by JA Huss
“Hey!”
“I’m just saying, I didn’t care. I was waiting for my moment. And it paid off. So what I’m telling you right now isn’t about the wait. OK?”
“What are you telling me right now? Because I don’t get it.”
“I’m telling you that you were incredibly unhappy for all those eight years. And you only got happy when you went home. And Tara and I had this moment back in Key West. After Johnny Boston showed up to spell shit out for us. She said you weren’t going to come back here. That Key West was your home. And I told her that was bullshit. This place, Belinda—this town—this is your home now. And I was right. Because you came back here, even though Tara stayed down in Key West. You made a deliberate, conscious choice to return.”
“And you think I chose that because of you?”
He shrugs. “Maybe? I don’t know about that. I think you chose to come back because you belong here now. That’s all. This is home now. It’s as simple as that. And I think that Tony showing up made you so angry because he was a reminder of that old life. And those old times. And that old stuff. And look, I’m not claiming to be an expert in starting over. You have definitely cornered the market on that shit. My grandpa won this house in a poker game a million years ago, back when you could look at his tattoos without wincing at the wrinkles. I’ve lived in this house, in this town my whole life. I will work in the Sick Boyz tattoo shop until I’m as old as my grandpa. I will die inking words on skin. So I’m no expert, Belinda. But I know it has to have been hard.”
“So what?”
“So what? So… that’s your hangup.”
“What is my hangup?”
“Tony.”
“Fuck Tony.”
“I agree. Fuck that fucker. I don’t care about Tony. But you do.”
“Oh, my God. I do not!”
“Not like that, Belinda. I’m not worried you’re into him. You just have unfinished business with the guy.”
“What business?”
He shrugs. “I dunno.” Then he taps my head. “That’s all in there. Locked up tight so you don’t have to think about it anymore. But he’s gonna go home soon. I don’t know why he’s here, but whatever that reason was, it’s over now. So he’s gonna leave. And I just think… you know, before he takes off you should settle shit.”
“Settle what, though? I don’t know what unfinished business we have. I just want him to go away.”
His eyes gaze into mine. They are bright blue today. Like a perfect summer sky. “Me too, toots. Me too.” Then he slaps my leg. “Jump in the shower. Put on a pair of my shorts and grab a new t-shirt. Then meet me downstairs. We need coffee.”
He gets up, drops his towel so I have a perfect view of his ass, then reaches into a drawer, finds a pair of old jeans, and pulls them up his legs. Then he slides a t-shirt over his head, grabs a pair of socks and his boots from the floor, and leaves me there without saying another word.
I sit in his bed for a few moments, thinking about what he said, trying to force it all to make sense. But all I get for my trouble is an emerging tension headache.
It’s not my fault Tony is here. He should just leave. Then everything would go back to normal again.
Better than normal, actually. Because then I wouldn’t have this constant reminder that I’m someone other than Belinda Baker.
What did he call me? Rosalinda?
Asshole. God, he is such an asshole. Rosalinda. That makes me so angry, the emerging headache becomes a throbbing one.
I turn to the bathroom and go in, then spend many minutes letting the hot water pound against the back of my neck, trying to make the headache go away.
By the time I’m dressed and heading down the stairs, it’s mostly gone and I’ve decided to put the past behind me. Vann’s probably right. I’m sure there are lingering feelings that could use some airing out. But Tony has to go home eventually. I’m certain all this angst will disappear when he does.
I’m heading around the bannister of the second floor when I notice the long line of old photographs on the hallway wall. The Vaughn family. And… wow. There are women in these pics. Women who are not the sister, Veronica.
One catches my eye immediately. A very old picture of a man, who I recognize to be Grandpa, and a woman standing in front of the mansion. This mansion. And holy crap, it was a looker back in the day. A beautiful home.
The next one has Gram and Gramps and two little boys all sitting on the front porch. I recognize the younger boy as Vern, Vann’s father. But the older one, no clue.
There’s more on the porch. In fact, when I look closely, I realize they’ve taken a family portrait on the front porch of this house every year since nineteen sixty-nine.
Fifty. Fucking. Years.
Those early ones with Gram and Gramps. Then Vern and his unnamed brother. Then Vern all grown up with a wife and a boy who has to be Vic in her arms. Then Vic and the twins. A pigtailed Veronica shows up. And finally Vann. Cherub-faced Vann. But they don’t end there. No. All the kids grow up in front of my eyes. And then there’s Veronica’s husband, Spencer. And their baby. Then two. Then three.
Wow.
This family has lived in this house for fifty years. There are four generations of Vaughns on this wall and every single one of them has lived in this house.
I don’t even know what that would feel like. To grow up in the same place. Raise a family, and watch them grow up here too.
I could’ve had that if I had stayed in Key West.
No. That’s not right. I could’ve had that if I hadn’t been kicked out by forces beyond my control.
“Belinda!” Vann yells up the stairs. “Come on, I need coffee.”
“I’m coming,” I say.
He walks up the steps when he realizes I’m right above him. “What are you doing?”
“Looking at your family photos.”
He grins. “We’re a good-looking bunch.”
