Hopeless (11 page)

Jay smirked. “If she was, you’d be spittin’
out teeth by now. You lay one hand on
my
woman, and I can promise you
that hand will wind up in a cast for a good long time.”

“I understand.” He skirted around the
bookcase and tried to make his way around the room toward the door.

“Where the hell do you think you’re goin’?
I’m not finished with you yet.” Jay knew he wouldn’t have to lay a hand on him.
They both knew he could render him immobile if he chose to, but the threat of
what he could do was more than enough to drive his point home.

“I’m sorry.” He sank into a guest chair
positioned by the door.

“I care about Victoria, and if you cross
someone I care about, you have to answer to me. Understood?”

“Yes, yes, sir. I won’t bother her again. I
promise.”

Jay smirked. “Good, ‘cause if you do…” He
let the threat hang in the air, knowing they both knew what he could do if
someone was stupid enough to cross him.

“I won’t. Victoria will never see or hear
from me again. You have my word.”

“Good.” Now if only he could get his
brother out of Victoria’s life so easily.  

Victoria had a few hours to spare before
Jay was expecting her at the studio, so she decided to stop into the shelter to
find out if there was anything she could do to help. She knew they were nearing
the end of the month, and they’d had more women and children checking in over
the last six days than they’d anticipated. The problem with government
subsidized shelters was they often provided enough money to keep the doors
open, but beyond that, the employees were on their own to figure out how to
meet the needs of their residents.

The volunteers routinely had to solicit food
donations from local grocery stores and restaurants just to get them through
the month.

Lindsay looked up from her computer screen
when Victoria walked into the small office. “Hey, I was gonna call you today.
How was your date last night?”

“It was good.”

It hadn’t taken long for Victoria to
realize Jay’s brother was a great guy. Once they agreed their relationship
would never be romantic, they let their guards down and had fun getting to know
each other. He regaled her with stories about some of the outrageous cases he’d
worked over the years, and they talked, laughed, and danced until it was time
for J.T. to throw them out.

“So you’ll be seeing him again?”

She sat down in the chair across from her
friend. “Definitely.”

“How does his hot brother feel about that?”

Victoria shrugged. She knew she was
terrible at feigning indifference, but she felt she should at least try to pull
it off before she caved in and told her friend the truth. “I haven’t told him
yet. I’m due at the studio in a little bit. I assume he’ll ask.” When he did,
she was ready with a response that would surely shut him down.

Lindsay spun her chair around to face
Victoria. “There’s something you’re not telling me. You went out with a hot
guy, said you had a great time, yet you don’t seem too happy about it. Why?”

Her friend was too perceptive and she was a
terrible liar. She only hoped Jay wouldn’t be able to see through her as
easily. “I do like Mike… as a friend.” Lindsay looked so dejected Victoria had
to laugh. “It’s okay, a girl can never have too many friends, ya know?”

“Yeah, but when are you gonna meet
the
guy?
The one who’s gonna force you out of your comfort zone… who’ll be worth taking a
risk for?”

Lindsay was the only person on the planet
who knew Victoria’s life story in its entirety and she’d only confided in her
because Lindsay could relate. She’d grown up in the system too, which led them
both here, to the shelter, trying to help other kids who were suffering to find
their place in a world that had left them beaten up and battered when they had
nowhere else to turn.

“I’d never want to put anyone else through
what I went through. It wouldn’t be fair.”

She and Lindsay hadn’t been friends during
Victoria’s lengthy hospital stay, but her friend knew the whole ugly story of
her fight for her life.

Lindsay leaned forward and reached across
the desk. “Honey, you don’t know how long you have. None of us do. Hell, I
could walk out of here and get hit by a car; so could you. We can’t assume the
Grim Reaper is waiting around every corner.”

She knew her friend was only trying to
help, but she couldn’t possibly understand what Victoria had been through. “He
wants a family.” She looked Lindsay in the eye. “Jay told me he wants a
family.”

Lindsay closed her eyes and leaned back in
her seat. “There are lots of ways to have a family, Vic. Hell, we both know there
are tons of kids out there who need a good home.”

If her situation had been different,
Victoria wouldn’t have hesitated to adopt a baby. But she couldn’t bear the
thought of leaving a helpless baby alone in the world to fend for him or
herself, the way her mother had left her. “I know, but…”

Lindsay held her hand up. “I don’t want to
hear it. I’ve known you for five years, and I’ve watched you turn away dozens
of great guys—guys who were really starting to care about you- just because you
were afraid to take a risk. Everyone thinks you’re so fearless, but I’m not
buying it. I think you’re scared to death of everything.”

Victoria glared at her. “You have no idea—”

“Yes, I do.” She sighed. “Okay, maybe I
don’t know exactly what you’ve been through, but I do know you’re using your
past as an excuse not to plan for your future.”

“How can you say that?”

“You know I love you. I just want you to be
happy, and it bugs me when I see you reject one great guy after another because
you’re too afraid to let someone love you.”

“I almost died.” She was fighting a losing
battle to maintain control. “Thankfully, there was no one to give a damn back
then, but what if I’d had a husband or kids? How the hell could I have left
them behind the way my parents left me behind?”

“Your parents chose to leave you, Vic. Just
like my parents chose to become drug addicts and dump me with a grandmother who
died before I turned eight. People who die don’t choose to leave their kids
behind. They have no choice.”

