“Good,” I say firmly, “because I’m not ever sharing you with anyone else.”
“Good.” She looks quite content with that proposition.
A quiet moment stretches out between us and then I realize that Angie’s shoulders are shaking subtly. I look down on her again and see the repressed mirth in her features.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” she pants as she tries to stifle back a laugh.
And now, I feel laughter bubbling up in my chest, too. There’s not much I can do to keep it from pouring out. The damn breaks loose and her giggles fly out, too. We sit on the bench like two crazy people, laughing hysterically at an unspoken joke. Because what the fuck? In what kind of twisted world does shit like this even happen? I release all of the pent up emotions that have been festering inside of me for the past few weeks in that good, deep belly laugh.
As our cackling peters off, I press a kiss to the side of her head. “I’m sorry for yelling at you back there. I know you were only trying to make my mom feel better. I shouldn’t have been an asshole.”
She presses a kiss to my throat, silently accepting my apology. “I’m just glad that we’re on the same page now, that we’re back together and we’ve addressed all our issues and now we can just go on with our lives, together.” She snuggles close, resting her head on my shoulder.
Guilt settles on my chest like a weight and I feel the overpowering need to clear my conscience. It doesn’t feel right to go on with this secret anymore. This woman has been so kind and generous to me. She’s given her heart back to me when I don’t really deserve it. She’s amazing and it’s disgustingly wrong for me to keep the truth from her any longer.
I ignore the knot in my throat and just spit it out before I chicken out again. “Angie—there’s something I haven’t told you…”
This isn’t the way my life was supposed to turn out…
That’s what I’m thinking as Rocco shoves the backpack hard into the center of my chest. “This—this is the greenest of the green, son. The freshest of the fresh. Smell it!” He brings his nose closer and takes a deep inhale.
My stomach churns at the stench that smells like an herbal fusion of boiled cabbage leaves, body odor and skunk. I hate that fucking smell. It’s probably the main reason I never experimented with weed while all my friends were giving it a go. Now, here I am, selling it. Life can be an ironic bitch.
My other reason for steering clear of this stuff was Angie.
Angie…
She’s a good girl. She never gets in trouble. She never breaks the rules. What would she say if she knew about this “second job” that I’ve picked up after school to help pay for shit around the house? I don’t have a choice, though. I heard Mom talking to Dad’s best friend this morning. She was telling him that Dad’s insurance company is refusing to pay out the life insurance benefit. I didn’t understand the details. All I know is that she won’t have the money for this month’s mortgage.
Clyde said he’d pay it. But that’s not his place. I don’t like him sniffing around my mother. Dad’s body isn’t even cold in the ground yet and I can feel that he’s already trying to take his place. Madden and I talked about it. We’re gonna come up with the money for the mortgage. Half-half. My brother’s got his own plan. This is mine.
“Don’t fuck around,” Rocco warns me. “I’m giving you this shit on consignment. That means, you sell it. And then, you pay me. Remember, it’s mine until you put the cash in my hand.” He comes closer with his bulky frame, his breath hot and putrid like rotting garbage. “And just in case you’re wondering, all the stories you heard about what I did to the idiots who didn’t put the cash in my hand, they’re true.”
That warning plays out in my head as I stash the backpack into my locker in the employee changing room at Gallos. It plays in my head all throughout my shift. It plays in my head when I swing the locker door open a few hours later and the bag is gone!
I dig through the locker, again and again. I tear the whole room upside down looking for the bag. Finally, I accept that it’s gone and I’m gonna have to face the consequences.
My heart is pounding as I push open the restaurant’s back door, dragging the bags of garbage from my shift along with me. Rocco is already there, leaning against the dumpster with a cigarette tucked between his lips. His men stand off at a distance.
“I don’t see the backpack,” he tells. He straightens and strolls over to where I’m standing, shaking in my boots. “That could either be a really, really good sign—if say, you sold all the product—or a really, really bad sign—if say, something else happened.”
