First, Last, and in Between

by Jamie Bennett

  He looked down. “That? Nothing.”

  I was already shaking my head. “It’s blood. Is it? Is it blood? Why do you have blood on your shirt? Did you get cut on a saw or something?” I started checking his arms, his hands, running my palms over his skin. “Where are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” he told me, and opened the car door, bringing the cat with him as he stood up. “It’s not my blood. Let’s go upstairs.”

  I got out too, but I stopped on the sidewalk, unwilling to go any farther. Whose blood was it? Why was someone else so close to him, so close and injured? “Did you do something? Did you hurt someone?” I heard myself say, and when he swung around to walk towards me, he was frowning. He was this huge, scowling, scary-looking guy stalking toward me, but I didn’t have any urge to shrink down or run. My heart didn’t even pound from fear of him—no, it was fear for him. “I just don’t get you,” I said. “I don’t understand what’s happening here and I don’t know what I should do.”

  “We’re going upstairs and we’ll figure it out.” He held out his hand, and still not knowing if I was making a huge mistake with just about everything in my life, I took it.

  Chapter 12

  Isobel

  “Whose blood is it?”

  Rory stopped in his living room and stripped off his stained shirt. He balled it up and threw it into the corner. “I caught a guy today and his nose started to bleed. Not because I hurt him, because he was scared and crying pretty hard.”

  “Caught him?” I repeated. “Doing what? Why was he so scared?” I looked at Rory’s big torso, wide and roped with muscle and blue-black tattoos. I wanted to touch him and feel him against me, and I dug my nails into my palms to hold myself back. “Please tell me what’s happening with you.”

  Rory then kicked off his shoes and pulled off his pants, leaving himself in his underwear. He went to the kitchen and started to scrub his hands and face under the faucet, washing over and over. Finally he turned off the tap and picked up his head. Water sprayed across the cabinet doors and countertop. “A guy came after me today but I caught him. He was just a kid. I got some information out of him but I didn’t hurt him. He pissed himself and got a bloody nose because he probably thought I was going to kill him. I wasn’t,” Rory told me. He looked down at his hands. “I have to take a shower. Are you going to run if I leave this room?”

  I was thinking about it, yes. I shrugged and counted how many steps it would take me to get to the door, but I didn’t move.

  Rory picked up the kitten from the couch and put her in my hands. “Sit down. Watch Jory,” he told me. “We need you to stay.” He waited for a moment but I still didn’t move, and I stood in the same place in the middle of the floor and listened to the kitten purr as the shower came on in the bathroom. She seemed happier now that he had held her and I couldn’t help myself from feeling the same way. I felt better just to have him in the next room, even though I told myself I should leave. Right now, while I had the chance. Instead, I stood and held the cat and waited.

  About a second later, Rory came back out, now dripping onto the floor and wrapped in a towel. His face relaxed from a frown as he saw me still there, rooted to the living room carpet. “Good,” he told me. He removed the kitten from my grasp and put her down, and then walked me to the couch where he sat and pulled me onto his wet lap. I felt him sigh out into my hair and gradually, I relaxed against him, resting my face on his shoulder.

  “How was your day, Isobel?”

  “Really? Seriously?” I picked up my head. “You came home with blood on your shirt, telling me that someone came after you and you scared him so much that he peed in his pants, and you’re asking about my day?”

  “I was busy,” he agreed, and pressed his palm gently on my cheek until I lay against him again.

  “What happened to you today?” I demanded, relaxing a little because of his nearness, but still scared to death.

  He sighed and my body raised and lowered on his chest. “Someone has been trying to kill me. I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you’d be worried.”

  He said those words in exactly the same tone as when he’d suggested buying Rella a phone so she could text us. I surged up but his arms still held me to his body. “What? What?” I yelped, my voice rising. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m fine,” Rory told me. “Nothing happened to me at all, but he’s been trying. You know I’ve been looking for Memphis to get my money back. He’s been looking for me, too, trying to get to me, first. The guy I work for sticks to too many routines so I’ve been easier to track. Memphis had some kid follow me on a goddamn scooter to shoot me today. A scooter.” He shook his head, like that was the worst part of the story.

