“Monroe.” I close the few steps of distance between us. “We’ve met.”
I can’t meet his eyes. I stare at the top button of his shirt instead.
The tension surging between us must have a fatally high voltage, but if the cop notices, she doesn’t give any hint.
“Anyway,” she goes on, “as I was saying—Lalonde! What did I tell you about the flashlight?”
Her partner in crime—or crime stopping, rather—is subjecting Code Ventura to his beam of truth and integrity. She leaves us to ourselves to go reprimand him and likely save the eyesight of one of the most promising bands in Montreal.
Now that we’re alone, the current encircling Julien and I turns into a writhing coil of live wires.
“I have to say,” he finally begins, “it makes sense.”
I move my attention from his button to his beard before forcing it all the way up to his eyes. I find him staring down at where I’m wringing my hands—the hands that are still stained with blood. His features pinch with concern that quickly grows into alarm.
“Are you all right? You’re bleeding. Did someone hurt you? We should get you bandaged. They must have—”
“I’m fine,” I cut him off. “It’s, uh, not my blood.”
“Not your blood,” he repeats.
He swallows and nods as he lets that sink in. Then he steps back and crosses his arms over his chest, seemingly to let the rest of this whole shit show sink in too. I stand there with my heart pounding, unable to speak anymore. I don’t even know what I would say if I could.
“I couldn’t figure out why you were so defensive about this place. I knew there had to be more to it,” he finally admits, raising a hand to rub his beard. “Now what I can’t figure out is why you didn’t tell me.”
“I just—We weren’t—”
I try to swallow down the lump in my throat, but it keeps rising until it chokes me. Julien’s concern returns as he watches me struggle.
“Monroe, are you all right?”
This has gone on for too long. He’s not even mad at me, and I can’t take it. He needs to know this can’t go any further. I need to make myself accept it too. For Dickens’ sake, I just got his property trashed. If this isn’t a clear warning sign for how incompatible our lives are, I don’t know what is.
I have to break this off like I’ve been meaning to all along—only I’ve chosen this exact moment to realize how much of me is going to break right along with it.
“It was never supposed to go this far,” I blurt, dropping my voice low enough that no one else can hear. “Me and you. There was never supposed to be a me and you.”
“What are you talking about?” He glances over his shoulders before stepping closer.
“I shouldn’t have gone on that date with you, and I’ve been meaning to tell you that I can’t...I can’t do this.”
He considers me for a moment. “Monroe, if this is about our jobs, we—”
“They’re not just jobs,” I interrupt, seizing on the spark that starts in me and using it to light a fire. “This is not just a job to me. This is my family.” I throw my arm out to indicate everyone scattered on the sidewalk. “This is my life. I care about this place, and you want to take it away.”
His eyebrows shoot up over his glasses. “Monroe, you’re making me sound like some kind of super villain, like an enemy. Have you been trying to seduce me to get information about all my evil plans?”
He laughs like the idea is ridiculous, but the sound fades when he notices I don’t even crack a smile.
“Vraiment?That’s really what this is to you? That date...” I watch it dawn on him. “You only agreed to come because I had something to tell you about Taverne Toulouse.”
That’s not why I agreed. That was my excuse for agreeing, but there were dozens of reasons why I wanted to spend time with this man. The velvet of his voice, the threat and promise of his hands, the way the heat of him beside me makes the needs and wants of the rest of the world lose their grip on me for once...
But telling him that isn’t going to get us anywhere.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re lying.”
