Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  ***

  I got back to the city and I saw that Lena had texted, asking if I still wanted to meet up for dinner. Of course I wanted to see her, but I also didn’t want her to see me like this. I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that regardless of what I did, I’d never be able to escape my family. That eventually they would wear me down and I’d end my relationship with Lena, despite the fact that was the last thing I wanted to do. I texted her back and asked if we could try for tomorrow; I slipped in a little white lie about going down to the gym. Since we had already made tentative plans before I’d gone to my parents’ house, I felt like I needed to give her some reason why I was backing out now.

  But instead of going to the gym, I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror. For all my years of MMA, I’d escaped any permanent disfigurement so far—my nose was still straight; I didn’t have cauliflower ears. And though I couldn’t see the rest of my body from the neck down, I knew that if I could, I would see it as strong, physically fit, capable of quite a bit.

  Despite all that, though, I felt weak. I felt weak because I had found someone whom I really had strong feelings for, yet I was questioning the relationship because my family didn’t approve. And deep down, I knew they would win. Eventually, they would win. Because that was how it had always been. And sometimes, it didn’t matter how strong you were; you couldn’t rise above certain things.

  Chapter 9

  Lena

  I decided I’d go out and get a quick bite and maybe stop by the gym to see Shep. I went to this little Vietnamese place and got a bowl of pho and then walked down to Shep’s gym. I’d been by it before, but never gone in. It looked like any other gym from the outside, so I walked in, hoping that it was all right to pop in and say hello.

  There were several people in there, a few of them working out with weights, two others wearing boxing gloves and what looked like padded helmets as they circled each other on the mat. Someone else was jumping rope in front of the mirrored wall. None of the people were Shep.

  I paused, suddenly not sure what to do. Obviously, I should just ask someone where Shep was, but then I realized how that might look—like I was the needy girlfriend, unable to leave her man alone when he went to train at the gym. Maybe this was his sacred time or something. There were no other women in the place—were women even allowed here? I cringed inwardly, hoping that I could simply turn around and make a hasty exit without being noticed, but before I could pivot to do so, a guy stepped out of a side room that I didn’t even see, did a double take when he saw me standing there, and walked over.

  “Hey,” he said. At least he didn’t look pissed. “Can I help you with something?”

  “Um…” I glanced around the room once more, hoping that I’d just see Shep and could say that I’d found the person I was looking for. No dice. “I was just in the neighborhood and I thought I’d drop in.”

  “Are you interested in mixed martial arts?”

  “Well… I have done some jujitsu before, but I was actually just going to say hi to, um, Shep. I just went out and had some dinner and then I thought it would be nice to stop and say hi…” I let my voice trail off once I realized I was not only babbling but also repeating myself.

  “Shep?” The guy let his gaze travel around the room. “Haven’t seen him. I don’t think he’s due in until tomorrow.”

  “Oh, because he said he was coming down here.” The words were out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying, all but admitting to the fact that Shep had lied because he hadn’t wanted to see me. I swallowed, and the guy smiled, though it was obviously uncomfortably.

  “I mean, he might be heading over,” he said quickly.

  I smiled thinly. Nice try, I thought, though I supposed it was kind of him to try and backtrack. On the outside, I knew I was exuding a calm exterior, but inside, the thoughts were going a mile a minute. “Do you want to leave him a message or anything?”

  “No,” I said. “Thank you for offering, but you’re not his personal messaging service.” Before he could say anything else, or before my face could betray me, I hurried out, not allowing myself to breathe until I was back out on the sidewalk.

  He wasn’t there.

  I pulled my phone out of my purse and looked at our text conversation, the conversation where I clearly ask him if he would like to meet up for dinner and he says he can’t because he’s heading over to the gym.

  I started to walk, trying to replay possibilities in my head. But the only one I kept coming back to was the fact that he lied to me. The reasons why didn’t matter—a lie was a lie. I had thought, all things considered, that he wouldn’t do something like that with me, that he would be able to be honest, even if the truth was, No, I don’t want to go out to dinner with you.

  I knew if I didn’t call him I would be stewing about this all night, and I sure as hell did not want to be doing that. I pulled my phone out again and started to call, but before it went through, I stopped and put the phone back in my purse. No. I wasn’t going to call—a call was too easy to ignore. I was going to go over to his place. Dropping by places unannounced was generally not my thing but an unannounced visit meant I might catch him in the act. I might stop by there and they’d be in his bed, or she’d just be leaving, or they’d be leaving together to go out to dinner…

  All these scenarios played over and over in my head until I finally got to his place. I hadn’t planned on walking the whole way, and my right heel had a massive blister on it, but I didn’t care. I marched right up to the door and was about to ring the call box for apartment number four when someone came out of the building, and they held the door open for me so I was able to slip in and really make my arrival unannounced. If the universe was truly on my side, then I’d somehow also be able to get into his apartment.

  I trotted up the stairs and walked down the carpeted hallway to door number four. The universe did not see to it to have the door magically open, so I raised my fist and gave it a good, solid knock. I stepped partially to the side and looked down, so if he looked through the peephole, he might not be able to tell who it was.

