by Ava Bloom
“I’m a nice person,” she said quietly, crossing her arms over her chest.
“That’s probably why I couldn’t do it,” I said.
I looked over at Josephine as we walked. Her brown hair had mostly fallen out of her ponytail and was hanging in loose strands around her face. A chunk of glass was nestled into the hair behind her ear, and I reached over and pulled it out. She flinched when I touched her, but settled when I held the glass up and then dropped it on the ground.
When we reached the car, I unlocked the doors and then hesitated.
“You don’t have to come with me, but I can’t guarantee your survival if you don’t,” I said. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re being abducted or anything. You have a choice. But staying with me is probably your only good one.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Austin. I have to check on my mom. And she lives out in the country, so it will be a good place to hunker down while we figure out what to do.” It had been over a year since I’d been to Austin for a visit, and even under the circumstances, I found myself anxious to be home again.
Josephine squinted back in the direction we’d just come from, as if she were looking to see whether anyone was running down the black after us. Then, she shrugged and shook her head. “I suppose Austin is as good as anywhere else.”
The enclosed space of the car felt intimate now that we weren’t talking to one another. I could tell Josephine wanted to be alone with her thoughts, and I didn’t have a lot to say anything. I’d told her everything she needed to know about me. If she decided I was too far gone to be with, then I would have to live with that. The decision belonged to Josephine now.
I kept an eye on the rearview mirror as we neared the edge of town, but no one seemed to be following us. Surely, Marvin knew his hitman had failed by this point, so the only questions were when and where he would strike. Though he was mainly based in Houston, he had circles of influence in every major city in the United States. There would be no escaping him. I hadn’t explained all of this to Josephine yet because I didn’t want to scare her, but the only way to escape Marvin’s reach would be to get out of the country. But for the time being, Austin would be a fine start.
“Lance.”
It had been so long since Josephine had said anything that I almost thought I was hearing things. However, I looked over at her, and she was looking up at me, her brown eyes wide and clear.
“Yeah?” My lungs felt heavy and wooden in my chest. I wasn’t sure they’d ever expand again.
“I’m still really mad about you lying to me and about…everything. But I just want to say thank you for not killing me and for saving my life back there.”
“Of course,” I said. My fingers were gripping the steering wheel so hard they had gone white. “You don’t need to thank me for that.”
She nodded and then looked out the window. We spent the next four hours like that.
13
Josephine
Even after four hours in the car to mull it over, I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of Lance being a hitman. It didn’t make any sense. He was funny and nice and thoughtful. He’d saved me from the man who’d attacked me in that alley. At the time, I’d considered him my guardian angel, so it was a little hard to realize that the only reason he was there to save me was because he was tracking me so he could kill me. Trying to keep it all straight made my head hurt.
On the one hand, I could understand his motivations. He was trying to protect his mom and his family. Marvin Petrov hadn’t really given him a choice. However, he had also killed people. I was afraid to ask how many. I was pretty sure I didn’t really want to know.
My butt was beginning to go numb from sitting for so long when he pulled off an exit and took an immediate right down a long dirt road. As we drove further and further away from the interstate and any sign of civilization, panic rose up in my chest. Was he bringing me out here to kill me? Had this whole day been an elaborate setup to get me out of Houston so he could dump my body? If so, it seemed a little elaborate.
Finally, just as I was beginning to wonder whether I should roll out of the moving car and make a run for it, a yellow house appeared from behind a hill ahead of us. The surrounding area was dark, but the property was lit with three bright street lights. It was a small house with white railing and scalloped detailing over the windows. A tire swing that looked like it was one stiff wind away from crashing to the ground hung from a massive Oak tree in the front yard, and flowers filled a garden that ran in front of the house and wrapped around the sides. It looked like a postcard.
“It’s so cute,” I said, surprised.
“What were you expecting?” he asked.
I shrugged and decided to be honest. “A house where a hitman grew up.”
Before he’d even shifted the car into park, a thin, petite woman in white jeans and a denim shirt came out and stood on the porch, one hand raised to her brow to block the car’s headlights.
“Well, that can’t be my son,” she shouted across the grass as we opened our doors. “He wouldn’t ignore my calls for a month and then show up unannounced in the middle of the night. My son respects his momma too much to do something like that.”
“I tried to call you,” Lance said. “And it’s ten, not the middle of the night.”
Despite the events of the day, a smile was stretched across his face. My heart clenched at the sight.
“I was in the shop,” she said. Then, she turned to me. “And surely, my one and only boy wouldn’t show up with the girlfriend he never once told me about?”
“She’s just a friend, momma. This is Josephine.”
I held up a hand in a wave. “Hi.”
“We’ll have to work on that shyness of yours,” she said to me. Then, she waved her arm in a circle. “I’m Helena. Come on in. I have leftovers in the fridge. I’m sure you’re hungry.”
Honestly, I didn’t feel hungry at all, but that didn’t stop me from shoveling in two helpings of Lance’s mom’s Tex-Mex casserole. I knew if I wanted to feel equipped to handle the emotional weight of our situation, I would need some calories.
