“Looks can be deceiving, you know,” I said with a wink. “Give me a shot. Maybe I’m really a knight on shining chrome.”
Andi’s aunt snorted. “Don’t bother with the charm offensive, Romeo. Put your dick away.”
I had taken a drink of water as she said this, and I choked on it, then burst out into loud laughter.
Lori frowned. “Oh, come on, don’t patronize me. It wasn’t that funny.”
“No, no,” I sputtered, still coughing. “It’s just that Andi calls me Romeo when she wants to take me down a peg. Shit, I think now I know where she gets her sass.”
Lori stared at me levelly. “She does, does she? I get the feeling you need taken down a peg a fair amount.”
“Undoubtedly,” I grinned. “Don’t worry, she doesn’t let me get away with a damn thing.”
Lori walked to the cupboard and got herself a glass, then held it under the faucet to fill it. “So, how do you know Andi, anyway?”
“She’s a good friend of my sister’s,” I replied.
“Is that right?” she remarked. “That all?”
Shit, she was perceptive, I’d give her that. “Not quite. But you asked how I know her, and that’s how I know her.”
“Uh-huh.” She sat down at the center island. “And so now, you’re protecting her from her piece of shit stepdad.”
“Like I said, I’m a knight on shining chrome.” I spread my hands wide.
Lori snorted again, but this time it came out more like a laugh. “Why do I get the feeling you wouldn’t do this for just anyone?”
“Probably because I wouldn’t.” No use sugarcoating it, I guessed.
“You know, she’s suffered a lot in her life, Andi has.” Her eyes fixed on mine. “Especially as a little girl. She tell you about any of that?”
A wave of white-hot fury coursed through me, like it always did when I thought about everything Andi had been through. I locked eyes with Andi’s aunt. “Yeah. She told me.”
Lori scrutinized me for a long minute, saying nothing. In the end, she just nodded once, as if coming to a decision.
“Okay,” she said simply.
Later on that afternoon, I was settled in my usual chair in a corner of the room, looking out the window for any signs of activity. Andi and her mom were sitting on the couch, talking quietly. Alyssa had taken the love seat for herself. Andi’s little sister still wasn’t really talking much, and the other women seemed to think it was better to just let her be and not push her to communicate.
I knew that Andi was struggling with a range of different feelings about her mom. She’d told me as much one night as we lay in bed, exhausted after more sex than two people should be able to physically endure. Andi was angry that her mother hadn’t tried harder to protect her, and I didn’t blame her. A good part of me wanted to confront her mom myself — to ask her what the hell she’d been thinking all those years ago, not taking the words of a frightened little girl seriously. But I knew I needed to back off and let Andi deal with this herself.
Alyssa had fallen asleep on the love seat under a pink afghan, and I had kind of been zoning out myself, until suddenly I noticed that the conversation between Andi and her mom seemed to have shifted. Her mother’s tone had become quieter, more urgent. I realized they were talking about Andi’s stepfather.
“Anthony’s been like this for a while now,” Andi’s mom was saying. “He’s angry and stressed all the time. It used to just be when he was drinking, but… now he’s drinking almost constantly.” She picked up a corner of her skirt and started nervously fingering the fabric. “I tried… I told him once that if he couldn’t calm down, I wanted a divorce.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He told me he’d kill me first.”
Andi’s mom cleared her throat, then continued. “After that, I knew enough not to say it again, but he kept bringing it up. Like, he’d start an argument, and then pretty soon he was yelling, ‘Oh, what, now are you gonna try to divorce me? Good fuckin’ luck with that!’ Then he’d….” Andi’s mom glanced nervously at Alyssa’s sleeping form. “He’d take hold of my throat and back me up against the wall. ‘Karen, don’t you even think of leaving me,’ he’d say. ‘I will fuckin’ end you, you hear me?’”
“Mom,” Andi interrupted her quietly. “I haven’t told you something that you probably should know.”
Andi started to tell her mother about the strange calling cards someone had been leaving in her apartment, in her car, and other places. “We — Cal and I — think it’s Anthony, or more likely one of his men,” she continued, glancing toward me. Our eyes met, and she flashed me just the briefest of smiles. I winked back at her, the corner of my mouth turning up slightly. She turned back to her mom. “It started a few months ago. I always suspected it was probably Anthony, but at first, I couldn’t figure out why he was stalking me, after all this time. But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that he was trying to scare me, in case you tried to contact me. Maybe he was trying to make sure that we were both too scared to try to get you out of there.”
“Oh, Andi.” Her mom’s voice quavered. “I’m so sorry, honey. I had no idea.” She reached into her sleeve for a kleenex and dabbed at her eyes. “And here I am, putting you in danger again.”
“Mom, stop,” Andi interrupted her. “I’m glad you came here. Really. I’m just glad you and Aly are out of there.”
“Me, too, baby,” her mom whispered. “I know I stayed with Anthony for too long. For way too long.”
The two of them sat for a few minutes without talking, the silence broken only by her mother’s occasional sniffling.
“Mom,” Andi murmured finally. “I want to ask you something.”
