by A. J. Downey
“Yeah.”
I tucked her in and shook my head.
“Sleep it off, Lys. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
“Can we just not and say we did?” she asked, and I smiled down at her, her arm was thrown over her eyes.
“No can do, Chica. You opened this Pandora’s box.”
“Not a good analogy,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Pandora opened the box and released untold troubles into the world,” she said.
“Yeah, okay, I see your point. Bad analogy,” I agreed, even though I didn’t. It just wasn’t worth arguing over right now. She’d released a whole lot of ugly truth into the night, and what she’d told me? I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t going to be trouble. Trouble for her, and trouble for me, but at least it was the kind of trouble I was good at handling. It was my job. I could see why she’d chosen to move in here. I guess I was a little put-out by her not being upfront about it, but I could see that shit from her perspective, too. If I’d known, I probably would have said ‘Hell no’ but now? It felt a little late for that and somehow, I just couldn’t be mad.
For now, I told her, “Just sleep. We’ll get shit handled when you’re sober and feel like you can deal a little bit better.”
“You can be nice when you want to.”
“Yeah, I guess I can.”
I left her door open and went across to my room. I left mine open, too, and found some pajama bottoms and switched out of my jeans. I got into bed and listened for her, smiling when she began to lightly snore.
God, she was a hot mess. I had a few ideas on how to straighten her out some, but ‘sober’ came first. The talk would be much harder without the liquid courage, but I had a pretty solid idea now that she was a tougher nut than I’d initially given her credit for.
12
Alyssa…
“Mm, god, why!?” I half-cried, half-moaned, and stuffed a pillow over my head. A truck was backing up in the alleyway below my bedroom window and the backup beeps were positively shrill. The tones went shrieking through my skull, and every time I even remotely tried to make a move, it felt like my brain was sliding along an icepick in my head. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had any kind of hard alcohol to drink, and now I was remembering why. This was miserable.
A low masculine chuckle and a couple of sharp cracking noises went off next to the bed and I flinched.
“Easy,” Golden said. “It’s just me. I got a pair of creaky knees. Help for that hangover is on the way.”
“What are you talking about?” I groaned through the pillow and he pulled it off of my face.
“That was probably my brother and his partner backing their rig up.”
A knock fell at the front door and I watched his well-muscled back as he padded out of my room and down the hall. I blinked when two of him reappeared.
“Whoa, she really tied one on.”
“I think I’m seeing things, or are you identical twins?”
The second Golden chuckled lightly and hefted a padded square tote, like a soft-sided cooler, off his shoulder and onto the floor by the bed.
“Guilty as charged,” he said. “I’m Angel.”
“Oh. my God,” I closed my eyes and let my head fall back. “This is so embarrassing.”
“Not the first hangover I’ve remedied. Give me your arm.”
“You’re seriously going to do this?” I asked, holding out my arm, palm up. I would pretty much give anything to feel better at this point. I squinted past Angel, who had taken up Golden’s crouched position by the bed. Golden leaned nonchalantly against the door frame, arms crossed over his stomach which was just as impressively muscular as his back. An amused look crossed his face and I realized I’d been caught looking. I covered my eyes with the arm that his brother wasn’t inspecting and felt my face flame hot, which just made my head throb even more.
“Got a vein.It’s always harder when you’re dehydrated,” Angel mused as he sat back on his haunches. I swallowed hard; I hated needles, especially after all of the painful failed fertility injections. I listened to him sanitize his hands and pull on a pair of surgical gloves. He tied off my upper arm and said, “Make a fist.”
He felt around with his fingertips at the crook of my elbow and warned me, “Sharp pinch.” I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, hissing between my teeth.
“There you go,” he said and taped it to my inner arm. “I'll get this drip going and you’ll feel better in no time.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, but I still wouldn’t come out from under my other arm. This was so embarrassing, yet he was being so nice. Still, what a way to meet a person for the first time.
