by Ash Johnson
I go back to the car to find Alex holding her ice cream in mid air as she stares at the basketball court.
“You need a napkin for your dripping ice cream and the drool falling from the corner of your mouth,” I tease and laugh when she finally breaks out of her trance.
“You ready to head back?” I ask and put on my seat belt when she nods. I take a few deep breaths and try to plan out my secret trip without getting caught tonight. I just hope I make it back here alive.
Chapter 32
Blake
I’m waiting out on the front porch for what feels like hours when Harlow finally pulls into the driveway. Then I notice Alex in the passenger seat and realize that I’ve fucked up more than I thought. I completely spaced picking her up from school today.
I was so pissed off after I left the doctor’s office with Heaven that I didn’t even think about anything else I had to do. I wouldn’t blame Harlow if she killed me and buried me in the backyard.
I slink toward the garage once the car is fully pulled in and make my way toward the driver’s door. When I open it, Harlow steps out, a cup of ice cream in her hand, and moves right past me into the house. I follow like a fucking lost puppy because I don’t know what else to do.
After she puts her ice cream in the freezer and grabs a water bottle from the fridge, she spins toward the stairs and goes up toward our room. I follow quietly and wait for her to rip me a new asshole. I deserve whatever is coming to me after what she saw earlier, even though I didn’t do anything wrong.
When we’ve both made it into the room and I’ve shut the door I can’t take it anymore. “Babe, please talk to me. What you saw outside earlier wasn’t what it looked like, I swear to God.”
She whirls around and looks so scared that it rips at my heart. “I’m so sorry about what you saw, Harlow, but I wasn’t kissing her. She just attacked my face, and I had to hold her up so we both didn’t fall over. She--“
“What the hell is going on, Blake? I know she’s the one that came around a while back, but I thought you had called her out on the pregnancy and she denied it.” She sounds hurt and sad.
I huff and prepare myself for this conversation. How did I think I could just get away with all the shit hanging around Heaven and not have it blow back onto our relationship? I’m a dumb-ass. “I told you that Heaven is the girl I slept with once a few months before I met you, the one who told you she was pregnant with my baby when we first started out. She’s been a pain in my ass for way too long.”
“Why was she here?”
“She followed me home from the doctor’s office and threw herself at me.”
“Doctor’s office? I thought you said you had something to do at the gym today,” she yells but then presses a hand to her throat as she finishes. I’m sure it hurts. I go to take a step toward her to comfort her in some way, but she steps back and lifts a hand up to stop me. The movement rips through my gut, even though I deserve it. I deserve to feel the same pain I’m sure Harlow is feeling right now.
I did tell her I would be at the gym today. This is why I hate lying to her. I feel fifty fucking times worse when I have to tell her that I’d lied.
I sigh and start in on my story. “Yeah, I did tell you I had something at the gym, but it was a lie. I was hoping to deal with this problem without getting you involved in it.”
She stands next to the bed, arms crossed and resting just under her breasts, her laser eyes trained on me as she waits for me to continue.
“She kept posting all over my gym’s online page that I was going to be a dad and hounding me to be with her, until I suggested she go to the doctor to make sure she was pregnant. Turns out she was never pregnant and was just trying to trap me. That’s why I was at the doctor’s office today. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t pregnant so I could get her to leave us alone for good.”
“But she didn’t leave you alone. She followed you home from the doctor’s office.”
I nod and wonder if everything with Heaven is actually over or if I should call my detective friend Ronan and ask him what I should do to keep her away. I don’t want anything else to keep Harlow from me and Heaven is one obstacle that we shouldn’t have to keep trying to overcome.
We both sit in silence for a few seconds before the need to apologize hits me again. “I’m so sorry that you saw her kissing me earlier, and I’m beyond fucking sorry that I forgot to pick Alex up from school today. I know I told you I would get her, and I didn’t do it. I’ll go apologize to her after we’re finished talking.”
Harlow nods but says nothing. She still appears concerned or sad about something, but I’m not sure if it’s still about Heaven. “I’m sorry, baby, so damn sorry.” I take a few steps closer to her and stop when she takes another small step back from my advance.
Okay, so she’s much more pissed off than I thought she would be. Of course, if I saw some dick kissing Harlow in front of me, I would be ready to fucking kill someone. I need to give her a little time to think about it alone. I know that if I keep telling her how sorry I am it’s just going to piss her off more.
“I’m gonna go talk to Alex and then get some dinner started. Want anything special?” I ask.
