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“Where's your axe, lady, huh? Why don't you go over in that bar there and smash all the alcohol?”
Jo ducked her head and tried to keep walking. She just had to ignore them. That was all. She was almost used to them. Most of the people who came to these talks were the decent kind who either had lost someone to a drunk driving accident or wanted to keep their children from ending up in one. The kids never wanted to be there, and she knew that, but she didn't care about that. She hoped that something she said or the scars she showed would someday sink in and make them think. That was all she could ask for. It didn't always work—she had certainly known better—but maybe it could help someone else avoid the mistake she'd made and the pain she'd suffered.
“Come on,” the drunk said, grabbing her arm. “Aren't you gonna make us sinners pay?”
She tried to pull free, missing the days when she would have flattened this guy with her well-trained judo. She couldn't do that anymore. He leaned into his face. “Well, aren't you?”
“Let her go.”
“You gonna make me? You don't look all that big. I think my friends, and I could take you.”
“Well, and then I'd just add assaulting a police officer to the drunk and disorderly charge after I kicked your ass,” the other man said, and Jo frowned when she recognized that voice. It couldn't be. Oh, she'd heard that he became a cop, but not here. He wasn't here. This wasn't LA. This was Ventura. It was an hour away from him and all that stuff in her past. “I have a gun. You want to take the chance? Really? Because you could just go home and sleep it off.”
The drunk let go of her arm and backed away. She shook her head, forced her throat to clear. “Thank you.”
Kendall looked over at her and frowned. “Jo?”
She felt her chest burn with further humiliation. “You didn't expect to see me without the scars, did you?”
He shook his head. “No, I just didn't expect it to be you. Of all the people to run into after all this time and here, it's you. It's weird. Not necessarily a bad weird, just... weird.”
“You don't have to lie, you know. I mean, obviously, you didn't want to talk to me because you never take or return my calls and you left, so—”
“No, you kicked me out and then your dad wouldn't let me back in,” he disagreed. “And I don't take anyone's calls, so don't feel special.”
She looked at him. “Excuse me?”
He shook his head, giving a look towards the drunks that hadn't completely left yet. “You know what? If we're going to argue, maybe we should do it in private.”
“I'm not sure there's any point in continuing this conversation, Kendall. I certainly didn't need to see you today. And I suppose I am grateful to you for rescuing me, but I shouldn't have needed to be rescued. And I will never stop being mad at myself for that.”
He put his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt and shrugged. “I would have done it for anyone who was getting hassled. Part of the job.”
She glanced at the badge on his belt, shaking her head. “You a cop. I guess it makes sense, but it's still something I have a hard time believing.”
“You're not the only one. Everyone else thinks I'm a nutcase for doing this.”
“That why you have that mark on your lip?”
He reached up to touch it and shook his head. “No, that was... Well, that was a part of it, I guess, but that was really a huge misunderstanding, so it doesn't matter. Just... don't believe the papers if you get around to reading them. I assume you haven't, or you'd throw that one in my face, too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was undercover. For vice,” he began. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “As a prostitute. Never did anything, but someone got some pictures that made it look like I did, so... I ended up with a busted lip. And how has your week been?”
“Not as entertaining as yours, obviously,” she said, shrugging. “The usual physical therapy sessions, the speaking tour, and now a group of drunks.”
He nodded. “So... things are... good, then? With the therapy?”
She held out her hand, showing him the way it shook. “Can't seem to stop that. Can't hold onto much. But I'm walking, so I am very lucky. Very lucky.”
“I'm glad,” he told her. He forced a smile. “It was nice to see you, Jo. I have to go.”
She watched him turn to leave and frowned at his back. “Wait, that's it? All this time, all these years, all the lies you told me when I woke up in the hospital, and you're not even going to say you're sorry? You can just walk away like all of this is nothing? You can say that it's great that I'm walking again—and I noticed that you didn't say anything about the scars—and this is just it? You walk away, and we're... done?”
He turned around. “We were done six years ago.”
“No, we weren't. You at least owed me the decency of taking my calls. You just dropped off the planet and confirmed my worst fears about the scars and the fact that I couldn't walk and you owe me more than this,” she insisted, walking towards him. “I deserve a lot more.”
