Just Until Morning

by Dani Wyatt

  “That’s fine. I’ve eaten enough in the last few days to last me a month. And I do have some business of my own I’ve been neglecting, so it actually works out better for me that we cancel.”

  I want so badly to come up with something to say. Tell her I’ll see her later tonight or arrange for a breakfast tomorrow, but right now, I can’t. Anything I do has to put her first, and keeping her safe is, above all other things, the fulcrum upon which my actions must be decided.

  “Good. Well, shall we?”

  With that, our armor is shielding us. The entire drive back to her apartment, I hold her hand, but the energy has been discharged. We are both highly skilled at reading someone. A room. An environment. And the message resonating between us right now is tread lightly. Be careful. Danger is afoot.

  And that’s the way I need it to be. Because right now, she needs to keep herself safe.

  As I put the car in park and go to open my door, her hand shoots out to rest on my forearm. The connection sends lightning bolts throughout my body. My cock has been half hard since I picked her up for lunch, but with this simple touch, it’s at full length, hungry for what I know I may never have again.

  “Listen.” Her voice softens. There’s an honesty about it, and her wall lowers, if only enough for me to see her behind it. “Don’t walk me in today, okay? It’s nothing personal, it’s just... Angela’s been getting all over me about you. Wanting to know more about you and what’s going on. I just think it’s best to keep a low profile, don’t you? It’s only a matter of time before Cruzer sees you, and it just all feels muddy, you know? I’m sorry...”

  It makes no sense, but it feels like we are both trying to give the other an out, so I acquiesce even as every part of my soul screams for me to steal her away and find a way to keep her safe.

  “It’s okay.” I lean over, taking those Cherry Coke lips with mine once more. Half praying it will be the last time and half praying it won’t.

  Without another word, she’s out and disappears behind the door to the Victorian boarding house with my broken heart resting inside hers.

  C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N

  Holli

  The edges of the suitcase I bought at the thrift store are so worn that the plastic underneath is beginning to show through.

  I’ve been in a staring contest with the brown roller bag on and off for two hours. I’ve moved it around twice as I tried to figure out how to stop looking at it, but since I have no closet, it’s just me and my willpower, and I’m losing.

  I kick my feet into the air, straightening my legs until the muscles scream as I try to lift my torso from my lumpy mattress and touch my toes. The late afternoon gloom is the only thing keeping me company.

  Cruzer is on his way over. I’m trying to get my game face on but...I don’t know...it’s like everything has changed. I used to be able to just turn it on. The hustle. The calculations. But it’s been harder and harder since I met Lincoln.

  Thing is though, I still need money. Cruzer’s been getting me into some online games, and I’ve been doing okay. I’m up anyway. Of course, I had to put another big chunk of my saved tuition money to get in, but at this point, I’m stuck. It’s sink or swim, and I’m doggy-paddling as fast as I can.

  A knock on the door to the apartment doesn’t surprise me. Cruzer is a lot of things, but he’s usually prompt.

  “Come in,” I yell and drop my legs onto the bed, swing myself over and hop up.

  “Hey. I got good news.” Cruzer’s nose is always red, but today it’s got a kind of Rudolf glow.

  “Do tell.” My deadpan voice doesn’t dim his enthusiasm.

  “There’s a new game I got you in. It’s only going to be on for forty-eight hours, then they will shut the site down.”

  Online poker is illegal, and finding good games for real money takes connections. Unfortunately, Cruzer is my only way in, so we’ve been working together, but it still doesn’t make me trust him.

  “Okay, so what’s so good news about that? I’ve been playing in these other games you’ve got going, and that’s been fine. Slow, but it’s moving in the right direction.”

  “Aww, no.” He shuts the door and walks over to flop down in his own ass-indent on the droopy olive-green sofa. “This one is where you’re going to change things for yourself. Now, don’t get panicked, but it’s another $5G buy in—”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I’m on my feet, throwing my hands to the sides of my head. “No way. I’ve already got five sunk into these other games. Along with the money I lost at that game you sent me to, that’s ten thousand fucking dollars. Another five and I’m screwed. No way. No way.”

