“You cry as much as you need to. I won’t tell.”
“You haven’t cried that much.”
He looked away, nostrils flaring. “Yeah, I have.”
She laid her head down again, tightening her arms around his waist just in case he was thinking about leaving. It turned out that the same chest that was so sexy also made a very fine refuge. Which was great, because she needed one.
So she snuggled closer.
With the strong and reassuring thump of his heart under her ear, Angela wept silently, making a wet patch on his sweatshirt.
Once or twice she thought she felt some of his tears fall into her hair.
Several hours later, Angela jerked awake.
Flinging back the covers, she sat straight up and threw her legs over the edge of the bed before she had any idea what had woken her. Disoriented, she looked around her silent, dark bedroom, wondering where she thought she was going. The only light came from the glowing blue numbers on the clock radio on the nightstand: four twenty. After Justus left at about eleven, she’d gone to bed, tossing and turning for hours before she fell asleep sometime after three.
She listened hard, but...nothing.
And that was probably the end of her sleep for the night.
Sighing, she stood and turned toward the bathroom.
A tortured wail, muffled only slightly by the wall, pierced the quiet.
Maya!
Angela sprinted down the hall, threw open Maya’s door, and checked on the threshold.
Maya lay on her back, eyes closed, with her blankets rumpled around her bare legs and feet.
Angela stood there, frozen with indecision.
Was it normal for a little kid to cry out in her sleep? Was this a nightmare? Should Angela wake her up, or was that a bad idea?
“Maya?” she whispered.
Nothing.
Frowning, Angela turned to go.
That was when Maya shrieked.
“Oh my God!” Angela spun around, hurried to the bed, and shook Maya gently. “Maya. Wake up, sweetie.”
Maya opened her eyes and her little face twisted. “Mommy,” she whimpered. “I want Mommy.”
Angela sat on the side of the bed and gathered Maya into her arms, squeezing her tight. Her braided hair, mussed by the pillow, smelled sweetly of coconut hair oil, and her Barbie nightgown smelled like the fresh dryer sheets Angela used earlier.
“I know, sweetie.” Angela kissed the top of her head. “Did you have a bad dream?”
Maya tried to twist away, catching Angela off guard.
“Maya?”
“I want Mommy,” the girl howled, sobs racking her body. “Mommy! Mooommmy! Mooommmy!”
All Angela could do was hang on to her, as useless as a lawn mower on top of Mt. Everest.
And as Maya cried...and cried...and cried...an instinct—something dark, primal, and overwhelming—roared to life in Angela’s gut:
She must protect this child.
Protect her.
No matter what.
“Shhh,” she said, rocking her. “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay.”
After a while Maya quieted and her sobs tapered off to shuddering whimpers. “I want to go ho-ome.”
Angela took a deep breath and wondered, again, what to do. She’d never intended to spring the news on Maya like this, in the middle of the night, but the time had obviously come. The child needed to know that she was safe. That she was loved.
“You are home, sweetie,” Angela said gently. “You’re going to live with me now.”
Maya pulled away to look up at her. “I am?”
“Yes.”
A wave of calm as soothing as bath water washed over Angela in that moment.
Carolyn wanted this. Angela felt it as surely as she felt Maya’s soft and springy hair under her fingers.
Carolyn wanted this.
Angela wiped the girl’s wet cheeks with the edge of the sheet.
“You and I are going to be a family now. You’re going to live with me and this will be your bedroom.”
Silence. Maya looked dubiously at the desk and treadmill.
“I know it’s not as nice as your bedroom at your old house,” Angela said quickly. “But over the weekend we can move some of my things out. And we can paint the room a new color, maybe pink—”
“I hate pink.”
“Oh, okay—maybe purple, then, and we can get you some new sheets—”
“Jenny has Dora the Explorer sheets.”
Angela had no idea who Jenny was, or Dora the Explorer, for that matter, and she didn’t really care right now.
