by Lena Black
“Something the matter?” I inquire with a false sense of innocence.
He shakes his head and waves his hand, implying I shouldn’t pay him any mind.
But I am. And I’m enjoying it immensely.
He’s done nothing but test the boundaries I set for us from the beginning. Now that I’ve declared my surrender, I fully intend to put his to the test. Maybe it’s childish to some degree, but I was never really permitted to be one. With Greier, I’m welcome to play and explore myself, figure out who I am and want to be. And I like who that person is—for the most part.
After I’ve teased him into a near sweat, I’m positive he’ll take me home and rip my dress apart until it’s nothing more than stitches on the floor. But he doesn’t. Instead, he takes me to this hole-in-the-wall nightclub. It’s small and smoky and lit with deep purple lights, turning Greier into a sexy blueberry. There’s an empty stage and a room full of patrons. Whatever we’re here for, it’s the best New Orleans has to offer. The crowd is clearly locals, probably hiding away from the fever infecting the rest of the city. I’m excited to discover their well-hidden secret.
My sexy blueberry leads me to a table in the back, tucked away in a darkened corner.
As soon as our asses hit the seats, an older African-American gentleman approaches us. He looks like a manager or maybe the owner with that authoritative air about him, a confident swagger. He’s dashing with his silver hair and tailored blue suit. He’s old-school cool. Greier rises and greets him with a handshake and a smile before proudly introducing me as his girl. It gives me a giddy sensation throughout my whole body. I’ve never been anyone’s girl before. Not like this.
“Rae, this is a friend of my father’s, Giorgi. He owns this place.”
I reach a hand out to Giorgi, and he takes it in his, setting one over it. They’re cool and strong.
“Welcome to the Blue Note. What is a classy lady such as yourself doin’ with a scoundrel like him?” he teases in a raspy voice, worn with years of use.
A single burst of laughter breeches my lips.
He releases my hand with a chuckle, patting Greier on the back.
“He’s a good boy. Proud of him.”
Greier smiles a tight, closed mouthed grin, clearly humbled and embarrassed by the compliment.
Giorgi motions to someone behind the bar, and a woman brings over a bottle of bourbon, Grey’s favorite, and two glasses.
“Thanks, G. You’re too good to me.”
Giorgi tips his head and says, “Enjoy the show,” leaving us to our dark, private corner.
Greier serves out the aged amber liquor.
“You seem close,” I probe, resting my crossed forearms on the table in front of me.
“He kinda helped me out a lot growing up.” He places the cap back on the bottle and sets it down. “My dad not always being around or sober. He was someone I could call whenever I needed advice, a place to go, or assistance wrangling the old man.”
“I’m sorry he wasn’t there for you,” I console him, unfolding my arms and resting my palm over his wrist.
He silently shakes his head, his mouth open as if he’s about to speak, glancing from me to his glass.
Obviously, we both have a hard time talking about our family.
“Not tonight,” he says in a commanding voice. “Tonight, we aren’t going to worry about our pasts or our future. Tonight, is about us.”
He holds his drink in the air, and I lift mine to meet it with a clink.
“To tonight,” I mutter, staring straight into his blue eyes while I take a taste.
Motion on the stage catches my attention. A group of men carrying brass instruments take their places. They set their lips to their instruments and position their fingers. The drummer calls out, “A one, two. A one, two, three, four,” and then begins to tap his sticks against the tight skin of his drums.
It’s Jazz.
I rotate my head in Greier’s direction, my eyes bright and brimming with awe. In one of our late-night talks, I told him I always wanted to listen to Jazz in New Orleans, its birthplace. Because of Greier, it’s no longer an unfulfilled hope. He sits back in his chair, smiling coolly at me, and then rests an arm around the back of my chair, inviting me to lean into him. I comply.
