Always in My Heart

by A. C. Arthur

  “No, he shouldn’t have,” Sam said. “He resigned from his job and may still be criminally charged. Coming here wasn’t a good idea at all. But Cole said he was insistent.”

  “He wants me to forgive him,” she said.

  Rico gripped her hand tighter. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Eva. You let him say his piece and that was very kind and brave of you.”

  “I don’t want to forgive him,” she told Rico. “I don’t want to and I don’t have to.”

  Still, Eva had tossed and turned all night hearing Officer Peterson’s words and thinking about what the police said had happened. They could be lying, she wasn’t naïve enough to believe otherwise. But what if they were telling the truth? Would Peterson have come to her house if that wasn’t the way things had happened? She didn’t know and her head had been pounding by the time she’d awakened this morning. Hours later, she was still feeling awful and really was not in the mood to go back and forth with Kenya.

  “To answer your question,” Eva said to Kenya. “I’m not crazy. I’m just tired. I’m hurt and I don’t know what really happened that night. But I’m at least willing to admit that at this point, we don’t know enough to go out on those streets and shout that this was an unjustified shooting.”

  An instant chill came over the room and Eva stood because she knew this was about to get ugly.

  The cigarette still burned between Kenya’s fingers. “Justice needs to be served whether or not it’s a cop or a junkie on the street that did the shooting,” she said. “Cops aren’t above the law and it’s time we stopped acting like they were.”

  “I’m not saying they are,” Eva replied. “But justice goes both ways. What about that guy that was killed in the alley with the gun that Makai was holding? Doesn’t his mother deserve justice for her son’s death? You’re so ready to go out and kill a cop or have him thrown in jail for the rest of his life, what if Makai being killed was justice for that woman’s child?”

  “You’re being ridiculous and irrational. He was your brother. Ever since the first day I met you all you’ve ever talked about was taking care of him and making sure he had a bright future. Now, you’re ready to sell him down the river just because of what some cop tells you. That’s bullshit, Eva and you know it!”

  “It’s not bullshit. It, unfortunately, is our reality. Nobody deserves to die, not by another’s hand. If Makai was involved in something illegal that included murder, then how do I go out there and protest with all those other people that he was unjustly killed? How do I defend the circumstances that led to his murder and stand on moral ground that he should still be alive? If you can do that, Kenya, that’s fine. But I don’t know if I can. And that doesn’t mean I didn’t love my brother. I loved him with everything I am. I gave him every opportunity. He didn’t have to work at that record store and he didn’t have to be carrying that gun.”

  “He should be alive,” Kenya said, shaking her head. Tears streaming down her face.

  Eva shook her head, her shoulders trembling as her own tears had quietly begun to fall again. “I wish he was,” she whispered. “I wish to God he was alive, and that my parents were still alive. There’s a huge hole in my heart and my life now. I don’t know what to do now that none of them are here. But I can’t bring them back and I can’t make excuses for whatever Makai might have been doing. I can’t and I won’t.”

  Chapter 12

  Four Weeks Later

  Rico had been in back-to-back meetings all day. A result of rescheduling everything for the time he’d spent with Eva last month. It was where he wanted to be, where he needed to be. Now, he was paying the price.

  Exhausted did not accurately describe how he was feeling, which was why he’d declined his mother’s offer of meatloaf and mashed potatoes—one of his favorites—for dinner. Instead he’d come straight home after his last meeting had wrapped up at close to eight at night. Sometimes when he came home in the evenings Rico would enjoy a glass of wine while he prepared his dinner. Tonight, it was a cold beer while he stood staring into the refrigerator attempting to find the quickest meal he possibly could. He’d removed his suit jacket and his tie was hanging in some awkward fashion around the collar of his partially unbuttoned shirt.

  The doorbell rang before he was able to find a suitable meal and Rico let the stainless steel door of the refrigerator close with a muted clap. He took another gulp of his beer as he walked through the living room and across the short foyer to answer it.

  “Hello,” she said, a smile spreading slowly across her face.

  Rico’s smile came much quicker and was probably broader as he replied, “Eva, what are you doing here?”

  She was gorgeous in a grid print black and white dress that flirted seductively over her mid-thigh and thick heeled black shoes with straps that winded up and around her ankle. Her natural hair—the hair he loved to see—was twisted in some fashion on one side. The rest was a medium sized afro of full springy curls, a lighter shade of brown than he had seen her with before.

  “I figured it was my turn to find your home address and show up unannounced,” she answered.

  It was good to see her smiling, he thought as he continued to stare at her. Correction, it was good just to see her.

  “Is it okay? I’m not disturbing you am I? Oh, I’m sorry do you already have company?” she asked looking down at the beer bottle in his hand.

  Rico shook his head. “Come on in,” he told her, moving aside so she could do so.

  When she walked past him she smelled like fresh soap and berries. It wasn’t a scent he was used to picking up from women, but when the woman was Eva, it simply worked. He closed the door and turned to see her standing in the foyer, her small yellow purse hanging on one shoulder, dangly banana earrings catching his gaze. She seemed so bright against the sterile background of his stark white walls.

