Beautiful Rush

by Rose, Emery

  The bartender set our drinks in front of us and I handed him a twenty. Keira lifted her glass by the stem and clinked it against my beer bottle, some of the martini sloshing over the side of the glass. “Here’s to our undercover affair.” She winked at me. “I feel like the mistress. It’s fun.”

  I quirked a brow before drinking. “Who’s the wife in this scenario?”

  “You’re married to your job.”

  She wasn’t completely wrong about that. I was stuck in this assignment until we gathered enough intel to make the charges stick. I was assured it wouldn’t be much longer. But I’d already been offered a position on the Gang Squad after this assignment ended and I was planning to take it. My job was always going to be a big part of my life. “Are you a jealous lover?”

  “Maybe I like it this way. Maybe if we saw each other all the time, whenever and wherever we wanted, we’d get sick of each other.”

  “Or maybe we’d get even closer.” Ooh, I was venturing into scary territory for her.

  “You’d learn all my flaws and weaknesses and annoying habits.”

  “I already know you snore. That you leave globs of toothpaste in the sink. You never turn off the lights when you leave a room. And you stock your cupboards with junk food and Ramen and fill your refrigerator with overpriced readymade meals from Whole Foods because you can’t cook. You’re scared of being in a relationship, so you keep pretending this isn’t one even though we both know better. And still. I keep coming back for more.”

  “I don’t snore.”

  “Baby, you snore.”

  “Well, you’re a bed hog. And sleeping with you is like sleeping next to a space heater. You tricked me into thinking that you didn’t want a relationship. You never stay until morning, so I feel like your piece on the side. And still. I keep hoping you’ll come back for more.”

  “Blows your theory right out of the water.”

  “I’m just in this for the sex,” she said breezily.

  She fed me a vodka-infused olive from her dirty martini, and I suspected that she’d ordered the extra olives for me. Keira didn’t even like olives which begged the question, why had she ordered a dirty martini? Because she was Keira. Wholly original, with a touch of crazy and a dash of self-loathing. I knew and understood her better than she probably realized.

  “I’m just in this for your sexy frozen grapes and drunken olives,” I said.

  She laughed and then the laughter died on her lips and she averted her gaze. Toying with the stem of her glass, her face pensive, her upper lip gripped between her teeth. She was nervous or unsure about something. Before she even uttered the words, I knew it had to do with us.

  “Do you ever get scared that what we have is too good? It all happened so fast. Something like this…it can’t possibly last, can it?”

  The truth was that I didn’t know the answer. I’ve never been in love before and didn’t have the best track record for relationships. In the past, whenever a girl started getting too close or pushed for more, it was my cue to bail. I had always blamed it on my job and the crazy hours I worked, which was valid but only partly true. With Keira, I was all in. I didn’t know why she stirred up more emotions in me than any other woman ever had or why the thought of a committed relationship with her didn’t scare me. I wanted it all—her naked honesty, her raw vulnerability, her mercurial moods. Even when she lied to my face, I still wanted her.

  Maybe it had all happened too quickly, seemingly overnight. Maybe I was confusing lust with love. But this felt like something bigger, like a lifetime, not just a moment. I had never believed in destiny before, but when I met Keira, I felt like we were meant to be together. A little voice in my head had warned me, she will be your ruin. My response? Bring it on.

  My mom once told me that when the right one comes along, you don’t question the logic or look for all the reasons why it couldn’t possibly work. You just love the person as they are and, if necessary, you adjust your life to make room for them. Because that person is important to you and they matter. She mattered to me.

  So, back to the question. I responded with another question.

  “Were you in love with Sasha?” I fingered the cross around her neck, the only piece of jewelry she ever wore. She never took it off, not during sex, not when she slept, not even in the shower.

  She shook her head. “No. I cared about him and he was my friend, but we weren’t in love.” She tilted her head and closed one eye, contemplating how much she was willing to share with me. “I thought I was in love once before.”

