Run To You

surprised when his twin read his mind and asked, “Have you heard from little Stella?”
    “No. She won’t answer her phone or return my calls.” And he was still semi-pissed at her for running from Vince’s apartment. By the time he’d jumped into his clothes, she’d disappeared. He’d spent a good hour driving around with his nuts lodged in his throat looking for her.
    “Too bad you let that one get away.”
    Now it was his turn to look at his brother as if he’d sprouted wings.
    “Any woman who wades into a fight to save her man is a keeper.” He chewed more orange slices and chuckled. “That was funny as fuck.”
    Beau frowned. “She could have gotten hurt.”
    “Yeah, but she didn’t.” He swallowed and scoffed, “Invisible Woman. Cute gloves. Ridiculous.”
    Beau scoffed, too. “Can kick Batman’s ass.”
    “And Superman,” Blake reminded him.
    His laughter died. “Yeah.” He didn’t need reminding. He felt it every day, and it felt like a five-foot woman had worked him over—kicked his ass. Hard. Twisted his guts and spun his head around. She’d said she loved him. Really loved him. She’d wanted him to be the first man to make love to her. A decision that she more than likely regretted now.
    The wind whipping through his brother’s window irritated him and he rolled it up. He thought of Stella’s face when she’d asked if he loved her. Expectant. Hopeful, almost pleading with him to say yes. He’d almost said it, too. To spare her the pain of his answer. To spare himself the look in her eyes when he said he cared for her.
    Blake fooled around with the sunroof, and the smell of ocean air filled the car. In the end, Beau hadn’t been able to say what he didn’t believe to be true. Wasn’t real love supposed to hit like a thirty-eight caliber to the chest plate? Wasn’t it supposed to knock a man back and send him to his knees thinking, “What the fuck.” Wasn’t it a flash and a bang that blew a man apart?
    He closed the sunroof. No. It wasn’t like flashbang or a round to your armor. It was feeling like you’d been cursed with an annoying woman for eight days. It was confusion and tunnel vision when she was around. Longing when she wasn’t that blew a man apart. “Jesus,” he whispered.
    “What is it?” Blake asked as he busily texted.
    Beau turned to his brother. “I might be sick.”
    “Have an orange.” Blake glanced up. “You look like you just got hit on the side of the head with a billy bat.”
    It felt like it. His chest, too. He looked at his brother. His best friend and comrade from the womb, and heard himself say as if from a long distance, “I love her.” How had that happened? How had extreme lust turned to love?
    “No shit.” Blake snorted and tossed an orange into the cup holder.
    And when? When had it happened? When he’d watched her bravely walk into her sister’s house? Or in New Orleans when he’d pretended like he couldn’t say no to her? Or before that, under a quarter moon in Tampa when he’d looked up and seen her? The lighted water reflecting in her hair?
    What the fuck?
    Blake shook his head and it was like looking into a mirror and seeing a disgusted image of himself. “And you’re supposed to be the smart twin.”
    T he Ramada Inn just north of the Miami International Airport wasn’t exactly the lap of luxury, but neither was it a fleabag. Mostly, it was affordable, and now that Stella was on a tight budget, seventy bucks a night was all she could afford. It was a far cry from the hotels she’d stayed in with Beau, but that had been before. Before she’d fallen in love with a super-secret spy Marine. Before he’d broken her heart.
    Stella looked out the window of her second-story hotel room and into the empty parking lot. She was all about looking to the future now. No looking back. Looking back still hurt. The wounds still as fresh as they’d been a week ago.
    She’d been in Miami three days and had accomplished a lot. She’d sold her car to the manager of her old apartment complex, and had to admit, going there to get the car had been freaky and a little frightening. She’d half expected the Gallos or Ricky to jump out at her, but nothing had happened. She guessed they’d given up and moved on. When she met with the complex manager to give him her apartment keys, they’d worked out a fair deal for the Cruiser. She’d been able to pay off the rest of the loan and still have a little cash for a down payment on her