Next To Die

by Marliss Melton

  The manager shot him a look that could kill.

  Ophelia made a choking sound. He couldn’t tell if she was grateful or contemplating murder as she bore her refills to the waiting table.

  The sky outside turned from pewter to black. The restaurant began to empty. Vinny watched the ninth round of the boxing match. Out the corner of one eye, he saw Lia take a biker couple’s order. He thought he saw the old man put his hand on her ass.

  “Did that old lech just feel you up?” he asked as she approached the bar.

  She looked at him blankly. “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t think so?”

  She shrugged. “It happens all the time. It’s no big deal.”

  “You don’t think?” If she was his little sister—Isabella—he’d make a big fucking deal out of it.

  “Relax, Little Al,” she told him. “I know how to handle it.”

  He was too startled by the nickname, which was surely a reference to Al Pacino, to summon an argument.

  He kept a watchful eye on her as she carried two Long Island iced teas back to the table. Sure enough, the hairy geezer with tattoos on his forearm put his hand right below her heart-shaped bottom.

  With a forced smile, Lia removed it, put it back on the table, and gave it a pat.

  Good boy. Down, boy.

  She called that handling it?

  Vinny stood up. This was wrong.

  As she turned toward the kitchen, she intercepted his path. “Go back to your chair,” she warned him. “Don’t you dare get me into trouble!”

  “I’m just going to talk to him.”

  “Oh, no you’re not.” She darted an uneasy glance at the manager’s open door.

  “Is there a problem, Lia?” The woman’s voice was like nails on a chalkboard.

  “Not at all,” she retorted.

  “Actually, there is,” Vinny countered, turning to the matron. “Do you allow your waitresses to be groped by customers?” he demanded.

  “Of course not,” the woman huffed.

  “Well, that old guy just put his hands on her backside. What are you going to do about it?”

  “Well, I hope you told him to stop,” she said to Ophelia.

  “Yes, of course I did. There isn’t a problem.” She tried to move past Vinny, but he wrested the order booklet out of her hands.

  “How ’bout you take their order?” he said, thrusting it at the manager.

  “Excuse me?” the woman huffed. “I am not a waitress. Tending tables is Lia’s job, not mine.”

  “Looks like you’d better take over,” said Vinny, grabbing Lia’s hand, “’cause she just quit.”

  “Oh, no I didn’t,” Lia countered, trying to break free.

  “You know what?” the manager shot back, “I’m glad for an excuse to let you go. Take a hike, and take this hothead with you—after he pays for his food.”

  Vinny whipped his wallet out and tossed forty dollars on the counter. Retrieving Lia’s purse from behind the bar, he dragged her toward the door. “Come on, cara mia, let’s go,” he urged.

  With her jaw dangerously set, she let him tug her toward the door.

  “Do you have a jacket?” he asked as the door whooshed shut behind them.

  “In my car.”

  As they marched toward her car, he sought the keys in her hippie-style purse. She snatched it from his hands, pulled out her keys, and tried to get in, but Vinny held her fast.

  “Let me go. I can’t believe you did that!” Her voice shook with fury.

  “You’re not driving anywhere right now,” he said. Spying what looked to be her sweater, he edged her aside and lunged for it, then locked the car up tight. “Let’s go for a walk,” he suggested, pocketing her keys.

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  “How ’bout you count to thirty and then I’ll let you hit me,” he suggested.

  She wrenched the sweater out of his hands and stormed ahead of him, throwing it on as she stomped across an enormous parking lot toward an indoor shopping mall.

  Vinny followed close behind. “Are you counting?” he inquired.

  “Thirty!” She whirled without warning. He caught a fist in the gut and a cuff on the side of the head.

  “Ouch, that hurt.” He was impressed.

  “I can’t believe you just got me fired,” she ranted, shoving him with both hands. “Who the hell do you think you are? I needed that job. I’m completely broke, you jerk. Thanks a lot!”

  “No problem,” Vinny murmured, smiling to himself.

