Absolution Road

by Rachel Blaufeld

  “Yep, I know you hardly know me, and I don’t know you. But I know this . . . I was meant to care for you. I wasn’t good until I met you. I couldn’t focus until I met you. Life meant nothing until I met you. And I know I’m laying this out there over sushi and you’re in shock, but life isn’t going back to normal after this dinner, Aly.”

  I took a sip of my wine, allowing it to flow down my throat all the way to my belly, hoping it would take the edge off. Even if I guzzled the entire glass, my nerves would still be humming.

  “Jake,” I whispered again, searching for the right words. Painful words, words laced with rejection, but I couldn’t make them form.

  In front of me was a burly man full of enough strength to beat the shit out of anyone in his way. He was an extremely virile man, oozing sex and promising a good fucking, but when I looked deep enough into the crisp blue pools of his eyes, I saw a little lost boy.

  And I couldn’t hurt him. Either the man or the boy. So I said nothing.

  “Eat some shrimp and relax,” he said with an understanding smile. “I’m not asking for a lifetime commitment. And I’m not trying to tie your good name to my shitty one. I know I’m a bad apple, but just give me a little of your goodness. I may never get anything like that again.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat while he waited for me to . . . respond? Eat? I didn’t know. I did know this: I was going to give him some goodness.

  And quite possibly break my very own heart in the process.

  I lifted my glass—channeling my inner Hilary—and tapped it to his. “I don’t know where this can go, probably nowhere, but I can’t deny our repeated running into each other felt somewhat serendipitous. So, let’s have some fun. No promises of anything more. I don’t have the luxury of thinking of the future. I’m trying to survive the moment.”

  He beamed at me with a broad, delighted smile, and the small crinkles around his eyes made a welcome reappearance. I wanted to reach across the table and smooth the hair out of his eyes, but he captured my hand on the table under his and gave it a squeeze.

  “Shrimp, come on,” he commanded and I obeyed, spearing a shrimp on my fork. “Next one, you have to try to use the sticks.”

  I giggled. “No way. I’ve never used those before.”

  “Well, you know what they say. It’s never too late to learn how to eat with chopsticks.”

  “Oh, really? I’ve never heard that saying before.”

  The music changed and the soft, sweet voice of Taylor Swift wafted from the speakers.

  Her words struck me as the lyrics flitted through my head, and I realized that here I was actually living life for the first time. In the worst possible scenario for someone in my position, with red flags raining down all over me, I was living. And there was nothing I wanted to do more at this moment than really live.

  Jake wrapped his hand around mine and slipped the chopsticks between my pointer and middle fingers, keeping his hand in place as he lined up the chopsticks just so. Our hands traveled together to the plate and we plucked up a shrimp.

  Our fingers and palms remained twined as we brought the bite to my lips. I chewed and swallowed before my traitorous tongue ran a lap over my lips, making certain there was nothing left behind. Jake’s eyes fixed on my mouth, darkening to midnight blue this time. With our hands still joined on the table and my heart beating so loudly in my chest, no amount of Taylor Swift was going to cover up my reaction to him.

  Once again we were rescued by an overzealous server, who popped over to our table to ask what else we wanted to order.

  Jake turned to me. “How adventurous do you want to be?”

  With his eyebrow raised in the air, practically daring me, I couldn’t resist. “I’m along for the ride. I’ll go where you take me,” I confessed.

  Problem was, I didn’t think I was only talking about sushi.

  Jake ordered all kinds of things I’d never heard of before, and one after the other, a myriad of food made up of bright colors and a variety of shapes and sizes appeared at the table like the circus was coming to town.

  We dipped pieces of tuna into soy sauce, and I desperately tried to pick up the tiny rolls of seaweed in my chopsticks. Jake would reach over to my side of the table and take my hand, trying to help, but his touch only made my fingers tremble more. A few times, he snatched a piece of something, popping it in my mouth as he said, “You have to try this!” Our gazes would linger on the chopsticks until they were inevitably drawn to each other, where they would simmer and pop with electricity.

