by Nicole Fox
“Wow. This is expensive,” she says, taking the wine from me. “I could probably sell this for someone to pay their medical bill.”
“If that’s what you’d like,” I say.
“Jules,” Allison interjects. “I thought we’d make some pasta. We have all of the ingredients. Lev, why don’t you sit down?”
She indicates their living room, which is seven feet from the door and a step away from the kitchen.
“I can help,” I say.
“No. You should sit down,” Julia says. “Please.”
Every instinct tells me to cut her down, but I can’t have her running to the chief. I walk over to their tiny bookcase in the corner of the room. Most of the selection is law books. I look out the window. It’s facing the parking lot.
The location of her apartment is disappointing. I expected a lot more from the chief’s daughter. Either her father doesn’t care about her or she’s testing his patience.
It’s testing my patience, too. It’d take one stray bullet in the parking lot for her to slip away before Julia could save her.
I glance over to the kitchen. Allison is chopping up an onion while Julia is filling a pot with water. Julia steps away from the pot, her hand settling on Allison’s shoulder as she leans toward her ear to whisper something. Allison whispers something back. Julia glances at me, notices me watching, and retreats to her pot of water. After she fills the pot, she sets it on the stove.
“Be careful,” Julia says to Allison, igniting the fire under the burner. She could be talking about the fire or me.
I get it now. Julia helped save Allison’s life and therefore feels more responsibility over her life than an average friend or roommate would. Julia is invested in Allison’s life, so my sudden appearance raises her hackles.
I sit down on the couch. I’ve never met anyone who hated me that I didn’t feel indifferent about or despise, but Julia is a first for me. I’m grateful for her suspicion of me. I need to convince her that we’re a real, loving couple, but it’s nice to know that Allison has someone around that’s focused on her well-being.
“Julia.” I stand up and face the two of them. Allison is holding onto a colander, her grip tight on the edges. “Could I talk to you for a moment?”
“Sure,” Julia says. “Speak.”
“I meant without Allison around. Outside.”
Julia looks back at Allison. I can only see Allison’s face, but there’s the slightest shake of her head. Julia turns back to me.
“Sure.” She heads toward the door. “I hope you don’t smoke.”
I follow her out. “Not tonight.”
She takes the stairs down, not checking to see if I’m behind her. Once we’re outside, she keeps her gaze on the parking lot, her arms folded over her chest. The door slams shut behind us.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” she asks.
“I want you to say what you need to say,” I tell her. “And then move on.”
She spins around to look at me. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Allison has chosen me. She’s with me. And you can hate me for whatever reason you want, but that fact isn’t going to change until Allison changes her mind. So, say what you need to say because the tension between us is not good for Allison.”
She tilts her head. “I don’t know you. How could I hate you?”
“You’re managing it just fine.”
She smirks, but her arms remain tightly folded in front of her chest. “You know, after she told me who you are, I looked you up. Why did you change from models to Allison?”
“That sounds like an insult to Allison,” I say. “She’d wipe the floor with any of those models any day.”
“I don’t hate you. I just don’t trust you,” she says. “If you want me to trust you, you better earn it. Do you know how many houses and penthouses of rich pricks I’ve been to? The poor neighborhoods get a bad rap but that’s just because the rich know how to hide their skeletons.”
“You hate me because I’m rich.”
She opens up the apartment building door and turns to me. “The fact that that’s your takeaway? That is your problem. You hear the word rich and you skip over the word skeletons.”
I turn away as the door slams shut. I pull a pack of cigarettes out of my jacket and light up. I inhale until it starts to hurt and let it go. I watch a tweaker dance around his car before banging the front of his body on the hood of the car. He does it two more times before starting to dance around his car again.
When I finish the first cigarette, I start another one. When I’ve almost burned through that one, the apartment door slams open. First, an old woman toddles through, giving me a wink as she passes by, and then Allison is standing beside me.
