by N. M. Silber
“No!” She laughed. “Although he did lock me in the boys’ bathroom once. He just used to tease me, along with a bunch of other girls. And then we all got older and they eventually started giggling and flirting when he did it. I, on the other hand, eventually started giving it right back to him. He just doesn’t know what to do with a woman who doesn’t worship the ground he walks on.”
“Well, I could see how that might be disconcerting for him.” Privately I thought that it could also be rather intriguing for him which may have been why it was disconcerting.
“There was one incident that really seemed to escalate things. I accidentally walked in on him making out with, and feeling up, Shari Edelstein at his Bar Mitzvah.”
“Who?”
“Shari was the popular girl who all the guys wanted. When I walked in and caught them together in the stairwell, she slapped him. Apparently, he recovered. It didn’t stop him from being lowered from the ceiling in the Las Vegas style review he put on at the party.”
“Oh my God!” I laughed. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“He sang ‘I Did It My Way.’ Complete with showgirls!”
“You know, I could see Adam doing that.”
I looked around more carefully at the others. Mark, Cam and Jess seemed to be engrossed in some funny conversation while giving Bruno lots of love and tossing his ball to him. Braden was still talking to Adam while occasionally watching me with what looked like a combination of amusement, affection, and lust. Adam, in turn, frequently stole glances at Lily, who was looking very good in her hot pink bikini. Wait – did she say showgirls?
Eventually the rest of them decided to join us in the pool and Drew and Braden set up a net so that we could play water volleyball. Let’s just say none of us is ready for serious water volleyball competition. It quickly became a contact sport, the way we played it.
At one point I smacked into Drew who caught me in his arms and then asked me if it was good for me, earning him a glare from Braden. Jess jumped up to hit the ball and wound up on top of Cameron who was also going for it. It was rather humorous watching them try to extricate their slippery limbs from each other while laughing their asses off. I had a feeling that Cameron would be going for something else very soon. He seemed to be enjoying the extrication process immensely.
Then Lily jumped back quickly and crashed into Adam who instinctively put his arms around her to catch her, and after a tense moment they retreated to opposite sides of the pool like oil and water. Yeah, that one was just a matter of time too. I hoped that they both survived. I had a feeling that it would soon just be Mark and Drew, with some scantily clad club girls, the Phillies, a case of Bud and a box of Trojans.
Later we sat and dried out in lounge chairs, listening to music while Braden and Drew brought out cold beer for everyone. The male majority voted for classic rock and so we were listening to the Rolling Stones. Braden had put out a soft towel especially for Bruno next to his water bowl and he was blissfully napping in the shade. This was good, very good. No crazy shoplifters or elderly potheads or naked drunk drivers, just my good friends, my beautiful Braden and my dog.
“So, Lily, why won’t you tell us your pen name?” Mark asked with a cute smile.
“Because I don’t think you’re true fans of the genre,” she answered.
“Fans of romance novels or fans of real erotica?” Adam asked, giving her an intense look that seemed to hit her like a wave of heat.
“She’s not talking about porn, Adam,” Jess said, rolling her eyes.
“Did I say porn? I was just asking her if she was referring to novels by Nora Roberts or novels by Nabokov.” He took a swig of his beer. He could even manage to look cocky sitting in a lounge chair. He was like the King of Swagger.
“Adam’s a big Nora Roberts fan,” Mark deadpanned which made Braden and Cam laugh out loud. Adam glared at them malevolently.
“She’s obviously embarrassed by her own writing. Must be some great works of literature that she’s produced,” Adam said.
With that Lily turned to him with her eyes blazing. “You think I’m embarrassed just because I have a pen name? Has it ever occurred to you that a single woman living alone who happens to write erotic books may want to protect her privacy? Plenty of novelists much greater than me have had pen names. In fact, V. Sirin was the pen name of ….”
“Vladimir Nabokov,” Adam finished for her. “I’m not illiterate, you know. In fact, I majored in English, for your information.” He was still looking at Lily as he got up and headed for the house. “I’m going to take a nap before dinner,” he added and shot her a backward glance that I could have sworn held an invitation. I saw her let out a deep breath, put her head back and close her eyes.
“Is there something going on between you and Adam?” Drew asked her suggestively.
“Yeah, an epic battle,” she answered. She went in herself a few minutes later, though, and I wondered if she might be taking him up on that invitation.
Eventually the rest of us decided to go in to shower and get out of the sun. When I went up to our room, for a second I thought I heard quiet voices around the corner, but whoever it was stopped talking when I made it to the top of the stairs. Braden had gone to check with Theresa and he let everyone know that dinner would be at six. It was four at that point so we settled in to wash off and change our clothes.
“I’m looking forward to hearing all of the different kinds of music tonight,” I said, laying down on the bed and stretching out to pet Bruno who was lying on his back asking for a belly rub again. So far Bruno was enjoying this weekend immensely.
“Yeah, there are a couple of performers in particular I’d like to check out,” Braden said, joining me. “There’s a violinist I want to see playing later and there’s a blues group playing that you would probably like.”
