Sure, I could return her call.
It wouldn’t hurt anything. Except for my pride. I’d all but asked her to stay and she’d just told me she couldn’t leave her kids hanging. Instead, she’d left me hanging.
My mind feed was well in place. Like speaking points for a politician, it was a script for my brain. Key messaging to keep me rationalizing why leaving her alone was for the best.
I couldn’t just call her back now. She was busy figuring shit out. Besides, now she was the one left hanging, getting up close and personal with the miserable fucking feeling, so she’d understand how I felt.
Yeah, I was stupid. Infantile. Petty. Emotionally immature. Asshole material. Making calculated dick moves left and right. I’d learned it from my father.
My underlying sense was that if I iced her out this badly, I’d regret it.
I ignored common sense and went the fuck to bed.
I was in the shower the next time she called my land line, followed by my smartphone. While she left messages on both numbers, her rushed voice made me think she was only doing it to be polite.
It had taken her two days to reach out to me again since her first call after touching down in Mexico.
Two days.
Okay, maybe I hadn’t called her back, but she knew what my schedule was like. Or at least, she should’ve had a general idea. She could’ve sent me a text or tried to call again, earlier in the day.
This was why her staying in Mexico was a bad idea, with me being both a dick, and…what, over a thousand miles away in Las Vegas? I almost deleted the message without responding but in the end, that nagging voice in my head made me think it wasn’t smart.
I sent her a text as I headed out to rehearsal.
Me: Going to rehearsals. Don’t have much time. Got your message. Everything okay with the baby?
Nice, polite, focused on my priority. My unborn child. A reply to be sure. I didn’t ask a thing that was weighing on my mind. I stuck to the basics. Because she was off the table. I wasn’t about to let her in so she could leave me hanging all over again.
She texted back right after I stepped off the elevator.
Angel: Yes. Just wanted to talk to you. Maybe I can call later?
My gut wanted to call her right now.
But instinct was what got me in this shit to begin with. I was going with pride and ego now. They had screwed me and twisted me up inside, reminding me repeatedly that I didn’t want her to believe I was waiting by the phone, dying for her to finish thinking about it. Hence my cold, non-committal response.
Me: Rehearsals run long on Thursdays. Sly and I are getting dinner after. Maybe text me. Or I’ll try to call you later. We’ll see.
She texted.
I didn’t reply or call back.
Close to two weeks later, I was already used to this be a prick thing. Because that’s what I was like long before her. Reverting to this default setting was easy as fuck.
I hadn’t talked to Angel since she’d left, and she didn’t bother calling again for over a week. The texts were coming less too. I didn’t have to wonder why. I was also too revved up to sleep after the latest performance. It was the big weekly one I did with the guys. Instead of going out with them after, I came back to my suite, claiming exhaustion.
Yes, I was tired, tired enough that my eyes felt like there were hundred-pound weights sewn onto them, but I couldn’t sleep. I never could wind down after a show—not until close to dawn anyway.
I dropped down onto my bed and stared up at the ceiling. My bed was on an elevated platform in the northeast corner of the room. There was no fancy headboard or anything like that, just a view of the skyline of Vegas. Now, with my head hanging halfway over the top edge of the mattress, I stared out at the city.
My last text to her was that I needed to practice with the boys and go over the show.
My last thoughts were entirely different—focused on the fact that if she wasn’t going to give me a fucking answer, then she didn’t need to know if I was thinking about her. She didn’t need to hear my voice.
I’d all but told her there was no point trying. A great fucking thing to do to the woman carrying my child. Though if anything were to ever come up with the baby, she’d let me know and I’d get my head out my ass for my child.
Deep in my bones, I wanted to see her. Wanted to hear her voice. I just wasn’t about to leave the door open for someone who could walk out of it as easily as they’d come in.
Then I was sick of being stuck in my head.
Abruptly, I sat up and grabbed the boots I’d kicked off only a few minutes before. Why couldn’t I go see her? Force her to make a final answer.
Fuck it. That’s what I’d do.
I just needed to get LeVan to cover for me. And handle Sly.
22
Angel
Two goddamned weeks.
More than two weeks had passed since we’d talked. I sat there late Friday night holding the phone. Staring at it, incredulous about his texts like they were humanlike extensions of Mac. I debated about whether or not to call him again. Oh, I’d texted him a few times and he’d replied, but the responses were short.
Nothing rude per se, but there was nothing friendly about them either.
Curt. Cold. Impersonal. Empty.
I wanted to talk to him, wanted to hear his voice, dammit.
He was supposed to be free tonight.
I knew his show schedule.
I knew it like the back of my hand. He had three early shows this time of year and a big one on Friday and Sunday nights with all three of them performing.
There was no reason why I couldn’t call him or get a call back.
But what the hell had he said? Nothing. Empty replies about nothing.
I refused to torture myself by manufacturing problems where none existed, but he sure as hell hadn’t gone out of his way to reach out to me since that day we said our goodbyes at the airport.
And man, he’d been acting weird then, too.
One minute he was pulling me in close, and then the next he rambled on about schools in Vegas. Suggesting I should flake out on this job in Mexico.