“What the hell was that about?” she asks. “Did you threaten her? Blackmail her?”
“I’d think you’d know her well enough that if I tried either of those, she’d cut my balls off,” I say. She tries to hide a smile, looking down at her shoes.
“She always gets what she wants. If you weren’t down here to threaten her, what did you two talk about? She won’t tell me.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I drop the cigarette and crush it with my foot. “The only good news is that she doesn’t think we’re both frauds. You’re a saint and I’m the emblem of rich, corrupt people, who hide skeletons.”
“She’s not wrong.”
I give her a look, but she’s already focused on the tweaker. With the sun setting, her features have a faint glow and she couldn’t be more flawless. I wasn’t lying to Julia about that. The models were aesthetically pleasing when I was fucking them, but unlike them, I could spend a lifetime looking at Allison. Every time I glance back toward her, there’s this abrupt loss of breath in my chest. If anything, I should be bitter toward Julia for getting to see her for a year longer than I have.
“We should go back in,” she says. Her hand touches my arm. “Try to be nice. She’s not just an obstacle. She’s my closest friend.”
I open the door for her. We walk back in together. When we’re in the elevator together, I lean against the handrail. She stands in the center. She’s wearing a summer dress—simple, with faded and thinning material. It must be years old, which might be why the material is nearly gauzy. My hands desperately want to trace every curve, savor every inch of exposed skin.
When she moves forward, it’s a trial to keep my eyes off her ass. We step back into her apartment, the smell of garlic charging straight into me. Allison pulls me forward. She stops us next to Julia, who is straining the spaghetti.
“Hey, Jules,” Allison says, stepping in front of me and leaning over to rest her arms on the counter. Her ass presses against my groin. I don’t know if it was her intention, but my whole world has dwindled to the pressure against my cock. If she bounced even slightly, I couldn’t be held accountable for my actions. “So, Lev and I were just talking, and we—”
“And smoking,” Julie interrupts. “I can smell it.”
“He was smoking,” Allison retorts. “Which is still legal in the United States. You know I love you, Jules. But the reason I haven’t told you about him until now is because of shit like this. I don’t need you or my dad to fight my battles for me. I care about him and all I’m asking is for you to give him a chance. That’s what tonight is about. Giving him a chance. He wanted me to set this up for all three of us, so he could get to know you because he knows how important you are to me. He’s important to me too. So, please, treat me like I have some self-respect and do the same for Lev.”
Julia transfers the noodles to the other pot.
“Lev,” Julia says. “Could you get the garlic bread out of the freezer? It’s under the broccoli.”
“Sure.” I place my hands on Allison’s hips and carefully step away from her. I turn to the refrigerator, open the freezer, and find the garlic bread. Allison steps closer to me to take it from me. As she leans down, I press my hand against her shoulder blades and pretend to
kiss near her ear. I whisper, “What the fuck was that?”
“I needed you to keep quiet for one minute,” she whispers back. “Don’t hate the method when it worked.”
Julia keeps her eyes on me, but they feel less like bullets now. By the time dinner is cooked and we’re settling down with our plates of spaghetti and garlic bread, Julia seems damn near pleasant.
Julia raises her glass of wine. “To the two of you.”
I clink my glass against hers and Allison’s. The wine goes down smooth. It makes pretending to be an honorable man much, much easier.
“So,” Julia says. “Tell me about yourself, Lev. I already know the professional details, but what are your hobbies? How do you spend your spare time?”
“I rarely have spare time,” I say. “It’s part of why it took me so long to realize I’d rather spend that spare time with Allison.”
I take Allison’s hand on the table. I bring it to my lips, kissing her knuckles. She raises an eyebrow at me, but quickly hides it as she gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. She’s not the best actress.
“Well, you know she doesn’t want to be a housewife, right?” Julia asks. “I know with how busy you must be, it would be very difficult to keep a relationship when the woman is busy too.”
