All Things Pretty

by M. Leighton

  Something sad happens in her eyes. “But it’s not love you’re after, is it Sig?”

  “Is it love you’re after?”

  She pauses before she answers thoughtfully, “Isn’t everyone?”

  Before I can respond, the elevator doors open and she turns to walk out, her pace slower than it was when she left the living room upstairs. We make our way to her car in silence. I wait for her to click the remote that opens the door and then I reach around to open it, effectively trapping her between me and the car.

  “Can I tell you something?” I ask her softly. My dick twitches when her big doe eyes fall to my lips and stay there. She nods. “I promise you won’t know I’m even here. Just let me follow you.”

  Her eyes finally rise back up to mine and she nods again. “Please don’t disappoint me.” She says it quietly. Earnestly. Like she’s talking about much more than just this conversation. I feel a stab of guilt, knowing that not only will she be disappointed, but she’ll likely get into some amount of trouble in the end, when all is said and done.

  Out of necessity, I brush it off and put on the glib guy that I’ve always been. “Baby, I never disappoint.”

  One side of her mouth tweaks up in a humorless, lopsided grin. “Everyone disappoints.”

  With that, she drops down into the driver’s seat and waits, without meeting my eyes, for me to close the door.

  Who the hell is this woman? And who has hurt her?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN- TOMMI

  I glance back at Sig’s handsome face, partially concealed by the sexiest sunglasses I’ve ever seen. He’s leaning to the right, his wrist draped casually over the steering wheel of his big truck. He looks relaxed. Competent. Sexy.

  Sexy, sexy, sexy! Why does that word keep popping up in my head?

  Because he is. Everything about him is sexy. His smile, his voice, his eyes, his walk, his body. Even his stupid truck. Somehow he manages to make it look sexy, like a motorcycle on four jacked-up tires.

  Stop being so ridiculous!

  I pull my eyes to the road ahead just in time to slam on the brakes to keep from rear-ending Toyota in front of me. I bite back a curse, straightening my arms and legs as my car comes to a screeching halt. When the little old woman manages to make her left hand turn, I let out the breath I sucked in and glance in my mirror one last time. Sig is smiling, a smug smile that says he knows what I was thinking. It’s both infuriating and exhilarating enough to make my stomach flip over.

  It’s easier to ignore him after I pick up Travis. I pull alongside the curb right in front of where he’s standing and lean over to open the passenger side door. “Sorry I’m a couple of minutes late,” I tell him as he gets in.

  “Whatever,” he says, jerking his baseball cap lower over his eyes. Even without his telltale tick, I can see that he’s agitated. I’m never late. I make a point not to be. He is very sensitive to any disruptions in his schedule that are perpetrated by others.

  “Did you take your meds today?”

  Travis turns to look at me with eyes the exact shade of mine. “I always take my meds. Stop asking me shit like that!”

  I don’t think anything of his defensiveness. He’s always like this after school. It stresses him out to try and be normal, as he calls it. The symptoms of his Asperger’s seem to have worsened since Lance has been requiring more of my nights. Unfortunately, I’m stuck, which means Travis is, too. At least for a while longer.

  A subject change is in order. “Guess what I’m making for dinner tonight?”

  Travis turns to look out the window, shrugging his thin shoulders in a silent reply.

  “It’s one of your top four favorites.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I won’t be there,” he tells me sullenly.

  “Why? Where will you be?”

  “I’m going to Trip’s.”

  Alarm bells sound in the back of my mind. “Why is it that every night that I don’t have plans with Lance, you make some with Trip?”

  He shrugs again. “He called and asked me to come over to game.”

  Trip is one of Lance’s friends. At first, I was so happy that Travis was being willingly social that I didn’t think to question it, but as time has passed, I’ve begun to think that Trip’s influence is not a good thing. Then I found out that Trip is a felon. Just what Travis needs in his life.

  Not.

  Maybe I should’ve nipped it in the bud sooner, because now Travis maintains that Trip is a true friend and I’m afraid to push too hard to get Trip out of his life. Travis cracked once before and we nearly lost everything in the aftermath. And we didn’t have all that much left to lose.