I’m high on Jazz, home-brewed moonshine, and the romanticism of the Big Easy by the time we exit the hazy club. And maybe some of whatever was floating around in the smoky air. It certainly wasn’t tobacco. We didn’t depart until well after most everyone else. Giorgi invited us to stay and join him for the after party, which consisted of a few other people, a handful of friends, mostly staff and the band. They played soulful melodies born from melancholy and heartache, from years of struggle and oppression. And I’m absolutely in love with it.
All of it.
Since we’ve drunk a bit and the Magnolia is within walking distance from the Blue Note, that’s what we do. Sweet, seductive jasmine and musky river water heavily saturate the early morning mist blanketing the Quarter in a white haze, the cool air damp on my skin. We wander the streets, soft hand in rough hand, when suddenly Greier yanks me into the shadows of an arched tunnel, an entryway to a secluded courtyard with a fountain. Much like the one at home. His scorching body takes mine by surprise, shoving me against a brick wall as our mouths collide in an unexpected kiss. His hand relocating my knee to his hip, he mills into the apex of my thighs. A laughing cluster of people walk by, unknowing of the lovers pressed closely together, on the verge of public indecency.
He rips his reddened mouth away, jagged ruptures of air forced out from his starving lungs. His face near mine, his shaky breaths clash with the sweat-beaded flesh of my cleavage. The atmosphere around us hums with sexual electricity. I want to get home and wrestle naked with him in the sheets of his bed.
“Let’s get fucked up on each other,” he rumbles, his lips over my lips. I moan, mine slack and reaching for his, but he doesn’t allow them to meet. His fingers locate mine in the dark, locking around them. Still dazed from the kiss, it takes me a second to realize I’m being tugged back down the archway again and led toward Bourbon. He gets swept away from time to time, pulling me in for a kiss or copping a much-welcomed feel when his lust for me becomes too much. Something lights inside me when he does. Like the sun rising in my chest, pooling in my lower stomach, the rays reaching for my limbs. I’m growing to depend on the way he needs me. Even more, the way I need him. It feeds me, body and soul. It solidifies I’m truly alive.
For the first time, I need someone…and he needs me, too.
Nearing the Magnolia, too lost in each other to notice anything else, a recognizable drawl looms from the shadows of the doorway.
“Do you taste me on her, cousin?”
Greier halts in front of me.
The ember of a thin cigar flares, faintly revealing the lines of a man’s face. Smoke drifts out of the darkness, carried away on the tail end of a breeze.
When Shaw steps out, the shadow and light play with the contours of his face until he almost appears sinister. Grey tows me behind him.
“Lotte isn’t here. I turned her away. You win. You can have her.”
Shaw’s dark eyes meet mine, poking out from behind Grey’s wide frame. He releases a half-hearted snicker when clarity washes over his expression. Our little secret is just that. A secret. The smile that moves over his face terrifies me to the core.
“I’m not talkin’ about my fuckin’ whore.” He doesn’t even try to hide her position in his life. “She’s warming my bed this very minute.”
Or between the sheets.
“I’m glad for you,” Greier replies, his arm tightening around me. “Now, why don’t you go back to her?”
“Nah-ah-ah.” He slowly wags his finger, a predatory gleam in his eye, like an animal about to feast. “Not without what I came for.” Shaw takes a hostile step toward Greier. “Have you been enjoying my wife, cousin? She has the sweetest cherry, doesn’t she?”
Greier’s gaze connects wi
th mine when he glances back over his shoulder. It’s impossible to decipher.
“I—” My eyes drop to the ground. I can’t look him in the face. I’m so ashamed. I’m sure he’ll never want me again. I’ve lost him. I focus on the sidewalk at my feet even when he continues to stare. If I chance a look, his expression will confirm what I already know.
We’re over.
“Leave,” Greier barks.
I cringe, continuing to take great fascination with the pavement below me. I step around him to take my place at Shaw’s side, ready to be led back to my prison in chains. But Greier’s arm juts out to stop me, keeping me behind him.
My eyes slingshot to his. They’re still focused on me from over his broad shoulder.
When my psycho husband notices what’s happening, he asks, “Is there no honor amongst blood, cousin?” He turns his controlled sable eyes on me. “Reagan, come.”
