Mercy’s voice was not as menacing as his face.
“He was volunteering with me. I have clients that I help—it’s sort of like the Make a Wish Foundation, but on a much smaller scale. We were dressed as characters from Betty’s favorite fairy tale and Ruffian was her escort. He wouldn’t leave because she was counting on him. I was counting on him.” I felt my emotion come up in my throat.
Havoc moved closer to me. “Hey, it’s okay.”
I really liked his soft eyes. They were comforting.
“So what are you suggesting?” Mercy folded his hands on the desk.
I took a deep breath. “I want you to return the stuff that was stolen. I think that Ruffian will have a far better shot at getting a lighter sentence if the stuff he stole wasn’t actually gone. Good faith and all that.”
“But he had no intention of this?” He leaned forward and I sat and did the same.
“This is all me. Because I love him and I will do whatever I can think of to help him.” I looked from one man to the other to the other.
There was silence until Lock interrupted, “And the money? Can we get that back? I have books to settle up.”
“I don’t know how much it was, but I’ll pay you back. Do you do payments? How about installments? How much was it, anyway?” I closed one eye.
“One point two million dollars,” Lock offered.
I lost my breath. That was so much money. And then I was smiling instead of crying.
“You okay?” Lock seemed concerned that I was losing my mind.
“He didn’t keep a dollar of it. He gave it all away.” I wiped the tears off my cheeks.
Mercy reached behind the desk and came back with a tissue.
I blotted my face and tucked the tissue into my pocket.
“You know, sometimes people get a shit hand. And everyone deals with it differently.” He made a circular motion around his tattooed face. “This is how I dealt with mine. But Ruffian? Sounds like he had his own way as well.”
He drummed his fingers on the desk before picking up a pencil and tapping it. I watched as he and Havoc met eyes. A decision was made without either of them having to say a word.
“Lock, go get the haul. Bring it here.” He leaned forward and tented his fingertips “I’ll give you back the stuff and you can do with it what you choose. But you’re going to owe me. And no one ever gets out of that arrangement. Are you in?”
Lock came back in with a duffle bag. He set it down near my feet.
“And the money?” My hand was itching to hold the bag.
“Like I said, you’ll owe me.” He pushed to his feet.
I didn’t have a choice. “Okay, it’s a deal.” I stuck out my hand and this time he shook it. “You and Havoc swap numbers. He’s your contact for me. And he’ll tell you what you need to do and when.”
I reached down and grabbed the bag, unsure of what my next move was. Mercy nodded at me and then murmured something to Havoc before leaving. The big man hung back.
“I’ll walk you to your car. No stopping for anything.” He held open the office door. Taylor and Peaches’ posture sagged in obvious relief.
“Do you have any idea what I’ll have to do?” I stood next to Havoc while we swapped phones. I dialed my number into his and he did the same for me.
“Not a clue. Mercy will be creative and fair. He always is.” He handed me back my phone. “You got a giant pair of lady balls coming in here and demanding shit.”
He held open the countertop so I could duck underneath it.
“Not so sure about that. The stress almost made me pass out.” He was easier than Mercy or Lock. I wondered if Havoc ever met a person he couldn’t talk to like a friend. Taylor and Peaches were more than ready to leave. On the walk back to the car, I hefted the duffle bag. Havoc offered to carry it, but I declined. This was Ruffian’s whole future I was holding.
When Taylor opened the trunk, I shifted the bag into it. When Peaches and Taylor were seated, Havoc held the trunk open. “You probably want to check the duffle bag. Make sure you got your end of the bargain before you leave the scene. Just a suggestion.”
He motioned to the bag with his pinkie.
“Is he going to short me or lie to me?”
Before I could get the whole question out of my mouth, Havoc was shaking his head no. “Mercy will always be true to his word, but just for the sake of learning shit, if you are doing a shady deal, make sure you’re not stiffed.”
