How To Save A Life

by P. Dangelico

  “I’m sorry…I’m sorry about what happened. I want to tell you over and over how sorry I am, but I don’t want to do it out here, standing in the snow.”

  My eyes blink open. I tip my head back and snowflakes hit my nose, my mouth, my eyes. Snow hits Jordan’s hair and disappears. He runs his thumb over my bottom lip, slowly leans in. He’s close to kissing me when I remember all of it.

  The foreclosure. Packing to move out. My precious business in shambles.

  “I can’t. I can’t afford you anymore, Jordan. I don’t have the time for your drama. When I said I’m broke, I meant it. I need this job.”

  His expression hardens, the soft dreamy look on his face vanishing in the blink of an eye. “I was paying you four thousand a week. How could you possibly be broke?” I try to push him away but he holds on tighter. “You expect me to be an open book while you pick and choose what I’m allowed to know?”

  I can’t fault his logic. No matter what happened between us, he does deserve the truth.

  “The money’s gone. I was paying off a debt.” My voice breaks, frustration bubbling to the surface. “That’s why I took the job in the first place.”

  “What debt?”

  What’s the point of protecting Tommy anymore. He’s gone, hopefully somewhere safe.

  “What debt, Riley?” Jordan repeats, watching me with the intensity of a thousand suns while I decide how to explain, where to begin.

  All of a sudden we’re moving. With his arm around my shoulders, he’s pushing me toward the entrance of the Ritz Carlton across the street.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m not doing this on a sidewalk in the middle of a snowstorm.”

  “I just told you––”

  “I know it was Tommy. I know he took the money from the drawer and you were protecting him. He sent me a letter”––Jordan makes a pained face ––“with an I.O.U. receipt inside.”

  Just when I think I’ve seen and heard it all. “I’ll pay you back. If it takes me forever.”

  “It’s not about the money.”

  “Not for you, it’s not!”

  He breathes out harshly, exasperated. “Riley…”

  “No. Enough.” I push him away and actually accomplish it this time. He looks as surprised as I am. “You’re not going to handle me the way you handle everyone else. I was paying off a debt for Tommy. That’s why I took the job. I did it because I didn’t want to lose my properties and I ended up losing them anyway!”

  Jordan blinks, seemingly processing everything I just unloaded on him. Then he frowns. “Baby, you’re going to get sick––”

  “Like who? Like Lainey?” That sets him back. “The love of your life? I was ready to lie to myself that it was okay. She came long before me, and you guys had history and…and I get history––Tommy and I have history. He needed my help, and I couldn’t let him down.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Humorless laughter bursts out of me. I’m not even shaking anymore. Numbness has set in all the way to the bone. “Oh, right, yeah. Because you would’ve been so understanding.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “No, it’s not. But neither were you. I loved you. I loved you and you dismissed me to your friend. You said I was a distraction––”

  “That’s not…I didn’t mean it. You have to know that.”

  He doesn’t even attempt to disguise the surprise on his face at my claim of love. If I had any doubts about the way he felt about me, I finally have my answer.

  “You made me feel small…smaller than I’ve ever felt. I know I’m not in your league––I never pretended to be….but I’m not trash either.”

  He blinks, shut down again. It’s best this way. A clean break. He never loved me. He cared about me. The affection was real––I wasn’t imagining that––but it was never love.

  I’ve never felt ashamed about who I am. I don’t need much. I have––had a business I was proud of. I have people who love me.

  “And I never want to feel that way again.”

  I don’t stick around to see what he’ll say next. I walk away. This time, on my terms.

  20

  Chapter Twenty

  Jordan

  There are moments in life that leave a mark on a man. First love, first lay, first time you learn your parents aren’t perfect people. First time you realize you may have done irreparable damage to someone you love more than life itself. I’m at that stage of the learning curve. The worst part. You would think at thirty-three I would’ve learned that lesson already.

  I’ve done everything I can short of tattooing an apology on my forehead. I’m even willing to negotiate the tattoo if she’s willing to listen. This is my last chance, the only hand I have left to play.

  I board the train headed downtown. This feels like the right thing to do. That speech about not being in my league nearly killed me outright. I’ve never felt worse about myself, or more ashamed, and this is penance.

  The doors close with a hiss and bodies jostle in place. That’s when I see the writing on the wall in a manner of speaking. Wall, door, doesn’t really matter. A cynical subway poet has replaced the Do Not Lean On Door sign with one that reads Do Not Fall In Love.

  Anthem of the brokenhearted. I know how he feels. My broken heart is already pounding hard in anticipation of what’s to come.

  Thanks for the heads-up, but it’s too late. The deed is done. It was done the day Riley ran into me. The day she saved my life. Because she saved me in every sense of the word. I was going through the motions before she crashed into me, barely living, barely surviving, waiting for the end to come.

