“What’s your name?”
“Oscar.”
“I like you, Oscar.” He reaches out to grab the door as I make baby steps to it. “You’d think I got shot in the leg with how I’m walking. But other than to the bathroom, this is the first time I’ve ventured out after the surgery.”
He watches me, ready to help if I need it, his eyes and body tensely alert now. “How’s it feel?”
“Weird. But good. Funny what we’ll do to see a woman.”
He laughs, his whole body shaking with the sound as we walk out into the corridor, heading to the left. “Don’t I know it!”
Annie
Staring: at a wall.
Yay.
________
The door opens and I look over to see Brendan, his arrival surprising me completely. He’s followed by a Samoan-looking nurse pushing the IV on its clunky wheels, into my room.
I throw my feet off the bed, legs and IV tube dangling. “Well, look at you!”
“Not bad, huh?” He winces as he turns to look at the nurse. “I’ve got it, Oscar. Thanks.”
“Hi!” I wave at the man who must be Oscar and he waves back with his free hand as he positions Brendan’s IV close to my bed. He ducks out of the room with a knowing smile as I pat the bed next to me.
I watch Brendan’s concentrating face as he carefully sits down.
Anyone would find him handsome. But it’s more than that for me, and I feel it every time he’s near. Something on the inside draws me to him. I feel whole when he’s near me, and a hole when he’s not. I love his thoughtfulness. He doesn’t answer quickly. He cares about his words and seems to be a master of them, rather than the other way around, like me. I can blurt out the dumbest things without even knowing I’ve spoken. But the most compelling thing about him – and it was this way, even in college – is he walks with confidence emanating from his core, his essence. He is comfortable in his own skin as a man. And now that he’s grown up, it’s even more palpable. It’s striking, compared with a lot of people who aren’t that way at all. He doesn’t suck the energy out of the room. He calms it. And he calms me.
Brendan looks at me from the corner of his eyes, pleased with himself for the journey he just made. I think he’s going to bring up what happened with Rebecca earlier, but he doesn’t. “I’ve been thinking about how to get people into your bar.”
I reach up and touch a thick lock of hair by his temple. “Yeah?”
He stares at me, eyes flitting in the direction of my fingers, then resting on my face as thoughts gather behind his eyes.
I could watch you think, forever.
I lower my hand to rest on his, between our bodies as we sit facing the door, our legs hanging off the bed. He smiles, distracted by my touch. “Um… yeah. I think appealing to the neighborhood is the way to go, so I want to bring them into the restoration project.” He picks up my hand and we both watch as he weaves his fingers so slowly through mine, dipping in and out, caressing.
“That’s a great idea,” I murmur, staring at the size difference in our hands and at his skin tone, darker than mine since I’m so fair. “Laura and Taryn made T-shirt decals to give out.”
He’s staring at our hands, too. The conversation is just to have something to say. All we really want to do is get naked and be alone. “That’s a great idea. Are they your friends?”
I nod. “They work for me, too. You haven’t met them, yet.”
He brings my fingers to his lips. Onto each one of my fingertips, he kisses tiny promises. Mesmerized, I watch him finish on my last pinkie and turn my hand over to kiss the soft curve of my palm, closing his eyes. When he opens them, his eyelashes rise up like they’re in water.
“What is it about you, Annie?” He asks in a voice I’ve never heard him use, so intimate.
I gaze at him, lightheaded. “What do you mean?”
He blinks once, but his eyes don’t leave mine. We’re locked in a visual embrace. The room no longer exists as it did. The cords are gone. The florescent lights, warmed. The cold hard surfaces around us are now rounded, blurry… like they exist in another universe we aren’t apart of.
“I feel something when I’m around you. I can’t figure it out.”
On a smile, I lean in to bring both my hands and cup his face as I look at him with love. I’ll wait for you, Brendan, just as I always have. I’ll wait until you figure it out. His brow furrows like he’s in pain as he stares at me. I lean in closer and graze my lips to his.
