I glanced down at my bottle and toyed with the label. My heart rate kicked up a little, because this—this felt so very real and that . . . wow, that scared me.
Needing to distract myself, I asked, “Do you really think Henry has nothing to do with what’s been happening?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Ugh.
“I know you don’t like the fact I talked to him. It wasn’t like we were having drinks. I wanted to make sure you were safe from him,” he explained. “And like I said, wanting to make amends doesn’t make up for what he did, but isn’t feeling remorse for one’s own actions better than having none?”
I frowned as I mulled that over. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Guess so?”
“I mean, how do you really know if someone feels remorse? Or guilt? Or if it’s just because they got caught and are in trouble?”
“You know, I saw a lot of messed-up shit when I was in the sandbox,” Reece said, jarring me with the unexpected comment. “I saw what happened when someone got hit by an IED. I saw bodies of guys I considered friends riddled with bullets, some losing their legs or arms—their lives. I saw people who when it was all said and done didn’t have much of anything to ship back to their families. You kind of get used to it—the anger every time your group loses someone. Doesn’t make it easier, but you’re at war. I guess that helps you compartmentalize the shit that’s going down, what you got to do to make sure everyone survives.”
He paused, taking a long swallow. “When I left the academy and started working here, I thought I could do the same. Compartmentalize the bullshit, the annoying traffic stops and the domestics at the same house every Friday, and the god-awful traffic accidents, the senseless overdoses, and dumbass-on-dumbass violence. Packed that shit away where it belongs. I was doing it. So I thought having to shoot someone would be no different from being at war or just doing my job. I was wrong.”
I lowered the bottle to my lap, shocked into silence. He was talking about the shooting. Reece never talked about the shooting. I didn’t dare to breathe too loudly for fear of him stopping.
“It was a normal call. A fight outside of Spades Bar and Grill. I got there at the same time as another officer did. The fight was in the parking lot, and it took us a few to make it through the crowd.” He shook his head slowly. “The kid—his name was Drew Walker. Only eighteen. He was beating the shit out of an older guy. To the point that when we got there, the dude was knocked the fuck out. You know, he had a broken jaw, shattered nose, and eye. A cracked skull. That’s what that kid did to him.”
Reece tipped his bottle away from him, eyeing the label with a look of concentration. “He was on meth and some kind of other fucked-up drug. We yelled at him to stop and when he did . . . man, he was covered in blood. Like something straight out of a horror film. The kid had a gun. He had a gun the entire time. That’s what he was beating the guy with. Not his fists. The handle of the Glock.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered. Recalling the details the press had reported on the shooting, that part had either been glossed over or never told.
He pursed his lips. “Instinct. The second he aimed that gun, it was instinct. Both of us fired, but it was my shot that killed him—my bullet from my gun that did it was what the investigation showed.”
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say.
“I had to go face-to-face with that boy’s mom. She smacked me. Not once.” He laughed, but there was no humor. “Twice. She just didn’t understand. He damn near killed the guy he was beating and he was on a crazy combination of drugs. I don’t blame her, though, for hating me. And she does. Still does. Always will. He was her son. I get that, but man, it’s not like overseas. You don’t see family members then. You aren’t staring them in the eyes.”
My chest ached for him—ached for the whole situation. I got the what-ifs that surrounded the incident. What if the boy hadn’t been on drugs? What if he hadn’t gotten into the fight? What if it had been the other officer’s bullet? I’d asked myself those kinds of questions a thousand times. What if I hadn’t dragged Charlie to the football game so I could catch a glimpse of Reece? What if we had decided to stay the entire game? What if I had simply walked away and not gotten into it with Henry?
“There was a lot of anger.” He looked at me then and sighed. “A lot. Like why was I the one who got the call? Why was it my bullet? Did I make the right decision? Was there something else that could’ve been done?”
“You did what you were supposed to do,” I told him, believing every single word.
A small smile appeared. “Whenever there’s an officer-involved shooting, there’s always an investigation. I was cleared of any wrongdoing, but that doesn’t make it easier, knowing you took a life of a kid who wasn’t even old enough to buy this beer I’m drinking.” He raised his bottle to that and then said, “Because doing the right thing isn’t always the . . . well, the easiest thing to live with. Living with that kind of anger and guilt is a bitter combination.”
Boy, didn’t I know that. I took a sip of my beer. I knew there was very little I could say that would make a huge difference, but I said what I thought was true. “You are not a bad person, Reece. What you had to do was hard and he was a kid, but—”
“But it happened, babe. It was something that I had to deal with—still dealing with, so I know it when I see it.”
I tensed.
“I see it when I talk to Henry. And I see it in you, but Roxy, you’ve got no ownership to that. You understand that?”
I nodded, mainly because it was hard to explain why I felt such guilt over Charlie. “I’m glad you talked to me about what happened,” I said after a couple of moments. “I know it’s not easy to talk about.”
“It’s not. So you know that door is two-way, right?”
I raised my brows.
“I know there’s stuff you’ve got that isn’t easy to talk about, but you need to try, and when you do, I’ll be here.” He pulled his feet off the railing and stood. “Want another beer?”
Blinking, I glanced down at my almost empty beer. “Sure.”
As he moved to go back inside, he stopped beside me and curled his fingers under my chin. Tilting my head back, he dipped down and kissed me like he had all the time in the world. Slowly at first, just a brushing of his mouth against mine, and then deeper, parting my lips with his tongue. It wasn’t just a kiss. Not when his tongue danced over mine or the way he tasted me. Reece turned kissing into an art form, and if I had to attach a color to it, to get it on canvas, it would be supple shades of reds and purples.
I was still dazed from the kiss when Reece returned with more beer. We ended up talking into the wee hours of the morning, sometimes about nothing important, and after about the third beer, the conversation got a little more serious. I might have admitted to locking my younger brother in a chest once. Then I admitted that I hated taking the design classes in college. “The guys are freaking snots to deal with,” I told him. “Like you need a dick to know code or work in design, when in reality, any thirteen-year-old with a computer can design a decent website.”
Reece frowned over at me. “Then why do you do it? It’s a serious question.”
I shrugged. “I should get a degree.”
“You should do what you want.”
“It is what I want.”
He snorted. “Whatever.”
I stuck my tongue out, and he laughed, which made me smile, because I really liked the sound of his laugh. As I watched him finish off his beer, I thought about what he shared with me tonight. It made sense why he was able to look at everything objectively when it came to Henry. Didn’t mean I agreed, but I got where he was coming from.
“How did you finally let go of the anger, Reece?” I asked.
One shoulder rose. “Do you ever really let go of that? Completely? The anger and guilt? Nah. I think it cuts deep enough that it leaves scars that don’t heal. You just learn how to manage before you hit rock bottom with it.”
“And have . . . have you hit rock bottom with it?”
A long time passed before I realized he wasn’t going to answer that question. Maybe because he didn’t know the answer. Reece looked away, his jaw flexing as he stared into the woods, seemingly at nothing. Silence descended, and I knew deep down there was something he wasn’t sharing with me. Something he didn’t want me to know.