I heard some music, then footsteps, then the sound of locks tumbling open and it occurred to me that all three were cheap and easy to pick. The door creaked open and there he was, leaning against the doorframe in lazy repose.
“Hi, Evelyn. Come in.” He didn’t quite leer, but I felt his eyes burn holes through that loose hoodie of mine.
“H… hi.” I followed him in.
“Wanna hang that up? Oh, wine. Thank you.” He took the bottle and inspected the label. “Alright, this’ll go well with what we’re having tonight.”
I felt his arm over my shoulders, propelling me ahead and I stiffened enough for him to feel my discomfort. His arm slipped off and his grin slid back to me, unapologetic.
“Right this way.” I followed him to a small kitchen corner where he had nothing but a two-burner electrical stove, a college refrigerator, and a sink built into a miniscule countertop with a wall-mounted cabinet over it all. There was a pot of water boiling on the stove and several little cups and bowls of ingredients, chopped to the right size and ready for use.
Blaine Kirby opened a cabinet and pulled out two stemmed wine glasses. The cork popped as he opened the bottle, and poured us some. We toasted, our glasses meeting with a clinking sound and suddenly I had a bad feeling, drinking with someone only to take them down later. It felt unclean. I barely wet my lips, letting my eyes pass over his pocket-sized kitchen in appreciation.
“Wow. And here I thought we’d be having take-out food.”
He laughed, his head thrown back, his voice rich with mirth and it occurred to me that Chico wouldn’t hear much if I keep my hoodie on. I unzipped, trying to be as casual as I could, and slid the too-warm layer off my shoulders. His laughter was cut short and I felt his eyes on me.
“Wow, Evelyn. That’s some… purple… you’ve got on.”
Ignoring the way his voice got thick with excitement, I shrugged. “My friends give me flack over this shirt because it clashes with the rest of me. I like it, though.”
“Yeah… so do I.” He stepped away from the kitchen counter and into the little room. There was a sofa in the middle and no television, but an old boom-box played a Pink Floyd CD. The walls were lined with books, and climbing equipment was hanging off the pegs where others would have displayed pictures on the wall. There was a small desk against the single, large window with an old, clunky laptop on it and a black-and-white laser printer, and some plastic file boxes full of paperwork.
I wondered what was in there. Doormen didn’t work out of the house. Bills and personal paperwork should have taken just a fraction of that space.
There was no table and chairs and no doors lead elsewhere, aside from the bathroom visible through the open doorway.
“Your little kingdom?” I asked.
“Yeah. I’m not as well-off as your buddy Rinaldi.”
I shrugged. “Most people need very little, when it comes down to it.” I let my eyes scan his bookshelves. ”What are you reading now?”
“Pliny the Elder.”
My woeful ignorance showed on my face, because Blaine sighed and dumped the linguine into the boiling water. He gave it one stir.
“Did you go to school?”
“Yeah.”
“A good school?”
“Yes.” I felt my jaw tighten.
“So how come you don’t know who Pliny the Elder was?” His tone bordered on mocking, just this side of judgmental.
“I was a pre-med. Then I switched my major to business and had some catching up to do.”
“You still have some catching up to do. In fact, we all do.” He stalked over to his bookshelf and pondered the worn spines of his books. Then he pulled out a modest hardcover volume with a picture of an old, stone head on the front.
“Here, read this. I think you’ll like it, considering your adventurous nature.”
I felt a blush rise to my cheeks. “What makes you think I’m adventurous?”
“You went climbing because you got a discount coupon, right? And now you’re here. Need I say more?”
I shrugged, checking the book out while he poured some oil on a pan and started tossing ingredients onto it. Soon, his little, one-room apartment smelled like a first-class restaurant. I took my wine and settled in the corner of the sofa, cracking the book open. He loaned me a book called “Conquest of Gaul”, written by Julius Caesar.
IN LESS than an hour, his loaner book was on top of my crumpled hoodie and my focus was redirected to the food. We sat on the sofa, legs crossed and facing one another, trying not to spill the linguine in fresh tomato sauce into our laps. It was fragrant and balanced, the garlic bringing out the shrimp and the diced vegetables providing a contrast in texture. I bit into something I’ve never had before.
“What are these?”
“Pinola nuts. Essentially, seeds from pine cones.”
“Seriously?” I chased another oblong pine nut down with my fork and ate it, focusing on its resinous, slightly sweet flavor.
He watched me, a lazy grin spreading on his face.
“You like it?”
“Love it.” My mouth was full and I was in heaven, which is why I almost choked when he said, “Celia taught me how to make this.”
My coughing fit didn’t go unnoticed. His gaze sharpened as he reached a long arm down, handing me my glass of water.
“Thanks,” I said. “You knew her? The chick in the display case at the gym?”
“Yeah…” Pain and regret darkened his gaze.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my reaction automatic. “You two were close, I take it.”
“She was the only woman who’d ever truly fascinated me.”
I swirled more pasta onto the fork and kept eating, plotting my next move. What would have I picked up at the gym, being new like I was supposed to be?
“That bald guy at the gym said her death was your fault,” I said, my voice quiet and hesitant. I eyed him over my wine glass.
