“Lucky I was there.” His voice sounded hollow. Detached. “I’m not always around.”
She knew then. She knew he was going to make a point of it. Not being around.
“Nothing scares me anymore. Nothing.”
What was he talking about? “Come back and talk to me in person, Shane Sullivan,” she ordered, her voice shaking.
Silence.
“We were finding happy!” Cecily yelled into the phone. “Why are you doing this?”
There was nobody on the line to answer that question.
After an excruciating night that saw Cecily alternately clutching Bun-Bun and her cell phone for comfort, Dex stopped by the next morning, looking like he was forcing himself to do it.
To his credit, he handed over a box of bonbons. Pale-orange apricot ones and pink-covered coconut ones. Cecily knew that the orange ones were apricot and the pink ones were coconut because they were her favorites, and she generally only ate them with a slightly revolting wild abandon when something had gone wrong. She’d eaten a lot of them in the last couple of months.
Thank god you could get them in New York City.
“I messed up again,” she whispered to her brother. She knew her face looked puffy and red.
“I thought I’d feel better about this not working out,” he said. “I really don’t.” He tipped his head to one side and opened his arms wide. Cecily shuffled over, and he closed her in a bear hug. “Sorry, Sis.”
“Me too,” she muttered into his shirt. “But I’ll be better soon. Because bonbons. Thanks.”
“It’s kind of a peace offering,” he said.
“I know. It’s a good one.”
He smiled, and Cecily stepped back to grab another apricot sweet from the box and sunk her teeth in. She chewed, studying her brother’s face. “Did you talk to him?”
“He called. It was brief. Just told me you were done.” Dex scratched his face, looking uneasy.
“It’s a little crazy Shane bothered to tell you. You probably got more phone time than I did. How very . . . Hudson Kings. Did he—”
“Um . . . you guys should really talk directly to each other. Listen, Sis . . .” Dex started in on a gentle speech about how things would be better soon and that this was probably for the best and now she could concentrate on really moving forward, blah, blah, blah. She stopped listening and focused on eating.
When he was done, Cecily pushed the box of bonbons away and simply said, “I know.”
He cocked his head. “I thought you were more into him.”
“Actually, I was falling in love with him.”
Dex reeled back. “Whoa . . .”
“Yeah. So, I’m finishing up my meltdown, and I’m finishing up an entire box of candy—thank you, very much—and Missy’s got some sort of Manhattan cure up her sleeve, or so she said, and then I’m coming home to cap the day off with some hot cocoa, and then I’m going to go to sleep and wake up and just . . . well, go have a life. A normal life where I don’t make colossal errors about which men I spend my time with.”
Dex opened his mouth a couple of times as if to speak but wasn’t sure how to respond. “You were falling in love with him?” he finally asked.
Cecily looked at her brother, who was clearly feeling so awkward it was adorable. She would have answered, really, but she just couldn’t get the words out without tears.
Dex’s forehead furrowed. “Never should have sent him.”
“You were having surgery. It’s not your fault. You sent him to get me out of there. That’s a good thing. The rest is on me.”
His gaze moved across her face. “You cried pretty hard.”
“He made it seem like we were something special, and then he just ended it,” she whispered and then shrugged. “So, yeah, I cried pretty hard.”
“But you’re gonna be okay?” Dex was turbo gnawing that nail now.
“Focus on your work, big brother. I’m heading for normal.” Where nothing ever happens, and nobody’s going to make me cry.
Cecily watched him work through that idea and then watched as his face changed and he started getting pissed. “This is really . . . you know . . . I’m not sure what to do here . . .”
“There’s nothing to do,” Cecily said. “He played me. He’s done playing. That’s it.”
Dex scratched his scruffy chin. “Listen, maybe it’s not quite—”
“My favorite brother-sister team!” Missy chirped, pushing through the door.
Dex didn’t shift his gaze from Cecily.
Missy raised an eyebrow.
