by Cora Brent
Dejection crossed Conway’s face and was quickly replaced by an indifferent mask. He bent his head and slowly nodded before putting his hand on the doorknob.
“I’ll walk you out.”
Emily was wandering around with a cup of coffee now. She practically tackled me the moment I exited Conway’s room. Something in my face stopped her from peppering me with questions right then and there and she merely offered a quick hug. I squeezed her hand in gratitude before she returned to Jackson’s side. I saw her studying Conway with open curiosity. He pretended not to notice.
“You ready?” he asked me.
“Hold on.” I dashed back into his room, grabbed my purse and followed Conway to the elevator where Emily and Jackson were waiting.
We trailed behind the two lovebirds, just as we’d done last night on our walk from the bar. The parking garage seemed farther away than I’d thought it was, but that was probably due to the fact that with every step I was clumsily searching my brain for something meaningful to say.
“It’s a nice day,” I commented as casually as I could while I squinted up at the sky behind the buildings of downtown Phoenix. It was overcast and cool, an overall gloomy grey day that might not be considered ‘nice’ in most places but such days were a gift here. The heat and searing sun always came too soon and stayed far too long.
“You’re right,” said Conway.
Ahead of us, Jackson and Emily were holding hands. Once I saw him pause, sweep some shards of glass away with his boot and then carry her over the offending bit of sidewalk as she giggled and clung to him.
By the time we reached my car I was really burning to leave this morning behind. I just wanted to be alone and brood over my irresponsible actions for the rest of the day. However, Emily and Jackson decided to prolong our departure by making out on the hood of my car.
“Thank you,” I said to Conway, somewhat stiffly, and he raised an eyebrow.
“You’re welcome,” he said, flashing an unmistakably lecherous grin.
I had to admit I’d asked for it, but I rolled my eyes anyway. “I meant for walking me to my car.”
He barked out a laugh. “I’m sure that’s exactly what you meant.”
When I didn’t return his laugh and glared at him stonily he dropped the act.
“Roslyn,” he said as I cursed myself for the way I shivered when my name rolled off his tongue.
I waited for him to continue but he seemed to lose track of whatever he wanted to say and examined the concrete ground.
“Maybe we’ll run into each other again sometime,” I said and he looked up.
Those eyes. Those blue, blue eyes.
“We will,” he said with almost cocky confidence, although his smile seemed more sincere now. “Sooner or later you would have figured this out, but you’ve got my number in your phone.”
“When did that happen?”
“This morning. Your purse was sitting right out in plain view, phone right on top. You should really protect it better, use a password.” He leaned over and dropped his voice conspiratorially. “I also might have snapped a few photos of my best assets. Use them well.”
“Classy.”
“Always.”
“So you’ll just be sitting around waiting for my call?”
“I didn’t say that.”
I crossed my arms. “What are you saying?”
Conway reached out and played with a strand of my hair. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“You don’t give a lot of answers.”
Suddenly he leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. It was a strangely tender gesture from a guy who was full of one contradiction after another.
“We’ll talk,” he said softly.
Then he kissed my hand like a gallant prince of the underworld and walked away, hands jammed in his pockets.
Emily and Jackson had apparently already finished saying their passionate farewells and were quietly watching the Roslyn and Conway show. Jackson gave my roommate one final kiss, offered me a brief wave, then jogged after Conway.
I’d already buckled my seatbelt by the time Emily floated into the car. She let out a happy sigh and leaned against the window as I started the ignition.
“Amazing night,” she breathed.
“I can see that.”
“I could totally fall for him.”
“I’m glad, Em.”
We were out on the street now. The downtown area cleared out dramatically on weekends, unless there was a sports game or other event going on.
Emily reached over and pinched me lightly.
“So what about you?” she teased.
“We watched television and fell asleep.”
“What?” she squeaked. “No way. You’re holding out on me. Seriously, Roslyn, is that all?”
“No.”
“So you like him, this Con guy?”
“Conway.”
“What?”
“Conway Gentry. That’s his full name.”
She frowned. “Wait, I’ve heard that name before tonight. I know I have.”
I took a right turn too sharply. The car’s tires protested as loud as a woman’s scream.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I think I’ve heard it before too.”
CHAPTER NINE
CONWAY
I was a fucking idiot.
Fucking.
Idiot.
When I woke up at the crack of dawn this morning I felt strangely proud of myself and full of unfamiliar, tender feelings for the girl lying beside me. Then Roslyn turned over and the bed sheet slipped, showing me things that translated into an instant boner.
Yet instead of doing what Conway the Creep would usually do I snuck out of there and sweated out those urges on a run through the downtown streets. And later, when I flirted with her in my room I didn’t expect anything to happen because she just seemed so wrapped up and proper, perched on the edge of my bed with her arms crossed and those long legs glued together.
Anyway, I was proud of myself. I was thinking I just might be capable of standing on the moral high ground after all. I could be that kind of man; like Stone, like the triplets, like Deck.
