Love Undecided Read online

  He gives tasks to the rest of the guys before turning back to me.

  “I think between the two of you, you and Bauer should be able to come up with something to go on. Soon. Plus, if we don’t, the mayor is going to have my ass on a platter.”

  An image of Sherman’s ass on a platter pops into my head.

  And it’s a really big platter.

  Lucky for me, I keep the laugh in my head this time.

  “I’m on it,” I tell Sherman.

  We all stand to leave the room. I look to Bauer, he looks back at me, his eyes twinkling again. It’s like he’s got Christmas tree lights installed behind them or something.

  Clearly, he’s happy about this. I wonder what his eyes look like when he’s turned on.

  When he’s fucking.

  Would they still twinkle or would they grow darker and more intense?

  Does he fuck hard or soft?

  Oh, or both?

  I love both.

  I shiver involuntarily.

  “Ready to get started?” he asks.

  I nod slowly.

  He makes a hand motion as if to say, after you. The twinkle is still there. So is the half smile. A cocky half smile.

  Cocky, like he’s reading my thoughts, which kind of immobilizes me. So, I just stand there, dumbly.

  He grabs my elbow and leads me out the door. Mid-hallway, he switches from holding my elbow, to steering me with a firm hand on my lower back. Confidently guiding me down the hall to where he wants me to go.

  We end up in a smaller room with a table and two chairs. He motions to a chair while shutting the door, then turns to me and says, “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

  He gives me a very direct stare, no more twinkle, his eyes all steely blue with an edge.

  Shit. Fuck. Piss.

  Chance Bauer is SO the kind of guy that fucks hard.

  Chapter 3

  Brad

  I text Kat after my shift ends at the fire station. Just a short text asking her to let me know how the appointment with the oncologist goes today. I want her to know that I am thinking about her even though that doesn’t seem to make much of a difference most days. Then, to be fair, I send Stacy a good morning text as I’m walking to my truck.

  Stacy is the girl I’m fucking, but Kat is the woman I love. Stacy knows I’m not in love with her and that I’m still in love with Kat. She also knows that we aren’t serious, and that this won’t lead anywhere. But that doesn’t deter her in any way from continuing to sleep with me. And I fear that the longer I continue to sleep with her, the more hope she’ll have that it will turn into a relationship.

  And it won’t.

  Ever.

  Continuing to see Stacy, knowing she wants more from this, is a total dick move on my part, but I can’t help how I feel. I wasn’t planning to date again at all after Kat. I knew she was the one for me the very first time I met her. But, life doesn’t always go as planned.

  I start my truck and head toward the rec center, where my cancer caregiver support group is held. I still attend, even though Kat and I aren’t together. It helps to talk about her, makes me feel as though we are still connected somehow. And it helps, even still, to talk about my past and my mom dying so long ago.

  The streets of San Soloman are relatively quiet for a weekday morning and I am one of the few cars on the road. It’s the perfect counterpoint to the loud chaos that was last night’s shift - an apartment fire destroyed most of the building. Twenty families waking up without a home today, all because the girl in #12 left a candle burning when she went out for the evening.

  I rub my hand against my face, the faint smell of smoke still clings to my skin. It’s difficult to witness the momentary carelessness of one person impact the lives of so many. I take solace in the fact that all the members of each of those twenty families are still around to wake up today - we did our job well.

  Most of my support group is already seated by the time I get in the room, I grab a cup of coffee and find a seat. We introduce ourselves, giving our first names and telling the group briefly why we are here. The group counselor starts with the person to my right, making me the last to share.

  I make my introduction, and am surprised when the counselor follows it up with, “Brad, why don’t you share something about Kat today?”

  I shift in my seat and looking around the room, multiple sets of kind eyes return my gaze, boosting my courage to unleash the hellfire of emotions that is my past with Kat.

  “Well, the day I found the lump, I was coming off a forty-eight-hour shift after Kat had already pulled a few all-nighters in preparation for closing a big case. She is, was, an attorney. We hadn’t seen each other in over four days. She’d left the door unlocked for me, so I let myself in, showered quickly, and then joined her in bed. She was still in that half-awake sleepy state, you know? Her hair was all mussed and her makeup was smeared under her eyes, but she’d never looked more beautiful. And I knew then, even though I’d only known her a few weeks, that I wanted to wake up next to her every day for the rest of my life.”

  I look up at the counselor, and she smiles at me, encouraging me to continue.

  “I didn’t tell Kat about my feelings, I knew she’d get spooked. So I just kind of tucked it away in my pocket for use at a later time. I’m a sappy guy, I’ll admit it.”

  My head turns to the right slightly and a half smile takes control of my mouth. As I continue talking, I can see the entire scene playing out as though I’m watching it in a movie.

  I’d kissed her deeply, trying to tell her with my kiss everything I couldn’t yet voice. I slipped one hand down between her legs; she was wet for me. She was always wet for me, it was such a goddamn turn on. I grabbed the head of my cock and positioned it at the entrance to her pussy, rubbing it around slightly, spreading her wetness around. She lifted her hips in invitation but I continued to tease her with the tip of my cock.

