He sat with his head between his knees, trying to catch his breath, trying not to throw up. Carla couldn’t pass through his mind without making him want to gag.
Beside him, the blankets and pillows rustled, and for a second, he thought it was Ian. But then Aidan’s work-rough hand touched his arm, and somehow, that was more comforting: the presence of his best friend rather than his lover. It was more real. More pure.
“Nightmare?” Aidan asked.
The air felt still, without temperature, a vacuum around him. Nothing stirred. There were no sounds save those out on the street. And the thumping of blood in his ears.
“Yeah.”
More stillness. And then…
Aidan shifted closer, and put an arm across his shoulders. A firm, reassuring hold. Brotherly, platonic, sweet. Tango felt his friend’s chin against the top of his head.
“What do you usually do when you have a nightmare?” Aidan asked.
Shaken, enjoying the physical comfort – the first he’d had in the dark of night for a long time – he couldn’t guard against an honest answer. “Usually, I call Whitney.”
“Do you want to call her now?”
Again, the honesty. “Yeah.”
“Hold on.” Aidan withdrew, stood, and fumbled around a bit. “Do you want the lights?”
“Not really.”
Aidan returned, as did his arm, and he put Tango’s cellphone in his hand. “Here. Is she always awake this late?”
“Yeah. It’s when she paints.”
~*~
The house was blessedly quiet in the wee hours. During the week, Whitney arrived home at her dead brother’s house after six every evening, and it was early December, which meant it was full dark by then, the lawn and driveway shifting with dubious shadows. She hustled through the chill night, purse clutched to her chest like a weapon, boot heels rapping the concrete. She had unlocking the door, whirling inside, shutting and relocking it down to a science. Only once the lock was engaged could she breathe properly. Safe. Guarded. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood, but she didn’t much trust crime statistics or orderly landscaping anymore. The world was brimming with danger.
Just like this house – full of landmines and booby traps.
Most evenings, she could hear the kids arguing, crying, or fighting over the TV remote. Their mother, Madelyn, sat off to the side, ignoring the drama, nursing the first of several drinks of the night.
Whitney settled the squabble, greeted her sister-in-law as cheerfully as possible, and set about starting dinner. She was no chef, but was improving. Madelyn would shuffle in, tumbler of vodka in-hand, to tell Whitney that the potatoes were overdone, or that the chicken wasn’t seasoned properly, and then she would take over.
Dinner was always a sullen affair. And then the chaos of bathing and putting the girls to bed. After, Madelyn bearing a fresh drink and swaying side-to-side, they tackled laundry-folding, or furniture-dusting, or mail-sorting, bill-paying. The house, always so spotless and cheerful before, was rapidly becoming a dungeon. And only when she was finally alone, locked away in her bedroom, could Whitney allow herself to feel the weight of depression.
Then she turned to her paints.
Jason had sought relief in heroin.
Madelyn in booze.
But for Whitney it was the glide of rich oil paint across canvas.
She was a perfectionist, and she leaned close to her easel, squinting, face screwed up in concentration. She chose narrow, delicate brushes, feathering in precisely-blended colors. Minutes slipped into hours, the night melting beyond the window. She would be exhausted, face shadowed the next morning, but the peace was worth it.
Tonight she had a photo of a yellow iris clipped to her easel. She had sketched the flower with graphite first, and now filled the petals with a rich canary-colored base coat, broad strokes of the brush. So quiet, the window rimmed with frost, she heard the brush against the paper, the liquid movement of the paint.
Her phone rang.
She almost dropped her brush. She didn’t have to check the caller ID, just fumbled the phone up to her ear. “Kev.”
A ragged breath. A pause. “Hi.”
A dozen questions crowded her mind, so many things she wanted to ask him. More than that, she wanted to be beside him, put her insubstantial arms around his skinny shoulders. But she knew she couldn’t let her worry and stress bleed onto him. He couldn’t be ready for that yet. So she kept her voice calm. “Are you back home?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s good. Are you alone?” she asked, fearing he was.
“No, Aidan’s sleeping over.”
Thank God. “Tell him I said hello.”
“I will.”
“Are you guys having a good night?”
“We watched movies. Mags left us stuff to eat.”
“That sounds nice.” Infinitely nicer than her own night, eating half-burned spaghetti while her nieces looked sadly upon their drunk mother. When he didn’t respond right away, she said, “You had another nightmare.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to tell me what it’s about this time?”
He hesitated. He’d never offered up an explanation, and so she had no idea what plagued him. Not exactly, anyway. She had a feeling broom handles and the mysterious Cuckoo’s Nest played a part.
“Is it that you don’t want me to know?” she pressed, gently. “Or that you don’t like to talk about it?”
“Both.”
She held the phone in one hand, and resumed painting with the other. Even, careful strokes, as soothing to her as being petted. “I think you probably need to talk to someone, though.”
No response.
“If you don’t like Dr. Beverly we could find someone else.”
He hesitated, and then: “We…?”
