Lille blinked at the sheer flood of information. “I . . . can imagine.”
Carl pouted and slouched even farther, leaning back and propping one leg on her desk, the open collar of his shirt revealing a smooth-shaven and well-toned chest. It was nothing like the chest on Max, but she could see Max doing the same thing, taking over her space as if it were his. It was the first evidence she’d seen that Carl and Max had been raised in the same household. They were stepbrothers, raised by Max’s uncle Bryan, which was a long story all by itself.
“Should we go to the hospital?” Lille ventured. She didn’t want to come right out and ask if he’d been raped, didn’t even want to think about it, or try to explain how she knew what that felt like.
Carl looked confused for a second; then his face cleared. “Oh, honey, no. I’m fine.” He gave her a sympathetic but knowing look. “Don’t you worry. If that had happened, I would have already gone to the hospital, gotten tested, and would be wringing my hands until the results came back.”
Lille nodded—she didn’t think it would have been quite that simple, but something else nagged at her. “Did you say your phone was missing?”
Carl nodded.
Lille chewed her lower lip. “I wonder why someone would take your phone.”
He frowned. “It was a nice phone.”
“And why your car keys and not your car?”
“Honey, what are you thinking?”
Lille didn’t know what she was thinking, but she didn’t like it. “Were there any keys to the Fetish Box on your key ring?”
Carl winced. “Shit. Yes.”
“And Mary’s house, probably.”
He nodded.
“And all our contact information.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s a password on my phone.”
Lille didn’t have that much faith in technology. “We should file a police report at the very least.”
“Ugh. The police.”
Lille gave him her best Katharine Hepburn staredown.
“Fine.” He pouted. “What do you want to do about the keys?”
Lille twisted her fingers again. “Change the locks. I’ll call John, see if he can do it.”
“He can. His dad was a mechanic. Max can as well. Our uncle taught us how to do all kinds of basic household stuff,” he said, with a wave of his hand.
Lille preferred not to think about Max, but an image of him, all surly and tattooed and wearing a tool belt, made her shiver just a little.
She pushed that aside and frowned at Carl. “So why can’t you change the locks?”
Carl sniffed. “I rock a mean drill, but I have to get home, change, and get over to the gallery.”
“Don’t forget about filing a police report.”
“And file a police report,” he added with a dramatic sigh.
Lille walked over and half sat on the table. “I don’t like this, Carl. Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”
“No.” He shook his head, suddenly serious. “But you seem more worried than I thought you’d be. Is something else going on?”
The subtle squeak of the ceiling fan overhead seemed loud as she considered telling him about the card she’d gotten two weeks ago, about the man who’d just called, about her father. She hadn’t known Carl long, but she trusted him. She trusted all the people who surrounded her at the Box, which was totally unlike her. She wasn’t in the habit of trusting so quickly, or telling anyone important details about her life. Mary was, of course, her best friend, but Lille found herself also wanting to open up to John, to Jordan, and now to Carl. The only person she didn’t want to trust with her secrets was Max—not because she didn’t think he was trustworthy, but because she was afraid he was. She didn’t want to like him more than she already did.
“I just got a call from a man working for my father.”
Carl waited.
Lille took a deep breath and continued. “I’ve never met my father, but I’ve been hiding from him my whole life. He’s the son of a Russian gangster living in Las Vegas.”
Carl’s eyes widened.
Lille nodded. “I grew up there, in Vegas. Ran away when I was fourteen. My father had just been let out of prison. He was supposed to be in for life, but the key witness magically recanted his originally testimony, and my father was released. My mom—she was always afraid of him, deeply afraid, and his father was her boss.” She paused and smiled wryly. “My mom looks a lot like me, or she did, and she stripped . . . mostly just stripped . . . to make a living.”
Lille felt twitchy just thinking about that night, about the desert and the dark, and about the note from her mother telling her to run. She turned away from Carl, walked over to the window next to the filing cabinet, and slid a few of the miniblinds out of the way with one finger, then looked out without really searching. There were only a few shrubs, a palm tree, and the parking lot of the Publix.
She turned back toward Carl. “My mom always told me that if he ever got out of prison, if he ever came looking for me, I should run. She’d gotten me documents and everything. One night we were at the club, and my mom didn’t show up for her dance.”
Lille looked down at her hands, which she’d folded tightly, holding on to herself in a death grip. “She never missed her dances. I knew something was wrong. When I checked my bag in the dressing room, there was a note from her telling me to run.
“So I did,” she said simply. “I ran.”
“What happened to your mom?”
“He beat her to within an inch of her life,” Lille muttered flatly. “I found out later. They sent him back to jail.”
Carl stood, crossed to her without saying a word, and wrapped his arms around her.
Lille closed her eyes and tolerated the hug for a moment, but she couldn’t be hugged, she couldn’t rely on anyone or she’d freak out. She pulled herself away gently, squeezing his bicep and stepping back.
Her hands fluttered uselessly, so she dropped them to her sides.
Carl waited, bright green eyes concerned. “So he’s out of prison again?”