  “In!” she grunted, in case I’d missed the earlier invite. I slid inside of her, groaning with pleasure.

  “Fuck, Kat, you feel so good,” I said as I sank all the way down into her.

  “Mmmm,” she replied. I let her roll me over so she was straddling me. I grabbed her hips to help her ride me, pushing her up slightly and pulling her down hard. I could feel her muscles tightening all around me as she came and had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from finishing too quickly. I wanted her to come again, but with me this time.

  She kept going, leaning away from me slightly, bracing her hands behind her on my thighs, grinding down on me, riding out her orgasm. Her breasts thrust out, begging for attention, and I complied. Which is when I found the lump. I stilled and sat up, my heart pounding.

  “Baby,” I said, alarmed.

  “No! Don’t stop!”

  I shake my head to clear it and bring myself back to the moment and the group in front of me.

  “We were making love and I stopped in the middle. I’d felt a lump in her breast. She was mad at first because I’d stopped, so I moved her hand with mine until I found it again. She tried to laugh it off at first, like it wasn’t a big deal. She actually said it was a buzz kill. But I made her feel it again. I remember the look in her eyes, it was like I’d just told her that everything she knew about the world was suddenly wrong. And she was confused.”

  I wipe away the beginnings of a tear from under my eye and clear my throat.

  “I don’t think she knew what to do. And I didn’t know how to handle her. We’d only been seeing each other for a few weeks. So we got up and tried to treat it like any other day. She took a shower, I made coffee. I tried to bring her a cup, but she’d locked the bathroom door. So, I sat on the floor outside the bathroom until she came out. When she finally did, she asked me what she should do. I just wanted to be strong for her, you know?”

  Someone hands me a tissue and I dab at the tears continuing to form in my eyes. I’m not afraid to show my emotions with this group, but the feeling of my own
tears running down my cheeks has always had an unsettling effect on me.

  “I told her not to worry until there was a reason to worry. That it could just be fatty tissue or something equally benign. I told her she should call the cancer center at the university in San Francisco. That they know their stuff. I mean, even though they couldn’t save my mom… well… you guys know what I’m talking about.”

  I tell them about the diagnosis then make the hand motion to show that I’m finished speaking. A finger sliding across the front of the neck; the group’s morbid attempt at humor. The counselor thanks me for sharing and I excuse myself to the restroom to regroup.

  Chapter 4

  Kat

  Hours later, Bauer and I are still at the precinct reviewing the photos, both crime scene and perp pics, as well as the social media content, and coming up with nothing. There was little to no evidence left at the scene(s); unfortunately, anything the perp might have left was long since down the drain.

  The perp was clever in that before he showered, as far as we could tell, he used a portable drain snake to push hair, or anything else near the front of the drain, farther down the pipes. The thought being that then any of his DNA that might be left or trapped because of his shower, was pretty much washed down the drain with the continued flow after the water was left on. The Crime Scene Evidence Collection Team (C-SECT) managed to collect some small pieces of evidence, but nothing that would link together to form a solid conclusion or lead us to a suspect.

  I turn to Bauer.

  “If he’s posting so much online, why aren’t we just tracking him that way? Like through his email or internet link or whatever?”

  I figure this question is both brilliant and we will catch this guy immediately, or they’ve already thought of this and it’s just something that I don’t understand about technology. You could fill an Olympic sized swimming pool with everything that I don’t understand about technology.

  Combine that with chemo-brain, which makes me forget pretty much everything I thought I knew, and I’m fucked when it comes to keeping a train of thought for more than a few seconds. I’m constantly going off on tangents, usually about something completely inappropriate for the situation or something sexual in nature.

  Bauer leans back in his chair to stretch before he answers me. I sneak a peek at him. I can’t help it. His tight black t-shirt leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, not the built chest, the muscular arms, or the flat stomach.

  He’s scrumptious.

  “We looked into that first thing. Whoever is doing the posting has a perpetual VPN that is hiding the actual location of where the IP Address is originating from.”

  It takes me a minute to remember what we are talking about.

  “Oh, right. Of course, duh,” I say, nodding my head. Let’s just go ahead and toss VPN and IP Address into that Olympic sized pool while we’re at it.

  “Hey, baby, what do you say we grab some lunch and then see if we can catch a few homeowners who will let us in?” Bauer looks at me expectantly.

  “Sure,” I squeak.

  That’s right, I squeaked.

  Because my inner thirteen-year-old girl is so flummoxed by an attractive man calling me baby, ballsy as it is of him, that I can’t even speak in a normal voice. Chemo may have taken away my cancer, but it clearly left nothing but lascivious thoughts and increased sex drive in its wake. Not to mention the ability to use both flummoxed and lascivious within two sentences. My inner thirteen-year-old girl’s English teacher would be so proud.

  What happened to turning off my out-of-control libido?

  He drives while I navigate, directing him to my favorite hole in the wall taco shop, Julio’s.

  “Interesting place,” he comments when we arrive. I can’t blame him.

  It used to be a gas station with a mechanic’s garage and separate mini-mart. Seating is now in the garage area and the kitchen is in the mini-mart. When they are open, the bay door to the seating area is too, and the reverse when they are closed. Even though the gas pumps are gone, the cement platforms are still there, so you have to be careful driving into the parking lot not to hit them.

