by T. L Smith
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, yeah…” He goes silent for a moment. “Start with the kids, start with getting to know them.”
“Fuck.”
“They’re good kids, Black, you will find that out.”
“Come back soon, hey?”
“Yep,” he says then the call is ended.
It’s time to win some kids over, how the fuck am I meant to do that?
Isabelle opens the door. She looks and talks just like Rose. She smiles when she sees me, opens the door wider and steps out then cuddles me. She used to do this when she was little. I remember her well, the way she was so straight forward. Like she knew lies, when lies were being told.
“Liam,” she says stepping back.
“Liam?” comes her voice as she walks into view. She flushes when she sees me, then pulls Isabelle into her. “I didn’t know you would be coming by.”
“I came to meet Liam, properly.”
Her eyes go wide, she hugs Isabelle tighter, making Isabelle pull away from her mother’s grip. “Really?” she questions me. I nod my head and she waves me in, shutting the door behind me. “He’s in his room, do you want me to get him? Or would you like to say hello?”
“I’ll go to him.” It’s dumb, I don’t know why I chose that option, it would be easier and safer to have her there. She points to his room. I walk by her, smelling her, she smells like flowers, she always does. “We need to talk about last night,” I say. She nods her head and I continue to his room. I open it to find him on the floor, his room is littered with monster trucks, small cars, and he has his iPad on, with those stupid adults that show kids games—seriously?
He looks up at me and points to his toys. “Play with me?” I give him an odd look that he doesn’t notice as he starts making noises with his cars, smashing them into each other. “Are you gonna sit, Mister?” His attitude is pretty full on, the way he said that was like ‘play or get out.’ I sit on the floor in front of him, he pushes cars around in front of me.
“Do you know who I am, Liam?” I ask when he pauses his game. He looks at me and nods his head. “Who am I, Liam?” He doesn’t look as he points to something next to his bed. It’s a picture of me in a frame. A soft knock comes from the door, Rose opens and pops her head around the door looking to me then Liam and smiles.
“Dinner?” she asks me. I go to reply no, then he speaks up.
“He can sit next to me.” Rose nods and closes the door. “You love my mom?” he asks me. He’s watching me stare at the closed door Rose just disappeared out of.
“From what I understand of love, yes, I do.”
“I love her.”
“You should.” His eyes are trained on me now, he isn’t interested in his cars anymore.
“Why do you love her?”
“Because she’s beautiful, thoughtful, and her love fills holes that shouldn’t be filled.”
His head drops to the side like he half understands what I’ve just said. “You make her cry, did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Don’t do it again!” His tone is serious. “Are you going to be my dad now?”
“Is that what you want?”
He purses his lips. “Yeah, the other kids have dads. You’re bigger and scarier than them, it’ll be cool.”
A child… I’m having a conversation with a child. More so than what I have with adults. He’s marvelous, and he’s mine. I can see it in him, in the way he moves his hands, to the way he crinkles his forehead. But it’s her that I see the most, his eyes may be mine, but the love in them, the way they shine for those they love that’s all her.
He stayed in there with him and I listened from the door. I don’t know why he’s here, I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t want to talk about last night. It happened, it was wild, hot, and sexy. Casey knew as soon as I walked through the door, she pointed to my neck and screamed with happiness. She knew he’d come, they told him. What I didn’t expect was him turning up today, asking for Liam and not me.
They both come out when I call, Liam takes a seat at the table, little Liam sits right next to him passing him one of his cars. Hayden walks in, he stops when he sees who’s at the table and looks to me. He smiles and sits the other side of Liam.
“Mr. Black, it’s good to have you back,” Hayden says. I stay quiet while they all make conversation with him. It’s interesting, to say the least, as he gets hounded with questions. He looks to me for help when they ask him where he’s been, I’m amazed he hasn’t run yet.
“Someone took me away, took me away from your mother.”
“Will they do it again?” Isabelle asks, his eyes are watching me as he answers her.
“Never.”
He stays until their bedtime, and I watch as they say goodnight to him. Isabelle gives him one of her famous cuddles, and he pats her back. Hayden nods to him, little Liam walks and takes his hand and pulls him, asking him to pick him up. He looks to me.
“He wants you to pick him up.” He leans down and Liam grabs his face. He kisses him on the cheek then lays his head on his shoulder. My heart beats faster.
“Come on baby, time for bed.” He comes to me willingly, Liam watches me with interest when I take him.
“Say goodnight.”
“Goodnight Daddy,” he says half asleep. My eyes go wide, my hands start to shake in what he will think, or say, or even do.
“Goodnight, little man.”
He isn’t in the house when I come back out. At first, I think he’s gone, that it was too much for him, that it’s all too much for him to take. That makes me angry, angry that he could do such a thing. Then I see the front door open, it’s raining, hard. I don’t see him at first when I open the door, but there he is, standing under the street lamp, his head down to the ground and he’s soaking wet. “Liam!” I call to him and he turns. I can just make out his features. He looks pained, I don’t quite understand why.