  “So, this one time during school,” he told me, “the whole team went down to the stadium when the Pirates were practicing and begged security to let us in. We sneaked back to the locker room and waited for them to be finished and stormed inside, asking for pictures and inviting them to our party.” Jake’s his face bright with excitement as he recounted the story from college. “Turned out they were damn impressed with our determination, and they came. That was a wild night.”

  “Certainly sounds like it.” I smiled, but I could tell my mouth wasn’t going as wide as I wanted it to.

  “So, what was school like for you? Sororities? Where did you live?” He leaned forward on the table, his enormous forearms looking out of place on the pink tablecloth.

  “Mostly just schoolwork, studying, working—I was a waitress at Billy’s—and that’s about it. I had a few good friends. We would run or catch a movie together. Of course, we went to a few parties, but it wasn’t really my scene.”

  “Like Lane,” Jake mumbled. “He was the determined brother, the responsible one, the one who accomplished lots of shit. Not me, I was the fuckup.”

  I nudged his big boot with my ballet flat. “No way. Looks to me like you’re both successful, you just got there different ways. There are so many lawyers who partied their way through undergrad and law school.”

  “Wild that we missed each other by a year, right? How old are you? About twenty-seven?”

  I nodded. I was.

  “Yeah, I figured. Four years for undergrad, three more for law school, and no way you’re a newcomer to the PD office. Your balls are too big.”

  “You got me!” I said with a laugh. “Except I went to Community for a year before transferring to Pitt, so we missed each other by two years.” I waved my hand in the air as if I were reporting for class, answering roll call, or something else ridiculous because I wasn’t used to dates, let alone fancy ones with demanding, gorgeous, body-building men.

  “Maybe I would have tamed my partying ways if I’d met you back then.” He brought my hand to his lips and kept his eyes on mine as he dropped a few kisses along my knuckles.

  I had no idea hand-kissing could be erotic, but this was the most sensual sensation I’d ever felt. Tingles rushed from my hand to my toes, and then settled in other places.

  I was in deep, deep trouble.

  Jake

  Aly and I strolled out of the restaurant side by side, and I didn’t want the night to end. It couldn’t end yet . . . I still had some fixing to do.

  “Want to grab a cocktail in the lounge?” I asked her, still amazed that the beautiful woman was here with me. She was more than long legs, red hair, and creamy skin, much more than I’d expected. She was a whole woman. A good person, a sexy woman, a well-educated lawyer, soft and sensuous on the inside and so damn smart and tough on the outside—like an alley cat.

  “I really can’t. We’re working this big case at the office, and we have an early debriefing meeting. I need to be on top of my game.”

  She turned to face me and stood up on tiptoe to place a small kiss on my cheek. Her lips lingered for a few heartbeats along my face. They felt like a piece of silk floating over my stubble and with each breath, my coarse five o’clock shadow was snagging her perfection—a warning if there ever was one. But I was a rule-breaker.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, pulling away. “This was surprisingly nice.”

  I took her hand and led her to th
e other side of the lobby, next to the waterfall for some privacy, where the lapping of the water would drown out our words. Turning her to face me, I took her face in my hands and bent down to place a gentle kiss on her lips. It was nothing like I wanted to do. It was more of a caress when I wanted to devour her whole, but this wasn’t the time. I feared if I took one small nibble, I’d eat her alive right in the middle of the hotel for everyone to see.

  “Aly, remember when I said everything was going to change?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I took her hand in mine and gave it a gentle squeeze. “And you asked about my other car, and I said I’d made a different investment?”

  “Jake, I don’t know where you’re going with any of this.” Confusion swirled in her green eyes, and a line formed between her brows.

  “I sold the car and used the money as a down payment on a small duplex. I now own two rental units in Highland Park. On the bus line. And I want you to live in one of them.”

  “What?” she shrieked, but contained her volume to an urgent whisper between clenched teeth. She snatched her hand away from me with a force I didn’t know she had in her. “Jake! What in the world? I’m not a charity case!”