  “I was just…I mean, I came because…wait a minute,” she said holding up a hand and shaking her head. “Let me start again.”

  She shifted her feet and unnecessarily adjusted the purse strap on her shoulder. Clearing her throat she began, “I came back to Hartford yesterday to see the headstone that was just placed on Makai’s grave. I wanted the funeral in New York because that’s where Makai had spent the majority of his life. But he needed to be laid to rest with my parents. They’re all together now.” She took a shaky breath and sighed.

  “I’d planned to drive back to New York today, but then I wanted to thank Karena and her family for all their support, so I ended up here in Greenwich.”

  Rico nodded. “And Sam gave you my address.”

  “Yes, he did. I didn’t ask for it. Even though I have a check for you in my purse. The insurance company finally paid on the policy, so I can reimburse you for the money you put up for me.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” he told her. “I was happy to help.”

  “No,” she said. “That’s what I paid all those premiums for. I want to pay you back, but I’ll admit I was just going to mail the check. That was before Sam pulled me aside today when I was about to leave and told me I should stop by since I was this close. Karena chimed in that it would be rude of me not to at least come over and offer to buy you a drink. But I see you’ve already started on that.”

  She tilted her head toward his hand and Rico looked down at the almost empty bottle. “Why don’t you join me for another?” he asked with a suddenly dry mouth.

  Why did she look so naturally pretty as she stood there not exactly telling him that she wanted to see him, but being only feet from him anyway? He wanted to hug her, to hold her against his chest and feel her warmth spreading throughout him the way he had when he’d stayed with her in New York. Each time he’d seen she was about to break down as she made arrangements for her brother and at night when she cried herself to sleep. He’d enjoyed that feeling, had even been getting used to it. Then, it had been time for him to leave. She didn’t ask him to stay once the funeral was over and aft
er her confrontation with Kenya she’d wanted to be alone. Now, four weeks later, he ached to touch her again.

  She followed him into the kitchen, setting her purse on the black granite counter top as he went to the refrigerator.

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “I’d like the same thing you’re drinking, if you don’t mind. It’s been a pretty rough day, or days,” she told him.

  Her smile was there, but it wavered a bit as her eyes clouded over slightly. Rico took the beer from the refrigerator and opened it for her. He came around to the side of the counter where she stood and handed it to her.

  “I won’t say that it’ll get easier,” Rico told her. “I’ve heard so many people say that during times like this, but I don’t actually know that it does, so I won’t say it.”

  Eva took the beer from him and drank. Her eyes closed as she swallowed and when she finished she set the bottle down on the counter. “I don’t know that it will either,” she said softly. “I hope it does, but,” she paused and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I want to help it become easier,” Rico said without knowing why or how he would do such a thing.

  When she didn’t speak, he set his bottle on the counter too and put his hands on her shoulders. The material of her dress was so cool, but the heat from her body filtered through and he swallowed hard.

  “Every day I want to be there, to hold you when you cry, get you a beer when you’re thirsty, rub your back when you’re tired.”

  The words simply flowed from his mouth. He’d never said them before, not in his mind or in the emails and text messages he’d sent her. This was the first time they’d surfaced and they sounded so natural. They felt so right.

  She looked down briefly, then lifted her gaze back to him. Licking her lips she shook her head and then gave a nervous smile.

  “I’m not the type of woman that dates a man like you,” she said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Rico replied immediately. “I mean, look, I know how things started out with us and I was an ass. I know that now. No, I knew it then but I wasn’t willing to accept that you…you are the exact type of woman a man like me needs.”

  “I was going to say that I’m not the type of woman that dates a man like you but who gives a damn about types,” she told him with a chuckle. “I like what you said better.”

  He smiled. “We’re always hit or miss, aren’t we?”

  “It seems that way.”

  “I don’t want it to be that way anymore,” he said. “I want candlelight dinners in fancy restaurants, quiet evenings at home in front of the fire, calls in the middle of the day just to say, ‘I love you’.”

  Tears filled her eyes but when Rico attempted to hug her she flattened her hands against his chest. She blew out a breath and tried to keep those tears from falling.

  “I never thought about any of that. Not in all my adult years,” she said. “I went from high school student to surrogate mother in a matter of months. But every day I believed that God had a plan for me. I believed that by dancing for money and not having sex for money, I was walking the path that was laid out for me. I did everything I could for Makai, everything but save him when he needed to be saved.”

  She took another breath, this time releasing it slowly, her fingers rubbing softly over his chest.

  “When that nurse told me he’d died, one of my first thoughts was ‘what do I do now?’”

  She touched Rico’s tie, holding it in one hand, rubbing her fingers over the small white polka dots.

  “You live, Eva,” Rico said. “You go on and you live.”

  She nodded. “I know. Just like I did before.”

  She smoothed his tie down and looked up at him, touching her fingers lightly to the line of his jaw.

  “But no, not like before, Rico,” she whispered. “I didn’t know you before. I didn’t know that I could paint a picture and people—art professionals—would like them. I didn’t know that there could be another plan for me.”