She thought about the tall, elegant, long-haired man who’d come to Kev’s bedside, his gentle lover’s touch. And then she thought about meeting him formally at breakfast: Ian. Insanely gorgeous, like Kev, but healthy and clean and taking care of himself.
What was she doing? There was no place for her in Kev’s life.
But then she thought about Maggie Teague in the café, just the two of them, Maggie asking her not to give up.
“Yes, ‘we,’” she said, firmly. “All of us who love you. We’re going to help you through this, whatever that means.”
When he spoke, it almost sounded like he was smiling. Or at least trying to. “You’re bossy.”
She smiled back, wishing she could see him, that he could see the encouragement shining in her eyes. “Not usually. My coworkers would never believe you. You must just bring out the boss in me.”
His chuckle was pitiful, but it was there, and that was a start. The tension she’d felt at first – the vise-like grip of the nightmare – eased, melted slowly away, as she kept smoothing paint across the paper.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked, and felt like it was safe to do so.
“Oh, uh….”
She heard Aidan’s voice, distant, but shouting toward the phone. He must have been listening. “He’s doing whatever he wants to,” he said, voice almost excited, egging her on. Oh, thank you, Aidan. “You wanna come over?”
“Why don’t I come make lunch?”
“Perfect,” Aidan said. “All I can make is Eggo’s.”
“Twelve-thirty?” Her heart was pumping with anticipation, smile splitting her tired face.
“Awesome.”
“Kev?” she asked, to make sure.
He said, “Yeah, that sounds good.”
~*~
Silence. Among so many other things, money could also buy silence. A wall clock that never ticked. A Rolex that never made a sound. Top of the line refrigerator that kept quietly to itself. No sounds intruded upon his conscience save that of the scratch of the pencil against the paper.
A thick, dark graphite, fresh white paper, and the marks he made that were like wounds inflicted upon the sketc
hpad. It had been so long, Ian wondered if he could pick it up again, resume with the same old flair.
He could.
A face stared up at him, rendered from memory. A female face, wide blue eyes, a small mouth, the portrait of innocence. Not club-related, not part of Kev’s adopted family. But someone important. The girl from the basement.
He hated her.
Six
“Hey, you wanna grab gyros?”
Whitney pressed the power button on her computer and stood, stretching the kinks from her lower back.
Her coworker, Mark, stood with his arms folded over the top of her cubicle, shirt rumpled, tie askew as usual, bright orange-red hair standing up like he’d raked his fingers through it. His expression belied the casual tone of his question: he really wanted gyros.
“I can’t today,” she said, reaching for her jacket and purse. “I promised a friend I’d make him lunch.”
His brows quirked above the rims of his glasses. “A friend, huh?”
“Yes, just a friend.” But her stomach fluttered.
“Uh-huh.”
“How’s April?” she asked, and he flushed with adorable happiness, cheeks going redder than his hair.
“She’s good. I’m introducing her to my parents this weekend.”
“That’s awesome, Mark.” She smiled and he blushed some more. “They’ll love her, I’m sure.”
“I hope so,” he said as she joined him and they started toward the elevator. “She’s really nervous.”
“I guess I would be too. But your parents are really sweet.” Both of them had come to the company picnic back in the summer, both of them doughy, kind, and redheaded, like their son. They’d looked like a family of sunburned leprechauns, standing off to the side of the impromptu softball game.
“I told her she could borrow a Xanax from me,” Mark said.
Anti-anxiety meds: good idea for Kev? Probably not, given his drug history. She swept it from her mind.
“Hopefully she won’t need it,” she said, and hoped she didn’t sound too distracted.
Mark, always good company, rode down with her in the elevator, and walked her across the parking lot. They wished each other happy lunches, parted ways, and went to their respectfully crappy cars.
She would have to hurry, she saw, as she checked the dash clock. Her manager wouldn’t mind if she was a few minutes late getting back, but she didn’t want to waste any time.
Southern Decembers were fickle. They could be mild, sunny, and reminiscent of spring. Or they could be wicked, overcast, and biting. This was shaping up to be a wicked month, and she drove in cotton gloves, shivering as she waited for the car’s heater to take the chill from the air. Early Christmas garlands flapped like flags along eaves. Tattered leaves cartwheeled across the street.
She stopped in briefly at Leroy’s to grab supplies, reveling a little in her new ability to buy alcohol, then made the short trip to the address Kev had given her.
The apartment was above the bakery, and she parked in the alley as instructed. She braced herself, climbed from the car, pushed the errant windblown hair from her eyes…
And there was Kev. Right in front of her. Come all the way down the iron staircase to meet her.
Her heart actually skipped a beat. Before she could greet him, analyze her appearance, or guard her chemical reaction, her pulse leapt. That was probably all she really needed to know about her relationship with him.
“Hi,” she said, too bright, too hopeful.
It looked like it took effort, but he smiled. “Hi.”
He was still painfully thin, and his hair needed cutting. But it was clean, and slicked back from his narrow, finely-carved face, his eyes standing out like bright clear jewels. He was in jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. He smelled – as the wind shifted and brought his scent to her – faintly of soap.
“I brought some groceries,” she said, lamely.