“Yeah. He’s right. Of course it was my fault. If you’re belaying someone and they fall and die, there’s only one fuckin’ person to blame.”
I looked at him, my eyes hopeful. “Maybe it was an accident.”
He gulped some wine. “You’re new at this. You don’t get it yet. Have you ever belayed anyone?”
“No,” I lied.
“Okay. You’ll find that when you stand there, anchored to a tree or to a bolt in the rock and the other end of someone’s line is in your hand, they entrust you with their life. It’s… it’s very special and we did that a lot for one another, she and I. And I’d failed her.” His wine was gone and he topped his glass off, his eyebrows quirking up at me. I shook my head; I’d had barely half a glass and I was still good.
“Did you meet in the gym?”
His expression changed from pain to a calculating gaze.
“Don’t tell me you don’t know she was Raf Rinaldi’s sister.”
I let my glass slip out of my fingers, hit the cheap area rug, and spill. I sat there, motionless, slack-jawed, goggle-eyed.
“You… you dated his sister?” He kept staring at me and I kept looking shocked, only letting my eyes drift to my still hand much later, now devoid of its wine glass. I looked down, knowing what I’d find.
“Shit! Shit I’m so sorry. It didn’t break, though. But I made a mess.” I ran my hand through my loose hair as though to cover my embarrassment, and began standing up to get a paper towel.
“Sit.” Blaine was up before I was and refilled my glass and dropped a folded paper towel on the wet spot and stepped on it. “I have a dark carpet for a reason.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry.” And I was sorry. This man, this well-read, clever, charming man had killed Celia and I was sorry because, had he not done that, I would have wanted to be his friend.
THREE HOURS later I was out of that dingy apartment building and getting back into Rafael’s car, a bottle of cheap wine replaced by a book I now had to read.
“That was interesting,” Chico said. They
’d all heard the recording. We travelled down to the Loose Rock, where detective Jubal Lupine planned to meet us and listen to the conversation.
Raf was silent, his eyes on the road. I remained silent as well. Blaine’s admission of guilt had been genuine and unexpected – but a simple, fatal mistake while belaying his girlfriend would hardly hold up in court.
Which is what Jubal Lupine said, too.
“You did a good job, letting him talk like that, but it doesn’t get us anything. He feels guilty, as well he should. The thing is, so what? He screwed up and she fell and died. So far, with the thin, dyed rope being inadmissible as evidence, it’s still only a tragic accident with no foul play involved. Legally speaking, anyway.”
I hung my head. Blaine’s sad expression was hard to erase. It had seemed so genuine – but then again, my surprise and spilled wine had been calculated to seem genuine as well.
“I’d like to go home,” I said, leaning against Rafael’s side. “I’m so tired.”
We drove to Rafael’s apartment and only when he was about to park in the lot three blocks away from where he lived, he broke his silence.
“Your place or mine?”
“Yours.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
Once we stepped into his foyer, he hung his jacket, kicked off his shoes, and strode into the kitchen. I was still untying my infernal combat boots when I heard the first plate crash against the wall.
And another, and then a few more.
I edged my way through the living room and the dining room into the modest, functional space. The wall next to the refrigerator was his anvil, and he was the hammer. I watched him heft another plate in his hand and fling it, full-force, against that little wall. It was like watching a pitcher warm up before a baseball game.
A large serving platter was balanced on his fingertips now and he glanced at it, freezing in place. The pink roses winked from their garlands, the gold accents glimmered in the dim light of the faraway hallway light.
He set it down with precious care and I saw a tremor run up his back.
Like a flash I was behind him, embracing him from behind.
“Rafael.” My face was buried into his hunched, quivering back. “Rafael.”
I let my hand snake around him and picked up the oval serving platter. It looked antique. I liked it. When I turned it over, the maker’s mark said ‘Limoges, France’.
“Why not break this one, Rafael?” My question was calm, factual. I needed data.
He turned slowly, pulling me in, taking the plate out of my hands only to set it down with the greatest of care.
“It had been Celia’s.”
I ROLLED off Rafael, still breathing hard. Both of us were sticky with the evidence of our love. Twice in one day we had shared one another’s bodies, one another’s souls but the spirit of that sharing couldn’t have been more different. Earlier, in the gym, hanging off the climbing rope, that had been a mutual exploration into the world of kink. It had been happy, loving, adventurous.
What we had just shared was my effort to comfort him by impaling myself on his flesh while kissing his tears away.
I showered quickly, cleaning up just enough before I let the bathtub fill with hot water. Then I pulled on Rafael’s arm.
“Come on. You’ll feel better.”
His eyes were empty, much as Blaine’s had been for just a flash of a moment and I noted the similarity and filed it away. Once I cajoled Raf into the tub, I put up water for tea and I stripped his old sheets and changed the bed. Clean, soft towels were laid out for us when I brought two cups of Sleepytime tea with honey into the bathroom.
“Here, drink this.”
“I don’t want whiskey,” Raf said, his eyes closed.
“It’s tea. Chamomile, mostly.” He took it from my hands, hissing at its heat. We both had a sip and set our cups on the bathroom floor to cool.