  If I’d been looking for a way to bring out her fire, I had apparently found it.

  “I know,” I said in a soothing voice, trying to calm her down. “I felt indebted to you, Aly, that’s all. And you and I both know, your place is awful. And dangerous. I hated dropping you off there, and now you can live at my new building. As a favor, I’ll match what you pay now in rent.” I might be stupid, but not dumb enough to admit I’d intended to let her live there rent-free.

  “That’s the most preposterous thing I ever heard!” she said before she turned and stalked toward the revolving front door of the hotel.

  “Aly!” I chased after her, my heavy boots clunking on the marble floor, echoing throughout the quiet lobby.

  She held up a hand to warn me off, and I skidded to a stop. Yes, I could have caught her, but I didn’t. There was no way I’d make a scene—or more of one—in front of the front desk staff and valets. So I stood like an asshole on the other side of the glass door and watched the valet open a cab door for Aly. She slid into the backseat without even a glance back.

  I knew it was rash and insane, selling my car and buying a rental property, asking her to move in. All of it was fucking nuts, but my brother went all crazy when he met Bess, inviting her to visit him in Florida. It had worked for him, so why not for me? We were identical twins, together since birth, so was it so bad that I wanted what he had? I didn’t know how he did it, but I was going to find the fuck out. Fast.

  At least Aly took a cab and not the bus this late at night, I thought as I settled into my Hummer a few minutes later and drove away.

  Then I had another irrational idea. Maybe I should swing by her place and at least make sure she got home safely. Isn’t that what men who liked women did? Looked out for them and shit. Or would that just scare her off?

  My mind whirled, trying to come up with a way to fix this. Maybe I should have started smaller than an apartment? Like with flowers, or a puppy?

  Nah.

  It had been nearly forty-eight hours since Aly ran out of the hotel on me, and I couldn’t stand to be around all weekend without charging into her apartment and packing up all her shit. So I opted for a weekend with my brother’s family. Saturday morning, I let myself into his country house, ready for some of that domestic chaos to wash over me.

  “Jaaaake-yyy!” I heard my name radiating from the kitchen, but it wasn’t who I wanted to be yelling it.

  “Hey, James,” I said, greeting my sister-in-law’s best friend. He seemed to be spending more time at Bess and Lane’s country home than his own apartment in South Florida. “You’re back? Don’t you even work anymore?”

  “I quit!” he exclaimed, then did a bad imitation of a hula dance, which I supposed was his idea of a “happy” dance.

  I shook my head with a grin and let him rattle on since Lane had insisted James was good for Bess. He was part of the AA program, so he and Bess always went to meetings together when he visited them. Bess said that with James’s lifestyle, he’d likely never have a family of his own, so he was always welcome to be a part of theirs.

  “I’m working for Lane now,” James explained. “He said he doesn’t want to have to think about wining and dining clients anymore when he travels, so I’m his new lead travel person. I do all the research on where he’s going, finding the best places and making his arrangements, which is a perfect job for me. I’m his own personal concierge.” He flashed me a big grin before he headed back to the coffeemaker, some huge fancy Italian or French deal that probably cost a small fortune.

  “Great, I guess. Where is everyone? I told them I was coming down today.” There wasn’t the usual noise and commotion I expected whenever I showed up here. No shrieking baby or hyper dog anywhere.

  James put a mischievous smirk on his face before landing the blow. “Oh, Maddy-girl is napping, which means the dog is spread-eagle underneath the crib, and let’s say, Bess and Lane are laying down.”

  “Stop! Stop right now, James. Talk to the hand,” I said, raising my palm in the air. “That. Is. My. Sister-in-law.”

  James cackled like the mother hen he was, and I headed for the back door to find my own brand of therapy.

  Spring was in the air, the sky heavy with moisture and the ground wet as I made my way to the shed out back. It wasn’t Lane’s space, he rarely got his hands dirty with manual labor, but he kept it well stocked for his groundskeeper—and me. It seemed like the only time I visited was when I was in search of some sort of escape from my own damn head.

