Worth the Fall (7 page)

“Also, Ms. Lane?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Wednesday.”

He pulled the door shut behind him as I tried to figure out what that meant. A man of mystery. But, hopefully not one who would be showing up again anytime soon.
 

Especially not once I moved into Ben’s. I had a feeling, climbing half-naked through your own window was even more frowned upon in fancy-shmancy neighborhoods.

NINE

The lights were still off when the heat kicked in. I lay on my bed listening to the air push through the vents and waiting for it to be warm enough to take my coat off.

You’d think after not having pants on while crawling out of the cool night air and into my own home I’d be…wait a second.

Wednesday.

Every time I thought my humiliation was over for the week, nope. I was pretty sure the underwear I was wearing was dark blue with a bright yellow day of the week across the butt.

Obviously I must be wearing the wrong day.

I spun around chasing my own rear for a moment before flashing myself in the mirror.

Figures.
 

I was wearing Tuesday.

I listened to the heat clicking on, feeling torn between thankfulness I’d never have to face Officer Darby again and disgust at myself for wishing I’d have to face Officer Darby again. You know, just to look at him. It was nice to see a guy who looked like a guy. I bet Officer Darby didn’t own a cashmere sweater.
 

But, a cop? Talk about the controlling alpha-male stereotype.

No, thank you.

To be fair, he’d handled the situations with both the crazy men in my life with ease and humor. Both of which were things I’d realized I’d been lacking. Not that I needed a hero…I mean, a caregiver.

Whatever.
 

When the lights came back on, I focused on what needed to be done, packing up the last of my stuff and laying out just what I’d need for the next day.

As I put away the last items, the barren room lost any small amount of charm I’d managed to shove into it. Moving to Ben’s cozy haven was going to be a huge upgrade in charm factor.

Slowly, almost as if I were savoring the last night there, I wafted into sleep, glad to be on my own and not managing the emotions of anyone else. I hadn’t realized how much I’d had to do that. Jason was temperamental and judgmental and probably just plain mental, but none of that had been obvious to me until it was.

I tried to brush away the feeling of stupidity. But hindsight really was 20-20. Maybe better.
 

All the what-ifs that led me to dating Jason—the alone in a strange town right after college, a new job, an older guy taking you under his wing—to the reasons I stayed with him—it’s what I knew.

After one day as a single girl on the town I felt something I hadn’t known I’d lost. A lightness of being. A lack of concern to be balancing and explaining and softening everything going on around me.

I was more than happy with my new situations. I was content. The type of content that lasted.

And I had one person to thank for all that newfound contentedness. Jason.
 

I’d been blind, but he’d ripped the shades off and pushed me into the world. And it was a much better world without him—even if I had managed to basically flash a cop.
 

TEN

I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock, the feel of warm air, and the fulfilled dream of a warm shower awaiting me in my own bathroom.

It was heaven.
 

I stripped the bed and put the sheets in the laundry basket by the door. This was good-bye. Not that I minded. Evacuating the cookie cutter apartment and getting to spend a year in the old-school charm of the apartment waiting for me a few neighborhoods over was probably going to spoil me for life.

And yet, just like anytime you leave something behind, it all felt very bittersweet. Even the six block walk to the rental place to get a moving van was a journey in good-bye. Farewell, broken sidewalk! So long, crosswalk no one ever stopped at! Arrivederci, takeout Italian bakery!

You’d think I was moving to Paris, not two neighborhoods over.

After maneuvering the rental van back to my place, I brought the rest of my boxes down, shoved them in the back, and headed toward Ben’s place ready to grab my keys and kick him out. Nicely, of course, since he was so great. Not to mention my new landlord.

Jenna waved from where she waited on the curb, a spot in front of her filled with two lawn chairs. I’ll be honest. I would have paid good money to see Jenna fighting off a parker. I’m not sure if she had a dark side, but I seriously doubt that’s what would have brought it out.

I pulled up alongside the spot as she folded the lawn chairs, leaned them against a tree, and eyed it to see if the van would fit.

I’ll never understand parallel parking. How many hours of your life are wasted because of it? First you have to find the spot and calculate if you fit. Once you’re reasonably sure that you can shove a few tons of metal between two immovable objects, you have to wait until the guy who wasn’t paying attention and pulled up on your rear bumper even though you have your reverse lights
and
your directional on smartens up and goes around. Then it takes at least two tries to get in right—four if you’re someone who doesn’t usually drive.
 

Hours
. Hours of life wasted in which I could be doing something more exciting.
 

Like napping.
 

Unfortunately, living in town meant parallel parking. I probably hadn’t attempted it in over a year. And that would have been in the tiny Zip Car I’d rented to go holiday shopping last winter.
 

This wasn’t going to be pretty.

I backed the van up a little, then realized I was at the wrong angle. Pulling out of the spot, I eyed it again to decide my best approach. Edging further into the lane, I watched the bumpers in front and behind me. Then carefully, carefully I backed up. Front bumper. Back bumper in my side mirror. Front bumper. Back bumper in my side mirror. Everything was going fine until Jenna started shouting and waving her arms.

I went to slam my foot on the break, but hit the gas. The rear wheel jumped the curb and I banged into one of the old oaks lining the road.

“Stop!” Jenna looked panicked. She rushed to the back of the van as I eased it out of the spot and put on the hazard lights.

Going around to join her, I eyed the car behind me’s bumper to make sure I hadn’t managed to ding it too. Thank goodness I’d somehow stayed clear of the sleek urban tank a soccer mom probably drove twice a year.

