Page 8 of Never Give Up

“I’m going to sleep on the couch,” I tell him needlessly. It’s not like I can go to my room. Not until I take a blowtorch to it. “I’ll talk to whoever I need to when I come in for work. But right now, I need to sleep.”

“Okay,” he tells me with a grim look. “I’ll be here for a little while longer. Gotta make sure nothing happens to you until I get someone out here to change the locks and secure the windows.”

I walk away, wanting to cry. In a few short hours, my entire life changed for the worse, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

Who cares about a stalker when the rest of my life is a heaping dumpster fire?

3

BRIAN

“Doyou think she realizes the danger she’s in?”

Jake’s words reverberate through me as we stand outside Maya’s house and my heart aches at the way things were left.

We’re better as friends. I just need to make Maya see that. If I can, I won’t destroy the only real friendship I’ve ever had with a woman. She doesn’t know I want her more than my next breath; I just have to keep it that way.

My boys don’t need more heartache and shake-ups in their lives.

And Maya…

“Honestly, I don’t think she cares, man. She hasn’t cared about anything in a long time.” I sigh. Unspoken, I feel the words hanging in the air.

She cares about you.

It bugs me that I hurt her more than someone breaking into her house and placing her in danger, but I’m not taking it back. Maya is such a bright and shining star, someone who can lighten the room with just a word, and I might have broken that. Even if itwasfor the best.

“What do you think?” The question comes out both to ease the tension in my bones and to change the subject I feel hanging in the air.

“She’s got a stalker. And if he’s gotten this far, it means he’s smart… and he’s done it before.”

I wait for him to continue.

“When I called, the LT told me to document it as a breaking and entering, because it doesn’t fit the statutes for stalking. He wants us to keep an eye on the house and have dispatch email everyone about it.” Jake doesn’t need to put words to the rest.

I know what he isn’t saying. I know that look of concern on his face. The same one I feel. The one I won’t let anyone else see. It doesn’t matter if the statutes aren’t being met or that there’s not an escalation right now.

Maya has someone coming after her and there’s nothing we can do about it.

“Well, she’s one of us.” My voice is almost broken, harsher than I intend. “We need to watch out for her.” I put my hand on the car, tapping my fingers. “I don’t want anything to happen on my watch.”

“You haven’t said anything to her, have you? About how you really feel?” Jake stares at me, always able to see past bullshit and right into my head, where I don’t want him.

“No.” Shaking my head, I decide the best course of action is to give him exactly what he wants. The truth. “I slammed the door on that last night. Rejecting her is all I can give her.” My words are punctuated with a small cringe. If Jake wasn’t my best friend, he might mistake it for distaste at Maya’s feelings for me. But he knows the truth.

“Brian—”

“It’s for the best. I don’t want…” I trail off, before I lie to both of us. I want her. More than I want my next breath.

“So you rejected her, and then she came home to this?”

My jaw clenches as I stare up at the house, knowing the woman I want is on the other side, rightfully hating me for the way I treated her. “It’s fixed.” The lie slips out easily. “She doesn’t want anything to do with me. And now we can both move on.” Another lie.

“You have—”

“I have to go home and deal with the shitstorm waiting for me there.” The kids, the ex, the chaos and… the darkness of my own demons coming out to play.

“Deal with what? You and Ashley have been over for a year. I mean, you definitely need to find someone else to help with the boys, but… Jesus, Brian. You owe yourself the truth. And you owe that woman”—Jake points to the house behind us—“way more than you’re letting yourself give. She’s not Ashley, and she’s sure as hell nother. Hell, if I wasn’t absolutely positive where my future was headed, I’d take her from you right now.”

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