“I don't have a lot more to give you. I don't have a lot more to give anyone,” he shot back. “It was never about the scars or you not walking, but you'll never believe that, so just let me walk away and stay mad at me because I am not going to sit here and beg for a forgiveness that I will never get. I did enough of that with Carlos. I can't do it anymore.”
“Look me in the eyes. Look me in the eyes, in the face, and tell me it wasn't about the scars,” she ordered, pushing back the hair that covered up the scars on the side of her head. “Tell me it wasn't.”
He reached over and took her hand down. “That never mattered. Only you did.”
She shook her head again, blinking back tears, and his mouth covered hers. She closed her eyes. For a moment, she could pretend that none of it had happened. No accident. No scars. No paralyzation. It was just the two of them, the way it had been when they were together, and it felt so damn good and so wonderful, and she had to push him away. It wasn't real. It had all happened. She couldn't forget that.
She ran off to her hotel, ignoring him as he called after her.
Jo was halfway through the mini bar and about ready to try out a bath to wash away all the stupidity—she would have showered, but her legs would have given out on her, and she didn't want to fall in her hotel room—when there was a loud knock on the door. She sighed. She knew she hadn't ordered any room service, her tv wasn't on loud or anything, so this was probably another drunk to make her night that much more perfect.
The knocking didn't stop. She wasn't going to be able to ignore this guy. She pulled the robe tight around her and made sure that the chain was in its slot before she opened the door a crack. She frowned. “Kendall? How did you—”
“Shameless abuse of my badge,” he admitted. “I couldn't let it end like that. I don't even know why. I'm not good at this stuff. It's just... you and I were different, Jo. I really—I would have stayed, back then. I would have.”
“I know. You're responsible. You'd have done your duty.”
“It wasn't a duty,” he protested. He sighed. “Look, do we have to do this through the door? I don't exactly want security called on me. Just a few more minutes, and you'll never have to see me again, okay?”
“You were the one that wanted to walk away a few minutes ago. Why did you bother looking for me? This is ridiculous, Kendall. You know that.”
He sighed. “I can't expect you to understand, and I don't even know—you're right; forget it; it's nothing, really. All of it. I couldn't explain it if even if I wanted to, and I didn't really want to, wasn't prepared to—I have no idea what I'm doing.”
He turned to go, and she was about to shut the door again when she saw the red on his jacket. “Kendall, did something happen to your arm?”
He stopped, looking at the sleeve, and then he curse as he slipped it off his shoulder to get a better look at it. There was a bandage there, half-covered by his t-shirt, but it was leaking red at the bottom. “Damn it.”
“What happened?” she asked, opening the door and pulling him inside. He shrugged a little.
“That vice thing I told you about? Suspect got me with a knife before his arrest. I got it checked out, had a few stitches. It was fine. I don't know what I did to it to start it up again.”
She closed the door and motioned him to the bed. “Sit.”
He did, taking his sweatshirt off and putting to the side. She sat next to him and pushed up the sleeve, trying to get the bandage off. “Okay, this isn't going to work. Take off your shirt.”
He gave her a slight look, and she ignored it, lifting the bottom of the shirt and starting it up his stomach. Her hands started to shake, and she lost her grip. She cursed. He pulled the shirt off, and she blinked. She'd seen Kendall with his shirt off before, plenty of times, but she'd never seen the marks that stretched from his uninjured arm to the top of his chest. Her fingers somehow found their way there, doing a slight twitch against his skin, and he hissed his breath, catching her hand. “That's from the accident. My accident. We should just take care of my other arm so I'm not bleeding on your comforter here.”
“What... happened?”
“I guess I did my best to go through the dash when I flipped the car,” he answered. “It doesn't matter. That healed up a long time ago.”
She shook her head. “They never heal, not really.”
He nodded, his hand going towards her robe, where it had fallen off her shoulder. The thin strap of her nightgown didn't hide anything. She bit her lip as he studied the jagged burn scars on her upper arm and shoulder. She'd had surgery on the lower part of her arm and her face, but she couldn't afford to do it for every single scar.
