by L.J. Shen
A dinner date. First one since her. I tried to remind myself dates were like sex. You never forget how to do it.
BY THE TIME I finished my shower, Sparrow was already asleep, and not faking it this time. I slid into bed beside her and watched the rise and fall of her chest, but she was far from peaceful. I knew she was keeping a knife under the pillow. It amused and impressed me all at once. Not that she could do anything with that knife if she ever confronted me, but I liked her assertiveness.
She was nothing like her father. Nothing.
My initial expectation after the wedding—that she’d lock herself in a room listening to man-hating Taylor Swift songs on repeat as she cried her eyes out—was proving premature. She might be innocent, but she wasn’t stupid. Hardened by her circumstances and toughened by our neighborhood—Red was no pushover.
I turned my back to her and turned on my bedside lamp, taking my iPad from my nightstand drawer. I went through everything I had to do the next day—a meeting with an asshat who was running for governor and needed to find his bitter stepdaughter and convince her not to talk shit about him; an appointment with a local property tycoon who got into trouble with some Armenian gang members because he didn’t want to pay them protection money.
Fucking Armenians ran the underworld of Boston nowadays, and they were a grim reminder of what could have been mine had my father been more careful with the family business.
The Brennans were infamous in Boston not only as the royal crime family of the city, but also because we’d been smart enough to donate to schools, churches and local charities. We dropped enough cash to have hospital wings, bars and babies named after us. People liked us because once upon a time we’d been generous with our earnings, and we’d kept the city mostly clean of the bad stuff (prostitution and drugs).
Sure, we were criminals, but we kept the innocents’ innocence intact and never hurt a soul who didn’t deserve to feel the wrath of our fists. Loan sharking, extortion, illegal gambling and money laundering. We did it all, and we did it well.
Now, the Armenians and local unorganized gangs were ruling the Boston underworld, and it was a mess. No moral codes, respect or honor. Just a bunch of fucking bullies who got their hands on unregistered guns.
After going over an email from another client and cursing the Armenians again, I put my iPad back in the drawer. Taking one last glance at Red, I noticed her cell on her nightstand was glowing with a new text message. It was four a.m. Who the fuck would text her this late?
My eyes shifted to her face, and back to her cell.
Don’t do this.
Do this.
Don’t do this.
Fuck it.
I’d only seen this woman on a few occasions, when she was just a girl, playing kick the can with the other dirty kids when I was busy scoring chicks, smoking cigarettes and leaning against muscle cars that weren’t even mine. For all I knew, Red could be a snitch. Work with the police. Could be a serial killer.
Ha.
I reached over, my arm stretching above her nose, and picked up her phone.
Then I started digging. Deep.
Sparrow Raynes didn’t have many friends. She’d always been an odd bird, no pun intended, and I guess her social life reflected it.
Based on her incoming messages, a girl named Lucy appeared to be her closest friend. (But not close enough for Sparrow to invite her to the wedding, God forbid.) There was a guy named Boris, her culinary teacher, who’d already been warned off. There was also a girl named Daisy who I remembered from our neighborhood.
What struck me as peculiar was the timing of the most recent conversation with Lucy. The timestamp was after our little encounter earlier, downstairs in the living room. While I was in the shower, Sparrow had been on her phone. In fact, the flashing of her cell phone was Lucy answering Sparrow’s last text.
Lucy: Drinks tomorrow? Usual spot. Just got paid. My treat.
Sparrow: Wish I could. Got a job interview.
Lucy: What? When? Where? Why am I out of the loop all of a sudden? Spill!
Sparrow: It’s for Rouge Bis. That super-expensive French restaurant we always promise we’ll go to and dine and dash.
Lucy: No way. Isn’t the owner Troy Brennan? The only Brennan who isn’t dead or locked up. Haha.
Sparrow: Yeah, they didn’t get to him yet. Hopefully they’ll wait until after my interview. I’ll keep you posted. Wish me luck.
