by Trixie More
Doug reached along the ground in total darkness—he was always in darkness—found a handful of hair and yanked it. Tommy yelled, and Doug could tell he was face down. He swarmed up over his friend, straddling him, pressing his stomach into Tommy’s back, grabbing another handful of hair, and slamming Tommy’s head forward.
Where the fuck was the gun? Doug put a hand on each of Tommy’s shoulders and stretched out, following his arms in an awful parody of the love Tommy had wanted. When he found his friend’s hands, he threaded his fingers through Tommy’s and discovered both of them were empty. Where was the...
A thread of light crept across the floor. Doug heard a small gasp.
Before he could identify the source, the gun went off in a muffled blast. Doug howled. His fucking left thigh was on fire, like liquid gas had been poured on it and set alight.
Beneath him, Tommy slumped.
“No, no, no,” Doug said, panic ripping through him.
He leaned down until his mouth found his best friend’s ear. “Tommy, Tommy, can you hear me?”
It occurred to him that his weight would be hurting Tommy. Doug threw himself off of Tommy’s back, feeling the wet slickness along Tommy’s left side. Where had the gun been?
“Tommy, hold on, I’m going to get you help. I’m going to get help.” Doug slid his hands through the warm wetness, trying to get leverage to stand. Where the hell was his phone?
“I’m calling now.” He knew that voice. Sophia was here.
Beside him, Tommy rolled.
“Don’t move. Tommy, please, please don’t move. Let me get you help.”
A wet hand gripped his wrist. “You can’t save me, Doug.”
“You don’t know that,” Doug said.
Tommy huffed, his voice gurgling. “I think I know this.”
“Stay with me, Tommy.”
“I can’t. I made so many mistakes.”
“Sophia, help,” Doug yelled. He could hear her already speaking to someone. He turned back to Tommy.
“Forgive me, Doug,” Tommy said.
“All the mistakes were mine. Tommy. Tommy.” He was blubbering like a child now, patting at Tommy’s face in the dark, struggling with his other hand to find where the fuck his phone was, who was at the door. Had they called 911? It was so hard to think.
Tommy had a grip of steel on his left wrist.
“I mean it, Doug. Forgive me. I was there when Marco Camisa had his goon drown Colton Gerrimon. I saw it happen.”
A bright blue light shone down on them, stabbing into his eye like a knife. Doug could just make out Tommy; his nose was running with blood, it was dribbling from his lips. His left side was blown wide. The scene wavered before Doug’s eyes. Stay conscious.
“Help him!” Doug screamed. Someone was there. Who was it? He could hear a voice saying his name, gentle hands on his back, saying his name. “Help him!”
“Doug.” Tommy was pulling him down. Doug’s hand slipped in their blood, and he fell forward, his ear next to Tommy’s mouth. “Doug, I’m sorry. The server is empty. Camisa had Jacob move all the money before he killed Colton. Camisa gave me your money.” Tommy choked; the wet rattle in his voice louder than any of the words he’d said.
“I don’t care about the money,” Doug said. It was so hard to speak. “He can have it all. You, you matter.”
Tommy coughed, and Doug felt the droplets on his face. “He owned me. Alice. I’m so sorry about Alice. Camisa...”
“Shh, stop it...” Doug tried to say, but his words were slurring. The man beside him went still and slack. “No, Tommy, I love you. I love you.”
Anguish tore through him, and he bawled like a lost calf. Soft and gentle hands pulled at him, gathering him into the bosom of a woman.
“I’m so sorry,” she crooned.
“I killed my best friend,” Doug sobbed.
She rocked him, and slowly he realized it was her. Sophia, she was here, rolling in the blood with him. “How could this happen?” he cried. “How could this happen?”
She rocked him and pressed her lips to his temple.
“It’s all right,” she said. “You’re alive, sweetheart, that’s all I care about.”
