Crash & Carnage by Emma Slate

Chapter 12

Cool evening airteased my temples as I stood on Peyton’s doorstep. I rang the doorbell and a moment later she opened the door, looking fresh and casual in a pair of dark slacks, a cream sweater, and bare feet.

“You didn’t have to bring flowers,” Peyton said, waving me in across the threshold of her townhouse.

“Yes, I did.” I handed over the bouquet of white lilies and the bottle of cabernet and then removed my boots. “You offered to feed me. The least I could do was bring flowers. The wine was a given.”

Peyton beamed. “The flowers are lovely. And thoughtful. Thank you.”

The living room and the kitchen were one large room. The kitchen itself wasn’t overly spacious, but it had decent counter space and new appliances. Peyton had made her home warm and vibrant. Bright red and turquoise pillows accented the gray couch. A matching gray ottoman rested in front of the gas fireplace that was currently on, blazing with heat. Photographs graced the walls and leafy plants brought the entire space together.

I set my purse aside and was unable to stop myself from reaching for my cell phone. No missed calls or texts. I held in a sigh. Reason told me not to expect to hear from Boxer. Hope was telling Reason to shut the hell up. But after the way I treated him, I couldn’t blame him for not calling. And I was too chicken to call him.

So here we are.

“Bad news?” Peyton asked.

“Hmm?”

“Bad news,” she repeated. “You’re frowning.”

“Oh.” I hastily stuffed the phone back into my purse and stood up straight. “Not bad news. Just hoping to hear from someone.”

“Someone.” Her grin widened. “Yes! I finally get the details! Let’s open this bottle of wine. The chicken and rice are already in the oven; I just need to make a salad. And while I do that, you’re going to tell me everything that’s happened.”

I was talked out after having spent an hour on the phone with Quinn. My mind was a whirl.

“Do we have to?” I asked in exasperation. “Didn’t you get the details from Amanda and Lizzie?”

Peyton’s blue eyes twinkled. “I want the play-by-play from the source. You promised me.”

Peyton’s rescue cat slid out from underneath the couch and came to greet me. He walked through my legs, his tail curling around my calf. I reached down to pet him.

“Hello, Magic.”

He turned his head into my palm and purred as I scratched behind one jagged, scarred ear.

She opened a kitchen drawer and pulled out the wine opener. In a few deft moves, she had the bottle open and poured the wine into two glasses.

I took one of the glasses.

“Did you sleep with him?” she asked.

I nodded.

“And?”

“It was amazing.”

And I felt him all the way down to the part of me that was hiding.

I flushed with heat, remembering his hands on my body, remembering him inside me.

Peyton let out a light chuckle. “Ah, I see.”

“What do you see?” I demanded.

“It scared you. Whatever you felt when you were with him.”

I blew out a breath. “It was everything I needed it to be.”

“Then what’s the problem? Unless you immediately wanted something more with him?”

I shook my head. “He wanted more of me than I was willing to give.”

She set her glass of wine aside and then went to the refrigerator. Peyton pulled out all the ingredients for a salad.

“Do you have a vase?” I asked.

“Top of the fridge.” She pointed. “What do you mean he wanted more of you?”

“I wasn’t myself when he came over. I was—there were…” I sighed. “I’d gotten into a fight with my mother.” Peyton knew about my mom. I tended not to talk about my family life and childhood if I could help it, but one day while I was on break, she’d caught me in the throes of a conversation with my mother. Inevitably, curiosity and questions arose. I’d just moved to Dallas, I was feeling vulnerable, and she was willing to lend an ear. We’d waited until the end of our shift and gone out for a drink. I’d spilled about my mother, and she spilled about losing her husband.

“Boxer came over to take me out on a date, and I sort of took out my aggression on him. Sexually.”

Confusion marred her expression. “And he was upset about that?”

“No. He let me. But after, he started to dig into what was going on. I didn’t want him to dig.”

“Huh.”

“Scissors?”

She opened a drawer and handed the scissors to me. I talked while I snipped the stems of the flowers. “I don’t understand why he cared. This was supposed to be easy and light. Easy and light doesn’t mean you talk about your family dynamics.”

“Didn’t he show up at the hospital with food from The Rex?”

“The gossip wheel is greased and working I see,” I said with a rueful grin. “Yeah, he did show up with food.”

