by L. D. Davis
She didn’t take her eyes off Nat. She watched her with an excitement that irritated me. “A surprise for Natalie.”
“But you alweady gave me a Chwistmas pwesent,” Nat said, peering down at the bag with confusion.
“This is a just-because present,” my mother said, smiling.
Without any further delay, Natalie reached into the bag, pushing pink tissue paper out of the way.
“My own balway shoes!” she squealed, producing a pair of pink ballet slippers.
“And there’s more,” Mom said, taking the slippers.
Nat reached into the bag once more and produced a pink tutu. She squealed again before leaping into my mother’s arms and hugging her. I watched with a sickening feeling in my gut as my mom hugged her back.
“She’s going to put that stuff on, and never take it off,” Alex muttered.
I was a little startled to find him standing at my side. I hadn’t noticed him get up and walk over.
“It’s time to go,” I repeated, my voice harsh.
It took several minutes to break up the happy little ballet party and to get to the front door.
“Are you upset, Mayson?” Mom asked me, just before I could step outside. Alex and Nat were already getting into the car, with Taylor supervising.
I looked at her, at her neutral face.
“You should have told me before you bought her that stuff. Now she’s going to beg Grant for dance lessons.”
She looked surprised, but only for a microsecond before she fixed her face and it was neutral again.
“I apologize,” she said simply. “I thought she would enjoy wearing them while she is here or even around the house.”
“She’s not another little girl for you to use to make up for what you missed out on when you were a kid,” I snapped. “You can’t live vicariously through her like you tried to do with me, and like what you do with Taylor. You’re not going to bloody her fucking toes.”
She didn’t hide her shock; she let it show on her beautiful face, but I didn’t care. I walked away without another word.
By the time Grant’s phone call came, both kids had been sleeping for at least an hour. I had been pacing through the ware-home, anxiously waiting for his call and thinking about the night at my mother’s.
“It’s about time,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief when I answered.
He sounded like he was bone-deep tired. “I’m sorry. Are the kids asleep?”
“Yes, of course they are. Where are you? When will you be home?”
There was a hesitation that instantly made my anxiety return.
“There was an incident,” he said carefully. I said nothing and waited for him to continue. “I didn’t call you earlier because I didn’t want the kids to know, and if I told you, you wouldn’t have been able to keep it from them.”
“What happened?” I asked, feeling panic slice into me.
“I’m okay,” he said quickly, not answering my question.
I closed my eyes and placed the palm of my hand over my forehead.
“Grant Alexander,” I said his name slowly as I tried to hold on to what little sanity I had left. “What the hell happened?”
There was another hesitation, and finally, he told me.
“Mayson, the big bad wolf got me. I got hit with a bullet today.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“I was very specific,” I growled, yanking the blankets down on the bed. “I told you not to come back home shot, stabbed, beaten, or otherwise maimed.”
“Maybe we can print that on a shirt,” Grant said, kicking off his sneakers. “I’ll bet the bad guys will think twice before shooting at me, stabbing at me, beating me, or otherwise maiming me.”
I glared daggers at him. “Do you think this is funny?”
“I believe that I, of all people, know how not funny this is.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, shaking my head.
“I don’t know, Grant. You seem very unconcerned with the fact that a bullet went through your arm.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and closed his eyes wearily.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” he said with a small smile.
I stared incredulously, mouth open and eyes wide. Grant popped one eye open and peered at me.
“Monty Python. No?”
My voice was soft and deadly. “You’re making jokes about Monty Python? You’re sitting there, with a bullet hole in your arm making jokes about Monty Python? There is a bullet hole. In your arm. And you’re quoting Monty Python.”
He sighed my name. “Mayson.”
I shook my head and held up my hands. “Don’t Mayson me. Don’t say my name like that, like I can’t take a joke. This isn’t funny, Grant, but you know what? Make all the jokes you want. I don’t have to stay here to listen to them.”
I walked out of the bedroom. Grant caught up with me in the nook, where I had left my bag after returning from my mother’s.
“Mayson, stop,” he said tiredly when I tried to walk around him.
“I will poke you in your bullet arm,” I warned. “I will poke the shit out of that arm if you don’t get out of my way.”
“I thought we were finished with the running away.”
“I’m not running away,” I snapped. “I am just going home where life kind of makes sense, because this doesn’t make sense, Grant. I want to go somewhere where getting shot isn’t funny.”
“I told you. I don’t think it’s funny.”
“Then why were you smiling and cracking jokes, Grant? I don’t understand. I don’t get it. My heart is still in my throat. You’re standing right in front of me, still breathing and alive, but I’m still terrified. You came home this time, but you might not come home next time. Then what? What am I supposed to tell Alex and Nat then? That they’ve lost another parent, that they’re orphans?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, taking my hand and pulling me to him. “I’m sorry.”
He held me with his uninjured arm. My fingers twisted in his shirt as I pressed my ear to his heart. Even though he was clearly alive, I had to reassure myself that he was okay and hear the strong thumping of his heart.
