“You didn’t hear me, Tanner,” Merry said quietly. “Proceed with caution and the operative word in that is proceed.”

Layne felt his chest get tight. “What?”

Merry sat back. “I can’t give you more.”

“You can and you will.”

“Tanner, seriously.”

“Yeah, Garrett, seriously.”

“I can’t –”

Layne leaned forward. “We went out to Swank’s, Saturday night. I walked into my house with her after, knowin’ the biggest fool thing I could do was ask her to stay for a drink at the same time thinkin’ about nothin’ other than how to get her to stay for a drink. We walk in and the lights go on and we find out a friend of mine from LA was payin’ a surprise visit. She’s standin’ there wearing practically nothing but shoes and a smile. Rocky sees her, she’s so fired up to get the fuck out of there, she fell during her run for the door, went down so hard she sprained her wrist. Before she left, she looked at me, Garrett, she looked at me with pain and tears in her eyes and they weren’t from hurting her wrist. That pain… that pain in her eyes shone from her fuckin’ soul. I’d get it the next night when I threw her leavin’ me in her face and she threw Gabby in mine. I’m tellin’ you right now, people do not hold onto this shit. Not for this long. It’s like it happened fuckin’ yesterday. I understand that pain I saw because I feel it every goddamned time I look at her. It’s been eighteen fucking years. That shit is not right. There is something I do not know, something that matters, it mattered then and, brother, it still matters now.”

Merry stared at him and there was pain in his eyes too, Layne saw it, pain for Raquel and pain for Layne.

“All I can tell you, Tanner, is that leaving you broke her.”

“Then why the fuck did she leave?”

Losing it, Merry slammed a fist into his armrest. “I can’t tell you, damn it!”

“Why?”

“I just can’t.”

“Why?” Layne roared.

“I can’t tell you!” Merry roared back. “But I’ll tell you this, leaving you broke her but she did it for a reason, buddy, she did it for a good fuckin’ reason. All right? Then you knocked up Gabby and I get that, I’m a man, I get it. Even Dad got it. Rocky did not. What was broken shattered. I watched it, Dad watched it, we couldn’t do shit about it. She didn’t pick up the pieces, man. She’s never picked up the pieces.” Merry leaned toward the desk. “You wanna know why Jarrod Astley is bein’ such a dick?” he asked but didn’t let Layne answer, he kept talking. “Because he had heaven in his hands, he knew it, but it was floating just above his reach. It was right there, in his hands, but he couldn’t touch it. She never loved him. She picked him because he was a dick, she knew he was a dick and she knew she could hold herself clear of that. That didn’t mean he didn’t want her but she never gave herself to him. But the fucker didn’t try. He did everything wrong because he’s an asswipe, that’s his problem. He might have been able to get in there if he wasn’t such a dick. But he was. He’s the type of man who doesn’t see his own faults, he blames others and he blames Rocky and, I’ll bet my pension, brother, he also blames you. No one in this ‘burg over fourteen years old doesn’t know the Raquel Merrick and Tanner Layne bittersweet love story, with Roc workin’ at that school and bein’ how she is, that lore is passed on the first day of freshman class. And Astley’s had that in his face for more than ten years.”

Listening to Merry, Layne’s chest was moving like he’d just finished a two hundred yard dash but even with all he was getting, he was still getting nothing.

He informed Merry of that fact. “All you’re givin’ me is more questions, Garrett.”

“Then find out the answers, Tanner, but the only place you can get them is from Roc and, like I said, proceed with caution, but, fuck, man, whatever you do, for your sake and hers, just… fuckin’… proceed.”

They stared at each other and Layne heard what he was saying.

But he wasn’t twenty-four and life wasn’t that simple.

“I got two boys who could get caught up in this shit, brother,” Layne said softly.

“I hear you,” Merry replied, just as softly.

“I put the effort into this, it goes bad, I’m not the only one gets kicked in the teeth.”

“I hear you.”

“With that reminder, you got different advice?”

Merry shook his head and repeated, “Proceed.”

“Shit, man, do you know what you’re tellin’ me to do?”

Merry held his eyes. Then his face went funny in a way Layne couldn’t read but the only way he saw it was fear.

