Page 59 of Never Give Up

“Are you okay?” Her soft voice comes from behind me. “I know it’s late. If you don’t want me to use one of your shirts, it’s fine.”

I shove all the inappropriate thoughts away and open the door and pull out the first t-shirt I can find. A brown one with ‘Birch County Sheriff’ written in yellow on the chest.

“This is perfect, thanks.” She smiles at me, and I can’t help but smile back at her, feeling like a thousand different types of fool. “I’ll be back in just a second. We can talk for a minute if you want.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

When she leaves the room, I go to mine and take my uniform off and put on a pair of pajama pants with an old t-shirt. I sit down on the edge of the bed and put my head in my hands, a little worried about what Maya wants to talk to me about.

More than anything, I just want to pull her into my arms and fall asleep with her tucked against my chest. Keep her safe.

I also want her to get to know me in a way that would show her that I’m not just the dick who broke her heart. That I will treasure her. That I’ll do better, be better. For her.

Maya knocks gently on my door, and I look up as she stands there framed by the light in the hall. I will never stop staring at her. She’s short and has curves everywhere a woman should. Her brown hair is down and falls in waves around her face and down onto her chest. She has perfectly sized breasts for what I want to do with them. I can see her nipples pebbled against the fabric that holds them in.

My shirt falls across her body and goes down to a few inches above her knees. I never want it back. If she wears it to bed every night, I’ll die a happy man. Even when I try to force myself to stop looking at her, I can’t.

She comes through the doorway, and it takes me a minute to realize that she’s looking at me too, before she sits on my bed next to me.

Maya crosses her legs and sits with her hands in her lap, keeping the shirt from riding up.

“What did you want to talk about?” I ask, still unsure of what she might say, but needing to distract myself from the fact that I don’t know what she’s wearing under that shirt. It’s a strange feeling, not knowing what someone is going to say or how they’re going to act. Even as I look at her, I don’t have a fuckin’ clue how she’s going to respond.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely better, Brian,” she says quietly. “I can’t go out in public without wondering somewhere in my head if I’m going to be attacked. I don’t know a lot of things. But most importantly, I don’t know how I feel about you. Part of loving someone is accepting all their bad sides along with the good ones. And I do. I don’t care what you’ve done, or who for that matter. I know that your work is important to you, and I know that the boys are important as well. I just want to be important to someone, too.” My heart lurches at the thought of her leaving me. At the thought that she doesn’t feel important.

She’s so important.

She’s fuckin’ everything to you, dumbass. Tell her.

“Maya, I can’t promise you that I’ll be able to give you the perfect life. I can’t tell you that we won’t fight, and I can’t tell you that I won’t be a jackass a lot of the time, because we both know that I am. But I can tell you that I want you here, in my life.” I motion to the room around us. “I don’t mean in my bedroom, but in my life. With my boys. With me. Going to my parents’ house for dinner. Waking up at midnight to go play in the snow. Going ice-fishing. I don’t need to see if there’s anything between us because I know there is. I just want a chance to show you what I feel.”

When Maya’s lips meet mine in a soft caress, my heart soars like I’m living in one of those cheesy romance novels my grammy used to read every single day.

“Brian, please just hold me.” She uncurls herself and moves farther up on the bed so that she can rest against the pillows. “I’m just so tired.”

I don’t say a word, just scoot up and pull her into my arms.

When she falls asleep before I do, all the doubts and fears fade away. Everything in the world is right as she curls into my chest for the second time in as many days.

Before I drift off to sleep, I wonder how something this complicated can seem so right. The answer is obvious, though, and I can see it dancing in front of my eyes.

She’s always been the one for me. I was just too stubborn to see it.

“I think I’ve loved you since the day I met you.” I press a soft kiss to the top of her head. “And I’ll do anything it takes to prove it to you.”

21

MAYA

A body presses against mine,heat coursing through every point of contact between us. I’m right there, in the darkness of that night.

Fire blazes through me like a furnace, searing my skin until there’s nothing left. Panic rises in my chest, but I can’t escape. His arm tightens around my waist. I can’t reach the button on my bracelet because my hands won’t work, my fingers can’t budge an inch, let alone travel through the space it will take to save myself.

Just like before, I’m trapped. But this time, there’s no escaping, and I know I’m about to die.

A sob wells up in my throat and I try to scream but a voice breaks through the darkness all around me, and my eyes flash open.

“Maya, hey. It’s me, Brian.”

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