“And the night you had sex with him, you were supposed to go out again, right?”

“He told me to wear a nice dress. He was dressed up, too. Well, nicer than normal for a biker, I guess.”

Peyton grabbed a tomato from the fruit bowl and rinsed it off. When she hadn’t said anything for a few moments, I prodded, “What? What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking actions speak louder than words.”

“I had sex with him and then kicked him to the curb.”

“Not your actions. His. From everything you’ve told me, it doesn’t sound like a man who wants something easy and light. If all he wanted was fun, he wouldn’t drive all the way to Dallas just to see you.”

“He’s not driving all the way to Dallas just to see me,” I protested. “He says the club has business in Dallas, so he makes the trek a few times a week.”

“Fine. But he’s still thinking about you, bringing you food and wanting to take you out on dates. That’s effort. Serious effort.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “You make a very valid case for him.”

“The man’s got charm. You can admit that, right?”

“He has it in spades,” I agreed with a disgruntled frown.

Peyton smiled. “He flirts with women. He teased and joked with all the nurses on the floor. Hell, he even got Babs to smile and dare I say it, look soft. For just a moment, mind you, but he achieved the unachievable.”

“So?”

“So, there’s something about you that made him take a closer look.”

“He doesn’t want for female companionship,” I muttered.

“Companionship and a true partnership are not the same thing. If he was out just to have sex with you, do you think he’d be going through all this effort?”

I moved the vase of lilies to the end of the counter and out of the way so it wouldn’t get knocked over.

“Does the biker thing bother you?” she asked suddenly. “And by biker, I mean criminal thing?”

“How do you know he’s a criminal?” I hedged.

“Please,” she said with a laugh. “There are some men who pretend to be dangerous, and then there are men who are actually dangerous.”

“Does the criminal thing bother me,” I repeated. “It didn’t. Because I wasn’t thinking of a future with him.”

“But if you were?” she prodded.

“But I’m not.” My tone was emphatic.

“Sounds like unfinished business to me,” she said.

“It’s finished. Done.”

“Why? Because of your baggage? Because one night you booted him out? We all have baggage.”

“Yes, but showing him my baggage might scare him away.”

“So, you’re rejecting him before he has a chance to reject you.”

“I’m…crap,” I muttered. “That’s exactly what I did.”

“You don’t think he has the chops to stick around after you get deep with him? Don’t judge Boxer by the same standards you’ve judged the other men in your life. Boxer might surprise you.”

“What makes you say that?” I was fascinated by Peyton’s read on the situation. I was too close in on it and Quinn, as much as I loved her, was engaged to a criminal. Her judgement was clouded.

“The way he watched you. Like he couldn’t take his eyes off you. Like he was hungry, starving.”

I rolled my eyes. “Lust, you mean.”

She shook her head. “No. Hungry for something he couldn’t name.”

My traitor of a heart fluttered with longing in my chest. “We barely know each other.”

“Fine. Don’t listen to me. You’re going to choose what you want to do regardless of what I say.” She looked up from chopping vegetables to stare at me. “But let me say one thing: There are times in life when nothing makes sense. When you can’t make sense of the reality you’re living in and you’re angry all the time.” She smiled sadly. “I know what it’s like. Don’t let the anger rule you. It doesn’t just incinerate everything around you—it takes you with it. Ask me how I know.”

I flinched. “Peyton.”

She shook her head, sending her bright red hair spilling across her shoulders. “When Tom died, I lost myself for a long time. You’re a young, brilliant surgeon at the top of your field, and you were working at one of the most renowned hospitals in the country. You were on the path to being chief of surgery—that’s what they were grooming you for, wasn’t it?”

I nodded.

“And yet, you gave all that up to start over in a different city where you have to prove yourself all over again to new colleagues that no longer respect you for how smart you are because you walked out on a sure thing, and they don’t trust that you’ll stick around.”

I opened my mouth to reply, only to realize I had nothing to say. I’d told the nurses that I’d left Duke behind because of a breakup and wanting a fresh start. It was partly the truth, but there was more. There was always more.

I grabbed my glass of wine and wandered back over to the couch. A glossy magazine rested on the coffee table. A handsome man with dark brown curls falling rakishly over his forehead and emerald-green eyes smirked at me from the cover. His three-piece gray bespoke suit fit him perfectly.

