“That must’ve been so hard for you. I can’t imagine losing a child. And Kevin was your favorite.”
“What, is Alice Plotkin suddenly a psychoanalyst now, too? Let’s just drop this, all right? Besides, parents aren’t supposed to have favorites.” He made a lot of noise unfolding the map. But even that didn’t erase the fact that she was right. Kev had been his favorite, it was pretty damn obvious.
Harry had pretended that their bond had been special because Kev was the oldest, but it had been more than that. They had had the same sense of humor, the same love of the absurd, the same likes and dislikes. They’d both tried to include Shaun in the things they’d done together, but even though he tagged along, he always was just a little too young, a little too outside their loop.
It was so damn hard to face Shaun, because the kid had to have known Kev was Harry’s favorite. He had to have known Kevin’s death affected Harry in ways his own death never would have. And the guilt of that was almost too much for Harry to take.
“What was he like?” Allie asked. “Kevin, I mean. Do you ever get a chance to talk about him anymore?”
Harry shook his head. No. He tried not even to mention Kevin’s name. It hurt too much. “You want to tell me about Jane?”
She glanced at him again. “I’d love to. She was barely a week old when I first met her. Her mother left the hospital a few hours after she was born and never came back. For the first two months, it was touch and go daily as to whether she’d survive. But then she started to get stronger, and I’d stop in the nursery and hold her, give her a bottle.
“Let’s see. She has brown hair and brown eyes, and the kind of smile that makes you feel so good. I mean, she would just look at me as if I were the most wonderful person in the world.” She paused. “I would have given anything to be able to take her home with me.”
She glanced at him again. See? She could talk about Jane.
“Yeah, well, at least Jane’s still alive,” Harry said defensively. He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. It sounded as if he were saying “My pain is more valid than yours.” And that wasn’t what he’d meant. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m—”
“I kind of picture Kevin as a smaller version of you,” Allie said, giving him a chance to redeem himself.
He took a deep breath. “No,” he said. “No, he didn’t really look like me. He had hair that was kind of the color yours is now. He wasn’t a particularly good-looking kid. It was like he got the worst of both me and Sonya. My nose. Her chin. What a mess. But he was always smiling, and when he smiled, his face suddenly made sense. Then he was beautiful. He was one of those people who always saw the glass as half full, you know? An optimist.”
God, now that he was talking, he couldn’t seem to shut up. “He was an amazing athlete, too. He had this incredible pitching arm. He was a fourteen-year-old kid, and I was already dreaming of the majors. I mean, I wasn’t like one of those psycho Little League dads, foaming at the mouth and calling in the recruiters, but when I let myself have my little fantasies, I could picture him playing for the Mets.” Harry laughed. “He’d always been small for his age, but he was starting to grow, doing that awkward, gangly thing with his arms and legs. He was at that point when he was turning from a kid into a teenager, you know? His face wasn’t a little boy’s face anymore. You could start to see glimpses of the man he was going to become, and …” His voice shook. “Jesus, just like that he was dead.”
Alessandra let the silence surround them, let him have a few long minutes to grieve and then regain his composure before she spoke. “He sounds as if he were the type of person who would be upset at the thought of you wasting the rest of your life, trying to get revenge.”
Harry stared at her as if she’d just announced her intention to join a satanic cult.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Alessandra chastised him. “I bet you’ve never stopped to consider that, have you? The fact that Kevin would hate knowing you’re obsessed with avenging his death to the point where you no longer have a life of your own?”
“Excuse me,” Harry said. “Did I ask for your opinion? I somehow missed the part where I asked for your opinion.”
“Are you going to give custody of Shaun and Emily to your stepsister?” she asked.
“Ah, Christ,” he said. “How the hell did you …?” He answered his own question. “George told you. I’m going to fucking kill him.”
“They’re the ones who need you, Harry. I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but Kevin doesn’t need you anymore.”
He turned away, staring out the window the way she had done just hours before. After several long minutes of grim silence, Alessandra switched on the radio. She’d obviously said more than enough.
* * *
George turned on the light and reached for his cigarettes and the book on his bedside table. He tried not to disturb Kim, but she stirred.
“Can I get you something, baby?” she asked sleepily. “Are you hurting again?”
There was no “again.” He was hurting, period. It made sense that his leg would hurt. After all, someone had put a hole in it. He simply hadn’t anticipated it hurting so much, for such a long time, even now, after he was home from the hospital.
Still, there was nothing Kim could do.
“It’s not time for another pill.” He lit a cigarette and took a long drag, turning his head to blow the smoke away from her. “Why don’t you go back to sleep? I’m going to read for awhile—as long as the light doesn’t bother you?”
Kim raised herself up on one elbow, and the sheet fell away from her perfect, full breasts. “If you want, I could score you something stronger than that lousy prescription the doctor gave you.”
“Excuse me, have you forgotten you’re talking to a federal agent? I didn’t just hear that.” He reached for his ashtray.
“They should’ve at least given you Percodan.”
“I don’t need drugs. And especially not any illegal ones, thanks.”
