Tipsy by Cambria Hebert Page B

it
open.
    His voice was quiet, but it carried all
the way to my ears.
    “ I wouldn’t wait for me
either. But, I just… I want you to know something.”
    “ What?” my voice was
hoarse.
    “ This isn’t me choosing my
job over you. I don’t have a choice. Not really. I have to do this.
I’m already in too deep.”
    Silence fell like a thick blanket over
the room. Yet neither of us moved.
    His words pierced my chest. My heart
returned to that slow rhythm of thumping he inspired.
    “ If I had it to do all over
again…” he said, still keeping his back to me. “That night after
our first date, I wouldn’t take the assignment. I would have told
them no. I would have chosen you.”
    All the air in my lungs whooshed out of
me.
    “ Lock this door,” he said,
slipping outside into the deep cover of night.
    I stared at the spot he just
vacated, hearing his words for the second time that night. I would have chosen you. A
soft knock on the other side of the door brought me back to reality
and I rushed forward and threw the locks.
    Only then did I hear his footsteps
retreat down the stairs.
    I leaned against the door and brought
my fingers up to my lips. Telling him I wasn’t going to wait for
him had been nothing but my stupid, stubborn pride. What Blue
didn’t seem to realize was that I didn’t have a choice, either. Not
really. Like him, I was already in too deep.

12

    Blue
    I pulled up to my new “home” and let
out a sigh. The place was a dump. Not that I was expecting anything
more, but I had been hoping.
    The house was the size of a small
shoebox. A brick square with a dilapidated roof. It boasted one
door and exactly two small windows at the front. There was no
driveway, so I parked at the curb and walked through the definitely
not mowed grass. A set of partially crumbling concrete steps led to
the faded and chipping black door. I used my key to unlock the joke
of a lock and walked inside.
    It smelled stale in here, like the air
hadn’t moved since nineteen fifty. I felt around for the light on
the wall and flicked it when my hand ran over the switch. Dim
lighting flooded the room from the single bulb that looked like
someone literally just shoved a glass bulb into the
ceiling.
    There was a saggy, green plaid couch in
the center of the room. A brown wooden coffee table, littered with
empty beer bottles, and a leather armchair with a hole in the back
set off to the side.
    The only nice thing in the room was the
TV. Druggies loved their technology. And they also loved video
games. A fifty-inch flat screen sat on the black entertainment
center directly across from the couch, and beside it sat an
Xbox.
    Maybe the place wouldn’t be so bad
after all.
    I walked through the door to my right
and into a tiny kitchen. The cabinets were pea green, the
countertops were laminate made to look like wood, and the
fruit-themed wallpaper was peeling off the walls. The fridge was
white and appeared to be new. I pulled it open and was hit with the
new fridge smell. The inside was clean and cool, with all the
appropriate bachelor food: ham, turkey, cheese, mayo, and
beer.
    I looked around a bit more and found a
cabinet filled with a few other staples, like coffee and chips.
After my tour of the kitchen, I walked back through the living room
and into the bedroom. There was a queen-sized bed with clean white
sheets and an old-fashioned quilt covering the top.
    The sink in the bathroom was pink. It
made me think of Julie and her razor. I hadn’t wanted to leave her
tonight. When I looked around this place and realized what I gave
up to come here, I thought about punching myself in the
head.
    I heard the front door open and close
swiftly and my body went on alert. I creeped out of the bathroom
and peered into the living room, my gaze colliding with
Slater.
    “ What the hell are you doing
here?”
    “ Thought I’d stop by and
welcome you to the neighborhood,” he said.
    “ You live around
here?”
    “ A couple