“Have you ever loved someone so much it hurt?” he asks taking me back to that first night. Those words I asked him, he’s now asking me.
“I have.”
“Who was that person, Rose?” I walk closer, stepping out into the rain. He watches me with interest. The rain coats his face, droplets fall from his eyelashes.
“You, Liam Black,” I admit. It hurts, it still hurts.
“I think I understand it, Rose. I think I understand after all these years what you were talking about. It hurts.” I want to reach out and touch him, to hold him. We just aren’t there yet, I don’t know if he’s there yet. I don’t know if he’s safe yet.
“Why does it hurt, Liam? Tell me why it hurts?”
He blinks a few times, his body staying still as he watches me. “You want to know?” I nod my head. “That… that feeling in there, I understand how you survived, I wouldn’t have been able to if it was you. I would’ve jumped willingly into that black hole and never escaped. But that, and you… I finally understand. It’s you, it’s you who did that.” He points to the house his voice uneven. So unlike him. “It will always be you, won’t it? It will only be you that makes my heart pound when you’re near. When you laugh, something cracks, something extraordinary. Is it love, Rose? Is that what this is?” He steps closer to me closing the distance.
“For you, I think that’s what it is. It’s different for everyone. For you, I think it would be all-consuming. You haven’t loved, you run from it, kill for it. For you, I think your whole love would be scary, but beautiful.” It would be, I know it. He’s a man that is like no other.
“People use the word so freely, I don’t want to do that. I want to mean it. I meant it with you, you know that right? With them, I felt it. How did I feel it?”
My hand touches his face, I run it over his cheek and down his beard. He’s wet and it’s sexy. “I think you should go, Liam. I think you should go home.”
His eyes squint, his hand comes up to cover mine. He smells of rain and Liam Black. A mixture made to weaken
the strongest of people. “You want me to leave?”
It’s hard to say the next words. “Yes… I want you to leave.”
“And never come back?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No, I want you to put us first. Our safety comes first. And when you can do that, prove that you can stay.”
“I can’t change entirely, Rose, you know that. It’s who I am.”
“I know, I don’t want you to change, I would never ask you to do that. I love you the way you are. It’s what you do and how you do it. I won’t have it near me, not anymore. Too much bad has come from it.”
His head drops as he stands in the same spot, he doesn’t speak as he turns to leave. The rain coming down heavy on us both, dripping, just like my dripping, melting heart.
A plan is what I need. I plan to win her trust back—not her heart, I already have that. And I have shattered that, the trust within it. She tells me I have to give her my all, I thought I was, I did. Maybe, possibly I didn’t. Because I don’t quite understand what my all is. I don’t know how to decipher the difference.
“You’ve been moping all day.” Sax goes to tap me on my shoulder, but I pull away. Some habits are hard to break. He squints at my reaction and shakes his head walking in front of me.
“This is what you do all day?” I wave my hands around, we’re in a security room. Over ten different screens have some live feed from the places he has security on. He shakes his head at me.
“This is not what you’ll be doing.”
“What will I be doing?”
He unholsters his gun and sits in front of me. “You will be on bodyguard duty. It’s perfect for you, no talking.”
“Guns?”
He nods his head smiling. “Yes, you will carry a gun.” He brings out his iPad and starts searching for something, then turns it to me. “This…” he points to the screen, “…is who you’ll be working with.” The woman on the screen is beautiful. “She is a pop star and a very famous one,” he says pulling it back.
“When?”
“She flies in tonight, you’ll meet her at the airport.”
I had planned to see Rose tonight, to try to talk to her again. I’m craving her like I’ve never craved anybody before.
I watch as she walks down from the plane, she has a triage of people surrounding her. She’s easy to spot and dressed like she was in that photo, like a model. Not an ordinary person, I don’t know a lot about women, but I’m guessing wearing high heels and tight dress on a plane would not be comfortable. She walks to me closely followed by her team. She doesn’t look up, her eyes are glued to her phone. She stops and holds up a finger when she reaches me.
“You are?” she asks while still typing. I don’t answer and that makes her pause and stops typing as she looks up at me. She smiles and the lady closest to her answers for me.
“It’s your bodyguard.” Her eyes roam up and down my body, she can’t see my eyes, because they’re covered by my sunglasses.
“Stay close, love,” her voice is low when she speaks to me. I follow her to the car, wondering when I can shoot someone next.
I’m to guard her for the next few hours, then return tomorrow. She has a team on her at all times. We’ve checked into the hotel, I didn’t enter and stayed positioned at the front entrance. There are men with cameras situated everywhere outside—she must be popular.
“Love?” her voice is next to my ear. The door isn’t all the way open, only her head is visible when she asks me to come in. When the door is open all the way, she’s standing there in nothing. Literally nothing on her body, she smiles sweetly at me.
“Tell me your name?” I look at her, she sees me looking and it only makes her smile brighter.
“Black.”
She purrs, like what the actual fuck. “I like that, I like that a lot.”
“You needed?”
