All at once, the fight goes out of the mayor and she deflates, her head falling back against the seat. Tears roll down her cheeks and she puts her hands up, palms facing out. Police cars squeal to a stop around us, Myles is shouting directions to them. An explanation of what’s going on, leading with the fact that I’m not a threat. But I can barely hear any of it over the rapping of my heart. It pounds in my ear drums and my fingertips. I breathe in and out to try and get it back under control, but I’m still vibrating head to toe when Myles yanks open the driver’s side door and pulls me out, crushing me against his chest.
“Are you out of your mind, Taylor?” He squeezes me, dragging me away from the scene of the mayor being handcuffed, blocking me with his back. Up ahead, Lisa stumbles out of the house and drops down onto the steps, hands over her mouth. She doesn’t appear to be injured, just in shock. “My God,” Myles growls into my hair. “What were you thinking?”
My response is partially muffled by his shoulder. “Stop shouting at me.”
“I’ll shout all I want. You lied to me. I asked you to stay down the block.”
“No, you asked me to drive to the end of the block. And I did.”
I definitely didn’t pick the right moment for semantics.
With a laugh totally devoid of humor, he pulls away slowly—and I can tell right away this isn’t his usual bad temper. I shook him up. Badly. He’s white as a ghost, sweat soaking the front of his shirt. “She could have had another weapon in the car, Taylor. Or on her person. We would have apprehended her eventually. Lisa was safe. You didn’t have to put yourself at risk.”
I can’t argue with what he’s telling me. He’s right. What causes me to fight might be my spiked adrenaline or the humiliation of being yelled at for trying to help—no, I did help. Whatever the reason, I can’t bring myself to back down. Maybe I’m fighting for more than just being right. It feels like I’m fighting for us. What we could be together. “I didn’t want to sit on the sidelines and watch everyone else do the hard thing. I’ve been doing that my whole life.”
“This is about your parents again.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Jesus.”
Now it’s my temper that’s building. And it hurts. It hurts to have him bring up my parents and their influence on my choices when I’ve just learned to overcome the impact. When I confided those things to him with so much trust. “No, actually it’s not about them anymore. It’s about me. It’s about participating in my own life instead of hiding—”
“Sometimes, Taylor…” He plants his hands on his hips, his upper lip curling. Hesitating. “Maybe it’s better to hide.”
“That’s what you’re doing,” I whisper. “Hiding. Running away from what happened in Boston with the kidnapping.”
“So what if I am?” He’s shutting himself off. Lights are going out. Exits are being sealed. It’s like watching a brick and mortar wall being built in fast motion capture. “I like it that way. The way it was before I accepted this job. I like having no connection to a case. Not getting in so deep that every failure is personal. Not having to worry that someone I care about could get taken or traumatized. Or having her fucking head blown off. Willingly.”
“Don’t group me in with what happened in Boston.”
He grinds a fist into the opposite palm, knuckles white, grooves deepening around his mouth. “I will group you in, Taylor. I can’t help it. You’re pain waiting to happen and I’m not going to be a sitting duck. I can’t fucking do it.”
“Myles—”
“What do you think a relationship between us would look like, anyway?” His expression is hard now. Closed off. Intuition tells me he’s about to put the final nail in the coffin and there is nothing I can do to stop him. I put myself in danger and he’s not equipped to deal with that kind of trauma. That lack of control. I brought his worst fear to him on a silver platter and he’s lashing out. There’s nothing I can do about it. “Maybe you’ll come on the road with me, half pint, and we can hunt down bad guys together. Make a cool handshake and bring your students along on stakeout field trips.”
My throat starts to burn, along with the backs of my eyes. “I know you just want to push me away. I know that’s what you’re doing.”
“You should have waited at the end of the block,” he blurts, swiping sweat from his forehead. Pacing away and coming back. Opening his mouth and closing it. Silence.