“I don’t do this often, you know,” I said softly and he chuckled.
“Not here to judge, just here to make you feel better. It’s what I do.”
“Thank you,” I said and swallowed hard.
“Get some more rest. Golden knows how to undo all of this when it’s done.”
I took my arm away from my face, realizing how childish I was being. Just because I couldn’t see him, didn’t mean he couldn’t see me. He gave me a reassuring little smile and stood up, hefting his bag back onto his shoulder.
“Don’t worry about the stuff,” he told me. “I’ll just damage it out. Happens all the time. Plus, it’s pennies on the dollar for what they actually charge patients. It’s fucking ridiculous.”
I tried a timid nod, not trusting my voice. I was getting pretty emotional. They were both being so sweet and caring, and somehow that was making me feel even worse about so many things. Like, why couldn’t my husband have been this way? Why on earth were things with him ending like this?
Also, selfishly: I wonder if I will ever find anything similar again or if I’m going to live the rest of my life and die alone.
Melodramatic? Maybe, but I’d never really done ‘alone’ very well, and the prospect of it was more than a little overwhelming, when it forced its way up through the middle of the mountain of hurt already in place.
“Come on, Bro. I’ll show you out.”
“Yeah. Sleep tight, Lys. It was nice to meet you,” Angel said as he slipped past his twin and out the bedroom door.
“Nice to meet you, too, and thank you,” I called faintly after him.
Golden shut my door with a nod and I heard them retreat down the hall. If either of them said anything, I missed it. Either that, or they were speaking so low I couldn’t hear. I was okay with that. I was tired, and I just wanted sleep.
Alas, it didn’t seem like it was to be, because it felt like no sooner had I closed my eyes, than my bedroom door opened with a loud cacophony of voices arguing. I winced and Kenzie stood there open-mouthed, astonished.
“See, I told you. Food poisoning. Last time I checked, wasn’t she the boss?” Golden demanded, unimpressed.
Kenzie drew herself up to her impressive six-foot height, dressed to impress as she ever was, in a light-gray pencil skirt, expensive blouse, hose and smart pumps. Her designer outer-wear jacket was belted at her trim waist. She looked like that actress, the one who’d been married to Tom Cruise for years way back in the day- Nicole-something.
“Lys, why didn’t you call somebody?” she demanded and I pushed myself up into a sitting position. I realized I must have been asleep for longer than I had thought because the IV was gone; I could feel the familiar pressure and pull of a cotton ball and tape at the crook of my elbow. It was conveniently hidden, of course, by the sleeve of my nightshirt. I kicked my brain into gear and squinted up at my best friend, catching onto and holding the excuse that Golden had provided.
“Bad Chinese,” I said. “I spent most of the night heaving into my toilet.”
I would likely tell her the truth; that I’d been drunk as hell the night before, at some point, but right now Golden was trying to spare me any more embarrassment and I didn’t want to embarrass him in return by outing him for giving me a cover story.
Kenzie sat do
wn on the edge of my bed and pushed some of my hair back behind my ear. She went from worried friend to sympathetic in a heartbeat.
“You look like hell,” she said and her face crumbled into lines of compassion. She raised an eyebrow at Golden and made a shooing motion. He raised his eyebrows in turn and said, “I’ma let that slide and get ready for work.”
He let go of my doorknob and it rattled as it twisted on its mechanism. I jumped at the sudden sharp sound, and Golden gave me an undefinable look, unhappy with a dash of calculating.
“Thanks for helping me out,” I said, and he gave a nod and closed the door behind him.
“Wait, what’d he do?”
“Babysat me while I puked,” I said honestly.
Kenzie shook her head in amazement.
“Can’t picture it,” she said and I chuckled softly.
“I know he’s rough around the edges,” I said, “but once you get to know him, he’s not half-bad. He’s a good guy, really.”