  “To shoot you?” I asked.

  “I can feel your heart beating so hard,” he said. He rubbed my back. “Take a breath and blow it out slowly.” I tried to do what he said. “I talked to a cardiologist about the arrythmia,” Rory continued. “She wanted to know if it was maybe anxiety that made you pass out, and I said I wasn’t sure. I’ve only seen you faint when you got really scared but you said it happened other times too, right? I made an appointment for you to go in to get that checked. We’ll go together next week.”

  “What? A doctor’s appointment? No, I don’t—wait, someone tried to shoot you?”

  “He missed,” he said, and kept rubbing my back. “It’s nice to have you here. I was glad to see your tin can parked on the street just now. I was thinking about you a lot today.”

  “Rory…”

  “I went with the kid to where Memphis was supposed to meet him to pay him for killing me, but Memphis didn’t show,” he went on, calmly continuing the story of how he was supposed to be assassinated. “Memphis stiffed him, the poor sucker. But I got some good information. I’m going to find Memphis and get my money.”

  “No.” Now I did sit up, pulling myself free of his comforting arms. “No, I don’t want you to do that. How would you make him give it to you?” Rory looked at me steadily and I imagined the ways, all the possibilities of him getting hurt. “I can get money,” I told him. “You go up north to your family and stay there, and I’m going to pay the debt for you.” I should have done this before, but I hadn’t understood the level of danger he was in. Or maybe, I just hadn’t wanted to let myself think about it.

  “How? How would you get that much? You were worried about paying for your car.”

  I bit my lip, thinking quickly. It was going have to be major. Not just taking some twenties out of a deflated soccer ball, but something big enough that I would go to jail if I got caught. “I can get it,” I repeated. “I—” I thought of Wilder Tollman asking me not to steal from him. Shame burned up in my face. “I can get it at work,” I admitted.

  “You’re taking stuff from those houses,” he said, still just as calm, and like it wasn’t a surprise to him that I would be a thief.

  “No!” I answered automatically. “I’m not taking anything that I don’t deserve. I’m just, no, I’m not stealing,” I stumbled on. “It’s like they owe me.”

  “They don’t pay you for the work you do?”

  “Not enough!” I told him. “It’s not enough, because they treat me like crap, like I’m nothing, looking down on me all the time. Like I’m not good enough to touch their dirty toilets or pick up their underwear off the floor. I know they think that I’m stupid, ignorant, worthless. Some of the people don’t even look at me the whole time I’m there, not even to say thank you or just hello. They act like I’m a bother, like I’m in their way as I’m washing their floors and scrubbing the rings out of their big bathtubs. Whatever I do back is just evening us out and putting us on the same level.”

  Rory looked at me, and I knew he wasn’t getting it. “That woman you like acts that way? The one who’s having a baby?” he asked.

  “No, not Ameyo. Not all of them, I guess,” I admitted. “I never took anything from her, and I wouldn’t. I don’t take anything from anyone, unless
…unless they deserve it.”

  “They deserve it.”

  “It isn’t about the money, usually,” I went on, feeling desperate. He didn’t understand. “Mostly it isn’t the money, unless Jade needs something, or when my car broke down and I had to make it up somehow. But it isn’t really about that. It makes me feel more,” I paused and gulped. “It makes me feel powerful.” That was the best word to describe it. “It’s the same thing as when I know their secrets, I feel it then, too. I know that I’m not what they think of me. I’m more. I’m better.” I stopped again, remembering Ameyo and the secret I knew about her cheating husband, and thinking about Wilder Tollman and how scared he’d been of me. None of that made me feel powerful; instead, I felt like crawling into a hole where maybe I belonged.

  “You’re better than stealing,” Rory told me.

  Was I?

  “You can’t pry into their lives, either. That all has to stop.”

  “Please don’t tell Rella about any of this when you have tea. She would be so disappointed in me.” I hesitated. “Do you feel that way?”

