by Lili Valente
A burst of laughter constricts my midsection, making me fight to keep from spitting out my last bite of cake. When I’ve managed to swallow, I say, “You are so fucking gross sometimes.”
“I am not,” she says, but I can hear the smile in her voice and know she’s pleased with herself. “I’m just trying to accurately describe a horrific situation, Aidan. It’s called commitment to communication.”
“I figured it had to be pretty bad for you to decide to squat behind a bush instead.”
Cat makes a growling noise. “That’s right. That’s when Hole in the Ground took the infamous picture. I forgot about that.”
“How could you forget?” I cast a surprised glance her way, before turning my eyes back to the road. “You almost murdered the kid.”
She leans her seat back, propping her bare feet on the dash. “I did not. I was mad, but I got over it. Hole was actually a pretty sweet idiot. Dumb as rocks, but sweet.” She takes another bite of her candy. “And I’ve had much worse things happen to me since then.”
The words banish my smile, reminding me why we hauled ass out of Manhattan as fast as Shane’s Rolls could carry us. We didn’t even take time to go home to pack. Shane loaned Cat some clothes, I insisted I could grab a couple pairs of jeans and some T-shirts on the way upstate, and we bought toothbrushes at the last gas station.
We’re not on an adventure; we’re on the run, and I can’t afford to forget that for a second.
I only talked to Lip for a few minutes before we left—he was on duty and up to his armpits in work—but our conversation made it clear Cat’s not out of the woods. There is some concern that Nico may have found out about the upcoming sting operation and be making plans to leave the country. There are also rumors that he refuses to leave without a certain redhead, a fact that has enraged half his family, some of whom may be willing to take drastic measures to remove what they see as a threat to their golden boy’s safety.
When I told Lipman about the breakin at Cat’s place, he insisted we come down to the station to file a report and allow him to personally escort us to the safe house afterward. He wasn’t happy when I explained our alternative plans, but once I assured him that no one knew where we were headed—I didn’t even tell Shane the name of my stepmother’s bed and breakfast—he grudgingly admitted that we’d probably be okay. He refused to give his blessing, but he did wish us luck and assured Cat that he would contact her as soon as the danger had passed.
He also urged us both to keep our cell phones close for the next few days, hinting that maybe the timetable for the raid had been moved up. This could all be over in less than forty-eight hours, a fact that makes me simultaneously relieved and strangely…sad.
“It’s going to be weird,” Cat says softly, dropping her half-eaten Red Vine back into the snack bag.
“What’s that?” I check our rearview mirror for the tenth time, but the road behind us is as empty as it’s been since we left the highway in favor of a back-road route to Ithaca, New York.
“Not being worried all the time,” she says, setting the bag near her feet. “Being able to laugh with a male friend or colleague without worrying that Nico is spying on me and getting nuts about it. It’s amazing how quickly being afraid can become the new normal.”
My jaw tightens. “I wish you’d never met the son of a bitch.”
“I don’t. I’m glad I met him.” She tucks her legs beneath her as she shifts to face my side of the car. “As scary as it’s been, it’s also been a wake-up call. It wasn’t until I became a statistic myself that I truly understood how horrific the statistics are. I mean, a third of the women who are murdered in the U.S. are killed by men they were romantically involved with. That’s over a thousand women every year losing their lives to men who are supposed to love them.”
“That’s insane.” I blink hard, trying to wrap my head around a number like that. “I mean, I knew things were bad, but not that bad.”
“I know,” Cat says. “And on a national level we’re doing absolutely nothing to make things better. In fact, most states are cutting funding for shelters and assistance programs even as the need for those programs increases.” She crosses her arms more tightly across her chest. “So, yeah, I’m glad I met Nico. And as soon as this is behind me, I’m going to find a way to make things better for women who don’t have the money to hire a Spectacular Rascal to watch their backs.”
“You should start a charity, or help fundraise for one. You lawyer types are great at fundraising, right?”
