Breaking the Rules

by Suzanne Brockmann

  To his surprise, she spoke first as he reached forward to kick the car’s a/c up into a higher gear.

  “I missed you,” she murmured, her voice muffled because her face was still pressed against his shoulder. But that was definitely what she’d said.

  And Izzy didn’t quite know what to say, so he went with the naked truth. “Yeah, I missed you, too.”

  She pulled back then to look at him, and even though night had fully fallen long before she’d pulled off her jeans, there was enough light from the dimly glowing dashboard so that, up close like this, he could see her face, and she could see his.

  She wasn’t smiling—in fact, she looked as if she were fighting tears. And she said, in a very small voice, “I don’t blame you, you know, for giving up on me.”

  And with that she nodded over at the other seat and added, “Could you …? Do you mind?”

  He obeyed automatically, picking them both up and over the parking brake. Somewhere in there, she pulled off of him, neatly sliding into the passenger seat. She grabbed her handbag from where she’d thrown it in the back and dug through it, pulling out a plastic baggie filled with tissues as he attempted to comprehend.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “What? I what?”

  She handed him a small stack of the tissues, which he used to adios the condom, because it was definitely better to have this conversation without his dick hanging out, doing its postsex shrinky-dink imitation.

  “I know I shouldn’t complain,” Eden said as she slid her leg back into both her stripper panties and her jeans, managing to slip her foot into her sneaker with dead accuracy as it emerged from the pants leg. A smooth, solid reminder that this was not her first time at the rodeo. “Since I didn’t exactly come back to San Diego to see you, after I left Europe.”

  She lifted her hips to rebutton herself and adjust her pants around her, then reached up beneath her T-shirt and refastened the front clasp of her bra.

  At which point Izzy slapped on the car’s interior overhead light with the back of his hand. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  She recoiled at his vehemence, squinting at him in the sudden brightness even as she straightened her messy hair, pulling it back into a ponytail.

  “I flew to Germany every single fucking chance I got,” he told her, his voice actually breaking with his disbelief. “Every chance.”

  “Sorry,” she said, bristling. “I know you were busy—of course, you were busy and it was a long way to travel. And I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, because I know it took me forever to get my act together, but … God, you didn’t even write back.”

  “Write?” he asked. “Back?”

  “After I sent you that letter,” Eden told him. “At Christmas …?” She was looking at him with an added you asshole in her eyes, but then she realized his stunned shock was for real. “You didn’t get it.”

  She said it in exact unison with his “I didn’t get it.” Part of him was completely ready to buy this—the idea that their months-long separation had been due to a simple miscommunication—and was ready to fall into her arms, weeping and proclaiming his undying love.

  But part of him was emotionally detached, watching as if from outside of his own recently well-fucked body as she told him exactly—exactly—what she knew he’d want to hear.

  And that skeptical part of him needed to do a serious cross-examine. “But I came to see you in January. And February.”

  “You came to …?” She was convincingly confused. “You mean …?”

  “To Germany,” he clarified. “I spoke to Anya.”

  And now she was shaking her head, and laughing a little. “I left Anya’s right after Christmas. I got a job in Bremen. I told you that …” She rolled her eyes. “In the letter you never got.”

  Izzy was now shaking his head, too. “Anya said you wouldn’t see me. She didn’t say that you weren’t there.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Eden insisted. “Because I wasn’t there.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m telling you that it happened.”

  “I’m not saying that it didn’t, I’m just saying—”

  “I sent you e-mail,” Izzy told her, and it was hard to keep his tone from being accusatory, like she was the one with the crazy-ass story that she was making up. Which she probably was.

  And she knew what he was thinking. “I’m not lying,” she said. “I didn’t get any e-mail from you.”

  “Yeah, well, I sent it,” Izzy said. “Practically weekly. How are you? I’m worried about you. Please call me just so I know you’re okay …”

  “To what address?” Eden asked. “I changed servers so often. And after I left Anya’s, there were entire months when I didn’t have Internet access. I still don’t have regular—”

  “One was AOL,” he said. “Another was gmail. None of it bounced.”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t signed on to those accounts since … I don’t know when. The AOL address was … Well, Jerry and Richie both had it, so I adjusted it so that everything that wasn’t from Danny or Ben went into my spam folder.”