She shakes her head and shifts away from me. I nod and start for the door. “Why don’t you lie down and relax? You need to get feeling better.” With that I leave the room and the girl I’m falling more in love with every minute of the day. The girl who is so pissed at me that she won’t even talk to me.
After a fun talk with Alex- in which she yelled at me for making her sick sister get out of bed and pick her up from school because I was too much of a jackass to do it- I order a pizza for Alex and me and heat up a bowl of chicken noodle for Harlow. I can hear her moving around in our room as I make my way to the closed door.
When I twist the handle, I realize it’s locked. I knock twice before leaning into the door frame. “Harlow?” More movement and rustling on the other side of the door. “I have some soup. Can you unlock the door so I can give it to you?”
After a few more seconds of shuffling on the other side, the lock clicks, and the door opens. Harlow peers up at me. Her eyes are red rimmed like she’s been crying, and her hair is falling out of her high piled bun. I walk into the room and glance around but don’t notice anything out of place, even with all the noise she was making.
“What were you doing in here?”
“Nothing. I was just looking for something to change into so I’m not just laying around in my PJs all day long. Guess I couldn’t find anything comfy enough.”
I shrug and put her bowl of soup on her bedside table. “Do you need anything else?”
She shakes her head and sits down to eat, not even acknowledging my existence. I’m starting to get pissed off that she’s ignoring me all because of something beyond my control.
“Baby, I said I’m sorry, and I meant it. What else can I do to prove to you how sorry I am?” She’s shaking her head as I talk.
“You don’t have to prove anything to me, Blake. I believe you when you say you’re sorry, but how am I to know that was the last time I’ll see something like that? How do I know I won’t find her waiting for you when you leave the house the next time? Or that she won’t spray something else nasty on the side of your car?”
“You won’t, babe. I told her that the next time she comes around I’ll be pressing charges for harassment. I have a buddy that’s a Phoenix detective, and I can call him if we ever have a problem with Heaven again.”
She stares at me for a moment, her wounded deer eyes cutting right through me before she puts her bowl of soup down on the table and glares at me again. “You lied to me, Blake. Did you think I wasn’t deserving of the truth? Or that I wouldn’t understand and take your back if you told me what was going on?”
Shit. I know she’d have had my back if I had just told her the truth. That’s what makes knowing that I lied to her so hard. “I just wanted it all to be over, and you had just gotten out of the
hospital. I didn’t want to add any more onto your plate than you’re already dealing with. I’m sorry that I kept it from you, and I won’t do it again. I promise.”
She keeps staring at me, her face showing no emotion for a few seconds before she bites her lower lip and gives me a slow nod. I sigh in relief.
“Okay, babe, I’m gonna go downstairs and help Alex with some homework before the pizza gets here. If you need anything, just let me know, and I’ll grab it. Eat your soup, and get some sleep.”
***
I come back into the room a few hours later for bed to find Harlow curled into a little ball in the corner of the bed with her shirt riding up her stomach, fast asleep. I smile a bit, loving how beautiful she is even in sleep and grateful that she’s in my bed and under my roof.
I strip off my clothes and lie down on the bed next to her and then place my hand on her exposed hip bone. I lightly run my hand back and forth along her small, soft stomach and back to the curve of her hip, feeling lucky that I have such a sexy woman that I can call my own for the first time in what feels like forever.
I fall asleep so happy that I have Harlow in my life, never thinking that I’d wake up in the morning and she’d be gone.
Chapter 33
Harlow
I set my phone alarm for one thirty in the morning, put it on vibrate, and stuff it under my pillow so it doesn’t wake Blake. I have a small duffle bag packed and shoved under the bed, and I’d used his laptop to buy a plane ticket before he came to bed.
My flight isn’t until four in the morning, the red-eye, but it makes getting to Detroit easier. If I tell Blake and Alex about having to go meet with Mr. E, then they either would want to go with me or won’t have let me leave at all.
I don’t know why I set an alarm, since I was awake the entire night, filled with nerves. The tenderness of Blake’s touch on my hip when he thought I was asleep was enough to bring tears to my eyes, but I held them in.
Once the buzzing of my phone goes off I quickly silence it and get up to throw on some clothes so I can get going. I planned on letting Blake know where I’m going, since I would be quite the hypocrite to give him shit for lying to me and hiding things not even twenty-four hours before and then just disappearing without giving him any clue as to where I’ll be, but when he came in to bring me soup, I completely lost my voice. I couldn’t say anything to him about it.
After gathering all the things I’ll need for this trip and placing a sloppily written letter on the kitchen island for Blake to find in the morning, I go outside to the taxi sitting by the curb. The same curb where I’d found Blake lip-locked with another woman hours earlier.