I leaned down and picked up the magazine. “Most Eligible Bachelors of Dallas.” My eyes widened in surprise when my gaze scanned the name in small text next to the photo. Ramsey Buchanan also ran The Dallas Rex.

His connections to Boxer went far deeper than just a normal friendship.

“Holy crap,” I stated.

“What?”

I held up the magazine and showed it to Peyton. “Ramsey Buchanan owns my condo building.”

“Really? Wild. He’s sexy as sin, don’t you think?” Peyton asked, picking up a plate.

“Sexy as sin,” I agreed, but the man with dashing curls falling across his forehead and entrancing green eyes did nothing for me.

I had a thing for a leather-wearing, tattooed biker.

Sigh.

“Dinner’s ready.” She served hefty portions and then handed me the dish.

I took the plate of food Peyton gave me and sat down. Even after she joined me at the table, I stared at my plate but didn’t dive in.

“Something wrong with the food?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Then what is it?”

“How did you get over the anger?”

She reached for her glass of wine. Peyton took a sip and then held her glass, looking thoughtful. “Anger was a form of denial. Of blame. I blamed God. The universe. Myself.”

“Why did you blame yourself?”

“I regretted all the times we’d fought over things that didn’t matter. For all the times I didn’t say I love you. For all the kisses I never got to give him. For all the hugs we missed. For all the trips we didn’t get to take.” Peyton shook her head and discreetly kept her eyes away from mine as she wiped a tear from her cheek.

“He was my favorite person. My best friend. He changed me. He made me better. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to have just one more day with him.” She inhaled a shaky breath and continued on, “There’s never enough time when you find the person you’re supposed to be with. So, if you have a shot in hell of finding someone real, someone meaningful, someone that gets inside of you and lights you up, then embrace it. And who fucking cares how it looks. You get one life, Linden. Don’t waste it.”

Magic curled around my leg. I took a small piece of chicken and held it out to him. He devoured it and then settled down on top of my feet, purring loudly.

“We haven’t known each other very long,” I said. “How can you see right through me?”

“Because I’ve been where you are, working all the time, keeping busy on my days off. It’s easy to see that in someone else once you’ve already lived it.”

I shook my head. “I would really like to talk about you now.” I reached for my glass and took a sip.

“I miss sex.”

I choked on my wine, and it went up my nose. I hastily set my glass down and wiped my face with a blue cloth napkin.

Peyton grinned. “You said you wanted to talk about me, well, there it is.”

“I did,” I admitted with a laugh. “So, you miss sex, huh?”

“If you meet another rough and tough biker you’re not interested in, send him my way.”

My mouth dropped open. “You’d seriously sleep with a biker?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“Why?”

“Because those are the kind of men who make a woman feel alive.”

My skin remembered Boxer’s calloused palms, the warmth of him at my back, the feeling of being completely at his mercy.

I sighed. “I’m a damn fool.”

Peyton grasped the bottle of wine and topped off my wine glass. “Yeah, Linden. You are.”

* * *

I hugged Peyton goodbye. “Thanks for dinner. It was…illuminating.”

When I stepped back, she reached for the door. “Are you going to call him?”

“And say what? Sorry I kicked you out. Sorry I didn’t want to talk about all my issues? Sorry, can you come back and rock my world all over again?”

“Yeah, any of that would work. As long as you mean it.” Peyton smiled. “Life is messy, my dear. That’s what makes it beautiful.”

I hugged her one last time. “See you soon.”

She stood in the doorway as I headed to my car. Peyton didn’t go back inside until I pulled out of her driveway.

I used the drive back to my condo to process what she’d said. Why was I unable to let the idea of Boxer go? We’d only just started something. Something that was supposed to remain uncomplicated. I thought back to the night he took me to Pinky’s and his easy, friendly way with Freddy and how he’d treated the older couple, talking to complete strangers and buying them dinner just because he wanted to.

“He’s complicated,” I said out loud to myself. “But he pretends not to be.”

There was a depth to Boxer that he didn’t show people. He portrayed a what you see is what you get kind of man.

What was it that Freddy had said to me? Women only expected a good time from Boxer, and he never promised anything else.

Did he want to?

“Crap,” I muttered.