Jenna stood next to the tree, her hands holding bark onto a small two inch area as if she could repair it just by thinking good thoughts. In the scheme of things, the damage to the tree was minor, but in this neighborhood I wondered if it was the equivalent of murder.

As Jenna focused on healing the tree, I checked out the van’s bumper. It had almost no damage. There were some smudges, but when I rubbed the cuff of my sweatshirt over them, they basically disappeared.

“Don’t worry. We can fix this!” She shouted because volume always equals truth.

 
“How?” Unless, she really was a fairy. I glanced toward her again. Probably too tall…and, you know, too human.

I’m not sure how she thought we could fix a tree, but I was willing to let her try since the flip side was the fact that I’d killed city property.

“I don’t know. But Ben will. He can fix anything.” She turned and sprinted into the building as I stood next to the kitty-corner van and damaged oak.

“What exactly is going on here?”

I knew that voice. It was beginning to signal every disaster I’d had recently. Even coated in liquid chocolate, I knew the sound meant nothing good.
 

There, of course, was Officer Darby.

And, sadly, there really was no way out of this. I might as well just face it head on. “I, um, may have backed into that tree.”

“Ms. Lane, you either backed into town property or you didn’t. Which is it?”

“Yes.” My shoulders sag. I was pretty much feeling done with disasters. “I backed into town property.”

This was not what I needed. I needed a break, not an arrest record.

“Are you following me?” Because, what else could explain this? Maybe that search I’d done for the non-profit group’s marketing plan had gotten me onto the NSA. Now they’d assigned an agent to me in local blues.
 

“Like that’s what I want to do with my day off. Follow around a walking felony waiting to happen.” He pulled his aviators down his nose to look at me over the top of the rim. “No offense, Tuesday. You’re cute and all, but the last thing I need is a woman whose idea of staying out of trouble is duct taping public property back together.”

Walking felony?
An angry heat rushed over my skin, crushing out my common sense.

“As if I need a smirky-smirky cop doing that outdated Tom Cruise sunglasses move.” I glared at him waiting for him to move by. Waiting for him to get out of my day.

“Tom Cruise, huh?” More of the smirky-smirky.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I said the move, not the man.”

“Either way, you’ve just damaged a two-hundred and fifty year old oak tree that belongs to the city. What are you going to do about it?”

I felt horrible about the tree. If Jenna hadn’t tried to make it sound like no big deal, I probably would have called city hall myself to figure out what to do. But, with Officer Darby standing there basically threatening me, I suddenly felt as if nothing I could do would be the right thing.
 

“Fine. Arrest me.” I stuck my hands out together, offering him my wrists to cuff. “Go ahead. It’s your day off. I’m sure the paperwork, let alone the fact that you busted a tree-denter, would really make your day. They’d love that at the station, wouldn’t they?”

He didn’t even bat an eye, which convinced me he’d never had any intention of doing anything beyond harassing me. He just leaned against that poor tree and crossed his arms, staring at me in that impenetrable way cops on TV all seem to have.

He was trying to break me. I was strong and resilient. I was not going to break. I was—

“Don’t you ever go off duty?” I broke. “Did someone assign you to follow me around making sure every transgression was weighed and measured? Is every bad event in my life now accompanied by the threat of imprisonment?”

“When have I ever threatened you with imprisonment?”

“Aren’t you about to?” I glanced toward the tree, its scraped bark damning me. “I hit the tree.” I shouted a bit irrationally. “I hit the tree and look at it! And the rental van. And now we’re not going to be able to move me in and Ben out and I’m really not going to have electricity and heat and I’ll be sleeping in the van I’m afraid to return because I scuffed the bumper. Or prison. With women named Tulula.”

“Tulula?”

“Oh, shut up. Do whatever you’re going to do. I’m just—”

Jenna came storming down the stairs and cut between me and Officer Darby. “What’s going on here?”

“Damaged city property.” Officer Darby looked her over as if she were the least of his worries. And, she probably was. I mean what could she possibly—

Jenna hauled off and punched Officer Darby square in the chest.

He didn’t even flinch. Just looked down at the spot like she’d poked him with a finger.
 

I sucked in a breath, shocked how quickly this had spiraled out of control. I really was going to end up in prison at this rate.

She went to hit him again and I jumped between them. “Don’t do it. It’s assaulting an officer.”

“It’s assaulting an idiot. Max, apologize to Kasey right now.”

Max?

“Now, Max.” Jenna looked like she was going to hit him again. “The guys are not going to see the humor in this. And, as soon as I get my phone, you will not like the Officer Darby hashtag of the day. You will regret every stupid guy move you’ve ever made in your life.”

Officer Darby—Max, apparently—looked panicked.

“Ms. Lane. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to really upset you. I
am
off duty. We don’t need to do anything about the tree. We’ll just…fix it.” He looked at Jenna. “Right? We can fix it. Just, for crying out loud, not another freaking Officer Darby thing.”

“I don’t know, Max. Those are my most popular tweets. You have a following. The only thing I can promise is that if you stop being a mean jerk right now, there won’t be any hashtag backlash.”

Max was already nodding. “Fine, but Jenna, you don’t get to use this every time we disagree. She can’t go around breaking laws and get away with things just because she knows you.”

“Fine.” Jenna crossed her arms and glared at him.

He glared back.

I considered a quick escape that didn’t involve trying to use the oversize moving van as a getaway vehicle. These older streets were too narrow. I’d never make the first corner at high speed.

“Max? What the hell?”