Lucy: Don’t make friends with him. They call him The Fixer for a reason.
Sparrow: I know he’s a fishy guy. He’s my dad’s boss, remember?
Lucy: I remember, I’m just making sure that you do too.
Sparrow: Love you.
Lucy: Love you more. Xx
Then there was the final unanswered message.
Lucy: P.S. Don’t feel bad if you don’t get it. Rumor has it he’s a world-class asshole.
Guess this was the reminder I needed. She hated me, wanted to use me, and thought I was scum, just like my dad.
And just like that, any resolve to make her life a little less hellish disappeared.
SPARROW
I SCURRIED MY way to the kitchen at dawn. Confused about my last encounter with Troy, I wanted nothing more than to be on his good side.
Fine, I would just admit it—I wanted that job.
And let’s face it, it moved something inside me to know that he’d noticed me at church. That he’d noticed me at all. So I decided that I was going to give Troy Brennan an honest chance not to be a world-class jerk.
I fixed him breakfast, fluffy blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and a cup of hot chocolate—my personal favorite—and greeted him with a big smile when he walked down the stairs, squinting away the morning sun. He was still wearing his briefs and sporting some serious morning wood. And when I said “wood,” I meant more like a forest.
My curiosity got the better of me and I peeked down, trying to calculate the size of him as I pretended to straighten the silverware and napkins I’d set out on the island.
I was no expert, but his junk looked like something that could comfortably fit into the exhaust pipe of a truck and not, so help me God, into my vagina. I might have taken a moment or three to stare, interest and fear flickering in my eyes.
“Don’t worry, Red. It doesn’t bite.” He yawned into his forearm, nudging me out of the way to reach for the coffee pot on the counter behind me.
“But it can spit,” I offered over my shoulder, smiling coyly.
He sent me a crooked, condescending smirk. “Not at you, with the way you’ve been treating it so far.”
He was being an ass again, but I kept trying, not letting my ego get the better of me. I pointed at the large dish on the island. “Pancakes. Right here, hot and fluffy. And hot chocolate, too. Do you want some whipped cream?”
I wanted him to remember the girl he wanted to marry. I wanted myself to forget that he was the man my father worked for. I wanted us to try and be something, even if it was stupid and naive.
“I don’t eat sugary crap,” he answered unapologetically, his voice bone-dry. “And I definitely don’t drink hot fucking chocolate. But next time I’m hosting a tea party, I’ll borrow a tutu and you can help me fix some cupcakes.”
My ears pinked as I withdrew the plate of hot pancakes from the placemat, swallowing back the bitter lump in my throat. I marched to the sink and dumped the food with a loud clank. I broke his stupid, precious, probably expensive plate. Good.
Silent, Troy plucked a banana from the wire bowl on the countertop. He opened the fridge, pulling out some OJ and plain yogurt, and banged the fridge shut with his foot.
Still mostly naked. Still hard as stone.
“I’ll be in my office upstairs. Don’t forget dinner tonight,” he said, walking away. “I left another credit card on your nightstand. Try to look your part. No Keds bullshit or emo-kid hoodies. Got it?”
“Jesus Christ.” I scowled. “Chauvinist much?”
“Not much,
just enough to want my wife to look like a woman and not a twelve-year-old boy who raided Hot Topic.”
I wanted to tell him he was being a dick, but knew it wouldn’t help my chances of scoring the job. Instead, I balled up my fists, ground my teeth and stormed out of the apartment, banging the door shut behind me.
I was practically able to feel the hair on my head graying when I jabbed at the elevator button aggressively, gave up after a few seconds—too pumped on my own boiling anger to stand still—and took the stairs down to the lobby of his building, two at a time. I climbed down all freaking fourteen floors and started my morning run without my gear or running shoes. Just Keds. The ass. All I had was tons of energy to burn.
And that was enough.
When my feet hit the cold, damp sidewalk, my breath evened. Finally, a minor bliss.