Chapter 31
One week later, Sophia twisted in the narrow bed in the guest room of her parent’s house. Sweat clamped her T-shirt to her chest, her legs were restless beneath the sheets. In her dreams, as she got off the elevator, she heard the crash and broke into a run. The door to Doug’s apartment was closed, but she didn’t hesitate. She opened the door with one hand and tried to start the video on her cell phone with the other. She’d started it in the elevator, why was it off again? The apartment was black as night, but the light from the door showed her the two men on the floor clearly enough. For a hot second, her stomach clenched, and she backed up a step. It looked like Doug was...but it couldn’t be. Was he having sex?
In the next instant, a shot rang out, and she felt the wet spray on her face. Blood rained down in buckets around her as she recognized that Doug was fully clothed and slumping now. Blood kept raining down on them both as she slipped in it, unable to reach him. Doug turned his head, beautiful and clear-eyed, looking right into her soul.
“I’m Cain.”
She struggled to reach him. “You’re Doug, you’re Doug,” she was saying. She stretched her arms out. Why couldn’t she reach him?
“Sophia,” he whispered.
“Doug,” she said.
“Sophia.”
The dream faded a bit. The bloody rain stopped, but she could still see him slumped on top of Tom Kretlow.
“Sophia.”
Consciousness tugged at her, pulling her out of the apartment. She remembered this was a dream, the dream again.
She felt a hand on her face, tracing her cheeks, her mouth.
She grabbed the hand and kissed it.
Doug eased his way back to his room, trying to limp quietly. Sophia’s room. He was staying at her parent’s house. Someday maybe that might amuse him, but not tonight.
She was asleep again, and it was almost morning. With luck, that would be the last nightmare for her tonight. Gingerly, Doug sat down on the edge of the bed, pausing a moment to catch his breath. Then, finally, blessedly, he was able to lay flat on the mattress.
His thoughts gave him only a moment’s reprieve, and then his abdomen clenched hard, and the pain pushed at his ribs, demanding that he give it voice. He sniffed, once, twice, and gave up, using the corner of the sheet to wipe his face. He didn’t have it in him to rise again.
“What about me, Doug? What about what I needed?”
God. What had Tommy needed from him all those years? Something more than money. Loyalty wasn’t everything. He saw that now. It wasn’t enough to be a good provider. He should have been a good brother, a good friend. He should have let Tommy go.
Doug closed his eyes, but he could still hear the gunshot, feel the pain inside, the pain of understanding worse even than that.
“Tommy,” he whispered. “Forgive me.”
Being a weekend father was more work than Ben had expected. He could almost hear Marley pronouncing him estupido. Prospect Park had seven playgrounds. Surely they couldn’t all be closed for repairs. Ben looked down at Karito. They’d already been to Imagination Playground—too baby—she’d said. Then he’d carried her all the way across the never-ending park to the Third Street playground, which Marley said Karito liked best, to find it closed due to flooding. So they went down to the Vanderbilt Playground, only to find it also closed.
“We can go to the yellow one,” Karito said, looking up at him. She had a ball in one hand. Ben had two catcher’s mitts in his hand, one of them his from high school years, the other a small pink one he’d bought yesterday. One of Karito’s braids was loose, making the right one longer than the left.
Ben checked his map and then looked around helplessly. All around were families, as well as pairs of adults and children, adults alone. Everyone in New York appeared to
be in the park today. He gave up.
Which playground is the yellow one?
He sent the text to Marley.
He looked around. Marley was taking her sweet time replying.
“Do you want to play catch some more?” he asked his daughter. His daughter. He’d spent maybe a dozen waking hours with her during her whole life.
She shook her head rapidly, making her braids flop back and forth. After a moment, it was clear that she was amusing herself with the flapping of the braids as she swung her head left and right.
“Hey, stop that.”
The braids flew faster.
He ran his hand down his face.
“Do you want another ice cream?”
The braids whipped up and down. Okay. Alrighty then. Ben took her hand and led Karito, her bobbing head, and her whipping braids to the little silver cart.
“What kind do you want?”
“Huuuuuu, I’m dizzy,” she said and, with her arms extended, spun in a circle.
“Do you want an ice cream?”
