Cornered (Braving Love Trilogy #1)

by Ariana Gael

  “Get in here and close the door,” Dante said gruffly around the cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. “You wanna tell me what kinda sneaky hijinks you been up to in one of my vehicles?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, boss,” Lars said plainly, lowering himself into an armchair whose upholstery had cracked three Presidents ago. “What kinda sneaky hijinks are we talking about, specifically?”

  “Don’t get cute with me, the only thing I wanna hear outta you is a good explanation about why I shouldn’t send you walkin’ right now. I’ve fired better mechanics than you for less shit than this.” Dante reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a small, rectangular tan purse.

  “I don’t think that one matches your shoes, boss,” Lars said, smiling.

  “You think this is some kinda joke?” Dante snarled, slamming the metal desk drawer with a loud bang.

  “Well, I did. But then you asked me that, and now I’m kinda thinking you’re seriously pissed.” Lars looked worried, trying to figure out what his place was in all the boss’ anger.

  “I go to check the mileage on the tow truck this morning for the insurance report, and there’s a girlie purse in the floorboard. So unless it happens to go with your shoes, you took my truck out on some kinda date last night. I tell ya, I fired Mack after I found a condom in the truck cab. He swore it had just fallen outta his pocket since it was still in the wrapper and all, but too bad. I don’t take chances on this kinda stuff. I can’t afford the hit on my insurance. So you get two seconds to tell me somethin’ I wanna hear, or you’re out the door.”

  Lars looked down at his hands for a minute, seeing the permanent grease stains for what they really were: a tattoo that told the rest of the world he was just an underling, one who could be replaced at that. “I gotta level with you, Dante. I took a girl home when I went out on the 35th Street job last night.”

  “What the hell were you thinkin’? We got a rule about passengers in the truck! It’s an insurance thing! You coulda gotten me shut down if you so much as scratched a door while you got some slut in the cab!” Dante’s face turned five different shades of red before settling on purple as its final choice.

  “It’s not like that, boss! She wasn’t a slut, either. I was sitting here in the office last night and I heard some screaming. She was in the alley across the street getting the shit beat outta her by a drunk, she and some barely teenaged boy. The cops were there and everything, you can check it out. But they were gonna make her wait in the alley by herself until they could send a car to take her home, since they were busy wrestling with the drunk. I didn’t even say anything at first, but when the call came in about 35th Street, I walked over and told her I’d drop her off on the way. And it was on the way, I didn’t even have to turn the wheel. Straight up this street right here,” Lars argued, pointing out the window.

  Dante’s color improved slightly, only to turn back to red when he took a long drag off his cigarette.

  “C’mon, boss, what would you really have had me do? She was bleeding on her face and everything where that asshole did a number on her. And she’s supposed to sit there in the dark? Check the log, the 35th Street job was almost at three am. And the cops had to ask me questions, too, so you can even check it out with them.”

  Dante didn’t say anything, pausing so long that Lars knew any hope of keeping his job was over. What Lars couldn’t have known was the memories Dante kept tucked away of a childhood spent trying to step in front of his own mother’s tiny frame every time his dad made it home from his nightly visit to the bar.

  “You say one word about me letting you get away with this, and you’re out the door,” Dante finally said quietly. “For now, you’re off the truck for the rest of the month. Don’t even ask me to let you fill in for somebody. You wanna keep making overtime for sitting around one night a week, you’re gonna follow the rules.”

  Lars dropped his head for only a minute, calculating how much losing that overtime and the fill-in shifts would cost him. He sighed, standing up to leave before turning his attention back to Dante. “I understand. Thanks. It won’t happen again.”

  “And could you do something about this thing? Like you said, it don’t match my shoes.” He held out the purse by hooking one finger through the thin strap. “Oh, and next time you use a wrench to take down a shit head, do me a favor. Don’t block the view of the security camera. I couldn’t get a good look at his face when you got him in the knee.”

  Lars smiled and nodded, praying there wouldn’t be any future need to take out a kneecap with a wrench. He laughed out loud when he heard Dante call through the door, “And next time use a metric wrench, they’re heavier and they don’t get as much use!”

  On his lunch break, Lars raced to his car with the purse tucked football-style under his arm, tossing it in the passenger seat of his old car before realizing it might have valuables in it. He set it up more firmly against the seat back and headed in the direction he’d taken the waitress less than twelve hours before. It had been dark, but he thought he would recognize the building since its bottom floor had been taken up by a homey-looking Irish bar.

  Once inside, finding the right door was no problem since the third floor only had three apartment doors on it. He knocked on the door he’d escorted Michelle to and waited, hoping she was home to take her purse off his hands. It made him nervous just to know that there could be money or an expensive phone in it and he would have been the last person with it in his possession.

  Lars’ face brightened into a smile when he heard the sound of several locks turning, but his expression fell when it was the dark-skinned friend who answered the door instead of Michelle. Whereas their other roommate had seemed a lot more welcoming, this one had been kind of frosty about his appearance at their apartment last night. Of course, it had been way past appropriate visiting hours...

  “Can I help you?” Angela asked, keeping the door wedged with her foot so it couldn’t open further without a serious fight.