Lance made his mom promise not to torture me too much, and then he went to take a shower.
“Do you know why he’s covered in cuts?” she whispered to me as soon as Lance was gone.
I shook my head, not wanting to lie to his mom, but also not wanting to go anywhere near telling her the truth.
“He is always so private about everything. I always said he’d make a good monk,” she said. “Not the religious aspects or the celibacy or anything, but because of the vows of silence. I think he’s been on one of those since he turned thirteen. So, you aren’t his girlfriend?”
Lance and his mom were nothing alike. She bounced from idea to idea like a bouncy ball in a tornado, and he was steady and even. “No, I’m not. We are just friends.”
“But you’ve slept together,” she said.
My head snapped towards her. Had Lance told her about that? Surely not. I began to panic, not sure what to say.
“It was just a hunch,” she said, shrugging. “Call it my superpower.”
I could feel my cheeks flaming. Suffice it to say, I had never had a more uncomfortable conversation with anyone’s mom in my entire life. I could hear the shower running in the bathroom, and I prayed Lance didn’t take very long showers.
“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m just trying to get my expectations in line,” she said, gathering the plates from the table and dropping them into the waiting sink full of soapy water.
“Expectations for what?” I asked.
“For you and my son. You seem like a nice girl, and I think I’d like it if I had a daughter-in-law like you.”
If I’d been taking a drink of anything at that moment, I would have spit it all over the room.
“Lance is a nice boy,” she continued, not at all dissuaded by the look of horror on my face. “He had a lousy fath
er and a halfway decent mother, but he turned into a great man. He cares about people, and a girl can do a lot worse these days than a man like him.”
I wondered if she’d say the same thing if she knew about what he did for a living. Probably not. Though, the why was commendable to some degree. A mother would almost always be able to rationalize their child’s actions.
“He has always been kind to me,” I said, deciding that was enough. I didn’t feel much like talking anyway.
When Lance got out of the shower, he brought me a towel and a stack of clothes I could change into. The bathroom was still steamy from his shower, and it felt more amazing than I could have imagined to rinse off the grime and sweat and exhaustion of the day. I dropped my dirty clothes into a hamper in the bathroom and padded back down the hallway.
“What are you bringing a pretty girl like that around here for if you aren’t dating her?” Helena asked. “You two aren’t in trouble, are you?”
“Don’t worry about us, momma. We’re just fine,” Lance said.
“That isn’t an answer. Do you need any help? Money or anything?”
“No,” he said. “Everything is fine. But can you do me a favor, ma?”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t answer the door to any strangers for the next few days and let me know if you see anyone around the property.” His warning made it clear something was going on, but Helena only groaned a low, soft sound in the back of her throat.
After a long period of silence, she smacked her hand on the table top. “Did you get involved with the people your dad got into trouble with? Did you make some bad bets?”
“Do you think I’d do that to you?” Lance asked, his voice more tense and angry than I’d ever heard it before. “Do you think that after everything he put us through, I’d mess around with gambling and debts?”
“Answer my question,” she said, unaffected by Lance’s attempt at a guilt trip. Helena was a tough woman, I’d give her that.
Lance sighed, already letting go of his anger. “No, ma. I’m not tangled up in any of that.”
“Is the girl pregnant?”
“I’ve only known her a week. If she is pregnant, it isn’t because of me,” he said.
“She likes you,” Helena said, changing the subject. “I see it in her eyes.”
There was a pause and then Lance answered. “I like her, too.”
“I know you do.”
I coughed to announce my presence and then turned the corner into the kitchen, smiling as though I hadn’t been eavesdropping. “I’m exhausted.”
Lance stood up and stretched. “I can show you to the guest room.”
“Oh, have I not told you?” Helena said, a mischievous smile creeping across her face. “There is no guest room anymore.”
“What does that mean?” Lance asked, his eyebrows low and heavy over his eyes.
“It’s my workout room. I bought a treadmill and some weights. I’ve been trying to stay fit,” she said, clearly proud of herself. “I moved the guest bed into your old room, Lance. You two will have to share.”
Share? I looked at Lance for some kind of solution. We couldn’t share a bed. Not after everything that had happened. I needed to be on my own, to process, to think of a way out of this. I couldn’t do any of that if he was a foot away from me all night.
“Okay. Goodnight, momma,” Lance said, running his hand down his face and then grabbing my arm by the elbow, spinning me towards the hallway.
“We can’t sleep in the same room,” I hissed. “We can’t share a bed.”
“We don’t have a lot of other options, Josephine.”
“Tell her you’ll share her bed,” I snapped, yanking my arm out of his grip.
Lance pushed me sideways through an open door, pulled the door shut behind him, and flipped on a light. I was standing in a small room with navy blue walls and orange curtains. Houston Astros posters and hats and memorabilia hung on the walls. On another wall was a large wooden bookshelf full of books and comic books and records. A record player sat on the middle shelf. The bed was full-sized and took up most of the room, but it looked soft and comfortable and exactly what I needed after a very long day.