  Convenient. Blame it on her ex-boyfriend and his drug-dealing rapist-asshole boss. “I guess you didn’t want to hear from me.”

  “I didn’t,” she admitted. “Not at first.”

  “So what’d your letter say?” Izzy asked. “Merry Christmas. I’ve sufficiently recovered from Pinkie’s death, so come fuck me?”

  She went very still, just sitting there, looking down at her sneaker-clad feet.

  “Sorry,” Izzy said. “That was … unnecessarily harsh.”

  “You think I’m lying,” she said quietly—her words a statement, not a question.

  “Yeah, Eden,” he said, just as quietly. “I do. I think you need help again, and I think I’m conveniently here, so you just jumped me.”

  “Oh God,” she started, but he wasn’t finished.

  “And I don’t just think it, I know that you know that I am still so freaking attracted to you. Even after all the bullshit. Even—what is it?” He looked at the clock glowing dimly on the dash. “Ten minutes after you screw me like there’s no tomorrow and damn near blow off the top of my head, I am unable to keep from thinking about a replay. In fact, I’m already planning it. Where: pick a hotel room, any hotel room. All you have to do is ask, and I’ll get us a two-grand-a-night suite at Caesars Palace and it’ll be worth every freaking penny. How: me on top this time, with your feet up by my ears, with the lights on so I can watch. When: as soon as humanly possible, because holy crap, I’m already turned on again, just thinking about it. Feel free to grab hold of my lie detector to check.”

  She was silent, looking down at her feet again, pretending to try not to cry. Or maybe she was really trying not to cry. Either way, it didn’t matter.

  “So, that’s what I want,” Izzy told her. “Completely bullshit free. You need my help with this thing with Ben? You got it. Truth is, I would’ve helped you without the sex, because I’m a sucker that way. But you played that card, sweetheart, so … Game on.”

  Eden refused to cry, even though her heart was breaking. It was stupid. She was stupid, but when he’d kissed her so hungrily, she’d actually hoped …

  “What do you want me to say to you?” she asked Izzy quietly.

  She’d hoped that they could pick up where they’d left off, that she could convince him that she’d never lied to him and that she could be trusted.

  “The truth would be nice.” His face, his eyes, were hard as he looked at her in the dim dashboard light.

  But Eden knew that he didn’t want the real truth. He wanted her to confirm the fictional version of his own private reality, a reality that he was convinced had happened.

  “I never wrote you a letter and I ignored the e-mail you sent,” she said. “Is that what you want me to say?” Her voice shook despite her best efforts to keep it steady. “Well, screw you, because I’m not going to lie. I wrote you a letter, because it felt like the things I h
ad to say shouldn’t come in an e-mail or a text message, and because I was too scared to call you. And I didn’t get your e-mail, and I didn’t know you came to see me in January or February—Anya never told me. And I do need your help with Ben, but that’s not why I did … what I just did. I did it because we’re still technically married, and I promised you that I wouldn’t have sex with anyone else, so I haven’t. And it hasn’t been a big deal, because I haven’t even wanted to. But seeing you again was … It made me feel so, I don’t know, alive, okay? And then you kissed me, and even though I knew it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real, I just … I wanted to, okay? I did it because I really, really wanted to. And because I thought you did, too.”

  The tears that she’d been holding back escaped, and she wiped at them furiously with the heels of her hands, refusing to dissolve into a puddle of pain in front of this infuriating man.

  “I thought it would be good,” she whispered. “And yes, I did it so that you’d stick around, but not because I need your help. I did it because you’re not the only one who wanted to do it again before it even freaking started!”

  She didn’t see him move.

  One moment she was sitting there, beside him in the darkness, and the next he’d pulled her into his arms.

  Only this time there were no car headlights on them.

