Protect Me Not ((Un)Professionally Yours 2)

His smile faded as he thought about all that lost potential. Tanner, a sophomore in college—his sights firmly set on med school—killed by a drunk driver at the age of twenty. His parents had never recovered. Ty had never recovered. Tanner had been the star. The future doctor. Ty had been the asshole who had broken his parents’ hearts by enlisting at twenty-one, straight out of college. Waiving the law degree he’d intended to pursue. They had been proud…but devastated.

“You would have liked him.” It wasn’t the first time the thought crossed his mind. Tanner and Vicki, both so kind…they would have been instant friends. “He was a great guy. So damned nice to everybody. He would have made a fantastic doctor.”

“I’m sure he would have,” Vicki said, and he cleared his throat self-consciously. A little chagrined that she had let him carry on for so long.

“When…” She paused for a long moment, seeming to pick her words carefully before continuing. “When was the last time you actually spoke about him to anyone?”

“Not since my parents were alive.”

“How long ago did they die?”

“Nearly eight years ago.” He felt the pang of loss and loneliness again, as he thought about the loving family within which he’d grown up. All those happy memories now belonged only to him, and once he was gone, they would be lost forever. His mother, father, and Tanner. They deserved more than to simply disappear. But that was what would happen. Once Ty was gone, no one would be left to remember them.

The Chambers family of Laredo, Texas. Gone forever. It was a morbid thought. And after his parents had died, while he’d still been on active duty, it had been a thought that had haunted him until his medical discharge.

“Your parents died together?” She looked horrified at the thought, and Ty winced.

Christ, this was morose. He was a regular barrel of laughs. A timely reminder why he kept people at a distance. He was depressing as fuck to talk to.

“Uh, yeah, another car accident. I don’t really want to talk about it.” He didn’t want to talk about any of this, and yet here he was, fucking laying it all out for her.

“What do you want to talk about?” she asked, and he frowned—how the hell had this become about him?

“I can’t think of anything in particular I’d like to say right now.”

“So, if you have nothing to say, you don’t speak?”

“I can’t do what you do.”

She rolled her eyes and waved a hand at him when he didn’t continue.

“Elaborate, Ty. You can’t do what I do? Meaning what exactly?”

“You can always find something to talk about. You have this ability to fill an entire room with your words, and your laughter, and your energy. I prefer to take up my allocated space and not an inch more.”

She laughed and the sound was filled with good-natured mockery.

“Your turn.” He growled the words and jabbed a finger in her direction. She glared at the finger.

“My turn to what?”

“Elaborate. What was so funny about what I said?”

“Ty, I’ve never met anyone else who could fill up a space the way you can. You step into a room, and it literally shrinks around you. The air thins, because I’m pretty damned sure you take up more than your fair share of oxygen as well…so you can say I fill up a room with my noise or whatever, but don’t you dare say you only take up your allocated portion of space in any given area, because that is a blatant lie.”

“I didn’t say noise.” It was important to him to make that distinction, and she frowned in confusion.

“What?”

“I said you filled up a space with your words, and laughter, and energy. Those things are not noise…”

Her lips parted, and her pretty eyes were wide behind the clear lenses of her glasses as she stared at him, seemingly riveted by his words.

“What are they then?” she asked hoarsely.

Ty wasn’t sure how to answer that question. He was treading deep, dark, uncharted waters right now, but he had never been more tempted to fling his life raft aside.

“Ty?” she prompted him, and he blinked, before thrashing in the water and grabbing for his life raft like a fucking coward.

“Nothing. I thought you were hungry, why haven’t you touched your pasta yet?” he asked, pointing at her food with his fork. He saw disappointment flit across her face, before she fixed an overly bright smile on her lips.

“I’ve been distracted. But I am famished and this smells divine. Their Arrabbiata is always delicious.” She took her cues from him after that, and the conversation remained stuck in neutral for the remainder of their meal. As well as on the walk that followed. She regaled him with the history of the gardens and behaved like a de facto tour guide.