“When you said he told you it was something special and, um, ‘played you,’ are you saying . . . ?” Dex asked. He made a vague wriggling motion with his fingers that Cecily could only assume was meant to indicate sex.
Oh, no. No. My brother is not asking about my sex life. No. Uh-uh. We are not. Just . . . not.
A massive silence filled the space.
Missy cocked her head, her hands on her hips. “She’s really blushing. She’s really blushing a lot.”
“I’m right here!” Cecily yelped. “Not to mention . . . whose side are you on?”
Dex’s face was the definition of stormy. “I’m gonna go now,” he said, still frowning as he turned and walked away.
Missy closed the door behind him, noticed the bonbons, and beelined to the box. “Nice.”
She held up a set of keys, and with a mouth covered in pastel sugar announced, “Get dressed. Today, we ride.”
CHAPTER 26
Missy was driving a deep-green James Bondian Aston Martin, and she was doing it substantially faster than any posted speed limit they’d flashed past. Yet Cecily was somehow not feeling her old knee-jerk instinct for exercising caution. If anything, she’d like to smash her foot down on Missy’s and accelerate even faster. Feeling this pissed off, this aggressive was oddly empowering. She felt strong. That said, it was good that Missy was the one driving.
“You checked your messages?” Missy asked.
“You already asked me that,” Cecily said.
“You looked for a note? Maybe he left a note sometime after he called.”
“You and I are roommates. Did you see a note? I didn’t.”
“No,” Missy said. “I looked everywhere. For a note, for a gift. For anything. I’d tell you that there must be a plausible explanation, that it doesn’t sound like the Shane I know, that it doesn’t sound like the Shane who’s got stars named Cecily burning out his eyeballs, but . . .” Missy shrugged, her hands lifting briefly off the steering wheel. “I’ve gotta say, I’m having a hard time understanding why he’s being this stupid.”
“I’m having a hard time understanding why you’re surprised he’s being this stupid.” And then Cecily giggled. “‘Stars named Cecily burning out his eyeballs’?”
Missy fiddled with the music and found a Prince album. “He’s into you. I don’t get it.”
“I get it; he’s a man. That’s all there is to get.” She flipped down the passenger-side visor mirror, raised her sunglasses, and began applying a new layer of lip gloss over the one she’d licked off. “He’s a man, and I’m still a shitty judge of character.”
“You don’t sound like yourself.” Missy glanced over again. “I can’t believe a couple weeks in the Armory have corrupted you this far.”
Corrupted? It didn’t feel like that at all. If anything, a couple of weeks in the Armory had made her feel stronger than she’d ever felt before. “It’s just me. It’s my life. It’s time I grew up and stopped pretending there’s such a thing as a happy ending.”
Missy muttered something curselike under her breath, an unhappy frown marring her face, and then more loudly: “If you can’t find it, what’s to become of me?”
“Why do you always sell yourself short?” Cecily asked.
“Do I?” Missy asked. “I thought I bragged too much.”
“You sell yourself short when it comes to men,” Cecily said softly. “I’d say it will happen for you ev
entually, but I think I’m having trouble convincing myself it will happen to anybody. That said, we’re in a sweet ride, heading into the heart of Manhattan, with a single errand and a pocketful of spending money. I vote we look on the bright side.”
Missy gave her a look that said Cecily’s positivity wasn’t fooling anybody but that she was happy to fake it. Then she went back to driving.
“Is this your car?” Cecily asked.
Missy’d accelerated out of the garage so fast it was a wonder they didn’t strip the paint off the side on the way out.
“Sort of,” Missy said. “It’s technically Romeo’s.”
Cecily’s good-girl reflexes went haywire. “He doesn’t get mad?”
“Well, he’s never gotten mad at me,” Missy said, reaching into the glove compartment and shifting past a sheathed knife, a pair of binoculars, a pack of condoms, and a bottle of eau de parfum to get to the Scarface sunglasses, which she popped on without a second thought. “Rothgar’s the boss and all. But just try and imagine what the Armory would be like without all the little comforts. You want something, I get it for you.” She flashed Cecily a grin. “Romeo likes his comforts.”