  Once before. Which implied she was in love with me. Maybe.

  “Who were you in love with?” I already knew the answer, but I didn’t let on. Connor had told me in confidence. It had just been a casual remark he’d dropped into our conversation back in November and hadn’t really registered at the time.

  “Anthony. He worked for my father. He was fifteen years older than me and completely off-limits. He only saw me as my father’s daughter and nothing more. I think he loved me, but he wasn’t in love with me.”

  Anthony was the one who had given her the flash drive. Anthony was her father’s most trusted soldier. He was also the one who betrayed her father. Keira had just been the messenger. I had never met Anthony, but I didn’t like him, and I certainly wouldn’t trust him. It wasn’t only because Keira had once upon a time thought she was in love with the man, either. It was because I suspected he had played her, used her for his own personal gains. I could be wrong, but I didn’t think so. He had an ulterior motive but if I suggested that now it would sound like petty jealousy. Besides, I had no proof, only a gut instinct to go on.

  “And now? Are you still in love with Anthony?”

  “I don’t know. I’d have to find him first to know for sure. See how he stacks up against the competition.” She gave me an exaggerated wink.

  She was teasing me, but I didn’t care about Anthony. He was long gone, and she was better off without him. Now that she’d gotten away from her life in Miami, she was surrounded by good people. People who loved her and cared about her. People who wouldn’t use her or manipulate her for their own gain. If she was ever forced to confront the ghosts of her past, she’d see the difference more clearly. But I hoped, for her sake, that she wouldn’t have to deal with that. I wanted to protect her from that world and keep her safe.

  “In answer to your question, no, I’m not scared,” I said.

  “You should be. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She downed the rest of her drink and slammed the glass on the bar to illustrate her point.

  “Don’t break my heart just yet. This date’s not over. How about you give me a dirty kiss.”

  She wrapped her arms around my neck, slid her tongue into my mouth, and gave me a long, slow, dirty kiss. Then she pulled away and smiled at me.

  “Hungry?” I asked.

  “Is that a trick question?”

  Chuckling, I shook my head. “I’m taking you to dinner.”

  She dipped her hand into the plastic garnish tray again and came out with a handful of lime wedges. “I need some citrus for the road.”

  “Good idea. I hear scurvy is making a comeback.”

  She laughed and sunk her teeth into the lime wedge, ripping the flesh off the rind like a savage.

  * * *

  “It looks like the kind of place you’d see in a classic black and white movie,” she said, her smile wide as her eyes roamed the restaurant after we were seated in a black vinyl booth.

  I had brought her to an Italian restaurant my grandfather used to frequent. It was one of those places that you didn’t think existed in New York anymore. Nothing fancy. A basement restaurant with dark wood-paneled walls and tables with red-and-white checkered tablecloths lit with candlesticks jammed into the necks of wine bottles. Dean Martin crooned from the crackly speakers and the air was scented with garlic and tomato sauce. It was old school Italian. A blast from a past before either of us had even been born.

  “Yo
u should have worn your fedora and pin-stripe suit,” she said after we gave our orders to a server who looked like Tony Soprano.

  “You should have worn your diamonds and pearls.”

  “Too bad I sold them at the pawn shop.” She dipped her finger into the melted candle wax and coated her finger with it. When it cooled, she peeled the wax off her finger and set it next to my glass of red wine, compliments of the house.

  “Now you have my fingerprints, Detective,” she said with a wink.

  I slipped her wax fingerprint into the pocket of my jeans. “I’ll keep this as evidence.”

  She tapped her index finger against her lips. “What will be my crime?”

  “A stolen heart.”

  The server brought the calamari we were sharing as an appetizer and she squeezed lemon all over it. It was only after she dipped a piece of calamari into the marinara sauce and fed it to me that she asked if I like lemon on my calamari.

  I did. “If I didn’t, I’d be shit out of luck.”

