I'll Do Anything

by Danielle Bourdon

  Just as I surged to my feet, more light headed than I wanted to admit, intent on staggering over to aid the man who'd come to my defense, the attacker flipped the body atop his over and scrambled to his feet.

  He was quick. Up and running before I could deliver a swift kick to the jaw or ribs, the attacker took off into the night.

  A string of curses lit the air. The man on the ground rolled onto his back, a fist pounding the asphalt in frustration.

  “Almost had him. Dammit.”

  I stared down at Adrian, surprise freezing any reply I might have made. Finally, I managed to get the words out. “Do you know who that was? Are you all right?”

  “I'm fine, I'm fine.” Adrian sat up, one arm draped off his bent knee. He breathed hard, glaring in the direction the assailant ran. “The question is, are you all right? Did he steal your purse or anything?”

  “I don't carry purses,” was the first thing that came to mind. I jutted a hand down to help Adrian off the ground. In this instance, I set all my reservations and dislike for Adrian aside.

  Adrian stared at my hand, then at my face. At first, I thought he meant to ignore my gesture. Clapping his palm into mine, he got to his feet with a small tug from me.

  “So that means no, he didn't get anything?” Adrian asked as he pulled his phone from the pocket of his now ruined slacks. His white shirt was askew and dirtied in various spots from the fight.

  “No. I don't think so.” I felt the pockets of my jeans. The money was there, my phone was there, though the keys were still on the ground next to the Camaro. Stepping over, I picked them up off the ground, wincing at the pain that shot through my upper body. “How did you know what was happening?”

  “I was on my way out for the night. Accidental timing, nothing more.” Adrian thrust a hand through his hair, coughed once, then spoke rapidly into the phone. “This is Adrian Cassano. We need a couple of units at Olympus. There's been an assault in the parking lot.”

  While Adrian called the police, I put the keys into my pocket, brushed off the knees of my jeans, then braced my hands against my thighs. It still hurt to take deep breaths.

  “All right,” Adrian said some minutes later. “Cops are en route and security here are searching the parking lot, just in case. Why don't you come back inside? You'll have to answer some questions.”

  Straightening up, I fell into step at Adrian's side. I glanced over. “Thanks for stepping in.”

  Adrian, eyes a little wild, breath coming shallower and quicker than normal, said, “You're welcome. There's no way I'm going to walk by someone assaulting someone else. Not going to happen on my property. Not anywhere. You want to call Jasper before the units show up?”

  “No, no. I don't want to wake him. I'm not hurt.” I didn't want Jasper to come to Olympus because I knew he would want to search the parking lot himself and beyond tonight, would worry about me every time I stepped out the doors of Olympus. Never mind that we'd lived here more than a year and hadn't ever been robbed or assaulted in any casino or parking lot.

  Except for the time Adrian and Jasper themselves had gotten into a fist fight, which wasn't quite the same thing.

  “If you're sure.” Adrian keyed in the code and held the door for me to enter first. He had a trickle of blood running from his lower lip and a few bruises starting to discolor his jaw.

  “I'm sure.” Stepping inside, I prepared myself for at least an hour of questions from authorities.

  Right after that, I realized that I'd just relegated Jasper to my personal one percent. I made the choice not to tell him about the attack because I knew he would worry and probably over react in my defense, which was the same thing as withholding information and keeping secrets. Somehow I could justify my decision not to say anything, yet our relationship was on the rocks because he'd done the same.

  Sobered by the double standard and the creeping hypocrisy I felt, I followed Adrian to the upper floors, preoccupied with the scrape on my face and how I would explain that when the time came.

  *

  The questioning took an hour and a half. I answered everything as truthfully and with as much clarity as I could. The police officers alternated between Adrian and me until they had a clear picture of events. I told them that I hadn't heard anyone approach, hadn't been at all prepared to be grabbed from behind. The attacker had gone straight for my pockets, which made the cops think it was someone who knew I kept my tips there. Between that and what appeared to be a pre-meditated strike, the cops suspected it might be another employee at the hotel. Someone who knew I would have cash on me and knew I'd be leaving late in the evening, making me an easier target. There was security footage to be sorted through, though that would take more time. The police left every option on the table, up to and including a serial robber who targeted hotel employees. Even before the meeting ended, there were officers checking reports in the last month at other resorts for attacks fitting the same criteria.