  Still, he kissed her, hard, and she not only let him, but she kissed him, equally hard, back, even as her heart broke.

  Ben woke up with absolutely no idea where he was, aware first and foremost that both of his hands were cuffed up and over his head by pieces of stiff plastic that secured him to the metal frame of a narrow bed.

  The mattress was plain and not covered by sheets or blankets—just stained blue-and-white ticking—and none too comfortable.

  The room itself was small and windowless, with a single door down at one end, and another cot at the other end, where sure enough, another boy lay, also locked to the frame.

  But he was cuffed by his ankles, probably because both of his wrists were bandaged. He was also awake and watching Ben in the dim light from a single overhead bulb.

  “Welcome to hell, cutie pie,” he said. His hair was buzz-cut short, and he was dressed in gray. Gray baggy T-shirt, gray sweatpants. He pointed up toward the corner of the walls and ceiling, to the left of the door. “Security camera. But it’s visual only. No audio. We can speak freely. So, are you here for me, or am I here for you?”

  His words didn’t make sense. Of course Ben’s brain was still foggy. He remembered Eden. And Greg, with a gun. And—shit—the two men and the woman, that shot of something in his butt … “Where are we?”

  “I told you,” the other boy said. He was skinny, with bony elbows and a lean, narrow face and big eyes. “It’s hell. Other than that? I’m not really certain. I think maybe we’re in New Mexico. Or Arizona. Possibly Las Vegas. The interior courtyard is definitely arid. All I can say for sure is, Toto, we’re not in Connecticut anymore.”

  “How long have I been here?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t know,” the boy said. “You were here when they brought me in, after my latest pedicure and stone massage. That was a joke. You had your last pedi, son, maybe for the rest of your life. You meet Weird Don yet? He’s like, barely twenty-two, and he calls us younguns son. You know, I think I’m probably a visual aid, to help welcome you to the program. Like a Doobe and a Don’tbe, and I’m the Don’tbe. I’m guessing the black nail polish you’re wearing is a clue that you probably didn’t volunteer for this twelve-week torturefest. Nor did I. And see, I’m their latest problem child. Week twenty-two, and I still insist that if God wanted me to be heterosexual, he wouldn’t have made me fall in love with my boyfriend, Clark. But, WWJD—what would Jesus do? Clearly, He, too, would agree that starving me to death while depriving me of sleep is oodles better than acknowledging that just maybe I’m never going to deny my true, God-given sexual orientation.”

  “Why don’t you just say what they want to hear?” Ben asked. “I mean, just to get out of here …”

  “They make you chant things,” the boy said. “Over and over again. Like These urges I feel aren’t natural. And My feelings are bad and wrong, and if I don’t stop them, then I am working hand in hand with the devil … Oh, here’s a good one. My parents are ashamed of me, but I will work to make them proud. I don’t need to chant that—the first part—forty thousand times, day in and day out, to know that it’s true. I say, My parents are ashamed of me, but not half as much as I’m ashamed of them. Maybe you can do it, new boy. Maybe you can repeat their lies, and get out of here undamaged. But they keep you hungry, and they don’t let you sleep, and they freeze you in tubs of ice, and heat you in saunas until your brain feels cooked, and then the things they make you tell yourself start sounding like they might be true and … Don’t bother trying to kill yourself. It doesn’t work.”

  He held up his bandaged arms so Ben could see them better. “Not that I actually wanted to die. In fact, I have real incentive to live. Two words: Clark Volborg loves me, too. Okay, that was more than two words, but you get the picture. I thought slitting my wrists would get me into a real hospital with real doctors with real degrees who would actually help me escape. But my parents signed off on a form that … See, I’m a high flight risk, so they opted—completely—for inhouse care. God help me if I get appendicitis. God help me …”

  “What’s your name?” Ben asked softly.

  “My old name or my new one?”

  “You have a new name?” Ben asked.

  “You will, too,” the boy told him. “They’ll give you one, or maybe use your middle name. My middle name was Devereaux, which, let’s face it, was just too gay. So they call me Chip, which is pretty stupid. Like Chip isn’t totally gay, too. Although, look at me. You could call me Motherfucker Tittylover, and because that was my name? It would be totally gay.”

