I don’t leave the office till after ten.  I’m handling my caseload and helping out with Leonard’s while he’s still out.  I keep myself busy all afternoon and late into the evening after my lunch with Regina.  I don’t want to think about Nico.  He isn’t what I need.  I should be thinking about William.  He’s the type of man I should be with.  He’s stable, honest, and hard working.  He’s good for me and he cares about me.  So why are thoughts of Nico keeping me awake?  I toss and turn for hours until I’m finally exhausted enough to slip into dreamland.

I wake in the morning to screaming.  I’m petrified.  Unable to move at the harrowing sound.  It takes me almost a full minute to realize that I am the one making the sound.  I’m screaming and I can’t stop.  The dream is back.   It’s not really a dream, it’s a nightmare.   Although nightmares are a figment of a person’s imagination, so I guess what I just woke up to wasn’t a nightmare…it was reality.  My reality.  My memory.  My past.

  It’s been six years since I woke to the torment that haunted my sleep for as many years.  I can’t believe it’s starting again.  It took me years to make them go away.

I always wake at the same place in the nightmare.  His fist connects with her head and she stumbles back and hits the refrigerator.  Hard.  Her eyes roll into the back of her head as her body slides down in slow motion.   He’s really hurt her this time and it doesn’t look like he’s done with her yet.  He leans down, his fist pulled back, ready to pummel her lifeless body.  A gunshot blasts.  It’s so loud it hurts my head.  The sound leaves a high-pitch ringing in my ears.  It makes me reach up and cover them.  I never knew sound could hurt.  I feel like my ears are bleeding.

My hands are always covering my ears when I come to.  The sound is so real that it wakes me.  Every time is as real as the first time.  The vision never dulls.

Elle

I throw myself into my work to the point of exhaustion for two non-stop days.  I think if I wear myself out enough, I’ll be too tired to dream.  Whether or not it stops the dreams from coming isn’t important, what’s important is they don’t come for the next few nights so I don’t question why.

My phone buzzes and I reach for it.  I’ve lost track of the days.

Dinner tomorrow night?  I miss you.

William always confirms our date the day before.  But I’m surprised that he adds that he misses me.   We don’t talk about feelings.  We enjoy each other’s company.  We talk about work.  We eat at nice restaurants.  We have sex.  If it wasn’t for the sex part, I would classify what William and I have as a great friendship.  But the sex started us down a road to somewhere, although I have no idea where we’re heading.  I’m not even sure what William wants out of what we have.  We don’t talk about it.   We just go through the motions and that worked for me for a long time.

I think I’ve hit a fork in the road and I need to make a decision.  Really move forward with William or start in a new direction.  I’ve stayed stagnant for too long.

Same time, same place?  I know what his response will be before it appears on my screen.

Yes.  Looking forward to it.

I’ve set a mental deadline for myself.  I’m better under time constraints.  Tomorrow night I will either break it off with William or I’ll stop whatever has started with Nico.  It just doesn’t feel like the two can be mixed.

Nico

Our once a month dinner at my brother’s house is always chaotic.  There are bodies rolling around the floor, furniture is tossed upside down and the television is blaring, but no one is watching it.  Growing up my mom always said she hoped we’d have a houseful of little boys to get even with what we put her through.  I look around at the seven little boys my three brothers have spawned and smile, thinking my mom got her wish.

“You want a beer?”  Joe, my oldest brother, asks as he waves smoke from his face standing in front of the barbeque.  We’ve all told him a hundred times to lower the temperature on the grill so he doesn’t wind up in a smoke cloud that turns into a grill fire, but he’ll never freaking listen.

“Nico doesn’t drink when he trains.”  Preach walks up behind me and slaps my shoulder as he speaks.

Joe’s eyebrows shoot up.  “Why didn’t you tell me you finally decided to go back in the cage.  It’s about time you stop feeling sorry for yourself and get back to work.”

“I haven’t decided to go back in the cage.”  I shoot Preach a nasty look and he smirks at me.  He knows he’s just unleashed at least an hour of lectures from my brothers and he isn’t sorry a damn bit.

“Oh.  You still putting in six days a week?”  Joe flips the burgers as he speaks and I see the flames start to shoot higher.

“Yeah.”

“Well then shit or get off the pot, bro.”    Joe’s wife Lily walks over and yells at him to turn down the flame and he begrudgingly listens to her.

“It’s not that easy, Joe, and you know it.”

“Sure it is, asswipe.  You open the cage door and you get in it.  Then you kick the crap out of the idiot standing in the other corner of the ring.”

“Oh, is that all you do?  Why didn’t you say so sooner?”  The sarcasm dripping from my voice.  I chug my water bottle and stare at my brother.

“Maybe I should kick your ass to get you warmed up.” Joe almost sounds like he thinks he really could.

I grin at Lily who walks up behind Joe and hands him a plate for the burgers he’s just massacred for us.  She rolls her eyes at her husband’s threat.  “Think that ship sailed a long time ago, honey.”

Joe turns to his wife.  “You don’t think I can take that pretty boy anymore?”

Lily pats her husband on the chest, patronizing him.  “Sure you can, baby.”  Lily turns her attention back to me.  “Nico, I have someone at work I’d like you to meet.   How about you come over next weekend for a barbeque and I’ll invite her?”  Lily looks down at the plate as Joe finishes loading it with charbroiled burgers.  “On second thought, I’ll cook.”  She winks at me.

Normally I’m open to meeting women.  I don’t even ask the typical questions people want answered when they’re offered a fix up.  I’ve always been an equal opportunity man, I like them in all shapes and sizes.  “Can I get back to you Lil?  I sort of met someone.”

Lily is surprised at my response.  “You mean you’re seeing someone exclusively?” She emphasizes the word exclusively as if the concept was foreign to me.

“Not yet.”

“Well what’s stopping you?”

“She is.”

“Why don’t you just use your usual seek and conquer charm that you always do?”  Lily is only half kidding with her comment.

“Because this one you have to earn.”

Lily shakes her head and mumbles something I can’t hear as she walks away laughing.

“Shit, bro, you’re screwed.  The one’s you have to earn own you.”

Preach brings up the Kravitz fight at the table again and I endure another half hour of lectures and name calling from my brothers.  It’s the first time that I’m seriously considering getting back in the cage in a long time.  But Preach pissed me off, rallying my brothers on his side, so I don’t tell him.  I’ll let him suffer a little while longer.

Elle

As I drive to the restaurant to meet William, I regret agreeing to dinner so soon.  Two days wasn’t enough time to sort out my head.  I’m more confused now than I was a few days ago.   I’ve made a mental checklist of reasons I should be with William.  He’s every mother’s dream, tall, handsome, polite, smart, well educated, and kind.  I even tried to make the same checklist of reasons I shouldn’t be with William, but after hours of trying to come up with something, that side of the page is still empty.   At first I thought it was Nico clouding my judgment on William, but then I realized I’ve been at the same place with William since long before Nico Hunter stepped foot inside my office.  Maybe I just need to put more effort into whatever it is William and I have.