“What is it, baby?”
“Aunt Lori told me you called her a couple of months ago. Out of the blue.”
“Yeah.” Karen blew her nose. “I was… I guess I just wanted to make sure she was still here. I was trying to figure out how to get me and Alyssa out. Lori was the only person I could think of to go to.”
“That’s what I figured,” Andi replied, “Once you showed up here. But Mom…” Andi paused. “Lori said you didn’t even ask about me when you called. And then… when I left home, all those years ago. You didn’t try to find me, at all.”
I heard the hitch in Andi’s voice and longed to go comfort her, but I stayed put.
“Andi,” her mom began. She reached for her daughter’s hand, but Andi pulled it away, and Karen didn’t press it. “Baby. When you left, I realized for the first time… for the first time, that maybe what you’d tried to tell me about Anthony wasn’t just something you’d made up.”
“I didn’t make it up, Mom.” Andi’s voice was hard, angry.
“I believe you,” Karen sighed. “And when… when I realized that you felt so strongly that you needed to leave, well… I know Anthony. I knew even then that if he wanted to find someone, he probably could. But I didn’t want… I didn’t want to know where you were.” Her voice broke. “Because I didn’t want to be the one he found it out from.”
She shook her head slowly. “I’m so sorry, Andi,” she whispered. “God, I’m so sorry. I failed you so much. The only thing I could do for you was let you leave. You were eighteen. It was your choice. Oh, God, I’ve been so blind!”
Karen began to sob, muffling the sound with her hands. Andi placed a gentle hand on her back as she cried, but her own eyes were dry.
“I forgive you, Mom,” she said quietly. “But I don’t know if I can forget.”
The two of them sat in silence broken only by the sound of muffled sobs. Eventually, Andi’s mom stopped crying, and said in an exhausted voice that she was going upstairs to take a nap. Andi watched her go wordlessly, then sat on the couch by herself.
A minute or so later, the pink form on the love seat sat up. Alyssa brushed her hair out of her face and looked silently at her sister, her eyes wide. It was clear she’d heard the whole thing. After a moment, Aly stood up and wordlessly came over and sat dow
n on the couch next to Andi, enveloping her big sister in a hug.
“I saw the Facebook message,” she said simply.
Then she stood and followed her mother upstairs.
Andi sat frozen on the couch, her body rigid. Not knowing what else to do, I came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. She raised hers and laced her fingers through mine, then sank back into the couch resting her cheek against my arm. We stayed like that for a couple of minutes, until finally, she detached her hand and looked up at me.
“Thank you,” she said.
I nodded and brushed her cheek softly with my thumb.
“Anything for you, Andi,” I replied. “Anything.”
22
Andi
ANDI
God, what would I have done without Cal during those days?
That night, when we were alone in my apartment, I talked to Cal about what my mom had said as he held me in the dark. I cried, and he let me. I cried for all the years I missed seeing my little sister grow up. I cried for the little girl I had been. I cried for my mother, too — for how her own weakness and need for security had cost her so much.
And all the time, Cal just held me.
Afterward, he made love to me. Slowly. Gently. It was a side of Cal I’d never seen before. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before with a man. I’d had more than my share of sexual partners, but sex to me was always a means to an end. Emotions didn’t enter into it. I didn’t let them. And at the beginning, I’d made sure it was that way with Cal, as well. But that night, he held me tight against him as I shuddered through my climax, and I knew something had changed. I’d opened myself up to Cal in a way I never had with anyone else. And as he thrust into me one final time and called my name like it was a prayer, I was pretty sure something had changed for him, too.
It wasn’t just sex for me anymore.
I loved him. I was in love with Cal Greenlee.
As I felt myself drifting off to sleep in his arms, I let go of all the fear and worry that threatened to overwhelm me. I had no idea where this was going. I had no idea how any of it could turn out okay. The most likely scenario was that it would all blow up in my face.
But for that moment, for that night, I just wanted to hold on to it all. Because I wasn’t sure how long it would be before I lost it.
The next day, I got myself ready for our regular Saturday gig up in Denver. Cal was completely against my going up, given the situation. But I didn’t want to let the band down. The gig at The Oasis was an important step for us, and I knew we’d lose it if we weren’t reliable. In the end, Cal relented, but only on the condition that I would agree to a big security contingent of Stone Kings and some guys from Grey’s cousin’s club The Throttle keeping an eye on the club.
Since Cal took his role as my bodyguard seriously, the two of us drove up together in my Kia. It was kind of cute watching him try to be comfortable in such a small car. At first, I drove, and he kept shifting around and checking the lever under the seat to make sure it wouldn’t go back any further. In the end, I suggested he take over driving just to give him something to do. Besides, being a passenger had its advantages — one of which was being able to look uninterrupted at Cal’s handsome face as he drove.
