by Angel Lawson
“Okay then…night.” Oliver shuffled off and she heard lock click on the door of the bathroom they shared.
Ari flipped the TV to the local news and breathed a bit easier as the night’s stories unfolded and none of her clients showed up in the ‘Breaking News’ section. She was about to turn the television off when the news anchor said the words, “mystery man,” and caught Ari’s attention.
Ari reached for the remote and turned up the volume. Oliver came out of the bathroom, toothbrush in his mouth, and sat on the couch arm next to her. “Holy shit,” he said, through a mouthful of toothpaste. “There he is!”
“Shhh,” Ari said, focusing on the story.
“Earlier tonight, a fight broke out between rival gangs on the subway platform at Bolton Street. The altercation was caught on surveillance camera. To the surprise of police, the fight had been broken up by the time they arrived. Who stopped it? The local hero people are calling a ‘Vigilante.’”
“Is that the guy you saw?” Oliver asked.
Ari watched the video the news played on a loop. The grainy black and white film was hard to make out but she identified the same or similar outfit from the robbery. Dark hoodie. Dark pants and boots. It wasn’t his clothing that confirmed it for her, though. It was his movement. Quick and precise. Confident.
He wasn’t scared.
“Damn,” Oliver said, running back in after rinsing his mouth. He pointed at the TV. The man managed to get all the kids under control and separated in different directions. Once the police arrived, he jumped over the tracks and disappeared off screen.
“Police have not identified this man and are requesting that in the future, civilians not engage dangerous situations. As we’ve reported before, this is not the first time the Vigilante has interfered in situations like this.” A square photo flashed behind the anchor’s head. It was a blurry photo of the mystery man with the word “Vigilante” stamped across the top. “Let us know how you feel about the Vigilante involving himself in police matters.”
“He’s a ninja, all right.” Oliver glanced up at Ari once she turned off the television. “Who do you think he is?”
“No clue, but it doesn’t look like the police like him being involved.”
“I’m sure they don’t. He’s been doing a better job than they have.” Oliver held out his hand and Ari took it, allowing him to lift her off the couch. “I’m just glad he was there when you needed him,” he said, giving her a hug and a kiss on the top of her head.
“Me, too, because if Jace recognized me, it’s possible he wouldn’t have let me go.”
“Do you think that guy, the ‘mystery man’, knew that? Is that why he saved you and left everyone else out there?”
Ari shook her head. “If he did, then he knows more than he should.”
Oliver raised an eyebrow but smiled. “That’s what superheroes do, right? They’ve gotta have an edge. Maybe he has an Alfred or something.”
The roommates parted ways and went to their respective rooms. Ari knew Oliver would be out like the dead in a matter of minutes. She wished she could be so lucky. Instead, she tossed and turned all night, dreaming of dark eyes and worn hands, pulling her from behind. His hands were hot and her stomach twisted, even in her sleep. When she tried to catch a glimpse of his face it was clouded—shaded from view.
Ari woke up panting, her arm slung over the pillow, clutching the black lacquered box.
TEN
“Thank you for being ready on time,” Ari said. Hope was in the passenger seat. They were on their way to register her back in school.
“Like I had much choice,” the girl mumbled. She wasn’t happy. Starting back to school was hard for these kids. Hope would struggle, like all the kids in and out of detention. It was Ari’s job to make sure she succeeded.
“Also, once a week I’m going to pick you up from school and we’re going to meet with a therapist.”
“A what? No, I don’t want to do that.”
“I think it will help,” Ari told her.
“I don’t really think I need to see a counselor, Ms. Grant. I’m not crazy.”
“Well, I think you do. And so does Judge Hatcher.” Ari glanced at Hope who had an irritated look on her face. “Going to a therapist doesn’t mean you’re crazy. It means you need someone to talk to that can help you sort through the emotions and problems you’re having right now.”
“I don’t have emotional problems.”
