Chapter 2

Hadley

WITH MY HEAD ON the arm of my couch and my eyes on the TV, I look over my shoulder at the door when someone knocks, and close my eyes, praying the reporters are not back again. A little over an hour after Brie and Kenyon left after bringing pizza and hanging with me for a while, I opened my door to a man I didn’t know, with a microphone attached to his hand, and I shut the door in his face. He was the first to knock, but not the last.

The constant ringing of my bell and knocking continued most of the evening, until my landlord and next-door neighbor Tom got home from wherever he spends his days. It stopped after I heard him through the door yelling at the news people. They were parked on the street and standing around on the sidewalk and the lawn, and he told them they were trespassing on private property and if they didn’t go away, he’d shoot them. Knowing what I know of Tom from our short acquaintance, I considered that an actual threat, and thankfully, the reporters did too and backed off. I understand why they did; Tom is scary. He’s short, maybe five-five, with a stocky build and an ever-present, I’m-not-happy scowl on his face. He’s from New Jersey and reminds me of one of the bad guys from the HBO show The Sopranos. Actually, I’m pretty sure the only reason he’s living here in Tennessee is because he’s in the Witness Protection Program for snitching on the mob.

When the knocking comes again and my name is rumbled in a deep voice through the door, I frown and carefully get off the couch. I head around the back of my couch, keeping to the wall and out of sight. Once I’m at the door, I peek out the etched glass at the side, and my heart pounds when I see Cobi standing on my front porch. He looks almost exactly like he did this morning when I woke to find him in my room. His hair is still a little messy, and there is stubble at his jaw, like he didn’t get a chance to shave yesterday or today. His eyes still look tired, but he’s changed and is now wearing a gray, black, and blue flannel button-down shirt, dark jeans with a cool black belt that his badge is clipped to, and heavy looking boots on his feet.

Crap. What the heck is he doing here?

I jump when he knocks not on the door but on the glass, and I bite my lip hard as he mutters, “Hadley, I can see you. Open the door.” I move away from the window to behind the door, hoping to hide myself. Squeezing my eyes closed, I think that maybe, just maybe, he’ll think he didn’t actually see me if I don’t make a noise. “Open the door.” He sounds impatient and slightly amused, and my heart lodges in my throat when I open my eyes and see him with his face to the glass and looking at me.

Not wanting to look like a bigger dork, I let out a heavy sigh, unlock the deadbolt, and then turn the handle. As soon as the door opens, he steps into the house and closes the door.

“Hey.” I want to roll my eyes at how breathy and desperate I sound, but seriously—he’s Cobi freaking Mayson. Every woman in the world would sound breathy and desperate if a man who looked like him stepped into their house.

“Hey.” He glances around before his eyes come back to me and travel down the length of my frame. “You going to sleep?”

I glance down at my barely there robe that is covering my nightgown and cringe. “Yes,” I lie. I will probably never go to sleep again, not with the vision of Hofstadter dying the way he did playing on a constant loop in my head every time I close my eyes. I think the only reason I was able to get to sleep last night was because the hospital gave me a dose of medication to help me rest. It did the job, and I don’t remember anything much after that until I woke up to find Cobi in my room asleep this morning.

“Has the media been here at all since you got home?”

“They showed up this evening,” I say. “They left after my landlord, who also happens to be my next-door neighbor, got home and told them to go away.” I don’t tell him about Tom threatening to shoot them. I don’t want him in trouble or want to blow his cover if he is in Witness Protection.

“I should have thought about them showing up here.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” I shrug before wrapping my arms around my middle. “I’m not sure if you know; I talked to Detective Frank before I left the hospital. I already gave him my statement.”

“I know,” he says, and I nod then nibble my bottom lip, wondering why he’s here if he knows his partner already talked to me. “Wanted to come check on you myself, make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” I reply quickly, hoping he will feel like his job is done after seeing I’m good and leave.

“All your lights are on,” he points out, and I look to where he’s looking and see he’s not wrong; every light in my place is on, including the little one over the stove.

“What are you doing?” I ask his back as he starts across the room.

“What are you watching?” he asks, not answering my question as he takes a seat on my couch.

I look at the television and point out unnecessarily, “Cake Boss.”

“Got any beer?”

I blink at him then look around to make sure I haven’t somehow found myself in a new dimension. “Beer?”

“Or scotch?”

“Does this look like a bar to you?”

“No.” His lips twitch.

“Okay then. No, I don’t have beer or scotch.”

“Water?”

Oh my God, what the hell is going on?

“Why are you here?”

“I know what you saw last night,” he says quietly, and my body gets tight. “I know how going through something like that can fuck with your head.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” he states, still talking quietly. “You don’t need to be alone right now.”

He’s probably right about that, but between being alone and being with him, I choose being alone.

“I’m fine.”

“Every light in this place being lit says otherwise.” He sits forward, resting his elbows on his knees and testing the boundaries of the shirt he’s wearing as his muscles flex. “You wanna talk about it?”

“No,” I answer immediately. I don’t want to talk about what happened, because I don’t want the memories to come back to the surface. I know it’s not healthy, but I’m hoping if I don’t talk about it or think about what I went through, the memories will just fade away.

“All right, we don’t need to talk. We can watch some TV and hang out for a while. When I know you’re good, I’ll go.”

“You don’t have to do that. I’m really okay,” I say, wondering if he feels obligated to look after me because he’s a cop.

“You look about ready to fall over.”

My eyes narrow on his. “Are you telling me I look like crap?”

“You’re beautiful, darlin’. Still, you look tired,” he tells me gently, and my stomach knots at the word beautiful. “Come sit down.”

I glance at my couch that is not very big but looks even smaller with him sitting in the middle of it. “You’re sitting in the middle,” I tell him.

He gives me a strange grin then moves over to the cushion, next to the arm. “Better?”

No, it’s not, since he’s still sitting on my couch and still in my house, where I have to look at him. My couch could be big enough to fit an entire football team and it still wouldn’t be big enough.

Understanding he’s not going to leave, I go to the fridge and grab two bottles of water before going back to the couch, and then hand him one as I take a seat. “I’m really okay to be on my own.”

“Sure you are,” he agrees, like he knows I’m lying.

I don’t respond. I pull my legs up under me and stare at the television, trying to ignore the fact that Cobi Mayson is sitting on my couch, something that is really flipping hard to do. His presence feels like it’s suffocating me, his masculine scent even from a few feet away, assaulting me and making me want to lean closer to dissect it.

“Your car is in police impound.” At his words, I turn to look at him. “There are a few dents, but nothing major. It’s still drivable. I’d have brought it back to you myself, but you have to be the one to sign it out.” He would have brought it to me? Why would he do that? Just like, why did he send clothes for me to leave the hospital in, and why is he here now? “You can pick it up anytime.”