  Adrian paced through the questioning, clearly agitated and annoyed. As the hour wore on, his skin darkened further with bruises that he refused to tend to. I allowed someone to dab antiseptic on my scratches but that was all. I didn't want to go to the emergency room and have x-rays on the off chance that I had more internal damage than I thought. The assailant had knocked the wind out of me, and bruised me, but nothing more than that.

  Ramsey showed up twenty minutes into questioning, looking as if he'd come straight from a business meeting in a sharp suit and groomed hair. He asked his own questions and reassured me that the hotel would do everything to get to the bottom of it.

  Released by the police, I prepared to go home. I was afraid to check my phone—which I'd turned off during questioning—in case there were messages from Jasper.

  “Do you need a ride, Finley?” Ramsey asked.

  “No thanks. I have the Camaro tonight.” I glanced back at Adrian. When he noticed me, I mouthed thank you one more time. He responded by lifting his chin, but no more. It was strange to think I owed Adrian a debt of gratitude. He was a perplexing human being, someone you thought you knew and then discovered you didn't really know at all.

  “Are you sure? I'd feel better knowing you got home safe tonight. I'll even send someone to drop your car off tomorrow.” Ramsey punched the button for the elevator.

  “All right. Thank you.” I capitulated faster than I thought I would. Truth was—my ribs and stomach hurt and I was wildly preoccupied by the events of the night. I handed over my set of keys to the Camaro, confident Ramsey would do as he'd said.

  “Don't mention it. My car will be around front.” Ramsey, keys in his palm, slid his hands into his pockets while the elevator whisked us down to the main level.

  “I'm lucky Adrian was leaving at the same time, I guess. I always thought I'd be able to fight off anyone.” I watched the numbers light up over the doors, one after the other.

  “From what I heard, the assailant was pretty good size. For all of Adrian's other faults, he's no slouch in the self defense department. As you saw in his brawl with Jasper.” Ramsey's mouth tilted into an unamused curve. “The guy who jumped you would have been difficult to subdue, especially with his element of surprise.”

  I tilted my head against the side of the elevator for the remainder of the ride down, watching Ramsey rather than the descending lights and numbers. “Yes, I remember the brawl between Jasper and Adrian. And I suppose you're right about being surprised. I never saw it coming. Never even heard the guy sneak up from behind.”

  “Distracted?” Ramsey asked, stepping out with me when the elevator stopped.

  I paced alongside Ramsey toward the front of the casino. It might be the middle of the night, but there was still a steady flux of people coming and going through the main doors. “Yes. I'd been thinking about Jasper and me. He gave me a time limit, so to speak. To make up my mind whether or not I can live with him not telling me about Asia.”

  Ramsey said nothing more until we were tucked into his car—a plum colore
d Corvette this time—and on our way off the property. “Having a hard time getting over it, hm?”

  “It's complicated. But yes, something down deep keeps eating at me about it all. On the other hand, I can't imagine not being with him, so I don't know what to do. Leaving isn't an option.” There was something appealing about the scent of a new car. I drew a slow breath in, giving the sleek interior a glance. I couldn't imagine what it must be like to afford such luxury. Although I wasn't beholden to money, and was happy with the beater Camaro and my secondhand furniture, I could still appreciate a fine piece of well built machinery.

  “Did you discover whether Kaia was his or not?”

  “No. We're going to invite Asia over tomorrow and ask point blank. I mean in a more serious setting than before.”

  “Will it change your mind one way or the other?”

  I watched buildings and people whip by out the darkened windows of the Corvette. “No. I'm not ready for kids yet, I'm just not, but I wouldn't leave someone because they suddenly became a parent.” But could I live with someone who withheld the truth?

