Page 54 of Rough Hard Fierce (Chicago Underground 1-3)
“Why didn’t you call the cops?” Colin asked. His voice was even, without the judging lilt I’d expected, but I didn’t want to talk about that. There was enough bitterness in the room to choke on without adding more.
I shook my head and tried to blot the tears out of my eyes. “It wasn’t really…”
“Rape? Yes. It was.”
“I know,” I whispered. “I know, but I just… It’s better if I don’t think about it like that. I know I never should have gone out with him or let him kiss me. I should have fought harder. I should have—”
“No.” I winced at his raised voice, and he lowered it. “God, is that what you think?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” Christ, now I was doing it. “I just…I don’t want him to know Bailey. I know that fathers”—I practically choked on the word—“have rights and that Bailey deserves a father, but he isn’t…he’s not…” My voice broke, and I bit into my lip hard to stem the tears. I also clutched Colin’s hand a little too hard, but I couldn’t seem to let go.
“I don’t want him near Bailey.” I was babbling. “I can’t be near him, either, but it’s not just for me. He doesn’t care about her. He doesn’t even know her. What if he takes her away from me?”
“No. He’s not getting anywhere near you or Bailey.”
Colin held me while the threat of tears passed. The rhythm of our breathing synced, as if to steady us both.
The quietude was interrupted by the ringing of Colin’s cell phone. Without releasing me, he reached into his pocket.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
The faint buzz of another person speaking.
“I can’t come now,” he said.
More buzzing, slightly louder this time.
“I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up.
“If you need to go…” I said. Hell, my problems had stewed for this long. It was hardly an emergency.
“It’s fine,” he said, stroking my hair.
“There’s something else I have to tell you,” I said into his shirt. “Earlier today, some cops came by. Detectives, I mean. They were asking about you.”
His grip tightened to just this side of bruising before subsiding. “What did they say?”
They said I wasn’t safe. Bailey wasn’t safe here. “Nothing.”
“Don’t talk to them again.”
I should have bristled at the command, but I really had no desire to ever talk to them again. And I was drained. “Okay.”
Bailey’s soft cry crackled from the baby monitor. Up from her nap, and life goes on. I pulled away. Colin clung to me for a beat and then released me.
In that sort of dulled state that comes from falling apart, I retrieved Bailey from her bed and set her up with a bowl of watermelon chunks in the kitchen as I finished baking the cookies. Dinner was a quiet affair. Neither Colin nor I had any words left. Bailey seemed to take her cue from him, peppering the silence with subdued grunts and eating little. I regaled Bailey with outrageous stories, slapstick versions of her favorite books complete with silly voices, through dinner. I put her to bed early, which of course only made her stay up extra late, tossing restlessly in her bed until sleep overcame her.
Colin was somewhere in the house but not in his room. Our room, I reminded myself. Exhausted, I stripped down to my underwear and collapsed on the bed.
When I woke, it was dark in the room. Strong hands cradled me, and I cuddled up to a hard chest. I craved Colin for the reassurance that he was here, that he would stay. I trailed my hand down, but he caught it in his.
“Not tonight.”
“You don’t want me?”
“Always, Allie, but…it’s not right. Later.” Even though he was right, I felt the sting of rejection. He pulled me close to him, holding my hand. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.
I didn’t have nightmares about what had happened with Andrew, not even right after it happened. Or maybe I did, but I never remembered any of my dreams. So I wasn’t really prepared for when Colin started tossing around in the middle of the night.