“Noooooo thank you,” she said, finally stopping. “Can we go to the playground now?”
“Excuse me,” Ben said to the thin man behind the cart. “Which playground is the yellow one?”
“The yellow one? Oh, you mean the one with the yellow jungle gym?”
“Is that the one?” he asked Karito. She looked at him with wide eyes, swinging the hand that clutched her ball.
“Gotta be,” said the ice cream vendor. “Lincoln, up by the Imagination playground.”
At the same time, his phone buzzed. It was Marley, texting back.
Lincoln. I’ll meet you there in a half hour.
“Thanks,” he said to the vendor. “Want a ride, Karito?”
He lifted her up to his shoulders, and they headed all the way back to where they started, two small hands pulling on his hair as his little girl swayed, her sneakers thumping softly against his chest. He was a father. A single father. Or was he? Marley was a single mother, which implied an absent father. Was that what he was?
At the park, Karito wiggled to be let down, running for the jungle gym. He followed quickly, watching all the faces around him. How did you keep a little girl safe? He broke into a jog and Karito, looking over her shoulder at him and laughing, ran all the faster. Happily, she stopped near what should have been a hand rail but for her and the two other kids there seemed to be a place to hang upside down like sloths, ankles crossed over the iron bar, hands clutching the rail. Karito began to swing herself right and left, the pink rubber ball resting on her stomach. She was smiling at him as she got herself down easily, the ball bouncing away. He walked over and picked it up, shoving it down into his front pocket. He had a folded mitt in each back pocket.
“Watch this Ben...” she said as she raced over to a slide and began to climb up. Not Daddy. They hadn’t told her yet, he wasn’t sure how to do it and Marley had some unexplainable timetable that she wanted them to follow. First some visits, then some dinners together, but it didn’t feel right to Ben. He thought he should tell her right now, Karito should know right away. Hell, he should have known right away.
He watched Karito, fidgeting on the steps of the slide, waiting her turn impatiently. He knew how she felt. It was if he was in line for a new life, waiting for it to start.
Across the park, a woman caught his eye. She had on tight hot pink T-shirt with Yo Mama in white streaky letters on it. Her shoulders and hips swayed as she walked toward them.
Ben felt his breath catch in his throat. Mama was right. Marley raised a slender brown arm, her long fingers tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, and he felt as if she’d touched him. He looked right and left, sighting Karito’s pale pink sweatshirt. She had just come down the slide and was racing toward him. He squatted down as she barreled into him, his arms coming around her naturally, as if he’d been doing this all his life.
“Did you see? Did you see me, Ben?”
He looked over Karito’s head at Marley. Her dark eyes were looking at him, a half smile bringing out one of her dimples.
“I saw it, Karito. I saw the whole thing,” he said.
Derrick was waiting for Ben on the landing like some kind of Polynesian totem pole, all crossed arms, big head, and teeth.
“Hey.”
Of course, the guy’s opening gambit was a single word.
“Fuck off,” Ben said. Derrick always made him just the littlest bit mean. They’d been friends forever, but the guy was always one up on him.
“Rose called.”
As if that said it all. Ben stopped and folded his own arms. If he wanted, he could just plow past his friend and leave him gawking on his landing. If they came to blows, he was pretty sure Allison would be on his side. Maybe. Allison was probably on Marley’s side.
“So what?”
“You okay?”
“I don’t answer to you.”
“Yeah, but I gotta call Rose back.”
At least it was a full sentence. “Tell Rose I’m fine.”
Derrick rolled his shoulders. “And?”
“And what?”
“Come on, Ben. Pity me. She’ll ask questions.”
“You know, you really are a throwback, Dick.”
“Great,” Derrick said and waved an arm at the stairs. “Lead on.”
By the time he’d changed into sweats and washed up, Derrick already had a brew and was kickin’ back on the couch. Ben took the recliner.
“Karito’s my little girl.”
Derrick’s eyes were large and round. Now he looked like a google-eyed totem.
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s good, right?”
Ben raised his eyebrows. “Good?”