I jam my hands into my pockets and lick my lips nervously. Words spill out of my mouth. Apologies, excuses, promises, pleas for mercy. I couldn’t tell you exactly what I said because my head was such a mess. Then, blows were raining down on me. A punch to the jaw. A kick in the stomach. A sharp elbow to the ribs. I was on the ground, balled up to protect myself against their force. And then, everything went black.
The next thing I remember is the pain in every part of my body as I force my swollen eyes open. It feels like days have passed but the clock on the wall tells me it’s only half an hour later. I spot my backpack on the table in the corner. Angie’s cousin, Franco, squints down into my face wearing a nasty scowl.
But then, he’s pushed out of the way and Gianni Gallo’s red, bloated face swallows up my line of vision.
Angie sits rigidly beside me until the very last word comes out of my mouth. She offers no reaction, only a stony glare off into the distance.
“Do you see now, Gigi? I didn’t leave you so I could run off in a fucking boy band and trot around the world. I didn’t care about fame and money and all that shit. Not more than I cared about you. Never more than I cared about you. Your father didn’t want us together when he found out I was dealing drugs.”
Her jaw tightens with anger. I reach for her hand but she jerks it away.
This is what I was afraid of. Now that she knows the truth, now that she knows what kind of person I am, she doesn’t want anything to do with me. She thinks I’m scum. And she’s right.
“Please talk to me, Gigi.” I’m desperate and frankly, I don’t care if it shows.
She presses her eyes together and takes in a deep breath. “I’m gonna go inside,” she says. “I can’t talk about this right now. I’m gonna go check on your mother and Clyde.”
I don’t follow after as she rises from her seat and limps inside with the weight of my truth on her shoulders.
Fuck—I’ve lost her. Just like I knew I would.
Chapter Thirty
Ben
It’s been a tough week. I took a few days off of work to help my mom and Clyde find a new rhythm now that he’s in treatment. Also, MacBride took his retirement and the new captain started on the job. I haven’t talked to Angie very much. I text her everyday and when I’m lucky, she texts me back but I’ve been doing my best to give her space to deal with the news I dropped on her.
But this has gone on long enough. I miss her. It’s time we talked about things. And my body’s been craving her. Tonight, I need her. I want her naked in my lap, twisting and grinding as I kiss a path up her torso. I want to fuck her. Make her come. Get lost in her so we can forget all the shit that life is trying to throw in our way. I want to feel connected to my Gigi tonight.
Late in the afternoon, I swing by the hospital to see if she has the night off.
“Hi Lieutenant Riggs.” Nina cocks one hip out and gives me a seductive smile as I approach.
“Dr. Yamazuki. Good to see you,” I respond somberly.
“Likewise.” She waggles her brows shamelessly. And then sneezes.
At the sound of my voice, Angie looks up from the nurse’s station where she’s slouched over filling out paperwork. “What are you doing here?” She stands upright and straightens her clothes. Her body language is guarded, almost protective. “Are you here with your mom and Clive?” She throws a wary glance around the seatin
g area for my family.
Still, I smile and act like I’m not freaking out internally as I try to figure out what she’s thinking. “I’ve got the night off and I thought I’d stop in and see if you’re free.”
She kind of flinches. “Oh…uh, I’ve, uh. I can’t. Not tonight. Sorry, I have plans.”
“You sure?” I grin slyly as I pull a DVD case out of the inside pocket of my jacket. “I’ve got something I know you want…”
She hikes a brow. “What?”
“Footage of the glory years—Mild Implosion in concert. Everything from bat mitzvahs to that performance we did at the winter formal in senior year to my serenade at your 17th birthday party…”
“Oh my god, don’t tease me.” Clutching the stack of papers to her chest, she laughs.
It’s so good to see her laugh…even though her expression shutters again within seconds.