“Sounds good.” I smiled. Bruno flipped back over and went to nuzzle Braden’s hand. I didn’t blame him. Braden had talented hands. I wondered if that would work for me.
“Then we’ll come home and check out the Jacuzzi when all of them turn in.”
“Mmm.” I sighed. “That sounds very good.” We were lying on our sides with our heads propped on one hand facing each other and he looked deeply into my eyes.
“Don’t worry about anything, Gabrielle. It’ll be okay.”
“I won’t worry if you’ll stop worrying about me so much at work.”
“I’ve been trying to think of a plan for us like you said. The thought of you being locked in a cell with a killer scares the hell out of me. I just wish you didn’t have to do that.”
“But it’s part of my job and not all of my clients are killers or naked drunk drivers, Braden. I help homeless people who get busted for trying to keep warm. I help poor single mothers busted for stealing diapers. That means something to me. I was so lucky to be born into a happy and wealthy family. This way I feel like I’m giving something back in a very real way.”
“I feel the same way when I help an elderly person who got ripped off in some scam or some guy who got beaten up just for trying to walk to work in a bad neighborhood. That’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you so quickly. Because I saw that inside you and I recognized it.”
“So, we both want to make a difference. What else can we do besides what we’re doing?”
“Like I said, I’ve been giving it some thought. We both have money of our own and together we have a lot of money. Maybe we should start our own non-profit and you and I could run it. We could work together. We could help people who really needed us to defend them but we could choose the cases we thought were most important and that we wanted to handle. We wouldn’t represent anyone violent.”
“That’s not a bad idea! You would be willing to do defense work?”
“If it were a just cause – like a case where we thought an innocent person was being prosecuted. Or even if maybe it were just a poor homeless person busted for trying to keep warm – like your friend Stan.”
“Yeah, I recognized him. And I also recognized the waitress at the kabob place too. I’m glad to see she’s got a job now. I hope her baby’s okay.”
“Yeah, he’s doing really well. He’s getting big. And Stan has a regular gig at The Blue Moon too now, you know. He’s a hit,” I said and my voice caught.
“I love you so much, Gabrielle,” he said and his voice was filled with emotion too.
“I love you too, Braden and I think this might be the answer we’ve been looking for.” I yawned. The swimming and the sun and alcohol, not to mention all the sex we had the night before, had tired us out and we fell asleep like that, content in the knowledge that we would figure it out together.
Sometime later there was a knock on the door that woke us up and I heard a familiar voice call out to tell us that it was almost time for dinner. I sat up and jumped out of bed.
“Hi, Beth! I thought you weren’t coming home until Sunday!” I said throwing the door open to Braden’s beautiful blonde younger sister who gave me a big hug.
“I came home early because I want to spend time with you guys and meet your friends.” Braden got up and came over to hug his sister too. The Pierces were huggers. Bruno yipped and jumped down to greet her and she immediately fawned all over him which, of course, made her very popular, very quickly, with Bruno.
“Have you met them yet?” I asked.
“Well, I already knew Mark and Adam,” she said, smiling up at me from where she was crouched lavishing Bruno with affection, “but I’ve met Jess and Lily too now and I love them.”
We caught up with her for a few minutes and then we all went downstairs to join the others for dinner. Theresa had made some terrific paella and we had a lively meal trading stories and filling Beth in on everything that had been happening. She was intrigued to find out that Lily was an author and it turned out that she too was a fan of spicy romance novels. She begged Lily to tell her what her pen name was and when Lily whispered it in her ear, Beth got all excited.
“Oh wow! You’re kidding, right? I can’t believe you’re sitting right here at my parents’ dining room table.” I saw Adam roll his eyes, but mercifully, he didn’t comment. The tension between them seemed to be escalating. No way was that all based on bad bar Mitzvah memories.
“Thank you but I’m no great novelist,” Lily said and glanced over at Adam like she was expecting him to agree. “Although I would love to become a great mystery or thriller writer someday.”
“Well I like the hot romance novels! I’m learning all kinds of new things!” Beth said with a laugh. She blushed a little which made her look even prettier.
“I don’t want to hear this!” Braden cut in, looking distinctly uncomfortable.
“Me neither!” Drew agreed looking equally uncomfortable, which I found kind of ironic considering how comfortable he had been teasing Braden and me about our sex life.
“I do,” Mark said with a flirty smile which earned him deadly looks from both Braden and Drew and a laugh from Adam. Beth glanced up at him and blushed even deeper.
“I have to ask, how do you come up with these ideas? I mean that scene in the last one with the …” Beth went on. Apparently we had all read that scene.
“Not listening!” Braden cut in urgently.
“Yeah, come on, Beth!” Drew said. “It’s one thing to make fun of your brother and his girlfriend for knocking down a wall but hearing your sister talk about sex is just wrong.”
“I was just talking about her books! It’s not like I was going to give you play by play from my last date,” Beth said, rolling her eyes. “I’ll talk to you later,” she said conspiratorially to Lily. So, this is what it was like to have siblings.