  “What would you do after you tracked down your stolen heart?” she asked over dinner—chicken parm and spaghetti for me, pasta puttanesca for her. Maybe she liked anchovies, or maybe she just liked the English translation of puttanesca. “Would you arrest me?”

  “I’d bring you in for questioning. And then I’d let you walk.”

  She tipped her head to the side. “Why?”

  “Because I wouldn’t want my heart back.”

  She had no response for that.

  I finished eating my food and when she claimed she was full, I swapped my plate for hers. Keira was watching me closely as I ate the last bite and pushed the clean plate away.

  “That’s one of your things from childhood, isn’t it? Making sure you don’t waste food?”

  Sometimes her perception and observation skills blew me away. She was good at reading people and noticed things that most people didn’t. “Yeah, it is. Tell me one of your things from childhood.”

  She took a sip of water, thinking about her answer. Keira rarely talked about her life in Miami or her childhood. She was trying to forget where she came from and I was trying to remember who I was. Her gaze wandered to a couple sitting at a booth near the kitchen. They looked to be in their eighties, their faces creased with age. Her white hair fluffy like cotton candy and his just a few strands combed over his bald spot. They were holding hands across the table and smiling like two teenagers on their first date. They looked happy, content. Peaceful. Like they’d traveled through life together for decades and had loved every minute of the journey.

  Keira’s gaze returned to me. She reached for my hand across the table as the server cleared our plates. Her nails were short, painted midnight blue, her fingers laced in mine. Whenever our skin touched, I still felt that electric current running through my body. I’d never felt that with anyone before. Only her. Our eyes met across the table, her whiskey-colored eyes soft, and her smile sad. She thought that what we had was too good to last. Jaded and too used to a world where happiness was fleeting, and good things were snatched away in a heartbeat.

  We skipped dessert and I paid the bill, stuffing the money she tried to force on me back into her purse. I took her hand, helping her out of the booth, and she tugged on the hem of her short dress.

  “You never answered the question,” I said as I guided her out of the restaurant, my hand on her lower back, the warmth of her skin seeping through the thin silk. All I wanted to do was haul her into a taxi and get her home.

  “I did answer. You just weren’t listening.”

  She was right. She had answered with a gesture, not with words. Growing up, I had been hungry, and she had been lonely.

  “Let’s go home and fuck like wild animals,” she said with a brilliant smile.

  And that was what we did. We tried to fill the emptiness inside each other. She fed me crumbs and I always left her before the sun rose.

  13

  Keira

  “Pretty sure that spot doesn’t need any more buffing,” Tate said. “You’ll wear off the paint.”

  The Plymouth Barracuda was now sporting an electric blue custom paint job and the new owner was picking it up at five o’clock this evening. I wanted it to be perfect. “Just making sure I’m doing a thorough job.”

  “Uh huh.” With a shake of his head and something unintelligible muttered under his breath, he left me in peace.

  Ten minutes later, not one but both of my brothers strode into the garage. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  “Must be your lucky day,” Connor teased, handing me an iced coffee and a waxed paper bag. A peek inside revealed my favorite pastries.

  “Thank you.” I smiled. He returned my smile, but it looked forced.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Killian said, rubbing the back of his neck, his eyes not meeting mine. “Get some fresh air.”

  I eyed them suspiciously. They’d never stopped by on a workday to take a walk. I mean, sure, sometimes Connor swung by for a chat with Tate and brought me little treats. And Killian sometimes brought me a superfood salad for lunch, insisting that I didn’t eat enough vegetables. They spoiled me and had fallen into the roles of older brothers with surprising ease, considering that I’d crashed into their lives and wreaked havoc on them. But this was out of the ordinary.

  I studied Connor’s face. Out of the two of them, his face was more honest and open, so maybe it would give me a clue. “What’s going on?”

  “Let’s walk and talk,” Connor said, eyeing the door. Walk and talk. That was code for something is wrong.

  My gaze swung to Killian who didn’t even bother forcing a smile. This didn’t feel like a social call.