She wasn't really sure which one of them started it the second time, but his hand ended up in her hair, and her arm was around his neck and she was in his lap, and they were kissing again. “Your arm.”
“Forget about it,” he told her, lowering her back onto the bed. She should stop this. She knew that. She'd had a bit to drink, and it had been too long since anyone looked at her with anything other than pity, and it was Kendall. They had a lot of history. Chemistry. It was still there. He wanted her, and no one had wanted her in so long that she was way too weak to resist it.
“You're bleeding,” she reminded him as he undid the belt of her robe, opening up the robe and leaving her feeling so naked in the simple cotton nightgown she'd brought. It was comfortable and comforting, and she hadn't expected to see him or any man for that matter, not like this.
He looked at his arm, yanking the bandage off. “It stopped.”
She shook her head at him. He was being ridiculous, but then he kissed her. Not on the mouth. Not on the cheek. He kissed her right on the scar, didn't shy away from it, and she lost it, starting to cry. He looked at her. “No, don't. You don't need to cry. You're beautiful, Jo. You always have been, and you always will be to me.”
She shook her head, and he wrapped his arms around her, rolling onto his back and resting her head against his chest. She closed her eyes for a moment. “Don't lie to me, Kendall. I can't... I can't do this. Can't take this.”
He turned some of her hair in his fingers, then moved his hand down her neck and down her arm. “I'm not lying. Hell, I haven't been this honest in years.”
She didn't believe him. Her fingers hit a ridge on his side, and he jerked. She looked at him. “That from the accident, too?”
“Yeah. Got pinned between the dash I tried to go through and the steering wheel. Tore up my side pretty badly.”
“And this one?” she asked, looking at something that to her looked suspiciously like a gunshot. He took her hand away from it.
“No one knows about that. If I tell you, you can't tell the guys, my mom, or my sister.”
Jo frowned. “Why don't they know?”
“I told you. I don't take anyone's calls.”
“Kendall, are you trying to get yourself killed?” she asked. “That is a bullet wound, isn't it? How did that—”
He cut her off with another kiss, his hand slipping under her nightgown and making her shiver. She couldn't hardly think with the way he was touching her—she was weak just to the thought of someone touching her because most people wouldn't—and she really didn't want him to stop. Not now. Not ever. She shouldn't let him distract her, but she wanted to be distracted. She wanted to feel everything she was feeling now and more, and it felt right that it was with Kendall. Her first love. In some ways... her last.
He slid the nightgown higher, about to take it off, and she put a hand up to stop him. “You're wearing too many clothes.”
He looked down at her. “You have a problem with foreplay?”
She shook her head. “No, I just... It's not right that you see all of my scars, and I don't see all of yours.”
“You want to count them?”
“No... It's just... Please, Kendall. I haven't been this naked or vulnerable in a long time, and I can't—I can't be the only one exposed.”
He sat up for a second and took off his shoes, then his socks. She watched as he stood set his gun and badge on the small table with the tv. A gun. Kendall had a gun. Why didn't that bother her? It should bother her. She'd been making out with him when he had a gun on his belt. He undid the button on his fly and got out of his jeans. “That better?”
“Your hip...”
“The accident, again,” he told her, climbing back onto the bed. She touched her hand to the scar, and he jerked a little as it dipped below the waistband of his underwear, touching her nightgown again. “Can we take this off now? Do you want to be under the covers?”
“Don't be so considerate.”
“You want me to be a jerk? I'm actually kind of good at that these days. I don't want to be a jerk. I want to be—I don't know what I want to be, not really. Just let me take care of you, okay?” he asked, pulling the sheets down underneath her, and then he went back to kissing her. She reached back and fumbled for the light. He caught her hand. “You don't have to do that. You have nothing to hide from me. I already told you. You're still beautiful to me.”
“You're lying.”
“No, I'm not. I don't have to lie, not here. All I want right now is to be with you. Scars and all. You've seen mine, right? We can do the counting thing if you want, see who has more, see whose are worse—”
“You got shot.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Probably won't be the last time, either. I just made detective. And lucky me, I got homicide.”
She shook her head. “Why? Why do it? Why be a cop at all?”
