She huffs out the door, her date following with his tail between his legs, obviously in over his head. I’m pretty sure he’ll get angry sex tonight. If she’s anything like she was, he’s in for a ride.
We close up the place, with me apologizing to the remaining customers as they come up to pay. But they tell me it’s fine, each feeling free to share their own story of similar things that happened to them or someone they know.
Barb’s the last to go. “It sucks, but not everyone can be trusted.”
I nod and smile, “Goodnight Barb. See you tomorrow,” knowing I’ve joined that group of distrustful people. And I have no idea how to make that right.
Now that all the customers have gone, I turn to Taryn and break down crying in her arms. “I fucked up. I should have told him.”
“He’ll forgive you, Annie.” She squeezes me tight.
“I don’t think he will. You didn’t see his face.”
She rocks me a little, from side to side, saying in a comforting voice, “I did see his face, as you guys were leaving. I saw hurt… and people only hurt if they care. And I saw his face the other night, when he kept staring at you. I saw his face then! When someone cares, there’s hope. Okay?”
She squeezes me tightly and I whisper, “God, I hope so.”
That night when I go home, my place is quiet. There are pieces of him everywhere. The hand towel he threw at me yesterday, when we were joking around, is still on the floor where it fell. The two glasses are by my sink. Jaco is still on the couch because when I tried to put him back on the shelf, Brendan did a voice for him: I’m more comfy on the couch. The shelf is too hard.
I walk into my bedroom and fall onto the bed with my clothes still on. All night I stare at the pillow he slept on, now empty. There’s a reason he walked into my bar. He came back into my life. I didn’t have to search for him. The feelings we’ve had for each other since we’ve gotten to know each other are real. I have to believe that there is a way I can make this right. I have to earn his trust, and my own. I want to be someone who is trustworthy. I want that more than I want my pride…
THE END OF PART 5
CAPTURING
AND
RELEASING
HEARTS
1
Brendan
Questions: answered.
Pieces: falling into place.
Heart: cut to shreds.
The same night.
________
The high grass brushes against my legs with every step I take. There is no calmness in the Italian field this time, or in me. The silence isn’t soothing anymore. More than once I have to hold my head to stop it from killing me. And when I walk, it feels like I’m on the edge of a cliff, about to fall, but there’s firm ground underneath my feet. It makes no sense.
I think I hear something.
I turn as though in water. A breeze whispers against my lips and my heart races. I reach up to find the soft fingers that I know now are hers, have been this whole time, but when I touch, there is nothing there. It was just the wind? The fingers have always been there. She has to be here. “Annie!!!” I turn in circles. More grass. More trees. More silence. “Annie! Don’t leave!”
“Brendan.”
Surprised, I turn around, because it wasn’t her voice. There standing behind me is Christiano, a vague version of him manifested from my memory. He’s looking at me like I’m a fool. “You have lost her,” he says, with a tone of sadness, his eyes downcast. He turns and walks away.
“Wait!” I try to grab him, but he vanishes in my hands. I look at my empty palm and see it begin to disappear, too.
Launching awake, sweat-covered and panting in my bed, I squint against the bright morning light, confused and shaken. I must have fallen asleep sometime after dawn.
What time is it?
Reaching for my phone… it’s after 9:00 a.m. I’m late for work. Great.
2
Annie
Noon.
________
A tentative knock pulls my dead-eyed stare from the television. I look at the door like it’s not real. No part of me wants to answer it. I have no energy left after all the tears I cried this morning.
I made such a grave error in judgment, how will I ever forgive myself? How could he, when I can’t even forgive me?
After I woke up this morning, I sobbed in jagged bursts until my brain shut off. It’s like it was protecting me from the pain. I’d be walking into my kitchen, open the refrigerator, and boom. Sobbing again. I’d crumble to the ground and then after awhile, snip. The tears cut off, and I was staring blankly at a dried up crumb on the floor just under the stove. Cry then snip. Cry then snip. Again and again. That’s where I’m at now. Blankly staring at the door, not even knowing my own name, much less what to do with a knocking door.
