Cuff Me(64)

Silently they walked to a small park a block away from the precinct. It wasn’t one of the city’s better. It smelled mostly like dog piss and pot, and this potent mixture of odors ensured that they had relative privacy as they sat on a chipped, wobbly bench.

For several seconds they said nothing. Jill sat perfectly straight, her small hands cupping her enormous coffee, not moving.

Vin blew out a long breath, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees before deciding to get it over with.

“You and Tom,” he said, his eyes locked on a discarded cigarette butt in the dirt at his feet. “You’re okay?”

“We’re… on good terms,” Jill replied.

“That’s good,” he said woodenly. His thumbnail flicked at the plastic lid.

“Vin—”

“I owe you an apology,” he said, interrupting. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking that night in the hotel, but it was out of line.”

Her shoulders hunched. “You seemed like you wanted to say something that night—something important.”

Vin said nothing. Stared straight ahead as a pair of pigeons hacked their way through a discarded hot dog bun.

“Actually,” Jill said softly, “it seems like there’s been a lot of times lately that you’ve wanted to say something. I feel like we keep going in circles of unfinished conversation.”

He nodded, still not looking away from the f*cking pigeons.

“So let’s finish it,” she said quietly.

Jill leaned forward then so they were shoulder-to-shoulder, although she too stared straight ahead at the birds.

It was as though it was too much for them to talk meaningfully and make eye contact.

He swore softly and dipped his head.

What was he supposed to say?

Don’t marry Tom?

Give me a chance?

Give us a chance?

What did he want from her?

Did he really expect her to call off her wedding on the off chance that there could be something more between them?

What kind of first-rate * was he, to ask her to postpone a for-sure thing (Tom) for an unstable, noncommittal flight risk (him)?

He’d had years to ask her out. Why now? Why wait until she was no longer available?

It was a question she’d ask—one she should ask.

And one he didn’t have an answer for. All he knew was that he died a little inside every time he thought about her leaving him.

But he’d be damned if he chose his happiness over her own.

It had to stop.

“I’ve been an ass, Henley,” he said, giving her a brief glance.

“Well—I’m used to that.”

He smiled grimly as he realized what he had to do.

He had to lie.

Vin swallowed, forced himself to turn and look at her. The lie would be all the more convincing if he could pull it off while making eye contact. He waited until she’d shifted, matching his position so they were face-to-face.

She took a sip of her coffee, and waited. Her eyes round and blue and… completely unreadable. Since when had she become a mystery to him?

Since she came home with a ring on her finger. That’s when.

“You know that old cliché—wanting what you can’t have?” he asked gruffly.

She blinked. “Sure?”

“Well,” he said. “That.”

Jill blinked again. “Usually I’m pretty good at deciphering the words you’re not saying, but I need a bit more.”

Fine. She wanted it all laid out there? Fast and furious? Fine.

“The thought of you marrying another man has been making me crazy,” Vincent said, the words terrifying, because this much, at least, was true.

Her breath caught a little. “Why?”

Good Christ, how did regular men do this? Lay it all out there?

“Because I thought—I guess it never really occurred to me that you… that…”

“That someone else would find me attractive? Want to marry me?” Her voice was quiet, not as caustic as it could have been. But she was on edge, definitely.

“No,” he said. “I mean—f*ck. I just thought—it never occurred to me that I might lose you.”

“You won’t—”

He held up a hand. “I need to finish. And I thought that somehow if I could get you not to marry the other guy, that things could keep going on as they were. And I thought the way to get you not to marry Tom was to convince you that we could maybe be… something.”

They stared at each other in mute silence for an uncomfortably long time, until he finally cleared his throat. “You can say something now.”

There was a little whisper of a smile around her lips, although not a happy one. “Okay.” She sucked in a long breath. “Okay, I’ll just ask. Have you been messing with my emotions the past several months because you want me? Or because you don’t want Tom to have me?”

He cleared his throat and glanced at his coffee. “I want you to be happy.”

“That’s not an answer, Vin. No more evasions. Do you have feelings for me—beyond partner, beyond friend? Yes or no.”

Vincent felt both incredibly hot and unbearably cold at the same time. As though his body was physically incapable of telling the lie he needed to tell.