I reached down and unzipped the bag. The two pieces of art were bubble wrapped with their corners straining the plastic. The jewelry was all individually packaged in black boxes. I opened one, then two before feeling satisfied. “We’re good.”
He closed the trunk and held the car door open for me. “I would go straight to the police with this if I were you. Maybe try to drop it anonymously, remembering there are always cameras, you feel me?”
Havoc’s muscles were distracting. The naughty glint in his eye made me curious to know his secrets. But that wouldn’t be for a while. Taylor, Peaches, and I managed to deliver the stolen goods to the police via a courier that we paid with cash.
And then, there was a chapter closed for Ruffian and for me. All things that occurred later would be considered “after.” After his jail time. After my very, very real deal with a guy named Mercy that came from a really bad part of town.
Epilogue
I MET MERCY once a month. At first, he just got to know what I was about. He was interested in the Me Parties and my plans for college. I wasn’t sure what I was being groomed for, but I assumed it was bad. It had to be bad, right?
Sometimes I gave updates to Havoc in a coffee shop halfway between Poughkeepsie and Midiville. When it was time for me to go to college, Mercy allowed FaceTime visits instead of in-person ones.
I went to the same college as Gaze and Pixie, their apartment housing me for my first year, and then after they graduated, Taylor, Peaches, and Selena transferred from the community college to mine. So we had our built-in crew. The Me Parties were paired down to summer and the holidays.
Am I glossing over things? Oh, hell yeah. The end of senior year was a heady mix of horrible and monumental.
When I got back to school, I was the talk of everyone. Was I in on the robbery? Was I pregnant? Was I part alien? I tuned out as much of it as I could.
My grades fell, and then I was able to do some extra credit to bring them back up. Thanks to all my extracurricular stuff and previous grades, my record wasn’t crap. Plus, I had some kick ass letters of recommendation from former clients.
I graduated. I had summer. There were parties. I was also hollow. I turned down any guy that asked for a date. I had trouble getting excited even for the Me Parties.
My time with Ruffian seeped into every memory and all my hopes and dreams.
Ruffian? Well, he didn’t want to see me. Beyond that, he met with the lawyers and they set up a defense for him. The return of the missing property had been a huge help. I wished I had seen Ruffian’s face when he found that out. Was he angry that his legacy crime was negated? I hoped he wasn’t. He couldn’t know that I was paying his debt to Mercy. All one point two million dollars of it.
I wrote Ruffian in the facility he was in. The letters were sent back, return to sender. At first, he was in a juvenile detention center, but then he was transferred to the regular jail downtown.
Mercy listened to my concerns about Ruffian. He also pointed out that the dude was pretty much ignoring me. But he didn’t know that Ruffian had told me he’d loved me. And I never loved lightly. And I knew Ruffian didn’t either.
Gaze was allowed to visit him until he was transferred to the jail. Once Ruffian was considered an adult, he was allowed to turn down visits from anyone. And he did.
Gaze and I had long conversations about it. What Ruffian was thinking. In it all, I got to know Ruffian the most of all of us. No one knew how much. That I got to know every inch of him and vice versa.
One of my
meetings with Havoc, I got a peek at what Mercy was doing behind the scenes for Ruffian. Well, mostly for me, but it would benefit Ruffian as well. Two of Mercy’s men were in jail and were in charge of watching Ruffian’s back. That was a huge relief. I had no idea what jail was really like, but TV sure scared the hell out of me.
And he had a lawyer working on Ruffian’s case to help him get out of jail. Meg’s parents had pressed charges, despite the return of the stolen goods, so the time had to be served, but Ruffian didn’t have to fall through the cracks without an advocate. And Mercy and Havoc had a lot of contacts. Some would say way too many contacts. But they took a liking to me, and that benefited Ruffian.
The community in the woods? Well, Mercy had talent. He took the pawn shop away from Lock and reassigned him to watch over all the people who Ruffian had provided for. Mercy got regular updates and he passed some of them on to me. The Conner kids were in a new situation, where their mom could go through rehab while they had a house to live in and stay warm. The teen kids that were headed toward a life or crime were brought into Mercy’s fold. But in a new way.