“I’m givin’ you a bonus,” he whispered and Layne felt his chest squeeze as he waited for Merry to go on. “Those wounds she’s got, they bleed and they bleed deep. Only once did those wounds dry up and that was for three years, twenty-one years ago.”

Layne closed his eyes.

He opened them again when Merry spoke and he saw Merry was standing, coffee cup in his hand.

“You heal her again, Tanner, you got my eternal gratitude,” he whispered then smiled, it was small and it was shaking. “And I’ll throw in my Harley.”

Then without another word, he left Layne’s office.

Layne turned his head and, on the monitors, he watched Merry walk down the stairs.

Then he sat back in his chair and rested his head on the back of it to look at the ceiling.

He closed his eyes.

Then he made a decision.

He grabbed his phone, flipped it open and called the management office at The Brendel, identified himself as Rocky’s boyfriend and told them to get their security firm to her apartment to set up the sensors and change her locks. They demurred, he convinced them.

Then he disconnected, scrolled down his phonebook and hit go on Devin Glover, a PI he’d worked a variety of cases on a variety of occasions in a variety of locations. Dev was long in the tooth; he was a spy during the Cold War; he taught Layne everything he knew that was worth knowing; and he was the best friend Layne had ever had.

When he disconnected from Dev, he texted Rocky. “Sensors will be set up. Contacting you. I’ll be there when they do it.”

He was in his SUV, navigating his development when his phone chimed.

Rocky’s text, “Fine. I’ll let you know.”

He drove to his house, parked in his drive but didn’t bother with the garage door.

His text back, “My place. Tonight. 6. T is making Hamburger Helper.”

He was walking across the cul-de-sac to Natalie’s house when he got her quickly returned text.

“Sorry, papers to grade. Tomorrow. Six.”

He smiled at the phone, flipped it shut and lifted his fist to knock on Natalie’s door.

He checked it because it swung open before he could connect.

“Hey Tanner,” she smiled.

“Natalie,” he smiled back. “Got a second?”

She moved back, opening the door.

Layne walked in.

* * *

“You set up?” Layne said into the phone.

“Your couch in your office is shit, boy,” Dev said back.

“I offered to put you up at a hotel,” Layne reminded him.

“Hotel beds are shittier than your couch,” he shot back.

Dev would know, he’d slept on enough of them.

“Tomorrow night, at dinner, you meet Rocky, you’ll quit your bitchin’,” Layne told him. “And once I introduce you to the boys, you can have the couch in the living room.”

Dev could be intense, his mood always unpredictable and Layne was working, not around to run interference during an introduction to Jasper and Tripp and he didn’t want Dev showing up at the house and doing something, which Dev would do, and freaking out his sons. So he left Mimi the key to his office and gave Dev his security codes.

“She a looker?” Dev asked, his curiosity piqued. Dev was sixty-four years old and still a ladies man.

“You remember Eva?” Layne asked.

Silence for a beat then, with disbelief, “Better?”

“Oh yeah,” Layne answered.

“Fuck, boy,” Dev muttered then disconnected without a good-bye.

Layne threw his cell on the seat next to him. He’d just sealed the deal on his latest case and he’d been right, it hadn’t taken long, less time than he expected. He just had to pull together the file, hand it over, send the invoice and get paid and he was glad to be rid of it. It was sucking all his time. Billable hours but, with all the stuff raining down on him and Rocky, he needed to be shot of it and was pleased as fuck he was.

The entrance to his development was coming up on his right but he didn’t indicate. He’d called Jasper earlier to tell him to set up pasta bake for Keira on Tuesday but they were on their own that night and he’d see them in the morning. He also shared he was spending the night over at Rocky’s because her security was shit. Jasper didn’t ask questions but, after informing him of this fact, Jasper’s voice took on a “you the man” tone.

Layne looked at the clock on his dash. It was after midnight and he reckoned Rocky wouldn’t be real fired up to answer her door to him at that hour.

Or, possibly, any hour.

But he couldn’t give a fuck. He’d sleep on her couch tonight. Tomorrow and for as long as it took, he’d work on getting in her bed.

Or Rocky in his.

And eventually both.

He was just passed the entrance to his development and about to flip his indicator light on to take the left into Rocky’s complex when he saw a Mercedes of her make, model and color pull out in front of him and when his eyes swept the plates, he saw it was hers.