After dinner we headed out to the festival, leaving Bruno at home with Theresa to guard the house. We arrived at about seven and I saw that the whole center of town was shut down for the event. After parking we walked around for a while. The summer air was warm and fragrant with the smells of fried foods and lemonade. There were tents and pavilions set up in various locations where musical groups of many varieties performed. We went from location to location listening to musical styles ranging from Australian Aboriginal to Zydeco with performers playing everything in between, including Bavarian guys in lederhosen playing huge horns, a barbershop quartet and a doo-wop group. As I walked along, though, after a while, I got that now familiar feeling. The back of my neck started to prickle and the hair on my arms stood up. It just felt like somebody was watching me and I casually looked behind us several times.
“What’s the matter?” Braden asked after the third time I did it. I guess I wasn’t that casual.
“Nothing. Just looking around,” I answered with a smile, not wanting to worry him. After all, it was probably just my imagination. Like Mark said, the power of suggestion was very strong and now it was almost like I expected to get that feeling.
We went to see the blues act that he had mentioned and they were quite good but still not like my friend Stan, who was the real deal. While we sat watching the group play the feeling of being watched got stronger. I glanced around again and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw Evan, the guy I had met the other night. He was talking to another man whose back was to me, but he seemed to be occasionally glancing over his shoulder in our direction. Still, he wasn’t staring directly at us and it wasn’t odd to see him here since he grew up in this area. I was losing it. I needed to get a grip.
I settled back in to try to enjoy the music but the feeling didn’t go away. I looked off to my left and something else caught my eye, a figure standing off in the distance in a baseball cap whose attention seemed to be focused right on us. I waited a couple of minutes and then checked again. He was still staring in our direction. I wanted to go see who it was who was so interested in what we were doing but I wasn’t about to get up and wander off on my own again.
“Braden,” I whispered in his ear. “Don’t look but there’s someone over to the left in a baseball cap and I think that he’s watching us. I’m not positive but I think it’s the guy I saw before.”
“Are you sure he’s not watching the band?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s us.”
“I’ll ask Adam and Mark to go check it out.” He leaned over to grab Adam’s attention and whispered something to him. Then Adam whispered something to Mark, they got up and walked off to the right. I tried not to look, even though I was very curious. The band finished up the last song a few minutes later and we stood up to get ready to go. There was no sign of Adam and Mark and when I turned toward where the figure had been standing I saw that he was gone too. We decided to walk in that direction to try to find our friends. Not long after, we saw them walking around searching the crowd.
“What’s going on?” Braden asked as we approached them.
“You were right. Somebody was watching you. At least it seemed like it,” Mark answered.
“We didn’t get a good look at his face. He had a hat pulled down pretty low and never looked directly at us,” Adam said. “He was a white guy, though, and he seemed like maybe he was in his twenties or thirties, average height, average weight, average.”
“We came up behind him and asked him what he was looking at and he turned part-way around and mumbled something about ‘the band’ but he was looking at where we were sitting,” Mark added. “He started walking off really fast. We tried to stay with him but we lost him in the crowd.”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it right now,” Braden said. “I’ll tell the police about it on Monday and I’ll pass along what Felicity said, too, for what it’s worth.” I saw him glance at his watch.
“That reggae band is probably still playing,” Adam spoke up. “I think we should go check it out. Wasn’t there a violinist you wanted to see though, Braden?”
“Yeah, there was. Should we meet up at the theater afterward?”
“Sounds good,” Mark said. Brad
en took my hand to lead me off in the other direction.
We walked for about five minutes until we reached a small wooden pavilion off to a side. It was strung with lights that were twinkling in the rapidly darkening night. A lone violinist stood at one end playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata while two couples danced to the sweet romantic music. We stood listening until the song ended and then he squeezed my hand and asked me if I would dance the next one with him. We went up the stairs as the other two couples descended. It was getting late and I knew this would likely be the last song.
Braden took me into his arms gently and smiled down at me as the violinist began to play Clair de Lune and we started to dance. Feeling him lead me around the floor to the strains of the beautiful song while lights twinkled around us and the moon shone overhead seemed like a moment that couldn’t possibly be more romantic. I knew that I would remember this dance for the rest of my life. At that moment no anonymous letter writer, conspiracy nut, kinky politician, or naked drunk driver mattered. It was like Braden and that violinist and I were alone in the universe. As the last few notes faded we slowly stopped dancing. I was about to turn to leave when Braden got down on one knee. Oh my God! I would definitely remember this dance for the rest of my life! I held my breath as I looked down into his eyes.
“Gabrielle, will you marry me?” he asked softly.
“Yes, I will,” I answered with tears in my eyes. And with that he slid the most beautiful diamond ring I had ever seen on to my finger. It was a square-cut center stone on a band embedded with smaller diamonds that sparkled in the moonlight like the city lights that I loved.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AUGUST
IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF PHILADELPHIA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Commonwealth v. Petrillo
“So Ms. Robbins, you’re saying that Mr. Petrillo is your ex-boyfriend?” Adam asked the buxom redhead on the stand. I was kind of surprised. I thought he would be acting like Mr. Suave with this chick but he actually seemed kind of annoyed with her.
