Page 91 of All Too Well
I hate that I struggle with this. Talking and thinking about the past causes me stress that I’ve worked hard to avoid. It’s not that I regret any of it. I just don’t want to go back and remember the way it felt at that time, but then I look at Ainsley, and there’s no way I can deny her.
I will hurt myself a million times before I sit back and let her suffer.
So I’ll help her. I’ll give her the interview and make her happy. I’ll do whatever she needs because I want to be the man who makes her happy.
“Then you have me.”
Her eyes widen. “I do?”
“Yes, I’ll do the interview.”
She jumps up, rushing to me, and throws herself in my lap. Her lips find mine, and I sort of hate myself for not agreeing to this sooner if this was going to be the reaction. She pulls away much too quickly for my liking. “You mean it?”
“I mean it.” She squeezes my cheeks and then kisses me again, not a long, sexy kiss that I really want, but more of a long lip-slap kiss, and then she pushes herself off my lap. “Do you do that with all the people you interview?”
She giggles and goes back to her seat. “Since you’re my first assignment, I wouldn’t know.”
“What’s in the bag?”
She shifts in her seat a little. “I wasn’t sure you would say yes, so I came prepared with a bribe.”
“A bribe?”
“Listen, you haven’t been all that cooperative so far. I needed backup.”
I go to grab the bag, but she snatches it quickly. “No, sir. You don’t need the bribe now.”
“I’m not sure what’s in there, but if it’s food, I definitely need it.”
She lets out a long sigh. “It is food, but I think it’s better if I use it as leverage in case you become difficult.”
“Me? Difficult? I’m a hero who saves children and puppies, remember?” I tease.
“Oh, now there are puppies?”
I shrug. “Rolls off the tongue easily.”
She bursts out laughing. “Who are you? You’re never in this good of a mood.”
“I’m always in a good mood.”
When I’m not pining after her. When she shows up here and kisses me. When I’m just near her, suddenly it’s like the sun peeking over the horizon.
Ainsley chases away that dark cloud that’s hung over my head for years.
“That is a lie, but I’ll allow it.”
“Thank you.”
Her eyes are bright with happiness, and I feel like a damn king, knowing I put it there. “All right, we should get down to it.”
“We’re doing this now?” I ask.
“Are you busy?”
I look at the stacks of paper on my desk and then back to her. I’m swimming in a never-ending sea of bureaucracy. My chief retired a year ago, and since then we haven’t had anyone permanent in this spot. The two other captains and I rotated, but no one ever handled anything fully before we had to pass it to the next guy.
Which means everything slipped through the cracks. Since I was appointed chief after that stupid fire, I’ve been doing nothing but cleaning up messes and finding new ones.