  “You are so much more than I ever thought,” Rico said, his heart more full than he’d ever felt before.

  He was in love with her. It seemed so simple to admit that now, but in the weeks since he’d known her, he never entertained the thought.

  “You didn’t think you could be with a woman like me, a stripper,” she told him.

  “I was a fool,” he admitted.

  “No,” she said with a shake of her head. “You were honest. I think you’ve spent all your life being honest and up front with people, so much so, that you do the same with yourself. Only this time, you had to realize the same thing that I did, that there could be another plan.”

  She looked at him tentatively then, as if she knew what she’d said was right, but she was wondering if he were going to be smart enough to agree. Rico had never considered himself unintelligent.

  “Let me make you happy, Eva. Let me make up for the weeks we lost,” he said pulling her closer to him. “Please.”

  She shook her head, but reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. “How about we both try to make each other happy?”

  He smiled. “I think I can handle that.”

  Rico hugged her close and tight, loving the feel of her in his arms once more. He rubbed his hands up and down her back, while hers smoothed over the back of his head. They stood there for what seemed like endless moments, holding each other, silently committing to something neither of them had planned for when they met that first night at The Corporation.

  “Spend the night,” he said on impulse. “I want to hold you all night and wake up with you in the morning.”

  Eva pulled away from him then and Rico was alarmed to see the fresh tears streaming down her face. Using his thumbs he wiped them away.

  “I’ll spend the night,” she said when he had opened his mouth to speak. “But I want you to make love to me until the morning. Can you do that for me, Rico?”

  #

  He could and he did.

  It began right at that moment in his kitchen when he’d kissed her. A long, slow, seductive kiss that had her weak in the knees. She’d kept her arms around his neck, holding on not only for her life, but for his too. They’d both been so lost in who they thought they were, that when the time came they’d been terrified of letting those two people become who they were meant to be. She wanted that now, desperately, hungrily, she wanted to be with Rico.

  When his hands had brushed at the hem of her dress, moving it upward so that he could grip her ass, she’d moaned against him.

  “I want you,” he’d growled against her ear.

  “I want you, too,” she’d replied, stroking her tongue over his lobe.

  “Right here, right now,” he continued and pushed her panties over her hips.

  “Yes,” she whispered, moving her legs so that he could push her panties down and then stepping out of them.

  He lifted her up at that point and Eva wrapped her legs around him. She loved clasping her legs around him, holding him securely to her, knowing that in these moments he could not get away. He set her on the counter and her legs fell away from him. The granite was cool to her bare skin, but when he undid his pants and released his thick erection, she warmed all over. Reaching down she touched him, taking his full length in her hands.

  “I’ve wanted you since that first night. It was the music,” she told him. “I remembered thinking that any man that could sit and listen to classical music and let me dance to that music was going to be pretty fantastic in bed.”

  He chuckled then, dragging his hands up her thighs, his thumbs finding her clit and rubbing slowly over the tightened bud. Eva sucked in a breath as she opened her legs even wider to his assault.

  “I loved watching you dance that night. I’d seen you in the lounge and liked the way you smiled, the way that short dress wrapped around your body,” Rico said.

  He licked his lips after speaking and Eva moaned, wanting that tongue on her
right now. Her hips arched in response to her thoughts and he smiled knowingly.

  “Tell me what you want, baby,” he said. “Tell me exactly what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”

  Eva had worked in the industry where there could be an ‘anything’ goes type of mentality about sex, but she’d never actually experienced it. So talking dirty, or even asking candidly for what she wanted from a lover had never crossed her mind. Today, however, with the heat of his thick length in her hand and his fingers slipping seductively between her wet folds, she felt totally uninhibited. The fact that it was Rico, the guy she hadn’t wanted to want all these weeks, the one that had acted as if he couldn’t offer her anything but sex, but had continuously shown up to support her in her personal life, made it feel natural to tell him what she needed.

  “Your mouth,” she whispered. “I want your mouth on me, Rico. Now!”

  He obliged and her hands slipped from his sex without warning as he bent down and licked the nub his finger had so expertly stroked. She bucked instantly, her head falling back as she flattened her palms on the counter behind her and lifted up to him. He cupped her buttocks, bringing her closer to his mouth like he had a bowl of delicious cream he was about to drink. He was an expert, or his tongue was perfection, she couldn’t figure out which, but when her thighs trembled, her release ripping through her like a hurricane, Eva realized she didn’t care. Whatever he was she wanted all of it.

  Rico pulled away from her quickly, lifting her off the counter and lowering them to the floor. He lifted her legs, dropping her ankles on his shoulders and thrust his complete length into her. Eva screamed. She was full and wet and eager for another release. Rico, apparently was too. His thrusts came fast, his hands flattening on the floor behind her head as he leaned down over her. Harder and faster, deeper and deeper still, he plunged into her and Eva could swear the room was spinning. Or was it her? Had she been whipped into a funnel, twirling around with each stroke he made, riding the exhilarating wave of pleasure? She had no idea and dammit, she didn’t care. It was just so good she did not want him to stop. Ever.