Rebound (Seattle Steelheads #1)(14)

The playfulness in her expression shifted to concern. “Why not?”

“Do I ever sleep well?” My dysfunctional relationship with sleep wasn’t exactly a secret.

She seemed to consider it. “Okay. But you seem… I don’t know. Like you slept less than usual.”

I stared out the cruiser’s windshield, idly thumbing the lid on my coffee cup.

“You’re really worried about him, aren’t you?” There wasn’t any judgement in her tone. Concern, maybe. “Crowe?”

Without turning to her, I nodded. “Yeah.”

“How is he doing?”

I exhaled. “It’s hard to tell, honestly. He’s rattled, that’s for sure.”

“Can you blame him?”

“Not when his ex won’t leave him alone, no.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Laura groaned and rolled her eyes. “Please tell me he’s getting a protective order.”

“First thing today.”

“Good.” She sighed. “Poor kid.”

“Right? So I’m… I don’t know. I always worry after domestics.”

“Not like this, you don’t.”

I turned to her, and she was looking right back at me. “What does that mean?”

She tilted her head as if to say, really? Facing forward again, she started the engine. As she backed out of the parking space, she said, “I know you worry about people after calls like that. But I’ve never seen you take off to Mercer Island after your shift to check on one.”

“To be fair, Mercer Island isn’t exactly in our usual jurisdiction.”

“So how many people have you gone to check on in Queen Anne or Fremont?”

I didn’t answer.

“That’s what I thought.” Attention fixed on the road, she pulled out of the precinct’s lot and turned on to Virginia Street. “It’s not a bad thing, caring about people. But would you be doing the same if he wasn’t your favorite hockey player?”

I eyed her. “Meaning?”

She shot me a wordless glance.

Sighing, I shifted my gaze to the road in front of us. “Honestly, it barely crossed my mind who he was. I just…” I chewed my lip.

“Hmm?”

I drummed my fingers on the armrest. “I saw myself in him, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean even though the shit Marcus did to me is no where near what Nathan did to Asher, I know what it’s like to feel that beaten down and worthless. Emotionally. That just… It tripped something in me.” I drummed faster. “But to tell you the truth, I almost didn’t go to his place last night, even after he didn’t answer his phone.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But my gut said not to ignore it.”

Laura was nodding before I’d finished. “Okay, I can see that. I think I would have done the same thing.” She paused to make a left turn, then glanced at me again. “Just be careful okay? You’re still working through shit from your own ex, and it’s really easy to project on to someone else. If Asher does something like going back to Nathan—”

I cringed. “Fuck…”

“I know,” she said emphatically. “And I hope to God he doesn’t do it either. But you know how things like this play out sometimes.” Another glance, this one pointed. “There might not be anything you can do to stop them from playing out that way this time.”

Pressing back against the seat, I released a long breath. I didn’t argue with her. Why would I? She was absolutely right. How many times had we revisited houses where the victim had vowed to kick out their abuser for good, only to reconcile and wind up with flashing blue lights in the driveway again? It was easy to tell myself there was no way in hell Asher would do the same thing, but I’d had a front row seat to reality too many times to be absolutely sure.

And if he takes him back, and the cops get called, I won’t be there to respond this time unless they happen to be downtown.

I suppressed a shudder and hoped Asher defied the odds and didn’t need Mercer Island PD to come break up another domestic.

You deserve better, Asher. Don’t let that jackass come home.

I tried not to think about how many times I’d had to give myself that same lecture in recent months. Maybe that was what I was afraid of—that if people like Asher went back to partners who beat them, then I wouldn’t be strong enough to stay away from one who’d merely fucked with my head. Yeah, it was definitely time to start looking for a therapist, assuming I could afford one.

Laura and I let the subject of Asher drop, and we continued with our patrols. Fortunately, our shift was blissfully boring. Mostly routine traffic stops and a few people who needed to be reminded that while marijuana was legal, its consumption wasn’t legal everywhere. No, ma’am, the No Smoking sign doesn’t only apply to tobacco. No, sir, you can’t smoke that joint in front of the grocery store. No, kids, you can’t pass the bong around at the bus stop. Move along, please.

The only excitement was a panicked homeowner reporting that someone was trying to break into her house. The “burglar” turned out to be a neighbor’s cat doing a piss poor job of stealthily flushing out the mouse trapped between the back door and the storm door.