Victoria covered her face with her hands.
She hadn’t thought about that dark period in her life in a long time, but
meeting Jay and knowing her annual check-up was only days away was wreaking
havoc with her sense of reason. “Do you think it matters to the kids who are
left behind, Lindsay? All they know is their mommy or daddy is gone. They don’t
understand why.”

“If you were to go to the palliative care
unit right now and ask any of the mothers and fathers lying in those beds whether
they would have traded one moment they spent with their kids if they knew how
it was all going to end, I can guarantee you they’d all tell you their kids
were the best damn thing to ever happen to them.”

Victoria knew her friend was right. She’d
spent enough time in the hospital getting to know the other patients. No one
ever came to visit her, so when she got tired of staring at the same four walls
all day, she’d take her walker or wheel chair and venture down the hall to visit
some of the other patients. She got to know some of them quite well. So well they’d
left a huge hole in her heart when she eventually walked in to each and every
room to find their beds empty. Some of her new friends passed on in their
sleep, all alone. Others slipped into a coma with family and friends crowding
their bedside. Some were children with their whole lives ahead of them. Others
were senior citizens with a good life behind them. But they all told stories of
the things they wished they’d done, people they wished they’d met, trips they
wished they’d taken while they still had enough life left in them.

Victoria was one of the lucky ones who got
to leave propelled by the strength of her own two legs. She was ‘in remission’
according to her doctors, but in her mind, it felt like she was just waiting
for the other shoe to drop.

She did everything she could to buy time.
She ate well, exercised every day, drank plenty of water, and took her vitamins,
but she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling there was a dormant beast lying
in wait inside her body, ready to strike when she finally let her guard down.
So she couldn’t let her guard down. Ever.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Lindsay whispered,
leaning in to hold her hand.

She didn’t realize she’d started crying
until the tears fell on her bare legs. Crying twice in as many days was a new
record for her. She hadn’t cried this much since she was a kid who still
thought there might be someone out there somewhere waiting to dry her tears,
hoping to find a little girl like her to make their life complete.

“Don’t be sorry.” She reached for a tissue
on the desk and blotted her eyes. “You were right.”

“I was?”

“Yeah, I live in fear every single day.”
She pressed her closed fist against her mouth, willing her body to stop
trembling. “And I don’t know when or if I’m ever gonna feel safe again.”

“Oh, honey…” Lindsay got up and came around
the desk to draw her into a hug. “You deserve to be happy. More than anyone I
know, you’ve earned it.”

She laid her head on her friend’s shoulder
and let her stroke her hair. “You don’t earn the right to be happy. You either are
or you’re not.”

Lindsay pulled back to look her in the eye.
“Have you ever been happy? I mean, really happy?”

She tried to smile when she said, “I can’t
say I have.”

“If you were to die tomorrow, wouldn’t that
be your greatest regret… you’d never allowed yourself to steal even a few
moments of happiness?”

It was difficult to be happy when death was
a real and present danger every day. It was the first thing she thought about
when she woke up in the morning and the last thing she thought about before she
fell asleep at night. It was the voice in her head while she was driving. It
was the pain in her stomach when she was lying on the couch watching TV. It was
the five pounds the scale told her she lost last week. It was the meal she
couldn’t finish. It was the day she couldn’t drag herself out of bed because
she was too tired. The threat of death was constant, and it was everywhere.

“I’d have a lot of regrets if I were to die
tomorrow, but wouldn’t we all?”

“You deserve to be loved, honey. Just
because your parents were too screwed up to love you doesn’t mean there isn’t
some great guy out there just waiting to fall in love with you.”

Victoria forced a smile. “Those are just
fantasies, hon. I can’t afford to waste time fantasizing.”

Jay was counting down the minutes until
Victoria’s shift started. He was eager to find out how her date with Mike went,
but he knew he had to play it cool. He couldn’t let her know the thought of her
kissing his brother, or worse, making love to his brother, had been eating him
up inside since she walked out last night.

Victoria pushed through the door and lit
his world up with her smile. He hadn’t had it this bad for a woman ever. “Hey,
beautiful.”

“Hey, yourself.” She looked around at the
artwork he’d hung that morning. “Looking good.”

Wielding a hammer had done little to ease
his tension, but the sight of her gorgeous face gave him hope the day was going
to get better just because she’d walked back into his life. “Thanks.” He
grinned. “I think we just might be ready for the grand opening, after all.”

“Was there ever any doubt?”

“No.” He set the hammer down on a nearby
chair. “We make a pretty great team, don’t we?”

She gestured to the open space surrounding
them. “I can’t take credit for this. All I did was unpack a few boxes. This is
all you.” She smiled. “I really admire what you’ve accomplished here.”

He tried not to let the compliment go to
his head, but it did. Her opinion of him mattered, a lot. “Thanks. It’s easy
when you love what you do, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He reached for the one of the take-out cups
he’d bought from the café around the corner minutes earlier. “Black, just the
way you like it.” Working side by side all day, he’d learned a lot about her,
but there was so much more he wanted to know. He wanted to know everything.

She reached for the cup, brushing her
fingertips over his, and he felt the heat practically sear his hand. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure. I could use a break.” He
gestured to one of the stools pushed against the tall counter. “Have a seat.
Tell me about your date with my brother.” He promised himself he wasn’t going
to ambush her as soon as she walked in the door, but if their night was a disaster,
he wouldn’t have to waste any more of his time worrying about it.

She laughed. “I just got here. I can’t take
a break.”

He winked. “Your new boss is a pretty cool
guy. I don’t think he’d mind if you finished your coffee before you dug into
those boxes.”