“Whoa.” Nick whistled long and low. “Harsh.”
“Yeah. Keep it to yourselves. She’s mortified.”
“Holy shit.” Eli’s mouth fell open. “Her hand. Please tell me she broke that frat boy’s perfect nose.”
Michael nodded.
Nick grinned in appreciation. “Forget your friendship. I think I’m in love with her.”
Michael pointed at his youngest brother’s chest. “Back off. She’s calm but not in a good way. Personally, I think she’s barely keeping it together. Between you and me, I think she needs to scream or cry or let it out. It’s not good for her to cover up her feelings.”
“I can’t imagine anyone doing that.”
Michael ignored the wry tones in Eli’s voice.
“Be careful with yournew friendship,” warned Eli.
“Why? There’s nothing going on. Look, I like her. I won’t deny it. We’ve become friendly. Men and womencanbe friends, you know.”
“We’re just looking out for you, bro,” said Nick. “Emily’s cool. We agree with you there, but you’re in the rebound zone right now.”
“Rebound zone. What have I told you about readingCosmo?”
Nick put up his hands. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to being a woman’s rebound man. When there are no strings attached, the sex can be hot. That being said, you and Emily are already friends. I doubt you’d want to mess it up.”
Rebounds. Michael hadn’t even considered the possibility. Rebounds never led to anything substantial and worthwhile. They were only good for sex, the kind where you could take a woman up against the wall and bang all her frustrations out in a numbingly cold encounter. A raw, physical moment of temptation that led nowhere.
He glanced at Emily, taking note of the pleasing curve to her hip.
He might be okay with a raw, physical moment of temptation. Or twenty.
Only Nick was right. Michael liked her too much. Emotions were already involved.
Right on cue, another headache started at the base of his skull. He didn’t even wait for it to get worse. Grabbing a couple of Tylenol caplets, he drank them down with some water.
“You need to go back to that doctor.”
Would Eli never stop harping about the doctor? If Michael didn’t know any better, he’d swear his brother was part of the shrink’s marketing team. “He was a quack. All he wanted to do was teach me deep breathing techniques. I’ve been breathing a long time. I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on it.”
“You never even gave him a chance. Michael, it might not be such a bad thing for you to discuss your feelings with a professional.”
“What feelings?”
“Don’t even bother.” Nick dismissed the topic with a wave. “How many times have we tried having this discussion? He’s pig-headed.”
“Hey.”
“Bro,” said Eli, peering at Michael as if he were a test specimen in a lab. “You lived through a traumatic situation, one that could have been a whole lot worse. You need to talk about it.”
“There’s been enough talk about the subject. It was a year ago. It’s done.”
“Hey,” said Nick. “Now that you mention it, didn’t the shooting take place exactly a year ago?”
Michael considered the date. Jane Ashton died on June twentieth. That meant, in a few short days, it would indeed be a year since the shooting.
All of a sudden, it felt as if someone had poured alcohol on the open wound that was his heart. One year since they put a healthy, vibrant woman in the ground. One year since Jane’s daughter Penny lost her entire immediate family. No one ever talked about her or her struggles. Penny was a kid, not even out of college yet, and had to deal with having a murderer for a father and a dead mother. The news reporters never wanted to discuss Penny’s issues. Perhaps her struggles weren’tsexyenough for the nightly news.
They just wanted to splash Michael’s photo around because people knew his name. They wanted to make him a hero for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but no one thought Penny was a hero for dragging herself out of bed every goddamn day?