“I guess you have to be to be a cop. Still, you should have called Avery. She’s held down the fort, but was worried sick when you didn’t answer your phone. I left a meeting when I couldn’t get you to answer your phone.”
I looked around and spotted it on my desk; I thrust my chin at it and she brought it over.
“Deader than a doornail. I must have forgot to plug it in. I am so sorry, Kenz.” I groaned and flopped back down onto my back.
“It’s okay,” she said, plugging it in for me. “Guess this proves you have people that still care about you, though.”
I looked up at her and frowned. “I knew that,” I said softly, borderline offended.
She sighed and sat back down.
“We’ve been worried about you, Lys. You’ve been so down, so depressed since this happened, and it’s scaring some of us a little.”
“My marriage fell apart, my husband beat me half to death, and… and I think I have a reason to be depressed.”
“You do, but you’re also getting a divorce and he’s definitely not worth stewing over. We just want to see you get back to your old self again.”
I knew she meant well, I knew she spoke with nothing but the best of intentions, and I wished I was brave enough to tell her the whole story – but I wasn’t. I don’t know why I had told Golden last night.
Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was because he was a cop and he knew things like this happened all the time, he didn’t have the shiny hopefulness about humanity that Kenzie still bore. I don’t know, but I still hadn’t been able to tell her about the sexual aspect to the assault, even though I knew she suspected it. I swallowed hard, wracked with guilt, not just for hiding that from her, but also for making everyone worry.
“Oh, hey, here now, don’t worry about any of it. You busted me out of a boring budgetary meeting that I didn’t want to sit for anyway.” She sighed. “Want me to help you clean up?”
I gave her a flat look. “It’s a gnarly case of food-poisoning; I’m not a total invalid.”
She laughed a little, “Fair enough.”
“Besides, I’m pretty sure Golden is in the shower and if I got into one right now, I’d steal all the hot water. We found that one out the hard way and trust me, it wasn’t pretty.”
“First world war roommate?” she asked.
“Yeah, funny now, but it hadn’t been then. He was so mad!”
She laughed a little, the fine lines of worry back again, tightening around her eyes.
“He just yelled and cussed a lot,” I told her frankly. I didn’t tell her that I shut off the water and crouched in the bottom of my tub with shampoo still in my hair until I’d heard the front door slam, my heart in my throat the whole time.
“Okay, fine, then we wait. You hungry yet?”
“Yeah, maybe just some broth and saltines, though. Until I know my stomach isn’t going to rebel again.”
“Okay, I’ll run out, you get cleaned up.”
“Okay.”
Sounded good.
13
Golden…
I let myself into the apartment and Lys was wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, used tissues scattered around her and a half-eaten carton of ice cream in one hand. One of the small, personal-sized ones. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and had she not clearly been crying, I probably would have found it adorable.
I stopped short and asked, “What’s wrong?”
She faintly raised her hand and pointed at the TV, and were her nose and cheeks not already red from crying, I probably would have picked up she was blushing. I stepped further into the apartment after shutting the door, and looked. Some sappy romance was playing out on the screen.
“Jesus, nearly gave me a fucking heart attack.” I took off my patrol cap and went over to the couch, dropping onto it beside her. She set her ice cream on the coffee table and was hastily snatching up her tissues. I went in for the kill.
She laughed a little and said, “Oh, gee, just help yourself.”
I’d already stuck a gob of chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-and-vanilla ice cream into my face, and I said around it, “Don’t mind if I do,” as the credits rolled on the screen.
“I swear you’re home early,” she said and I nodded.
“A little. Got done with the paperwork early. Had a little bit of an incident out there, tonight.”
“Oh, no. What happened?” she asked, standing and letting her blanket fall away.
“Mm.” I held up the spoon in a bid to get a minute while I worked on my overzealous bite of the sweet, cold, dairy product in my mouth. “Dude bit my partner. Somehow, he crashed into the top of the patrol car and busted his nose when I put him back there. You know, business as usual. Just, any time someone gets hurt while on duty or in custody, it’s a ton of C-Y-A paperwork.”