  “Uh, yeah. I came by here last night with your roommate? Michelle? I was wondering if she was home,” he began, suddenly feeling like a little boy for the first time in many years.

  “No,” Angela replied with a slight sneer. “That jerk boyfriend of hers cost her that waitressing job, so she’s gone back to the restaurant to beg for her crappy job back. I can tell her you stopped by though.” Her tone softened a little bit when Angela remembered that Lars was the one who had saved Michelle, not hurt her.

  “Oh, no, that’s okay. She left her purse in the truck when I drove her home. Um, here.” He stepped towards her just long enough to push Michelle’s purse into her hands before stepping back away from the door. “If you could just give it to her...”

  Lars waved awkwardly before turning and heading back down the stairs. Angela couldn’t help but stare after him, appreciative of what mechanics’ coveralls did for his frame.. She closed the door on the view, the wheels in her brain already in motion.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Michelle!” Mr. Phan barked in his usual tone. “You come here!”

  Crap, she thought. Mrs. Phan hadn’t been able to win her husband over after all. They could have told me this before I worked all afternoon cleaning behind the bar.

  She stood up, straightened the apron she had on over her jeans, brushing flecks of cleanser powder from the front and following Mr. Phan around the front of the bar. He looked at her, narrowing his eyes for a minute.

  “You good girl. I hate your boyfriend.”

  Mr. Phan’s English, so blunt and to the point because of his limited grasp of the language and the pronunciations that didn’t make sense to him, was one of the things that kept Michelle secretly in stitches, even when he was at his most furious. She smiled while biting her lip, not wanting him to think she was laughing at him.

  “I agree, Mr. Phan. I hate my boyfriend, too. And he is no longer my boyfriend,” she answered, cutting the air with her hands to emphasize the end of that relat
ionship. “He will not come back here. We are finished.”

  “My son tell me what you did last night. He say it not your fault, that boyfriend no come for you. He say you cover him up so boyfriend cannot hit him more.” Mr. Phan pointed sadly at Michelle’s cheek, nodding his head, showing his agreement with Binh’s version of the story. “You good girl. But I no can have my family hurt or my restaurant hurt. I’m so sorry. And you take this.”

  Her heart sank when she realized that she hadn’t been able to change Mr. Phan’s mind.

  “Mr. Phan, please. You know how hard I work. I promise there will never be any boyfriends here.”

  “I know you say that, but you cannot make him stop. If you work here, he come back. And he do more than hit someone. We have problems already with neighbors because we different. I can’t have more problems because you here.”

  He picked up her hand and pressed a roll of bills into it. Her eyes widened when she saw the number of twenty dollar bills and she immediately began shaking her head. “No, Mr. Phan. I can’t take this. It wouldn’t be right.”

  He stopped her, closing her fist around the money before tears filled the corners of his eyes. “You hard worker and you been good to Phan family. Binh...he my only son. He could have died. You save him. But now it’s not safe. You have to go. If you need me to say you good things to next boss, call me. I tell him you best employee I ever have.”

  Michelle turned to go, but ran back and gave Mr. Phan a quick hug, something that surprised both of them. He held his arms out awkwardly, not exactly returning the hug, but not shoving her away in disgust, either.

  “Now, now. It’s okay. But no more stupid boyfriends! You too smart and too pretty to have stupid boyfriend. You only need good boyfriend.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Phan. There won’t be any boyfriends, not any time soon.” She smiled and went to grab her purse from the hook in the kitchen before remembering that she had lost it while fighting with Daniel. “You didn’t find my purse in the alley, did you? I think I dropped it, but I didn’t see it outside anywhere.”

  “No, no purse. You tell police?”

  “No, I’ll have to do that if I can’t find it. My wallet, my bus pass, and my phone were in it, so I’ll have to report those missing. Thanks anyway. Bye, I guess.” She walked to the door, bracing for the forty block walk under skies that looked like they were about to open up any minute. She stepped out under the restaurant’s awning and looked up, trying to decide if she had the time to get home before the flood came.

  What choice do I have? She asked herself. Patting the roll of bills in her pocket, Michelle considered taking a cab, but the ride would cost more than the price of a new bus pass. Nope, there were bills that had to be paid and luxuries like cab fare weren’t one of them, especially since she hadn’t been able to win her job back. She’d just have to walk.

  As she started out, she scanned the sidewalk and planter boxes one last time for any sign of her purse, hoping she’d just missed it in her hurry to get here this morning. It was tan, so maybe it had blended in, meaning no one had noticed it and made off with it. She’d tried calling her phone number from the restaurant, hoping someone would answer long enough for her to plead with them to return just a few of the sentimental things in there.

  The half dollar her grandfather had given her before he died was in her wallet. It was tucked safely in there like a little talisman, reminding her of the time he took her for ice cream the day before she’d left home for college. The picture of her parents at their thirtieth anniversary dinner was in her wallet, too. Even the rosary her parents had given her as a Confirmation present was in the side pocket where she’d left it after going to Mass last week. Whoever had made off with her purse could keep it—it’s not like her prepaid “dumbphone” was expensive—but it would be great to have those special little things back.