“Yeah, about a year ago. I thought about telling John and Mary, but I don’t want to endanger them.”
Carl frowned, a line forming between his eyes. “Are you sure he wants to hurt you?”
Lille shrugged. She didn’t know what her father wanted, but he was a murderer, a gangster. She’d been afraid of him for as long as she could remember, and she didn’t see any reason to invite him into her life.
“He’s dangerous,” she said finally. “I read all the news coverage of his original trial and had a private investigator find out what he could from the police. They suspect my father of much more than they are able to prove.”
Holding up his hand in a soothing gesture, Carl said, “I’m not saying let’s invite him over for pinochle or anything. Trust me, I don’t want this guy anywhere near us, but contacting you after all these years—it’s strange. Your mother never told you why he’d want to hurt you? Maybe there’s another reason he wants to contact you.”
Lille heard what Carl was saying, but she didn’t even want to entertain the idea of speaking to her father. In her mind, fear of him was wrapped up with the fear of the men her mother had brought to the house, fear of what had happened to her after she’d run away. Her father was fear incarnate.
“Damn it.” She paced the room again like a pissed-off goddess. “I don’t want to leave.”
Carl clucked his tongue. “Darling, I have no intention of letting you leave. I think you’re just what Ma—this place—needs.”
Lille narrowed her eyes at him. “Not you, too?”
“You and Max haven’t done more than say two words to each other for weeks.” He widened his eyes innocently, then leaned against the desk.
Lille felt her worry over her fat
her fading to the background, just a bit, as she grew more aggravated with Carl. She stood in the center of the room, long blond hair tumbling over her shoulders, her curvy body encased in a soft knit dress the color of mulled wine. Thigh-high cream-colored suede boots encased her legs, the heels adorned with quarter-inch-long gold spikes. Unconsciously, she cocked a hip and laid a hand on it, raising her chin as if Max were right there in front of her. “So?” she challenged. “We had a fun night. That’s all it was.”
“Uh-huh.” Carl sounded doubtful. “Yesterday morning it was all I could do not to fan myself—the sparks you two were sending out were just that hot.”
Yesterday morning Lille had been in the kitchen, enjoying her morning after working a shift on Friday. Max had come over to meet John for a run. He’d crossed the grass between his house and Mary’s, then walked through the back door, startling Lille with his sudden appearance in the kitchen. Even in running shorts and a T-shirt, he was big, brawny. His chest and shoulders had looked even broader than when she’d first met him, but his manners hadn’t improved much.
“I’m after some coffee. I don’t suppose you’ve left any?”
“I didn’t know you were coming,” Lille had replied with a mocking half smile and a flutter of her lashes.
He’d grunted and turned away, giving her a fine view of his ass in his running shorts. He put on more coffee, not bothering to make conversation, and the two of them had proceeded to stare at each other like gunslingers across the kitchen until Carl had come in and broken up the tension.
Lille pointed a finger at Carl. “You better not be angling for Max and me to get together, because beyond fucking him, I have no interest in a relationship.”
Carl laughed. “I didn’t think you were fucking him, either, but good. Women who want relationships send Max into hiding.”
“Like I care.” She tossed her hair.
He chuckled again. “Well, then, it’s settled. We’ll have a family meeting and discuss your problem. I’m sure we can come up with a solution.”
“Problem?” Lille huffed. She’d just told him the biggest secret of her life, and he referred to it as if it were about as important as a misfiled tax return.
“And we’re not family.” Lille didn’t like the note of longing that colored her voice. It was not in her character.
Carl straightened and gently pinched her chin in his fingers. “Sure we are, honey.”
“Awesome,” exclaimed a voice from the door, which Carl had left cracked open when he’d come in earlier.
The black eye of a camera had taken in at least part of their exchange. Lille tensed, wondering how much Kim had recorded of their conversation. Jordan, looking vaguely guilty, fluttered his hands behind Kim’s body.
“Sorry”—he made a face at Lille—“she promised to let me kiss her if I shut the fuck up and let her film.”
“What did you hear?” Lille tried to sound nonchalant, but she pinned Jordan with a deadly stare. She didn’t remember seeing them in the doorway when she’d been talking about her father, but she wasn’t certain.
“Just that you’re only interested in fucking Max, you don’t want to leave, and you have some kind of problem,” Jordan summarized immediately, wincing as if Lille were the glare of the sun in his eyes.
Kim dropped the camera and grinned unrepentantly. “You know, you could kill with that look,” she informed Lille. “All the pervs on the Internet are going to love it. Oh, pretty lady’s gonna whip me good. Hello, millions of YouTube hits.” Kim had yet to convince Lille to put on a dominatrix costume and brandish a whip, but she’d been working on it.
Lille turned on Carl. “Family, huh?”
Carl shrugged. “It takes all kinds.”
CHAPTER Twelve
Forty-five minutes after he’d eaten breakfast, Max could no longer take the peace and quiet of his house. He’d read the same paragraph in the biography of James Joyce three times, and he kept looking around for Bambi; John had taken her to the Box with him last night and hadn’t brought her back to Max yet this morning. Likely John was too busy in bed with Mary.