“Can't sing anymore. Big Time Rush died in that accident. Carlos is in a coma. He's never going to wake up, Jo, and I put him there and that same accident cost me my hockey dream so why not a cop? Why not something that does someone else some good?”
“It was an accident, Kendall.”
“Are you able to stop blaming yourself or Devon for what happened to you?”
“No.”
“Then don't ask me to forgive myself for what happened to Carlos,” Kendall told her. He sat back, running a hand through his hair. “Are we trying to kill the mood here?”
“Maybe this is a mistake.”
He thought about that for a moment, playing with the bottom of her nightgown. She should stop him. This wasn't going any further. “Do you want me?”
“Yes.” He would never know how much she wanted him. Needed him. She needed to know that she could be touched and loved and he was Kendall Knight. She'd never gotten over him, not in six years. The way it had all fallen apart after the accident had ruined things, and she needed closure. Even if that was all this was, she needed that.
“Then... this isn't a mistake. Because I want you, and that's all that really matters right now,” he said, pulling the nightgown up and over her head. He looked into her eyes. “You are beautiful. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.”
She started to cry again, and he kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held onto him, not about to let go now. She figured this would end up breaking her heart all over again even as much as it was trying to fix it.
Jo woke up slowly. She hadn't dreamed about the accident last night, and that never happened. She always dreamed about it. She saw the flames, heard herself scream as she tried to wake Devon only to realize that he was already dead and that she was trapped. Then she couldn't feel anything at all...
She shook it off. She hadn't dreamed. That was good.
The other half of the bed was empty, and that was not good.
She sat up, trying not to give into the tears. Kendall's gun and badge weren't on the table anymore. His jacket was gone, too. She should have known this would happen. It only made sense, didn't it? It was the only way it could have ended, right?
She picked up her robe and pulled it on as she got up. She frowned as she heard a noise in the bathroom. Had something fallen over or was she really not alone? She wasn't sure what to think about that. All of his stuff could be gone because he'd gotten up and gotten dressed, right?
“Kendall?” she asked, looking into the bathroom and trying to tell herself that she wasn't the biggest idiot in the universe for the night before. She shouldn't have trusted him—shouldn't have let it go that far. She knew that she was weak. A part of her still loved him. A part of her always would.
He set down his phone and forced a smile. “Just called in sick. I guess if you don't want me to stay, I'm going to feel kind of stupid, but I can pretend to be a tourist or something.”
“You pretend to be a tourist? It doesn't fit. At all.”
He shrugged. “I was going to offer to take you out to breakfast, but now that I see you, I'm thinking that we should order in.”
She glanced down at the robe and back at him, her cheeks red. “Kendall—”
He started kissing her again. She moaned as his lips touched her neck. This wasn't fair. He could make her melt in seconds. He didn't even have to try. “Don't tell me to go. Please. Not yet. Let's have the weekend. The whole thing.”
“I'm supposed to give two speeches today—”
“Ditch.”
“I don't ditch. You know that.”
“Just once. For me.”
She saw the look on his face and frowned. He was asking this almost desperately, and she didn't understand. Why was the weekend so important to him? It was like he was drowning and this was the life raft he needed to survive, but why?
She bit her lip. “I don't—take me out. It's one thing that you were here and willing and all those things you said to me last night—but they don't mean much if it's only in this room. I'm not just a girl that you talked into bed. I'm not.”
“Never,” he promised.
She shrugged. They'd see about that one. “Let me get dressed. Do you have clothes somewhere?”
He shook his head. “I was supposed to work today. I was planning on driving back last night. You can pick out the worst touristy shirt for me, and I'll wear it instead of my dirty one, okay?”
She nodded, not liking the fact that he'd meant to drive back. She knew it wasn't like he'd planned to meet her or anything, but she hated being... convenient. There. The girl he'd shacked up with because he wasn't in LA. She knew it wasn't necessarily like that, but she still had so many doubts and fears because of the accident. The paralysis. The scars. She would be a lot of work for any guy that was interested, and she didn't really expect him to stay around.