Ari bit back a retort about the violence and prostitution the girl had been involved in since a young age. “Good, then I guess the therapy won’t take long then.”
The early-morning traffic made the drive take longer than she’d hoped. Currently, they were trapped behind a school bus that stopped every two miles. Hope picked up a file Ari shoved in the middle console and read the tab on the edge. “Jace Watkins?”
Ari reached for the file and stashed it in the backseat. “You know you can’t read that.”
“I know him,” Hope said. “He’s my neighbor.”
“Still?” Ari asked. She fought a shiver thinking that Jace could have been that close this whole time.
“His auntie lives there, but he doesn’t come around much.”
“Well, I think he’s in lockup a lot of the time.”
“He’s mean,” Hope said. Ari glanced over and the girl was staring out the window. “He was always mean to me and the other kids when we were little.”
“You’re a lot younger than him. He’s almost twenty. So, nearly four years?”
“I guess. He was always around, though.” The school bus made another stop and Ari waited as the kids piled into the vehicle from the sidewalk. Hope fussed with the door lock, flicking it on and off. “He was my first.”
“First?” Ari asked, knowing good and well what she meant. The bus moved forward and Ari did the same. They were close to the school and when the bus pulled into the drop-off lane, Ari continued to the parking lot. She would have to walk inside with Hope and complete the registration paperwork.
“Yeah. I lost my virginity to him.”
Ari eased the car into a parking spot and simply said, “Oh,” because what else could she say?
“I was eight.”
The car jerked to a harsh stop. “Eight?” Ari clarified.
“Yeah,” Hope said, shrugging. She began to gather her things from the floor of the car.
Ari, who had seen and heard everything at this point, terrible stories, stupid decisions, heartbreaking testimonies from mothers and children and victims, felt more pain in her heart from that one statement than from anything she’d encountered before. She turned to the girl and said, “Oh honey, you realize that at eight we don’t call that losing your virginity, right?”
Again, Hope shrugged and said, “Whatever.” She got out of the car and closed the door.
Ari flipped down the mirror on her car and wiped under her eyes, fighting for composure. She rarely cried. Barely ever on the job. But Hope’s story said so much about her, about her confusion and misunderstanding. How she’d always been a victim and why she didn’t understand selling herself made her a victim all over again.
It also told her everything she needed to know about Jace Watkins.
He was a monster.
* * *
The numbness came back with a vengeance after hearing Hope’s story. She spent the rest of the day running from the images of eight-year-old Hope, violated by the older boy. She knew the numbness had a name—depression—but Ari wasn’t ready to go there. Not yet.
There were other drugs than antidepressants. Oliver was one for her. Stable and secure. Funny, and so caring. Running helped. The endorphins pumping in her veins made the ghosts go away for a while.
The club had been one, but obviously that was no longer an option. Not if she wanted to keep some level of appropriateness. And then there was Nick. Handsome, successful Nick, who should have been a shining star in Ari’s world. She supposed he was a star, but right then he s
hone too bright. He glared against her darkness and she couldn’t let him see her like this. Not in the early stages of dating, or he’d run like hell.
After Hope revealed her history with Jace, insomnia took hold. While Oliver slept, Ari decided to clean the house, scrubbing the floors and organizing the closets. It was after midnight when she carried her third bag of garbage out the back door, tossing it into the can—and missing. The bag hit the rim and fell on the patio.
“Motherfudger,” Ari said. Just as she kneeled to pick up the bag, she heard the fence creak and she jumped to her feet. She had a foot halfway in the back door when she called, “Who’s there?”
Davis perched on the top of the wooden fence that separated her house from the neighbor. She could barely see him in the dark, but the zipper from his hoodie reflected the soft glow from the kitchen light. He crouched effortlessly, like a cat.
“Jesus, Davis. Are you kidding me?” Ari’s heart pounded in her chest.
“Yeah, this is not really how I saw this happening.”
“Saw what? Me finding you creeping around my house? At midnight?”