Instead of signing them up for a life of crime, they had a new job. Identifying people in the community that needed help. We needed lists and names. And Rufus, Jen, and all the others provided that while getting a group of apartments above the pawn shop.
Mercy called me a force. I called him an angel. He always laughed, but I knew Havoc agreed with me. There was something about the guy that just seemed right.
So that’s how it went for two years. The last words Ruffian said to me were, “I love you.”
The rest of his words about me cut our relationship off at the knees. I wore the little gummy bear pendant he left under my pillow every day. I didn’t know how to love halfway.
And now, the lawyers and good behavior had Ruffian getting out of jail. Gaze and Pixie were picking him up. No one knew what to expect. Would he want to come back to the house? Would he want to see any of us?
I touched my necklace. Either I was right, and he and I were meant to be, or I was wrong and he would be an angry con artist whose mother’s legacy I’d shredded.
Austin, Mom, Dad, Rocket, Tiger, and I were waiting. It reminded me of the first time I’d met him. Austin reached over and grabbed my hand. I squeezed his in return.
When the car doors slammed, I knew the reckoning was about to come.
RUFFIAN
I HELD A lunch bag on my lap. It was déjà vu all over again. Except instead of faking my reasoning for coming to the Burathons’ house, they would know who I was. What I was about. And what I had done. I fiddled with the arrow lock pick that was among my personal effects.
I watched the trees fly by. Gorgeous fall colors. I hadn’t had a sight of the woods in over eighteen months. I could see the trees from the juvenile detention center, but not from jail.
I tapped my left foot. Two years. It had been too long to have hope. I’d turned these people away. Even Gaze, who kept checking the rearview mirror. We hadn’t said much. What was there to say?
Pixie reached her hand over her seat, sneaky like. I stared at her open fingers for a few beats before I reached up and squeezed her fingers gently. I watched as she nodded her head. Pixie made sense somehow. She just did.
I let go of her hand and watched as the real testament to my future rolled by mile by mile. I couldn’t expect to be part of this family. I had so many other people I had to worry about. Find. Make sure they were okay. By refusing to let my brother see me, let Teddi see me, I also got no information on my people. How everyone was doing. Whether the money I gave them helped them or ruined them.
Maybe I should have headed there first. But I had nothing. Not a phone, not a change of clothes other than the ones I had on. They were tight now. The clothes that had been on my slim body, dressed as a prince, were stretched taut on my muscles.
I got my GED. I went to classes. I read my ass off. And I worked out. A lot. I had two friends in prison and they had my back and I tried to have theirs.
We pulled into the neighborhood. I once read that at Disney World, they kept all the trees the same size, trimming them to prevent returning visitors from thinking any time had gone by. That’s how I felt seeing the Burathons. The yard was in good condition, all the shrubs trimmed to stay the same.
I sat in the car for a few beats after Gaze and Pixie got out. They talked amongst themselves while Gaze scratched the back of his neck. Pixie caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up.
My heart was pounding like crazy.
Teddi.
I was going to see Teddi.
I had to man up and get out. Stand on this driveway and face whatever was going to come my way. This was the outcome of my crime. The way it would be now.
I got out of the back and held my lunch sack in my hands, crumpling it and smooshing it.
Pixie came next to me and touched my elbow. “It’s okay. We’re here.”
The front door opened, and Rocket was true to her name and fired her way at me. I stooped down and grabbed her up as she jumped. She whine/cried/licked my face like a whirlwind.
“Hey, girl. Hey.”
When I was finally able to put her down, she flipped on her back for rubs and then righted herself, trying to do everything at once. When I looked up from my spot on the driveway, Teddi was shielding her eyes from the late sunlight.
In two years, she went from the exact shape of my dream girl to the exact shape of my dream woman. I felt like my heart was beating so fast, everyone had to see it slamming in my chest.