“I’ve done my share of raising funds,” she says, nodding thoughtfully. “Though Shane is better at that. That’s what she does for a living. She runs her late aunt’s charitable trust.”
“Or you could run for office,” I say. “I’d vote for you.”
She grunts. “As long as you promise not to tell anyone that I inhaled.”
“My lips are sealed,” I promise, reaching out to take her hand.
Her fingers curl around mine. “What’s this for?”
“For being you. For being strong and taking a shit sandwich and turning it into the need to make the world a better place.”
“Taking a butt murder and turning it into a butt ballet?” she asks with a laugh.
I squeeze her hand. “You can joke, but I’m serious. I’m proud of you, and I’m… I’m glad we’re friends again.”
“Me, too,” she whispers, returning the squeeze. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” I take a deep breath, trying not to read too much into her words. It’s been a hell of a twenty-four hours. We’re both exhausted, and taking anything said right now too seriously could be an emotionally damaging mistake. But I can’t help hoping this means she’ll be up for more than friendship in the future.
“And I meant that part about running for office,” I continue. “Though you’ll probably have to clean up your language. You’ve got a dirty mouth for a politician.”
She smirks. “Again, I remind you of the diseased orangutan with the Brillo Pad wig that became a GOP nominee.”
I nod, taking my set-down like a man. “Again. You’re right.”
“I usually am,” she says with a yawn. “God, I’m tired. Can I nap, or will you take that as a sign of desertion? I know you didn’t get any more sleep than I did last night.”
“No, go ahead and nap.” I release her hand, but can’t resist squeezing her thigh before I return my fingers to the wheel. The urge to touch her gets stronger with every passing minute. “I’ll wake you up if I need to.”
“Are you sure?” She yawns so hard her jaw cracks before she adds, “Because I can totally stay awake and poke you with Red Vines.”
“I’m fine,” I insist. “One of us should be rested and ready to gossip with Julie. My dad isn’t much of a talker, so my stepmother gets pretty excited about company.”
I wait a moment, but Cat doesn’t respond. When I glance over again, she’s already asleep, her lashes fanning out across her pale cheeks and her lips slightly parted, all the sweetness she does her best to hide while she’s awake on display. She’s beautiful—so beautiful a crazy part of me wants to pull over and stare, just for a little while.
But we have hours to go before we reach my parents’ place. And hopefully, if I play my cards right, I’ll have the chance to watch Cat sleep again in the not too distant future.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Cat wakes up when we stop for gas outside Ithaca, and insists on dragging me into the mall by the interstate to get some clothes to throw in the duffle bag Shane loaned me.
As we wander around the men’s department of a store that smells like a cologne factory jizzed all over it, she hooks her arm through mine. Together, we pick out a couple pairs of jeans, two tee shirts, a button-up in case Julie insists on one of her big sit-down dinners, and two packages of boxer briefs because, “you can re-wear jeans, but you don’t want to get in a wearing-dirty-boxers-inside-out situation.”
“My parents d
o own a washing machine,” I say, even as I let Cat tuck a third package of underwear beneath her arm.
“We don’t want to waste time doing laundry,” she says, leading the way toward the checkout counter. “We’ll be too busy day-drinking. I haven’t had a solid, midafternoon wine buzz in way too long, and I love wine tasting. It combines three of my favorite things—day-drinking, nature, and shopping for weird crafts made out of used corks.”
“We’re supposed to be laying low. We’ll have to keep the wine tasting confined to the private tasting room at my parents’ place.”
She smiles and lifts her brows. “Maybe not. We could be cleared to resume business as usual any minute, Aidan. And the minute we’re cleared, I’m renting a limo and taking you wine tasting to celebrate.”
“Sounds good,” I say, though a selfish part of me likes the idea of lying low with Cat for a few days, of having her all to myself before the real world comes crashing in. But she’s right—the sooner Nico is behind bars and we’re cleared to go back to our old lives, the better.