His voice is low and hoarse as he whispers, “I’m having a hard time letting go.”
“Of figuring it out?” I whisper back.
“Yeah,” he answers.
I kiss him completely and his mouth moves with mine. The pulses vibrate from our lips into our senses.
There is nothing else but this kiss.
Nothing else.
Until the door opens.
“Oh!” Maria almost closes the door, but stops halfway in and halfway out. Brendan and I pull apart, but he grabs my hand and holds it. I feel weightless as I look at her, struggling to understand what she’s saying, who she is, and why she’s even here.
“Sorry. I got your results back. You’re going home.”
“Oh.” He and I exchange a look and his fingers grip mine harder.
“Lucky,” he says, in something close to his normal voice, but not quite.
“Yeah, lucky me,” I purse my lips, disappointed.
Maria goes to his IV pole after he waves her away from helping him up.
“I can do it. I’m good.”
“I’m sorry, but we need to get you back. You need to rest and my shift is almost over.”
He chuckles. “No problem, Maria. Thank you.” His torso stretches under gravity’s pull, and he stands and straightens the vertebras of his back one by one. “See? I can do it on my own.”
She nods and patiently waits at the ready, having seen too many horrible things in her life as a nurse. He makes it to the door on his own, and looks back at me with mock sternness to say. “You’re coming back to visit me.”
“Yes sir,” I nod, fighting back a smile.
“Every day.”
My stomach flips over with happiness. “Yes, sire. I mean, sir.”
He grins, and glances from Maria to me again. “I’ll see ya, Freckles.”
Wiggling my toes, I nod. “You sure will.”
Behind his back as she closes my door, Maria tosses me a big-eyed smile, and says, “I’ll be back to get the paperwork settled and get you on your way.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
My feet tuck back under the blanket as I pull it up over me for warmth. It’s colder in here without him.
I’ll see ya, Freckles.
Wow.
In a few minutes, Maria comes in and walks to the only dresser in the room; it’s small, plastic and beige, with hard edges and no style. She opens a drawer and pulls out the work-jeans, t-shirt, socks and sneakers I came here in. Looking at them in her arms is odd and I’m sure the expression on my face reflects that, because when her eyes meet mine, her pretty brows come together.
“Thank you.” I take them from her extended arms, looking at the reminder they bring up.
“What happened to you guys?”
A twisting pain in my chest darkens my eyes as they sweep up to meet hers. “We were robbed at gunpoint.”
Tommy
Third red light: blown.
Pedal: in danger of breaking through the floor of my BMW.
When: the night of the robbery.
________
I have to make it to the Golden Gate Bridge. I have to get to my parent’s house. They’ll know what to do. I punch the dashboard with my fist, the silver bull of my ring flashing red under the glare of the stoplight. “Shit! Motherfucker! FUCK!”
The pain in my left shoulder is insane, shooting over my chest, down my arm, and up into my skull. The inside of my leather jacket is stuck to my bloody shirt and the hole is irreparable
. That fucking bitch shot a hole in my jacket. How’d she get the gun away from me? How did I not shoot her like I wanted to? Brendan sure did surprise me this time, no doubt about that. Mr. Hero taking a bullet for Lady Goth? I never would have seen that coming. Fuck her, yes… she’s gotten hot since college, but take a bullet for the bitch? Never would I have guessed he would have done something like that.
I slam my fist on the dash again, to stave off the pain. “FUCK!! This fucking HURTS!!”
I don’t know what I’m going to tell my dad. That I got taken by a girl? There is no way I can tell him that. It’s bad enough I pulled the trigger. We don’t take the shot unless we have to. That’s not what we do and I know this. I’ve been doing this shit with my family my whole life and murder ain’t part of the game.
It wasn’t my time. I had another six months before the planned date and that was going to be of a place in Tiburon – a residence, some billionaire’s place Dad had scoped out that was perfect.