But she could pretend.
“Cool! We can go to the mall and get you some Dora sheets and—”
“Dora’s for babies,” Maya said flatly, her lids beginning to droop.
Angela laughed. “Okay. Time for you to go back to sleep.”
Maya lay back, found her floppy dog, and sighed deeply as Angela covered them both with the linens.
“So do you think that would be okay, Maya?” Angela asked. “You living here with me?”
Maya nodded, her huge eyes unblinking. “Yeah.”
Angela laughed again, leaning over her. “Can I have an extra goodnight kiss? I need it.”
Maya puckered her lips and planted a sloppy wet kiss on Angela’s cheek.
Angela pressed it in.
Maya grinned sleepily.
Angela gave her a last squeeze, stood up, and went to the door. “Good night, sweetie.”
She turned to go, yawning.
“Aunt Ang-la?”
Angela turned back. “Yes, Maya?”
Maya hesitated. “Can you sleep with me?”
The sight of Maya, a tiny figure alone in an adult’s room without so much as a Dr. Seuss poster on the wall, wrung Angela’s heart. Even so, she was no dummy. She knew very well that sleeping with a child—even once—was a recipe for disaster. She’d heard horror stories of friends who’d foolishly let their child sleep in their bed, only to have the child remain there—hogging the blankets, flailing, snoring, and putting the kibosh on sex between his or her parents—until the age of seven or eight. Sharing a bed with a child was always—always—a mistake, and Angela had never knowingly made a mistake in her life.
She opened her mouth to say a firm no.
“Sure, sweetie,” came out instead.
Angela stepped back to the bed and climbed in beside Maya, who obligingly slid over for her. Angela stretched out, pulled the cozy covers up over both of them, and wrapped her arm around Maya’s round little belly. Maya scooted back until they lay spooned together, her warm body cranking out BTUs faster than an industrial furnace, and immediately fell asleep.
Angela listened to her even breathing until the sun came up, feeling connected to her niece for the first time since...
Ever.
“I think the funeral went pretty well, man, don’t you?”
Justus put his empty plate down and turned away from the luncheon buffet table to face Brian. Casa Vincent overflowed with people spilling from the dining room into the adjoining living room, library, and solarium. Several posters of V.J. and Carolyn in happier times—on the beach; at V.J.’s hooding ceremony when he graduated from law school; endless wedding pictures—stood on easels throughout the first floor.
Even now, Justus couldn’t make himself believe his brother was gone forever.
“Justus?”
“Yeah. I guess so,” Justus said, shrugging.
They moved to the French double doors leading to the walled courtyard and watched the crowd in silence for a moment.
Harsh sigh from Brian. “I still can’t believe he’s gone. Remember that time he kicked my ass when I knocked over those model cars in his room? I didn’t think I was going to come out of that alive.”
They both laughed. Justus hadn’t thought about that incident in years.
But then Brian’s chin trembled and he dropped his head.
“I still owe h
im thirty dollars he loaned me when I was fifteen,” he said, his voice cracking.
“Yeah. Veej always talked about how he could have retired early and moved to the Riviera but for that thirty bucks you shorted him,” Justus said.
“Fuck you, man,” Brian said, laughing again.
“I keep thinking he’s going to come in and ask what the hell’s going on.”
“Yeah.” Brian hesitated. “How’s your dad holding up?”
They both looked to Vincent, who was about ten feet away, talking to some woman Justus didn’t know.
“He doesn’t look so good to me,” Brian added.
It was true. Deep hollows had sprung up around Vincent’s eyes, and his cheeks had a thin, gaunt look Justus didn’t remember from the other day.
“He always holds up,” Justus told Brian, watching his father disappear back into the crowd. “But I don’t think his heart’s too good.”
Brian scowled. “You don’t think? Why don’t you ask and find out? He’s your father, man. About the only family you’ve got left.”
