Chapter 2: All His Lovely Lies

Caleb Tucker

To Caleb, the sun burned through the horizon like a cigarette butt being smudged into ash. All around it the blue sky fell as if it were being pushed out to make room for the darkness. Silhouettes stood still as the hum of the hospital began to dim to a withering florescent masterpiece of broken parts.

All the while, Caleb stood still, afraid if he moved he'd lose this moment forever.

His hazel hair curtained his ears and washed over his forehead in attempt to rid himself of thoughts of the woman laying before him. She seemed so sweet that he had to stay until she would awaken, then he would skirt under the tail light of darkness and fly right into Allie's arms because it was just that kind of day for him.

Allie was his daughter.

She was the most perfect thing in the world.

Allie looked exactly like her mother, but even though that killed Caleb, he still loved her.

Looking at Rylee, his thoughts burned bright against the pale moonlight. Caleb's lower lip began to fall as he eyed her. Yes it was true he'd had many clients hit him, but Rylee was the first to hurt herself while trying to attack him. But that's partly why he took this job.

He needed to provide for Allie.

And because of his rigid body and his crimson past, he was built for this job.

Caleb was never good at anything. Not good at being a husband. Not good at being a worker. And sadly, sometimes, not good at being a father to Allie who was almost eight now. Sure, his wife would have wanted him to take a job in accounting and put him through the wringer of a confined company. But that allure was always to her, never to Caleb.

He wanted to protect people, and in a way, he did.

Caleb protected his clients from their crazy exes. Usually the guy just wanted to get away from them, but then there was Dylan. He had two girlfriends and he was running from the one with kids because they were his. He was a despicable lowly urchin that deserved to rot in hell.

Caleb had better morals in one ounce of his spit than Dylan Campbell had in his whole body.

But he needed the money, and when it came down to it, he knew he'd do anything to get it.

As Caleb paced Rylee's room, his head jogged around the fact that the twenty four hours had passed four hours ago. He no longer had a reason to be there, but something pulled him to Rylee's side, and he couldn't yet define it yet, which scared him into being a scatterbrained autopiloted idiot as he maneuvered around the spacious room.

Caleb would never be able to afford this room.

He wondered how she could at all.

But he didn't want to ask or wake her in anyway. She was too peaceful. Caleb knew that the drug would wear off soon, but he wanted to stay with her. And for that reason, he simply couldn't. It was against the rules. It was against everything in him.

He kissed her forehead once more, leaving.

Rylee, however, rolled into the guard rail and bonked her head. She groaned out and Caleb couldn't hold in the laugh that was tickling his lips. Suddenly, her eyes froze open and Caleb's fragile heart shuddered as she woke up.

"You're still here," her brassy voice quivered out.

Caleb, realizing he'd been caught, he adorned a defeated face, but he knew she'd wake up earlier. He hadn't given her the full dosage that usually lasted thirty two hours. He'd given her considerably less because he held a deep pity that bellowed between his lungs aching to see Rylee better.

Usually Caleb only used the drug to calm down the more vicious exes. But Rylee wasn't vicious.

She was just desperate to tell Dylan she loved him.

Which was so much worse in Caleb's mind.

Caleb had half a mind to kick his butt for leaving his kid, but for what Dylan was paying, Caleb made a lot of excuses for him.

"Yeah," Caleb said softly. "I'm still here."

She flinched and then went back to cussing him out cutely. "I hope Santa gives you only coal this year and next, because that's all you deserve."

Rylee grunted and crossed her arms.

Caleb laughed. "You know, coal is actually the only practical gift there is out there other than socks and underwear. You're losing your touch for good insults, Rylee."

She gave a heated glare as her scarlet lips attempted to burn him with more words.

"Fine. I hope your mom doesn't give you a birthday card this year."

Caleb clutched the place where his heart would be, if he had one, and feigned that it was harmed in some way by her words which were sort of like a dull blade underneath his hard skin. Caleb had to admit though, he liked her. Far more than he should. And far more than he thought his broken heart ever could.

Taking out his phone, Caleb dialed Glen while Rylee gave him yet another heated stare that could reheat a burrito if you let it go on for more than forty seconds. "Glen," his midnight blue eyes begged through the phone. "I have a problem at work, can you hang with Allie for a bit longer?"

Glen groaned over the phone and then he rolled over and rubbed his eyes.

Caleb knew even though he couldn't see him over the phone. "Sure. But is that pizza in the fridge okay to eat?"

He thought about it for a moment, scratching his head. "I don't even remember eating pizza in the last month or two. We've done Chinese takeout for most of the week, why?"

Munching sounds flittered through the phone.

Glen proceeded to speak with what Caleb assumed was a full mouth of the rotten pizza.

"Oh, no reason," he said likely still eating it.

Then Glen paused and said, "hey, you want to talk to Allie? She's in her Scooby Doo jammies but she wants a bedtime story."

Caleb's eyes darted over to Rylee who was actively trying to pretend she was not listening in.

"Yeah, put her on." After a few seconds of hearing Glen's heavy strides and a door opening, Allie's voice flitted through his ears making a smile waltz between Caleb's heavy lips. "Hey sweetie, are you okay?"

Her tiny voice busted through the line with a unicorn-load of enthusiasm that even his tired eyes couldn't even begin to process.

"Dad, Glen tried to feed me rotten pizza. When are you coming back?"

"Soon, darling. Soon. But you did eat something right?"

"Yeah, I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I'm not an idiot, but Glen sure is. And he snores too. So loud, Dad. The neighbors even told him to keep it down. They thought it was a helicopter from above at first."

Caleb sighed in extreme relief. "I'm glad you two are getting along. But I have to go, love you sweetie. Bye."