  “Do you have your tuition money now?” He stares at me, entwining his fingers behind his head with a surly grin.

  “No. But losing more isn’t going to get me any closer.”

  “This game is good. I mean, I know some of the guys they got in, and they are donks. I’m telling you, it’s like a sure thing. You get in with five, maybe ten, you’ll triple your money easy. These guys are ripe.” He’s on his feet and at my computer. “Log in. First, we PayPal transfer to this email, then they will get the funds to the game under a few other money moves that can’t be traced. Come on. They aren’t going to wait.”

  I feel my life slipping away.

  My heart thuds inside my chest, and I lower my hand to cover my face, trying to remember how to breathe.

  Five hours and a lifetime of regret later, I slam my forehead down on my desk.

  “Fuck,” I say into the chipped, wood-tone Formica next to my keyboard.

  “Shitty luck. Fuck.” Cruzer’s support lacks a certain sincerity. “You were fucking doing great. What the hell happened?”

  I lift my head and scowl at him. “You’ve been sitting on my hip the whole time. You need me to tell you what happened?” I lean back in my chair on a long exhale, my head pounding.

  “You were killing it.” He slurps on his glass of Popov with a shake of his head. He doesn’t seem all that distraught, but then, it’s not his money. I want to punch him in his reindeer nose.

  “These fuckers are slamming me.” I point toward the screen. “It’s like they are playing together against me.”

  “Just take a breath.” He chuckles. “No one is playing together. Everyone is on their own.”

  “A breath? I’ve just lost ten fucking thousand dollars. Started with five, wanted to quit, but listened to you. But that’s on me. Now I have no way to get it back. I’ll be in this shithole town, hustling in charity poker rooms for the rest of my stupid life.” It’s my aversion to losing that got me in so deep. I’m not used to it, and I’m desperate. Two things that do not make for good decisions.

  I fight back the tears. No way I’m crying. Not in front of him.

  But I would. If he weren’t here, I’d be crying about my own stupidity. Not about the loss. Not just the humiliation either. Not even the fucking money. The loss of a dream. The loss of my own sense of priorities.

  Why do I do this? Why do I let people talk me into things when I know they aren’t good for me? I should have just pointed my sausage finger right into his chest and said “no.”

  I shake my head. I won’t do this; I won’t let them all bring me down into their stupid, worthless existence. I’m better than that. I have my pride.

  I force myself to relax, hold back the tears. And then, in that instant, something comes over me. Call it an epiphany. Suddenly, I realize it’s only the expectation of something different that has me on edge. When I take a second, I realize this is my life. Just this. And a hardness forms around the edges of me, protecting me from it all.

  I feel indifference setting in, and it feels a hell of a lot better than the loss of what could have been.

  Lincoln. School. A new life.

  Fuck ’em.

  I leave them all behind in that instant. In a kind of daze, I play my last three hands and lose the little money I have left. Then I push back my chair, ignoring
Cruzer’s pleas for me to take another draw and try to win it back.

  Without a word, without my keys, my bag, or anything other than my new attitude, I’m out the door and headed back into the comfort of familiarity.

  I’ve got two hundred bucks in my pocket. That’s more than enough. I’ll find some shitty bar game and take a few drunks for a ride. Won’t be “fuck you” money, but at least it’s back to what I know. What I can control.

  Before I’m at the end of the hall, I hear Cruzer yelling behind me, but he doesn’t realize I’m already gone.

  C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N

  Lincoln

  That image, the one where she puts that last bite of cheesecake between her lips, the same lips that have given me more pleasure in four days than in my whole life, is burned into my brain like a brand.

  The penthouse is humming. Players surround the tables. Chips click together, a constant drumbeat as players either toss them into the pot or fidget with their stacks, or as dealers pull or push them to and fro.