  He knew from experience that you had to hit rock bottom if you wanted to push your way to the top.

  * * *

  Hearing the break in her voice, Lia fled across the parking lot, scattering the seagulls who were hunkered down for the night.

  A car that was backing up blared its horn as she stepped into its path. The driver shouted obscenities. Lia shouted one back.

  How was she going to pay her rent now? There weren’t any jobs near the beach this time of year. She’d be crashing at her sister’s place till springtime, providing Penny didn’t kick her out first. She had to be tired of having Lia around.

  Hell, Lia was tired of herself these days.

  Tears of frustration stabbed her eyes. She was so intent on putting distance between her and the boy SEAL that she didn’t see the manhole cover jutting out of the sidewalk. She tripped over it in classic Ophelia style and pitched to her knees on the unforgiving concrete.

  Crushed, she rolled onto her bottom, bowed her head over her scraped knees, and willed herself not to cry.

  The air shifted. “You okay?” Vinny asked matter-of-factly.

  “Fuck. You,” she gritted. She kept her head down so he wouldn’t see the self-pity pooling in her eyes.

  “Yeah, you can do that later,” came the cocky response. “So, did you hurt yourself? Lemme look.” He lifted the hem of her sweater and peered at her knees. “Scraped ’em up good.”

  No shit, Sherlock.

  “Come on, I’ll help you up.” He put his arms around her and lifted her to her feet. “Let’s go inside,” he said, gesturing to the mall doors. “Maybe something’s still open.”

  They hobbled through the entrance to find that the only establishment in operation was a dimly lit Irish pub.

  Jerking free of Vinny’s touch, Lia limped into what was clearly a locals’ hangout. The handful of patrons glanced their way as they headed to a booth.

  “I’ll be right back,” said Vinny.

  He was gone for ten seconds, enough time for her to verify that her pantyhose were shredded and one knee was worse off than the other. When Vinny returned, he pushed into the space beside her and reached for her legs.

  “Don’t touch me.” But then she saw the damp paper towels in his hands and grudgingly submitted to his aid.

  “Sit sideways,” he said, swinging her legs over his thighs.

  It wasn’t like she had much choice. “How’s that feel?” he asked, pressing the makeshift compresses to her knees.

  “Better,” she admitted, unsettled by his touch. He had strong, tanned fingers and thighs made of granite.

  A waitress stepped up to their table. “What can I get you?”

  “Think you could come up with a bag of ice?” he asked.

  “I’ll check,” she said, moving away.

  Vinny stroked the bare skin behind Lia’s right knee. “You have beautiful legs,” he said with reverence.

  “Look,” she said, steeling herself against his flattery, not to mention his caress, “I don’t know how to get this through your thick skull. I’m not interested in getting to know you. I don’t go out with guys my own age, let alone guys that are younger than me.”

  His chocolaty eyes skewered her, and her words seemed to roll like water off a duck’s back. “You still owe me a debt,” he reminded her. “Who paid for my dinner? I did.”

  “That’s because you got me fired, you idiot!”

  “Come o
n,” he chided softly. “You deserve a better job than that, and you know it.”

  The compliment confused her. She closed her mouth with a snap and considered her options. “Fine. I’ll buy you a beer, how’s that? Or are you even old enough to drink?”

  “I’m old enough to die for my country,” he pointed out.

  Alrighty, then.

  The waitress reappeared with a glass full of ice. “I couldn’t find a baggie,” she explained, putting it in front of him.

  He drew the glass closer. “The lady’s going to buy me a Heineken,” he said, lifting out an ice cube.

  “And what’ll you have?” the waitress asked Lia.

  “I’ll take a rum and Diet Coke. Captain Morgan, please,” she specified.

  The waitress left, and Lia gasped as Vinny put an ice cube on her knee. He circled the abrasion, careful not to touch it directly. A shiver of pleasure moved up her thigh. The ice melted fast, dampening the frayed edges of her pantyhose.

