Not that I could see his rear, but I knew.
Oh, I knew.
His ribs were still bruised, but his stitches were holding tight. He was healing. Almost back to as good as new. But for how long? When would the next beating come? The more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to hide him from the world. Lock him away in a mansion, refuse to let him out. Every time he walked out my door, someone tried to kill him.
And that was terrifying.
I wasn’t sure how to handle that.
The sun broke out of the clouds, shining down on his dark brown hair. He didn’t seem to notice as he sketched, occasionally rubbing his finger over a line he’d drawn to blur it out. Today was a little warmer than it had been the rest of our time here, and Chris told me he was going to enjoy every second of the warmth while he could.
When he talked like that . . .
It was as if he wasn’t expecting to be alive much longer.
And that terrified me. A guy like Chris . . . yeah, he played hard and probably fell even harder. He ran risks in his line of work—if you could call what he did work—and sometimes those risks caught up with you. But whatever he’d done before I found him in that alley, whatever the reason he felt the need to hide out and wallow in guilt, there just had to be a way to fix it. For him to make good.
We just had to figure it out.
I was good at solving problems. I was a kindergarten teacher.
It might not sound like a tough job, but it was. I had to deal with two crying kids who felt wrongs at any given time, or who had hurt hearts, or scraped knees, or bruised souls on a daily basis. I took tiny pieces of information given by five-year-olds, saw the whole picture, and put the puzzle back together until everyone was happy. If he would open up to me, tell me what was wrong, maybe I could help him solve his puzzle.
Maybe I could fix this.
After we got here the other night, he’d showered and collapsed in bed beside me, holding me tight all night long. When I woke up, he was still there, and I’d breathed a sigh of relief. We’d repeated the same course of events the next night, and this morning. He hadn’t touched me, aside from that kiss he’d given me in the car, and holding me in his arms as I slept.
I knew, at some point, he’d walk away without a word again.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I walked over to him slowly, not wanting to pull him out of his moment of Zen. That’s clearly what drawing was to him. An escape of sorts. He might not even realize it, or how badly he wanted out of his way of life, but I saw it with every single stroke he made.
Stopping directly behind him, I watched him in awe as he worked. Buttons lay at his feet, napping. Wherever Chris was, Buttons usually followed. Probably because he’d been the one to find him and give him to me. A small smile played at my lips at the thought of Chris in a shelter or pet store, finding the perfect kitten for me.
I peeked at his drawing. He’d re-created the sun rising on the water perfectly, down to the way the rays reflected off the rooftops across the water and the water itself. Even though there was no color on the page, you could see the depths of the sea through his shading. It was, in short, perfection.
And he didn’t even think he was good.
He stiffened and glanced over his shoulder, reaching for his gun. When he saw it was only me behind him, he relaxed. Before he could greet me, I said, “Did you ever wish you could be anything else besides what you are? An artist, maybe?”
“Sometimes, when I was a kid. I used to want to be a doctor.” His fingers tightened on his pencil. “You?”
“A Broadway actress.”
He chuckled and resumed drawing. “I bet you’d be an excellent actress.”
“You’ve never seen me try.”
“True.” He glanced over his shoulder at me, a small smile on his face. “How long were you standing there behind me?”
“I don’t know. Like, five minutes, I guess.”
He winced and set the pencil down. “Sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“It’s fine.” I tucked my hair behind my ear and rewrapped my arms around myself.
He laughed and set the pad on the table. “If I were you, I’d sit on the porch and watch the sunrise while rocking slowly on a rocking chair instead. It’s much more entertaining than me drawing.”
“I totally would have, if I had rocking chairs.”
“We should fix that,” he said lightly. “Then you wouldn’t be forced to watch some boring guy put some crappy lines on paper and call it art.”
I shook my head. “I enjoy watching you draw.” I reached out and stroked my hand through his hair, like I’d wanted to do for so long. It was soft, unlike the man himself. “And it’s not crappy at all. It’s beautiful . . . like you.”
He caught my hand and yanked me into his lap, growling under his breath. I ended up sideways in his lap, and his erection pressed against my butt insistently. And yet, he hadn’t touched me since that one night together . . .
“I’m not the beautiful one in here, Molly. You are. It’s in the way your hair shines, no matter what time of day it is. And in the kindness and warmth in your eyes that’s always there, even in the worst situations. And don’t get me started on the way you smile at me, even though I don’t deserve such magnificence to be cast my way. It’s all you. All perfect. All beautiful.”
I locked my wrists behind his neck, my breath hitching in my throat. “I’m just a kindergarten teacher, nothing special.”
He buried his face in my neck. “I disagree. Deal with it.”
“Fine. You’ll have to deal with the fact that I find you beautiful, too.” I hesitated, my mind locked on the giant elephant in the room we hadn’t really mentioned yet. “I found your drawing of me after you left. And got your flowers . . . and the note inside the flowers. With the poem.”
He dropped his forehead on mine and let out a sigh. “I was kinda hoping you hadn’t. I shouldn’t have sent those. Shouldn’t have told you who I was.”
I pulled back, wanting to see his face. “Why did you, then?”