“Breaking rules feels better than I ever thought it would,” Cecily said. Shane had been kind of a shock to the system in more ways than one, but little by little, Cecily had learned to enjoy a kind of freedom she’d never before known.
Cecily felt another pang, thinking of Shane. So he wasn’t the man she thought he was, and getting over him was going to be a bitch. But she didn’t regret her time with him. And it had helped her understand her brother better. She could see so many reasons why Dex would be attracted to his new way of life. She really could. The guys who worked for Rothgar weren’t just coworkers. They were brothers-in-arms, as different as they all were, Missy included. They gave one another the latitude to do what they wanted in the moment, apologies accepted later if lines got crossed.
Unless, of course, it was a case of putting your hands on someone’s sister.
But that was almost completely behind her now; Missy was driving her back through a tunnel, and on the other side was everything you’d ever file under the word “normal.” This Allison everybody seemed to know was probably the most boring person on earth. And probably another case of somebody never to be touched.
Very suddenly, Missy busted out in falsetto, “I just want your extra time and your budda-budda-budda-buh KISS!” and then asked, without missing a beat, “Why’d you stay with that other jerk so long? No offense, but I don’t get how that happens.”
Cecily took a long, deep breath and just let the truth come out. “The money. I stayed too long because he had money, and I told myself things that made that sound like a good enough reason. He told me not to go ahead with my plans for design classes because I didn’t have to work. I mean, it’s so ridiculous. I love doing arty stuff. It wasn’t just about work. But he was all into this idea that I shouldn’t have to work and I—I just went with what he wanted. I’m not going to pretend that’s not just completely gross and so stupid, but I just got so confused about . . . well, everything, to the point where it seemed like maybe I couldn’t take care of myself without James and the money. It was all so stupid. The money doesn’t matter at all. At all. I just . . . he could buy things I never thought I could have. I ignored that he didn’t care if I was happy, if I was doing the things I liked. It was so seductive.”
Missy nodded.
“Dex and I never had any money,” Cecily continued, her cheeks flaming. She couldn’t read Missy’s face, but she didn’t mind being honest, really honest. “I didn’t know what it was like to have all that stuff. I got caught up, and if this makes any sense, I think I stopped liking him way before I decided to stop loving him.”
Missy nodded and then raced into a karmically placed parking spot right in front of a really nice duplex and said, “Just press the first one. Ally’s the only one who lives here now.”
“Aren’t you coming? This is the first time I’ve seen you leave the Armory since I got here. Don’t you want to make the most of it?”
Missy’s smile faded. “I’ll stay with the car,” she said softly, staring up at the windows of the duplex. “You’ll love her. She’s great. She can say dirty things in, like, twenty languages.”
Cecily laughed and looked down the street—it was a fabulous block hosting a line of willowy trees, with petunias planted in square plots around the trunks—and just shrugged.
With Rothgar’s earlier words in her ears, Cecily buzzed into the mysterious Allison’s apartment, coming out less than twenty minutes later in a daze. Yeah, she liked her, liked the apartment, and was about a second from agreeing to terms when the wound in her heart called Shane started hurting again.
Maybe this was all a dream. Maybe Shane was captured by pirates, and it took him a couple of days to swim to shore and explain to her that it wasn’t a game, and he wasn’t done with her, just because he’d finally taken her for a test drive.
Missy started the car. “Nice, huh.”
“It’s fantastic. I said I’d get back to her tomorrow.”
Missy’s hand stilled on the gearshift. “You didn’t seal the deal? Interesting choice.”
“What the hell,” Cecily said, suddenly annoyed.
“If you’re worried about James at all, don’t. The guys will be looking out for you. Rothgar made it pretty clear he preferred having you clear of the Armory. He needs Shane’s complete attention,” Missy said.
“How is that my problem or any of your business?” Cecily burst out.
