Page 2 of Live for Me

“Those detectives who worked the case with Jersey’s family,” he said while his hands moved to my shoulders to try to square my stance with the distant target. That didn’t do much good because as soon as he released my shoulders, I turned all the way around again just to face him.

“That’s not a good idea,” I protested.

“You’re probably not wrong.”

“You don’t even like Jersey.”

“And you’rereallynot wrong there,” Indy chimed in.

Utah chuckled. “It’s not about Jersey.”

“His entire family being murdered by our former boss and you seeking out the people involved feels like it’s at leasta littleabout Jersey,” I countered.

“There are two detectives in New Jersey who had no problem interfering with evidence to make sure it looked like a perfectly innocent woman killed four other perfectly innocent people, her own toddler included, before she killed herself,” Utah said and put his hands on my shoulders another time to force me to turn back toward the target. “You don’t feel like something should be done about that?”

I felt his chest against my shoulder blades in the next second, and I watched his arms move on either side of me to start to raise my arms for me.

“I feel like—” I started to say, but paused when I was fully engulfed by him. “I feel like I’d rather do this tomorrow,” I said, and my entire body shuddered involuntarily before I took a giant step forward to get out of his reach.

“Just so you can tell me again tomorrow that you’d rather do it the next day?” He teased.

I looked down at the gun. “What’s this called?”

Utah cocked his head to the side and smiled. “It’s a Model 3566.”

“That’s the name of it? Guns are weird. If I go back and look upModel 3566, the Internet will show me this?” I asked.

He laughed that time. “You’re going to goresearchthe gun?” He cleared his throat to stifle the second laugh when I only stared back at him. “Smith and Wesson Model 3566 TSW.”

“Thank you.”

“Tomorrow, angel,” he called after me as soon as I’d started to walk back toward the house. “Same time.”

Of course I was going to research the gun. I’d learned how to live my entire life from the lessons I sought out across the Internet. If there were gaps in the education that I’d obtained from a web search, I filled in the spaces with my extensive knowledge of over-the-top cheesy movies from the 80s and 90s, or books that were technically categorized as romance but were more realistically referred to as pure fucking smutty goodness. I probably didn’t qualify as a well-rounded adult by any regular person’s standard of measurement, but every adult-like thing I’d learned how to do came from my ability to dig up all the information that ever existed on a topic via a keyboard.

My phone vibrated in my pocket on the walk back to the house. It was the alarm that went off at the same time every day to remind me that I had three minutes to text Jersey and let him know that I was still alive before he flipped out and boarded a plane back to the States. For as much as it made me smile to reach this point in each day, it had also started to hurt my heart a little. I knew before they left that I’d miss the asshole. We spent nearly five years talking to one another all day every day, and sometimes all night when the job called for it. A significant amount of that was about the actual work, but it turned into a genuine friendship, too. I talked to him when I was bored and lonely. I talked to him when the quiet got too loud for my brain to handle. He was just there. He always answered those calls, even when they weren’t important. He didn’t always talk, but he didn’t seem to mind listening while I spoke.

Jersey needed tonotbe here for a good length of time, though. His own brain needed to recover from everything he’d experienced over the course of his entire adult life. I checked in with Trista pretty regularly when I wanted to know how his mental state was really doing. She made it sound like he was almost a different person these days. I was happy for that. Grateful, even. I’d never known anyone quite as angry as Jersey. Not that he ever really directed that anger at me, but he was very much out of control for a very long time. He was an asshole in the truest sense of the word, but he wasmyasshole. And I missed him.

While Indy and Utah never truly left me alone, it was still lonely in the house for me now. My deepest connection was hiding on an island these days. I lived alone before our jobs crashed and burned. I’d spentyearsliving alone, but always with the option of Jersey’s crazy voice being just a phone call away. I was okay with being alone for a long time. Then, I had a tiny taste of everyone living together in Jersey’s house. It made for a house full of tension between Jersey and Utah simply existing in the same building, Jersey not knowing how to process what had been done to his family, and Trista trying to understand where she fit into the picture. But something inside me ended up really appreciating living in a space full of people. Then it was over again, just as quickly as it’d happened.

I texted Jersey.

Me

Tried teaching myself to drive today. Drove Seph right off a bridge. Sorry, Jersey Boy.

And I couldn’t help but smile to see those little bubbles pop up on my screen before I’d even had the chance to lock my phone again.

Jersey Boy

If you want me to come home and teach you to drive, all you have to do is tell me. Leave Seph out of this.

Me

You’re not welcome here anymore. This is my house now.

Me

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