When he couldn’t sit still another second, he changed into jogging shorts and a pair of running shoes, picked up his keys and cell phone and shoved them in his pockets, and went out the French doors in his kitchen. He crossed the yard that he shared with Mary and used his key to open her back door.
Bambi and Atticus, who’d been sleeping on the couch, barked excitedly and hurried to greet him. Bambi sat like the good girl she was, but Atticus scratched at his legs and yipped, the uncivilized mongrel.
“Shhh,” he hushed them, patting their heads.
“Max?” John came out through the hallway that led to the bedrooms. His hair was disheveled and he was wearing only a pair of boxers . . . which were on backward. He looked none too pleased at the interruption.
“Sorry.” Max shrugged, completely insincere. He was feeling frustrated and annoyed, and wasn’t it a best friend’s job to join him in misery?
“Just get lost, okay? Take the dogs with you.”
Max wasn’t able to resist the devil that made him say, “Are you worried she’ll ask me to join you?”
John looked pissed, and for a moment his face just twisted, tugging and highlighting the scars; then something seemed to occur to him, and he laughed. It was a strange laugh to Max’s ears, and not one he’d ever heard from his friend before. Sadness, resignation, and relief were the low notes, but there was also a steady drumbeat of joy, of calm happiness.
“Max, my friend, here’s the truth. I’d do anything for her, even have a threesome with your ugly ass.”
The house seemed to settle and still for a moment, the way it would after a loud crash.
Max stared at his friend, then snorted and picked up Atticus. “Well, that’s just fine, then. I’ll hold my breath till that happens.”
Love. For fuck’s sake.
He located Atticus’s leash on the hook near the door and hooked up the tiny white fluff ball before putting him on the ground. “The thing is . . . I might be able to understand if she were just another girl ye were bangin’, but if ye love her, how can ye share her with anyone else?”
John struggled to answer for a moment, but then he just shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know it’s true.”
“Really?” Mary, who’d apparently been listening from the bedroom, appeared in the hallway entrance wrapped in a sheet. She put a hand on John’s shoulder; her other hand held the sheet to her chest.
“Really what?” John looked nervous, which Max thought served him right.
Mary’s lips curved on one side. “You love me that much?”
John glanced at Max, who raised an eyebrow. The lad could nut up and just fucking say it.
John put a hand on the back of Mary’s head and pulled her in until their foreheads touched. “Yeah, I really do.”
Mary laughed. “That’s awesome.”
She looked teary-eyed, which was Max’s cue to leave as quickly as possible, and he did, grabbing Bambi’s leash and whistling. The dog charged out the door as if naked displays of emotion were appalling to her as well.
Max walked back over to his place with the two dogs. He was having trouble wrapping his head around what he’d just witnessed. He could’ve sworn his best friend had just proven how much he loved a woman by saying he’d be willing to have a threesome. With Max. If that wasn’t some fucked-up shit, he didn’t know what was, but nothing should really surprise him anymore.
When he reached the gate on the side of his house, he leashed up Bambi and set Atticus down on the ground. He wouldn’t be able to run far with the white dog, but the little man would be game for at least a mile or two.
He started jogging at a fairly leisurely pace, heading toward the road that ran alongside the beach and doing his best to keep the dogs out of the grasses and weeds on t
he side of the street. Sticker burrs had a tendency to get hopelessly tangled in the dogs’ fur.
After a mile, he was out of breath and cursing—John had put him to shame on their run yesterday. Max had spent more time at the gym and less running as of late. He’d wanted to lift heavy objects, but now his wind was suffering. Of course, all the smoking he’d been doing wasn’t helping. He put his hands on his knees while the dogs sat and looked at him as if he’d lost his damn mind. He reached out and petted Bambi’s big head.
“Well, this is a fine mess, isn’t it?”
They were in the shade at least. He’d gotten as far as the nature park, which had quite a few trees and recently paved jogging paths. He sat down on the curb, coughing a little, and thought that maybe he should finally consider quitting smoking. Carl, John, and now Mary were right nags about it.
He looked at Bambi. “And then why don’t I take up embroidery and start going to church, too?”
She licked his face, which calmed him down a bit.
“The thing is, Bambi, my love, I do understand John.”
The breeze kicked up, shaking the trees overhead and cooling the sweat on his skin.
Max remembered when his uncle had finally realized how much he loved Mary’s mother, Mandy. The old man had denied it for years, denied that they were even sleeping together, because Mandy had refused to give up her fetish parties and the opportunities to play the role of dominatrix. She loved his uncle, and she had the warmest, most generous heart of anyone he knew, but she loved sex as well—loved the feel of the whip in her hand, the play of it, the thrill of it. Sex had never been something shameful for her. He’d heard her describe it once, to a patron at the bar, and he’d felt bad for his uncle, felt bad that the man loved a woman who wasn’t going to be a normal wife.
But she’d turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to his uncle; Max had never seen him happier than he’d been in the years he’d been with Mandy. Mandy, although wild and more than a little eccentric, had been very kind.
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