  “I’m training to be a medic,” he volunteered, sending her a quick glance.

  His eyelashes were ridiculously thick and curly. “Are you really?”

  “Yeah. I like it. I think I’ll go to med school eventually.”

  She reassessed him. Obviously a brain went with all that brawn. It was a shame that he was so young. Maybe if he were ten years older . . .

  “How long have you been a SEAL?” she asked. Not that she wanted to know him any better.

  “Three years.”

  No way. “What? Were you like twelve when you joined?”

  “Hah, hah. No, I was seventeen. And you don’t join the SEALs. You’re selected through one of the world’s most rigorous training programs. Only fourteen out of sixty-six candidates graduated.”

  Wow. Okay, that said something for him. Questions crowded her brain, but she stifled them, not wanting to give him false encouragement.

  “I’m half Irish, half Italian. Know what that means?” he added, clearly needing none.

  “No.”

  “It means I’m stubborn and passionate. When I see something I want, I go after it.”

  “Really,” she drawled, stifling an involuntary shiver.

  “When I was seven, I saw a documentary on the Discovery Channel about the Navy SEALs. It looked like something I wanted to do.”

  “And now you want to go to med school,” she added.

  “Well, sure. I also like challenges. Which is probably why I like you.”

  She tingled at the confession. “You’re wasting your time.”

  “We’ll see. Of course, if I want to go to med school, I’ll have to finish college first,” he continued, despite the interruption. “Every semester I take two classes.”

  “You sound busy,” she said.

  “I bet you went to college,” he wagered.

  “Yes, I did.” And she’d partied like a frenzied animal.

  He fixed his penetrating gaze on her. “What’d you study?”

  “Journalism.” When I went to class.

  “And you graduated?”

  “Yeah.” Thanks to Penny, who’d typed up many a paper for her and drove her to rehab till she got her act together.

  “So what’re you doin’ waitressing? You should be on TV or radio or somethin’.”

  “I could if I wanted to,” she said with false confidence. “I like the idea of snooping around, finding stories.”

  “You should do it,” he said. “What’s stopping you?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, chugging down her drink. The Captain Morgan went straight through her empty stomach into her bloodstream.

  “I think you’d look hot on TV,” he persisted, his deep voice like a caress.

  It had to be the liquor making her face warm. “No one’s going to hire me,” she admitted. “My grades were bad. I wouldn’t have graduated if my sister hadn’t helped me. ’Course, she lost a fiancé in the process, and that was my fault . . .” She shut her mouth abruptly, unwilling to say too much.

  “You know what I think?” he said after a reflective sip of his beer. “You lack self-confidence, that’s what it is.”

  She bristled at the accusation. “Excuse me? I do not.”

  “Prove it,” he challenged.

  “I don’t have to prove a damn thing to you.”

  “Not to me.” He gestured with his chin. “Prove it to yourself.”

  Lia felt a scowl coming. Wasn’t this totally annoying? A barely twenty-year-old boy was telling her what to do with her life. “Do you want another beer?” she asked him, her temper flaring anew. “How many is it going to take for you to leave me alone?”

  His eyes narrowed briefly, but then he gave his patented crooked smile. “The repairs on my car came to two hundred and twenty dollars,” he let her know.

  Lia swallowed hard.

  “At three dollars a beer, that’s . . . just over seventy-three beers,” he added, proving himself adept at mental math.

  Her gaze flickered over him. There was more to this boy than met the eye. “You’re pretty smart, huh?” she commented, testing him.

  He gave a shrug that said, Yeah, so what?

  “So why didn’t you go to college instead of SEAL training?”

  His expression turned suddenly remote.

  “Forget it,” she added. “I don’t even want to know.”

  “My mother got sick. She couldn’t work anymore.”

  “Oh.” In two short sentences, he managed to cast himself in a totally different light.

  “I had a scholarship to wrestle at Penn State, but . . .” His sentence trailed off. “It worked out better this way.”