That night, our first set went really well. The place was even more packed than it had been in previous weeks, and it seemed like word was getting around about us. Even sales of our T-shirts and other stuff were steadily increasing, according to our merch guy. The last song of the set was a solo piece by me, the one I’d only played for Cal so far. I was more nervous about singing it in public than I thought I would be. The song had more of my bare soul in it than anything else I’d written. But I’d recently written a new ending to it, and I’d asked the band if I could sing it tonight because somehow, it felt like a way to put some closure on my past life. And with my sister and mom and me having a new beginning, now seemed like the time to play it, even if they weren’t there to hear.
The lights went down until there was only a spotlight on me, and I sang. The crowd hushed, almost silent except for the occasional murmur or clink of a beer bottle. It was as though an energy was vibrating in the room. That was what I most loved about performing — the moments of connection that joined everyone together, like little invisible threads. I knew that everyone watching me had their own life, their own worries and pasts. But somehow, the words I was singing were connecting them to each other, and to me.
Toward the end, I happened to glance over to my left, just off stage. Cal was there, watching me, his eyes shining. I nodded at him and sang, my eyes locked on his:
Why was Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt?
She looked back, to find a past that wasn’t there
I can’t find another way out, no way to turn back time
Without my future disappearing into the air…
You take my hand and lead me out of the dark,
Take my heart and lead me out toward the day,
It’s not the way I remembered it here, but you
Don’t let me look back, so I… stay.
As I strummed the final chords, Cal rewarded me with a lopsided grin that made my heart constrict. It was scary, how much the slightest look from him could make every cell in my body ache for him to touch me.
I wasn’t even sure if Cal had even been listening to the words I’d sung, and I would deny to my last breath that they had anything to do with him. But somehow, it felt good to sing them with him there, even if I was the only one who knew what they meant.
As the crowd began to clap and cheer, I saw one of the MC guys come up behind Cal and tap him on the shoulder. He glanced briefly back toward me and followed the man. I turned my gaze back toward the audience. “Thank you,” I murmured into the mic. “Thank you. We’ll be back for a second set in a few minutes.”
Backstage, Emmy, Kai, Ash and the others congratulated me on the song. I looked around, but Cal had disappeared, so I decided to slip out the back for a quick cigarette. I had stopped smoking a couple of years ago, but all the stress of the last month or so had led me to buy a pack for an occasional indulgence. I told Kai and Emmy to let Cal know where I was when he came back. Then I grabbed my bag from the mound of equipment and instrument cases we’d piled in a corner, slung it over my shoulder and pushed the fire door open to the cool night outside.
I wasn’t particularly worried about being out here alone. No one ever came out back, and I knew there were Stone Kings and Throttle guys all over the place. I lit my cigarette and leaned against the outer wall of the club. Inhaling deeply and closing my eyes, I felt the rush of nicotine and guilty pleasure that I always did when I smoked now that it was such a rare thing for me. It’s almost worth quitting just for it to feel this good when I do smoke, I thought to myself.
“Hey, you good out here?” a deep voice said, startling me. “Wanted to check up on you.”
I quickly opened my eyes and looked up to see a tall, burly man in a black T-shirt staring at me. I didn’t recognize him, but I assumed he was one of the MC guys prowling around.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, trying to slow down my hammering heart. “You scared me, though.”
He took a step forward and smirked. “That ain’t even the beginning, you bitch.”
And before I could react, he had one arm clamped around my waist and arms, the other covering my mouth. I tried to scream, but I could barely breathe. Somehow I hadn’t dropped my cigarette, and I desperately jammed it backwards, where it connected with his leg. The man swore loudly and wrenched my head back, twisting my neck painfully. Reflexively, I dropped the cigarette. Another man had appeared, equally tall and dark. He grabbed my hands and secured them in front of me with a zip tie. Then, before I knew what was happening, I was being loaded into a dark limousine. I knew instinctively who would be waiting for me inside.
“I told you I would always know where you were, Andi,” he said.
23
Cal
CAL
I had men stationed at various places around the club so I could keep my eye on Andi from the side of the stage. It looked like all that protection might have been overkill, but I didn’t give a shit. I needed to know she was protected, even if we had twice as many men as we needed.
Right at the end of the first set, just as Andi was finishing that ballad I’d heard her playing in her apartment one night, Trig tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, I got something I want you to see. It’s probably nothing, but better safe than sorry.”
I followed him as he led me out around the far edge of the crowd. “You said to keep an eye out for that tall weaselly-looking guy, right?” he called to me over the din. “Repo and Frankenstein got a guy who looks to be the one.”
From the far side of the room, I scanned the crowd toward a spot he had indicated with a slight nod of his head. Over on the other side, I could see Repo, and about twenty feet away, Frankenstein. About fifteen feet in front of them, the guy I’d noticed at Andi’s past shows was standing, hands in his pockets, leaning against a railing.
“That’s him,” I murmured at Trig. “Grab him. Take him outside and shake him down, then come tell me what you got.”
Trig nodded briefly at Repo, and I watched them start to move in. I knew they could handle it, so I didn’t stick around. I wanted to get back to Andi.
When I got backstage again, she wasn’t talking to her band mates, and I looked around in confusion. Then one of them, a woman named Emmy, came up to me. “Hey, Andi said to tell you she’s out back having a smoke.” She pointed toward a fire door at the back.
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