  I swallow a sigh. One more in my long, long list of regrets.

  “Travis, if he–”

  “Don’t start with me, Tommi,” he snaps flatly, still not looking at me, not meeting my eyes. A habit I know is exacerbated when he’s feeling guilty.

  “I worry about you, Travis.” I keep my voice as calm as I can.

  “Worry about yourself. You’ve got enough problems for both of us.”

  Which is true. What Travis doesn’t understand is that it’s us against the world. A harsh world that doesn’t give a damn and refuses to give us an inch of leeway. He knows the facts, but I don’t think he has a very good grasp on the consequences. I don’t try to change that because the last thing he needs is a heavy burden to carry around, especially one that he can’t do anything about. No, this load is mine to haul and it’s best that way. What’s done is done. My only choice is to go forward smarter.

  So I am.

  I’m planning my every step, my every word, my every breath. And my plan will work. It has to.

  I make a left onto our street. For the first time since my brother got in the car, I look into my rearview mirror. I see Sig following behind. Not too close. Not too far either. Despite the way I abhor being spied upon, I find a strange comfort in his presence, even though he’s only trailing behind me in a separate vehicle. And the comfort that I draw from him is arguably the most concerning thing of all.

  CHAPTER TWELVE- SIG

  I park discreetly across the street from Tommi’s house. I don’t want to bother her, but I have to keep Tonin happy for the moment, too. Plus, I’m still curious as to what she’s up to.

  I stare at the white, clapboard house, probably all of eight hundred to a thousand square feet, max. It looks shoddy and rundown, like most of the houses in the area. The driveway is cracked, but there are no weeds. I can see light brown stuff in the gaping crevices, though, which makes me think they’ve been on the receiving end of some weed killer in recent days.

  If I hadn’t moved in a block and a half away, I would never have pictured her in a place like this. This is, without a doubt, the very definition of a questionable neighborhood. It shocks the shit out of me that her car, which looks ridiculous sitting outside, doesn’t get trashed or jacked. Of course, it’s likely that a lot of the element that lives nearby knows who she is. And who the car belongs to.

  I think back to what I read in her very short file. Tommi Lawrence. No middle initial. Twenty-four years old. Graduated high school six years ago with shitty grades. Didn’t get a driver’s license until she was nineteen. No college, no jobs, no priors. Father’s in the wind, mother’s drawing disability checks. One brother, one sister. Not much else. Oh, and she’s screwing a dickhole drug dealer. There’s that.

  Just the thought of her with Tonin turns my blood cold. She seems so much better than him, than the life of a dealer’s whore. I’m still not convinced that’s the whole story, though. Not only is she lying to him, she’s hiding something, something more than her distaste of him. At least what I think is her distaste of him. That or my ego’s getting in the way.

  My stomach starts growling around six. It doesn’t help that something that smells like Italian food is wafting through my open window. I’m about to call Tonin to ask how long he wants me to watch her when I see a young boy come out the front door. It’s the same kid s
he picked up at the high school today. Looks more like a shady character tonight. He’s got on dark jeans and a black hoodie, hood pulled down over his head all the way to the bill of his hat. His chin is tucked and his eyes stay focused on the ground at his feet. Weird boy.

  I watch him until he takes a left at the stop sign and disappears out of my line of sight. When I look back to Tommi’s house, I see her coming down the uneven sidewalk carrying a covered plate. She changed and is now wearing slinky tan pants and a striped top with spaghetti straps. Her feet are bare, something I wouldn’t advise in this area of town.

  She comes around to the driver’s side and leans against the door, her unique scent filling up the cabin of my truck. She stretches one slim arm in front of me, teasing my nose with the plate of food. I inhale, my mouth watering reflexively. She grins, but it’s a tired grin. “Go home. I’m in for the night.” I say nothing as she walks off, my eyes glued to her perfectly rounded ass. I’m distractedly wondering about the absence of a panty line when she calls back over her shoulder. “I hope you like lasagna.”