“Yeah, that little girl is crazy about you.”
“How is that good?” Ben asked. He was stubborn, but a part of Ben still felt like he needed someone to explain it to him. He just needed to hear one rational person tell him he wasn’t nuts for wanting to marry Marley and move her and Karito into this empty house tomorrow. Ben shot out of his chair and went to the kitchen. He started opening and closing cupboards.
“What’cha lookin’ for? You won’t find Marley in there.”
Humph. He’d had Marley in this very kitchen just this weekend. In blue and white pajamas that were buttoned up to her chin, which her hips filled out quite nicely. She’d made him breakfast.
He went back to slamming doors and searching for booze. He wanted something hard. Hard. Ugh. Fuck him.
He found a bottle of Johnny Walker at the back of the cabinet above the fridge. He had to wiggle his fingers to get it, but at least he had it in hand without having to ask Derrick. He threw some ice in a glass and poured.
“You good?” Derrick was smiling at him from the couch.
“Hell no. I just walked around Prospect Park seven times.”
“You know this is a good thing. You like Marley, you like Karito. You’ve been wanting a family, and here’s one ready-made. You’ll be, like four years ahead of me.” Derrick grinned stupidly at him.
“You don’t marry someone you like,” said Ben.
“It helps,” Derrick said. “Besides, I didn’t say marry.”
Ben slumped into the recliner and put the footrest up.
“Rose says she was cryin’ the other day.”
“Rose wasn’t crying,” said Ben.
“You’re an ass. Marley,” Derrick said patiently. He really was a good friend. Even if he was a dick.
“I know. I was mad. I still am mad. How could Marley do that, Rick? How could she let that little girl grow up without a father? Without money? I could have helped.” Ben downed a good slug of booze. Wretched stuff, he hated whiskey. The burning stopped and he took another drink. “I could have held her when she was born.”
Derrick was looking down at his beer, his face solemn. “Yeah, that part’s lame. Really lame.” Derrick chugged his beer and looked up at him. “That’s already over. Pl
us, nobody’s saying marry her.”
“That’s just it. Marley and Karito both stayed here one weekend before I knew. I was already imagining...”
Derrick sat up straighter, turning down his lip like he was assessing something they were building. He looked at Ben and raised his eyebrows. Ben wanted to bean him. “That’s different then.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re saying marriage. After you just dumped my sister.”
“Come off it. Sophia and I were falling apart for the last year.”
“You and Sophia were never together. I wish I could have ordered her to leave you alone.”
“I think you did, Derry.” Ben looked into his glass. “More than once.” He looked over at his friend. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
“Why?”
“For wanting to marry a woman I haven’t even lived with yet? We might be terrible together.”
“A little bit, but I bet you could set a long engagement.”
Ben stopped. He could, couldn’t he? He could propose, fast, like he knew Marley wanted, like he wanted to believe they could. They could take their time planning the wedding, making sure Karito felt safe, figuring out how it would all work.
“Isn’t that kinda cheating?” Ben said.
Derrick shrugged. “So what? She lied to you for six years.”
Ben frowned. “Shut up.”
“That make you mad?”
“Yeah. I hate hearing you say it like that.”
Derrick shrugged. “So forgive her.” He stood up and planted his beer on the coffee table. He raised his arms and put his palms flat on the ceiling. “I’m beat. Some of us have to get up and build skyscrapers.”
“Dick,” said Ben. “Hey, tell ‘em I’m takin’ a day.”
“Sure,” said Derrick. “So, you okay?”
“Yeah, I think I am. I’m gonna do it, and I’m going to give us a year to plan.”
“Unless she fights you.”
Ben knocked back his scotch. “Unless she fights me.”
Chapter 32
Sophia kept Doug in her old bedroom like a lost dog she’d picked up on the street. She checked on him, brought him food, and fought with her parents over him. Her vacation time was maxed out. She wouldn’t leave his side. Still, she felt him slipping away. He wasn’t meant to be kept like a pet, she supposed. He was more feral than that.