  “What’s your real name?” Ben asked.

  “Peter Sinclair, the fucking third, of the Greenwich Sinclairs. But don’t bother, we’ll both get demerits if you use it. I see you got the double cuff. That’ll change to a single after they give you the full list of don’ts. As in don’t whack off unless you’re in the special whack-off stall in the bathroom—it’s plastered with pictures of naked women. All those breasts, it’s disconcerting, and you’ve got to keep your eyes open, and yes, there’s a camera. They’ll be watching. Particularly Weird Don. He’s probably monitoring our camera right now—you are so his type.” He laughed. “Look at you, you believe me. Well, you should believe me about Weird Don. But the whack-off stall? This is an abstinence-only program, son, and abstinence means abstinence. You so much as scratch your balls and you’ll be walking around with your hands cuffed behind your back, faster than you can sing a chorus of ‘It’s Raining Men.’

  “Of course, rumor has it that the abstinence rule is dropped during the last week, right before graduation. They give you Viagra and they bring in these girls and—You have a boyfriend?”

  Ben shook his head. “No.”

  “So maybe it’ll be okay with you,” Peter said. “To hook up with some twenty-dollar whore for a five-minute session, just to get the hell out of here. The drugs’ll make it happen, and you can lie back, close your eyes, and think of England. But me, I made a promise to Clark. I made a vow …”

  He started to cry, a soft, keening sound that he tried to hide, that sent chills down Ben’s back.

  “I’m getting out of here,” Ben said. “Soon. My sister, she’s going to come get me.”

  The quiet weeping turned to forced laughter. “Dream on, new boy. Because unless she’s got an AK-47, she won’t get past the front door. If she can even find the front door …”

  “She’ll find me,” Ben whispered. “I know she will.”

  But as Peter Sinclair the fucking third finally fell silent, as his breathing turned from ragged to slow and steady, Ben had his doubts.

  The call came around 0115, as Eden dozed beside him in the front
seat of the rental car.

  At around 2100, Izzy had driven them over to the main road to get coffee and sandwiches, to gas up the car, and take a bathroom break—but in truth to find an ATM, and a drugstore to buy more condoms, since they’d used the only one he’d had. When they’d returned, Eden’s mother still wasn’t home.

  And as eager as he was to break open the entire box of condoms and give his loving wife the replay that she claimed she wanted, it was obvious that she was struggling to keep her eyes open after a hard day of dancing naked for the teeming masses.

  Still, she’d fought it, until he’d convinced her to go to sleep by promising her he’d wake her in a few hours to take a shift watching the house. Which, of course, he didn’t do. She wasn’t the only liar in the car.

  As Izzy’s cell rang in the darkness, Eden awoke, taking a sharp breath in as she realized where she was and who she was with and remembering—no doubt—what she’d recently done with him.

  “It’s Dan,” Izzy told her as she pushed her hair back from her face. He answered the call. “Yo,” he said, “Gillman. I’m here with your sister. I’ve got you on speaker.”

  “Great.” Danny sounded exhausted and as if there was nothing about this situation that was even remotely great. Still, Izzy gave him points for trying. “Jenn and I are in a cab, on the way to JFK. Our flight gets into Las Vegas a little before 0900.”

  “You want me to pick you up?” Izzy asked.

  Dan sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “Thank you. That would be terrific. World Airlines, flight 576. Although … I assume you’ve got a rental? Not your truck?”

  “It’s a rental,” Izzy told him. “Considering I came straight from Germany, getting my truck would’ve been—”

  “Does it seat five?” Dan asked. “Comfortably? I mean, enough to make the road-trip back to San Diego?”

  “Hmm,” Izzy said as turned around to look at the backseat, even as Eden said, “Yes. We can absolutely make it work. Ben’s really skinny. You are talking about the four of us and Ben. Please say yes.”

  “Yeah,” Danny said. “I just spoke to Ivette.”