  The train stops and everyone pours out. I jog up the stairs. The wind cuts through me when I reach the top. You can see the 9/11 Memorial clearly from here and it makes me think about Riley’s father, everything she’s been through. Everything I put her through. I’ll gladly spend the rest of my life making it up to her if she’ll let me.

  I was fourteen the day the towers came down. It was the summer I was diagnosed with cancer and whether you choose to see it as a stroke of luck or tragedy I wasn’t in the city that day. But I should have been. I should’ve been attending the private school only a few blocks from the World Trade Center. Instead I was in Boston, getting my first treatment, where I met a girl named Delainey Chen who would become my best friend.

  I’ll always love Lainey. She gave a teenage boy with no hair and even less friends a reason to live. But that was a boy’s love, a selfish one, impulsive, desperate to be seen and heard. I haven’t been that boy in a long time.

  For most of my adult life I thought I couldn’t let myself love again, to hope for a family, to build a life with someone. Fear held me back. Had me believing I was living on borrowed time, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Riley changed all of that.

  The ferry is cold. Windy as hell. I flip up the collar of my coat, look ahead, to what awaits me on the other side if only she’ll have me. If the person of my heart and soul, my match in every way, can forgive me one more time. If she can give me one last chance to prove to her how much I love her.

  “Hey, watch where the hell you’re going,” an old woman barks at me. It makes me laugh, reminding me of that fateful night at the restaurant.

  I spent decades in a state of inertia. Not willing to go forward, but not ready to let go of the past. Riley didn’t save my life that night on Broome Street when she came onto the scene like my own personal Avenger, chewing gum and brandishing her stick. She saved my soul. Stole it for safe keeping. Because I sure didn’t have any use for it.

  The ferry docks. I follow the crowd to the taxi stand, flag one down, and head to Riley’s place.

  Riley

  Moving day. Or D day. It depends on how you look at it. Whether you’re a glass half full or half empty person. I choose half full. I choose hope. I choose to fight. I may be battered and bruised but I will not let this world ruin me.

  We’ll be spending
Christmas next week in our new studio apartment. Mrs. Argento moved out last week. We closed escrow on this place last night. We even had a little bidding war going on. It’s not a total wash. I’ll be able to pay off what’s left of the mortgage on the other property and put the rest away for rent and other essentials until I can get another job. Right now I’m helping Dom out at the wood shop and it’s keeping us both busier than we thought it would.

  “Did you pack the utensils, or do you want me to do it?” my mother asks.

  She’s seeing a new doctor and they have a solid plan for tackling her health issue. So far, so good. She’s even applying for a permanent job. Fingers crossed because we need help with the bills.

  “Here”––I hold out a mug she forgot in the kitchen cabinet––“you forgot this.”

  It’s not just any mug. It’s my father’s old NYFD coffee mug so faded the enamel is half worn off on the handle.

  “No, I didn’t,” she tells me with a sad resigned smile. This is a step in the right direction. It’s time. Every small step she takes to letting him go means she’s one step closer to living for herself again.

  “Hey, mom…” She looks up from the box she’s taping shut. “Do you think it was worth it…Dad’s work?”

  Her head tilts slightly to the side, eyes cast down thoughtfully. “He used to say to me…when I told him there was talk about the air quality being bad down there, at the World Trade Center…he used to say, ‘It’s not a job, babe, it’s a calling.’ I couldn’t have stopped him even if I wanted to. So it doesn’t matter whether I think it was worth it or not. Because he did. He loved his job, even knowing the risk.”

  It sounds like my dad. There’s something about the truth that strikes a frequency in all of us. Even if you’re not ready to face it, or hear it yet. You can feel it inside of you. My mother’s words ring true.

  “I’ll check upstairs,” I tell her, “see if we forgot anything.”

  I take the stairs two at a time and check my mother’s bedroom first. Give it the all clear. Then I check mine. I open the closet door and something drops to the ground. I pick it up.

  It’s one of the flowers Jordan gave me on the trip to Cape Cod. I saved it between the pages of a book because I wanted to keep it forever. I managed to pack all the angst I avoided in my teenage years into my late twenties. What can I say, except that I’m not proud of myself.

  It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen him. It’s better this way. It hurts too much. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think of him. Some days it feels like a part of me is missing. Sometimes the pain is excruciating, sometimes it’s a quiet ache. You can’t just stop loving someone because they’re no longer in your life. There’s no kill switch––as much as I’d like there to be. You learn to live with it until it consumes less and less of your time. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.

  Twirling the dried black-eyed daisy between my fingers, I grab my down jacket and head outside to warm up the pickup. I had to sell my old one with the H&D logo on the door that I sealed on myself, so Dom lent me his for the move. We sold most of the furniture, but it’ll still take us a couple of trips to complete the move.