Then I went ahead and tripped over my own goddamn dick. Sure the fall had been psychotically good and I’d be beating off to that shit for months but that wasn’t the point.
Of course it wasn’t all my fault, the fact that we’d lost our minds at the same time and fucked up against a wall with the crazy abandon of two rutting animals in the woods. My breaking point came on suddenly. Roslyn leveled me with a look that was both shy and defiant. What came after that was a fierce victory of body over mind.
I’d already walked away from her in the parking garage after another sideshow of frisky banter when I heard her car engine rumble to life. The sound made me freeze for a second.
Fuck.
I should have asked her to go have breakfast, or lunch, or whatever it was that all those stand up civilians out there in the clean world did together after they fucked.
“Wait up!” Jackson called.
The sound of Roslyn’s engine receded as she drove out of the parking garage.
I started walking again. Fast.
“Con!” Jackson was exasperated when he caught up to me. “Where’s the fire?”
“Sorry. I got to get back. I was in the middle of something.”
“I heard,” Jackson chuckled. “But I think it just drove out of here in an Acura.”
I looked over my shoulder and glimpsed the car’s taillights just before it turned a corner. “No kidding. Guess I’ll take a nap then.”
My buddy slapped a hand on my shoulder. “You hungry? I’ll treat you to a pile of deep fried grease.”
We walked three blocks to a small diner around the corner from the ballpark. On game days the place was always packed but this morning there were only three other customers.
I ordered a cheese omelet with hash browns at the counter and almost had to brawl with Jackson over the bill.
I just didn’t like anyone laying down cash on my behalf, even if it came from one of my best friends.
“You realize I let you win,” I grumbled after he’d placed his own order and joined me at the table.
“Of course I do,” he said with a smirk.
These days I was more ripped than he was but he’d spent some time on the amateur boxing circuit when he was in high school so any fight between us would have been a tough call. We went way back, Jackson and me. He was one of the few friends I made my senior year of high school when I was living at Deck’s house. At the time I was just trying to figure out how to get from one day to the next.
Jackson was no angel and he’d be the first to admit it. He’d done time, almost a year down at the Emblem facility for assault and battery. However, the guy he’d run through the windshield of an Escalade had just slapped a woman so hard her nose broke. So even though the law said one thing, the code of the streets said something different. That was the code we lived by and it said Jackson was the kind of friend you wanted in your corner. That was why I’d felt comfortable asking him for a huge favor just before he got sent away downstate. I’d asked him to keep an eye out for my brother. As far as I knew he and Stone had never actually spoken down there and Stone never found out about Jackson’s guardian duties until they accidentally ran into each other on the outside. I had never wanted Stone to know how much I worried about him, how many nights I spent grieving for my brother and praying he was safe down there in that horrible cage. I had never told him that, not in so many words.
As we waited for our food to arrive Jackson had a lot to say about Emily. That was the thing about him; Jackson fucked around casually now and then like the rest of us but when he liked a girl he really liked her. Still, something he said caused me to raise an eyebrow.
“You talked all night? That Emily girl was climbing all over you like a second skin and you didn’t even fuck her?”
The waitress chose that very second to arrive at the table with our food. Her nametag said ‘Patti’ and she’d evidently heard my last charming comment. She seemed amused. “Can I get you gentlemen anything else?”
“Tabasco sauce,” said Jackson sweetly. He smiled. “Please.”
She reached back and plucked a small red bottle from the neighboring empty table and deposited it between our plates.
“Thanks,” I said, batting my eyes innocently.
She wasn’t young – probably closing in on the big four oh – but she had a smile that did her credit. She flashed it now.
“Just take it easy on that Tabasco sauce, boys. Heartburn’s a bitch.”
Then she winked and sauntered away, leaving that little bit of life advice hanging around in the air.
Jackson chuckled. “I’m leaving her a big tip.”
“I’ll double it. But I bet she hears worse than us twenty times a day.”
“Worse than you. I’m a fucking prince.”
“Emily seems to think so.”
“I hope she does.” He cocked his head. “Are you gonna give out details on your overnight guest?”
I dumped a puddle of Tabasco sauce over my omelet. Heartburn be damned. “You want me to draw you a diagram?”
“If it’ll help you articulate better.”
I took a huge bite. Two seconds later I realized I might have overdone it with the hot sauce. My eyes watered and I gulped down an entire glass of ice water. Jackson neatly cut up his breakfast burrito and started consuming it in an orderly fashion while I choked.
“There’s no story to tell,” I finally croaked out.
I coughed twice more, my throat still afire. Our faithful waitress silently appeared to refill my water glass and I gave her a nod of thanks.
Jackson was looking at me skeptically. “No story, huh?”
“Not unless you really need a down and dirty description of organs and orifices.”
“I don’t.”
“Then I’ve got nothing to add. We had some fun and maybe I’ll call her some time.”
He slowly grinned. “You like her.”
“Sure, she’s got tits and a face. What’s not to like?”
My friend put his fork down, studied the table for a moment, then looked me right in the eye. “I’ve watched you, Conway. I’ve known you since the year you bottomed out and decided to stay down there in the gutter.”