“Join me?”
“Yeah.” I stepped into the tub and settled between Rafael’s bent legs. We barely fit and the water was now raised almost to the rim. I could hear the overflow drain do its job, letting the excess run away. His arms hugged my chest; I leaned my still-moist head against his shoulders, my hair getting wet all over again.
“We don’t have to do this, Rafael. I thought it would make you feel better, but…I don’t know. I hate seeing you like this.”
We both knew what ‘it’ was.
‘It’ was the belated investigation of Celia’s death.
I felt his arms squeeze. We stayed that way for awhile, sipping our tea and sharing our distress until the water cooled enough to be uncomfortable. Then we did the same in the fresh, clean bed, Raf spooning me from behind and holding me tight, his nose nuzzled into the crook of my neck.
“I love you, Evelyn.”
I turned in his arms to face him. He was barely visible in the dusky corner of his bed; only the neon lights reflected off the white bedding made his face visible.
“I know.” I slipped my arms and legs around him, maximizing our area of contact. “I love you too.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, suddenly gruff. His large hand was rubbing circles into my back. “As long as you’re fine, I’ll be fine.”
I smiled in the dark. “I’ll be fine. And tomorrow I’ll go buy you some new dishes.”
ONLY A WEEK later I walked into the North Face, my regular gear on and Celia’s old GriGri belay device in my hand. Blaine was 30 feet up the wall, defying both gravity and gym regulations. He wore no harness; nobody stood by to arrest his fall. I leaned back against the opposite wall and watched his long limbs execute their graceful dance of impending doom. He climbed down using a different path, feeling his way. When he was only six feet up from the ground, I raised my voice.
“Yo, Blaine!”
He tried to look down and missed his foothold and slipped; only his strong fingers grasped the handholds. He smeared the ball of his foot against the wall itself in search of something to step on and, realizing how close to the ground he was, he cursed and jumped.
“Don’t ever do that, Eve. Not when someone’s free-climbing.”
“When I walked in you were almost all the way up,” I said. “What, you have a death wish or something?”
He didn’t reply; he just leaned down from his considerable height and kissed my neck.
“Hey!”
“Looked tasty,” he shrugged.
“You’re as bad as Rafael.” Oops, that just slipped out.
“You two together?” His eyebrows went all the way up as he shot me an assessing look.
“None of your business.”
“Maybe it is. Maybe if you two are together, I don’t want to poach. Considering I killed his sister, stealing his girlfriend would be just rubbing salt into the wound.”
Now it was my turn to just stand there, not knowing what to say.
“I started reading the book,” I said instead.
He walked off to the wall and got his water bottle and drank some. “You liked it?” He asked once he wiped his wide lips with the back of his hand.
I shrugged. “History has never been my thing, but this writer is interesting. It must have taken a lot of research to pretend you’re an old emperor and write about all those tribes.”
The dark gloom lifted off Blaine’s face. “The emperor actually wrote it himself.”
I took a minute to wrap my little thieving mind around that.
“No shit?”
“No shit. Galius Julius Caesar was THE Caesar. He was the first-ever emperor of a decaying republic, which is why he got killed…”
“I know who he was from Shakespeare.”
“Okay. Shakespeare must have read his writings, and writings about him, to get all that history right for the play. Shakespeare is derivative. The book I gave you is a translation of the original, from the horse’s mouth.”
“Oh.” Words failed me so I turned to action instead. I looked at that wall. My cover has been blown; Blaine figured Raf and I
were together and the romance of Mata Hari was a thing of the past. I climbed up to the blue line that told us not to go any higher without a harness. Then I went a bit higher, and a bit higher still. I felt comfortable. It wasn’t any harder than climbing while being belayed, but there was a serious adrenaline rush knowing you could just fall and get badly hurt.
Not die.
Not here.
The floors were padded.
Maybe a few weeks in the hospital…
“Evelyn.” Blaine’s voice was calm as I approached the ledge. The same ledge I had pretended not to be able to climb last time.
“Evelyn. You’re doing great, but I need you to start climbing back down.”
I kept going up; my belly was sucked to the wall as I grabbed a handhold and swung my right leg over the ledge, gripping a stub of fake rock with my toe. One, two… then I was over on the flat wall again and found a good foothold and two handholds where I could stop and rest.
“Evelyn, I want you to climb to the right, past the ledge. Don’t do the ledge on the way down.” There was panic in Blaine’s voice. I climbed four feet higher, touching the wide, red pipe by the ceiling as I always had when I made it up.
“To the right, Evelyn.”
I did as he said, my eyes sliding to the side, picking the best place to begin my descent.
Going down was five times harder than going up. My focus was so total, so unwavering and complete, that I had to forget about my mission, about Raf and Celia and Blaine and finally, all there was left was the wall and I. I’d climbed down before, but never without a harness. I’d probably done the best, most intricate climbing of my life that day, using every technique, every trick up my sleeve.
My feet hit the floor and I turned around, breathing a bit harder than usual.
I Need A Bad Boy: A Collection of Bad Boy Romances Page 35
