by Emerson Rose
He folds his newspaper and lays it on the table. We sit in silence watching the two of them sleep until Tito speaks. “So, what are you going to do about this guy? You can’t hide these two away from the world forever. You got a plan?”
I lean my elbows on the table and push my hands through my hair. “No. I was hoping you would.”
“Only way out of this is to ditch the girl or kill the guy,” he says with a shrug like those are two viable options.
“Well, I’m not ditching the girl, and what’s the point in killing the guy if I’m just going to end up in prison without them anyway?”
“You could have somebody else do it.” I look up, and he arches his eyebrow. “What? Sounds like the best plan to me.”
“I’m a doctor, Tito. I took the Hippocratic oath. I can’t kill people.”
“As I said, have somebody else do it.”
“That’s still me being responsible for taking someone else’s life. No can do.”
“Then I guess you better tell those two little ladies that they’re gonna be spending a lotta time inside.”
I sigh and look at them, both so angelic, flawless skin, relaxed muscles. Tori’s been my world since the day she was born, and Sasha’s fast becoming a significant part of it, too. “What about getting him put in jail?”
“Nope. He’s too connected. I did some research while the girls were playing UNO. His daddy lives in Mexico, and he can’t stand his son. That’s why he’s living here in Cali. He’s a spoiled brat with serious bi-polar disease, and he refuses to take his meds. Probably why he’s so off again and on again about harassing Sasha.”
“Sounds like it would be a good thing for his father if his kid ended up taking a dirt nap.”
“You’d think but nah. Mexican families are close no matter what and especially so when they are in the drug business. His dad doesn’t like him, but he would move heaven and earth to keep him alive. That’s just how it goes.”
We head home, and Sasha cooks another five-star dinner for the four of us. We watch a movie, and then I show Tito to his room down the hall from ours and lead Sasha to my bed.
“I still think it’s best if I sleep in my room,” she says stopping at the threshold.
“And I still think you’re wrong.”
I gently pull her in, and she weakly resists stumbling a step. “I won’t bite, and the door will be open.” She narrows her eyes and tilts her head as if to say yeah, whatever.
“We will leave our clothes on. Sleep on top of the covers with all the lights on, whatever you want, but you’re sleeping in here, and that’s final. I want to be able to see you and know you’re safe.”
“What about Victoria? Why don’t you make her sleep in here, too?”
“Because I can see her from my bed with both doors open, and she’s only recently started sleeping in her bed regularly. I don’t want to mess that up.”
She looks back at the door opening it wide and bending at the waist to test my claim. “All right. Doors open, dim lights, and pajamas, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
I nod accepting her terms even though it wasn’t a compromise. She was going to sleep in here if I had to tie her down. The thought of her in another bedroom with the door locked makes my chest tight.
I put on a pair of lightweight drawstring pajama bottoms, she wears her Santa t-shirt, and we crawl into bed, her on one side and me on the other. I’m exhausted after not having slept at all the night before and performing surgery all morning. My eyes are closed before my head hits the pillow, but as I’m drifting off to sleep, I feel her roll over and scoot close to me.
“What are we going to do?” Her voice is small and soft like her body. I breathe her in and get brutally honest with her.
“He has to die.”
I expect her to fight me on this or at least disagree, but she surprises me when she agrees. “I know, but you can’t have anything to do with it. I couldn’t live with myself if you did something and got arrested and taken away from Victoria. I’ve already disrupted your lives so much. Please promise me you won’t do anything stupid, Xander, please.”
She’s lying on her side facing me and squeezing my hands hard. I don’t want to lie to her and tell her I haven’t thought of doing exactly that, so I pull her in and hug her without responding. She allows me to comfort her, but eventually, when I don’t make the promise she’s waiting for, she pulls away.
“Xander, I mean it. Promise me, or I’ll leave. It would be better for me to go and leave your family intact than stay and wait for it to implode.”
