Page 20 of Erik

“Oh, that’s convenient. I’m actually planning to be in South Caroline around then.” Honestly, there wasn’t much of a plan, and Natasha hadn’t even agreed out loud to go along with this insane idea. Donald nodded with a grunt, leaning back in his chair, and I tapped the pleather of my own before speaking up again. “That’s all I wanted to know, really. I’m heading to the gym, now, but this is on the way.”

“I hope you find something that fits, Erik. You deserve it.” Nodding as a slight awkwardness wiggled between my shoulder blades, I turned to walk out of the precinct. I hadn’t been around long enough for anything to feel familiar, but the sensation was strange. I might not ever be back here, and the relief that knowledge brought me was indescribable.

My cell phone pinged loudly in the lobby, and I fished the thing out of my pocket to scan Natasha’s text message. Even this way, somehow, she came off as a little desperate, agreeing with only two words:I’ll go.Nodding to myself, I stepped into the frigid ugliness of late winter and pulled my collar up against the wind.

Erik: Awesome. Do you want to meet up for lunch later?

Truth be told, I didn’t understand how things had progressed from me being the bad guy to this. Ours was a relationship born of desperation— if ‘relationship’ could even be the term to use. Natasha was sick, and I hesitated to really see her as someone healthy and available. She swung wildly between acting okay to the point that even she believed it and incredible despair and suicidal ideation.

I knew that, more than likely, Natasha had some truly good days, but those were few and far between, and I had yet to see one for myself. Hopefully, with a change of scenery, she’d get a little better. She wasn’t tied down by a bad employment decision, and I knew that her sister wasn’t talking to her. These past few days, she hadn’t slept at all, but she didn’t invite me back over, either.

A couple of times a night, Natasha would talk through the bugged jacket at me, as if she needed to release some pressure. Everything she alluded to was horrific, and I was ashamed to say I’d developed some sort of morbid fascination with her story.

My phone pinged again, tearing me from my thoughts, and I swiped around on the screen as I pulled out my keys to twirl them around my finger.

Natasha: What are you doing right now?

“Well, I guess I’m not going to the gym.” Texting her back that I was available, my brows furrowed in consternation when she replied instantly. She suggested meeting at the coffee place, and I typed a quick affirmative before climbing into my car. Pulling out of my spot easily, I turned onto the street to drive the two blocks to my destination. Surprise twitched my brows when I saw Natasha already standing by the door when I passed, and she lifted a hand to stop me on the curb.

Confusion masked my face when she hopped in the back seat, not the passenger seat, and I flexed my hands around the wheel. Her hair fluffed from the wind, a cold rosiness in her cheeks, and she clung close to the door as I waited on bated breath for her to speak.

“Um, hi. So, did you go to the precinct?” Natasha sputtered a little, and I arched a brow quizzically as I caught her eye in the rearview mirror. Her face stained red, and she brushed back her hair to pull it over her shoulder as anxiety sparkled in her eyes. “What?”

“Why are you sitting back there?” I hadn’t pulled off the curb yet, and Natasha went a little wide-eyed as her face pinched. “I’m not going to make you sit in the front.”

“Oh, good, yeah. I take a lot of Lyfts and stuff. It’s a habit.” I could practically taste the lie in her tone, but I didn’t question her further. “I didn’t get a car when we moved here because we lived within blocks of everything, so— but, anyway, I thought that maybe we could . . . hang out.”

“What do you want to do?” Warmth suffused my chest when Natasha’s deer-in-the-headlights look intensified, and I turned my attention to the street. There was so much under that thick veil of dissatisfaction, and she probably knew it. She didn’t know how to get out of the hole that she’d been thrown in. Content to just drive around slowly, I took a turn that led into another turn, and the irony of it didn’t escape me. I was going around in circles with her, and I wasn’t sure how this happened to play out this way.

Was Natasha craving something so badly that I seemed like a good guy, even after bugging her when she was all fucked up? Did she somehow manage to rationalize it away as ‘if he thought he could use me, it means he cares in some capacity’?

How messed up is that? And considering the shitstorm that got kicked up . . .

“Actually . . . ” Speaking up absently, I glanced in my driver’s side mirror before taking the second turn, and Natasha hummed softly from the back seat. “Everyone was busy at the station, so I asked my questions and left. It wasn’t anything grand. What about you, Natasha? What were you doing out?”

“I was getting coffee, but there was a really long line.” Glancing at her in the rearview, I pursed my lips at the drawn expression on her face. Natasha looked souncomfortable, and she hugged the door like she could jump tuck and roll at any second. “I talked to Carlyle this morning since Val . . . she’s ignoring me. I think she’s hurt because I didn’t tell her how bad I was getting. I mean, I don’t get it. Why would she feel betrayed and not hound me for answers?”

“Maybe, she needs time to find the right questions.” Spouting out some shit, my lips twitched down at the sudden dip in her voice, and Natasha frowned fully before I turned my gaze back to the road. “I honestly don’t know, either. I only met her the once, but from what I saw . . . you lie to her a lot more than she realized.”

“Yeah, well, there’s things she doesn’t tell me, so . . . ” I had a nagging feeling Natasha was about to launch into a rant about how she wasn’t obligated to speak her every emotion to her sister. Bracing myself when she took a breath in preparation, I tightened my grip on the wheel.

And she didn’t prove me wrong.

21

Natasha

“Idon’t think you’re being unreasonable, but all lies aren’t equal lies, Nat. Lying about your PTSD is a lot worse than lying about hanging around all day in your pajamas and being lazy.” Erik’s words sunk deep into my mind, and I slumped in the seat as I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. “So, what did Carlyle say?”

“Um, he asked me if I thought I needed to be hospitalized. But I really think that a change of scenery will help a lot.” My lips thinned as Erik caught my gaze in the rearview mirror and held it, and I slid down deeper until my chin pressed against my sternum. “So, I want to try it, at least, before . . . ”

“Okay. Do you want to get, like, a map, a real physical map, and we can sit somewhere and figure out all the places we want to go?” I nodded dumbly, and Erik tore his eyes off me to focus on the road as he weaved through downtown toward the suburbs. “Have you ever used a map before?”

“I’ve used Google Maps.” He smirked a little at my grumble, and my face flushed as embarrassment closed my throat. “You use a lot of maps in the military?”

“Well, you have to know how to read one, but it’s mostly GPS. The only time you really use a map in the traditional sense is for training exercises so if shit goes FUBAR, you can get to where you need to go without it.” That really made no sense, and Erik chuckled lightly at my furrowed brows before I sat up a little. “Basically, you read the map, know where on it you’re supposed to be at what time, and the best way to get back in one piece. One time, during an exercise, my team and I got dropped in this jungle in Venezuela, and Ben . . . ”

Cutting himself off abruptly, Erik’s whole face closed in on itself and became stony, and I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth. For a moment, the tense silence threatened to suffocate me, but he sucked in a sharp breath and shook his head as my heart jumped into my throat.