As I plugged in my earbuds and played “Last Resort” by Papa Roach to accompany my run—I needed something angry just like me—I already felt Connor on my heels, trying to catch up with my pace.
I was going to waste the day away, and fantasize about the million opportunities I’d have to shove a fork into my husband’s chest at dinner. The last thing I’d do was follow his instructions and become a sweet, pretty wife in a dress.
And every time he pushed—I’d pulled harder.
I DIDN’T BUY anything seductive or alluring for our dinner out, like Troy had ordered. In fact, I refused to leave the kitchen, drowning my frustrations in making food. Tons and tons of food. I used all the ingredients in the cupboards and fridge, and spent the day fussing over food for the shelter.
Hours of solitary cooking made me finally come to terms with the gravity of my situation. Until last night, I hadn’t exactly been sure what was happening. I hadn’t fully digested the fact that I had married this man.
But now it was real.
And it was scaring the hell out of me.
Connor was pacing back and forth in the living room, talking on the phone. I was almost tempted to use the opportunity to try and run away. Then again, where the hell would I go? My dad would hand me right back to Brennan, fearing the consequences of thwarting his boss. I couldn’t burden Lucy with my presence, and no loan shark was going to hand me enough to flee town, seeing as they all knew my husband or one of his family members, and at the very least, didn’t want to mess with him.
At four p.m., Maria stormed into the kitchen with a face like thundercloud, informing me that it was time to clean up all the mess I'd made and that I had to evacuate her kitchen before she grabbed me by the hair and did it herself (not in so many words, but her shouting in Spanish and hand waving certainly implied it). She was extra pissed off today, with a dash of furious, because she had a double shift both at Andrea’s and at Troy’s. Apparently he spilled some OJ in his study earlier in the morning, and of course, his hands were too precious to clean up the mess himself. Now she had to clean my mess, too.
She announced that Mr. Brennan would pick me up at eight p.m. from the lobby of our building and that I should be ready in an evening gown. I snorted into my chest, deeply focused on packing a double batch of mac and cheese. The amount of food I’d prepared could probably feed a whole army, and not a small one either. But cooking was therapeutic, and I needed a way to distract myself from my reality. From him.
“I don’t have an evening gown,” I grumbled, pivoting to the oven and taking out the coconut pies. I only had one little black dress in my closet. I wore it to weddings, funerals and I was planning to wear it to my first-ever date tonight. Anything in-between didn’t require fancy attire. In my opinion anyway.
“Too late to go buy,” she barked at me, disappointed with my inability to follow simple instructions from my husband. “What do you do? Mr. Brennan will be mad!”
“He’s always mad.”
Maria let out an exasperated sigh and turned around, fishing her cell phone out of her apron. She pressed the phone to her ear and shot me an annoyed glare. When the person on the other line answered, she started talking to them animatedly in Spanish. I wiped my hands on my pants, mildly interested in this turn of events.
Finally, after a few minutes, she hung up on the person and wiggled her finger at me. “My daughter will give you nice dress. She your size. But you no dirty it and you give back after dry clean. Comprende?”
I nodded, a little shocked and a lot relieved. I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why she’d want to help me. Either way, I was glad Brennan would see me in something presentable and perhaps give me this job.
“Thanks, I guess.” I followed her movements as she began cleaning up after me.
“You,” she said furiously, scrubbing pans and shielding me away from helping her with her shoulder, “are little girl. He,” she continued, pointing upstairs with her chin to where the bedroom was, “a big, powerful man. You no annoying him, or he dump your ass.”
I couldn’t help but break into a laugh. “Dump your ass” was just about the funniest thing Maria had ever said to me.
I shook my head and walked to her, pouting my apology. “You’re right. And please don’t clean after me. I can do this myself.” I carefully tried to pry a dirty pan from her hand.
She rolled her eyes and elbowed me away. “Let me clean, silly girl.”
I packed up all the food that I'd made and dispatched it to the homeless shelter, via a taxi and a big tip from Connor, who refused to let me deliver it myself.