“You asshole,” I whispered, unable to hold back my tears. “You asshole.”
“So, what will you do now?” I asked Grant sometime later, as we changed into our bed clothes.
He grimaced and moved stiffly as he pulled off his shirt, revealing the bandages around his bicep, but he didn’t utter any complaints.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean are you going to find another line of work and stop going on these suicide missions?”
He looked surprised by the question.
“No,” he said slowly. “Mayson, I’m not giving up my job.”
I stared at him for several seconds, before patiently asking, “Do I need to remind you that someone aimed a gun at you and shot you?”
Grant, who was usually so patient with me, even when I was nonsensical, snapped at me.
“I don’t need you to remind me that I got shot, Mayson. Stop talking to me as if I were a little kid that got in trouble at school today. I know what happened. I didn’t get shot in the damn head.”
“Well, you could have gotten shot in the damn head,” I snapped back. “That’s what you don’t seem to understand.”
“I understand it!” he shouted, making me take an astonished step backward. “What the hell do you think was going through my head when he started shooting? Do you think I was thinking about the grocery list or what I was going to eat for dinner? I thought I was going to die out there and never see my kids or you again. I don’t need you to tell me what I don’t understand about it.”
My heartbeat was like thunder in my ears. Hearing his fears scared me, but it also riled me up.
“If you know the risks, then why do you insist on doing this?” I demanded to know. “Why not go find a job that isn’t going to risk your life?”
His gaze dropped to the
floor. For a minute, I thought I had him. I thought I had proven my point and that he was going to see it my way, but when he finally looked at me again, I realized that he wasn’t going to see it my way.
“There are hundreds of fugitive recovery agents in the Philadelphia area alone. Many of them mean well, but I’ve met many more that are only out there for the money. They’re careless, senseless, reckless, and dangerous, and people are more likely to get hurt or killed with them. I’m not in it for the money, Mayson. It’s not just a ‘job’ to have. Do you know what the man who shot me ‘allegedly’ did?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Grant’s eyes and face hardened. “He is accused of raping seven women. I took his case rather personally, as you can imagine,” he said bitingly.
I sucked in a sharp, painful breath.
“Last year, we captured over two hundred fugitives,” he continued. “Seventy-three of them were charged with some sort of sexual offense, and many of those were sex crimes on children. Forty fugitives were accused of committing violent crimes, including armed robbery, manslaughter, and murder. Most of the rest were drug related, with the remainder having committed some kind of petty crime.
“You ask me why I risk my life because I suppose you are the one who doesn’t understand, Mayson. Maybe some of the other hundreds of agents out there would have caught some or most of the fugitives that we got, but maybe not. Maybe all those people would still be out there, dodging the police—whose hands are often too tied to nab them anyway. Maybe all those ‘alleged’ criminals would still be out there committing all their ‘alleged’ crimes. Maybe, Mayson, I have saved another young woman from getting brutally raped. Maybe because we captured a drug dealer, I’ve prevented someone else’s sister or best friend from overdosing and dying too young. Maybe I’ve prevented more children from getting hurt—maybe even my own children, and maybe I’ve saved countless lives just by taking a few people off the street.”
With a sigh, all the tension and stress he must have been harboring seemed to melt away. His shoulders relaxed, his posture fell, and his face softened.
“I know that I can leave home one day and never return,” he spoke softly. “I know that I am not a police officer or a member of the military and that what I do doesn’t have as much honor in it as what they do. But I hope that if anything ever did happen to me, my kids will understand why I do this job. I hope that they will still see some honor in what I do.”
What he didn’t say was that he hoped I would see the honor in his work as well.
“I’m sorry.” I took a step toward him. “I don’t know how I am supposed to react in this situation. I don’t know how to push my fears away and pretend that everything is okay when I am terrified for your life. I have found this unmeasured happiness with you that I never thought I’d ever have and I am terrified of having it ripped away. I am even more terrified that Alex and Natalie will lose you. I can’t promise that if you get hurt again, I will behave rationally, because I probably won’t.” I struggled for a tiny smile and shrugged one shoulder. “You know I’m a nut job.”
He nodded once, conceding to that fact. I wasn’t offended, especially considering that he had a tiny smile, too.
“As for honor…” I took a few more steps until I was only an arm’s length away. “I have always, always thought you were an honorable man, Grant Alexander. I thought so as a child and I still think so now. It’s your honor that often makes me feel like a wretch like me doesn’t deserve a man like you.”
He touched my cheek as he moved close to me, leaving a little bit of space between us for his arm that was in a sling.
My beautiful butterfly,” he murmured, gazing intently into my eyes.
“What color are my wings now?” I asked, holding onto his waist.
“I don’t fucking know. I can’t take my eyes off your face.”
My soft laughter broke the ice, and then his blazing kiss upon my lips melted it away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“What did I miss?” I whispered to Kyle as I passed him a hot black coffee.
“Larry is three sheets to the wind again,” he whispered back. “The new lady, Doris, cried through her whole story. I have no idea what she said through all her blubbering.”