  But it wouldn’t seem that he did, because I could hear the muffled thud of footsteps approaching, and then a lock being slid back, and then the door opened. And there he was. Fully clothed, not disheveled-looking—though he didn’t look particularly happy.

  “Lena,” he said, and I could hear the surprise in his voice. “Hey. What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here?” I said. “I came by because I had stopped over at your gym to say hi after I went out and got myself dinner by myself. You know, the dinner that I had invited you out to but you declined because you said you had to go to the gym. I wasn’t trying to be stalker-ish or anything; I just wanted to see you. But I realize now how foolish of me that actually is.”

  He looked truly bewildered. “Lena,” he said, but he didn’t say anything else.

  “Maybe you don’t need to say anything,” I said. “Because usually when people try to get out of a lie, they have to lie even more. Which isn’t going to help your case at all, because I hate liars. You can tell me that your family is into some illegal stuff and I can be okay with that, but I can’t be okay with someone lying to me. Because if we can’t trust each other, what’s the point? I don’t want to have someone in my life that I’m constantly second-guessing or wondering if they’re being honest with me.”

  “Of course,” he said. “I really feel the same way.”

  “That’s interesting. Because someone who feels the same way wouldn’t start lying.”

  His shoulders slumped. “Do you want to come in? Can we at least talk about this? I almost feel like you’re about to break up with me.”

  “Maybe I am.” It hurt me to just say that, but I was also mad, and I wanted to make him hurt, too. Who was this person that I was turning into? I didn’t particularly like her, but I also couldn’t seem to do anything to control her. She was not
about to let herself get lied to by some guy. Hell, no.

  “Please come in.”

  He stepped back and held the door open. I hesitated, but then stepped through. I hadn’t really thought about what my plan was going to be once I got here—I had really thought that I’d be catching him with someone else, and then I wouldn’t need a well-thought-out plan because I could just react to what was happening. In other words: lose my shit. But he seemed apologetic, he seemed confused, and he certainly seemed like he was terrified of the idea that I was about to leave him. Which did, actually, make me feel a little better. Sort of.

  So I followed him through a short hallway, past a bathroom, the door slightly ajar, past the kitchen—counters were clear, sink wasn’t overflowing with dishes—and into the living room. There was a nice microfiber couch, a colorful, modern-style sort of rug, probably from IKEA, a square coffee table, large flat-screen TV. The place was clean and well-kept and I must’ve had a surprised expression on my face, because Shep looked around and said, “All the credit goes to my other two roommates for the décor. I have no decorating sense.” He sat down on the couch and then patted the cushion next to him. “Please. Sit down.”

  I sat down, trying to tell myself that there was a reasonable explanation for this and he was about to tell me. Of course, there was another, louder voice insisting that it was me, or something I had done. Which was stupid, because I hadn’t done anything, which then led to the next logical thought: he was just not interested in me anymore. What was that book called? He’s Just Not That Into You? My mind whirred; should I go pick that book up after we parted ways? Should I talk to Jenn about it? She was the one who was in training for this sort of thing, after all. What are you supposed to do when the man you think you might be falling in love with lies to you?

  That thought appeared in my mind and it startled me—in love with him? Was I, really? Had I ever been in love with anyone before? I had thought I had, but it had never been a feeling like this. Would I even know what falling in love with someone felt like? Before I’d met Shep, logic had always superseded any other feelings I might’ve had in a romantic relationship. I had just assumed that’s how I was—but perhaps it was really that I just hadn’t met the right person. And now, here I was, sitting next to him on the couch, waiting to hear why it was he felt like he had to lie to me.

  He’s about to break up with you.

  That awful voice kept whispering terrible things like that, even though I was the one who had stormed over here, angry, and knocked on his door, demanding to know what was going on. Shep rubbed his eyes and looked at me, a tired expression on his face. I steeled myself for it—the moment he broke it off. He could offer whatever excuse he wanted—I wasn’t going to let him see how much it bothered me. Not until he left, anyway. Only then would commence the crying and the balled-up tissues and the swearing off of men for the rest of my life.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, but then he paused and didn’t follow it up with, But I just don’t like you anymore. He didn’t say anything; he left me hanging there, waiting for the ax to come down. The seconds dragged out. Finally, I couldn’t take it.

  “It’s fine,” I said, and though I was trying to sound completely normal, I could hear how cold my tone was. “You don’t even need to give me the reason why. It doesn’t matter, anyway. This was fun while it lasted.”