Lance sighed. “I’m sorry, but she’s doing this on purpose. She wouldn’t let me sleep anywhere but this bed with you even if I wanted to.”
“So, are you saying you don’t want to sleep anywhere else? That you want to be in this bed with me?” I asked accusatorily.
He opened his mouth to say something and then shook his head. “Let’s just get through tonight. Okay?”
My hair was still wet from my shower and I was twisting it up into a knot on top of my head when Lance pulled his shirt off.
“What are you doing?” I asked, looking away, eyes taking in the suddenly interesting design of his carpet.
“Getting ready for bed,” he said.
“By taking your shirt off?”
“I can’t sleep with a shirt on,” he said. “What, are you embarrassed?”
“It’s just uncomfortable,” I snapped. “If we have to share a bed, the least you could do is keep your clothes on.”
I looked up and was annoyed to find him smiling at me, a hand placed on his hip right where a deep ‘v’ cut downwards towards his…
“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, Jo.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t call me ‘Jo.’”
I pulled back the covers and slipped into the bed, staying as close to the edge as possible. Lance followed my lead, though he positioned himself almost directly in the center. I could feel the heat pouring off of his body and every time he breathed in, his elbow brushed against mine. After a few minutes, his breathing became slow and heavy.
“Hey, Lance,” I whispered. “Are you awake?”
He mumbled.
“What’s the plan after tonight? Now that you know she is safe, what are we going to do?” I asked.
He rolled over and flipped on the lamp next to the bed. I squinted until my eyes had time to adjust. Lance’s face looked puffy with sleep, yet he still looked handsome. “Do you want to talk about this now or do you want to wait until the morning?”
“Now,” I said. I’d been laying there for twenty minutes already, and sleep hadn’t shown any signs of making an appearance. I had too much on my mind. I felt bad for waking Lance up, but not bad enough not to do it.
He nodded and sat up, exposing the perfect washboard of his abs, the cut of his chest. “Okay. Well, you can’t go back to Houston.”
My heart clenched. I’d assumed as much, but it still hurt to hear the words out loud. To know that my old life was over.
“Or, at least,” he said, looking up at me from beneath his long lashes and then away again, nervous. “I would advise against it.”
“What would you advise?” I asked.
“To run until we can’t run anymore,” he said.
I didn’t respond. There wasn’t much to say. He was basically telling me that our lives would be living in hiding, always looking over our shoulders, never able to settle down or relax.
He bit his lip and shook his head. “This whole situation is so shitty. I hate that this is happening to you. You don’t deserve any of this. I brought this on myself, but you are a good person. You lived a good life. I’m so sorry, Josephine.”
His eyes were glassy with tears and before I could stop myself, I reached out and placed my hand on his cheek. His skin was cool beneath mine. “You didn’t cause any of this,” I said. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d be dead right now.”
He looked up at me, surprise written in his features. He hadn’t expected me to say any of that.
I continued. “You lied to me and you’ve done horrible things, but it was because you love your mom and you didn’t have another choice. You got tangled up in something bigger than you, and it swallowed you up. But you are out now. And maybe you don’t have much time left. Maybe we’ll both be dead by morning. But I want you to know that I t
hink, despite everything, you are a good person, Lance.”
His hand came up and covered mine where it sat on his cheek. His lips parted, and it was only as he was closing the distance between us that I realized a tear was falling down his cheek.
14
Lance
I never expected Josephine to forgive me, especially not so soon. And even though I knew it was probably a bad idea, I found myself rolling towards where she lay on the bed, my knees pushing her legs apart, settling between her thighs.
She looked up at me, her brown eyes wide, and I could tell she was nervous, but I could also tell she wasn’t going to push me away. So, I leaned down and let my lips brush against hers. Her body arched up slowly to meet mine, rolling beneath me sensually. I found the hem off her t-shirt and slid my hand across her bare stomach. She didn’t have a bra on and my eyes widened as I realized that fact, my hand slipping over her breast, rolling against her nipple until I felt her pebble between my fingers.
She moaned and closed her eyes, but then they shot open a moment later. “How soundproof are these walls?”
I smiled. “Not very.”
“Good to know,” she whispered. She smelled like lavender body wash and soap and I pressed my face into the soft skin of her neck and breathed her in. I’d been afraid I’d never be close to her again, afraid that I would never get to touch her again or feel her beneath me. I’d tried not to dwell on it, but the thought had nearly broken me.
“You’re so beautiful,” I said, wanting her to know everything. I’d lied to her about so many things, and now I didn’t want to hide anything. I wanted her to see how I felt, how much I cared for her.
She pushed on my chest until I rolled over. Then, she kicked her leg over my hips, straddling me.
“I like your tattoos,” she said, looking into my eyes while she planted a kiss in the center of my chest. She ran her tongue along my skin, following the line of the vines that wrapped around my body. I closed my eyes as she explored my body, moving down across my ribs and my stomach. She wrapped her fingers beneath the waistband of my cotton pajama pants, which were doing little to hide my excitement, and pulled them down.