I nod. Smile.
Because they really are. A very good-looking bunch.
And I’m about to become one of them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - TONY
I touch her all over in the shower. I lather up with soap that smells like the color pink looks and touch her all over. We wash each other’s hair and we smile while the other takes their turn rinsing under the water. It’s a calm beginning. An experience that might normally lead to sex. But we both know this shower isn’t about sex.
There are big things to decide and they will need to be decided soon.
But not now. Not today. Today we wash each other, then dry each other, then get dressed. She brought my suitcase down before she went to bed last night.
I find that both bold and adorable.
I’ll say this about Soshee Ameci—she is a girl who goes after what she wants.
And then, once we’re dressed, we leave her apartment and walk with casual ease down the four flights of stairs to the Fort Collins Theater coffee shop.
“So what do you want to do about the little dog?” she asks.
“Shit. I forgot all about that. I don’t know. Do you think I’m just overreacting and there’s nothing going on?”
Sosh shoots me a sideways glance. “Do you think there’s nothing going on?”
I draw in a deep breath. “No clue, actually.”
“Really?”
“I mean I get it. I’m all wrapped up in something weird. But maybe I’m making a big deal out of nothing? Maybe they just have a coffee shop dog? Couldn’t it be something simple like that?”
“A dog that they walk at four-thirty in the morning?”
“Don’t coffee shops open early?”
“Conveniently past Vann’s house?”
“It’s only a few blocks off College Avenue.”
“OK, stop.” She stops on the landing between the first and second floor. “Are you really trying to talk yourself into the idea that everything’s fine?”
“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying I dunno, Soshe
e. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions.”
“Conclusions? Ha! That’s a good one.”
“What’s that mean?”
She puts her hands on her hips. “Seriously, Tony? You don’t draw any conclusions. You just… drift.” She puts up both hands. “Let me explain this in terms you can understand, m’kay? You’re like a sailboat without sails. Just drifting in this big, wide-open sea of… of everything!”
“Sea of everything?”
“Yeah. You come here under the pretense of looking for information for your brother about…whatever the hell. Your secrets, or smuggling, whatever. Doesn’t matter. You know why it doesn’t matter?” She doesn’t wait for me to come up with an answer. Just keeps talking. “Because that’s not why you came here. You came here for Belinda.”
“Soshee. I already told you. I don’t—”
“Have feelings for her. I know. I heard you. But I don’t believe you. It’s a lie, Tony. You are so very clearly having feelings about her even I can see that.”
I just blink my eyes at her for a moment. “Are we… having a fight about Rosalinda?”
She makes a face at me. “Do you really need me to tell you that?”
“Is that a yes?”
“You are having such a man moment right now, I can’t even believe it.” She rolls her eyes and starts walking down the stairs again.
“Wait,” I call, hopping down the stairs after her. “I don’t know what you want me to say. Just tell me what you’re looking for and I’ll answer as truthfully as I can.”
She throws the door open to the bustling coffee shop and then turns to face me before she enters. “I’m not looking for anything, Tony. It’s you. You’re the one looking for something. I’m not sure what that is exactly. But I’m fairly certain it has something to do with forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness?” I actually laugh. “From who?”
“From Belinda Baker, you thick idiot!”
And then the entire coffee shop—which was loud with the hum of several dozen simultaneous conversations just one second earlier—goes almost quiet. And who do I see at the cream and sugar station less ten feet away from where Soshee and I are standing?
That’s right. Vann and Belinda.
“Well, that’s perfect,” Soshee coos at them. “Just the people we were looking for.”
“Um…” Belinda says, looking at Vann for help.
“Can we help you two with something?” Vann asks.
“No,” I say.
But Soshee says, “Yes, Vann. You can. You see, Tony here has traveled a long way to say something to Belinda there. Haven’t you, Tony?”
“Uh… what?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Belinda says. “Just go away, Tony. Come on, Vann. Let’s go.”
She grabs his arm and starts to walk away, assuming he will follow. But Vann Vaughn does not move one inch and she kinda bounces back into place. “Hold up there, toots.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, cocking my head. “Did you just call her toots?”
“Shut up, Tony. You don’t get to have an opinion about me and my life. You lost that privilege a long time ago.”
“As if I even want to have an opinion—”
A shrill whistle cuts through my remaining words and once again, the entire coffee shop goes quiet and everyone looks at Soshee.
“Hey, kids,” the dark-haired woman who runs the counter calls across the room. “How about you take this convo somewhere else? Hmm? We’re all having a nice Sunday morning here.”
“Great idea,” Soshee calls back. “Let’s go.” She snaps her fingers at Vann, Belinda, and me in quick succession, then points to the stairs we just came down. “Upstairs. All of you. We have a messy situation here that needs to be settled. So. We’re going to go up to my apartment and settle it.”
Belinda plants her hands on her hips and taps the toe of her shoe on the tiled floor. “I’m not going up there.”
But Vann says, “You know what, Soshee? You’re right. This has gotten messy. Let’s go, Belinda.”
“To her apartment?” Belinda is incredulous. “No!”
