by G. K. Parks
When I opened my eyes, the room was bathed in a warm, golden glow which had replaced the harsh flickering from the television. Martin was lying on his stomach, facing away, his arm hanging off the couch. Taking a deep breath, I assessed my own mental faculties. Even though it was a tired saying, sleep really did make everything better. But all was not right with Alexis Parker. I knew it’d be a long time before I could move past all the imbecilic things I did that culminated in the bodies piling up. Right now, it would be best to focus on making it through today.
Time passed, and Martin stirred. Carefully, he sat up. Stretching and trying to shake some feeling back into his arm. Raising an eyebrow, I watched him for a few minutes.
“It’s a strange turn of events for you to be awake before me,” he mumbled, making an exaggerated stretch. “Last night, I thought it would be a romantic gesture to sleep on the couch with you.” His shoulder made a popping sound, and he winced. “Clearly, in practice, not such a good idea.”
“And people wonder why chivalry is dead.”
“How are you doing today?”
“That is the twenty million dollar question, isn’t it?” It wasn’t an answer, but I couldn’t provide one. Frankly, I didn’t have one. He stood up and turned off the television. As I sat up, there was a chorus of pops and cracks as every vertebrae decided to elicit its own protest to last night’s sleeping arrangement.
“I’m putting my foot down,” he sounded serious, but his eyes were mocking. “We are not sleeping on the couch again. I have more bedrooms in this house than are necessary, and they all have beds. Sleeping on couches is what one does in their twenties after getting wasted at a friend’s party. We’re both a decade too old for this.”
“But,” I began to protest, and he whispered in my ear.
“Sweetheart, I hate to point this out, but you’re thirty.” I growled at him as he went to the stairs. “Now, I’m going for a nice long jog to work all these kinks and aches out.”
Realizing I sent the surveillance van home last night, I decided it best to keep an eye out. Being cautious couldn’t hurt. “Would you mind some company?”
“I’d love it.” He was determined to use the L-word as often as possible just to annoy me. So far, he was off to a good start.
Changing into some running gear, I met him in the kitchen a half hour later, and we set out for a leisurely jog. Unfortunately, I was determined to beat some sense into myself, and since he could be just as competitive, it didn’t take long until we were both panting. Completing a two mile course, we rounded the corner of the house and spotted Mark leaning against his SUV.
“Marty,” Mark greeted as we approached.
“Jabber,” Martin gave him a cursory glance, “are you coming inside?”
“No. I just wanted to talk to Alex for a minute.” Martin nodded and left us alone. “You’re up bright and early.”
“Why are you here?” I asked since Mark normally didn’t just show up.
“Look, I know you. The fact that you’re here and not at home and out running, instead of lying in bed in the dark, is a good thing.”
“Did you want to slap me in the face with any more veiled compliments, or is that just a new interrogation technique you’re working on?” I wasn’t very patient.
“Normally, I’m the first one to tell you to return to work. You know how often I try to get you to come back full-time at the OIO or throw consulting work your way.” He looked away. “Kendall’s going to offer you a new case on Monday. He thinks everything you’ve done has been stellar, but you shouldn’t take it.” It felt as if I had just been punched in the stomach. The possibility I would take a job after everything was minuscule, but being instructed not to do so was painful. It made my failures obvious, and I didn’t handle failure well.
“Fine, I won’t.”
“Alex, hear me out.”
“Why? I know what happened. Every cause has an effect, and I caused a lot of things to go horribly wrong.” I blinked, refusing to cry in front of him. “It’s fine. I shouldn’t be anywhere near this.”
“Goddammit,” he cursed. “You always twist my words. Yes, you screwed up, but who’s to say how things would have played out if you turned yourself in or didn’t go farther into the Vincenzo black hole. The reason I’m telling you to stay away is because you need time to make peace with this. How many times have you been shot, not counting when you’ve had a vest on? This makes once. You’ve been afraid to go home. And to top it off, Thursday night you were almost killed. You need some space away from the job to get your perspective back. If you were a full-time agent, there would be mandated counseling sessions and desk duty or leave, but since you aren’t, I’m telling you to take it.”
“Are you done?”
“Are you?”
“For now.” Staring at the ground, I waited a few seconds before asking, “Did you want to come in for breakfast?” It was a peace offering, even though I didn’t want to make peace. Then again, I didn’t know what I wanted.
“That’s okay. But if you need someone to listen, give me a call. If not, I’ll see you Monday to finalize everything.”
“Yep.” I opened the door and went inside, locking it behind me. I took a moment to regroup and listened to the sound of the speed bag being pummeled. The constant tap, tap, tapping. With my nerves solidified, and my emotions in check, I went deeper into the first floor and watched as Martin made the bag dance. “You’re getting good at that.” He stopped and smiled, completely ruining his timing.
There was an extra set of hand wraps I put on as he got back in the groove on the speed bag. Since he made hitting things seem like so much fun, how could I resist? I was taking out my aggression on the heavy bag when he grew tired of his routine.
“I’ll steady the bag for you if you promise not to kick me in the head.” He smirked. “Either head.”