Justus bristled. “Yeah, and he’s not Ward Cleaver like your father, so drop it.”
Brian muttered something indistinct but clearly derogatory.
Justus ignored him and scanned the room for Angela instead...
There she was. Over on one of the sofas with some woman from her office. She had her hair in that sleek ponytail he hated, her widow’s peak emphasizing her heart-shaped face and the dark circles under her eyes, but the sight of her was like an infusion of light into his veins, especially in this sea of black.
He hoped she was making good on her promise to stop crying, because he didn’t think he could take the pain of seeing any more of her tears fall. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen her cry today, even during the service when the choir sang “How Great Thou Art,” so that was progress.
Brian followed the path of his gaze. “She taking good care of Maya?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re going to take Maya, aren’t you?” Brian continued. “She belongs with you.”
“Yeah.”
It’d taken Justus two seconds to decide he wanted Maya, even though he was a twenty-seven-year-old single man. He’d concluded that his demographics were irrelevant. He loved that little girl and had spent more time with her than anyone else, other than her parents. Ever since she could toddle, he’d taken her one weekend day every week. They’d gone to every park and mall in the city, and to the zoo and children’s museum more times than he could count. He’d given Maya her first basketball and her first tricycle. He’d taken her to her first movie, some Disney cartoon they’d had to leave after about five minutes because she’d been freaked out by the overwhelming sound.
Maya had a lot more firsts coming—first soccer game, first date, first day of college—and Justus planned to be there for all of them.
“You told anyone yet?” Brian asked.
“No.”
“Does Angela want her?”
“I doubt it,” Justus said.
Angela had had very little to do with Maya up until now. He couldn’t think of one time in three and a half years that he’d heard of Angela taking Maya for an afternoon, or a play date, or even popping by to visit her.
“She might make a few noises in that direction just to make it look good,” he said, “but I don’t think she really wants her.”
Brian hit him with a narrowed, speculative gaze. “What’s up with you two, anyway? And don’t say nothing, because I’ve seen you checking her out.”
Justus thought about denying it, but what was the point?
“I want her,” he said.
Brian snorted. “You want everybody.”
“Not like this.”
Brian stared at Angela for a long and thoughtful moment.
“Women like that tend to go for professional types,” Brian warned.
“I—we—are professionals. We own our own gym.”
“Yeah, but you’re not a doctor or lawyer, bruh.”
True, that, Justus privately conceded.
Goddammit.
Besides the age issue—Angela was still seven years older than he was, even though he was an adult now—there was the very real possibility that she’d never give him the time of day because he didn’t have a white collar.
“Your whole ‘supportive best friend’ routine needs some work,” Justus muttered.
Brian grinned. “My job’s to tell you the uncomfortable truth, so here it is: I’d bet my last dollar Angela wants Maya too. And if you try to take her little niece away, Angela’s not going to have an-y-thing to do with you.”
Justus looked back at Angela and remembered his oldest and most powerful desire: to fuck her. Repeatedly and well.
Nothing about that had changed.
Actually...that was a lie.
He wanted her now more than ever.
“We’ll see about that,” he told Brian.
“This is probably the last thing on your mind right now, but the partners are meeting today,” Carmen told Angela.
Angela settled more deeply into the sofa and shifted her gaze away from Justus, where it seemed determined to wander every chance it got.
They’d developed a strange but comforting system where they glanced across rooms at each other, just to connect and make sure the other person was okay. Today, though, if she were honest with herself—a practice she avoided whenever possible—she’d admit she kept staring at him because he looked amazing in his pinstriped suit with white shirt and red tie. Every time she saw him, in fact, she felt a jolt of appreciative surprise:
Look at those shoulders!
Was there an ounce of fat anywhere on him?
The truth was, seeing him today reminded her way too much of how he’d looked the night of Carolyn and V.J.’s wedding.
“The partners?” she asked, doing her best to refocus on Carmen. “What are they meeting for?”