  Outside, the dry biting cold makes me hunch up my shoulders. The temperature has dropped. It’s colder than a snowman’s piss but whatever. I’m prepared to deal with it.

  What I’m not prepared to deal with is the man leaning against the pickup truck, shivering. The sight of him brings me up short. Seeing me on the front steps, he stands and a smile tugs his lips up. Slowly, he walks up to me while my heart thumps loud enough to hurt. It’s depressing to learn I still love him madly, that he still has the same affect on me.

  “What are you doing here dressed like this?” I motion to his coat. “You’re not at the Met ballet…” I sniff, rub my nose, “Or maybe you’re headed there.”

  Picturing him on a date with anyone makes me literally mental. Like rage against the machine, head banging crazy. Best not go there.

  “No,” he says, with all the confidence in the world. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  I’m on the verge of tears AGAIN. For the millionth time they bubble up and sting my eyes. “Why are you here Jordan?”

  “I’m here because I love you. I’m here because no one is ever going to love you like I do…You’re the love of my life Riley. You and only you.”

  Tears fall down my face, burning the skin of my cheeks raw from the frigid temperature. “If I had any sense at all, I would’ve told you that night we met. I would’ve told you sooner, but I’m an idiot and a fool…I’m never going to stop trying, Riley. And if I have to tell you that I love you every single day for you to believe me, then I will…I won’t stop unless you tell me to.”

  I wipe my cheeks, my eyes. I don’t know why I’m fighting it anymore. Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance? Don’t I deserve another chance?

  “This is for you.” He pulls out a long thick envelope from the inside pocket of his fancy dark coat. “I would’ve been here sooner, but this took a while.”

  Gingerly, I open the seal and pull the papers out…

  The deed to the Anderson House in Chatam.

  The deed to this house.

  The deed to my investment property.

  “I paid too much for that one. It’s a mess.”

  I laugh, I cry, I laugh. “I haven’t renovated it yet…This is too much. I can’t accept this.”

  “This doesn’t mean anything, baby. I just want you to have them…it’ll make me feel better.”

  My smile fades. It’s time to make a decision. And what I know in my soul is that you never know what life has in store. How much time you have left. Don’t ever let a chance to tell someone you love them pass through your fingers. You may not get another one. Words are cheap, but regret is expensive.

  I step closer, wrap my arms around his waist, feel his warmth, his loving heart beating fast while he wraps his coat around my shoulders. Jordan will always be my one and only love, my person, my mate.

  “I love you too,” I tell him. “You know that, right?” He lifts my chin and kisses me.

  “I’m sorry for everything. I don’t even know how to begin. I guess I have to tell you that…I was scared. It scared me how much I wanted you and…and it’ll always be there, in the back of my mind.”

  “Getting sick again?” He nods and I hug him harder. “Then let’s not waste another minute.”

  He exhales deeply and squeezes me tighter. “Now that we’ve got the cleared up. I’d like to offer you a job.”

  “Hmm. I’ve got a job at Dom’s wood shop already.”

  “Hear me out. It’s a great offer.”

  “What’s the job?”

  “Wife.”

  My smile falters and my pulse races. “Wife?”

  “It pays very well.”

  I smile into his chest. “How’s the medical plan?”

  “Top shelf. I’m also hoping to promote you quickly to CEO of West Family Enterprises.”

  “Enterprises, huh? What enterprise?”

  “A baby.”

  I sniff, tears falling down my face. Nothing like winning a hotly contested negotiation to make me cry.

  “Deal.”

  About the Author

  Paola Dangelico loves romance in all forms, pulp fiction, the NY Jets, and to while away the day at the barn (apparently she does her best thinking shoveling horse poop).

  She was born in Milan Italy, grew up in New Jersey watching her father paint the covers of bestselling romance authors like Danielle Steel and Amanda Quick, and after a long stint on the left coast returned to the right coast to write about finding love in a modern world. Presently, she resides in New Jersey with her fur family.

  P. Dangelico’s Mod Squad Facebook Reading Group

  Or find me here.

  www.pdangelico.com

  Also by P. Dangelico

  Hard To Love Series (Single POV)

  Wrecking Ball

  Sle
dgehammer

  Bulldozer

  It Takes Two Series (Dual POV)

  Baby Maker

  Tiebreaker

  Risk Taker (coming soon)

  Malibu University Series (NA)

  Nothing But Trouble

  Nothing But Wild

  Nothing But Good (coming soon)

  The Horn Duet (Erotic Romance)

  A Million Different Ways (Book I)

  A Million Different Ways to Lose You (Book II)

  Standalone

  You Can Have Manhattan

  Carried Away