  Same sounds I’ve heard every day of my life for longer than I can remember.

  But today, the temperature feels different.

  The noises are harsh. They crack against my eardrums like gunfire.

  And for the first time in my life, the smell of cigar smoke and false hope sickens me to the core.

  None of it matters. Not the money. Not the image. Not the illusion of power. I’m an icon of nothing that matters to me anymore, and there’s a hole opening inside of me that cannot be filled.

  Except it could, and I know it.

  It could be filled by her.

  But I make my peace with the deep black hole of my existence, because she and I can’t be. There’s no way to keep her safe if we continue. No route out of this place with my name intact and her tagging along. Deal was, I disappear, no trace. No attachments. At the time, it was the cherry on top of a very lucrative transition-of-my-business sundae.

  Now, it’s the very thing that’s killing my soul.

  “Boss.” Walrus doesn’t even look up from the ledger open in front of him, his fountain pen swirling names and dollar figures into columns only he can understand. If he’d ever wanted to screw me over the years, I’d be fucked. He’s the one person in my life I trust. And we speak barely ten words to each other a day, even when we’re working in the same room.

  I hear him laugh, and it draws my attention. With a sigh, I sit down in the chair in front of his desk, cross my arms over my chest and look.

  He’s smiling.

  The cigar barely stuck to his bottom lip.

  “What the fuck is with you?” I grunt.

  “You don’t think I know.”

  Five words and I understand exactly what he’s saying.

  “I couldn’t tell you. How’d you find out?”

  “I see clues. I have eyes. No one has to tell me. I waited for you to tell me, but I figured there must be some good fucking reason you didn’t.”

  Walrus notices things that even someone with X-ray vision and the ability to read minds couldn’t catch.

  “I’m fucked.” A long exhale tears from my lungs. The weight of this decision on my shoulders leaves me in that one breath.

  “Yeah?”

  He doesn’t know everything.

  I tell him the deal. The details.

  Then I stop and he shifts in his chair, pushing back and standing up. He never fucking stands up except to leave the room at the end of the night or when he has to piss. He slaps his thick hands down on the desk and leans over.

  “You taking her?”

  Fucker doesn’t miss a trick.

  “That’s the ‘I’m fucked’ part of this. Can’t take her. Can’t risk her.”

  “I got this,” he hisses.

  “What the hell do you mean, you got this?”

  “You shoulda told me sooner. You better get ready to send my mom a shit-ton of flowers. She likes orchids. Oh, and peonies. Pink.”

  Walrus groans as he stands back upright. Centering his hands into the small of his back and stretching with a pained rumble.

  He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out his phone, then turns and walks to the windows, bringing it to his ear.

  A minute later, he’s back in his chair, giving me a stare.

  “What the hell did you just do?”

  “I called my mom.”

  “I got that part.” I’m getting fucking annoyed right now. “What the fuck does your mom have to do with anything?”

  “You’re an asshole, you know that? You’ve always been an asshole, but you don’t know everything, motherfucker.” He shifts the cigar butt to the opposite side of his mouth. “My mom and his mom, that piece of rat shit you sold your world to, sit next to each other every Thursday night at the fucking bingo. They get their fucking hair done together every Monday morning. Meyer won’t fuck with you if you take your girl. Not now. I guarantee it. I just told my mom, ‘Lincoln found his one. Rudolf needs to back the fuck off if he takes her with him. Fix it. They’re leaving tomorrow. Don’t ask anything else, just tell Norma.’”

  “That’s it?” I shake my head, my hands coming to rest on my knees, gripping hard. I’ve been a fucking idiot.

  “The power of the mom. Do not ever doubt what a good mamma’s boy will do.”

  “Fuck. You know what?”

  Walrus just stares. He’s done talking. I know the exertion of all those words has already set him over his limit for the next year.

  I don’t wait for his response. “I thought about killing him.”