“I assume it’s about us,” Carmen said. “They’re probably going to start our evaluations and look at our hours for the year.”
“Great,” Angela said. “My hours are going to suck, what with planning the funeral and taking Maya and everything. And after all this, I couldn’t care less about making partner.”
Carmen raised an eyebrow. “Get real, Angela. You’re the most ambitious person I know. You care, trust me.”
Angela waved a hand. “Did you get those guardianship papers drawn up for me yet?”
“Yeah. They’re ready to file whenever you want.”
“Good.” Angela scanned the room and found Vincent, ever the charming host, even at his own son’s funeral, pouring coffee into some woman’s raised cup. “I’ll mention it to Vincent first, but I don’t think he’ll object. He’s too old and sick to take her.”
“Fine. Is Maya in school today?”
“Yeah,” Angela said. “I didn’t think it was a good idea to have her here and—oh, shit.”
Ronnie, wearing the requisite dark suit and tie, stepped into the room and scanned the crowd.
Angela gasped. “What’s he doing here?”
“Well, obviously he’s come to pay his respects,” Carmen said. “If you’d followed my advice at church and just spoken to him instead of ignoring him like a two-year-old, he wouldn’t have had to follow you here.”
“Respects?” Angela tried to shrink lower against the cushions. “Why do I want respects from the man who just dumped me for some other woman?”
“Shhh!” Carmen cried, grabbing her arm. “Here he comes.”
Sure enough, Ronnie had spotted them and his thin lips widened into a strained smile as he approached.
“Hello, Carmen,” he said, stopping in front of them.
“Ron,” Carmen said coolly.
His gaze shifted to Angela. “Hey,” he said softly. “Do you have a few minutes?”
9
Angela led Ronnie to a relatively quiet spot near a twelve-foot ficus tree in the solarium.
> She turned to face him, semi-regretting her earlier rudeness. He wasn’t a monster, after all, even if he was a lying, cheating dog, and he would want to give his condolences.
“You really didn’t have to come, but thanks,” she said.
Ronnie gaped. “You know how much I care about you. Why wouldn’t I come?”
Whatever momentary goodwill she’d felt toward Ronnie imploded like a skyscraper upon demolition, leaving only a hazy red anger that clouded her vision. “What would make me think? Hmmm, let me see. Maybe it was when you dumped me at a restaurant the other night. Or—”
Ronnie dropped his head and rubbed the back of his neck.
“—maybe it was when you lied right to my face and told me there was no one else.”
Ronnie stiffened like a bunny that’d wandered onto the tracks ahead of a speeding train.
Bingo.
Angela made a show of nodding thoughtfully, tapping her index finger to her lips.
“No, wait. I’m pretty sure it was when I saw you grinding up against that woman in the hospital parking lot the night my sister died. Yeah. That was probably it.”
Her voice rose at the end. She realized, too late, that several people were staring at her for disturbing the quiet.
Worse, Justus strode over and leaned against the doorframe ten feet away, the better to openly monitor the situation.
Pointedly turning her back on him, Angela focused on Ronnie. “Would you just leave? Please? Today is hard enough already.”
Ronnie had the decency to look stricken. “I—I’m sorry, Angela,” he said. “I didn’t mean for you to find out about Brianna and me like that—”
“Brianna,” she echoed faintly, feeling sick.
So it was already Brianna and me, was it? Last week it would have been Angela and me, but look how quickly and efficiently she’d been replaced.
Wow.
If anyone had ever asked her, she would have sworn both that Ronnie would never dump her, and that if he did, he would at least wait until her side of his bed was cold before he replaced her.
You’re 0-2, aren’t you, girl?
So here was proof that he’d probably been sleeping with his little Brianna for a while. Didn’t take long. The only small solace Angela had was that she’d always insisted that Ronnie use condoms with her. Now she wouldn’t have to worry about getting tested for STDs on top of everything else.
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