“I thought we were being honest,” Missy said. “And just so you know, everything to do with the Armory is my business.” Then she added in a quiet voice, “I’m not trying to be a dick. I’m sorry. I don’t know you that well, and I know you don’t know how things work.”
“I think I just fell off Shane’s radar anyway,” Cecily mumbled. “I’m pretty clear of him.”
They drove in silence. “You must think I’m really weird,” Missy said after a while.
“Unusual,” Cecily said. “And I absolutely mean that as a compliment. The things I’ve seen you do, how you run that show even when the boys think they’re in charge . . . that doesn’t even count the things you can probably do with a crossbow and a sword.”
They smiled at each other. And after another pause, Cecily said, “Let’s stop talking about Shane. He doesn’t want to pursue anything. He doesn’t—” Cecily’s voice cracked. “We’re obviously attracted to each other, but you’ve already caught on that we’re total opposites. I’m not unusual at all. I’m about the most normal person you’ll ever meet. My mistakes are about dating stupid men or caring too much about affording a Prada bag. Shane’s mistakes would be more like grabbing the wrong enormous weapon from the trunk of his car or filing documents under ‘Bad Russians’ when they’re supposed to be under ‘Drug Dealers Who Pay Using Twenties’ or something. I don’t think that Shane can live in my world, and vice versa. Since he seems to be done, I guess he doesn’t want to, so it really doesn’t even matter anymore.”
“Then why are you coming back to the Armory?” Missy asked, gently, though.
Cecily felt her face burn. “I guess I just want to see him in person, say good-bye. Know it’s real and not a mistake or a stupid misunderstanding.”
“Shit,” Missy said, studying Cecily’s face. “This is really tearing you up. I was hoping there was a possibility you still just wanted to fuck him.”
Cecily blinked back tears and looked out the window. “It’s not like that.”
“Fair enough,” Missy said. “Let’s not talk about Shane anymore.”
“By the way, Rothgar told me to give his regards to Allison.” Cecily looked at Missy. “I did, and she said she wasn’t sure she remembered which one he was.”
Missy’s eyes got really big, and she swallowed like she had a lump stuck in her throat, but she didn’t say a word, not for a while. Just gripped the steering wheel extra
hard and drove until finally she just blurted, “Doesn’t remember Rothgar, my ass.”
CHAPTER 27
Cruise control. Shane was definitely on cruise control. Not a state that was completely unfamiliar, and in fact, he did some of his best work after completely blanking out his emotions. So it really was going to be okay. It was going to be how it should be.
He had no choice but to head back to the Armory after a few days working out of the hotel. Dex was going over his blueprint with Missy in her office when he came to pick up his own.
Shane waited in the hall until Dex came out. He’d never gotten a response to the e-mail he’d sent describing how he and Cecily had unexpectedly rendezvoused with James, so he didn’t know what to expect.
Dex calmly took his measure of Shane and said, “You look like shit,” which was somehow a big fucking relief given what he might have said.
And Dex was right. Shane hadn’t slept a whole hell of a lot the last couple of nights, and it didn’t look like that was going to change now that he was subbing for Romeo on top of his other work.
“Feel like shit,” Shane said. “Listen, Dex.” He hesitated a moment and then came out with it. “Told you what went down with James. Doesn’t matter that Cecily and I got no future. When the team’s done with James, I’m gonna find and deliver the full message I didn’t get a chance to deliver. I’m gonna look out for our girl and make sure he doesn’t bother her again.”
Dex stared at the floor for a good while and then said, “When that time comes, looks like I got plans to join you.” With a curt nod, he was on his way.
Missy held out Shane’s blueprint and pushed a box across the desk, looking like she was waiting for him to start a conversation he was certain he was never going to start. Which is why she started it for them. “Can I give you a piece of advice for future reference?” Missy asked, filling the box as Shane began systematically checking that she’d included everything he needed: ear wire, a chauffeur’s cap, a solid black necktie, and a gun.
“No.”
“I think you’ll appreciate what I have to say,” Missy told him.
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