I shrug. “I need a woman that knows she’s capable of more and is willing to work hard to get there. That’s why I’m in a relationship with Allison. She has the ambition and determination.” It’s not a lie, for a change. I may only have known Allison a short time, but that’s been long enough for me to say she’s got a spine made of steel that doesn’t match her soft exterior. I like both her outside and inside. A lot.
“That’s true.” Julia twirls spaghetti onto her fork. It scrapes against the plate. “I have to know one thing.”
“Okay,” I say.
“If you were to describe Allison, how would you describe her?”
“Jules,” Allison cuts in. “That’s a ridiculous question.”
“It’s a valid question,” Julia corrects. “I’ve seen spouses, parents, boyfriends, and girlfriends describe their significant others while we’re getting ready to transport their loved ones, while we’re in the ambulance, when we get to the hospital. They reveal a lot. You can tell how much they care by what they say. I just want to know what Lev would say about you.”
“Julia,” Allison says, her voice firmer now. “Stop.”
“It’s fine,” I say to Allison, but my full attention is on Julia. “You want me to talk about how Allison is a good person, that she has the strongest moral compass on earth. Isn’t that right? That’s what you want me to say?”
Allison is frozen in place, but Julia leans back into her chair, unperturbed.
“Are you saying she’s not a moral person?”
“On the contrary. She’s exceedingly moral. And she has the spine to back up her morals,” I reply calmly, thinking of how Allison gave herself over to me, a complete stranger, in order to protect her father. Of how angry she was at Jeffrey Douglas getting off scot-free. The way she wanted to see justice done. She’s not so unlike me when it comes down to the core. That unnerves me for some reason. “If I were to describe her, I’d use one word. Tough.”
Julia nearly smiles. “You do care. Good.”
I look over at Allison. She’s gazing back at me, her eyes slightly widened and her lips parted. An edge of desire cuts through me. I need the woman. Badly. And I don’t like needing anybody. It gives her an upper hand over me that I can only hope she doesn’t figure out.She quickly looks away from me, grabbing onto her wine glass and taking a gulp of it. She’ll read into my statement just like Julia did, thinking it means more than it means and she’ll punish herself for it.
I stand up, reaching for the wine bottle. Her eyes follow my hand. I stop. The car crash. A drunk driver.
I let my hand fall to the table, empty.
When Allison and I walk out of her apartment building, I keep my arm around her waist. I nuzzle my face against her hair, inhaling her faint jasmine scent. The scent runs through my veins like a drug.
“How long do you think she’ll watch us?” I ask near her ear.
“Jules? She’s probably just polishing off what’s left of the wine.”
I lean against my car. “You told Julia you’d be right back.”
“I did,” she agrees.
“You don’t think it would sell the story better if you came back to my place?”
“It might,” she says. “But I’d also lose my status as a highly moral person if I went home with you.”
I narrow my eyes. “You’re not a virgin.”
“No.” She smirks at me. “Or yes. You might never know.”
A challenge if I ever heard one.
“You should come closer,” I say. “In case Julia is watching.”
She steps closer to me. I grab her hips, pulling her taut against me. I kiss the edge of her lips, just barely feeling the minty tang of the lip balm she put on a few minutes earlier. She leans into my kiss at first, but takes a quick step back as I pull away.
“We were very lucky,” she says. “I thought she was going to figure everything out.”
“It has nothing to do with luck. Just good bullshitting skills.” As I turn to go toward my car door, I hear something boom like thunder.
I whip around, looking at Allison. She’s staring at the sky, expecting to see an incoming storm, but that wasn’t thunder. My hand is already on my Glock, hidden in my IWB holster. By the time I turn around and pull it out, I only see empty crosshairs in the sight.
There’s a flicker of movement in my periphery. A stocky man is running away from me, the glint of a gun in his hand.
I raise my Glock. As soon as he’s in my sight, I pull the trigger.
