Page 52 of Concealed

Life doesn’t wait for you.

That’s the sentiment that keeps mocking me. It tortures my brain throughout all the hours I spend alone each day, and when I’m supposed to be sleeping at night. Sure, I could give myself six months to get my shit together and then call Wyatt to check if he’s still available.

But he won’t be.

Someone is definitely going to scoop that man up.

I’ll lose my chance to have him.

Not as a boyfriend. I don’t date cops. But I sure as hell want to lose myself in him and just feel – alive. He’s game, or at least he was before I stopped him in his tracks.

If I keep running hot and cold, he’s going to put me permanently in the “crazy as shit roommate” box, and I’ll never have him in any capacity.

My scrubbing has become too frantic, and water from the bucket sloshes all over the floor. I’ve started thinking of my phone as the cursed rectangle, and it’s been going off constantly, screaming at me that I have new emails.

I stopped checking after realizing it wasn’t another interview request or Wyatt. It’s Alex. She wants an answer to where I am, wants to know that I’m okay, and wants me to stop being such a shitty friend.

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

I jump to my feet and grab the goddamn phone, pounding out a short reply that I hope will quell Alex’s nerves.

It’s nice that she cares about me, as she’s one of the few people left in the world who still do. But surely, it must be obvious that if I could talk, I would.

Girl, thank you for checking in with me. I’m fine, don’t worry. I can’t say anything else right now, but I’ll reach out when I can – promise. Love you and appreciate you so much.

Rebecca

I’m back to scrubbing, and the townhouse has just fallen silent when Wyatt enters the kitchen, his sudden appearance making me jump to my feet and nearly fall over backward on the wet floor.

Great.

We’re off to a solid start with acting normal.

“I didn’t hear you come in.”

The clock tells me it’s just after nine in the morning, and he’s been gone for… too many hours for me to figure out. There’s a reason that I majored in English and history.

He grabs an apple from the fruit bowl. “I gathered. What are your plans for today?”

“Oh, you know. Same old. I’ll be quiet so you can sleep.”

Wyatt starts tossing the apple from hand to hand. “At some point, yeah, but it’s way too nice outside to sleep right now.”

He’s not going to confront me about being nuts. And what would he say anyway?Hey, Rebecca, can you stop asking me to kiss you and then changing your mind?

My gaze rises to meet his eyes. His smile doesn’t chip away at the sadness he’s carrying, making my heart squeeze painfully in my chest.

“What happened?” I ask.

“It’s hard to have a job where you’re supposed to save people, and sometimes you can’t. Maybe it’s because they don’t want to be saved, maybe it’s because you don’t have the legal grounds to intervene, or maybe it’s something else. But walking away doesn’t get easier.”

“You’ll get them. I know you will.”

He sets the apple on the countertop, and then starts going through the motions of putting his gun and duty belt away. The muscles are visible through his uniform shirt, and the tendons flexing in his forearms while he goes through his routine on autopilot might as well be porn.

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