If he’d just call me back I’d feel more secure, and if I got him talking I was sure I’d get to the bottom of it.
But he hadn’t.
“Did you make up your mind? Are you coming?”
Yvetta, one of the new teachers at the school, leaned against the doorjamb of my apartment, her dark brows arched over wide-set eyes, a smile on her face. She started at the school just after Christmas break, filling in for a teacher who had to leave abruptly. He’d sent his apologies, along with a picture of himself from a hospital bed. In the photo, he poked out his pursed lips in a pathetically adorable fashion, while his injured leg was propped up on a stack of pillows, encased in a cast.
Note to self, the caption had read. Those black sparkly things in the snow are rocks.
He’d gone skiing in the Swiss Alps and broke his legs on one of those sparkly things. Definitely a lightweight in the skiing department. His fiancée also told the story on Facebook, and again in a shorter group text to all the teachers at the school.
And now, Yvetta was here.
She was a sweetheart. She was hoping to land a permanent gig here, and eyed my belly like it was the ticket to at least an extra few months working here once he returned.
“I don’t think your coworker with the broken leg was the only one to get an interesting souvenir,” she’d said once about my pregnancy in her sweetest voice, tinged lightly with a faint Middle Eastern accent.
I hadn’t responded.
My blush had told her plenty, though.
Now, as she stood in the doorway, I debated. The school admins had organized a weekend immersion activity for us. It was a trip to the Oaxaca Valley. There were Mayan ruins, as well as a cenote, a limestone sinkhole that we could swim in. I’d been to the ruins in Chichén Itzá before. This time, I wasn’t interested in a day trip comprising of hours on a bus to see
more ruins. Not with swollen ankles from being pregnant in this unbearable heat.
I’d considered going back to Las Vegas, but Mac was so unresponsive that I wasn’t sure about that option anymore. I could go home. My parents would love that.
And it was a simple, easy solution.
“What’s the verdict about coming along on this trip?” Yvetta asked again. “I hear they got us an air-conditioned bus. With so many teachers going, you shouldn’t be here by yourself.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Neal’s the only one not going,” she added.
“Oh. I guess I’m joining you, then.” Smiling at her, I got up, rubbing my belly. Bump was quickly becoming Mountain. “We’ll come. Me and this one.”
Yvetta beamed. “And you’ll be free from the attentions of the male persuasion.”
“You mean the Neal persuasion,” I snorted, trying not to think about the annoying teacher who had suddenly started flirting with me around the school. “What kind of guy comes on to a woman as big, fat and pregnant as I am?”
“You’re not fat,” Yvetta said, her voice fiery. She pointed at me, one fingertip aimed at my chest. “You’re barely even showing through your clothes. How far along are you?”
“About five and a half months.”
“Consider yourself lucky, dear. You carry it well. And you’re beautiful, as all mothers-to-be. As for Neal, I don’t know. He’s a sad, strange man. And no, not because he’s flirting with you while you’re pregnant. Because he’s buzzing around you when you’re obviously in love with somebody else.”
She made a harrumphing sound under her breath and turned, throwing her braid of thick dark hair over one shoulder.
“I’m not.” I sucked in my breath. No way. No way in hell.
The drive to the Oaxaca Valley was both beautiful and awful. We all traveled with one of the school admins who owned a large passenger van, not a full-sized bus. And Neal was on it with the rest of the teachers, dammit. Plus, two other men who weren’t teachers went along. Security. They didn’t speak to us save to say, “Buenos dias, Señora,” or “Como estas?”
While they were polite and smiling and friendly, I had no doubt they were armed. They instructed us not to leave the ‘policed’ areas while on the trip. Safety issues were sporadic, but no one wanted to take chances with foreigners like us. Yvetta got nervous when she clued in that those men weren’t coming along for the trip, but were essentially our bodyguards.
“You do realize there are places in Mexico that aren’t safe?” I asked her during the rest break a couple of hours in. We had another three hours left to drive before we reached the hacienda where we’d stay the night. Tomorrow, we’d go to the ruins in the morning, then the cenote for most of the afternoon.
“Of course, I know that,” Yvetta said, her brown eyes snapping to me, then the bodyguard nearby.
I laughed and stretched out my arms overhead. A muscle in my back pulled, reminding me that sitting in certain positions just wasn’t as easy as it had been a few months, or even a few weeks ago. “It’s a precaution to have these rough and tumble guys here.”
“If I’d known we’d need rough and tumble anything—”
I gave her a bright smile. “Try not to think about it. Unless you want to carry a weapon you’re willing to use to protect the rest of us.”
That helped her put things in perspective. Once we were back on the road, I pulled out my phone, more out of habit than anything else.
To my shock, there was a message from Mac.
The first time he’d actually texted me—not just replied to something I’d sent him—but his first unsolicited communication in two weeks.
Mac: Tell Bump I said hi. I miss you both.
23
Mac
I slept on the plane.
I rarely slept around people, but I hated to fly as a passenger—hated it with a passion although fear was something I masked very, very well. I’d managed to hide it from Angel well enough, but now that I didn’t have her here to distract me, my brain did what it normally did—it forced itself into shutting down.