  “Maybe that's your answer right there.”

  I met Ramsey's eyes across the car. Then I stared forward out the windshield. “I don't know. Maybe. I'm being stupidly stubborn about it, probably. And right now, I feel like a hypocrite because I don't want to tell him about the assault tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn't want to call him at first because I knew he'd come racing to the hotel, loaded for bear. He's always been protective of me, and now it'll be worse because we're a couple. And if I tell him, he'll be nervous to let me come and go as I usually do. He'll switch his schedule and work crazy hours and stay up too late or whatever it takes so he can be there to drop me off at work and pick me up. Now that the cops think it might be an Olympus employee, I'm afraid he'll start confronting anyone and everyone. So me not telling him is hypocritical since that's been the crux of my issue with him not telling me about Asia. If I keep it from him, or fib about what happened with the scratches on my face, then I'm no better than he was when he came back from college, married, and neglected to tell me.”

  “Well. You didn't know he was married, so you didn't think to ask. That's an omission on his part. He'll ask you what happened to your face when he sees the damage, and when you don't tell him the truth, it'll make you a liar instead of a hypocrite,” Ramsey pointed out. “Or, I guess you'd be both if you lied first, then left him because you couldn't live with the fact he didn't tell you about his wife.”

  “Thanks for laying out the black and white of it all, Ramsey.” There was no escaping that Ramsey's assessment was dead on. And it sounded as bad out loud as it did in my head.

  “You're one of the more pragmatic people I know, Finley. If anyone needs to hear the cold truth of a situation, it's you. Coming from an outside source sometimes sheds new light on your own internal feelings. It happens to me all the time.”

  “It does?” That surprised me. Ramsey seemed so formidable, so in control of his emotions and actions. I found it difficult to think he often had to take a second or third look at his decisions after outside influence.

  “Yes. My father and uncles don't hesitate to lay out facts and truths just when Lincoln, Adrian and I think we know all there is to know about running a hotel. It's annoying, but I always come away from those conversations dissecting my own version, often finding cracks and holes in my theories.” Ramsey turned onto my street, cruising slower in the residential area. “Maybe you should tell him the truth, and then also tell him you don't want him rushing off to find the culprit. Just be up front and blunt. From what I know of you, that shouldn't be a problem.”

  I laughed. “It usually isn't. Though Jasper's as stubborn as I am. When he gets it in his head to do something, he does it. The thought of outright lying to him doesn't sit well, though.”

  Ramsey pulled into the driveway and eased the car to a halt. He met my eyes across the gloom. “If you need anything, let me know. I can corroborate your story or talk to Jasper tomorrow or whatever. I'll tell him we're going to step up security in the mean time, until we've ruled out that it was an employee here or caught whoever did it. Maybe that'll help.”

  “Thanks. I'll let you know.” I hadn't decided what to do, one way or the other. Disembarking the sleek vehicle, I gave Ramsey a final wave and crossed the lawn toward the porch. All I needed to do was sneak inside without waking Jasper and climb into bed. Tomorrow was soon enough to answer questions about my face—and to give me time to figure out what to say.

  Just as the Corvette drove away, I realized my house keys were on the same ring with the keys to the Camaro, and Ramsey was in possession of them all. Stepping off the porch, I looked back to the street, prepared to hail Ramsey with a wildly waving hand. The Corvette was already halfway to the corner. Too late to call out now. Not only would I probably wake up Jasper, which defeated the purpose of going in quietly, I risked disturbing half the neighborhood.

  Exhaling in frustration, I tried the door anyway. Jasper rarely forgot to lock it before bedtime, but maybe I'd get lucky.

  The knob held firm. I tried two different windows, all secured from the inside. We didn't have a security system, so I didn't have to worry about an alarm going off. Walking around back, I tested the back door as well to no avail.

  The back porch light snapped on a moment later and the back door flew open. Jasper—hair askew, naked to the waist—knocked the screen aside, a bat raised in his hands. He looked ready to knock someone's head from their shoulders.

