Chapter Nineteen

“It feels like a lifetime ago. How is that possible?”

I spun around at the intrusion, a soft smile playing on my lips as I drank in the welcome sight of Alex Roster. “Hey, you.”

He grinned and took two steps toward me on the lot so he could haul me into a bear hug. “Your sister thought you might be here.”

“It’s official,” I sighed, easing back to stare into his handsome face. “My sister is creepy spooky.”

Alex took hold of my hand as I stepped back. “Missed you this semester.”

After Jake had left, I’d felt lost for the first time, not really sure where I fit in the town I’d loved my whole life. Alex had been feeling the same way after Brett’s death and we’d clung to each other, finishing out high school as best friends and heading off to Purdue together. From there things had gotten complicated until I’d uncomplicated them. “I missed you too. How’s Sharon?”

“She’s great. She’s home in Tampa with her family. We’re still not quite at the spending Christmas with one another’s family stage.”

Sharon was a sophomore Alex had met almost a year ago. She was tiny, cute as a button, loud, girly, the complete opposite to a now-reserved Alex. I thought they were great together. She loosened him up. “It’s been almost a year. Holidays-with-the-family time is approaching.”

He rubbed a hand over his close-shaven head and nodded. “She’s talking about coming here in spring, so I think you’re right.” His gaze flickered behind me to the parking lot before they returned to me, his study careful and perhaps a little worried. “So I’m guessing from everything you told me that you’re here because of Jake.”

Other than Claudia and Andie, Alex was my closest confidant. Despite the convoluted history between us, I told him everything because at the end of the day, he was one of my best friends. This meant I’d kept in close contact with him while I was in Edinburgh and he knew how messed up I was feeling over Jake being back in my life. Although he’d always been neutral in our conversations as he quietly advised me to follow my gut, I was braced to hear him tell me what everyone else was recommending: to get Jake out of my life.

“It’s gotten really hard to be around him and Melissa,” I confessed quietly. “He changes me, Alex. I become this neurotic, whiny girl, and I don’t want to be that person.”

“One: you could never be a neurotic, whiny girl. Two: just because he makes you feel weak doesn’t mean you are. Three: this whole time you haven’t been honest with him. I know you were close, and I know he thinks he knows you, but has it crossed your mind that he actually has no clue you still care about him? Char, he said some unforgiveable things to you. He took every bad feeling he had out on you. If I were him, I would presume a girl like you would’ve moved on from a guy who treated her like that.”

I shook my head. “He knows, Alex.”

“Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn’t. The thing is, you do. It’s your decision.”

I glanced back over my shoulder at the school, angry butterflies stirring inside me. I shoved them aside, determined to get myself back on track. When I looked back at Alex, I nodded. “I know what I have to do.”

Reading the decision in my wounded eyes, Alex yanked me toward him and curled me into his side. “Come on. Your mom was taking a pecan pie out of the oven when I stopped by, and I am not leaving town until I have myself some of that goodness.”

“It’s great to see you,” I snuggled into his side.

“You too.”

“How are your mom and dad?”

Alex snorted. “Annoyed I dropped politics.”

“You told them?” Damn, now I was the only coward between us. The Rosters had pushed politics on Alex since the moment he got into Purdue. He’d taken it as a double major with law to appease them but never had any intention of going into politics. I couldn’t believe he’d gathered the courage to tell them when I still hadn’t talked to Mom and Dad about applying to the police academy.

My friend scowled down at me. “Please don’t tell me you’re still considering the whole police thing?”

Unfortunately, Alex being Alex, overbearing but caring, like my parents he’d never wanted me to pursue a career as a cop. It was one of the many reasons I’d uncomplicated things between us.

“Don’t tell them,” I told him sharply. “I’m still working toward that.”

He shook his head. “Sweetheart, your head must be a whole bunch of mess right now.”

I made a pathetic face and nodded.

Alex huffed in sympathy, hugging me closer to his side as we made our way back to my parents’ house.

Pots, pans, trays, cutlery, foil, and scraps littered the kitchen. Smack bang in the middle of it was Rick and I. Since Mom and Andie had cooked Christmas dinner, Rick and I were stuck with cleanup duty. My parents and Andie were lying almost passed out in the sitting room watching a comedy while I was elbow-deep in dishwater and Rick was attempting to keep up with the drying so we didn’t have a pileup situation on our hands. Looking at the dishes, I couldn’t believe five people could eat so much.

“Are you surviving another Christmas with the Redfords, then?” I teased Rick.

His lip curled at the corner. “You know it.”

“My sister loved her gift.” And wasn’t that an understatement.

The two of them had been house hunting for months. Andie found a house in Beverly that she loved, but it was a little over their budget. Rick did okay as a detective but he wasn’t exactly a high flier, and Andie may one day make good money as a psychiatrist but they weren’t there yet. She’d been really disappointed when Rick refused to stretch the budget because she was a goner for the house and the area.

This morning she’d opened an envelope with documents showing he’d put a down payment on the house.

My reserved sister elbowed me in the face launching herself at him.

He smiled, his blue eyes warm with tenderness. “I got that.”

“Do you like the house too?”

“It’s a great house to raise a family in. Good neighborhood. I wouldn’t have put a down payment on it if I didn’t like it.”

“Still, it’s like a half-hour drive into the city.”

“Longer during rush hour.”

“Aren’t you going to miss it? You’ve lived in the city for years.”

He shrugged, still smiling. “Beverly is still the city—it’s just got more of a suburban feel to it. And I’ve got to grow up sometime. We make sacrifices, we compromise. That’s the way it works. You know that better than anyone, Miss Pre-law.”

Grimacing, I hunched my shoulders at the reminder. “Don’t.”