“Can I come down?”
“Are you going to murder me?” She said it as a joke, but there was a hint of truth behind her words.
“Of course not.” Ari waved him down and he landed noiselessly. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“No, you’re just a stalker or something?”
“Really? You think I’m the stalker?” he says dryly, obviously noting her nights at the club. “I’d hoped we would see each other officially, like at work or back at the club, but you’ve been hiding from me. I didn’t have any other choice.”
“I wasn’t stalking you,” Ari defended.
“What were you doing then?”
Ari leaned against the back porch railing. “Blowing off steam.”
“I understand that,” he said. “But alone and looking like that? Seems a little dangerous.”
“I told you, I’ve never done anything like that before.”
“Like what?” he asked, taking a step closer. “Gone to a club alone? Had an immediate attraction with another person?”
“Sucked face for an hour with a guy I didn’t know?” And embarrassingly realize he’s a colleague the next day? she thought. “Nope, that was the first time.”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since,” he confessed, easing toward her. He placed his palm flat against the side of the house but kept his eyes steady on hers.
Ari’s stomach burned with desire. “How does this even work?”
She knew, though. She knew the answer. Because she felt alive for the first time in days. Her heart beat strong and the hair on the back of her neck rose in excitement. It didn’t matter how this worked. It only mattered that he pushed the numbness away.
“No strings?” she asked, because she couldn’t get into something with this guy. Not with how things were going with Nick.
“None,” he agreed, closing the space between them. He waited for her to kiss him first and Ari didn’t waste any time. Their mouths were warm against the cold night air but she let out a shriek when his freezing fingertips grazed the skin on her back.
“Shhh…” she said, as though he had been the one to make the commotion. “My roommate’s asleep. Plus my neighbor is ninety-eight years old. She’ll call the cops on you in a heartbeat.”
“I’ll be quiet,” he said, leaning down for another kiss, harder this time. Ari felt the connection from her head to her toes, zipping through her like a bolt of lightning.
“Do you want to come in?” she asked foolishly.
He nodded and breathed, “Yeah,” into her mouth and it felt nice not to be turned down. It felt amazing to be wanted. She ushered him into the house and shut the door to the backyard thinking how awesome it was to feel alive.
* * *
He touched her stars. All of them. The three on her hip. The one on her foot. The scattered constellation on her shoulder. He didn’t ask her about them though, because that counted as a string and Ari refused to go there. Not with this guy. He was heat and fire and, well, sex.
“Mmmhmmm,” Ari breathed, biting her fist to keep quiet. Davis rolled on his back with Ari straddling his hips. His hands grazed her skin, her breasts, keeping every nerve on edge. Davis stripped off his shirt and pulled hers over her head. His hot mouth covered her body in kisses until he settled down, perhaps realizing she wasn’t going to disappear—that this was happening.
Davis barely had the condom on before Ari felt him inside. Pushing his hips against her own. This was undoubtedly the dumbest thing she’d ever done. But possibly the only thing that could pull her out of the continuous funk that threatened to pull her under. The trade-off was worth it. At least momentarily.
Seeing Davis resting his head on her pillow made her head hurt. Surely he wasn’t the guy that should be there. But he was. He’d come for her. He knew what she needed and as she rolled her hips and reached that place where she was unable to catch her breath, unable to see straight—she forgot about everyone else. He sat up to kiss her, pushing her on her back where she could see all eight of his magnificent ab muscles, shaded perfectly in the dark room. He kept his eyes closed when he reached his own climax. Ari watched as his nose wrinkled and she ran her hand down his chest. Moments later he fell into a crumpled, gasping heap on top of her body.
Under Davis’s heavy weight, every inch of her body felt alive for the first time in months. The word she searched for was satiated. He lay there for a moment before rolling off, kissing her neck gently. Barely awake, she curled toward him, drifting off into sleep.
