Quick word before we dive in.
Thank you to everyone who commented on the first three chapters. I absolutely love reading the comments (they keep me going) even if they are less than stellar because I'm always trying to improve. Case in point: this is an ongoing re-write and soft edit of the story formally known as
Flirting the Fence.
The characters are the same as is the plot and general trajectory of the story, but everything is a bit crisper and the characters have more depth.
On that note, I'm going to go ahead and put a warning on this chapter. Beth experiences domestic violence first hand that may be triggering for some people. Similarly, Day has a reaction to the police that—if you are a person of color—you might have experienced and might trigger you.
It would be wonderful if you left a comment, sent me a message, rated this story, and checked out my other work. But no pressure.
And one last thing, I've turned my profile into an FAQ page (sort of) since I've gotten several emails about other stories and what not. So, that's there to check out if you're interested.
On to the story!
-RSP
***
"He's asleep," Day murmured into the phone, startling Beth out of her reading. She looked up from her tablet as his face filled the screen: haggard, scruffy, but nonetheless handsome. Five days hadn't killed her attraction to Day or the tentative connection they had in each other's lives.
Maybe it was the fact that she hadn't actually returned to her normal life. Setting her tablet on the hotel desk, she grabbed her phone and wandered onto her bed. Folding her legs under her, she watched Day as he moved around Brian's room: tucking him in, turning on the night light, putting away the book, and finally pulling the door nearly closed.
In the time she'd gone back to the apartment, found no fiancée and no ability to deal with where their relationship stood, she'd packed a suitcase and moved into a hotel. It was a very temporary fix as her finances dwindled, and the foreign escape of a hotel room was starting to feel more like a jail cell. Why should she have left her own home? Why did she leave the first time and why now?
But that running was ingrained in her. She'd run from Mike Brandish when he'd told Beth he liked her. Then, ran from Indianapolis after her brother died. Now she was running from a future she'd thought was made of stones but was barely held together with wet sand.
The only things that made this hotel-venture even remotely tolerable were Brian and Day. The kid loved to read and called her nightly for a story. The first few nights Day had been surly, though she couldn't blame him. But they'd gotten to know each other when Brian fell dead to the world halfway through the story. Day was growing on her, and Beth was pretty sure she was growing on him.
She'd extended the olive branch by asking how his day was that first night, and the ritual just stuck. The sights of the living room gave way to the hallway as Day made his way to his room. "Rough day?" she asked, as he propped his phone near the bed before collapsing onto the mattress.
"Meetings, lawyers, contracts," he said around a yawn, throwing his arm across his eyes.
She looked at what she could see of his body: shaved head, wife-beater stretched across his thick chest, just the hint of the thick cock he hid in his pants.
Ugh, when did I become such a perv.
So they'd slept together? So what? Yeah, maybe it had been the best sex of her life, and his son was the most adorable thing on two legs, and there was an obvious connection between them. But that didn't mean anything. Connections of the heart never lasted. If they did, Beth'd still be kissing the magazine cutout of Johnny Depp she had as a teenager.
"How was your day?"
"Not bad. The project I'm working on is fairly simple and the client hasn't turned out to be a primadonna yet. But I'm not holding my breath."
"The Erikson one, right?"
Beth nodded before I realized he couldn't see her with his arm covering his eyes. "Uh-huh. And how are you? Generally."
He sighed deeply before rolling over to face her and propping his head on his hand. "We saw Shontell's mother today. I got her in a nursing home, but Brian doesn't like going there. Reminds him too much of the hospital visits. Same smell."
"That sucks." She paused before plowing on, "For a few years after my brother died, I had panic attacks."
"Yeah?"
"Mm-hmm. They would hit at the strangest times, and I couldn't figure out what was triggering them until I went to a therapist." Looking across the room to the black and white, blown up image of the New York skyline, Beth tried to order her thoughts. "Guilt. Just so much guilt that I was alive when he wasn't. Guilt that I was doing all the things he couldn't do. Guilt that I was moving on."
"Beth, look at me."
She did, keeping a tight hold on her emotions. She knew Day could take them, absorb her pain and say the right things and make it better. But that wasn't his job. It wasn't fair of her to put weight on his already weighted shoulders just because it would make her feel better. Paul had been dead for a few years and Beth had made peace with it. She'd gone through the stages, had time lesson the wound, and all the other obligatory horridness that went with losing a part of your soul.
But it always came back. Paul had been crystal that'd slipped from her hands and broken into a million pieces. Beth always thought she'd cleaned up every pit of glass, every jagged edge and moved on. But every so often she'd get stabbed by a hidden wayward piece hidden and the pain who be instantaneous and brutal.