Another knock.
From the couch I blink at it, trying to understand who it could be. Was I supposed to meet Mr. Donovan today? His guys are working on the patio I think. Wait… it doesn’t make sense he’d be here. Why would he come to my home? I’m not thinking right. But that’s understandable.
Another knock, more loudly this time. More determined. Definitely male.
Could it be Brendan?
I shoot upright, grab the remote and check the time on cable. It’s Brendan’s lunch hour! I fly off the couch, running for the door.
Without looking through the peephole, I swing it open, and say on a gasp, “Christiano!”
“Bella.” His face softens, happy I’m home, the worry vanishing.
“I can’t believe you’re here!” I’m so astounded to see him, and so hurting, that I fly into the arms of the man who has always comforted me. He squeezes me tightly and holds me awhile. We look into each other’s faces, soaking in the details. It’s been so long since I’ve seen his face. “You flew all this way! I can’t believe it!”
“How could I not? Look at you. Are you sick? You are still in your pajamas.”
I shake my head. “No. Not really, I guess. God, look at you! I can’t believe you’re here. It’s like you knew I needed…” I stop and push back a long, thick lock of hair off his tanned forehead. “You’ve grown your hair!”
“A little, sí,” he smiles.
He looks like he just walked off a Gucci billboard. “How do you manage to look this handsome after a flight like that?! And how did you get here? Did you take a cab? Why didn’t you call me?”
He laughs and takes my face in his hands. “My little Bella. So many questions. And look at you! How do you look so beautiful in sweat pants and tears?”
“It’s a skill.”
He laughs again, big and free, and pulls me in for another hug, rocking me from side to side, crushing me into his chest. Brendan’s words fly into my heart. He’d said he wished he could hug me like this.
Struggling to remove the memory, I pull away. “Let’s get your suitcase inside. And your coat! You threw it on the floor, and it’s so gorgeous. My floor’s a mess.”
He reaches for the coat, bending at the waist with one swift motion of masculine grace. “It is just a coat.” As he reaches for his brown leather bag and sets it beside my coatrack, he glances around my apartment for the first time. “This is your home.”
“Yep. This is it.” I close the door and watch him hang his coat as he glances to the T.V. and back to me. Guiltily, I see it’s Judge Judy on the screen. I didn’t even know I was watching her, but Christiano doesn’t have a T.V. so what must he be thinking about this nonsense? I run over and turn it off. “I wasn’t really watching it.”
He smiles, walking around, soaking everything in–the furniture, the bay window, the small dining table with an empty vase, the books I brought back with me from Italy that he must recognize. He walks to the poster of Tuscany, gazing at it. “It’s very nice, Annie. Your home.”
“Thank you. Tell me you didn’t get a hotel.”
“I did not get a hotel.”
“Good. You should stay here.” I smile
, wringing my hands at the idea of sharing a bed with him.
“I have to ask…” He turns and looks at me from the side.
“Yes?” I’m not sure I can handle this now. I’m pretty sure I can’t.
“Why is a skull on your sofa?”
I exhale deeply and walk to pick it up. “This is Jaco. He’s Mayan. Found him at a garage sale.”
“Ah. I am not surprised you would buy him.” He smiles. “I know you. But why on the sofa?”
“It’s more comfortable than shelves,” I shrug, thinking of Brendan’s joke, a sharp pain twisting inside me as I walk to the shelves and set Jaco next to a picture of my mother, which would normally make me smile, because she’d hate it. “But I’ll put him back now that I have company.” I turn to find Christiano looking at me with love.
There is still a part of my heart with his name on it. I can’t deny it. He was everything to me, he can’t be nothing to me now. It’s not possible; the heart doesn’t work like that. But if he thinks he’s going to make love to me right now, I can’t. I look to the floor, to my bare feet where I wiggle my toes in awkward silence.
Understanding perfectly, he says, “How about you get dressed and I take you out for lunch?”