“I’ll do my best.” He got behind the bag as I continued to run different combinations.
“What did Mark want?” he asked, and I delivered a particularly strong kick to the bag. “Maybe I shouldn’t ask.”
“It’s fine,” I huffed, finding new vehemence. “He doesn’t want me back at the OIO. I need to walk away, gain perspective.”
“Alex,” he interjected as I whaled on the bag, “is he out of line?” Delivering a final roundhouse kick, I stepped back and began unwrapping my hands.
“No. This last case,” I tugged on the wrap with my teeth to get it loose, “I’ve lost myself, and I’m not sure how to find my way back.”
Thirty-four
Dressed for a casual Friday, even if it was Saturday, I was sitting in my MT office, working on a report for Guillot. Martin provided a ride to the building since he needed to work out some R&D issues, and I was behind on my job. When we arrived, I performed a visual check of all the equipment, ran a few tests and drills, and made the weekend security personnel utterly miserable. The report I was drafting was expected to be in Guillot’s hands Monday morning so we could go over all of it and fine tune before the afternoon meeting.
At least my corporate job was less emotionally taxing. Completing the first draft, I remembered I didn’t assess any of the technological security implementations or protocols. “Dammit,” I swore, saving the file. Picking up the phone, I dialed IT’s extension and waited for an answer. After speaking to the tech for a few hours and running numerous diagnostic checks, I concluded the second part of my assignment.
“Are you almost ready to leave?” Martin asked from the doorway.
“I have to finish this report, but if you’re in a rush, I can hail a cab home.”
He tossed a look down the hallway to make sure we were alone. “I’ll wait. After sleeping on the couch last night, I’m not letting you get away that easily,” he teased before returning to his office. After typing the rest of the report, e-mailing it to Guillot, and printing a couple of copies, I knocked on his door.
* * *
Although Martin offered the option fo
r a pleasant evening out, I wanted nothing more than to be in seclusion. While he cooked dinner, I went into the guestroom and boxed up everything I had on Vito and copied the information from the whiteboard before erasing it. These were my records and the only leverage or insurance I had against him. There was no way I was going to shred it until I knew the threat was nonexistent.
When Martin announced dinner was ready, I dutifully reported to the kitchen, and we ate in almost total silence. “Thanks for giving me space,” I said, clearing the table. “There are probably a lot of things you want to know, but I appreciate that you aren’t pushing.” It was obvious I was going to open up about something to have even broached the subject of the elephant in the room. “This stupid robbery got blown so far out of proportion I can’t even be sure what happened.”
He shut off the sink and waited for me to continue. Instead, I stared at the different colored specks on the granite countertop. “Help me out,” he said gently, “am I supposed to ask a question now or keep my mouth shut?”
“Someone died, and it’s my fault. How do I come back from something like that again? The last time,” I sighed and shook my head, “I lost who I was and who I wanted to be. I tried to forge a new path and start over to avoid the destruction, and here I am in the exact same place. None of it mattered because it keeps happening.”
“Alexis, even if you’re not sure where you are or how to get back, I know where you are. You’re right here.” Before he could continue, the phone rang. He hit ignore and studied me. His voicemail dinged, and letting out a sigh, I turned to the half-cleared table.
“Go ahead, it’s important.”
“So is this,” he insisted, but I brushed past him and began washing the plates. He gave up and went to his office, phone in hand.
After I finished cleaning the kitchen, I found myself lying atop the guestroom bed. My mind had given up, and I stared unseeing at the wall. There were no thoughts, only a numbing stillness. The creak of the floorboards sounded through the room, but I couldn’t be bothered to turn around. All I could do was stare at the wall. An outside presence invaded the nothingness I had managed to achieve as Martin spoke from the doorway.
“Alex,” he said cautiously.
“What?”
“I’ve never seen you like this before. Correction, the last time I saw you this still was when you were under heavy sedation.” He paused uncertainly. “Do you want to talk about it? We were interrupted earlier.” As I turned to face the door, he entered the room and sat on the bed.
“No. Maybe thanking you was premature.”
“So you don’t want to talk?”
“No.”
“Fine. I asked politely, so now it’s my turn to talk. You can listen.” Before I could open my mouth in protest, he started on his list of rehearsed talking points. “First, I love you too. It wasn’t fair that you got to say it last night and then forced me to remain silent. It’s not every day monumental occasions like this happen. I would like to participate, instead of being told to hold my tongue.”
“Martin,” I tried to cut in, but he shushed me.
“Second, I don’t want to beat a dead horse, so I’ll spare you the reiteration. We don’t have to talk about what happened. It’s fine. You can stick it inside a neat little box in the corner of your psyche and add it to the source of your nightmares. By the way, I hate waking up to the sound of your screams, or gasping for breath, or trembling.” He smirked. “There are much better reasons for screaming, gasping, and trembling to all take place in the bedroom, but there hasn’t been very much of that going on recently. Right now, the bad is definitely outweighing the good.”
“Martin,” I attempted to interrupt.