I was worse than those women who didn’t see below his fun, flirty exterior. At least they were honest about what they wanted from Boxer. I’d seen underneath it, and I’d turned my back on it. I’d rejected him when maybe, just maybe, he’d been willing to show me something deeper of himself. He’d brought me food, he’d taken me on a date, and he’d let me kick him out of my condo without putting up a fight.

When I pulled into the underground parking garage of my condo building, I slid into my spot. I turned off the car but didn’t get out right away.

A tidal wave of shame for how I treated Boxer washed over me.

Before I could think too much about my actions, I pulled out my phone and dialed his number.

My heart lifted, expecting to hear his voice, teasingly calling me out for not being able to stay away from him. When I got his voicemail, I frowned in disappointment.

It beeped, but I was suddenly tongue-tied.

“Boxer, hey,” I stuttered. “It’s Linden. Can we talk? Call me.”

I hung up and then pressed my forehead to the steering wheel, feeling like an idiot. Feeling like I was in unchartered territory. Feeling like I’d lost the chance at something real.

* * *

Silence.

Four days of silence.

Boxer never returned my call, nor did he text.

I had my answer. He was done with me—us—whatever this was.

He’d realized I was more trouble than I was worth and that there were other women—less complicated women—he could spend his time with.

I only had myself to blame for getting my hopes up that he’d call back.

By not calling me, he was sending a clear message and I had to respect it.

Luckily, I had work to dive into. I performed a colon resection, repaired a hernia, biopsied a thyroid tumor, stitched up a forehead, and treated an adult who’d uncovered a wasp’s nest in his garage and had been stung to the point of going into anaphylactic shock.

I was nearing the end of my forty-eighty-hour shift, my eyes bloodshot from too much caffeine and too little sleep. “You look like you could crash for days,” Amanda remarked when I approached the nurses’ station.

“I feel that way.” I threw out an exhausted smile. “But I’m so keyed up, I doubt I’ll be able to fall asleep right away.”

“You know what helps with that? Sex. Raunchy, dirty, twisty sex.” Amanda grinned. “You should call your hot biker and ask him to oblige.”

He wasn’t my biker anymore, and I was depressed.

I wanted Boxer in my bed, the sheet pulled up over his body, naked chest on display as his heavy-lidded eyes watched me strip and then crawl on top of him.

“Your jaw just went slack,” Amanda said with a laugh.

I closed my mouth and shook my head. “You’re rotten.”

An hour later, I was home. I hadn’t seen Jerry for days and there was a new guard on duty. I waited for the wave of guilt for getting Jerry fired, but then again, he’d been the one spying on me and feeding information to my mother. I had nothing to feel guilty over.

The late afternoon sun drenched the condo in a soft, warm glow, making me want to curl up in a patch of light and fall into a dreamless sleep.

I was so exhausted that I just stood in the living room, wondering what I wanted and in what order. The caffeine buzz was no longer in my system, and my limbs were shaky with fatigue.

Boxer not calling me back grated on me.

I groaned. This was stupid. I was being stupid.

Stupid, tired and irrational.

Screw it. If I’m going to be irrational…

There were things I wanted to say to Boxer, and I wanted to say them face to face. I wasn’t sure why that idea took root, but it seemed imperative.

Nothing had been settled as far as I was concerned. It still felt unresolved, at least on my end, but I couldn’t figure out why. I’d asked him to leave, and he left. That should have been the end of it.

I went to the fridge and pulled out the carton of orange juice. As I poured the last of it into one of the new glasses delivered from Folson’s, I tried to silence my thoughts.

“Gasoline on a fire? Good idea or a bad idea?” I said aloud. This would’ve been a perfect moment to ask a pet for its advice, but I was a workaholic that would’ve forgotten to feed a goldfish, much less some furry living thing.

I opened a new browser on my phone and searched for the number to Pinky’s. I pressed the number and waited.

Someone answered after two rings. “Pinky’s,” a woman greeted.

“Hello, may I speak to Freddy?”

“I’m Freddy.”

“Freddy, hey. It’s Linden.”

“Linden,” she repeated slowly.

“Boxer’s friend.”

“Yeah.” She laughed. “I remember you.”

“Right,” I muttered.

“What can I do for you?”

I sighed. “Tell me about the Blue Angels’ parties…”