  We place our orders. I get two beef tacos and Bauer gets a carne asada burrito.

  He moans when he takes a bite. “Mmm, Kit-Kat, I gotta tell you, I love good Mexican food!”

  As he chews, a low, sexy sound comes out from deep in his chest. I wonder if that’s how he sounds when he comes. I feel myself get just a little wet at the thought.

  Get it together, Kat. This is crazy out of control.

  When I get my bearings, I remember to tell him, “I hate the name Kit-Kat.”

  He looks at me. “So I shouldn’t call you that?”

  “Definitely not,” I say. “No baby and no Kit-Kat.”

  Bauer may ring my bell, but only Brad can call me baby.

  And, now I’m thinking about Brad again.

  Brad who texted me earlier. And who I did not text back.

  Sigh.

  Chapter 5

  Brad

  I leave the gym and sprint to my car. I’m running late and now only have ten minutes to make a twenty-minute trip to the fire station for an all-company meeting.

  My ribs are sore, and I realize I’m going to have to wrap them for the next few days. I must have a death wish having just sparred for over an hour with a guy from the semi-pro boxing circuit, especially since my primary purpose in the ring is to let this guy beat the crap out of me. Don’t get me wrong, I defend myself, but I also intentionally take a beating.

  The pain keeps me real and gives me something to focus on.

  I started doing it after Kat left me, every time I had a day off and sometimes twice a day. It probably would have been fine except that wasn’t the only reckless behavior I was engaging in.

  I just needed to feel alive again to make sure I was still here. When she left me, I died inside. Became an empty shell of the man I had been when I was with her. And it wasn’t possible to return to the man I was with her. It wasn’t even possible to return to the man I was before her.

  Life with Kat is hi-definition full technicolor, everything before and after her is just grayscale.

  Before Kat, I’d been the model firefighter, working my way through the ranks from probie to engineer to lieutenant with the goal of making captain after a few more years.

  My goal is still to make captain, possibly even chief. It’s just going to take a hell of a lot longer now to get back to the point where I was before Kat single-handedly destroyed my career. It’s amazing what one night in jail can do to a guy’s life.

  I’d come home from an offsite training followed by happy hour with the station guys to find her sitting on the deck with bloodshot eyes and a half-empty bottle of tequila next to her. When I asked her what was wrong and how the doctor’s appointment had gone, she turned to me and handed me her engagement ring, and said, “I need you to pack your stuff and leave.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked her.

  “Just what I said. I need you to pack your stuff and leave. We are over.”

  “What the fuck, Kat!? Did something happen today? What did the doctor say? Are you all right? What’s going on?” I couldn’t get my questions out fast enough. But she wasn’t providing any answers. She just sat there staring out at the dark sea, fiddling with her shot glass.

  “Just go, please,” she said.

  “I’m not going anywhere. What the hell is going on? We’re getting married in two weeks. Tell me what’s going on. Is it the cancer? Is it back?”

  She choked out a bitter laugh.

  “Its back all right. With a fucking vengeance. Stage Four, Metastatic Breast Cancer with an initial prognosis of three to six months to live.” Tears started streaming down her face. “So get the fuck out.”

  I kneeled in front of her and grabbed her hands.

  “Kat, please. I don’t understand. We’re getting married, that’s forever, and I’m not going anywhere. We can beat this
. It doesn’t change anything.”

  “Doesn’t change anything?!?” she yelled. “It changes fucking everything. Nothing is the same and it never will be. Its over. Everything is over. We’re over. My life is over. This is it, Brad. Don’t you get it? This is it!”

  She stood and began pacing around the deck. I stood and waited to see if she would calm down. Instead of the pacing calming her, it seemed to make her more upset.

  “You need to go. You need to go. You can’t stay here. You can’t be here anymore. I don’t want you here.”

  “Kat… ” Tears were pooling in my eyes.

  “Brad - you need to go. Can’t you see? This is bad. You’re upset, I’m upset. This isn’t doing anybody any good. We are through. I can’t make it any plainer to you. Please pack your things and go.”

  “I’m not leaving you. We may not be married yet, but I’ve made a commitment to you Kat. A commitment to love you no matter what. A commitment to stay by your side during good times and bad. I plan to stand by that commitment.”

  “You plan to stand by that commitment?” she asked. “Stand by it? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I’m not going to be that person, the one that makes you stand by them and watch them die.” She was crying harder now.

  I knew she was thinking about my mom and how she died. And worse, how my brother and my father and I all watched her die.

  Slowly.

  And there was nothing we could do about it.

  Little streams of snot were coming down her upper lip and sliding into her mouth. She kept trying to wipe it away on her arm, but it wasn’t doing much good.

  I had this extreme urge to laugh. To take her in my arms and let her blow her nose in my shirt and have us both laugh about the snot and the absurdity of this conversation.

  “I don’t need you standing by anything. I need you to leave. To get your things and leave. You don’t need to take everything, I’ll be gone all day tomorrow and you can come back then to get the rest. I’ll get the key from you another time.”