“I promise I won’t kill Enrique.” I pull her against my chest again and kiss the top of her head feeling guilty making an empty promise.
“And you won’t hire someone to do it either or allow somebody to do it as a favor.” Damn, she’s covering all the bases with that one.
“Sasha, if it comes down to us against him, I can’t make that promise.” She’s quiet, the kind of quiet that makes me nervous. Is she thinking about bolting to keep us safe? Maybe, hell, probably.
“I need you to promise me something, too. Promise me you won’t disappear.”
“I’ll say goodbye first, I promise.”
“That’s not what I mean, not at all. I don’t want you to leave, period. I need you.”
“I won’t go until Zion’s back on her feet. I already promised you that.”
“Even when Zion’s back on her feet. I want you to stay.”
She sits up cross-legged next to me. “Xander, come on, we’ve known each other for less than a month. I can’t just up and move in permanently. I have a roommate, and she depends on my half of the income. Did you ever see that movie Speed with Keanu Reeves?”
“What?” How did we get from moving in together, to moving too fast, to a Keanu Reeves movie?
“Speed, did you see it?”
“Yeah, yeah, the one with the bus. I’ve seen it, why?”
“They said something at the end of that movie that’s always stuck with me, and I think it applies in this situation.”
“What’d they say?”
“Keanu said relationships based on intense experiences never work.”
I love that movie, and I happen to know what Sandra Bullock said when Keanu said that to her. “Then we’ll have to base it on sex, I guess.” I reach out and place my hand on her lower back. She turns to face me, and I smile releasing some of the tension between us.
“You’re bad. I’m trying to be serious.”
“Then don’t try to base what we have on an action movie. Come here.” I roll to my back and pull her down tucking her under my arm. She curls around me sliding her leg between mine and resting her hand on my stomach.
I know this isn’t the end of this conversation, but right now I need to sleep, and she needs a distraction. I haven’t had time to sing for her or play an instrument. Like she pointed out, we’ve only known each other for a short time. I think now is as good a time as any to remedy that.
Snuggling her tight, I start to hum the opening bars of Crazy Love by Van Morrison. When I start to sing softly, she looks up at me with wide silver-blue eyes. “Oh my God, Xander, you sound beautiful.”
I continue to sing, she gives me love, love, love, crazy love until her heartbeat slows, and her breathing is shallow and steady. Nothing brings me more joy than singing Tori to sleep at night. Now I can add Sasha to that list as well.
Sometimes when life is out of control, you need someone to sing you to sleep.
21
Sasha
It’s been two weeks since Xander sang me to sleep in his bed. Zion came home a week ago, and I learned why Victoria adores her so much. She’s a no-nonsense mama like Leigh Anne Tuohy from The Blind Side, but she’s also got the soft intelligence of Clair Huxtable from The Cosby Show. I wish she were my mom.
Since that night, we have become a tight-knit group of five. No one makes a move without notifying Tito. If we go outside, Tito goes. If we go to the grocery store, Ti
to goes. Sometimes I look behind me when I go to the bathroom and find him watching me like I’m going to try to escape.
He’s right to think that. I’ve been thinking about it ever since Xander wouldn’t completely promise not to kill my ex-husband. Speaking of Enrique, I haven’t heard a peep from him—no calls, no texts, and no piles of Fiesta cigarettes around the house.
That’s not to say he isn’t watching us. He’s probably just keeping his distance because we have two men patrolling the outside of the house at all times. Or he’s on the downside of his manic episode, and he’s holed up in bed. Either way, I know better than to think he’s given up.
Victoria seems to be warming up to Tito. I was shocked at how long it took for this to happen. She gave him a wide berth for at least a week, never speaking to him and positioning herself as far away from him in a room as possible.
But Tito’s good with kids. Slowly and cautiously, he gained her trust, and in the past two days, she’s let her guard down. I never had to undergo her initiation process, and for that, I am glad. I might have given up.