  She couldn’t keep from asking. “Did your mother get better?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Well that’s good.” Lia thought of her father and her heart gave a familiar, painful squeeze.

  The conversation lagged.

  “Did I say something?” Vinny asked a moment later.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just dropped off a cliff there,” he pointed out.

  She was feeling the effects of the drink she’d sucked down. She suddenly felt weepy and tired and defeated, especially when she thought of her beautiful apartment, the one she couldn’t afford to return to. “I’m just tired,” she said. “I want to go home.”

  “No problem,” he said. “Stay right here. I’ll go get my car.”

  She didn’t understand. “Why?”

  “So you don’t have to walk.” He was already on his feet, jingling the keys in his pocket. “Be right back.”

  In a blink of an eye he was gone. Lia sat for a stunned moment feeling lonely. The loneliness grew when she reflected that he’d gone off with her car keys. What if he decided just to dump her here? She hadn’t been very nice to him.

  A couple of minutes crept by. She paid the waitress and reapplied her lipstick, covering up the fact that she was nervous. But then Vinny was back, reaching for her hand.

  “I’m parked illegally,” he volunteered, helping her to her feet.

  “I’m not a cripple,” she said, but his hand was so warm and steady that she didn’t tug free. Besides, she felt wobbly on her feet; she’d managed to get tipsy off just one drink. She didn’t want to walk into a wall.

  His car was parked with two tires on the curb. He held the door for her as she eased into the passenger seat. Cozy and warm, the interior smelled like Windex. It was immaculate, a far cry from the inside of her own car.

  He got in, eyes glimmering in the dark. “Seat belt,” he reminded her.

  She snapped the harness into place, and he maneuvered the stick shift. The engine gave a roar as they pulled away.

  They drove right past Hooters. “Hey, my car!” Lia cried, jolted out of her haze.

  “I can’t let you drive,” he pointed out calmly.

  “I’m not drunk!”

  He said nothing to that.

  The memory of his muscle-hewn thighs made her realize how vulnerable she w
as right now. “Where are you taking me?” she asked in a small voice.

  “Home,” he replied, casting her a puzzled glance.

  She was glad to hear it, though at the same time a little disappointed. What, no abduction in the middle of the night, being taken to his apartment, tied to his bed with silk handkerchiefs, ravished repeatedly? “How’m I gonna get my car?”

  “Friend of mine will help me bring it back.”

  She stole a peek at him. Wow, for such a young guy, he sure was gallant. She’d never gone out with a guy who treated her like a piece of glass.

  But then again, he’d gotten her fired. He was the reason she wouldn’t be paying her rent anytime soon.

  Scant minutes later, he pulled up in front of Penny’s house. “Cool pumpkins,” he said, admiring the neighbor’s jack-o’-lanterns.

  “Yeah,” Lia agreed. What now? Letting him kiss her would be a big mistake. On the other hand, she was curious. Just what was this young SEAL’s kiss like, anyway?

  Vinny rounded the car to escort her to the door. “If you want to see me again, you need to find me first,” he said as they crossed the front lawn.

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded as she concentrated on walking.

  “Let’s see how good of an investigative reporter you could be,” he challenged lightly. “Which one of these keys gets you in?”

  “Give me that.” She snatched the key ring from his hand and unlocked the door. “My sister’s probably sleeping,” she added, hinting heavily that he couldn’t come in.

  “So be quiet, then,” he told her.

  “I am being quiet. God, you’re annoying.”

  “Yeah, but you like me. I need those keys back,” he reminded her. “I’ll leave them under the floor mat on the driver’s side.”

  “Okay.” She handed them over. “You didn’t have to bring me home, you know. I could have driven.”

  “Maybe, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to do this.”

  In the next instant, he had her in a lip-lock.

  She started to push him away, but his lips were so warm and skillful, her hand stopped pushing and went around his neck instead. She felt herself melting like a snow cone in the sun. God, the boy could kiss!

  He kissed her like she’d never been kissed before.