Page 75 of Never Give Up

He’s right.

I’m crying because I know it’s over with us.

And I’ll never be the same.

27

BRIAN

“She’sgonna be okay while we’re gone, right?”

Jake pauses in his packing for the yearly camping trip, an excursion into the woods in Northern Maine, and looks at me.

“If I thought for a second she would be in any sort of danger or that she couldn’t handle it, then I’d cancel.” I lean against the truck and rub a hand over the back of my neck. “She’s been acting weird the last few days, but I think it’s just relief about being out of the woods with her attacker.”

I pick up the tackle box and the rods that Jonathan brought out earlier. “The jackass we arrested hasn’t made bail. They’re charging him with Maya’s attack too.”

Jake nods and packs the tent into the bed of the truck. “I know. Penobscot deputies found a knife matching the wound on Maya, and he’s bragged about it with his attorney present. Man’s screwed himself. I just wanted to make sure Maya’s gonna be okay.”

“She will be. Maya’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met. She’s got all of us in her corner.”

And there’s the fact that every single night, I’ve got her in my arms. Her soft, pliable body, literally begging me to help her forget that there was anything to give her a nightmare.

Shit. Taking time away might help both of us put the past to rest. Make me less like some kind of creep taking advantage of Maya when she’s vulnerable. And maybe show her that I’m not trying to smother her. No matter how strong and stubborn she is, I know I’m pressing for more than she may want to give me.

“She looks happy here.” Jake pauses, looking at where Maya is laughing and playing with the boys while she helps them pack. “Which is good.”

I get the feeling that he’s talking about more than just her interacting with the boys, but I’m either too chicken shit or not man enough to ask him what he means.

“Are you sure that we should be taking this trip? What if he gets out while we’re gone?” Jake puts words to my fears, and I can’t just brush it off as a question about Maya.

“We’ve got a badass security system, and even Logan said he’ll come stay at the house if she needs him to.” I sigh and try to tell myself it will be enough.

I can’t help but stop and lean against the truck next to my friend. “She doesn’t blame you. You should know that. She doesn’t hate you for there being another attack. Maya knows how the process goes. But her fear, man. Watching her that night. It reminded me in an ugly way what he did to her, and every day it gets a little harder to remember the oath we took to protect the innocent. I want to rip his throat out with my bare hands. Every night when she cries in my arms, I lose my mind a little bit more.” Knowing how she feels, the anxiety and the emotions that she’s forced to face, hurts me a little more every day, but there’s no reason that Jake should beat himself up about it too. I’m doing that enough for both of us.

“I get it, we all care about her. And if I could give her the closure she needs, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I can’t, and it hurts.” Jake rubs his chest, and I know that my friend is feeling the strain of her attacker not being in prison for the rest of his life just like we are.

“I know,” I admit. “I just think it might do her some good for me and the boys to be gone for a bit. Give her a chance to get a handle on everything.” Plus, I have a feeling that she isn’t telling me everything that she’s feeling, and I don’t want her to run away from me. “You know what’s weird, though, is I thought when we arrested him I’d feel a huge relief. Thatshe’dget this weight lifted off her shoulders. And I know she does feel that. I see it in the way she can breathe. But there’s something there. Something deep and dark and I can’t help her if she doesn’t tell me about it.”

Maya isn’t her.

The voice in my head, the one that used to break me and derail every single positive move forward that I’d had in the last decade, switched sides at some point.

Clearly, even my mind wants me with Maya.

Jake throws me for a loop with his next statement. “You sure it’s about that and not about you wanting to get away from her?” My fist clenches at my side, and I have to stop myself from hitting the other man, stopping at the faraway look in his eyes.

Don’t kill your best friend.

“You’re close to getting punched in the face, Jake. I don’t need to get away from her. I don’t want to get away from her. I’m fuckin’ in love with the woman, and if you’d open your eyes longer than a second, you’d see it.”

Jake nods at me, a smirk on that cocky face I still want to punch. “Good to see you really are growing a pair. And it’s nice to know that you can admit how you feel. I know we’ve still got patrol watching out, even with this jackass behind bars, but until we can be certain…”

“So what are you saying? Do you think we should cancel?”

“I think we have enough evidence, like you said, to safely do this. And she’s not going to be alone the whole time, right?”

“Right.” I look at the house. “Maya would kill us knowing this is what we’re over here talking about.”

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