Page 34 of Falling for Carla

“You forgot the part where I found her terrified and huddled behind my car in university parking because someone had tried to run her down and then tried to grab her. And it was raining,” I said, as if the rain and her chilled, bedraggled appearance had been even worse than the threat to her life.

“You had no chance. You were a goner from the moment you saved her in the alley from the mugger. But frightened and hiding in the rain? If I were going to make up a story where you would be targeted with the perfect temptation, it would be something like that. A strong, outspoken woman is brought low by a threat to her life and needs your protection. She turns to you. Bam. Game over. Also, career over and she probably wouldn’t get to matriculate from the graduate school based on your involvement while she’s in your required and graded course. So you have to look out for yourself for once here, Drake. I worry about you. That you’ll sacrifice the career you’ve built to protect this woman, and that for her this is only a way to survive a difficult time.”

“You don’t know her,” I said, jaw clenching defensively.

“No, and neither do you. Remember that. Are you having long heart to heart conversations every night at this platonic slumber party?” he jeered.

“No,” I said. “I barely say two words to her. She makes me dinner. I eat the dinner. I usually tell her thanks. She talks to me though. She can’t use her phone, since we don’t want her tracked to my location while the Lombardi crew and their subordinates in the local gangs are pursuing her. I imagine there’s a hefty bounty for whoever brings in Russo’s baby girl for leverage. They could get a lot of territory and concessions in exchange for a hostage that valuable,” I said.

“So, you’re the only contact she has with the outside world? This is worse than I thought, my friend. She’s isolated as well as afraid. And you’re her only friend.”

“She has a roommate she talks to on a burner phone for a few minutes about every day. I keep switching out burners so it’s not the same number in case anyone’s monitoring the roommate’s calls.”

“So you’ve got the security thing covered. It’s the fact that you want her and you’re trying to avoid her in, what, a two-bedroom apartment?” Kyle pointed out.

“Yeah, it’s miserable. I like having her there, but I also hate it, and myself if that makes sense.”

“It does. Unfortunately,” he said with a wry laugh. “My only advice for you here is to look out for yourself. That looks like not risking your career over a relationship unless it’s the real thing. And you have to know if she’s on the same page as you. In an extreme situation it’s difficult to tell what’s real and what’s magnified by the danger. In our case, it took my almost losing Mindy to realize what I stood to lose. It felt like a wild animal was flaying me apart when I couldn’t get to her. No matter how many degrees I had or awards I had won or any kind of prestige, I was just as primitive, just as possessive as any caveman when it came to the point. So don’t turn yourself inside out over her unless you’re both sure this is it.”

“Thanks for the advice,” I said, not really feeling like that was helpful.

I hung up the phone and tried to consider his advice. He was trying to look out for me, but there were variables involved in my situation. His circumstances had been different, and they were different people than Carla and me.

I respected his warnings, but he didn’t have the police background I do. I can protect someone without falling in love. At least I thought I could. As for Carla, she was younger and beautiful and had her career in front of her. There was no way she was looking for an ex-cop turned professor that was probably fourteen years older than her.

Mindy had been in love with Kyle, there was no question about it. I think Carla would like it if I talked to her and was friendly, if I held her while she slept. But there was no sign that she had any serious feelings for me, and the last thing I wanted to do was pressure someone in a dangerous and isolated situation. Especially considering that could be manipulative, coercive even. I never wanted her to think that my protecting her was dependent on her acting like she had romantic feelings for me. I’d never do that to her. The thought disgusted me.

The fact remained, though. I wanted Carla to want me. Not as a helpful ex-cop. As a man. I knew it could never work. I couldn’t have a fling with a student. There was too much at stake. So, I’d continue to ignore her and make myself miserable and leave her wondering why I was so impossibly rude. Better that she thought I was odd than that she thought I was yearning to have her back in my bed.

When I fished the key out of my pocket to unlock my apartment, I realized on a deep inhale that I could already smell something delectable that she’d been cooking. The elation, the lightness in my chest was akin to joy. I caught myself being happy to have her to come home to. I even let myself wonder what it would be like for an instant, if this were real. If she lived here with me, if we cooked dinner together and talked and laughed. If we shared a life.

CHAPTER 26

CARLA

Drake definitely liked my chicken piccata. The man was a total gym addict, but he was shoveling in the piccata with the side of lemon pasta like it was his last meal and there was a time limit. I burst out laughing at one point. He looked up, surprised, and met my eyes. I couldn’t help noticing how it hit me to have him look right at me, the thud of my heart as it kicked up a notch.

“What?” he said.

“Nothing. I like watching you enjoy what I cook, but I’m wondering if you’d like to be alone with the pan of chicken at this point,” I said. “I feel like I’m intruding on a private moment.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m attracted to chicken, but this could be used to bait a trap to catch me. It’s a good thing none of the perps I arrested had this recipe. They could’ve distracted me and got the jump on me while I was eating.”

I grinned. I loved this. The easy banter, the playful way we could be in conversation, the closeness I’d been craving. It hit me with a wave of satisfaction. This was what I’d needed from him. Not just hot-cop-gives-me-all-the-orgasms. Connection. Friendship. It hit me so hard how much I liked him.

“I like you, Drake. You’re funny,” I said, because I believed in telling people how I feel about them, because I didn’t believe in wasting time. “So can you tell me why you’ve been freezing me out? And why I had to develop a secret piccata weapon to get you talking?”

“Oh, is this your plan? Interrogate me, threaten to take away the chicken?” he teased. I felt myself smiling so big.

“You were so warm and kind to me, and then you just turned it off like I’d done something wrong. I know rationally that whatever it is probably has more to do with you than with me, but I’ve felt like I’m intruding by staying here because of the fact you won’t talk to me or really look at me.”

“It’s for self-preservation reasons,” he said, his face bare of the conventional frown of concentration he usually wore. “I took advantage of you when you first came here. I wouldn’t let that happen again, and I don’t want you to feel like you owe me that, like I expect anything of you.” He looked—tormented. Like he was really torn up about the whole thing.

“Listen, I thought you were friends with that women’s studies professor, right? So you don’t know that you didn’t take advantage of me? I was there, and what was going on is called enthusiastic consent. I wanted you just like you wanted me, and we were both there equally. No one took advantage of anyone. And since you have never said the words to me, ‘Carla, if you want to stay alive you have to provide me with sexual favors on demand,’ I didn’t exactly think that was how I pay rent here. Speaking of which, I can pay you half the rent and utilities from the time I moved in until this godforsaken mess is over.”

“That isn’t necessary. And I’m not trying to say you had no choice, just that with me being your teacher and also me hiding you out here, you might feel some kind of unspoken obligation.”

“But I don’t. I’m not like that. You’re helping me because you wanted to and I can pay my way and say thank you without analyzing your motives. You were a cop—it’s a helping profession like nurses and firefighters and teachers. It takes a guardian temperament according to my psych class. I also don’t go through life expecting people to demand sex from me.”

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