* * *
“So you finally talked Nick into staying over, huh?” Oliver said the next morning.
Ari choked on her coffee. “What?”
“Not to sound like a perv but you guys were going at it pretty hard when I got up to go to the bathroom. You kick him out or something?”
Taking her cup to the sink, Ari poured the remaining contents down the drain. She used a napkin to wipe the dripping coffee off her pajamas. “Yeah, he got up early and went home.”
“Tell him he doesn’t have to sneak in next time. I’m not your dad or some crazy older brother with a shotgun.” He made a pretend shotgun motion. What a dork. “But then again, maybe he and I should have a talk. Man to man.”
“Please don’t say anything to him, okay? He’s skittish due to our working relationship and potential problems with all that. We agreed not to talk to anyone about it, okay?”
“That wasn’t some kind of booty call was it?”
How could someone so self-absorbed and ridiculous also be so perceptive? Ari wondered. “Just be cool, okay?”
“I can be cool,” he agreed. “Won’t say a word—swear.”
“Thanks,” Ari said in relief. Nick. That was a problem she didn’t give much thought to last night. She’d had an itch and Davis scratched it. She and Nick weren’t exclusive, he wouldn’t even come in the house. There was no doubt Ari wanted to justify her decision, and she was justified. It didn’t matter anyway. One-time thing, she assured herself, as she walked out of the kitchen to get ready for work. No big deal.
* * *
Much to Ari’s relief, her interaction with Davis was limited after that night. She suspected it was a one-time thing for him, too, the kind of thing that built up from their first meeting at the club and had escalated from there. He’d sent her a package including two tickets to the fighting event at the GYC on Friday night. A small note inside listed Curtis’s time and event. Apparently he’d decided to let him participate after all. She double-checked the envelope, but there were no other messages inside. Maybe this was one of those one-night stands that worked.
Glad her hookup with Davis could be compartmentalized, Ari found herself obsessing over different things during the following days. Nick occupied a segment of her mind that normally remained rusty and forgotten. She liked him. A lot. His texts and phone calls had become the high
light of her day, other than the real treat of meeting him for lunch in her office or with a group for dinner. The lunch date was fairly benign and consisted mostly of talking about work, but dinner ended in a tentative make-out session in the back hallway of the restaurant. Ari had a feeling the mutual self-imposed rule of “taking it slow” was about to crack—it just depended on which one of them would crumble first.
“Sure you can’t come with me on Friday?” Ari asked. She’d spent the last thirty minutes alternately kissing Nick and trying to convince him into going to the fight at the GYC with her.
Nick pushed a wisp of flyaway hair over her ear and said, “I wish I could, but I promised my mother I’d help her move some furniture.”
“Doting son, eh?”
“Total mama’s boy. I can’t even deny it,” he laughed. “Why are you going to this again?”
“The director asked me to come to the fight. And I told Curtis I would be there.”
Nick touched her chin with his thumb, holding her gaze. “It’s okay to take a night off, you know. These kids will survive if you miss an activity.”
“Honestly, I’m interested to see how it all works. I suspect it’s a glorified fight club.” This wasn’t just a suspicion, it was a fear. Ari had a feeling she’d probably end up reporting the program for inappropriate conduct. She wanted to see it for herself.
“Hey Ari, come here!” Oliver called from his seat near the bar. Nick gave Ari a fast kiss before spinning her toward the seating area. Oliver showed up with Veronica again. Rebecca and some other girls sat together. All of them were looking up at the television screen.
“What’s up?” Ari asked, moving next to Oliver.
He gestured his beer bottle at the screen. “There’s your boy. Back in action.”
On the television, a reporter stood outside a fast food restaurant surrounded by police tape. In the corner was the same photo as last time, the word “Vigilante” stamped across the top.
The mystery man.
Or her mystery man as she’d begun calling him. He was her other obsession. She’d kept an ear out for any information about him since the package had been delivered to her office. He’d been scarce. Until now.
