Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
I stood up so fast that the cotton balls on the table were knocked down onto the ground with the suddenness of my movement.
“What are you talking about?” I asked half hysterically.
“I joined the SWAT team as a tactical medic,” he explained, looking at me as if he was surprised by my reaction to his news.
“No,” I laughed at his attempted joke.
He nodded his head, his eyebrows furrowing.
“Yes,” he said in confirmation. “I told you this already.”
I was shaking my head before he’d finished.
“No,” I amended. “You told me you were thinking about it, but that it wasn’t a done deal. Two months ago. Which, might I add, you have never said another word about since.”
He nodded his head.
“Yes, but I still told you. As of this afternoon, I’ll be on the SWAT team in an official capacity. I won’t be working every call because I’ll be rotating with the other five firefighter/paramedics that I work with,” he explained. “I’m actually on call right now. I was the first one to start.”
My mouth dropped open.
“You…I…I can’t believe you’d do something this important without discussing it with me first!” I said in outrage. “You know how I feel about cops!”
Okay, it wasn’t actually toward cops, per se. It was more geared towards how dangerous a cop’s job was and to make matters worse, he was joining the SWAT team. A job that was more dangerous than just your average beat cop. A job that would take him away from me if he ever got hurt, or worse, died.
“Honey,” he said soothingly. “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Oh?” I said with deceptive calm. “Please, enlighten me, how you think that you can promise me something like that?” I snapped.
He knew about my brother. He also knew about my irrational hysteria when it came to his safety. My issues with him leaving me to go to work and never coming home again.
Dean’s lips thinned.
“I’m the medic,” he said soothingly. “I won’t be put in the line of fire unless there are no other options for me.”
“That’s not good enough,” I said. “You know what happened to my brother.”
And he did. We’d had the conversation the day he’d first met my brother. I’d wanted to warn him not to comment on the scar my brother bore. The one that made him shut down and refuse to speak for long minutes afterwards as he thought about how that scar got there.
He sighed and walked forward to pull me into his arms, but I stepped back before he could get too close.
“Stop,” I held my hand up at him.
His brows lowered and he kept coming.
“Stop!” I yelled, causing him to freeze.
Once he stopped his forward motion, I started looking for my things.
“No,” he said. “You can’t just ask me to stop. You have to talk to me about this. We can’t just leave it like this before I have to leave. I’m on shift tomorrow for the next two days.”
I laughed, no humor in my voice whatsoever.
“Well, it’ll be longer than two days,” I said. “I can’t deal with this,” I informed him. “Not after what happened to my brother. Someone’s going to kill you, and I’ll never see you again.”
“Honey, I’m not going to leave you. Never,” he promised, not stopping this time.
Once he was in front of me, he pulled me into his arms. “Even if you don’t want me to be, I’ll always be here.”
I looked at him, saw in his eyes that held such sincerity that I actually believed him.
“Stay,” he said. “When I get back home, we’ll talk, okay?”
I held such hope that I agreed, and I shouldn’t have.
I should’ve gone with my instincts, because if I had, I could’ve saved myself a world of hurt over the next month and a half.
But I didn’t.
Why?
Because I loved him.
And I was stupid. So fucking stupid.
***
I got up, wrapping the sheet tightly around me like a sarong, and walked out of the hospital without looking back.
Then I got in a cab that was sitting at the curb, and I directed him to my house.
Once there, I did my best to clean the cut in my shoulder, thankful that it was no longer anything but an annoying throb rather than a shooting pain.
The super glue, though, burned like a bitch when I used it to close the wound myself.
And I had to throw away my red bra, seeing as I’d practically glued it to my body.
Lying down on my bed hours after the incident, I closed my eyes and cried myself to sleep for the three hundred and eighty-ninth day in a row.
Stupid fucking Dean.
Chapter 6
Love is a meeting of two souls. Fully accepting both the good and the bad. The bitchy and the non-bitchy.
-Words of Wisdom
Dean
“What do you mean she left?” I barked at Alexa.