks I’m so used to tracing as I work through my thoughts aren’t there. Restless, I move onto my side so that I can look elsewhere, when something jabs my rib cage. Shifting again, I reach down to find my cell phone there, but when I pick it up to toss it on the table and glance at the screen, my heart stops for a beat.
It was all a lie and none of it was a lie. —Rookie
It takes me a moment to really believe that the message could be from her, but I can’t deny she’s the only person I’ve ever called that nickname. I slowly exhale the breath I’m holding. Just when I’ve decided to get the fuck over her, she comes and slaps me in the face. No, not a slap in the face. She’s given me something to go off, and in Rylee’s book that’s a sign I can start fighting for her.
Damn. I guess it’s time for Prince Charming to learn how to ride a horse.
Chapter 26
S
everal times in my career I’ve heard the saying, “Ideas pull the trigger, but it’s instinct that loads the gun.” Until the moment I walked through the Kansas City International Airport, I never thought it would pertain to me. Or have led me to this moment.