“Big fat tears?”
“Huge. And snot. A lot of snot. If you listen closely, you can still hear her doing that hiccup thing.”
“I hate when I miss the theatrics.” I sighed.
“Well, tonight’s meeting is officially the last meeting you are mandated to attend,” he whispered. “Where will you get your Tuesday night entertainment?”
I waved a hand dismissively. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. I’ll be back next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, and the week after that.”
His tone was dry. “Fantastic.”
“Oh, you love it. You can’t get enough of me. You think I’m hot and you want to take me to bed, but it’s your worst fear as well as your ultimate desire.”
He scowled, giving me his Bitch Face.
“Why are you so damn jaunty? Didn’t your boyfriend get shot only last week?”
“Yes,” I said cheerfully. I paused for effect, and then in my whispered voice announced, “I’m going to officially move in with him.”
Kyle’s eyebrows rose, and then fell as his eyes narrowed. “But you’re already practically living there.”
“Yes, but I still have my apartment and most of my belongings are there. I still sleep there once or twice a week. My lease will be up in a couple months, so after some consideration and talking, we’ve decided that I’ll move in with him.”
“That’s a colossal step for you,” he said. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
If it were anyone else, I would have assumed that they doubted me, but it was Kyle. He didn't doubt me; he really wanted to know if I thought I was ready.
“Trust me, I never thought I’d say that I’m moving in with anyone, let alone a guy with kids, but yes. I am ready. I am very nervous and scared that I’ll screw it up, but I am ready.”
He nodded. He understood, of course he did. There was a time when he had been afraid of screwing up with Lily, but he wanted to be with her as much as I wanted to be with Grant.
After the meeting, Kyle insisted on taking me to dinner to celebrate the end of my probation with Sterling Corp and my imminent immoral lifestyle of living with a man unwedded. We ate steak, drank champagne, ordered chocolate cake for dessert, and casually threw insults across the table at each other. It was a fun night with an unlikely, but truly good friend.
Kyle had taken the train into the city that day, and I had walked to work from my apartment that morning. We had taken a cab to the restaurant and we were in the backseat of another smelly cab heading toward my apartment, where we would part ways for the night. My plan was to grab a few things and then drive to Grant’s.
I was laughing—at Kyle’s expense—and feeling a lightness I couldn’t remember feeling in a long time. Maybe it was the champagne and cake, or maybe it was just that my life seemed to be pulling together at last. Maybe I was beginning to feel like I could have the happy ending that I never thought I deserved.
Then I turned my head and glanced out the window and saw him. Standing against a brick wall a few yards from that same coffee shop, smoking a cigarette, and looking right at me. He smiled and my stomach twisted. I suddenly felt so stupid for believing that I could ever have anything like a normal, happy life.
The cab had begun to move again as the light at the corner turned green, but I was already opening my door and tumbling out of the car.
“Mayson!” Kyle barked my name. “What the hell are you doing?”
The cab driver yelled something in his native language as he slammed on the brakes. Kyle was shouting my name behind me, but I was crossing the street, my eyes burning into the creepy man that brought on my nightmares.
As I neared the man, my dinner and dessert threa
tened to come up. My heart did a bruising cadence in my chest, and my knees grew weak with fear, but I didn’t stop, not until I reached him. I was sick with terror, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“Who are you?” I demanded, my voice shaking.
His eyebrows rose as he offered a smile that made my skin crawl. His eyes traveled up and down my body before he met my eyes again.
“You don’t know who I am?” he asked and took a drag of his cigarette.
“Mayson, what the hell…” Kyle started to say but halted. I didn’t take my eyes off the man in front of me, but I could sense Kyle stiffen as he took in the scene.
“If I knew who you were, I wouldn’t have asked,” I spat out. “But you know who I am, don’t you? You look at me like you know who I am, like you know things about me.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “I know a few things about you...Mayson. You used to screw around with Randy, right? He’s an old friend of mine.”
It suddenly made sense why he had seemed so familiar. I had seen his face a few times when I was with Randy, but more importantly, the memory of his face inside Annie’s house slammed into in my brain. Annie had been friends with Randy. Who was to say that she hadn’t been friends with the man in front of me as well?
“You got amnesia or something?” he asked, bemused.
“Or something,” I said bitterly. “Are you one of the assholes that raped me?”
Later, I would hardly be able to believe that I had asked that question to a stranger on a city street.
“You’re crazy,” he said. He laughed and shook his head as he tossed his finished cigarette onto the sidewalk. “My man,” he said to Kyle. “You better get your girl.”
“She’s not my girl,” Kyle said, in a dark voice I’d never heard him use.
The man laughed again. “That's a shame. She deep throats like a pro.”
I didn’t see Kyle move before his fist connected with the man’s mouth. He stumbled back into the alley, stunned. Kyle grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and slammed him back so hard his head bounced off of the brick. Blood oozed from his mouth. He wasn’t laughing anymore.