  I tip my head at her and she shakes her hair down her back as she continues on across the street. Actually, I love lasagna. And this one smells delicious. Tommi, with the body of a porn star and the name of a tomboy, just might be the perfect woman.

  If only she wasn’t dating a damn criminal.

  Starting up the truck, I drive the two minute trek to my new home. It’s a shoebox of a house, kinda shitty, but not as bad after I hired a maid service to come and clean it. Now it’s just full of boxes, like it would be if I recently moved across the country.

  I grab a beer from the fridge and plunk down at the small table in the kitchen. After grabbing a plastic fork from the box of utensils I bought, I dig in, looking around the barren living room as I think about my new life.

  My undercover identity includes a fake name, of course, with an alias of just Sig. Since I’d already introduced myself to Tommi, I had to work that in somehow. The truck, too, since she’d seen it. The department reassigned the VIN number and the license plates in the DMV database. While they were at it, they gave me a nice long history of traffic violations as well as a couple of minor arrests tied to my fingerprint. Mostly for violent crimes, as one would expect of a cartel fist.

  I could unpack a few things tonight, but I’m much more interested in going back to Tommi’s to see if she really is in for the night or if she’s up to something else. I can’t really get anyone from the station to find out what she was looking at online. Since she was at a public hotspot, it would be impossible to tell, which is probably exactly why she did it. The question is: Why? Why go to so much trouble? What is she hiding?

  After I dump the paper plate and empty Heineken bottle in the trash, I lock up. As I walk through the neighborhood, I remind myself that while she is my way in, my source for information, she isn’t my priority. I can’t let my curiosity cloud my purpose. I can’t let Tommi cloud my purpose. But still, I go to her house. Because it’s my job.

  Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

  ********

  For two weeks, I shadow Tommi. Sometimes she knows I’m close. Other times she doesn’t. I follow her to drop her brother off at school. I follow her to Tonin’s. Sometimes she comes back out and runs a few errands, sometimes she doesn’t come out for hours. I can only imagine what they’re doing in there those days. Actually, I can imagine quite well. Parts of those mental pictures are delicious as hell. Parts of them are downright slimy. Always, though, I’m left with the same kinds of wonderings–what the hell is a girl like her doing with a guy like him?

  Day after day, I watch them together. She never looks happy or engaged. At least not beyond this superficial smile that she wears. If I hadn’t met her that one time before, I might not know the difference. But I can tell. And I remember how nervous she was about being late and showing up in her “street” clothes. It’s little things like that, things I’m starting to see more of, that make me wonder what he’s doing to keep her. And why she goes to such lengths to stay.

  He hasn’t totally possessed her, though. At least three days a week, I follow Tommi to some location that she says would make me uncomfortable to go into or to a building that’s locked for one reason or another. It’s always near a public place, one that’s fairly easy to hide and remain anonymous in, and one that has Wi-Fi. On each of those days, she carries a snazzy purse that will allow for her iPad, to hide whatever it is that she’s doing.

  Beyond the scope of my real job and my Tonin job, sometimes I wait outside, watching her place on nights when she doesn’t have plans with her disgusting boyfriend. Her brother goes out on those nights and she stays inside doing…whatever. I’ve thought several times of going to the door, of knocking and giving some excuse to be here or to stop by, but she’s not to a place where she’s open to trusting me yet. And I can’t afford to lose her this early on. So I wait. And I watch.

  On nights that she’s with Lance, I watch her climb into his car, I watch her look stunning for him, I watch him parade her around like a prize bull. That shit’s getting harder and harder to see. She’s better than that. Better than him. I’m just not sure she knows it. But I do. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this woman is something special. And that she’s withering away here with Tonin.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN- TOMMI

  As they do every morning after I lock my front door and turn toward the driveway, my eyes go straight to the spot across the street from my house. Sig is there, in his truck, window rolled down, waiting for me as he always is. I smile at him, a natural, truly pleased gesture that’s getting easier and easier to conjure. Alarmingly so, even. He gives me a salute with the fingers of one hand. I shake my head wryly. He grins at me mischievously.