  “Whoa, hey, wait. It's me. I don't have my keys.” I held my hands up to block the swing of the bat. Thankfully, Jasper wasn't swinging, just looming threateningly. He blinked against the sudden glare of light and held the door open for me.

  “Why didn't you just knock? I thought someone was trying to break in,” Jasper said with a grunt.

  I squeezed past him, keeping the scraped side of my cheek turned away. “I didn't want to wake you. So much for that.” Without stopping, I headed deeper into the house, navigating the gloom toward the bedroom. Along the way, I waited for the inevitable question. It wasn't long in coming.

  “Why don't you have your keys?” Jasper said.

  Right now, in this moment, I had to decide whether or not to tell Jasper the whole truth. I could say I forgot my keys in my locker and hope to climb into bed without him seeing the scrapes, or I could tell him where the keys were, which would lead to more questions and the eventual truth of the attack.

  “Ramsey has them. The Camaro's at the hotel.” I went straight to the master bathroom and bent down to begin unlacing my boots. It hurt to bend at the waist, I realized, thanks to the assailant's use of his knee in my back.

  “Why is the car at the hotel? Were you drinking?” Jasper, slower to arrive, didn't come into the dim bathroom until I'd pulled off the second boot.

  “No, I wasn't drinking.” Here it came. There was no escaping the truth now. Maybe, I thought, I should have left my boots on in case Jasper went tearing out of the house for Olympus. Straightening up, deciding to get it over with for now, I faced him. With a small spill of moonlight through the single window, I knew there would still be enough light to see the scrape.

  “Then what's going—what the hell happened to your face?” Jasper set the bat aside and used the pad of his thumb to gentle a touch below the wound.

  The skin was tender, but I didn't wince or draw back. Jasper's concern shined in his eyes, along with confusion and unasked questions. He deserved to know, I thought to myself. He cared, deeply, and that was a lot more than some girlfriends could ask for.

  “Someone grabbed me when I was trying to get into the Camaro after work. Tried to rob me. We got into a scuffle. Adrian happened to be leaving work at the same time and helped out. They got into a brawl but the guy who came at me got away.” I tried to downplay the incident as much as I could, substituting words like 'grabbed me' instead of 'assaulted me' to keep the shock to
a minimum. It was a 'scuffle' instead of a 'fight'.

  Right away, Jasper's eyes narrowed and a muscle flexed in his jaw. “Someone tried to rob you?”

  “Yeah. It happens. But other than a few scrapes and bruises, I'm okay. That's what matters. The bastard didn't get my money, either.” There was some small satisfaction in that.

  “What the—why didn't you call me? Did Adrian—I can't believe Adrian of all people came to your aid—call the police?” Jasper's hands flexed in and out of fists.

  Reaching over, I curled my fingers around the muscles of his forearm and slid my hand down to his. With my eyes, I implored him not to go running off into the middle of the night. “Yes, I gave a statement and they're looking into it. They have security cameras and everything, but it'll take time to go through them.”

  “I'm going down there. This--”

  “Jasper, I really wish you wouldn't.” I hadn't even told him that the police suspected it might be an employee from Olympus yet. “Just stay here with me, all right?” The last time Jasper had gone half-cocked into the evening, he'd returned beaten and bloody.

  “Are there any leads at all? What did the guy look like?”

  He didn't pull away, but I could feel the strung-out tension in his hand, feel it resonating through his body. “I don't know. It was kind of hard to see with them wrestling around on the ground. Dark clothing though, which doesn't tell us anything, and darker hair. I think. The police suspect it might be someone from the hotel. They're not sure though.”

  “Finley, you should have called me.”

  “I didn't have time, Jasper. Adrian literally called the cops right from the parking lot and put security on notice, too. Then the police were there and they had a ton of questions. You know how it is.” We'd dealt with the police before, last year when Jasper got into trouble with a loan shark. He knew questioning took time.