The window in his bedroom was open, and the night air was cool. As George watched, her body responded to the cold, her nipples tightening to rigid peaks.
She slowly pulled the sheet down even farther, giving him an unobstructed view. “Or we could try the … What did they call it on that infomercial? ‘The holistic approach to controlling pain’?”
She reached for him, but he caught her wrist with one hand and lifted her face back to eye level. “You know, it would be okay if we just talk.”
She looked completely confused. “Talk?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” George told her. “I like it a lot, but everything we do doesn’t have to be a lead-in to sex. In fact, it’s killed a little bit of the anticipation, if you know what I mean.”
She didn’t know what he meant. “You don’t like it when I go down on you?”
Now that was something no man would probably say he didn’t like. “No, Kim, I just said I like it a lot. A whole lot.”
“I do, too.”
George laughed. “Well, that’s good. I hope so. I mean, I figured you did, because why else would you do it, right?”
Kim looked away.
Well, wasn’t that interesting?
“Have you noticed that except for once or twice early in our relationship, we’ve rarely had actual sex—you know, sexual intercourse? We always have oral sex, and I’m never on the giving end. I touch you, you pull away, and then you distract the hell out of me.” He watched her closely. “Don’t you think that’s a little unfair?”
She still wasn’t meeting his eyes. “Since you’ve been injured, it seems less likely I’ll hurt you if …” She stopped herself and shrugged. “Honestly? I like it better.”
“You like the fact that you’ve given me about four hundred orgasms, and I’ve given you only two?”
“You want to go down on me?” The way she said it, it sounded about as appealing an idea to her as torture.
“Right now, I wa
nt to talk.”
Her face brightened. “If you want, you could talk, and I could—”
“I have to admit, it’s completely outside my realm of experience, turning down an offer like that,” he said, not wanting to hear exactly what it was she could do while he talked. She was unusually creative when it came to oral sex, and he was already more than half aroused. Still, he knew next to nothing about this woman who had all but moved into his apartment.
“But it’s nearly midnight,” he continued. He put out his cigarette butt in the ashtray and set it back on the bedside table. “My leg aches like a bitch, and I just want to lie here with my arms around you and talk for a while. May we do that, please?”
Kim’s brown eyes were enormous in her face. Silently, she slipped into the crook of his arm, resting her head on his shoulder, letting her hand lie somewhat stiffly on his chest. She was much too tense.
“I don’t know much about you,” George said, letting his cheek rest against the silky smoothness of her dark hair, running his fingers up and down her back in an attempt to relax her. What was she afraid of? “I don’t even know where you grew up.”
“In the city,” she said. “I’ve always lived here in New York.”
“And you’ve never wanted to live anywhere else?” he asked. “I’d have thought a dancer with your talent would’ve headed down to Atlantic City by now. Or even out to Las Vegas. I’m not criticizing, but the Fantasy Club is pretty low-rent.”
She lifted her head. “God, I’d love to go to Vegas.”
“So what’s keeping you here?”
The tension that had been starting to flow out of her was instantly back. “Nothing. Everything. I don’t know.” She tucked her head against him again, tightly closing her eyes.
George felt a flash of alarm. “Kim …” He cleared his throat. “Uh, you’re not sticking around New York because of me, are you? Because, I have to be honest with you, nothing’s changed since that first night we got together. I’m still not … There’s no chance of … Nothing’s changed. We’ve got no real future.”
“I know that.” She lifted her head again, steadily meeting his gaze. “You’re still hung up on your ex.”
George had to laugh. “Of all the crazy … I never said that.”
She gently pushed his hair back from his face. “You didn’t have to.”
He gazed back at her for several long moments, wondering what else she knew about him. “Okay,” he finally said. “So you know my deep, dark secret. It’s only fair you tell me yours. Why don’t you ever want to do anything in bed besides, well, what you do?”
She chewed on her lip as she gazed at him, as if deciding exactly what to say. She opted for what had to be the truth. “I don’t like, you know, doing … the other.” She shrugged. “I just … don’t like it.”
“Why not? I mean, I’m … Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t like sex.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with you,” she told him earnestly.
“Well, gee, that’s good, I guess.” George looked at her. She was lying next to him, nearly naked. She had one of the most incredible bodies he’d ever seen in his life. It was a body built for sex—all positions, all styles, all the time.
“It makes me feel like I can’t breathe,” she tried to explain. “Kind of panicky and scared. I don’t like feeling like that, so I try not to do it. I don’t … you know, climax. I just … fake it if I have to. But if you really want to—”
“No. God. If it makes you feel bad, that kind of takes the fun out of it for me.”
“Some guys wouldn’t care.”
“Well, jeez, I’m not just some guy.”
She smiled almost shyly. “Yeah, I guess not.”
“So … about the other … You know, the, um, oral sex. Do you really like doing that, or is it just the least worst option?”
Kim didn’t hesitate. “Oh, no, I like it.”
“You sure you’re being honest with me?”
“I like it,” she said again. “I guess I like knowing that even though you’re bigger than me, I’m the one with the … I don’t know, power, I guess.”