But Soshee is smooth and, if I’m being honest, wearing her semi-evil Poison Ivy smile. She hooks her arm into Belinda’s and beams down at her like they are the best of best friends. “You’ve never seen it, have you? Some people think it’s over the top, but I think you’d enjoy it.”
And then she’s pulling her up the stairs.
“Vann!” Belinda is protesting.
I look at him. Waiting to see what he’ll do. But he just waves a hand at the stairwell and says, “Let’s do this.”
Belinda is still protesting, but she and Sosh are already out of view somewhere above us.
“Fine,” I say. “You want to do this? I’ll do this. All day long, Vann.”
“Great, Tony,” he says, pushing past me. “Let’s go.”
The girls are already inside Soshee’s apartment by the time I follow Vann up to the fourth floor. Soshee is still talking. I catch snippets of her one-sided conversation about the décor and the view. Belinda is looking back at Vann for some kind of relief. But he must be on board with this intervention, because he doesn’t rescue her. Instead he walks over to the long line of windows and leans against the window sill.
“Nice view, Sosh,” he says, scanning the street below.
I hate that he calls her Sosh.
I’m not jealous. I just hate it.
“OK, I’m here,” Belinda says, yanking her arm from Soshee’s grip. “Talk.”
She’s looking at me when she says this. I look at Soshee. It was her idea, not mine. “I don’t have anything to say.”
“Yes, you do,” Soshee says.
“Yeah. Let’s get this over with, Belinda,” Vann agrees.
Belinda huffs. “What the hell, Vann? Why are you pushing this?”
“Because you two have unfinished business,” Vann and Soshee say at the same time. They kinda startle at the unison of their words, then glance at each other before quickly looking away.
“I don’t have any unfinished business. Tony and I were never even a thing,” Belinda snaps. “We used each other. That’s it.”
“I’m not going to argue with that,” I say with a shrug. “It’s mostly true, anyway.”
“Fuck you, Tony,” Belinda spits. “You’re the one who showed up here trying to hate-fuck me out of your head. Do you have any idea how pathological that is?”
“Look who’s talking, Rosalinda. You’re the one who—” But before I can get the last few words out, she has crossed the room and slapped my face.
Vann quickly darts into action, crossing the room and grabbing her by the arm before she can hit me again. He barely stops her fist from crashing into my teeth. “Hold up, toots. One good slap is enough to make your point.”
Belinda points her finger right up to my face and snarls, “Do not. Ever. Fucking. Call me that name again.”
I laugh. She swings. Vann intercepts and pulls her back a good six feet.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” I say. “That name is an accurate description of who you actually are.”
“And why is that, Tony? Why do I have two names? Hmm.” She pokes a fingertip into her cheek and pretends to think. “Is it because you decided to fuck up my life eight years ago? You decided that my life was over!”
“What the hell are you talking about? I saved you!”
“Oh,” she guffaws. “Oh, that’s a good one. You think that ripping me away from everyone and everything I know and then sending me two thousand miles away was saving me? Do you have any idea what it was like to get off that plane and be dropped off at the local laundromat?”
“What?”
“The laundromat, Tony! That was the job those fucked-up FBI people gave me. They made me the manager of the laundromat!”
“That’s not a bad job,” Soshee says. She looks at me and shrugs. “I’d be down with running a laundromat.”
“I am an
artist, Soshee. Or at least I was until your new boyfriend here ripped my life in two.”
“Jesus Christ,” I say. “You’re being dramatic, Ros—”
“Do not. Fucking call me. That name.”
“Calm down. I was going to say Rosalie.”
Her whole face goes bright red. Like she might explode before my eyes. And I seriously have a little moment of worry that she’s going to have a stroke.
But she doesn’t have a stroke and she doesn’t explode.
She begins to cry.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - BELINDA
First, my face goes burning hot. Then my whole body begins to tremble. And then the tears are there, welling up inside my eyes in great pools. The next thing I know they are falling down my cheeks.
I’m not making any sound. This is how it is with the rage tears. They are silent.
“Fuck,” Tony says. “Look, I’m not here to ruin your day and make you cry. I’m here—”
“Oh, no,” I say, putting up a hand. Then I point to my eyes. “Do you think”—I laugh—“do you think these are for you? These tears are not for you!”
Tony’s chin juts back in surprise. “Of course they’re for me. You do it every time.”
“Every… what? What are you talking about?”
“When we fuck. After we fuck, I mean. You always cry. Because I’m such a disappointment, I guess.”
I laugh and direct my gaze over to Vann. “Can you believe this shit?”
He looks slightly bewildered and unsure of what’s happening. It’s a cute look on him. But I’m in the middle of something. And not even the charming, handsome, perfectly-shaped jawline of Vann Vaughn is going to distract me right now.
Because I’ve been waiting for this moment. This, right here, right now, is exactly what needs to happen.
Tony Dumas needs to be set straight.
I point at him and take a step forward. Vann steps in, probably thinking I’m going to punch Tony in the teeth again, but no. I’m under control now. Because this asshole ex of mine thinks my tears were about him.