  “I’m not disappointed. I think you made a mistake but you can come back from it. That’s not who you want to be.”

  No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t who Rella wanted me to be, which was why I’d never told her what I was doing, and I wasn’t sure why I was admitting it to Rory now. “I’m not that kind of person,” I tried to assure him, and I was so ashamed that I kept on going, trying to explain. “I don’t want to be. I did a lot of stuff until I met Rella and I stopped, except this didn’t seem like a big deal. Those people have so much. Why should they have so much?”

  “It’s not fair, but you can’t fix it like this.”

  I nodded. I knew that. “I just wanted to feel better because I felt so bad sometimes,” I told him. “I always feel so bad.” I was barely able to choke the words from my throat.

  Rory cuddled me and kissed my head and said, “Shh, shh,” and that it was all right. No, it wasn’t, not when he was in danger like this. This was something I could fix. I pushed on his chest with my palms and sat up.

  “I’m not going to try to find out things anymore and I’m not going to take money or pills or jewelry or anything,” I said. “Except, just this one more time, for you.”

  “No.”

  “Yes! Because Jade is gone, and Rella’s niece wants her to move to Georgia, and you came home with blood on your shirt. And I dreamed last night that I was watching you get killed, and I won’t do it anymore but just one more time,” I said, the words twisted and tumbling. “Just so you’re ok. Nothing can happen to you.”

  I only realized that I was crying when Rory reached and wiped off my cheek with his index finger, very, very gently. “I’m going to be ok. Nothing’s going to happen.”

  “You almost got killed, just today! Someone shot at you because your job—”

  He leaned forward and kissed me. “This is going to be over soon without anything happening to me.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He kissed me again. “For a long, long time, I didn’t have a lot of hope. And now I do, because I can see exactly where our future is going. I’m going to make that happen.”

  “Our future? Together?”

  He nodded and settled me back against his chest, my cheek pressed against his skin. He smelled so good, I closed my eyes to breathe and feel the comfort of it. “We have a few issues to fix for you, too. Your ex-boyfriend is still holed up in his apartment but I don’t think he’s going to stay there for much longer.”

  “You know he’s there?” I asked. “How?”

  “I was worried about you and him so I’ve been watching, and I’ve had other people watching, too.” He worked at the elastic holding my ponytail until my hair spilled out down my back. “You know what corn silk looks like? That’s what your hair reminds me of. Almost that color, and that soft.” He ran his fingers through it and I sighed softly with pleasure.

  “I didn’t know you were watching Kash. Did you know he had the car accident?”

  “I knew he got hurt, yeah,” Rory said. “Not bad enough to keep him down for much longer. We need to get that squared away. More distance, more fear.”

  “Fear?” I repeated.

  “And Jade,” he went on. “I looked for her today and I put the word out about her, so I think someone will get me some information soon. I still know people,” he explained. “And there’s also Rella. Even if we get her a better phone, I don’t like her being alone. She was talking to me again today about her husband like he was still alive, and then she goes and walks to church by herself. Maybe she should come with us.”

  “What? Come with us, where?” I opened my eyes. “When have you been doing all these things? Worrying about Rella and making me doctor appointments and watching people?”

  “The day’s twenty-four hours. Sometimes I don’t sleep very well, like you. You had a lot of nightmares last night. Were they all about me?”

  I swallowed and used his tactic of ignoring the question. “Why don’t you sleep well?”

  Rory was quiet for so long that I thought he wasn’t going to answer. When he finally spoke, his deep voice rumbling up from his chest under my cheek, I jumped. “I have a hard time with what I did. A lot of things that I did. It was all right when I was high, but now it’s not. I had so many years while I was locked up to think about it all. I waited for these feelings to go away, but...” His fingers twisted in my hair, making a fist. “It’s like I said to you about mistakes. I made them too, but mine were—damn it.” His phone was ringing in the little kitchen. He stood up suddenly from the couch and took me with him, making me squeak in surprise, then he grabbed it from the counter and sat back down with me still hanging off his body.