  Did they find out about my street racing? I dismissed that notion. They would have called me out on it by now. They didn’t look angry. Concerned, maybe.

  “Is everything okay with you guys? Are Ava and Eden okay?”

  “They’re fine.” Killian and Connor exchanged a look I couldn’t read. “Just came to talk to you.”

  Whatever this was, it was delicate, and they felt the need to tread lightly.

  Then it hit me. I knew why they had stopped by with pastries and iced coffee on a seemingly ordinary August morning. I handed the coffee and bag of pastries back to Connor. I wanted to delay the inevitable. As if prolonging it or ignoring it would make it go away.

  “Just let me wash my hands and change.” I disappeared into the restroom and took deep breaths, gripping the edge of the sink, feeling suddenly lightheaded. I could check my phone for an update, but I didn’t. In my head, it still wasn’t definite. Or irreversible. I wanted to hang on to my ignorant bliss for just a little while longer. I changed out of my coveralls and splashed cold water on my face. For a full minute, I stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink. My father’s eyes stared back at me. Disappointment and disgust swirled in their amber depths. I tore my eyes away from my reflection. Maybe my beauty was only skin-deep.

  Steeling myself for the truth, I returned to the bay and found Tate talking to Connor and Killian. They kept their voices low so as not to be overheard by the other mechanics or me. As I got closer, they abruptly stopped talking and three sets of worried eyes focused on me.

  “Is it okay if I…” I gestured toward the door, asking Tate for permission to take a break without really asking anything at all. My words failed me.

  “Take as much time as you need,” Tate said. “The work will still be here when you get back.”

  Thank God for that. When I was working on cars, I could lose myself in work and the music blasting from my headphones.

  We walked to McCarren Park in somber silence. It felt like a funeral procession. The air was hot and heavy, sticky with humidity and the sky was hazy, but the sun was bright. I should have worn my sunglasses. We crossed under the BQE, the cars trundling overhead. It smelled like urine and exhaust fumes. A man with long, greasy hair and a dirt-streaked face was sitting on a threadbare blanket, stroking a black and brow
n dog that had soulful eyes and no tail. Connor stopped and stuffed a twenty-dollar bill into the man’s cardboard cup.

  “God bless you, man,” the man called after us.

  “Take care, brother,” Connor said. Because he was kind and had a big heart. Connor had done this all over Miami while we were down there, dropping coins and bills into cups for the homeless and the hungry and the forsaken. Killian wasn’t like that. He was too cynical and suspicious of people’s motives. He believed in doing something constructive, not handing out money.

  “How do you know they’ll buy food and not drugs?”

  “I don’t. When you give money to the homeless, you’re not really doing it for them. You’re doing it for yourself. I feel better and my soul feels lighter.”

  “Your wallet probably feels lighter too,” Killian muttered.

  What did I believe in? I was self-absorbed but too self-aware not to notice. Did that make me a narcissist? I had no idea.

  I felt hollowed out inside, but my legs were heavy like they were pushing through concrete. The park felt gritty, and the air was anything but fresh but still we trudged along under the guise of getting fresh air.

  My brothers would have kept walking, but I parked myself on a bench, the heat sapping the energy out of me, and pulled a cherry danish out of the bag. My favorite. I took a big bite as they sat on either side of me. I chewed and swallowed then washed it down with iced coffee. The pastry tasted like sawdust and regret. But I kept eating it, staring straight ahead while my brothers waited for me to tell them I was ready to hear what they had to say.

  I watched a woman pushing a stroller. Next to her, a little girl with brown pigtails was riding a pink scooter, one hand on the handlebar the other one holding a cherry popsicle that was dripping down her arm. She was wearing a pale purple T-shirt with a unicorn and glitter rainbow on it, pink shorts, and cotton candy pink Converse high tops.

  She was smiling. She looked happy. I envied her childhood innocence. Had I ever been that untroubled and carefree?