A lazy smile spread on Jaime’s face. “That’s really beautiful, babe. And you’re right. Living in the past is exhausting.” Jaime was ready now. She’d made her decision. It was time to let go of the past completely and give Anya everything she deserved. Someone stable and someone who could love her unconditionally. “There’s something I need to do. Will you come with me?”
Anya had no idea where Jaime wanted her to go, but she was all in. “Of course.” She narrowed her eyes. “Is this what you and Derek were discussing?”
Jaime laughed. “No. Well, yes. Kinda, but no. It wasoneof the things we discussed. We do have multiple conversations, you know.”
“Yes, I’m well aware of Derek’s ability to hold more than one conversation.”
“Right. Well, the private conversation you walked in on was about some fancy dinner thing that the Commissioner is holding.”
“Your medal ceremony?” Anya guessed. Jaime hadn’t mentioned it to her yet, but she had heard rumblings of the special day through the grapevine. The grapevine’s name being Rosanna.
“Y-you know about that? I was going to tell you about it, I just?—”
“You just thought I’d react the way Taylor did?”
“Goddammit, Maxhasbeen telling you stories!” Jaime leaned back dramatically, trying to hide the grimace from the pain that caused. “I’m going to have a long talk with that man.”
Anya patted Jaime’s leg. “He had good reason for telling me a few things. All the other stuff, I hope to hear directly from you.”
“Yeah, okay. So, do you want to go? With me, I mean. As my date?” Jesus. Why did it feel like she had never asked a woman out in her life? They had spoken about love and even Jaime practically moving in. Why on earth was this so nerve-wracking?
“Hmm.” Anya could tell Jaime was still nervous about asking her to this ceremony. What better way to get Jaime over that than making light of the situation? “Will you be wearing your Class A uniform?”
“Yeah, it’s kinda required.”
“Then, yes. I accept your invitation.” Anya leaned in again, this time letting the kiss linger. “I can’t wait to see you in that uniform,” she whispered against Jaime’s lips. “And then I can’t wait to get you out of it when we get home.”
“Holy shit.” Jaime closed her eyes, but that only led to imagining Anya ripping off her uniform and doing all kinds of beautiful things to her body. Jaime squirmed and cleared her throat. “Thank you.”
“For saying yes?”
“For that and for bringing me back to life.”
Anya smiled and lay down next to Jaime, carefully snuggling up to her side. “Right back at you, Detective.”
As Jaime staredout at the rows of gravestones, blurring together until her eyes found the one she was here for, a familiar dull ache settled in her chest. She hadn’t been here in a long time, always telling herself she couldn’t because she was too busy or too raw or too afraid of what it could dredge up, but as she stood here today with Anya by her side, she no longer felt the need to find an excuse for her avoidance. Because Anya understood her more than any other woman ever had.
Taylor Chamberlain
The name leapt out at her, crisp and unyielding against the granite as she walked slowly towards Taylor’s grave, her boots crunching on the gravel path, her stomach churning. No matter how many crime scenes she’d walked into, nothing compared to this stone with Taylor’s name on it.
She stopped for a moment. The urge to turn around and walk back towards the iron gates that looked out on Reno’s low skyline—the casinos’ neon just faintly visible in the daylight—was strong today. But then she felt Anya’s quiet presence behind her, not pushing, not pulling, just simply there. It anchored Jaime in a way she couldn’t explain.
It’s time to close this chapter.
Jaime drew in a deep breath, stepped closer, and crouched down in front of the gravestone. “Hey, Tay. It’s…been a while.” Jaime’s voice sounded smaller than she’d expected, but at least it didn’t break. She cast her gaze over the name again, over the dates that seemed impossible to comprehend, even to this day.“I should have come sooner. I know that. I just…I kept telling myself that I wasn’t ready, but the truth is that I didn’t want to face it all. Not like this.”
The silence stretched, only broken by the faint hum of traffic in the distance. If Jaime tried hard enough, she could still hear Taylor’s laugh, that low, warm sound that cut through the worst of Jaime’s moods. For a second, she allowed herself to believe it was real. That maybe Taylor would step out from behind one of the cedar trees, alive and whole. But the illusion slipped away as quickly as it formed in her mind, leaving only the carved stone and the brittle desert grass at its base.
Jaime swallowed back the emotion in her throat. “I’ve carried you with me this whole time. Every choice, every mistake, every damn time I second-guessed myself…I kept wondering what you’d think or what you’d say. And the truth is, I don’t know. I’ll never know.” Jaime ran a hand down her face and sighed. “And I’ve been lying to myself about us by pretending we were perfect. Like if I kept replaying only the good stuff, then somehow, it would make up for losing you. You know, the cookies in the oven or the movies on the couch…you smiling when I walked through the door. I thought that if I held onto those moments hard enough, I’d be forgiven for that night.” Jaime’s jaw tightened. She closed her eyes and exhaled a deep breath through her nose. “But that wasn’t the whole story, was it? We fought. We disappointed one another. Fuck, I let you down more times than I can count. But you weren’t perfect, and neither was I…and I see that now.”
Jaime drew her thumb over Taylor’s name. “I think I needed to believe we had it perfect because the alternative was unbearable. Because if I admitted we had cracks, then I had to admit that the guilt I’ve been drowning in wasn’t about fixing you or us. It was about me not being able to forgive myself.” She dragged a hand through her hair, her gaze sweeping acrossthe Sierra Nevada in the distance. “But I can’t keep doing that anymore. You’re gone and I’m still here. I can’t spend the rest of my life punishing myself for not being enough, or for not saving you.”
Jaime glanced back over her shoulder to where Anya stood a few feet away, her coat pulled tight around her. Anya regarded her with a faint smile and nodded. That quiet support and encouragement loosened the knot in Jaime’s chest. A knot she’d carried for so long.
“I’ve…met someone.” Jaime’s hand tightened against her knee. “You probably wouldn’t have liked her. You probably would have thought she was too much, or not enough, or just not you…but that’s okay. Because I love her and she’s good for me. She’s certainly more than I ever thought I deserved after losing you.”
Those words hung in the air, stark and honest. For the first time in years, Jaime didn’t feel like she was betraying Taylor by saying them out loud. No, she felt…free.