“Charley, you need to talk to them again. Aren’t you supposed to be applying to law school soon?”

“I’m supposed to register to take the LSATs in June after I get home from Edinburgh. If I do well, I start the application process in the fall.”

“So what are you going to do?”

My expression was a little sheepish, my voice low as I replied, “What do you think, Rick? I’ve made a nice attempt at pretending to compromise with them because I love them and I don’t want to upset them, but this is me. I never do anything I don’t want to do. That is exactly why I keep putting off telling my parents that when I graduate, I’ll be applying to the Chicago Police Academy.”

My sister’s fiancé’s grin was contagious and I felt a warm glow in my chest at the pleased glimmer in his eyes. “Good for you, sweetheart.”

I nodded, and even though I was nervous about telling my folks, I felt a sense of peace rest around me at having finally admitted it out loud to a member of my family.

“So, something I’ve never asked you before because I was trying to keep my nose clean of the issue so I didn’t upset Jim and Delia … but, why a cop?”

“Why are you a cop?”

Rick didn’t hesitate. “Because I was too wild. I barely got through a bachelor’s degree. I was partying too hard, and mostly just wasting my time. I was angry and I needed some discipline. It was this or the army, but being a cop kept me closer to home so I could watch over my mom.”

“I don’t even think I have an exact answer for why I want to be a cop. I know people will say it’s a thankless job and that it involves long hours and the pay isn’t what it should be … and who knows, maybe I’ll get into it and that’s all I’ll see. But I don’t think so. I’ve just always wanted to do this.” Rick grunted and I narrowed my eyes. “What?”

“Charley, you want to be a police officer because you have a hero complex. Why do you think the nickname Supergirl stuck?”

I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t have a hero complex.”

“Third grade you masterminded a plan to contain some kid in his locker at recess because he kept stealing the weaker kids’ lunch and lunch money.”

“Henry Ames,” I nodded in disgust. “His family moved to Lanton in third grade and left in fourth. He was such a little prick.” I frowned. “Did my sister tell you that?”

He laughed softly. “Yeah. She also told me in sixth grade you led a town search for your friend’s missing tortoise.”

“Lacey’s tortoise, Micky D. He disappeared out of her pond. She was devastated. Turns out Jackson Emery ‘borrowed’ him and freaked out when I organized the search party. He waited three hours before confessing and his parents ended up buying the entire search party ice cream and lemonade. It cost them a small fortune. Jackson was grounded for a month.” I smirked.

Rick continued to grin. “Freshman year, you knocked your sister out of the way of a moving vehicle.” His smile disappeared. “Junior year, you tried to save a boy’s life, and then almost took a beating trying to protect another.”

Glowering now, I turned fully to him. “Is my sister doing a paper on me? Because I will mess her up so bad …”

He shook his head, chuckling softly. “Sweetheart, she just talks about you. She’s proud of you. She admires you. She thinks you’d make one hell of a cop.”

I felt a surge of happiness from my sister’s belief in me. “And what do you think?”

He shrugged. “I think you’ll have obstacles to overcome. Sad but true, but looking the way you do, you’ll not have an easy time of it from some of the male officers. You’ll have to work harder to prove yourself, especially if you’re chasing a promotion. It’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be but it’s still there.” Before my shoulders could slump in deflation, he continued, “But I think if anyone can do it, it’s you, and I’m looking forward to witnessing it.”

I smiled at him gratefully. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He eyed me carefully. “I’ve got something else to say and then I’ll take my advice elsewhere.”

“Okay.”

“This kid, this guy who’s messing with your head …”

I sighed wearily. “Please, don’t, Rick—”

He held up a hand. “Hear me out.”

Ready to be lectured on what an idiot I was for even thinking about letting Jake back into my life, what my sister’s fiancé actually told me came as a surprise. And one that confused me even more. “Your sister told me everything about Jake. And I already know how your dad feels about him, believe me. And I get it. Had I been in Jim’s shoes and watched my kid’s heart get broken, I’d probably want to swing for the guy too. But …” His eyes filled with sympathy and understanding as he said, “I remember being a confused seventeen-year-old guy, Charley. Never mind confused. I remember being seventeen. We seem to expect and yet at the same time, hate, how fast kids grow up today, but no matter how fast we think they’re growing up, emotionally they’re still just kids. Jake was, what, barely seventeen? He’d been hassled for months, targeted unfairly, and then a kid died during a fight with him. That’s not an easy thing to get through, and if you’re the kind of person who would feel to blame for that … well, that kind of blame when you’re just a kid … could he have handled it better? Hell yes. But just because he didn’t doesn’t make him a bad guy, Charley. It made him a fallible kid who’s probably walking around with a whole lot of regret.”

I was frozen, taking in Rick’s empathetic point of view, and knowing that everything he was saying was what had made me forgive Jake enough to let him back into my life as a friend.

“I say this because I did a few things I regretted when I was Jake’s age. I hurt someone. I can’t take that back. Neither can Jake. But if he’s trying, then maybe you should at least give him the time to prove he means it. He’ll either prove himself right or wrong, but in the end, you won’t regret not giving him that shot.”

I nodded. “I appreciate that. I do. However … it’s not really about giving him a shot. I’ve done that. I just … it’s too hard to now.”

Understanding lit up Rick’s eyes and his voice dropped. “You still …”

I nodded again.

Before he could reply, my cell buzzed in my jeans. Since I hadn’t heard from Claudia after I’d texted her that morning, I knew it was probably her. Quickly, thankful to escape our conversation, I dried my hands on Rick’s dish towel and yanked my phone out of my ass pocket.

“Merry Christmas, Claud.”