“Likewise, my friend.”
Jackson nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “But I’m going to make this observation anyway. I’ve seen you with every flavor of girl that God ever made and you could take or leave any one of them as easily as the one before.”
“So?”
“So I can tell right off the bat that ain’t the case with this girl, this Roslyn.”
Damn that Jackson but he could be practically psychic sometimes. I snorted and concentrated on twisting some pepper out of the grinder.
“Maybe,” I finally said.
He nodded, a little arrogantly. “What’s she got on you? And don’t tell me it’s nothing because lies hurt my feelings.”
I scraped the sauce away from the omelet with my fork. “Quit the drama. I kind of knew her a long time ago, that’s all.”
“A long time ago?”
I sighed. “A really fucking long time ago.”
Jackson was prepared to wait until I told him everything. So I sort of did. At least I told him the short version. He’d heard about Erin before. Of all the boys, Jackson already had the most details because he’d known me the longest, but he always kept his information to himself. There’d never been a reason to mention Roslyn though. She hadn’t exactly been on my mind until I saw her waltz into a crowded room one Saturday night. And then I’d tried to forget about her until she strolled into the bar yesterday and managed to unlock a door that I thought had been sealed forever.
He listened quietly, just as real friends do. When I was done the only question he asked was a question I was still asking myself.
“Are you really going to call her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I want to.”
But that didn’t mean I would. Roslyn was a goody two shoes civilian with a regular job. She probably sipped her morning latte while listening to NPR on her car radio as she drove to work in gridlock and lived in one of those neatly gentrified downtown neighborhoods where everyone keeps clay flowerpots on their balconies. What the hell did I have in common with a girl like that? I hadn’t gotten around to explaining to her the kind of life I led and she wouldn’t understand it anyway.
Jackson made good on his promise to leave Patti the waitress a healthy tip and I ended up tripling it, which made me feel a little bit noble. I’d been watching her bustle around, constantly on the move doing everything for everyone else. When a small boy spilled his milk and his father barked out a scolding, she patted the kid’s head, cleaned it all up and brought him a cookie without even looking at the irate parent. I hoped the tip would send that brilliant smile back to her face. Women like her deserved to smile.
When we were almost at San Gabriel’s door when Jackson remembered he’d promised to be somewhere. It seemed he’d been training again at some seedy third rate gym, hoping to get back into fighting. I knew he didn’t like fighting so I’d asked him what the hell he was backsliding for but he just shot me a rueful grin and said it was tough finding work as an ex-con. Jackson didn’t like to talk about it but I knew his dream was to live the straight life, probably with a nice girl like Emily at his side. I made a mental note to ask Stone if there was anything he could do. Stone knew first hand how hard it was to rebuild your life once you had a record and I’d explain to him that Jackson’s tough guy act from back in the prison yard days was just that, an act.
The San Gabriel used to have these fancy revolving glass doors but half the panels were cracked or missing at this point. A few of those handbag-clutching historic preservationist ladies from the posh Biltmore crowd came around every once in a while. They always took pictures and tried to find someone to talk to ab
out ‘restoring the dignity of this once great landmark’ but nobody was interested. If they hung around for more than a few minutes they’d get spooked when the tweakers tried to paw their hair and if someone really scary looking like Kilt came walking in their direction they’d run off like fire was chasing.
As I rolled through the broken door I tried to squint at the lobby and imagine the place as it would have looked in all its Prohibition era glory. I used to love thinking about stuff like that but it had been a while since I’d had much interest in history. Who had time for the past when the present was so exhausting?
Whatever kind of glitzy heyday the hotel had enjoyed was long gone by now anyway. The chandelier had been stripped of its crystals and the brass elevators looked dingy. It was likely no one had given the lobby floor a good scrubbing since the last presidential administration. For a moment that made me sad on behalf of the old place.
Sometimes the local homeless folks would wander in here and try to crouch in a corner for a while, especially when the temps climbed higher. I saw one of them here now, even though the weather was cool and overcast. I recognized him, a grizzled old guy who usually hung out by the ballpark, always wore a green army jacket and would tell you he fought in Vietnam if you asked him a question about anything at all. He was missing his left hand and everyone called him ‘Fingers’.
Fingers watched me with wary, rheumy eyes as he gathered up his garbage bags full of everything he owned. A lot of the residents here were paranoid or panicky or just plain mean and they’d order him out if they saw him. I’d never do that. I opened my wallet, pulled out two twenties and handed them over. It didn’t make me feel as good as leaving the tip for Patti because I knew he’d probably just spend it on a few bottles but when he croaked out a hoarse, “Thanks, brother,” I was glad I’d done it anyway.
Things were loud when I got up to the sixth floor. A couple of tweakers were there and Kilt was yelling at them. He was usually a pretty laid back guy but the tweakers bugged him to no end. He’d lost people to addiction.
“For the last fucking time stay the fuck off my floor with your creepy fucking games.”