She took the tank top out of her bag and put it on, forcing herself not to add the sweater she usually wore over it. She added a skirt and then brushed her hair. The extensions had gotten all tangled up, and she'd have to spend some time later untangling them. She set them aside. That just gave her another reason to try this. She clipped her hair up, letting the scars she usually hid be seen by everyone. She would know in a minute if Kendall had been lying to her.
She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and opened the door, coming around the corner. He stood up and smiled at her. “Are you sure we have to go out? Because that skirt is giving me all kinds of ideas.”
She tried to come up with some kind of response to that, but he kissed her again, and she didn't manage any words. They fell back on the bed, and she decided that that he could take her out for lunch. His hand snuck up the skirt, and she changed her mind again. Dinner. It would be dinner...
“I don't want to go back,” Kendall said, and Jo lifted her head up to look at him. She smiled a little. He'd been incredible all weekend, and she didn't just mean in bed, though that was really good, but he'd taken her out for dinner, with the scars exposed, and he never once avoided looking at them—even if he spent most of the time looking at her chest—and he touched her shoulder, in public, as they walked around, and he was decent. He was every bit the caring guy she remembered, and she loved it as much as she hated it. She could fall for him all over again.
“You know you have to. We both do.”
He shook his head. “No, you don't understand. I really don't want to go back. My life—the only thing I like about it is my job. It sucks.”
She frowned at him. “What about the guys? Don't you still do stuff together?”
“No. Carlos is in a coma, Logan is all busy being a big time doctor, and James is the one who gave me the split lip,” Kendall admitted. He shook his head. “It's better this way.”
“How can you say that?” she asked, confused. “They're your best friends.”
“Not anymore,” he said, looking away for a moment. “If you ask them about me, they'll all say I threw my life away. That I'm an idiot for choosing to be a cop. That I don't know what I'm doing and that I'm a jerk most of the time. I guess it's true, to a point, except I do know what I'm doing. I know they'll never understand it, and I have finally gotten to the point where I don't care anymore.”
“I don't believe that.”
“I almost left before you woke up,” he admitted. “It would have been easier than trying to face you. Than actually admitting that I was leaving.”
She sat back against the wall. “You're not talking about going back to LA, are you? You mean leaving as in... we're done now, don't you? Kendall, how the hell could you do this to me? You made me care all over again, and I don't want to—”
He touched her arm gently. “Jo, honestly, the reason that it's good that my friends don't come around anymore, that my family doesn't hardly speak to me—people who are close to me are at risk, and you don't deserve that. I shouldn't have come here, shouldn't have stayed. It was two days of freedom for me, freedom from the never ending burden that my life has become, and I am a jerk because it wasn't like that for you. I messed around with how you feel, and I never should have done that. Damn it, what the hell have I become?”
He turned away and got out of the bed, pacing. “I can't believe I thought I was doing the right thing. I was so selfish. So stupid. I wanted you to know that you are still beautiful, that you deserved to be held and loved, and I didn't even stop to think about how I couldn't offer you what you really needed. You need someone who will stick around, and I'm the guy who's always leaving.”
She fought tears. “I'll make this easy for you, Kendall. Get out.”
“Not that it's any consolation or anything you want to hear, but if things were different, you'd probably be the only one that I could make this work with.”
“I don't want to hear it. Just go. You've done enough damage.”
He picked up his shirt and pulled it on. He was about to button his jeans when he stopped. “I lied. Not about what you think. The scar on my hip. I didn't get that in the accident, not all of it. There is a man out there who would—for reasons I don't even understand—hurt anyone close to me, and he broke my hip and cost me hockey, and he's the reason I became a cop and someday I will find that bastard and I will shoot him and then if I don't go to prison, I'll finally have my life back.”
She was crying now. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn't stop them. He didn't have to do this, didn't have to make it worse than it already was. “You are only making things worse by making up stories. Just go.”
He crossed the room again, kissing her, hard, and she hated herself for being weak to him. Again. “I. Love. You. I know you don't believe that, but I do, and I swear, when this is all over, I will spend whatever's left of my life proving it to you.”
She couldn't say anything as he grabbed the last of his things. She just sat there and cried. Damn him. He'd just given her another scar that would never heal.