"I feel it too," he said quietly, acknowledging his feelings. It was strange. Day came off as this rock: the stereotypical man's man who kept his emotions in a titanium box at the bottom of the ocean. But that wasn't him; he was all emotions. Everything simmering just under the surface. Just had an incredible poker face. "Anger and guilt and fear. We didn't have enough time together. I don't know how to raise a kid. It's all there, all the time, and I just have to keep dragging it along so it doesn't hold me back."
"Your wife must have been one hell of a psychologist."
He laughed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "She had a shelf just filled with awards and achievements and half a wall with the scientific journals that printed her research. Shontell was incredible."
They stared at each other, neither feeling pressured to break the silence. There was more to say, questions to ask, because Beth wasn't sure what they were doing. The sex could be explained away, just like eveything from that night and morning. But five days later? Video-chatting his son to read stories before bed, and then decompressing with Day about their days and real-talking for over an hour most nights? That was something else, and Beth wasn't sure she was ready to deal with it.
"I'm probably going to go back—back home," she stuttered, forcing the words out. "Tomorrow."
Day nodded, rolling onto his back again. "Probably a good choice. Get back to your life."
"At least give it a try." The words tasted like saw dust. That wasn't what she wanted to do and this wasn't anything she wanted to say. Not to him.
"Just," he paused, searching for the words on the ceiling, "Just be careful."
Day didn't know how loaded that statement was. She'd met Jason at a friend of a friend's Fourth of July barbeque. She'd been ten months into New York life and still trying to find the city paraded in magazines, TV shows, and movies. So far all she'd gotten were suffocating working hours, shoe-box sized apartments, and people willing to screw anyone over if it got them ahead.
The barbeque was hosted by Iowans, the email messages promising home cooking and classic lawn games. Beth had arrived with Ty and his boyfriend, melting in seamlessly to the crowd of red, white, and blue party-goers. It'd been just what she needed, and when a tall, handsome stranger had started chatting her up it was like the stars aligned.
Aligned and freaking blinded me.
She saw the beers he drank like water, simply writing it off as a high tolerance. And when he got loud and boisterous, knocking into people, she chalked it up to Fourth of July shenanigans. Because he was too perfect. With his hair, teeth, and last name.
Even the night ended perfectly. He asked for her number, put her in a cab and paid for it in advance. Texted her to make sure she got home safe even. Texted her the next day to ask for a date. All the boxes were checked, so she didn't look for what wasn't on that list.
Not until she found him passed out drunk in the living room after she came back late New Year's Day from Indiana. They'd fought. He'd broken a lamp. And that was the first time she was really scared of Jason. Scared of what he could do—
everything
he could do. He checked all the boxes, but those traits could easily be turned against her. Would people believe her if she said he hit her? Would they care? Would he do it? Would she let him to keep everything they'd built together?
All the signs Beth'd ignored had come crashing down like hail and he'd seen that realization cross her face. Seen it and flinched. Then came the drunken explanations. Never real apologies, but more meandering promises. The 'I don't know what I was thinking, but I know I'd
never
do that.
You
know I'd never do that.'
The hail melted. Of course it did, because this was her
life
. She wouldn't throw away her life over possibilities that might never happen. She'd made sure they never happened. "Stop drinking." Two words that lead to an even harder five months. But they'd been getting through it. Or so Beth thought.
"I'm always careful."
Day turned and gave her an incredulous look, a reminder of how they'd first met shining in his eyes. "You need anything, you call me."
"And you'll come rescue me?" she snickered, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah," his voice took on a serious note, forcing her to look back at him and see the truth on his face. "I will.
***
Beth swiped her credit card, entered the pin, grabbed her rolling duffle bag, and stepped out of the taxi with a murmured, "Thanks."
Since she'd started living with Jason nearly seven months ago, she'd never been scared to come home. Worried. Sure. Excited? Of course. But terrified? Never. Yet, there she stood, knuckles white around the handle of her bag trying to talk herself into going inside her own home.
"Beth!" a voice called, startling her. She turned to see her neighbor, Virginia Holiday, watching briskly down the street with her toy poodle cradled in her arms. In all the time she'd been living at The Winterfield apartment complex, Beth had yet to see that poodle touch the ground. Walked in a stroller, carried in her arms, or fastened against a chest? Of course. But
never
four legs on concrete and dirt.
"Virginia," Beth greeted with faux cheer. It was expected of her to acknowledge the woman who'd been born into privilege and influence just like Jason. She had to know how to navigate his world perfectly, because bluebloods were sharks just waiting for blood. "How are you this afternoon?"