“She isn’t your property,” Greier snaps, his voice full of uninhibited rage.
“Oh, I have papers that say otherwise.”
Greier’s whole body clenches, including his fists. They’re sitting menacingly at his sides, ready to strike if Shaw moves to take his “property” by force.
“You don’t fucking own her,” he states, his words constricted from his taut mouth. “And, as I see it, if she wanted you, you wouldn’t be here searching for her. To most, that would be pretty evident when she walked out on you,” he takes a step forward, “cousin.”
Shaw raises his hands chest height, as if to say, take your best shot.
There’s no way Shaw’d actually—Before the thought even finishes loading into my brain, he reaches for my hand, now latched firmly to Greier’s thick forearm. It never makes contact. Greier locks a hand around his wrist and the other—the other sails knuckle first into my husband’s nose with a notable crunch. If that didn’t hurt, the whiplash from his head flying backwards certainly does.
But he doesn’t curse or scream or grip at his face. Instead, he straightens his head, blood pouring from his nostrils like water from a spigot. With a demented, teeth-baring grin, he swipes his thumb at the river of red streaming down his chin.
I see the threat in his eyes.
“You can’t protect her forever.” Combing a hand through his disheveled golden hair, he takes a step back with an aloof demeanor, acting as if he isn’t completely intimidated by Greier. “Watch your back, cos.”
Shaw isn’t the type to fight his own battles. He hires people for that. He hires professionals. I know. He ordered a hit on someone the day of our wedding.
“Greier,” I whisper as he stares my crazed spouse down, watching him dissolve into the fog and then the blinding mist long after.
I want to warn him, to tell him I’m sorry, to beg for forgiveness, to thank him. Instead, I keep quiet, too petrified my mouth could dig me into a deeper hole. All I can do is think about everything I’ve done wrong. My single regret in this mess, from blindly agreeing to marry Shaw to this possible life-changing instant, is I didn’t confess everything from the start. If any one of the choices I made were different in the slightest detail, I never would’ve met Greier. And I’ll never regret knowing him.
But does he?
He hasn’t said anything for several minutes now. Or maybe it’s seconds. Time doesn’t seem to exist while he silently stares into the fog as if he expects Shaw to reappear.
“Greier?”
“Don’t,” he bites out, turning on me with ice in his eyes, cold enough to cause frostbite in the middle of July.
He snatches my hand and drags me into the bar, to the plain door marked private, and up the stairs. Once we’re in the apartment, he strides straight into his room without flipping on a single light. I follow him, not that I have much choice, and watch him tear a bag out from under the bed, clearing my clothes from the drawers and tossing everything in without care.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says, continuing his task of cleaning me from his life. He doesn’t so much as glimpse at me while he does it. He simply finishes, zips the bag, and walks back toward the living room, snagging my hand on his way out.
He can’t get rid of me fast enough.
He hates me.
He should.
I do.
Wish he’d condemn me. Punish me. But selfishly, I’m praying he doesn’t quit me.
Before I have time to argue or question him, he’s throwing me and my stuff into the car and driving us through the Quarter. It’s so early the sun hasn’t even woken yet. The few people on the road are the poor bastards heading to work. If Shaw follows, he’d be conspicuous with the streets so empty.
When I realize downtown is growing smaller in the rearview mirror, I become confused—and a little nervous. We’re driving into the country, the swamp. Is he going to kill me and dump my body in the bayou?
Becoming increasingly more uncomfortable the deeper we drive into the darkness of night, I press him, “Tell me what’s going on.” It cuts through the silence like a chainsaw.
His focus stays trained on the roads, but I know he sees me staring him down out the corner of his eye. They make quick movements in my direction but return to the world outside the front windshield. His silence is heavy, weighing down on my conscience and my nerves. The closed proximity of the cab intensifies the already awkward charge between us. He isn’t going to say anything—not until I do.
