Protect Me Not ((Un)Professionally Yours 2)

He was thankful that Chance—at least—remained a prominent part of his life. Chance had been assigned to a genuinely sweet WAG whose premier league footballer boyfriend had a jealous stalker. Even though their routines had drastically altered, they still ran together most mornings and hung out whenever Chance was off duty.

The only problem was that Chance wouldn’t stop talking about Vicki. Apparently, they had remained friends. Friends who texted each other regularly, and who had already met for drinks several times since Vicki’s return.

Ty wanted to grab his friend by the shoulders, shake him, and tell him to shut the fuck up about Vicki. But in the end, his insatiable need for information about her always won out.

He wanted to see her. Life without her was colorless and torturously lonely.

But Hugh’s warning had resonated with him. Ty needed to figure out what he wanted from Vicki—from life, really—before he went near her again.

The Friday after his return, he arrived home after a day of watching Job relentlessly drill new recruits, to find a flat, rectangular package propped against his front door. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the mysterious object for a long while, before dragging his phone out of his pocket. He took a picture of the package and sent the image to Chance:

Did you send this to me?

Why would I send you a present?

Who else would send me a mystery gift?

Jesus. You’re a sad, sad fucker. It wasn’t me. Just open it and let me know what it is. Curious af now.

Ty rolled his eyes and pocketed his phone. He unlocked his front door and gingerly lifted the lightweight item. He placed it on the dining table after shutting the door and shrugged out of his coat. He tossed the garment carelessly over the back of the sofa and refocused on the item on the table.

He chewed the inside of his cheek as he contemplated the brown paper wrapped package. There was no address anywhere on the exterior. Just his name printed in neat block letters.

If it had come through the front entrance, it would have been left at reception, since nobody was allowed upstairs without permission from a resident. Which meant that it had likely been hand-delivered from someone within the building.

Vicki.

His breath snagged, and his heart did a weird, painful wrenching thing in his chest. He absently tried to massage away the discomfort while he continued to stare at the flat parcel.

Part of him wanted to get in there and rip the paper off—impatient to see what she had sent him. The other part wanted to open it slowly, savor every moment.

In the end, he did neither. He methodically slid his fingers underneath the taped flaps and flipped them up. He removed the paper with unhurried deliberation and stood back to stare at what he had uncovered.

His breath remained trapped in his throat as he examined the medium-sized, beautifully framed black and white photograph of the Trafalgar Square pigeon. The same picture that had made Vicki smile.

He exhaled, the trapped breath leaving his body on what sounded like a sob.

There was a bright yellow Post-it note stuck to the glass, just above the pigeon’s head. He reached for it with trembling fingers.

He read the brief, handwritten note several times. But the words remained unchanged. Typically generous of Vicki—to wish him happiness when he had been such a total shit to her—but so very final. As though she was closing this chapter of her life.

He rubbed his aching chest again…trying to ease the painful palpitations of the heart that had been in stasis for so long, Ty had believed it dead. But Chance had called it, all those weeks ago; Ty’s heart had never been dead, merely in hibernation. Having it wake up after such a long period of inactivity was proving to be excruciating.

His gaze bounced from the framed photograph to The Wall. He needed to find a place for this beautiful, unexpected gift.

He was at The Wall, and the first picture—the image of Ty and Dylan in tuxedos on Dylan’s wedding day—was resting on the floor against his plasma unit, before he had time to even understand what he was doing. He hesitated for a moment, waiting for the panic, guilt, and horror to set in. His hands hovered close to the photograph, ready to put it back…but he was instantly distracted when he looked up and assessed the gap it had left. He calculated that the space wasn’t quite big enough for the picture of the pigeon. A photograph of Tanner in his high school graduation robes was quickly stacked against the one of Dylan.

He stood back—head tilted—as he evaluated the available space, and grunted impatiently.

Still not right. Another picture came down, then another...and another…

Forty minutes later, Ty was sprawled on his sofa, beer in hand, gazing at the nearly empty wall. It looked ugly as hell, faded patches where the photographs had hung, crooked nails sticking out of the plaster, the paint chipped in places where he’d done a piss poor job with the hammering.