I glance up, looking at him from underneath my eyelashes. “That’d be nice.” I walk to lay my hand on his chest, look at one of the buttons on his shirt and finger it lightly for a second, so torn. I’m dying for another hug to ease the pain.
His arms slip around me, his thumb stroking my back in a gentle rhythm. I feel him grow against my hip. “Bella,” he says in a hoarse whisper.
“Don’t. Please,” I beg. I try to pull away. “It’s so confusing seeing you after all these months! It’s just I’ve missed you. I’m sorry, I’m being selfish. It’s just I’m used to touching you, but I can’t right now. I just can’t.”
He tries to make me look at him, but I can’t meet his eyes. The floor is so much safer. “Because of him?! It is because of him?”
“Not now…please…I need some time…to adjust to the surprise of seeing you, and of…” I stop myself from saying losing him. “Let me get dressed and we’ll talk about everything.”
With a short, determined nod, he releases me and watches me walk to the bedroom. I throw a self-conscious glance over my shoulder. I’ve never closed the door on him to get dressed before, but things are different now. He frowns until I can’t see him anymore.
Click.
3
Tommy
Location Times Three: conference room.
Coffee Cups: empty
Paper Take-Out Boxes: strewn haphazardly.
Chopsticks: used as drumsticks
A dozen half-empty plastic ramekins of sauce.
________
Leaning back in the swivel chair, I watch Stephanie explain to us why our latest client is floundering and what we can do to help. It’s a dating app. They’ve just hired us, so we’re at square one. Steph’s got a chart of their sales and where they are in relation to the other more popular sites. “You can see there’s a huge dip where our guy is. We need to make their numbers rise to here.” She points to two above the middle guy on the chain of greatness to poor.
I’m irritated and spinning my ring on my finger. “Why not aim higher?” I glance to Brendan because he hasn’t said a word since we all sat down here an hour ago; he would have the exact same objection I just had, but he’s not listening. He’s not even looking at her. His jaw is pushed out, eyes distant. The box of fried rice is sitting in front of him, untouched.
Stephanie glances to me, her little mouth pursed up. The ego on this blonde would shame James Cameron. She’s wearing the entire, extremist feminist revolution on her shoulder and it’s a sight to see. If she’d stop being so fucking defensive, she’d know her idea is crap.
She sighs, long and exaggeratedly, saying to me as though I’m a child, “We’re telling them what’s feasible so when we beat their expectations, they’re impressed. They’re an underdog, and this account won’t be easy. We’ll be lucky if we get it to where I’m aiming for.”
Johnny, Laura, Mike and Gary all look from Steph to me with varying expressions, half of them indigestion, half curiosity about whether we’re going to start yelling soon, like last time. For some reason everyone’s wearing a shade of blue today except for Mike who’s got on a pink button-up. It looks good, but ribbing him was a must. He’s Mike, after all. He was born to be made fun of.
Flipping a chopstick lazily around in my fingers, I side-eyeball Steph. “Well, that’s the way you work, Steph. But I would have told them we’d aim past the highest guy and when we met that statement, they’d be even more impressed that we actually did what we said we would, and then some. You’re underestimating us. Again. If you’re going to aim low, I’ve got a target for you.”
Stephanie rolls her eyes. “What about you?” She waits with all of us. “Brendan?”
He glances to her and mutters, “Tommy’s right. You’re wrong. Excuse me.” He gets up and exits through the glass door.
Stephanie calls after him, surprised, “Where are you going?”
I drop the chopstick. Gary’s eyebrows have flown up to his hairline. Laura’s bitten down on the pen she cuts her eyes to me. I stand, holding my hand up to tell them all that I’ve got it covered. Wait here.
Catching up to him as he strides determinedly past cubicles, I match the hasty fall of his steps. “How you doin’ B-man? Everything okay?”