I should have been more patient, aimed slightly more to the left, because it only hits him in the shoulder. His body lurches forward, slamming into the asphalt.
I turn, checking on Allison. She’s crouching near the hood of my car.
“You all right?” I call out. She shakes her head. I walk over to her. She flinches away from me as I kneel down next to her. I scowl. “Are you okay or not?”
“You’ve had that gun on you this whole time,” she says.
“Yes.”
“And you just shot that man.”
“Correct. Were you hurt at all?”
She shakes her head. Her eyes focus on something past the car. I turn.
The man is getting back on his feet. As I raise my gun, he takes off running again. The man is stocky but surprisingly fast. He gets onto a motorcycle and pulls away. I raise my gun again, then lower it. Julia could be watching through the window.
“Get in the car,” I order Allison, putting my Glock back in its holster. By the time I’ve turned on the car and slammed the door shut, she’s put on her seat belt. Her seat must have glass on it, but she doesn’t complain. I speed out of the parking spot, the car fishtailing as I tear after the motorcycle.
I pass two cars. The bike turns down a more desolate section of town—I used to pass through it when I was a teenager running wild around the city. I pass a sedan and make the turn. The bike and my car are the only ones on this road. It’s one of those neighborhoods where nobody ever hears anything and nobody ever sees anything.
I gain on him, little by little, until we’re close.
When I’m near enough, I ram my foot against the gas pedal, yanking the wheel to the left. As I’m parallel with the bike, I jerk the wheel back to the right. The man instinctively veers away from me. Too hard, though, too sharp. The bike can’t handle it.
My tires screech in protest of my aggressive driving, but it’s lost amidst the reverberating storm of noise as the bike crashes. We drift to a squealing stop and I shift the car into park. In the distance, I see the torn-up grass and a motorcycle lying about twelve feet away from a man. He isn’t moving.
I open my door and pull my gun out as I walk over to the man. His pants are soaked wit
h blood and there’s a growing puddle of blood on his right arm.
“Look at you,” I remark, keeping my gun down for now. “If you didn’t see tonight ending this way, you should have done your research.”
Black hair, dark eyes, olive skin tone, a prominent but narrow nose—predominantly Italian.
The Colosimo Mafia. Cowardly shits.
That’s all I need to know.
I raise the gun.
Allison nearly collides straight into me. She stops herself, steadying her balance with her hands on my left arm.
“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t kill him. Please, Lev, don’t.”
“He tried to kill me and he could have killed you,” I try to shake off her hands, but they grip my arm tightly. “That’s more than enough reason for me to pay him back with better aim.”
“Lev, please, I—you know, I understand better than most. And it didn’t make me feel any better. Just put the gun down. I can call my dad. I can explain what happened.”
I shake my head, turning toward her. “You think if you call your father, he’s going to just clean this up with a nice little bow and I won’t pay the price for being here?”
“I don’t—I didn’t mean he’d clean it up. But he’d understand. You were caught up in the moment. He tried to kill us. I—”
Her face changes, the tension slipping away as her eyes widen and her eyebrows shoot up. In my periphery, there’s a glint of silver.
I turn, my Glock raised.
I shoot three times. The man’s gun clatters to the pavement.
I turn back to Allison. Her hand is over her heart, but she’s fine. Outwardly, at least.
Heaving a sigh, I walk over to the man to check him over. There’s no wallet or anything. The fact that he came after me is a bad sign. It likely means the Colosimo Mafia has already repaired itself from the death of the don and is fully intent on retaliating.
I glance back at Allison. The shock must be wearing off because she’s trembling and looking at me like I’m a ticking pipe bomb.
I’ll have to call someone to take care of this, but right now, I need to deal with Allison. I walk back toward her, putting my arm around her shoulders. I expect her to flinch away, but she doesn’t react. She lets me guide her back to the car like a marionette. Given how stubborn she is, that tells me plenty about her state of shock.