“No, sorry. You declined on talking, so it’s still my turn. Where was I? Let’s see, second, screaming in bed, right. Just so you know, I like waking up to you in the morning, preferably without the nightmares and drama, but I’ll take what I can get.” He nodded to himself. “You spend a lot of time worrying about me. About something happening to me. I mean, my god, the double teaming on the surveillance vans, a little ridiculous, wouldn’t you agree? Especially when there’s security at the office and Bruiser here all the time. But somehow, you fail to see the reality of the situation.” I waited for him to go on since attempting to derail the conversation wasn’t getting me anywhere. “More than likely, something will happen to you before it happens to me.”
“Stop.”
“Hmm, no.” He looked defiant. “You’re not bulletproof. You aren’t invincible, and sometimes, things get out of control. People are nutso.”
“You would know.”
He smiled, amused by my assessment. “Yes, actually I do know. Even though I make my own enemies, most of the time, they aren’t taking shots at me. Knock on wood.”
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.” He brushed his fingers through my hair. “I just wanted you to have a more accurate perspective on the way things are. You said you lost yourself and couldn’t find your way back. It’s important you know that I have no intention of letting you stay lost. You keep me grounded, and even though you’re a hell of a lot of work, I need you here.”
“But,” I began again, but he still wouldn’t shut up.
“Look, stay here and wallow or be depressed or whatever it is you’re doing that involves staring holes through the wall. You walk around with the weight of the world on your shoulders, and it probably gets too heavy every now and again. But tomorrow, I plan on being an even bigger pain in the ass than today. Leaving you alone too long with your thoughts tends to have detrimental effects on our relationship, and since you just took things to the next level without so much as consulting me,” he grinned, “then I’m not letting you sabotage this progress completely on your own. That should involve all-out warfare, and you know I love a fight.”
I reached for his hand. “Make sure you keep your left elbow up.” I smirked. “If it’s a fight you want, you have to work on your technique. When you were hitting the bag earlier, you dropped your elbow.”
He lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles. “You know where I’ll be if you decide you don’t want to be alone any longer.”
Spending some quality time in the darkened room, staring into empty space and slowly processing and turning things over and over again in my mind, I had my fill of the pity party. Someone much wiser once made the point that claiming someone’s death as your own fault was robbing them of their final act. It was the last thing they could claim. Ernesto Papadakis killed himself, and it was his. The dominos were set to fall, and eventually, they would have toppled, even if I didn’t blunder into the first one, knocking it over. The same could be said for Captain Stephens and Gates, or whatever the assailant’s headstone would read.
I found myself outside Martin’s bedroom, and I knocked on the doorjamb. He glanced up. The lamp on his nightstand was on, and he was reading expense reports.
“It’s about damn time.” His voice was husky as he got out of bed and met me in the middle of the room. “I was beginning to think you wanted to be alone all night.”
“So you just enjoy reading in nothing but your boxer briefs?” I inquired as his hands ran gently along my back, and he pulled me close for a kiss.
“Depends on what I’m reading,” he murmured as his lips traveled downward, and I pressed myself against him. That night there was plenty of screaming and gasping, but it wasn’t because of any nightmares.
Thirty-five
Rubbing my eyes, I flipped back two pages in my notes and created a new bullet point on my presentation. Martin’s kitchen table had turned into my current workspace as I reviewed the procedures in place versus the updated version I was planning to suggest to Guillot. Perhaps I had been guilty of procrastinating in the past but never to such an extreme.
“I thought you finished your report yesterday,” Martin commented, entering the kitchen and putting my cell phone on the table. “Nick called this morning while you were in th
e shower. He said your car is DOA.”
“What?”
“You tell me. I’m just the messenger boy.”
“You answered my phone?”
“The proper response is thanks. To which I shall respond, you’re welcome.” He pulled up a chair and attempted to read the laptop screen from an angle. “Also, I’ve taken the liberty to invite him and Jenny out for dinner tonight. Try to be pleasant.”
“Martin,” stalling, I swallowed and leaned back, “thanks, but I don’t feel like going out.”
“Dear Atlas, the world will crush you if you let it.” He commandeered the laptop and flipped my notes around, typing out the information in a more corporate appropriate fashion, complete with charts, graphs, and estimates. “Y’know,” he continued to type, “it did occur to me that your car wasn’t here, but for some reason, I didn’t bother to ask where it was.” He kept tinkering with the computer, not bothering to make eye contact. “Nick said the larger caliber bullets went through the shell, and a few ended up lodged in your engine block.”
“I knew I should have splurged on a bulletproof vest for my car.”
“Did you take it out for target practice and go a little crazy at the range?” His voice held a hint of an edge. “Or maybe you forgot to set the emergency brake when you parked on a hill and shooting it was the only way you could think to get it to stop. It gives new meaning to the phrase stop or I’ll shoot.”
“Is shooting you the only way to get you to stop?” I challenged. He finished a page of notes, hit save, and shut the lid, waiting expectantly for my elaboration. “Thursday night, the shooter from the club made an appearance. It’s fine.”