His hands are in his pockets, his face grim, mouth set. If he wanted me to leave him alone, he’d tell me. So I get on the elevator with him and watch him hit the button for the lobby. Mirroring him, I slide my hands into my pockets and stare ahead, wondering what he’s up to. The doors slide open with a speed achieved only by modern architecture, and we both head for the street. I jog a couple steps to get the door because it’s like he’s a locomotive that will barrel right through it if I don’t. He walks out without a word and I follow, curiosity killing me. My body is tensed under the possibility he suspects me, adrenaline pumping hard as we walk several blocks until we’re clipping across the pavement of busy Geary Street. Still he hasn’t said a word. Just as I can’t take it anymore and I’m about to ask where we’re headed, he turns into a bar. I look up at the sign and my heart thunderclaps: Whiskey Thieves. He opens the door and holds it for me to join him. This is the first sign he’s given that he knows I’m even here. Well, that can’t be a coincidence.
Fuck.
So this is it.
The reckoning.
I pass him into the dark dive bar as a calm overtakes me. Ever since the shooting, I’ve been haunted by a pervading agitation, fear of being caught slicing into every minute detail, action, step, and breath. And now, it’ll be over. I can finally rest.
Like I’m walking inside a thick drum, I head for a barstool and take a seat with Brendan following closely behind. Bottles of whiskey line the wall underneath signs that read Bourbon & Rye, and Scotch-Irish. It’s only 1:00 p.m. so the place is nearly empty save for people who should be at an AA meeting. The light from the small windows illuminates shafts of dust across the room. Through them, a bartender walks to us, his face jaded and tired from having seen years of men wasting their lives away on a seat like this one.
“What can I get you fellas?” He lays one gnarled, tatted hand on the counter, the other fiddling with an invisible something on his shirt, overgrown eyebrows curled together in skin that looks like he spent his boyhood summers on a oil rig.
Brendan is sitting to my right, hunched over with both forearms on the bar just like me. “Scotch. I don’t care which one.”
If this is going to be my last drink, I’ll be damned if it’s gonna be the well, so I correct him, “Two Lagavulin. One rock each.” The bartender steps away without facial comment and I pull out my wallet. Brendan raises a hand to object but I mutter, “I got it.” His hand drops back down. Fox News is on the T.V. above us and I glance up, pretending to look at i
t.
The bartender ambles back and smacks the full glasses on the counter without a napkin underneath them. Interesting choice. I hand him my Amex card and tell him with a jerk of my chin to keep it open. His nod is an eyelid-flicker, the way a lot of guys do when they’ve got too much testosterone to actually bow their heads. He taps the side of my card on the counter on his exit, and when he does that, Brendan stares at the guy’s hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch his reaction. Something really bothered him about that. Even after the bartender has walked away to join some regulars at the end of the bar near the wall, Brendan is still staring at where he tapped the card.
I pick up my glass. He picks up his. We clink them together and take a sip. The sting feels good against my tongue, heating my throat on the way down. The one cube of ice opens up the flavor, makes it even more layered and complex. This might be my last glass for a long time. I want to savor it. I take another slow sip, move my tongue around in my mouth as I swirl the glass around, watching the ice melt, the amber lightening. “This is the shit right here,” I mutter.
He’s staring at his glass, too, like he’s looking for answers in it.
I glance to him, and dive in. “Okay, let’s have it.”
“She lied to me.”
Like a car hitting the brakes, my blood shifts. He doesn’t know it was me. I’m not going to jail. This is about the chick he’s been banging, the one who took my gun. But he doesn’t know I know about her. Since I’m a professional liar, I don’t miss a beat. “Who? Rebecca?”
Brendan shakes his head and takes a big gulp of the single malt. His lips curl back and he sets the glass on the bar as he swallows the burn. “No. The owner of the bar, the one where I got shot.” He glances to me. “You know the place I invited you to, for the reopening?”
I look up at the T.V. “Oh yeah. I couldn’t make it. How’d it go? Wait – is that why you were helping them? You were banging the owner?”
He winces, but if I said anything other than banging, I wouldn’t have sounded like myself. This is dangerous territory. Every word has to be weighed.
Hearts Series Bundle: Books 1-6 Page 40