“I’m not trying to tease you. I’m trying to lure you into my cave.” I just want to see her laugh again. I want her next to me in my bed.
Still, she refuses. She brushes her bangs from her face. “Tonight’s not a good night.”
There’s uneasiness in my chest. Is she really done with us? Won’t she give me a chance? Can’t we talk about it? “Okay then, I guess. See ya.”
Her tone is painfully aloof. “See ya.”
I turn to leave. I only make it a few feet before I turn back to her. “Do you have a few minutes, though? Can we talk?”
She throws a hesitant look at her supervisor. Nina makes a not-subtle-at-all head gesture toward an empty room across the hall. “Sure,” Angie concedes with a hefty exhale and I follow her into the room.
“I just want to check in on you,” I say when the door closes. “See how you feel since we last spoke.”
She leans against the wall and laughs bitterly. “I don’t feel all that great, honestly. Knowing that you lied to me about why we broke up and you’ve been keeping this secret—with my dad, no less—for all these years.”
“I’m so sorry, Angie.”
Her eyes roll into her head. “You apologize a hell of a lot,” she says cryptically.
“Because I am. I regret my decisions so much. There are no fucking words.” I shovel my fingers through my hair and pull.
“I loved you so much. My little 17-year-old heart could hardly stand it. And you dumped me because my dad disapproved of you?"
I flinch as I finally begin to understand her reasoning. She’s all wrong. "It was never your dad I was concerned about, Gigi. It was you. I didn't want you to look at me and think that I was the scum of the earth, that you were wrong for falling in love with me. I didn’t want you to regret us. I was a drug dealer and you…you were a queen."
“Wow, you really don’t know me. I’m not upset that you found yourself dealing drugs…Your father was dead. Your family was crumbling. You did what you had to do. I could have loved you through that. What pisses me off is that you made a decision about my life without ever once thinking to consult me. You let me believe that I wasn’t enough to compete with the glitz and glamor of being a boy band superstar. That crushed my self-esteem. It made me into a person that I could hardly look at in the mirror…I was only 17…”
I fling my arms in the air and roar in frustration. “So was I!”
“Do you realize how many years we lost, Ben? We could have been together that whole time. Instead, we were apart and both suffering because you didn’t think you could talk to me—”
The door bursts open and Dr. Elliot comes swaggering in. Worst timing ever. He eyes me with a cocked brow. I just want to smack him. “Hello Lieutenant.”
I respond with a grunt.
He shrugs and turns his focus on Angie. “You excited for tonight, Gallo?”
My heart drops off into my gut. She gives him a tight smile. “Of course, sir. Very excited.”
I hate the way his gaze rolls over her body. “Can’t wait.” He halts halfway to the door. “It might be a good idea to wear some high heels.” He winks at her.
Before I can grab him by the collar and ram his head through the nearest wall, he strolls out of the room.
I turn to Angie. I’m livid. What the fuck is going on? “Tonight? With him?”
She shakes her head like the whole thing is unimportant. “Yeah, we’re going to New York for a few days, actually. To present our research findings to a group of rich guys who might be interested in funding the thing.”
Suddenly, I have a pounding headache. “Just you and him. In New York.”
“Don’t look at me like that, Ben.” She groans and rotates her shoulders, looking weary. “We’re just going for work.” She pads over to me and places both hands on my shoulders. “Look—the break will be good for me. When I get back, I’ll deal with you. And my father.” She kisses me gently on the cheek. “Please understand. I just need…” She shakes her head, flustered.
“…Time?” I supply weakly.
Right then, her pager beeps and she looks down. “Ah, shoot! I’ve gotta go. There’s this geriatric beauty queen on the third floor. She keeps trying to apply the ultrasound gel as a facial moisturizer.” Without a second look in my direction, she skids out of the room and straight through the elevator doors as they’re about to slide shut.
My mind is reeling. I need to understand what’s happening. I stomp out of the room, frustrated as hell.