Today we are at the beach like most days. Tito stands behind us with Mark and Matt at his flank, and the alarm has been set in the house. The first few days we spent at the beach were tense and awkward, but we have since let our guard down a little.
Zion sits on her beach lounger under her giant umbrella offering her encouragement and clapping when Victoria rides a wave all the way to the beach.
From what I have observed over the last few days, Zion seems to be doing well—well enough to go back to work full-time and let me skip out of the Sullivan’s lives, so they can go back to normal without me.
I don’t want to leave. My heart aches at the thought of it. Xander and I have been getting along great, more than great—perfect. I’ve never met a more handsome man inside and out. No matter how hard I tried to keep my distance and keep it casual between us, it was never going to happen. If it’s possible to love someone after knowing them five weeks, I think I love Xander.
He senses something’s up with me. In fact, there are times when I feel like he can read my mind even though that’s impossible. Me being here with them is like a ticking time bomb. Tick, tick, tick, and when Enrique wakes up from his depression nap or gets tired of watching from a distance, BAM! He will strike, and it won’t be pretty.
Thursdays are Xander’s late night at the clinic. He stays to catch up on paperwork in his office. I don’t like him being there alone, but he says they have the same security system there as he has in this house. He also says he can take care of himself, and when he does, I roll my eyes to the heavens and pray that he can.
Today is Thursday. Xander is at work, and it’s starting to get dark. I can’t believe we’ve been out here so long, the sun’s going down, but Victoria insists riding one more wave. I help her holding onto the tail of her board as the wave comes toward us, and then I guide her into it not letting go until I’ve set her on a line and bam, she’s off!
We cheer her on as she pops up and rides to shore like a little pro. “That was great!” I yell helping her to her feet when she falls into the shallow water.
“I wanna go again!” she yells smiling ear to ear.
“Little lady, we’ve been out here all day, and it’s getting dark,” I say.
“And your Zion is pooped,” Zion adds walking toward the water. “We need to get cleaned up and make supper before your papa comes home,” she adds.
I tussle her hair. “There’s always tomorrow, don’t forget,” I say.
She looks up at me with her eyes that look so much like her father’s. “Sometimes it rains.”
“Ah, yes, but the forecast for tomorrow is sunny with a high of eighty degrees, perfect beach weather.”
“Okay,” she says dragging out the word like it’s a task to say.
“Tito, can you turn off the alarm in the house?”
“Sure thing, Miss Sasha,” he says and presses some buttons on his phone, so we can get inside. He helps Zion with her umbrella, and we trudge up the beach with our boards and towels. That’s when the exhaustion of a full day in the sun and water hit me. I wish I could go straight up to bed and fall in—sandy bikini and all.
That’s not in the plans, though. Zion goes with Victoria upstairs to her bathroom so she can shower while I wash my hands and start pulling ingredients out for grilled salmon and bacon-braised string beans.
Tito is standing at the top of the stairs where he can see me in the kitchen below and watch down the hall to the bedrooms where Zion and Victoria are. We try hard not to be in two places that Tito can’t monitor at the same time.
I turn on a few lights as the sun continues to set and check my phone on the counter for any messages. There are two from Twyla, and one from my mom?
My mom never texts me—I didn’t think she even knew how to text. I go to that one first with a bad feeling in my stomach.
Mom: Dear Sasha, you had a visitor here today. He said his name is Julio, and he’s Enrique’s uncle. He was looking for Enrique. When I told him the two of you were divorced, he seemed very surprised. Didn’t he tell his family? Anyway, I thought you should know he said he’s going to California. He needs to speak to you about something important. He wouldn’t say what. I hope things are okay. Love Mom.
Normally, the fact that she wrote the entire text in letter form would make me smile but not today. Why in the hell is Enrique’s uncle looking for me? He’s the one who married us in Mexico. And more importantly, why is he coming here?
I don’t know if this is something I should tell Xander or not. It is obvious that Julio doesn’t know where I am if he’s snooping around in Minnesota. He will never know where to look here. I should be safe with a full-time bodyguard, two house guards, a million-dollar security system and essentially off the grid.