  “Yeah, Leopold,” he answered. “No. Yes. No. Calm down, I’ll be there soon. Fine. Calm down.” And that was it. He dropped the phone onto the cushion and blew out an angry breath.

  “Was that your boss? That’s how you talk to him?” I asked.

  “I have zero respect for Leopold. He’s an idiot,” Rory explained. “He’s having a fit because his lawyer skipped town today.”

  “Really? That’s so weird. The Tollmans left today, too.” I explained how I was out of a job. All that money when we needed money so much.

  “Yeah, that’s his lawyer,” Rory said when I finished the story of them taking off.

  “What?” I questioned. “Whose lawyer?”

  “Bernard Tollman. That’s Leopold’s lawyer. I’ve met them both, him and his wife.”

  “Mrs. Tollman? Mr. Tollman? You’ve met them?” I asked incredulously.

  “Bernie and Judy,” he confirmed, nodding. “Bernie did something and ran, and Leopold is melting down and yelling that I have to come over to help find him.”

  ““Mr. Tollman is your boss’s lawyer? Bernie and Judy?” He nodded. “That’s—really?” Another nod. “They told me they were going to Grand Cayman, where they have their house.”

  “Cayman? That’s interesting.”

  “I don’t know why, though. Rory, wait.” I still wasn’t understanding, but he put me on the cushion next to the phone and stood up from the couch, saying he had to hurry before his boss did something stupid. And when he walked away, the towel fell off his hips and exposed the twin, rock-hard…oh, his ass. There it was. The questions I had about the Tollmans and everything else died on my lips as I stared at him walking naked into the bedroom. I was still sitting with my mouth gaping open when he came back in, holding the cat, and now fully dressed.

  “I want you to stay here. Will you? Stay here, and I’ll bring you a present.”

  Despite myself, despite everything I was worried about, I smiled a little up at him. “A present? Are you bribing me to stay?”

  He nodded. “I don’t know what’s happening with my boss and I don’t know what’s happening with Memphis. I don’t want you running around by yourself. This place is a lot more secure than your building. Stay here whe
re it’s safer and I’ll be back as soon as I can calm Leopold down.” He walked to me and I reached to take the kitten, but he put her on the couch and pulled me into his body instead.

  Then he kissed me—and not the gentle hello he’d given me earlier in my car. Rory held my jaw in one big hand and his lips met mine, and then his tongue did, too, sweeping into my mouth. He wrapped his other arm around me to hold me snugly against his body and his hand went to my butt to lift and caress me against him.

  It felt so good. I had never been kissed like this, like it wasn’t a preview, but it was the main feature. Like I was supposed to be enjoying it too, not that I was there only to warm him up for more. But then I stopped thinking and just wrapped my arms around his neck and held on. My breasts pressed against his chest and my body started to spark and thrum.

  “Mmmm.” Rory pulled away slowly and purred against my neck, more like a lion than our kitten. I rested my cheek against him, panting. “I have to go, baby.”

  “No.” I held on as he moved me back to the floor and his tight hold on me loosened. “Don’t go yet.”

  “I’ll come home soon. You stay here.” And then he kissed me, quick and hard, and he was gone.

  I sank down onto his couch, my hand over my lips, lost in a kind of wonder. I’d never been touched like that, not ever. Certainly not by Kash, and not by anyone before him, either. There had been a lot of hands and mouths and—I stood up. I didn’t need to think about anything except what had just happened, and that had been wonderful. I imagined Rory’s touch, his lips, his breath against my skin. I heard myself moan aloud and then I heard my phone ring.

  I grabbed it. “Hello? Mom? Jade?”

  “Izzie? Is that you?” she answered. Her voice sounded far away and faint.

  “Yes, because you called me! Are you ok? What happened? Where are you? What number are you calling from?”

  “I’m good,” she said. “I’ve been really busy, going out a lot. Remember how we used to have all those fun parties? Remember how we used to dance but it was secret—”