Just then, two nurses walk past me and wander up to the reception desk.
Judy? Jasper? Jakarta? Right, Jules!
Jules and a friend. She doesn’t even notice me. She’s so completely immersed in gossip with her friend.
“…I warned you about having sex with Dr. Elliot,” her friend tells her. “There are all kinds of rumors going around the hospital about him.”
Jules is almost in tears. “I thought things would be different with us. He was really into me…Until he started working one-on-one with that new intern.”
“Who? Angie? She’s nice.” The other nurse puts a suspicious accent on the word.
Jules laughs sarcastically. “I was ‘nice’, too, when I was getting pounded daily by Dr. Hot Stuff Elliot.”
The other nurse joins in the laughter. “What are you whining about? I thought you said he was bad in bed.”
She gives her friend a pointed look. “Y'know what kind of sex is worse than bad sex?"
"What kind?" the friend asks, sounding intrigued.
"No sex!"
“Touché.” The woman laughs again.
The sound is like a kick to my gut. I have to walk away. I’m too stunned, too angry, too jealous at the idea of Angie with that womanizing doctor. I can’t bare the idea that we could be over for good.
With my insides in knots, I trudge out the hospital’s doors.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ben
“I thought you’d like a cupcake.” Sophia smiles at me as she shuffles through the front door.
I rush over to grab her bags. She’s got a tray with two coffees in one hand and a load of cleaning supplies and kid-friendly wall decorations in the other. Plus, there’s a plastic bag of cupcakes hanging from her wrist. I set everything down on the dusty table in the corner and she sighs with relief.
“How are things going in here?” she asks as she settles on top of a huge box of vinyl floor tiles and hands me a drink.
I lean against the counter and let my eyes sweep the place again. I resist the urge to tell her that this place is a shit hole. “We have a lot of work ahead of us,” I tell her, “but we can get it done. I’ll do most of the painting today and I’ll work on the flooring. Then tomorrow, I’ll come back to install the shelves. And you definitely need a few more smoke detectors around here, too.”
“You’re actually gonna get all this done?” she asks skeptically.
“I’ll lock myself in this building until the job is complete.” I give her a lopsided smile.
She punches the air jovially. “That’s the spirit! I like the way you think!”
True to my word, I’m here at Sophia’s would-be daycare center to help her set things up. The place is falling apart but this job is exactly the kind of challenge I need right now to distract me from all the noise in my head. My mom, Clyde, work and, of course, Angie. I make a valiant effort but the last item on that list can’t easily be swept under the rug.
I’m going crazy.
Saying that things have been shaky between us ever since I revealed my secret to her is an understatement. And to add to that, she’s in New York with that creepy doctor right now. I’m going crazy.
“Hey, Ben…Are you there?”
My attention snaps to Sophia and I see that she’s got a chocolate cupcake stretched out to me. “Oh, sorry.” I take it from her. “Just a little distracted.”
She greedily licks frosting from her fingers. "You know I wanna know what the heck is going with you and my sister, right?"
I laugh. I haven’t laughed in a while, I realize. "Is that so?"
"Yes, it is so." She nods resolutely.
I really do need to talk this through and Sophia is the right person. There’s no point in hiding it. The two of them are sisters so I’m sure that Sophia’s up to date on all the details. Maybe she can fill in the gaps in my understanding of what’s going on in Angie’s head.
"I fucked up again. I’d been hiding the truth from her about why I broke up with her. And when I finally worked up the nerve to be honest, it all blew up in my face."
"Mmm. I heard." Sophia turns up her nose and gives me a blatant side eye. I deserve it.
I blow out a breath and rake my fingers through my hair. "I know, I know. I should have been straight with her the minute she came back to town."
“You should have been straight with her seven years ago.” Sophia’s voice lacks even an ounce of compassion.
The Blue Collar Bachelors Box Set: The Complete Blue Collar Bachelors Series Page 77