But I need to warn Twyla so she won’t tell him anything if he shows up at the apartment. Shit, what do I mean if? He will show up.
I dial Twyla and softly talk so Tito won’t hear me. “Hey T, what’s up?”
“What’s up? I’m missing the hell outta you, woman, that’s what’s up. When are you gonna invite me over to that fancy beach mansion anyway?”
I have been telling her for weeks that I’ll have her over for a movie and martini night to pacify her. I feel bad, but I don’t want to get her mixed up in this mess. That would just be one more person for Tito to babysit.
“Soon, I promise. I’m sorry,” I whisper. “It’s been hectic helping Zion and taking care of Victoria. This is a twenty-four-hour-a-day job. I don’t get to punch out, ya know?”
“Why you whisperin’? You in bed doing the boom-boom with the hot doctor?”
“Twyla!” I hiss. “Would I be calling you if I were?”
“Nah, guess not. Why the whispering then?”
“I’m just trying to keep it down so Xander can watch the news.”
“Oh girl, you sound so domesticated and shit.”
“Yeah, domesticated.” I fake chuckle, and she’s on to me.
“What’s the matter? You gotta say something, spit it out, I’m listening.”
“Oh, all right. So, I don’t know why, but my ex’s uncle who married us in Mexico is coming to California looking for me. He’s probably going to show up at the apartment. Can you just tell him you don’t know where I went?”
“Whyyy am I lying to this guy?”
“Can you trust me that I’ll tell you soon and that I can’t talk about it on the phone?” Twyla loves drama. I know this for a fact. That’s why I never told her the whole story about Enrique and me. She’d flip out and never stop talking about it.
“Please, it’s life or death. I need this favor. You can think of like ten things you want to do, and we’ll do them when I’m done with this job.”
“Done?” she shrieks, and I can just see her standing in our kitchen with one hand on her hip, phone tucked against her shoulder waving the other hand around like a diva. “You’re not gonna be d
one with that job. You wanna know why?”
I roll my eyes and look at the ceiling. “Why?”
“Because it’s a relationship, woman, not a job. How dense are you anyway?”
“We’re from different worlds. I’ve been telling you that from the beginning.”
“Yeah, but that’s before y’all became the freaky Brady Bunch over there with your African nanny and your sexy beast bodyguard guy. Why do you have a bodyguard anyway? Does that have something to do with why you don’t want to talk to Enrique’s uncle?”
“Twyla, do I have to have an excuse not to want to talk to him?”
“Nah, guess not.”
“So, will you do it? Will you tell him you haven’t seen me in a few weeks, and I left a note that said I was going to visit family or something?”
“Sure thing, but only if you promise to show me that house this weekend.”
“All right sure, this weekend, house of the rich and famous tour.”
“Now that’s what I’m talkin about!”
“Okay, so we’re straight? You cover for me, and I invite you over.”
“Yes, ma’am. Hey did you see my texts? You got a stack of mail over here, some of it looks like bills, and your mama called looking for you.”
“I didn’t see them, but my mom text me and just hang onto the bills. I’ll be home to go through them soon. Thanks for letting me know.”
“How ‘bout I bring ‘em with me when I come for my tour?”
“Sure, that’s fine. Okay, I gotta go. Xander’s going to be home soon, and I have to make dinner.” She makes a little huffing sound. “What?”
“I miss your cookin’, that’s what. I lost like ten pounds this month, and I’m sick of take-out and cereal.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll make you your favorite when I get home… spicy chicken tacos.”
“Did I hear you say something about spicy chicken tacos?” Xander says coming in from the garage. I swallow my heart when it springs into my throat and whisper a quick goodbye to Twyla who is protesting about hanging up.
“Oh, sorry, that was Twyla. She loves my chicken tacos, too. I was going to make salmon and veggies tonight, though. I hope you’re not too disappointed.”