She touches between her legs, her pussy is bare. Her legs are slightly parted. “I need a release. The last one didn’t do so well. I have high hopes for you.”
Nope… not fucking happening. My cock isn’t even happy at the sight of her, it hasn’t moved once.
I turn and walk out, not even shutting the door as I leave. Another man is standing there, another bodyguard. “She needs you.” He smiles while nodding his head. He can fuck her because I sure as shit am not.
“Not again Sax, not a-fucking-gain. Do you hear me?” He doesn’t pay me any attention as he types furiously on his keyboard. It takes him a moment to turn to face me, then he smiles.
“She try to seduce you?” My eyes bulge that fucker knew. “She does it to all my men, most fuck her.”
“Do I look like most men to you?” The smile hasn’t left his lips.
“I have other jobs I do. I think perhaps would be more up your alley. Except, it’s confidential, only my best men do these jobs.”
“Guns?”
He covers his face, smiling. “Yes Black, it’s only for those with guns.”
“People?”
“Yes, usually you and one other.”
“A woman?”
“No.”
“Sign me up.”
There’s a delivery at my door, it’s a large black box. A card is attached to it, so I pick it up and feel the weight of it. I’m actually afraid to open it.
Don’t open near the kids.
I read the first line of the letter and wonder if it’s smart to actually open it. I mean, who starts off with a heading like that.
A gun for a piece.
A piece of your heart.
A bullet for your trust.
A barrel for your love.
As you’re reading, you see that I suck at this. I am trying. This is my most prized possession, I received this after my first shoot. It was the moment I knew I was GREAT at something. This was what I was great at.
Until you.
I carry this piece everywhere, if it’s not with me, it’s near me. I’ve had this since I was sixteen years old, Rose. Sixteen… I’ve never had something that long in my life or loved something that long. Until a dark night, a strange girl sat in the dark. She took my breath away, did you know that? Did you know you did that? No one has done that to me before. NO-ONE.
I’ve never understood you, you were odd, but kind. You were strange but un-mistakenly beautiful.
I am giving you this as a sign, you now hold my most prized possession. What you do with it, is your choice.
I know most people don’t understand me or understand us. I am just starting to. I’m understanding that I don’t want to live in this life without you next to me. I have done it and I didn’t like it.
Meet me tonight, at that place. You know that place. The place where it all started.
Liam – Black
I drop the letter, why would he ask me back there. He knows how I feel about that place. I can’t go back there, I’m shaking at just the thought of it. I read the letter again and again. It calms me, he calms me. I laugh at it, then smile at it. I want to see him laugh, I want to see him smile. I think I’m the only person who’s had that privilege—to see him smile. He doesn’t do it often, hardly ever. And he should, well he should for me. It makes my heart beat fast, my belly fly with butterflies and my toes curl.
I open the case, it’s not a case I want to open. I hate guns, as a matter of fact I despise them. They bring nothing but hurt, pain, and danger. The case is shiny, the inside is fitted perfectly. I don’t know much, but I can see this case was made for this gun.
Broken
It’s inscribed into the handle of the gun. Is that how he sees himself? As a broken man?
I haven’t removed myself from the car. I want to just sit in it and not shift. I can’t even bring myself to look out the side window. I drove here, but I can’t move, I can’t get out.
I don’t know how long I sit there for. I think part of me is in shock, it doesn’t want to move, it doesn’t want the danger that could possibly follow what is to come once I step outside.
A knock comes at my window, my hands slam onto the steering wheel. I scream until I hear his voice.
“Rose.”
“Why would you ask me to come here?” my voice is high, I realize I just screamed that at him. I try breathing slowly, to try to calm my heart down.
“I think you needed to, to come back here with me.”
“I’ve been here once without you, I thought you were dead.” He slowly opens my car door, I hold it so he can’t open it fully.
“You need to be with me. We have so many demons, we need to wash them away.”
“Fuck that! You do it.” I turn to face him, he’s smirking at me. And instantly, my heart calms from being afraid to be happy. “Don’t try to change my mind with that…” my hand points up to his smirking face, “…look,” I finish off.
“Only you can pull…” he waves his hands around, “…this look.”
“Good to know, Casanova of the fucking dead.”
“Rose, let go of the door.”
“I got your gun, why would you send me a fucking gun?”
“Door Rose.” I let go of the handle and he pulls it all the way open. “You can destroy it if you want.”
I give him a blank stare. Because really?
“You sent the woman you want a gun. You do know how fucked that is, right?”
“Do you know you swear a lot?”
I roll my eyes. “You seem to bring out the best in me.”
“That I do.” He eyes me up and down.
“Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“It was in the gutter the moment you opened your dirty mouth, you’re to blame for that.”
“Good job distracting me, Mister.”
“It worked.” He is right. I’m now half out of the car, my mind is not on that place, it’s solely on him.
“Why are we here, Liam?”
“I want to talk.”
“You couldn’t have been a normal person and invited me out for dinner?” His eyebrows scrunch up, and he looks down at the floor.