He reached for the back door of the car. “I’ll get ‘em.”
“Oh, you don’t have to.” She leaned toward him, half-afraid his matchstick arms might collapse under the weight of their lunch.
But he managed, hefting both brown paper bags. “I got it.”
“You sure?”
He sent her a fleeting smile. “I might be all fucked up, but I can manage carrying things.” He obviously meant it as a joke, so she didn’t counter him, only followed. Up the tall narrow iron steps, through the door, into his apartment. He circled behind her to hip-check the door shut, and the raucous breeze was mercifully cut off.
She loved the place immediately.
From the door, she could see the living room, kitchen, and two doors – presumably a bedroom and bathroom. The appliances were dated, the furniture bachelor pad-standard. But she saw the cleanliness, the shining white baseboards and crown molding, the natural light, the scraped pine floors, the bookshelves under the window.
She also saw Aidan, getting up from a leather recliner. “Hey.” His expression said a wealth of thanks. A silent acknowledgement of their shared goal: saving Kev.
“Hey,” she greeted. “Are you hungry? I thought I’d make burgers. And I brought wine.”
His eyes flicked over her shoulder – to Kev – and back. “Actually, I was thinking I’d clock a few hours at the shop.” He gave her a look: he wanted her alone with Kev, for some reason. “If that’s okay.”
“Sure.” She glanced behind her at Kev.
He shrugged, awkward beneath the weight of the bags. “He’s got mouths to feed besides his own.”
Her heart lurched. Going by Aidan’s expression, so did his. We love him, she knew. And we just want him to live.
“That’s fine,” she said. “You go ahead and we’ll be fine.”
She watched, feeling like an interloper, as Aidan took the bags from Kev, set them on the counter, and then smothered his best friend in a hug.
“I can’t breathe,” Kev protested.
“Shut up,” Aidan said. He smacked him on the shoulder and drew away. “I’ll be back.”
“You don’t have to be,” Kev said.
“But I will be.”
And then he was gone.
Whitney knew a moment’s fear, wondering if she could possibly be vibrant and lively enough to keep Kev in a good headspace. But she knew she couldn’t afford to worry about that; she could only try her best.
So she said, “Hungry?” and gave him an encouraging smile.
“A little bit.” His smile was thin and apologetic. “I haven’t had much appetite lately.”
“It’ll come back,” she assured. “Come here and you can help me figure out how to work this stove top. How old is it?”
“From the fifties, I think.”
“Wow.”
“It works, though. Mercy always liked to cook.”
“He did?” It was hard to imagine that giant monster of a man stirring up brownie batter.
“Yeah, and then I guess he and Ava cooked together…” His brows crimped as he stared down at the stove. In the wash of incoming sunlight, she could see the faint blue tracks of veins in his temples, down the pale column of his throat. His skin was almost translucent, white and smooth as a pearl, seemingly fragile as tissue paper. She thought if she touched him, her finger might push right through, straight into meat and blood.
A disturbing image, one she chased away. She turned to the grocery bags, and began laying things out on the counter: the hamburger patties, a block of sharp cheddar cheese, red onions, lettuce, buns.
“You weren’t kidding about burgers.”
“All the fixings,” she promised, setting down the jar of pickles. “I would have made fries, but that takes some time, so I brought the frozen kind instead.”
“Frozen’s good.” He surveyed her purchases with some distress. “But I don’t want you to go out of your way. I really won’t be able to eat much.”
“Eat what you can, and we can put the leftovers in the fridge for later.”
He took a deep
breath and met her gaze. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“And you don’t have to be here.”
She felt the sting of sudden tears, and turned away, blinking. “Okay. So. The stove?”
“Right.”
~*~
Years ago, in the cramped apartment where Miss Carla’s boys slept three and four to a mattress, there had been a blue Lava Lamp in the windowsill. He would stare at it, as he waited for the day’s exhaustion to overwhelm the lingering taint of depravity and carry him off to sleep. He’d found great comfort in the slow, liquid movements of the lamp’s contents: never once the same, but predictable none the less. Mindless, soothing.
That was Whitney. Always saying something new and sweet, surprising him, but more or less predictable in her goodness. She reminded him, in her own small way, of Maggie, or Ava, or even Holly. The women in his life who were brave enough to be kind, and tough enough not to quit. But the difference was, Whitney wouldn’t leave here and head to one of his brothers’ homes. He wasn’t borrowing someone’s woman; she was all his.
Huh. He’d never had a woman who was his.
Probably still didn’t. There was a wealth of difference between sympathy and love.
He sat on a stool drawn up to the counter, smoking, tapping ash in a teacup saucer she’d found in the cabinets. He hadn’t even known he had dishes; someone, probably Mags, had provided him with an entire set, even dainty little teacups to go with the saucers.
“You really look like you know what you’re doing,” he teased, exhaling a long, settling drag.
She tossed him a quick, light grin, and went back to turning the burgers in the cast iron skillet – another cabinet find. Go Mags. “My mom taught me how.”
“Do y’all cook a lot?”
Loverboy (Dartmoor Book 5) Page 5
