When you play with fire, you’re bound to be burned. I refuse to let him be a bystander in the wreckage I’m headed toward. Thankfully I don’t have to answer, since the waitress is back in no time with our coffee.
We’re quiet, neither of us speaking until she asks us if there’s anything we’d like to eat.
“Cinnamon buns,” we answer simultaneously. The smile I wear on my face at that is a sad one and Cody sees it.
“So … about my place versus yours?”
Swallowing thickly, I carefully pick up the simple mug of coffee and take a sip before giving him an answer he should accept.
“I’m not sure if you remember, but I wasn’t sleeping well at your place either and I like being on my own.”
Images blur together in my mind. The memory of Cody’s broad chest above mine as he thrust himself inside of me, mixes with the sharp intake I took as Marcus pressed himself against me.
The sudden onslaught of detailed debauchery has me nearly dropping the white ceramic mug on the saucer. It clanks in protest and with trembling hands, I cover my eyes. Vaguely, Cody’s apology is little more than white noise.
“Sorry,” he says but I’m quick to object to it.
“No, I’m sorry. You don’t need to apologize.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks and all I can think of saying in response is a lie.
“I told you. I’m tired.” I’m not, though. I cling to my coffee cup. This is how cheaters must feel. This wretched twisting in my gut roils and churns. We didn’t have a label, we didn’t have rules or boundaries. Nevertheless, we have secrets.
It was odd before, between us. But caught in Cody’s gaze, it’s almost torturous now. I sit across from a man whose only personal possessions are those of a boy he lost long ago. And I know Marcus knew his brother. What I don’t know is if Cody knows it too.
Without trust, the tension is palpable as I pick up the bun the waitress sets down, the one I’m certain I won’t be able to stomach.
“Thank you for coming. I know after the other night …” he doesn’t finish his trailing thought.
“I’m sorry.” The apologies don’t quit and for once, I don’t mind it. Because I am so damn sorry. Truly to the pit of my stomach. Every definition of the word.
“You don’t need to be sorry; I just need to know what’s going on,” he says, emphasizing the last bit.
“What do you mean?
“It’s been days, Delilah.”
“Very uneventful days,” I say but stare at the pastry. “You aren’t my keeper, Cody. You don’t have any responsibility to protect me.”
“What if I want to?” he asks.
With a slow inhale, I stare back at him and note the darkness under his eyes and the way his right hand rests palm up on the table. As if it’s waiting to be held.
“Any more letters?” he asks and I shake my head easily.
“No letters.” I decide to give him all of the truth from yesterday, but none from the night before. “I kept the monitor and the gun right beside me all day and didn’t leave my place.”
“And nothing?” he questions further, his brow knitting.
“My ass is flat and sore from the way I sat in bed, but no, nothing to report.” I hate the way the lie comes so easily.
“Do you remember the letter from the cases we were on in the beginning?” I ask him, treading into the murky waters with so many unanswered questions. “The ones the article mentioned from that bitch reporter who first got me suspended?”
Cody’s posture changes instantly. He remembers. We both know he does and unlike what I’ve been doing, he doesn’t lie to me. “Yeah. I remember.”
“One of the last FBI task force meetings … do you remember how I had to walk away for a moment?”
“The crime scene photos were awful,” he says and I nod, remembering how the graphic pictures of the victims nearly made me vomit on the spot and I walked off to be alone.
“Right, but it wasn’t because I got sick … I was crying. It was too much, the way the bodies …”
I can’t even begin to think of how he’d left them like that. Cody agrees, “It was brutal.”
“I swore I felt someone watching me back there when I stepped outside to get away from it all.” I dare to confess something I haven’t before when I add, “I thought it was you. I thought you followed me out … but now I wonder if it was him.”
An anonymous tip was left at the station later that night. “He said he’d stop and he did.”
“Yeah.” Cody nods in agreement and remembrance. “They couldn’t find anything on the note. No prints or residue. But they matched the handwriting.”