LITMIR.BIZ

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pretty, and he might be trying to save me from myself since we had mutual friends, but I seriously doubted he was ever going to be able to look at me the same way I looked at him after I had snapped cuffs around his wrists and dragged him to the police station.

      I pulled my hair into a messy ponytail, shoved my feet into a pair of battered motorcycle boots, and hit the front door. I was about to slam it closed behind me when I remembered to grab my keys. I was forever locking myself out of places—my car, my apartment, and even my patrol car on several occasions. It was a bad habit that was a pain in the ass for more than just me, but I couldn’t seem to shake it even after a mishap had almost led to the breakup of my neighbor and his lovely girlfriend.

      I dashed back inside, frazzled and frustrated. I scooped the keys up off the spot they lived in by the door and rushed back out. This time the hallway wasn’t empty, and the neighbor’s girlfriend, who also happened to be my one and only female friend on the planet, was exiting their apartment across the hall. Saint was a sweetheart. Soft-spoken and serene, she just had something about her that had instantly called out to me. It was like the chaotic pace and often dangerous parts of my day-to-day died down and mellowed out when I was around her. I had forced her to be my friend even though she had fought me and the friendship at first. Now she was almost as close to me as Dom was, and just as concerned about my recent behavior.

      She was dressed in scrubs under her heavy winter coat, so obviously she was on her way to work at the hospital where she was an ER nurse. Her coppery hair, which was several shades more orange in color than mine, was piled on her head in a messy bun and her face was scrubbed clean. Saint was a doll and could work the whole fresh-faced-girl-next-door thing. Unfortunately I wasn’t lucky enough to be able to rock the less-is-more look successfully, so the darkness under my eyes told the entire story of my wild night without me uttering a single word.

      “Dom’s getting out of the hospital today,” I told her in a rush.

      She blinked her soft gray eyes at me and the corner of her mouth tilted in a half smile.

      “I know. I’ve been checking up on him.”

      I sighed. Of course she had, because she was an awesome friend.

      “Thank you.”

      She nodded slightly and we silently headed for the front door of the converted Victorian we lived in.

      “He asked about you every time I stopped by his room.”

      I gulped a little. Not because she was passing judgment or being mean, but because we both knew I should have been by the hospital to see him. I squeezed my keys in my hand so hard the metal dug into my skin deep enough that it hurt.

      “I just couldn’t. I stayed until they came out and told us that he was stable after surgery, but it was too much.” I shook my head and shivered as the frigid Denver air snaked down the collar of the hoodie I had thrown on. The reason Dom was in the hospital for so long wasn’t the shattered ankle and broken femur but because one of the bullets that had hit him had sliced clean through one of his kidneys. He had almost bled to death before making it to the hospital. “His mom was there watching me without saying a word. I could see her wondering how I had let Dom get hurt. I could see his sisters thinking, ‘Why Dom and not her?’ I knew I was going to have a breakdown and I didn’t want to do it where anyone could see.”

      She reached out and squeezed my elbow. “No one blames you for anything, Royal. That is not what Dominic’s family was thinking and you know it.”

      Dammit. When had she started to see me so clearly? This is why having friends was hard for me.

      “I blame me, Saint.”

      She sighed and let go of my arm. “That’s what I figured, but eventually you’ll have to get over that. How’s the investigation going?”

      That was a topic I wanted to talk about almost as little as I wanted to talk about how Dom had ended up in his current, broken state.

      “It’s going. Internal investigations are always complicated when there’s an officer death involved.” And it was complicated because I was actively avoiding all the things I was supposed to be doing to help myself out. There had been other officers on the scene. There were witnesses from the neighborhood. Dom had given his statement and so had the partner of the officer that hadn’t made it. All the stories matched and laid out the facts that I had done nothing wrong, that there was no fault on my part, and that the kid I had been forced to shoot was going to keep pulling the trigger until everyone in a uniform was out of his way, but I didn’t feel cleared. I felt dirty and unqualified. Not because I had pulled the trigger, but because I had pulled it too late.

      “I’m sure everything will work out for you in the end. Is the department making you talk to someone? That’s a pretty intense situation to work through on your own.”

      Saint was big on processing feelings. I think that’s why she was so good in the crisis situations she handled every day. She powered through all the tragedy and stress while she was at work, compartmentalized it all, then came home and let it all out so it never had the chance to fill her up and take her over. I wasn’t that great at letting it all go. In fact, as of late, I was holding on to everything that affected me on the streets in a death grip. I guess I thought if I held on to it, no one else would have to deal with the yuck of it all.

      “I’m supposed to go tomorrow.” Supposed to being the key. If I could find any excuse to skip hearing a shrink tell me I was just suffering from survivor’s guilt, I was going to latch on to it. I had screwed up. I knew it and I didn’t need anyone to lead me to that conclusion, but if I wanted back on the job I was going to have to bite the bullet and force myself to go lie on some stiff leather couch and get my head shrunk.

      Saint stopped when we got to my 4Runner and tilted her head as she regarded me solemnly. I stared back at her because I valued her and the honest friendship she offered too much to just dismiss her concern.

      “Go. Listen to what the psychologist has to say. You don’t have to go through whatever this is alone, Royal.”

      She reached out and gave me a one-armed hug, which I returned stiffly. Whatever this was, it was clearly not only affecting me at this point.

      When we pulled apart I gave her a lopsided grin and told her, “I tried to get Asa to go home with me again last night.”

      She lifted one of her rust-colored eyebrows at me. “Again?”

      I wrinkled up my nose and pulled open the door to my old SUV. “He keeps telling me he’s not interested. Maybe he just doesn’t like me.”

      She gave a delicate snort and moved to zip up her coat as the wind picked up and turned the winter air into something hovering on the edge of unbearable.

      “Of course he likes you. Maybe he can just tell that you don’t like you very much right now.”

      I scowled at her but didn’t argue. I didn’t like myself so much at the moment. I lifted up the sleeve of the hoodie on one arm and showed her my wrist, which made her gasp in shock. “I had too much to drink and got myself into something I shouldn’t have. Asa pulled me out of it and then took care of me until I was sober enough to get myself home.”

      “Nash says even with all the stuff from his past, Asa really is a pretty decent guy.” Saint sounded unsure of the truth in that though.

      I just shrugged and turned on the car. It was freezing and the motor took forever to heat up enough to do any good.

      “Decent is boring if it means I can’t even get to first base with him.” I sounded petulant and frustrated, which made her shake her head at me.

      “I think you’re looking for trouble on purpose.”

      Her warning fell on deaf ears. I was looking for trouble, but trouble wouldn’t look back, so it was a moot point anyway.

      “I’m looking for something, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

      “No,

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