  “Huh?” He blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Look, I know you’re about to break up with me, and, like I just said, that’s fine…” Here, my voice wobbled. “And I do appreciate you doing it to my face instead of stringing me along and cheating on me or something. I know a lot of guys wouldn’t have the balls to actually just break something off when they weren’t interested anymore. So, thanks for that.” I blinked, really hoping that I had just gotten a speck of dust in my eye and that I wasn’t on the verge of tears. I would probably never be able to look at myself in the mirror again if I started to cry in front of Shep. I could literally count on one hand the number of times I’d let myself cry in front of someone else, and they had all occurred before I’d been a legal adult. It just wasn’t something I did. “I just wish you didn’t feel like you had to tell me that little lie you did earlier, when I asked if you wanted to go out to dinner. That would’ve been a fine time to just tell me that you weren’t interested and you were breaking up with me. Instead of having me make a fool of myself by going down to your gym, looking for you.”

  He continued to stare at me, the expression on his face going from mild confusion to pure bewilderment. “Breaking up with you?” he said. “I’m not breaking up with you. Is that what you think I was going to say?”

  “It’s… it’s not?”

  “No. God, no.”

  “Why did you lie to me, then? Why did you tell me you were going to the gym? If you didn’t want to go to dinner, you could have just told me—I’m a big girl, I swear. I really would rather know now than have things go on. I mean, we don’t really even know each other that well as it is, so it’d be better to just end things now than have either of us waste any more time.”

  “But I don’t think this is a waste of time,” he said. “Not at all. And I’m sorry that I’ve seemed stressed or distracted—I am, but it has nothing to do with you. Or maybe everything to do with you; I guess it depends on how you look at it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My family is stressing me out. They’ve actually always kind of stressed me out, but it’s getting really bad. Nothing I do is good enough for them, or they don’t think I’m doing the right things, or—”

  “They didn’t like me, did they?” I said. While some people might have been upset if the boyfriend’s family didn’t like them, I honestly couldn’t care less. I wasn’t dating his family.

  “It’s not that,” Shep said slowly, his tone indicating that it was exactly that. Or at least partly that. He wiped his hands on the thighs of his jeans and looked down at the floor, then up at the ceiling, then back down at the floor, before finally finding my face again. He was nervous, I realized. What did he have to be nervous about right now? What was going on? The previous relief I had felt that he wasn’t ending things was now becoming eclipsed by the fact that he had to tell me something that he didn’t want to, or didn’t think that I’d want to hear. “It’s… it’s more complicated than that. But I want to be honest with you. I don’t want to keep secrets, and I know this might sound crazy since we haven’t known each other that long, but I feel like I can level with you. That I can trust you.”

  “I always try to be a trustworthy person.”

  “You definitely seem like someone with integrity. That’s one of the things I like about you so much. And why I don’t want to keep anything from you, even if… even if it might change how you see me.”

  “Well… thanks,” I said. On the outside, I probably appeared totally calm, but inside, I was starting to freak out a little. What was it that he had to tell me? Something so bad that it would change the way I saw him? Did I even want to know?

  Part of me insisted that I didn’t want to know, that I just wanted to erase this entire part of the conversation we’d been having and go back to that blissful, ignorant honeymoon stage. But that was foolish, I knew. And he was willing to be honest with me about it, before things went any further, even though he thought it might mess everything up. So I took a deep breath.

  “All right,” I said. “Just tell me. I promise I won’t overreact.”

  “My family is involved in making and selling methamphetamine.”

  I blinked. What? That was not what I’d been expecting. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d been thinking he was going to say, but it certainly wasn’t that. “Okay,” I said slowly. “So, by family, does this mean yourself also?” That could certainly put a damper on things—I wasn’t about to start dating a drug dealer, no matter how great I thought he was.

  “No,” he said quickly, and with such indignation that I knew he was telling the t
ruth. “I mean, I used to kind of help out with deliveries when I was younger, but I got out of that game a while ago. And I certainly don’t use the shit. I tried it a few times when I was in my late teens, but I really didn’t like it that much. The novelty of staying up for three days straight wears off real quick.”

  “Um, yeah. I imagine it would.”

  “I don’t know if you picked up on the vibe or not when we were over there, but my parents aren’t too psyched that I didn’t stick around to help out with the family business, like my brother did. They’re not too pleased about it, but I think they realize there’s not a whole lot they can do about it, either. The reason I left is because I don’t want to live that sort of life. I don’t want to worry about doing something illegal, about the possibility of spending a really long time in prison. No, thanks. For whatever reason, the rest of my family thinks that because they’ve been lucky this long, somehow that luck is going to keep up. I’m not saying that I want to see any of them get busted, but they just don’t realize that something like that could happen to them, because it’s never happened before.” He shook his head. “I know this is a lot to be telling you. And like I said, I know it might also change how you feel about me, and I completely understand that. It won’t be easy for me if you tell me that you don’t want to have anything to do with me anymore, but I will one hundred percent understand, and accept that if you really feel that way.”

  “I…” I paused. I didn’t know what to say. But I wasn’t about to make him pay for something that his family was doing, was I? That would be foolish—he couldn’t control or dictate how his family was supposed to live their lives, any more than they could with him. “I appreciate your honesty,” I said. “I mean that. And it doesn’t change how I feel about you at all. If anything, it makes me respect you all the more, because you told me. I think a lot of guys would’ve just kept quiet about it and hoped that it never came up.”