The next second, Ronna was pulling me up into a hug. “Oh, thank God you are home. Thank God.”
She was crying. I patted her back, suddenly feeling like a fool for barring them from visits. Mike came in, slapping me on the back. “Good to see you. So great to have you back.”
Their welcome poured over me like holy water. It healed in an instant. Changed everything so quickly.
Next up was Austin, man slap hugging me. “Brother, you look like the Hulk.”
To be so welcome.
I felt like I could hear my mother murmuring in the wind.
And then Teddi. She was hugging herself, her eyes questioning. Careful.
“Hey.” I opened the door to the conversation.
“You’re still dressed for the party.” She gestured to my outfit.
“Yeah, I like to play the long game. Never let the fantasy end.” She smiled at me and my heart stood up from being on its knees for two years.
Gaze went to the trunk and pulled out a suitcase. “I hope some of this will work. I didn’t expect how freaking ripped you would be.” He held it out to me.
I took it and petted Rocket again. She was still a mess with love and licks.
Ronna put her arm around my middle. “Hey. No pressure. Whatever you are comfortable with. Your room is yours, though, if you want to get changed.”
I followed her into the house. I’d run this part through in my head a lot. I pictured myself stiff-arming them all. Saving them from knowing a guy like me. In my head they were happy to have that be the case.
After walking into the room and fussing with the blankets, Ronna hugged me again. “I’ll leave you to it.”
She walked out and closed the door behind her. It was how it could be. They would take me back. Take the stigma that I brought with me back. I hadn’t even considered it. Not really.
There was a light knock on the door. “Come in.”
I was still holding Gaze’s suitcase.
Teddi slipped in and closed the door behind her. Her face was sharper now, her eyes more guarded. But she was jaw-droppingly, distractingly beautiful. My memory of her didn’t do her justice.
I bit my lip, my heart flayed open by the sight of her. What she would say next… I couldn’t imagine. God, I didn’t want it to hurt.
She seemed to start a few different sentences before she shook her head. Silence had never taken so long. Maybe I was supposed to say something? Apologize? Ce
rtainly, I should apologize for everything. Saying I love you seconds before never seeing her for two years.
She reached under her sweater and pulled out a necklace. I stared at it for a few seconds before I made out what it was. The gummy bear pendant. She was wearing it.
“I didn’t get a chance—you never gave me the chance. But I love you, too. In case it still matters.”
I was across the room in a second. So fast, she was shocked and then she understood. I bent low so I could grab her up and pull her to me. I put my hand in her hair and supported her lower back.
Her lips, almost on mine. “It’s the only thing that matters.” And then I kissed her. I kissed her and hugged her to me. My Teddi. My dream girl. I’d pushed her away to save her from the stigma of me. She was here, wearing the damn necklace the whole time.
She wrapped her legs around me and kissed me back just as hard.
Neither of us heard the knock—if there was one—but Austin was in the room and then instantly turning around, talking to the others. “Looks like they are having a heart-to-heart talk. Let’s give them some time.”
I shuffled backward until she was sitting on my lap while I sat on the bed. And she fit. She had been saving a spot in my chest, and I was happy to have her back in it.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I whispered my apology to her neck, to her cheek, in her ear.
She stopped me by kissing me more. “I’ve been waiting for you. I have so much to show you. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Her face was exactly what I needed. Her soul and mine rejoiced at being together again.
TEDDI
WE HAD A lot to discuss. A lot to figure out. The first thing would be why I wasn’t allowed to visit him. The second, why he felt like the robbery was the way to make his mother’s memory permanent.
I felt like we could do more together than apart.
But first, he needed to be in normal clothes and enjoy his welcome back.
I slipped out of his room and closed the door. I checked my appearance in the downstairs bathroom and straightened out my disheveled hair.
Austin came downstairs loudly. He lifted his chin in my direction. “Done welcoming him back?”
Swimming in Sparkles Page 34