  Walrus lifts one eyebrow. That was our one pact when we started down this life all those years ago. We’d do a lot of stuff. Fuck, whatever it took. I’ve broken my share of noses and extracted debts in ways I’m not proud of, but we vowed never to take a life. And we never did. Never even came close to that. The idea hadn’t really ever been a possibility until the last three days.

  I rub my hands up and down the tops of my thighs as my friend waits for me to finish. “But he’s got reach. I kill him, it comes back on her. On me. On you.”

  He nods, looking down at the open ledger, then begins scribbling again.

  A loud “whoop” comes from a newbie at table three, and you can see the collective eye roll from the seasoned players at his outburst. But at the moment, I’m ready to follow his lead and do a fucking yee-haw with a set of pom-poms waving around.

  “I love you, man. Thank you.” It’s the last thing I say before Walrus raises one hand and flips his fingers toward the door, dismissing me without another word.

  In my car, I make a call to confirm with Rudolf what just happened. He’s less than interested in discussing the details of his conversation with his mother, but with a few clipped words, he confirms we are in the clear. I can take her and I have to still leave, but I don’t have to go completely ghost. Just lay fucking low, stay out of town and I’m good with that.

  So with that one small detail of our arrangement altered, it’s just enough that if I play my cards right, Holli and I can start living our lives.

  Together.

  Now I just need to get to her. And hope she’s really feeling what I’m feeling. Hope she trusts me enough to fly away with me and start over.

  Ten minutes later though, and she’s not replying to my texts. Not answering my calls.

  I consider heading back to my house. After all, she could just be busy. Or out. Left her phone somewhere and not know that I’m trying to get a hold of her. I can head home, settle a few last details, and pick her up in the morning on the way to the airport. In my head, that makes sense. But that’s no longer me. My life no longer makes sense. The next left turn will take me back to my place. Instead, I spin the wheel right and head to her apartment.

  A few minutes later, I’m taking the stairs two at a time, making my way to her. But when I reach the second-floor landing, that’s when I hear it.

  Her voice.

  “Stop it, you ass. Let go.”

  My
heart jumps in my chest. It’s far off, but it’s her. At least two more flights up but something’s wrong, and I have to go to her.

  By the time I get to her fourth floor, every breath is burning my lungs. My heart nearly shatters ribs from the exertion and the fury that someone has a hand on her.

  I sprint down the hall, try the handle, but the door is locked.

  Nothing comes between us. Nothing. I’ll move the fucking earth if I have to. A second later, my foot becomes the universal key, breaking the lock and sending shards of wood flying. The door swings open, and there’s that Cruzer guy with a hand holding hers above her head, his other one squeezing her chin, holding her face secure.

  “Let go.” Her muffled words are shut down by his hand over her mouth, and all I see is red.

  “Just shut up.” Cruzer says. “Listen, just shut the fuck up, we can be in on this hustle together. Make a shit ton of money with your looks and my set ups. Maybe we can be more too.”

  The promise Walrus and I made to each other never to take a life flashes through my mind and flies out the window.

  His hands move to lock around her, pulling her against him, and bile hits my tongue as I lunge forward. My fist hits the side of his eye socket with a crunch.

  Holli’s wide eyes go from Cruzer to me, then back.

  She ducks, spins, and ends up off my left side, smart enough to know when it’s time to get the fuck out of the way and let things get handled.

  “What the—” Cruzer’s hands fly up to his face.

  I don’t let the piece of shit get another word out before he gets two more shots. He shrieks as the first one lands on his chin, then the next smacks right into his cheek. Blood courses through his fingers as he brings a hand to cover the pouring crimson liquid, whimpering, backing away.

  “Stop! What the fuck?”

  Two seconds later, I’m stuffing his bleeding ass out the front door with my foot.

  “Your face. In my sight never again. You even think about her, you’ll be in the fucking river wearing a Buick as a collar.”