“My name is Reagan Walsh. I’m the daughter of Senator Allen Walsh. My mother’s name is Barbara. Since the day I was born, I was trained to do one thing. Not think for myself. If I did, I’d question the life mapped out for me. But I didn’t. And my father has aspirations of the White House. And he’s not above using me to get there. It takes money to campaign for office. Shaw’s father is worth more than Midas.”
“Are you saying—” His voice phases out, as if he can’t bring himself to say the actual words.
“Nothing is free, Greier.” I turn my face to the dark passenger window, my reflection staring back at me from the pitch black. “Especially not power.”
“But you are. You’re not a bargaining chip.” I hear his want to reach out for me, to touch me, but there’s something restraining him. The truth.
“God, Greier, if I could’ve met you without ever knowing him, I never would’ve walked down the aisle. I thought he was my only option. But—then I found out the truth about him.”
The hardened lines of his face soften, and I realize his defenses are coming down. This is my chance to explain everything, make him understand. Every step I took to get to the place I am today, wrapped up in a few short paragraphs.
“My parents have controlled everything I’ve done, where I went to school, what I wore, who my friends were, who I married. I was brainwashed, going through life with blinders on because I was too scared to see the truth. I was a robot. I was ready to live the lie, play the part,” I feel as if I’m pleading for my life to the firing squad, “but that changed when I overheard him speaking with his father. They said some things I should’ve never heard.” I’ll save his conscience the details. The less he knows, the safer he is. “It was foul. Disgusting. I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop on their conversation. God, I wish I hadn’t. Lou caught me, grabbed my arm, pulled me into the room, demanded Shaw take care of me.”
“What did he do?” he asks, his words strained from his constricted mouth and locked jaw.
“Slapped me around, punched me in the stomach.” I wriggle in my seat. “I begged him to stop. I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone what I heard, anything to get him to back off. But he kept screaming and hitting me. He tore my dress as he hurled me across the room. I thought I was dead. I cried for help, but no one heard me. Everyone was in the garden, and my cries were covered by the music.”
“He put his hands on you?” His fists tighten around the steering wheel until his fingers turn bright red and his knuckles ghostly white.
“Yes,” I confirm. “When he finished, he ordered me to clean myself up and rejoin th
e reception as if nothing happened. If anyone asked about my dress, we were consummating the marriage, and it got a little rough. He left me there, in my ripped dress, on the floor in tears.”
“Rae…”
“I married a monster,” I continue, keeping my focus on the darkness outside, knowing if I look him directly in the eyes, I won’t be able to, “and I lost it. I had a nervous breakdown, or maybe I was finally thinking clearly. Whatever it was, I refused to be in a loveless marriage with a man who would treat me like a fucking punching bag. It didn’t matter what my parents thought anymore. Even though they would’ve had me stay. They’d never see my side. So, I ran.”
“And you found me,” he says in the gentlest voice.
“And I’ve lost you.”
“Lost me?”
“You’re getting rid of me,” I tell him.
He releases an audible breath.
“No, Rae, I’m not.”
I face him. I should be relieved. But I’m more confused.
“Aren’t you upset? Or, at the very least, surprised? I’m married—to your cousin. And you’re acting as if…”
“I already knew?”
“Yes, exactly.”
Keeping one hand on the wheel, he reaches into his jacket pocket and hands me an envelope addressed to him in delicate filigree. I stare at him and then the folded paper in my hands. Even though I already know what’s written on it, I retrieve the card and read it in the dimness of the cab.
I crumple the invitation in my hands, the thick paper giving with a satisfying crunch, and stare down at its mangled remains.
“You’ve known this whole time,” I mutter.
“Most of it, anyway.”
I toss the crinkled invitation to my imprisonment on the floor. “When did you put it together?”
“I had my suspicions the night we met. A woman named Reagan walks into my place in a wedding dress, on the day of my cousin’s wedding. Wasn’t hard to guess. Then I found an article from the month before, about how New Orleans’ most sought-after ladies’ man was marrying the daughter of a Yankee politician. There was a picture of the happy couple.”