We only do residences. It’s been that way ever since Dad and his buddy got into that mess with the bank robbery when they were kids. Not only that, but Le Barré is in my neighborhood. You don’t shit where you eat. But I couldn’t help myself. I was leaving Tamara’s apartment and she’d said the words that fucked up my whole life: “Have you checked out that new bar, yet?”
“What bar?” I’d said, without much interest, sure she was just stalling to keep me around so she could trick me into sleeping over. She always tried that – and it was never gonna happen. Not with a whore like Tamara.
She leaned against the door of her puny apartment, her dress all crinkled from our fuck-fest. “A couple doors over. You’ll love it. Really. You should check it out. Really cool, dark vibe. Just like you.”
She got me there. That was what did it. Fucking flattery. “Yeah? Alright, I’ll check it out. I’ll see ya, babe.”
“Anytime you want to, Tommy,” she said to my back as I headed for the crotchety staircase.
She lived in a hovel above a small liquor store, her apartment dirty, and overdone with scarves on tables and lamps like an old bordello. But I didn’t have to pay for the sex. Tamara gave it away. She’d probably live somewhere nicer if she’d just face the music of who she is, and start charging people. No one was gonna do what she wanted, which was to take her away from all of this and make a wife and mother of her. Fucking women. They’re so fucking stupid.
Except for Rebecca. She’s different. Classy. Smart. And she’s got that look behind her eyes that says she could join the life I lead if she just had the right door in.
I want her and Brendan is the only thing in my way.
I was thinking about Rebecca – that ass, those legs, those almond-shaped baby browns of hers – when I walked up to the new bar, to check it out just for the hell of it. I looked in the window and couldn’t believe what I was looking at. Brendan was inside and with him, some redhead he was feeling-up. I almost knocked on the window, but I hesitated and looked closer, drawn in by something familiar about the chick’s face. She’d changed, but that was her; that crazy Goth chick from State. I never forget a face. I let Brendan think – just like I let my father think – that my memory is shit, that I’m stupider than I am.
I’m not even close to stupid. And I remember everything.
I remember every time Brendan shot me down with a look I ignored just to piss him off more. I remember how he took my place the second he and Sara broke it off, moving in with Mark and locking me out of their little twosome. I remember how he tried to make sure I didn’t get hired at the agency, how Margaret made it happen thanks to my showing her a good time behind her husband’s back on more than one occasion. Brendan had no right to keep me from that job. I’m smarter than he is. I’m better at the job. I’ve got better ideas, and he always makes sure no one listens to them.
And I sure as shit remember every time that little Goth bitch shot me a look of death back then, like she knew me or something. We never even had a conversation. She didn’t know me. She had no right to look at me like that.
Staring at them, my blood heated up. I stepped back from the window and walked off to the side to consider what I was thinking. Could I end this, once and for all? I could be the shoulder Rebecca would cry on. I could wait an appropriate amount of time, and then take over as Creative Director with Brendan gone, too. I’m the next in line and he’s already feeling the heat of my breath on his back at meetings. I could even take his room in the penthouse, get close with Mark again. It used to be just me, Mark and Ross – who was always an easy guy to be around because he never tried to ride shotgun in life. He was high most of the time and cool with sticking to the backseat. I wonder what happened to him?
I paced the sidewalk and headed back to my car. I had my gun in the glove compartment like always. Hitting the keychain, I unlocked the doors and slid in, staring up the street, eyes locked on Le Barré’s door. Twisting in my seat slowly, I scanned the block. No one was out anymore. The bars had all closed.
Could I do this?
It was asking myself the question that answered it. Why am I even questioning IF I could? I can do anything I fucking want to. I’d be free. I’d have nothing between me and the things I want.
I reached into my glove compartment and pulled out the gun and mask. Then I practiced a few times lowering my voice to make it unrecognizable and figured if he recognized me, the dead can’t be called as a witness. Which meant one thing. They would both have to go. I’d make it look like a robbery. Get some money while I was at it. Money I could take Rebecca out with, secretly knowing the whole time where it came from. The thought put a smile on my soul that didn’t get wiped off until Brendan jumped in front of the bullet and threw everything to shit.