  Sweat dripped down my brow and lined the seam between my jeans and my waist when Lane found me chopping wood a while later. I lifted the heavy ax and brought it down with force, splitting the log in half before I tossed it into the stack I’d already chopped. My breaths came in stilted puffs, shallow inhales and long exhales as I beat the shit out of the wood.

  “Bro?” Lane called from a safe distance.

  Ignoring him, I brought the ax down again and the snapping sound of the log splitting rang in the air, punctuating the silence. I grabbed another and made quick work of it.

  “Bro!”

  This time it came louder, and I sank the ax into the wood block with more force than necessary. “What?” I spat out.

  “You’re the one who’s here at my house mutilating wood.” My twin approached with caution, his hands lifted in mock surrender as his ridiculous designer boots crunched the thawing ground.

  “Right.”

  My head hung in shame as I told him what had happened over the last few months, starting with landing my ass in jail over Christmas and everything since, all the way up to my offer to Aly and her running away.

  Lane paced the narrow patch of grass as I spoke, shaking his head. “Christ, Jake! You were in jail and didn’t call? And why is it that you feel you have to fight everyone with your fists?”

  We stood face-to-face in his backyard during our tense conversation, and I was pretty sure Bess was watching from the kitchen window.

  “And you did what?” he said incredulously. “Sold your car, asked a woman to move for you?”

  “So the fuck what!” I spit back.

  “Pardon me for being confused, but you’ve done nothing but bed hop for years. I mean, I get it. I did it too.”

  His said the last part in a low voice, almost a whisper, but I wasn’t sure why. Bess knew he was a man-whore before he met her.

  “Yeah, I know that too, but isn’t this what men do when they fall for someone? Don’t they want to protect them? Look what you did for Bess.”

  He grabbed his forehead and leaned against a tree. “Jake, I get where your head’s at, but you can’t boss women around in the real world like you do in bed.”

  Frustrated, I turned and jerked the ax off the stump to split another log before I responded.

/>   “Lane, I’m not you. Not everything I touch turns to gold. I’ve barely been hanging on for years. Now I’ve finally got my business going and I’m done messing around with Camper, and then I meet this woman. She’s the best thing I’ve ever seen, she’s got it all, and there’s this immediate need deep in my belly. I don’t want to hit it and quit it anymore. I don’t want to be that guy, but I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.”

  “You could’ve talked to me,” he said with a smirk, “when you didn’t have an ax in your hand.” He leaned against the tree, grinning with his arms crossed over his chest as I split another piece of wood.

  “Don’t be Mr. Funny right now, Lane.”

  “I just never thought I’d see the day with you all strung out over a woman.”

  “You can’t keep fixing shit for me, Lane! I may not have an MBA from a fancy school, but even I’m not dumb enough to believe I can continue living life as I’ve been living it. I’ve not taken any responsibility for myself, and I have to do something about it. The first step wasn’t calling you when I landed my pathetic ass in jail. As for the fight, I pretty much remember you beating AJ within an inch of his life when he went after Bess. And fucking sue me for wanting to get the girl all by myself.”

  Tossing the ax down, I started pacing the yard, kicking up clumps of mud with my worn-in boots. The first time I came up here, I’d worn brand-new athletic shoes. Now I came prepared for mucking around in the woods. See, a man can learn.

  Lane sighed. “I was in love with Bess, and that fucker almost hurt her. That’s different. You went to jail for Camper and her antics. Who the hell was this guy you went after?”

  “That doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is now I’m trying to do right, and this woman is not listening to me.” I glared at my brother, our identical blue eyes staring each other down.

  Lane grabbed my jacket by the lapels and pulled me tight toward him. “Jake, you’re whole life women have fallen at your feet, letting you lead them on just to have a chance to fuck you. You’ve never had to try to get a woman to like you for more than your body.”