“So it’s a control thing,” George said. “You want to be the one in charge. That’s … interesting.”
“You think I’m interesting?”
“Yes, I do. And I also think something pretty awful must’ve happened to you, probably when you were a kid, huh?”
She didn’t say anything, but he could see from the look in her eyes that he was dead on target.
“If you ever want to talk about it,” he said quietly, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere for a while.”
She nodded.
“I have one more question for you,” he said, pushing her hair back from her face so he could look into her eyes. “If you know I’m still hung up on my ex, why exactly are you here?”
She rested her head on his chest, listening to his heart beating. “I like that you need me,” she told him. “And I really like that you don’t need me too much.”
“I should do it.” Harry’s voice broke through Alessandra’s reverie. She turned away from the drops of rain that were beading on the window, glittering from the lights of the other cars on the road, and looked at him.
He’d slept some. Yesterday, while she was driving. He still looked awful, though. The bags under his eyes were dark and pronounced, his eyes themselves were bloodshot. And he was having a particularly bad hair day. His mouth was a grim line, surrounded by that more-than-stubble, not-quite-beard.
But, as if he felt her looking at him in the quiet darkness, he turned and gave her a very small, heartbreakingly rueful smile. “I mean, who am I kidding, you know? My kids need stability, and, well, if you read my personnel file, stability wouldn’t be a word that comes up much.”
He was talking about granting custody of his children to his stepsister. No, what was it he’d said? Marge wasn’t even related to him by marriage. But sister or not, how could he even consider giving away his children?
“You probably shouldn’t make any major decisions while you’re so tired,” Alessandra said diplomatically. “Why don’t we just get there, get the bloody hell out of this car? That alone will make you feel better. You can hug your kids, and then you can sleep on it, see if you still feel the same way in the morning.”
“Hell,” Harry said. “You said hell. You said bloody hell.” He laughed. “This is clearly another example of my bad influence.”
“If it were an example of your bad influence,” Alessandra informed him, “I would have suggested we arrive and get the fuck out of the car. Or perhaps, get out of the fucking car, which has a different meaning altogether, doesn’t it?”
Harry shouted with laughter, just as she knew he would. “You know, when you say it, it sounds almost polite.”
“You’re going to have to watch your mouth around your kids.”
“I will,” he said. “I do. I know.”
He was quiet again, his laughter fading far too quickly. The windshield wipers were moving with a rhythm that suddenly seemed too loud in the stillness.
“I’m scared to death,” he said. They were approaching an exit, and he pulled across the highway, signaling to get off. “Allie, I’m sorry, but we have to stop. I can’t show up at Marge’s, looking like this, in the middle of the night. It’ll be nearly one-thirty before we get to Hardy, and that’s no good.”
Hardy. The name of her new hometown was Hardy, Colorado.
The clock on the dash read a few minutes after twelve. They were close. Really close. God, she hoped Hardy was more sophisticated than some of the little clusters of mobile homes passing for towns that they’d driven past.
“I think it’s a good idea to stop for the night,” she agreed. “You’ll feel better if you shave and change your clothes. If you want, I’ll even cut your hair. I’m not really that good at it, but frankly, it can’t get much worse.”
Harry shot her a crooked smile. “When you put
it like that, how could I turn you down?”
Thirteen
“HEY,” HARRY SAID. “You’re supposed to cut my hair, not criticize my wardrobe.”
Alessandra turned and gave him a look that was both disdainful and pitying. “What wardrobe? An extra pair of dirty jeans wadded into an unrecognizable mass, three wrinkled T-shirts, two pairs of socks—one with holes in the toes, one with holes in the heels—and two pairs of silk boxers do not form even the most basic foundation for a wardrobe.”
Harry rubbed his head with his towel then carefully began rewrapping his ribs with the Ace bandage. “I’ll bet you didn’t know I was the silk boxer type.”
She studiously ignored him, glaring down at his three clean T-shirts, all faded, all wrinkled, as if doing so would change them into something more presentable. “I think we should buy you something new to wear tomorrow morning. Something like khakis would be relaxed, but not as relaxed as jeans. And a polo shirt, casual, but with a collar. That would be a good look for you. Something in red would—”
“It’s a good idea,” he interrupted. “In theory.”
She stopped ignoring him. “Why is it only good in theory?”
“I’m nearly all out of cash. We need gas and breakfast, and unless you’re too tired, I’d love to have a beer or two tonight.” Even with the door tightly closed, Harry could hear the music from the bar attached to the motel office. Somebody was playing Travis Tritt through a sound system that was set all the way up to ten. “Once we’re in Hardy, I can get money from the bank—I have an account in Marge’s name I can access. But until then we can’t afford much of anything.”
Alessandra wouldn’t give up. “So we’ll go to the bank first, buy the clothes after we get to town, and—”
“Marge has my bank card.”
She was only temporarily stopped. “Okay, so we go to a laundromat. We can afford to spend a few bucks to wash your jeans, can’t we? You can wear clean jeans and one of my new T-shirts. They’re all men’s extra large. You won’t look perfect, but you’ll look all right. Particularly after we cut your hair.”
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