I pull out my wallet, doing my best to ignore the tight, unsettled, unsatisfied feeling building in my chest, but she’s already slapped her credit card down on top of my pile. “Don’t fight me,” she warns. “I owe you after nearly getting you killed last night. I owe you more than clothes, but this is a good place to start.”
Reluctantly, I put away my wallet, saving my response until she’s signed the credit card slip and we’re walking out of the cologne fog toward the sun shining beyond the glass double doors.
“You don’t owe me anything. I’m the one who let you down,” I say softly. “I should have stayed up to stand guard instead of going to sleep. Or I should have insisted we find somewhere to hide where Nico wouldn’t be able to find you. If I’d taken the threat more seriously—”
“If you’d taken the threat more seriously, you wouldn’t have taken the job,” she says, cutting me off. “So, again, I’m glad things worked out the way they did. And I’m glad to be here with you.” As we step outside, she lifts her face to the sun and sighs. “I feel like I can breathe for the first time in weeks. This trip may be the best idea you’ve ever had.”
“I don’t know.” I open the passenger’s side door for her. “I’ve got a history of having really good ideas. There was the marathon party bus, and you remember the Dasher T-shirt contest.”
“That was brilliant! I was so sad when mine finally fell apart in the wash.”
“Which design did you have, again?” I ask, grinning because she’s grinning, and when she’s happy her smile is completely infectious.
“Run Like You’re Being Chased by a T-Rex named Kevin,” she says, laughing. But her smile fades as she wraps her arm around my waist and leans into me. The moment her body fits against mine I’m instantly warm all over, making me wonder if it would always be like this, if Cat and I are like a spark and tinder, destined to ignite whenever we touch. “So what are we going to tell your parents? Do they know that you’re a professional Spectacular Rascal?”
“No, they don’t.” I toss the bag of clothes onto the seat so I can hold her properly. I haven’t had the chance to hold her since everything went down, and I want to fully appreciate the miracle of her—warm, safe, and close, looking up at me like she’s thinking about letting me in.
Assuming I don’t screw shit up, of course.
I search her eyes, choosing my next words carefully. “I could tell them about the business and that you’re my client. But I can guarantee that my father will think I’m crazy, fucking with him, or both.”
She winces. “Your dad and my dad would have gotten along great. Both kind of stuffy and old-fashioned, aren’t they?”
“My dad has devoted his life to making wine barrels exactly the way his ancestors made them in medieval France. So yes, he’s behind the times. He still uses a straight razor to shave and is incapable of responding to a text.” I shrug. “I don’t really care if he thinks I’m crazy. I’m used to that by now. But I thought, maybe, if it’s okay with you, we could just tell my parents that we’re…dating.”
“Dating.” She turns her head, studying me out of the corners of her eye. “It would have to be a pretty serious dating for you to bring me home for a visit, wouldn’t it? I know people change, but you never used to be the ‘bring her home to meet the folks’ kind of guy.”
“I’m even less that guy now than I was back in college,” I confess. “But I don’t think we’ll have a problem convincing them that we’re serious.”
“And why’s that?” She goes still, motionless, even as her gaze sharpens to a knifepoint. That gaze is dangerous, capable of severing my connection to Cat with a single slice, and my only defense against it is the truth.
“I like you. I’ve always liked you.” I pause, summoning the guts to put it all out there and risk hearing her tell me the Cat ship has sailed all over again. “I used to think you were just one of those friends who stay with you even when they’re not in your life anymore. But now that I’m not a twenty-two-year-old idiot, I realize it’s more than that. It was always more than that.”
“More?” she asks softly.
“More than friends,” I say. “And I’d like to find out how much more. How about you?”
I thought her gaze was sharp before, but now it narrows to a surgical blade. I swear I can feel that look probing at my insides, looking for rotten places in my story, but she doesn’t pull away from our embrace.