  As promised, he keeps his distance, never interfering, never becoming a burden or a bother. I find myself wishing that he would have to drive me again, rather than just follow me. I watch him in my rearview mirror for hours each day and, more and more lately, I find that I think of him the rest of the time, wondering what we might talk about if we spent those hours together again.

  I can’t ask that he drive me, of course. I think that would seem too suspicious. However, as the person in charge of my security, if he suggested it, that would be a different animal altogether. He hasn’t, and I wonder if he ever will. At present, he seems content only to watch. And wait. And drive me mad.

  I wonder if he feels the same way I do. I can actually feel his eyes on me sometimes. I mean, he watches me often, as his job suggests that he might. But there are times when his gaze is different. Hungry. Wanting. Or maybe that’s just me, coloring it with my own increasing feelings of restlessness and unmet needs.

  He intrigues me on many levels. He’s so strong and capable-looking, yet he’s so willing to smile and flirt. He doesn’t seem to fear Lance like the others do, which makes me curious about him, about who he is and what he’s been through. Possibly the most worrisome thing of all is how much I want to know him. He occupies far too many of my thoughts and if I knew more about him, it would probably only get worse. Besides, there are other issues to consider.

  No matter how much I’d like to have him around, though, there are things I have to hide from him. Will always have to hide from him. There are boundaries that he cannot cross which makes our current arrangement ideal. The more familiar we become, the more risk there is to me, to my plan. So really, as much as parts of me are dying to know more, aching to feel more, this is for the best.

  If only it felt like it was for the best.

  It’s another of my fewer and fewer nights in. I’ve checked the curtains as surreptitiously as I could, waiting for Sig to leave. Even though he can’t see in, at least not very well and not at all in the bedrooms, I don’t ever dare make a move to finish my nightly duties until he is gone. So, as soon as I hear his engine rumble to life and fade down the street, I jump up to start gathering supplies.

  This is the only pa
rt that I really don’t like. In the evenings, when I’m home, I’m always afraid that Sig will show up at my door, asking to come in. What can I possibly say? No? But if I let him in…

  No, that just can’t happen.

  I push the thought far from my mind. I don’t need to borrow trouble. I’m surrounded by enough hurdles without dreaming up more.

  I exhale the breath I’ve been holding practically the whole day, as I do every day that I don’t have dinner plans with Lance, and I head for the back bedroom. Gently, I open the door and flick on the overhead light.

  Some days, days when I’ve been with Lance too much (and, again, been with Sig too little), this is my favorite part. Even though the roles have reversed and I’m now the caregiver, being with my mother, no matter how one-sided our time spent is, reminds me of better days. Long, long ago. It’s some variation of that “better” that I’m now fighting mercilessly to regain. For Travis’s sake.

  “Momma, it’s supper time,” I tell her softly as I walk in. “After that, I’ll give you a bath.”

  I get no response as I cart in her dinner tray and bath pan, nothing except the same odd gurgling I’ve heard for years. My mother has no idea that she’s in the world, but I tend her like she does. I worry that there might come a day when I won’t be able to do this, when I’ll have to turn her care over to someone else. I try not to think about it. It makes me feel both incredibly sad and guilty. Despite the way things were when she was “alive,” I love her and I don’t want to lose her. And it would kill Travis. But at the same time, she is an enormous responsibility, both her presence and the circumstances surrounding it, that I sometimes feel I can’t carry. The weight is unbearable. But then there are other times when being with her is soothing, comforting somehow, even though she never says a word.

  I hit the button that raises the head of her bed, the expensive adjustable memory foam bed that Lance thought he was buying for me. I spread a napkin across her thin chest before I perch beside her, plate in hand. My mother’s eyes, the same green that all her children inherited, stare blankly at the wall opposite her as I spoon mashed potatoes into her open mouth. She smacks her trembling lips and then swallows clumsily. I wipe gravy off her chin before I give her a second bite.