I didn’t get to meet Maria’s daughter. She left the cocktail dress for Connor to pick up in the lobby along with a pair of high heels while I was in the shower. Those, too, were exactly my size. When I walked into the bedroom, the gown was already laid out on Troy’s big bed. It was a peach-colored and sleeveless, with a sweetheart neckline and a thin gold belt.
At 7:45, I zipped it on me, added some makeup (not too much, just a little mascara and lip gloss to cover up my freckles and hours of self-pity) and rode the elevator down to the lobby.
Not to my surprise, Troy was late. I texted Lucy and Daisy while sitting in one of the creamy leather chairs, waiting for him. A sudden urge to wrap myself up in familiarity, in their friendship, gripped me. Plus, it was evident they were more than a little suspicious about my sudden disappearance from our neighborhood.
Me: Hey, girls, want to have drinks next week?
Lucy: You tell us.
Me: ?
Daisy: Stopped by your house. Your dad said something about you moving out. What’re you hiding, Birdie?
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Guess the reassuring messages I’d sent my friends hadn’t really make the impact I was hoping for.
Me: You must have misunderstood. I’m not hiding anything. Just busy. My interview is in a few minutes, btw.
Lucy: You worked at a diner and take cooking classes. Now all of a sudden, you have a job interview at Rouge Bis? One to ten, how stupid do you think we are?
Me: Mmm…5?
Me again: Kidding. Look, I can explain.
No, I couldn’t. And that was the worst part. I knew they’d find out eventually, but I didn’t want to deal.
Daisy: You better. We’ll be waiting for you @ our usual spot. Good luck with the interview.
I was about to fire Lucy and Daisy another message when I heard footfalls and my eyes shot up from my cell. I recognized his walk. It was elegant, self-assured and claimed the space he’d just entered. He wore a pale gray suit that somehow made him look even taller and broader. I stood up, smoothing my dress with my hands and looking at him like a guilty kid.
“How were the pancakes?” Brennan placed a dry, impersonal kiss on my cheek.
Like he had to. Like I was an annoying aunt. He also seemed to have forgotten (or not noticed) I’d thrown the stack of pancakes in the sink. Wow, what an attentive husband. Lucky me.
“Worth all the sugary crap in them.” I tipped my chin up defiantly, then rethought the attitude. I wanted that job. “Like my dress?”
Brennan frowned, but his expression looked more p
uzzled than angry. “You picked this dress yourself?” He took a step back, examining me. His frown made him no less easy on the eyes.
In fact, any expression other than his cold shark-gaze made my pulse increase. He wasn’t unattractive, and it bothered me. A lot.
“Shopping wasn’t first priority,” I admitted, making sure there was enough distance between us. Brennan was hot. Not just figuratively, he actually radiated warmth. “Maria was kind enough to call her daughter and ask if I could borrow a dress from her.”
“Her daughter?” He studied my face as we made our way out of the lobby, like he didn’t believe me.
“Yeah, her daughter. Why? Is it too peachy for your taste? Or maybe you were expecting a leather thong like my wedding gift?” I cocked an eyebrow, shivering as we exited into another cold, drizzling night.
He simply pressed his palm possessively into the small of my back and led me out to the awning-covered sidewalk. I tried to ignore the bolt of lust shooting down my belly at his touch. I wanted to move into his heat. Probably just the fact I had little to no experience with the opposite sex, I tried convincing myself. After all, I hated this man. My body, as it turned out, didn’t share the sentiment.
“You look nice,” he offered, though everything about his compliment felt like it had a hidden meaning, as per usual.
“Thank you.”
The street was buzzing with traffic and pedestrians. I recognized his car from his visit to my neighborhood. The white Maserati—a stark contrast to a mob-style black Mercedes, I didn’t fail to note—was double-parked in the middle of the one-way street in front of the building. He’d created an unapologetic traffic jam, blocking the way of a dozen vehicles behind him. People were honking and swearing, waving their fists out of their car windows despite the rain.