Fine Blue Steele (Daggers & Steele Book 4) (28 page)
Read Fine Blue Steele (Daggers & Steele Book 4) Online
Authors: Alex P. Berg
“You think that makes it easier?” I passed a hand through my hair. “Let me tell you something. I come into work each morning—late, always, because its in my nature—and do you know what the first thing I see is? Your smiling face. That’s the best part of my day. That’s
my
sunrise.”
Steele’s face softened, and the corner of her lips curled up. “Daggers…”
“I’m not kidding. It is. And when I saw Blue coming on to you…well, I went a little crazy, ok? I saw things in my mind. Changes, and not good ones. I mean, you know me. I don’t deal well with change. It’s why I acted like such a horrible person when you started working with me this past summer. And it’s no wonder. For me, change is my mom dying. It’s my brother learning to hate me. It’s my wife divorcing me. It’s my son growing older and not knowing who I am. Never mind the change that brought you to the 5
th
Street Precinct is the best thing that’s happened to me in the past three years. I saw another bad change and I lashed out. And I’m fully aware I did it in a way that pushes you away from me. I know it and I did it anyway. It’s that damned splinter I talked about. I’m in a masochistic feedback loop, and I want to bash my head into a wall every time I do it!”
Shay looked at me, concern in her eyes, but clearly without any idea of how to respond.
I forced myself to calm down. “I think what I’m trying to say is, I’m not perfect. I know it. I’m a work in progress, and I have things that need fixing. But thanks to you, I’m figuring out what those things are, and slowly but surely, I’m patching myself up.
“You asked me earlier if I knew what it was you liked about me. I didn’t at the time, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out. You like the stuff in here.” I jabbed at my heart. “Not the dark stuff, the nasty I’m trying to purge. You like my heart. That’s what made you pause when I told you I’d gone to check on Allison this morning and brought her food. It’s what made you smile when I told Drake and Kelly to skip town and never come back. Not because it was right in the legal sense—it wasn’t—but because it was the right thing to do. The right thing for
them.
“There’s a lot of good in me, Shay, and I want to let it out. For me. For you. For my son and Quinto and Rodgers and everyone in my life. I want to beat back the demons, and I know I can. I just need a little patience.”
I’m not sure if I expected Shay to cry or to kiss me or to walk away, but she did none of those things. She merely stood there, looking at me, considering what I’d said. Seconds stretched into what seemed to me an interminable silence.
“For what it’s worth,” I said. “I’m also sorry I spoke of that ragtime musician of yours with such disdain.”
Shay smiled a bit. “Apology accepted. So, what do you propose? As far as dealing with the…dark things, I guess, inside you.”
“Way to serve me a slow pitch to start.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve always bottled everything up. Kept the hurt deep down inside and prayed for it not to spray out following an emotional gut punch, but I don’t think that’s worked out so well. I guess I need to…confront everything. Be honest. Open. Acknowledge when I have a problem, and when I need help. Take things one day at a time and work on bettering myself.”
Shay’s smile didn’t disappear, but it didn’t grow either. Eventually, she nodded. “Ok.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Ok?”
“Yeah. Not yes, or no. Just ok.”
She lifted her hand and trailed her fingers along the length of my jaw to my chin, looking me in the eyes as she did so. My stomach fluttered, and she pulled her hand back.
“Goodnight, Jake.” She turned and began to walk into the night.
I stood transfixed and blinked. “Wait…do you want me to walk you home?”
“Not tonight,” she called over her shoulder.
Though an improvement over where we’d left things at the end of the Captain’s recap, this still wasn’t how I’d hoped the night would end.
“But…where does that leave us?” I asked. “You know. In our relationship.”
Shay turned her head and smiled at me—a warm, genuine smile, but one that held something back. “We’ll just have to take it one day at a time. But it’s a start. We’ll see how it goes.”
It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of our possible future together, but I could live with it. For now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi. I’m Alex P. Berg, a mystery, fantasy, and science fiction writer and the author of
Fine Blue Steele
. If you enjoyed this Daggers & Steele mystery, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for the next novel in the series,
Crucible Steele
, in which secrets from the past lead to smoldering discoveries.
Want
more
exciting adventures, head-scratching mysteries, and snarky dialogue? Check out two of my other series:
*
The Tau Ceti Transmutation
(Rich Weed #1): Follow private detective Rich Weed and his trusty android sidekick Carl in this pulp-inspired science fiction mystery set in the year 3330.
*
The Black Mast Murder
(Driftwood #1): Mystery and intrigue rule the high seas in this
Pirates of the Caribbean
-style adventure featuring constable John “Driftwood” Malarkey and his supernaturally-gifted wife, Gwen.
***
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