The phone clicked off and Rylee's penetrating emerald eyes sliced him open with questions.

"Who was that," Rylee first asked. Caleb could tell that was just the first on the many list of questions she had.

Caleb met her glares with his own lies. Otherwise, he might fall for her even more. And falling for people, especially in his line business where he saw what humans did when they were bored with each other, it was deadly to him.

He would never move on from Claire, his wife.

Caleb promised not only for himself, but for Allie as well.

She didn't need a mother, all they needed was each other...and maybe Glen the human dumpster.

So, Caleb did what any guy with enough secrets to fill a vault would do, he lied through his sparkling white teeth. "That was my girlfriend, she's been having to deal with my roommate while I'm away, so I told her to hang there for a little while more."

"Why?" her lips forged another question out of the thin air.

Caleb put his hands in his pockets. "Because I am going to tell you where Dylan is, and you're not going to hop on the next flight to him to tell him you love him."

Rylee's complete face wilted into confusion as her eyebrows quirked to solve the mystery of what exactly Caleb Tucker was up to? Caleb could read that much from her as she straightened out her night gown. She wanted what Caleb said to be true, and somehow, even Caleb wanted this to be true too.

Caleb holstered a smirk at his lips. "But first, you need to tell me some more stories of your little 'accidents'."

Rylee scoffed at him. "Why do you want to laugh at my misfortune?"

Her emerald eyes cradled a hard question from her. Didn't you care about me? You stayed? Caleb's heart billowed a broken chill through his jagged cobweb-filled chest with that silent question she asked between words. Caleb's smirk diluted in strength as it slipped looking back at her hard expression.

Rylee was mistaking his words for something more than they were.

He wanted her to feel better, not worse.

But he always seemed to say the wrong thing.

Finally though, Rylee gave up and spoke.

" I once caught my curtains on fire by trying to make scrambled eggs. Then, the next day when I was cleaning out my fridge, I found a banana and ate it, but lucky me, I forgot where the peel landed and I slid into my iron frying pan that was drying on a rack. And, oh, I almost forgot, I went to this family barbecue and stepped too close to the grill and caught fire to myself, but luckily for me, a skunk just happened by and sprayed me, putting out of fire but making me smell like a burnt dumpster fire for weeks on end until we got the tomato stuff, or whatever it was."

Caleb held back his laugh. Instead, he moved closer to her. Rylee's green eyes still measured him as suspicion ebbed it's way into her beautiful brain and stuck there like a wad of gum under a desk.

After a moment of silence bolted their world, Caleb grabbed a hold of her limp hand.

Caleb could tell her confusion and suspicion were at all time high, but he still wanted to make her feel safe for some reason. A deep breath hitched from Rylee's lungs as she tried to pull away from him, but Caleb held onto her hand for a second longer, looking into her blinking almost jade colored eyes.

Lost in thought, Caleb shook his head and finally returned. "California. Dylan's in California."

Rylee turned around and let their bodies separate as she began to think.

Caleb tapped her shoulder softly and then her jade eyes burned brightly back at him like she was a ghost ship only flitting in and out of the moment. "Rylee. You will stay here, won't you? I know you love him, but I can find someone else for you. I want to find someone better for you. I want someone for you who would walk through hell just to hold your hand. Dylan isn't that guy, and if you're being honest with yourself, you know he never was."

"Find someone better for me?" her voice ascended heavenward as a little mousiness and squeakiness fluttered in between her words.

"Yes," Caleb said, knowing that none of this was part of the job description, but neither was she.

Rylee looked a him cockeyed for a moment as her eyebrows raised.

"This is all part your job as a Heart Reaper?"

Caleb looked down, he couldn't lie to her face, but he knew he had to say something to keep her close.

"Yes. It is. We make sure that the client's girls have someone else or something else to chase instead of them."

Rylee's mind paced in front of Caleb. His heart sank with every moment she chose that urchin over anything else. Rationalizing this in his head, he told himself, his job was to protect his clients and mend hearts, and somehow that included Rylee as she was one of the client's girls and he was in charge of them not acting out.

Finally, she gave a defeated sigh to him.

"He planned to leave me," Rylee admitted. "He was never going to tell me, was he?"

Caleb's heart raced. He didn't want to tell her the truth because there's more pain in one corner of the truth than there is in a million little lies, but her emerald eyes were insistent. He just gave her a blank stare in hopes she would make her question a rhetorical one.

After a moment she just nodded dejectedly.

Crossing her arms, she cussed him out again adorably.

"I hope his grandmother forgets to send him cookies this year for Christmas and Thanksgiving."

Finally, at least she wasn't cussing out Caleb, which was a step in the right direction.

Caleb just smiled at this warmly though, " ditto," he softly replied.

Rylee took another deep breath in. "I'm not going to escape the hospital and hop on a red eye flight to California. But I do still love him, and I can't wish that away. So, I'll just handle the rejection. He never loved me. And I guess he won't ever..."

As Caleb's eyes hardened in guilt at her admission, he simply nodded.

Caleb hid his midnight blue eyes and pulled away from her. He was already in too deep, but he'd rather drown than have her swim through the pain alone. Looking at his phone, he distracted himself from her infinite mercy haloed in her jade green eyes.

"My girlfriend called," Caleb lied. "I better head out."

Grabbing his jacket, Caleb knew that he'd walk through hell to hold her hand, but she would likely never have him. And he wasn't supposed to have her. After all, reapers are only supposed to take, aren't they? Caleb folded his hands into his pockets and answered for himself.

Reapers do take, and in the end he would take from her too. He'd take her time, her feelings and eventually her heart.

But for now, all he could only give her was false hope.

----------Chapter 2 End------------

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