  Large drops of rain splashed around Michelle’s feet, still several seconds apart, giving her just enough time to duck under the awning of a small book shop. She paced back and forth the length of the small storefront, waiting out the water that was now running down the sidewalk.

  “You’re welcome to come in, dear,” an older woman said after turning several locks and opening the glass door of the shop. She beckoned to Michelle to join her as she warily eyed the damage to Michelle’s face. “This should pass pretty quickly, it’s too heavy to last long.”

  Michelle smiled and followed her inside the dark store, instantly remembering the musty smell of old books from her days meeting for study sessions at the campus library.. The same smell drifted down from the high shelves of the shop, too. And though it was a narrow property, she was excited to see that it extended back almost to the street behind it, making it nearly the length of a city block, every inch of it covered in brown or red leather-bound volumes.

  “Oh! You’re an antique book dealer?” Michelle asked. The woman’s face brightened.

  “Yes, I am. That’s why we don’t keep regular store hours like most bookstores. We don’t actively encourage browsing and our customers aren’t walk-in clients. We do most of our business through the online dealers’ boards. Some of these volumes cost more than my first car!” she said with a laugh, pointing to several locked glass display cases behind her counter. Michelle could see a tiny black box with a flashing red LED in the top corner of the case, meaning it was under alarm. “But since you even know what an antique book dealer is, you’re free to look around while you wait out the rain.” The woman went back to calculating invoices on her counter top.

  Michelle did as the woman suggested. Carefully keeping her hands behind her back, knowing the oils from her skin could ruin any of these books—or at least severely lower their value—she paced the shelves with her head held sideways, her ear almost to her shoulder, as she read the faded titles. Her heart nearly stopped when she found a faded yellow label at eye level. It had been typed on an old electric typewriter and placed there so long ago that both of its short edges had pulled free from the wood and were curling inward slightly.

  “Signed First Editions”

  She held her breath as she tiptoed down the aisle of books that reached at least ten shelves high. Every classic she’d ever heard of, some of them written and first published hundreds of years ago, lined the shelves. They weren’t alphabetical, which struck her as strange.

  “Are these in a certain kind of order?” Michelle called out softly to the store owner.

  “Oh, you noticed that? That was my husband’s system. He couldn’t keep the twenty-six letters of the alphabet straight, but he could remember every single publication year of any of these books! They’re in order by year, not author’s name.” She smirked over some amusing memory before returning to her filing. The computer behind her had been pinging non-stop since Michelle arrived, announcing new emails. Michelle was very surprised that this seemingly sleepy old bookstore got that many messages.

  She made her way around the shelves and back towards the front door, peeking out the huge glass window and sorry to see that the rain had only slackened a little bit. She pulled her jacket closer around her and reached for the handle on the door.

  “Don’t even think about stepping out there in that,” the woman called from the counter, looking at Michelle over the tops of her reading glasses. “C’mon. Sit. We’ll have something to drink while we wait it out.”

  Michelle looked over to the small reading nook nestled in a hollow space that had been carved into some shelves along the wall. It was so quaint, with a small table lamp sitting on a round table between two stuffed wingback chairs.

  “I’m not a walking stereotype,” the woman said, “so I don’t have any tea! I’m a coffee drinker myself. What can I get for you?”

  “Oh, coffee’s fine. Anything, really.”

  “Good. Take a seat, I’ll be there in a sec.” To own a fantastic museum to the printed word, the woman’s accent was far from snooty. She had a friendly demeanor, one that was honed from not feeling t
he need to make herself seem superior.

  When she brought over two cups of coffee balanced on a tray with some sugar and milk, she finally introduced herself. “I’m Marjorie McCree. And you are?”

  “Michelle Vane. It’s nice to formally meet you,” the younger woman said politely.

  “Well, Michelle, here’s what I know about you. You obviously read, you obviously pay attention to minor details, and you obviously don’t have a job since you’re walking around in the rain at two in the afternoon. You also heard the sounds coming from my horrible nemesis, technology. Are you interested in working as my assistant?”

  Michelle looked at Marjorie over the rim of her coffee cup. This couldn’t be real. But at the same time, her portion of the rent and the need to purchase a new phone were both very real. Shockingly real. She smiled at Marjorie.

  “I would love a job. I just lost my waitressing job last night, in fact,” she said, pointing to the large band-aid she’d been able to put on this morning.

  “I was going to ask about that, but didn’t want to pry,” Marjorie said kindly. “Drop a load of dishes, did we?”

  She wasn’t sure how much to tell. A job offered quickly could be revoked just as quickly, and Daniel had already cost her one job. Honesty’s the best policy, though, she thought. She explained everything with as little actual detail as possible, encouraged when Marjorie’s facial expression turned from enraged to sympathetic.

  “That’s horrible! But I’m with Mr. Phan and his concerns about repercussions. That can’t happen here. Broken restaurant windows can be fixed, but these books are literally irreplaceable. In some cases, they are the last ones known to exist. No visitors, not even a girlfriend to bring you lunch. Understood?”

  “I understand completely. I won’t even tell my roommates where I work!” Michelle promised.