“I see, is your partner going to be okay?”
“Pruitt? Aw, yeah. Comes with the job. Didn’t even break the skin this time.”
“What about you? You ever been hurt on the job?”
I rubbed my leg through the rip-stop fabric of my tactical pants. She’d opened up to me the night before, I guess turnabout was fair play. I nodded.
“Yeah, that’s how I got my road name.”
“Your nickname? ‘Golden’?”
I nodded again and tried to divert from the rough stuff for a moment, as she came slowly back around the kitchen island from tossing her used tissues in the trash under the sink. I shoved another bite of her ice cream in my face, suddenly thinking real hard about how fucking good it was. She drifted over, light on her bare feet against the faux-wood tile and came around the back of the couch. I tried not to think about how good her legs looked under that nightshirt of hers and how much better she would look in one of my shirts, as she retook her seat and arranged her blanket in her lap for modesty’s sake.
“What did you call it?” she asked and I was glad for the extended reprieve from talking about my elephant in the room.
“A road name. It was given to me by the club,” I explained.
“The Indigo Knights?” I couldn’t remember if we’d ever talked about them, but then again, she’d seen me come in and out of here in my cut more than a few times and she was a smart cookie.
“That would be the one,” I said, laughing.
“We’ve never really talked about them before,” she said defensively at my laughter. and my suspicions were confirmed.
I nodded again and said, “You’re right. We honestly don’t talk about a lot of things.”
She winced and went further with, “We don’t really talk about anything.”
She wasn’t wrong. I just wasn’t that guy. A talker, I mean. If I wanted this to work out for me and her, what I had cooked up, I guess I would have to be.
I told her, “Fair enough. I can work on changing that.” Her shoulders eased down from their constantly guarded position and she dared to even smile.
I was developing a plan based off some observations I had about her. It was
like, she had an eye for details, like my club name on my cut, but she didn’t have a clue when it came to her surroundings as it related to her personal safety. The girl was smart, but there was a vast difference between being book-smart and street-smart. I had the feeling she was the former, and I had an eye towards making her the latter… if she was interested and would let me. I didn’t bring it up quite yet. I was waiting for a good place to do it where I figured she might be more receptive to the idea.
“I think I would like that,” she said, of talking together more.
I put my feet up on my coffee table and she crossed her legs under her blanket and leaned back against the arm of the couch. Guess there was no time like the present when it came to communicating and telling stories. Might as well get it over with.
“The guys gave me the road name Golden because around the time I earned my cut – the leather vest with all the patches‒ I was the Indigo City Police Department’s golden boy.”
“You don’t sound proud or happy about that, how come?”
I pressed my lips together and blew out my cheeks. No time like the present, I reminded myself.
“Because it didn’t matter, the guy I tried to save, in the middle of the giant shit sandwich we got caught in, died anyway.”
She flinched and her soulful brown eyes dropped to her hands in her lap.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said, and unlike a lot of motherfuckers, she sounded like she really was.
“anyway, I got shot, too. In the leg, twice. Got lucky, one was a through-and-through, and the other one lodged in the bone but somehow didn’t break it.”
Silence stretched between us and I could tell she wanted to ask. I just wanted to know if she was going to be brave enough to.
“Do you mind if I asked what exactly happened?”
Huh, I hadn’t thought she was going to do it. I guess I underestimated her. I bobbed my head and put the empty carton and spoon back on the table. I flopped back against the couch and slid down some so my head was supported.
“Beat cops do plainclothes work too, sometimes. anyway, I was with a bunch of detectives, serving a warrant on this dude up for assault and battery charges. We do the usual shit, bust down the door, go charging in, and we’re trained – but believe me, ain’t nobody trained for the level of firepower and the amount of gangbangers in that place.”