Not a bad skill to have under most circumstances.
I was in first class and I’d bought the seat next to me as well—under LeVan’s name so no one could get assigned to it if the plane ended up overbooked. I’d even dragged him to the airport with me, right up through check-in.
It was his fault the nightmare came. He’d talked me into sitting at one of the numerous bars for a drink—then he pounced on me with the questioning, all smooth and cunning.
“You can’t shut out everybody, man.”
“What the fuck are you talking about now?” I asked.
He just gave me a look with those golden eyes of his, making it clear he could see right through me.
“Like hell you don’t know. You’re back to keeping everyone at arm’s length, even me and Sly. And for short stretches, that solitary bird crap you do is okay. We get it. After the shit you went through in Louisiana, no one can question why you’d want to keep to yourself. But you’re about to be a daddy. You think you can keep a baby at arm’s length? Or get close then ice them out? They’d end up hating your guts. Plus I saw the way you look at Angel. Arm’s length is the farthest you want to be from her.”
After the shit I went through…
The shit I still went through.
Because in my head, it kept happening.
Night after night. Day after day. Nothing changed it and no amount of time or distance fixed the fact that I’d failed.
“See you when I get back,” I told LeVan, shutting down the conversation and leaving him at the bar.
On the plane, I slept to force him out of my head.
But even that turned on me, brought the nightmare back in vivid, hi-def as though it was really happening.
“You tell Tante Didi who hurt you.”
Tante Didi was my great aunt. My father’s aunt to be exact. His mother’s sister. She used to tell me and my baby brother, Micah, that she loved us and she’d always protect us, no matter what.
She’d tell us it was our job to protect each other as best we could.
In the dream, she was older now, frail, but as she stroked a hand down my face, she still seemed as big and strong as a giant. Blood bloomed from an ugly gash above her eyebrow, streaked down her face, yet she still whispered, “You tell Tante Didi…”
Micah clung to her. “Don’t die, Tante Didi. Don’t die. If you die, he’ll do it all the time.”
But she did die.
As the dream unfolded and twisted, my great aunt withered and faded, her body collapsing in on itself even as she demanded, louder now, so loud that it echoed around the room.
“You tell Tante Didi!”
I jerked awake, her voice a rattling scream in my ears. I was sweating all over, even on my hands. Was that because I’d grabbed Micah at the end, or was it the dream itself?
You tell Tante Didi, boy. I’ll take care of it.
She would’ve kept her word, too.
If she hadn’t died.
Nobody ever argued with the powerhouse that was Didi Knight, not even my father. The man never believed a word Micah and I uttered, but he would damn well listen to his aunt.
The wreck spoiled all our chances, though…
“Sir, please return your chair to the upright position.”
Blinking, I looked over at the airline attendant, then out the window. Shit. Mexico City unfurled below us in a sprawling maze of low, squat buildings and sparkling glass skyscrapers.
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” I mumbled.
Would’ve been nice to wake up a few minutes earlier and get a drink to wash the dream away.
A little too late now.
Fuck LeVan for making me think about this shit.
And the dream was still playing. I could hear the echo of Didi’s voice as though she was right beside me. Whispering.
“You tell Tante Didi who hurt you.”
It was T
ante Didi, then my older brother, Danny, would shout, drowning out Micah, who’d always talk like he was whispering. Even in the dream, I tried to get them to stop talking. All of them. The foreknowledge that somehow, something worse would happen if Danny knew we’d told. Didi just wanted to know who had beat the crap out of me, locked me in the closet, whatever. I didn’t rat him out. I was getting bigger. Sooner or later, I’d be big enough to fight back. That was what I’d thought. And whenever he locked me up, I was always able to get myself out.
I got my start in magic dealing with my abusive, crazy older brother. That would’ve made the headlines.
Micah eventually told Didi, and she’d promised she’d deal with it.
She’d kept her promise and gone to our house to have it out with my father. And on the way back, she was in a car wreck that killed her immediately.
You’re back to keeping everybody at arm’s length.
It hadn’t always been that way. But after Tante Didi, Micah and…
Yeah. Keeping people at a distance was just safer.
Brooding, I stared out the window, watching as the city drew closer and wondering about what LeVan had told me.
How would I ever be able to hold a baby, or Angel, at arm’s length?
The airport in Mexico City wasn’t the worst airport I’d ever been to.
That said, it sure as hell wasn’t the best.
I was used to the standard safety announcements. Like, Attention travelers, do not accept rides from private vehicles… blah blah blah. I understood the warnings as it was announced in English, Spanish and French. Languages had always come easily for me since childhood. Anyone who could look past pronunciation and get to the root word would see that all three languages had more commonalities than differences. Ditto for Portuguese and a few other languages I’d heard. Most of the French I’d first learned was a smattering of Cajun. Tante Didi had murmured into my ears back when I was a boy who’d smiled at things like, “aren’t you my handsome little bébé?”
Tante Didi.
Ruin Me: Vegas Knights Page 16