I hadn’t seen that coming. I planned to get her first, then him. The surprise was just enough for that fucking bitch to pull some martial art bullshit and change the game.
My BMW, silver and fast, blends and slices through the fog racing over the Golden Gate, with lights dimmed. I need medical attention and I need it now. Searing agony is blurring my vision badly. I’m fighting to stay focused, using the planning of multiple routes of escape from police to help me stay awake. I roll down the windows to let the fog in…and to let it out of my head.
I’m almost there.
Almost there.
Just a little bit longer.
Their house – a two-story suburban in a sea of nice middle-class homes – is dark and quiet as I pull into the driveway. Throwing my legs out of the car to use their strength to lift myself up, I throw a look back and see blood on the seat, dripped down. Shit. I hit the lock button on my keychain, the chirp going off behind me as I zigzag to the front door. Pulling out a credit card and a wire from my pocket, I pick the lock and stumble into the darkness of my parent’s living room, knocking into the table that holds keys and other random things like change and rings; things people ditch when they get home. Their clanging jingles echo in my head like a high-pitched alarm and behind me I hear the familiar sound that no one wants to hear: the safety being released.
“Don’t take another step,” a voice growls, the gun aimed on my back.
I freeze, feeling dizzy, the room spinning. “Dad. It’s Tommy.”
He hesitates. “Tommy! Why the fuck didn’t you use your keys?” He turns on the light. “What if someone saw you, you fuckin’ moron? Oh shit. What’d you go and do?”
My mother’s voice from the top of the stairs behind him, calls down in horror, “Is that blood?”
I look up at her, throw a look out of the slanted corner of my eye. “I got shot, Ma.”
Then I’m on the floor, cloaked in darkness.
Tommy
Where the fuck am I?
Eyes: focusing on two heads hovering above me.
Shoulder: possessed with a pain I’ve never before known.
________
The room comes into focus and I see I’m lying on a workbench in the garage with my legs sprawled
out, my shirt and jacket off, and Uncle Paul’s head above me as he surveys the wound. My dad is on the other side of him, peering down with disgust that I know from experience is directed at me, not the bullet hole. I yell out as Uncle Paul pokes around, inspecting what’s going on so he can formulate a plan on what to do.
“It’s deep in there. This is gonna hurt.”
My dad growls, “How’d you get shot?” I stare at him, not answering, so he yells in my face, the spittle hitting my cheeks. “I said, HOW’D YOU GET SHOT?”
Through gritted teeth, I mutter, “I shot him first. He went down first.”
Paul glances to Walter, my dad, but gets nothing in return.
He doesn’t care what Paul thinks of his yelling at me. My dad could give two shits about what anyone thinks, but himself. That’s the ways it’s always been. Walter is the alpha. He runs this house and this family. He will always be in charge and anyone who ever thinks otherwise will be stomped to the ground. Like a pack of dogs, we know our place and it’s always behind him. I fucking hate it, but I put up with it. For now.
“So… what? Someone pulled a gun, so you shot them? Were you at a club or somethin’?”
Paul turns and I follow him with my eyes to see what he’s going to do to me. From a bag, he pulls out what looks like very long tweezers.
My eyes cut back to my dad and I wince at the throbbing ache in my shoulder. “It was Brendan.”
His eyes flicker and he looks to the ceiling. “Oh fuck. You mean to tell me this is all about your stupid rivalry? What have I told you?”
Staring at the ceiling and gritting my teeth against the pain, I keep my mouth shut.
Paul mutters one of the family slogans we all know too well: “Never let emotions get in the way of the goal.”
My dad throws him a deadly look. “Was I talkin’ to you?” His head swivels back to me. He takes his finger and presses his thumb into my wound, shooting blinding pain into me. I scream out and struggle not to punch him in the face. If I did, he’d kill me. Maybe that would be better than this.
“Don’t even think it,” he hisses, like he can read my mind.
Hearts Series Bundle: Books 1-6 Page 24