“If it’s too soon after all this stuff with your ex, I get it,” I say. “It won’t make my day, that’s for damned sure, but…” I swallow, and it’s not easy, because I’ve suddenly realized just how unhappy it would make me to lose the right to touch her like this. “But I’ll wait until you’re ready. If you think you might be interested, that is.”
She remains frozen for another long, gut-twisting moment during which my palms start to sweat a stupid amount, making me feel like I’m fifteen instead of thirty-fucking-two. I’m about to remove my sweaty mitts from her waist long enough to discreetly wipe them on my jeans when she says, “I’m interested. And it’s not too soon. Eleven years is long enough to wait, don’t you think?”
“I do.” My grin breaks across my face like an egg cracked up the middle, sending all my happiness spilling out in a messy, very uncool flood.
But Red has never given a shit about playing it cool. In fact, I’m pretty sure she likes me better like this.
She confirms that suspicion when she grins and says, “I’m so hungry I could eat your face without even bothering to shave the beard off first.”
I hug her closer. “I told you we needed something more than candy for breakfast.”
“You were right,” she says. “Take me somewhere pretty and feed me? Bonus points if there is greasy diner food involved.”
Pressing my lips together, I lift my gaze to the clear sky. “Pretty and greasy… That’s a tricky combo, but I think there’s a place in the town square that fits the bill. It’s got killer potato pancakes and matzo ball soup.”
“Perfect.”
And then, before I realize what’s happening, she’s pushed up onto her toes, wrapped her arms around my neck, and kissed me.
Right away I can tell this kiss is different. It’s still combustible, but it’s also sweet, unguarded, and so addictive I can’t seem to stop kissing her back. So I don’t. I stand in the middle of a mall parking lot and make love to Red’s pretty mouth until I lose all awareness of space and time, until there is nothing but her lips, her taste, her heat, and the feeling of being exactly where I’m supposed to be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
After lunch, we walk around the square, collecting more very important overnight items like deodorant, mouthwash, and light brown mascara Cat insists she needs to keep her eyelashes from disappearing. I tell her she looks perfect with or without eyelashes; she tells me I’m a beautiful liar and makes me wait outside the drugstore while she finishes buying girl things. I stand on th
e sidewalk and smile like an idiot because turns out I like being called a beautiful liar when Cat is the one doing the name-calling.
We finally head out of town around one-thirty and pull up to the winery in the hills outside Ithaca proper a little after two, rolling slowly down the gravel road to keep from getting dust on the vines growing on either side of the drive. I keep one eye on the road and one on Cat, not wanting to miss the moment she sees The View.
Even when I was sixteen, obsessed with dirt bike culture and pissed as hell at my dad for getting remarried, I was secretly glad when we moved in with Julie. I could never resist this view.
Almost every summer afternoon, I would take my drawing pad and pastels out into the fields at the edge of the vineyards, climb a tree, and spend hours sketching the curves of the hills down to Lake Cayuga, the sailboats on the water, and the sunset suffusing everything in a gauzy, dreamlike glow that reminded me of Italian frescos I’d seen in museums.
Before The View, I hadn’t been much of a landscape person, but those afternoons spent capturing slices of everyday magic helped set the course for the rest of my life.
At sixteen, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a painter, a professional BMX biker, or a cooper like every other Knight back to the days when Knights actually were knights, as well as barrel makers. But after a couple of summers in my tree, I realized that those hours spent alone, growing as an artist, were the ones that meant the most to me. Those were the times when I was most alive, most in tune with myself and satisfied with my place in the world.
After high school, I convinced my dad to let me pursue a degree in fine art, with the unspoken understanding that I would return to Ithaca when my four years were through and complete my training in the ancient art of molding oak into barrels. Instead, at the beginning of my sophomore year at Penn U, when I was really getting into the idea of tattooing as a career, I got a job working part time with a building crew who appreciated my way with wood. I saved my pennies, and by my senior year I had enough stored away to pay my way to Japan to apprentice with one of the tattoo world’s living legends.