“Because I know how this ends. I won’t be around much longer, Princess.” I opened my mouth to argue, and he placed a gentle finger on it. “Shh. Let me finish. I made certain choices, choices I now regret, and I need to make it right. The way to make it right is dangerous and scary—but it’s what I’ve gotta do. But before I die, before I make things right, I want you to know that someone, a guy who hasn’t known a sliver of kindness or love in his life, cared about you, and it was because you’re just the kind of person that inspires that kind of warmth, even in an unfeeling monster like myself. I didn’t want to want you like that, or to need to see you smile so badly I’d do anything to get you there. But you got to me, anyway.”
“Why not tell me before?” I asked, staring into those brown eyes of his, which I could get lost in forever and ever. So much lurked there. Pain. Loss. Fear. Hope.
It was all there for me to see, even if he didn’t realize it.
“Because I didn’t, don’t, and will never deserve you. Even now?” He ran his fingers down my cheek almost reverently. “Touching you? It’s wrong. It’s a fucking sin. You’re too good for me. Too pure. And I think that’s what draws me in—that pureness. That goodness. It’s something I’ve never had. Never called mine. And, Christ, Molly. I want to call you mine, in every way.”
I opened my mouth to reply, even though I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, but he cut me off, melding his lips to mine so gently and completely that it stole a part of my soul. I clung to him, letting my eyes close and my mind shut off, and lost myself in his touch. In his arms. In his kiss. In him.
He cradled the back of my head and deepened the kiss, pulling me closer to his chest. Again, I couldn’t shake that feeling that no matter how much bad he’d done in his life, no matter how many people he’d killed, in his arm
s . . . I was safe.
In a way I’d never been safe before.
He broke the kiss off, breathing heavily, and laughed. “Shit, I didn’t mean to do that. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I like it when you kiss me.”
Shaking his head, he ran his thumb down the line of my jaw. “Even when you kiss me, it’s like some part of you is trying to clean me. To make me better. But you can’t. I’m not gonna be better. What you see is what you get.”
“Well, I just so happen to like what I see,” I said breathlessly.
“Bullshit. I’m a killer.” His grip on my hair tightened. “No one likes that.”
I lifted my chin. “I do. I like you.”
“Oh, Princess.” A hard laugh escaped him. “That’s only because you literally have no idea what I’ve done. What I’m capable of.”
“So tell me.” I gripped his shirt, my heart thudding loudly in my ears. “What did you do that night I found you in the alley? Tell me, and I can help you fix it.”
He squared his jaw. “That’s my own personal shame to bear. Not yours. And I hate to break it to you, but it’s not something that can be fixed, either.”
“But—”
“No.” He cupped my face, his rough palms scraping against my skin. “You have no place in my world, and no reason to try and help me. Just let me deal with it.”
I pressed my lips together. “You don’t understand. At school, when a kid comes to me with a problem, I—”
“This isn’t some bullshit kindergarten problem, Molly. Jesus, you don’t get it. I didn’t steal some crayons or pull someone’s hair.” He flexed his jaw and picked me up off his lap, set me down, and stood. “I tried to fucking kill my best friend—and failed. Lucas trusted me, called me his brother, and I tried to take him down. How’s that for ya? Ready to solve my problems with a Hello Kitty Band-Aid and a fucking smile?”
Oh my God, how could he have done something so awful? Something so . . . so . . . cold? That wasn’t the Chris I knew. My Chris wouldn’t take down his best friend. I didn’t know what to think, or feel, or say.
I stared at him. Just stared.
“Shit, shit, shit.” He covered his face and growled. “I didn’t want to tell you that, dammit. You didn’t . . . you shouldn’t have learned—fuck.”
“Yes. I should have.” I finally looked away from him. Stopped gaping like a fool. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this yet, but I knew one thing. The truth was never a bad thing. Well . . . usually never a bad thing. “I—I—I’m happy you told me.”
“Is that so?” He lowered his hands, his eyes narrowed. “And now what?”
I opened my mouth, and closed it, no sound coming out. That was all I was capable of at the moment, because what he said and how he said it—it couldn’t be true. He just felt guilty over something, some mistake he made, that almost killed Lucas. It had to be something easily explainable like that. “Sometimes, we make mistakes, and people get hurt. But that doesn’t make it your—”
“Jesus Christ.” He dragged his hand through his hair and stalked toward me, anger vibrating off him. “You’re still trying to make excuses for me. Aren’t you?”
I refused to back away, even though he looked seconds away from walking out the door again. “So what if I am?”
“Then you’re even more of a fool than I originally thought.” He flexed his jaw. “I tried to kill my best friend. There’s no excusing that, Molly. None.”
Shaking my head, I said, “Just because someone almost dies on your watch doesn’t make it your fault. That’s all I’m saying.”
He laughed. Actually laughed. “It wasn’t a mistake I made that I’m nobly punishing myself for, Princess. I actually, physically, tried to kill him. With a gun. Several times. I had a whole plan. A plan that almost succeeded.”
I took a step back, shaking my head, unable to believe it. That Chris, the guy who drew pictures so breathtaking that I couldn’t look away, the same man who wrote me poems and courted me for years, could possibly be the same guy looking at me now, admitting he tried to kill his best friend with a hard glint in his eye.
“Why?” I backed up another step. “What did he do to you?”
“Nothing. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.”
Another step had my back against the wall, and there was nowhere else to go. Fear crept into me, claiming the dark corners of my mind that had whispered all along that I never should have let him in. “So why did you do it?”
“Because he was promoted before me. He wasn’t blood. He wasn’t better than me. He’d been in lockup and came out, and just like that—he was promoted.” He stalked closer to me, his whole body hard, and there was nowhere for me to retreat. I was stuck there, in the room with Chris, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that yet. I’d thought I’d known him . . . but did I really know him at all? “It wasn’t fair, so I decided to do something about it. I decided to kill him and take his position, since it should have been mine, anyway. How’s that for beautiful, Molly?”
“So what—?” I broke off, because my voice cracked. I placed my hands on the wall, trying my best not to cower from him when he stopped directly in front of me, looming over me. I tried to focus on the cold, hard facts. “How did you escape him? Is he the one trying to kill you?”
“No. He let me go.” He laughed again, resting a hand on the side of my head against the drywall. “He forgave me. Set me free. Gave me what I wanted and skipped town with his girl—who I also tried to kill, by the way.”
I let out a small broken sound. “No.”
“Yes.” His eyes hardened. “They’re gone, and everyone thinks they’re dead, and he forgave me. That’s the kind of guy he is.”
I sucked in a deep breath, holding it in till the room swam all around us and my eyes filled with tears. Tears I hadn’t shed for way too long. “So . . . he’s still alive?”
“For all intents and purposes—he’s dead.”
I opened my mouth. “But—”
“He’s gone.” He slammed his other hand on the other side of my head. “He’s fucking gone, and so is she, and it’s all my fault. I have to fix it. I will fix it.”
“How?” I asked, resting my palms on his chest. I wasn’t sure yet if I placed them there to keep him at a distance or so he didn’t run. Because I had a feeling, him telling me this stuff, it wasn’t easy. And he didn’t do it lightly. “What are you going to do?”
“Not what. Who. Scotty.” His jaw flexed. “I’m gonna keep him alive for Lucas. With all the shit he’s in, he’ll need all the help he can get.”
For the second time now, he mentioned helping Scotty. It was time to get some answers. “Why does Scotty need your help? He’s—” My heart quickened and thumped against my ribs. The scene outside of Steel Row replayed in my head, how he’d had the flashing red light, and his reply when I’d asked him why he was pretending to be a cop. He’d called it a clever disguise, in more ways than one. I’d shrugged it off then, but now it made perfect sense. “Oh God. He’s actually a cop, isn’t he?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
“What happens with the gang, if they find out?” I asked slowly. “What happens to him?”
He tapped his fingers on the wall, right next to my head. “Nothing good, and nothing he’ll recover from. Which is why I have to make sure they never suspect him. If they think there’s a cop in their midst, I’ll make sure suspicion doesn’t fall on him. To draw the attention elsewhere. I’ll keep his cover and him safe, no matter—” He broke off, gritting his teeth.
“No matter the cost,” I finished for him in a whisper. “You’re going to die protecting him.”
He lifted a shoulder, not meeting my eyes. “It’s my penance.”
“Are you becoming a cop?”
He snorted. “With my record? Not fucking likely.”
�
�Then why would you need to die to protect him? Why would you have to?” I fisted his shirt. “Are you going to pretend to be in the gang, while feeding information to the cops on the side and hoping not to get caught?”
“Pretty much,” he said dryly. “That’s my plan.”
I stared at him, knowing he was hiding something else. It was like a sixth sense of mine—spotting half-truths. “There’s more to it than just helping Scotty get information, isn’t there?”
He laughed. “Does there need to be?”
“You’re so sure you’re going to die. That there’s no way out of this.” I stared at him, watching as he shifted on his feet nervously. “Why?”
The only possible way I could think of him being so certain there was no way out, that his helping Scotty was a death sentence was if . . . if . . .
“Because guys like me—”
“Oh my God. I know what it is. You freaking idiot.” I shoved his chest as hard as I could. He didn’t budge, or pretend to budge. “At some point, someone is going to suspect there’s a cop in their midst. They’ll figure it out. They always do.”
He flexed his jaw. “Leave it alone, Molly.”
“You plan on making sure if they think there’s a cop in their midst, that they suspect you. You’re going to . . . what? Layer in the suspicion? Take the fall? Take the kill for him?”
He curled his hands into fists against the wall. “Molly.”
“Don’t Molly me.” I shoved him again. “You’re going to take the fall for him. Aren’t you? Be the sacrificial lamb, because if they find out you’re a cop, they won’t look at him twice. They’ll think they’re safe after they take you down. It’ll give them a false sense of security.”
He laughed and shook his head, but it wasn’t a laugh. Not really. He looked the opposite of amused. “You’re too damn smart for your own good, Princess. Maybe you should’ve been a fed instead of a teacher. You missed your calling.”
“You can’t do this. I won’t allow it.”
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