I make it to the airport with no problem and grab a bite to eat while I wait for my flight. Once we are in the air, I am too wired and nervous about my meeting with Mr. E to sleep during the three and a half hour flight. Just when I finally felt I had my nerves under control and was prepared for today’s events, the plane lands, and my jitters come back tenfold.
It’s just before six in the morning when I get in, but this nightmare needs to end quickly, so I switch my phone back on once I make it out of the airport and pull up Mr. E’s phone number.
Two rings blare through the receiver before the same gruff voice from yesterday answers. “What?”
“Hi, it’s Harlow Wilholten. I just got to Detroit, and I’m wondering where I can meet with Mr. E?”
“Ah, I’m glad you called, little girl. I was afraid I would have to come find you,” macho man teases.
“Well, I’m here. Where can we meet?” I ask, fed up with this dick’s threats, even though I know I should be terrified of him.
The asshole laughs, at my tone I’m assuming, and then tells me to meet him and Mr. E at a diner on the south side of town called Betty’s. I agree and hail a taxi for the forty-minute drive, while my mind comes up with every different outcome I could be faced with during this meeting. About ten of these outcomes involve me wearing concrete boots and ending up at the bottom of a lake.
When the cab pulls up in front of the diner, the driver basically rips the money from my hands and shoves me out of his car. I’m scared to death to go in, but I guess I have no other choice.
I square my shoulders and move to the front door, and my nose is immediately assaulted with the smell of greasy food. It’s like being in Guy’s, except this time I’m afraid I won’t be leaving on my own two feet.
“Over here, girlie,” a gruff voice calls from the back of the diner. I look to my right to find a very big, bulky, and threatening man standing next to a booth. His brown hair is slicked back, and he’s wearing a black t-shirt and a suit jacket. Very cliché, if you ask me.
I take a deep breath and will my feet to move in that direction instead of turning and bolting out the door. Once I make it to the booth, I find a balding man in his late fifties or early sixties- with a right of white hair spanning the back of his head from one ear to the other- sitting down, staring at me. His green eyes assess me like they’re ready to burn a hole through my head.
I can see a Detroit Lions t-shirt covering a small pot belly and a very big ruby on his left ring finger sticking out where his hands are linked together on the tabletop.
“Mr. E,” I squeak and nod slightly but make no other movements.
“Hello, Harlow. Thank you for making this easier by coming to see me.” His voice is much deeper than I would have expected it to be upon seeing him. It’s also much scarier.
Please don’t let me pee my pants while I’m standing here.
“Please, sit,” he tells me and swings his hand out to the empty padded seat on the other side of the table. I nod once more and slowly sit down, trying my hardest to ignore the burning in my throat.
We sit in silence, my eyes going back and forth from the scary man across from me to the even scarier giant still standing next to the table, whose eyes are squinted in my direction as if he’s begging me to do something stupid so he can end my miserable life.
“So,” Mr. E finally says, “I thought I’d been more than lenient when I let you have three years without payment. Please tell me why you needed that much time and still haven’t sent me a fucking dime, Harlow.”
I narrow my eyes, still wondering where the money I’ve been giving to Dominick every week has been going. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have made a payment every week since my father got put away. I’ve only missed one payment, and your man made damn sure I’d never make that mistake again.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, little girl? We haven’t seen a fucking penny of that money,” the not so jolly giant growls.
I glance up at him, horrified. “Well, who the hell has all of that money been going to then?”
“What money?” Mr. E sounds like he’s getting pissed as well.
I take a deep breath; I’ll need it to get through this conversation. “I’ve been depositing three hundred dollars, sometimes more, into an account every week for over three years.”
Mr. E’s brows shoot up as I tell him the amount. “Well, sweetie, that’s a shit ton of money, but I haven’t seen any of it, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t ask you to make that kind of payment weekly when you’ve taken on someone else’s debt. I’m not that big of an asshole.”
“What?” I say, more confused than I was yesterday. “Then who the hell has my money been going to?”
He shrugs in a way that tells me he doesn’t know and doesn’t fucking care.
My next breath comes out shakily while I try to process who the hell has taken almost fifty thousand dollars from me while pretending to give it to a loan shark. Then my mind makes the connection.
“Dominick,” I whisper.
“Come again?” Mr. E leans closer.
“Dominick. He told me from the beginning that he was one of your guys, and he shows up every month or so to get the money from me, most of the time asking for more. He was the one who beat the shit out of me when I didn’t pay a few mo
nths in because I had to pay for my gran’s funeral.”
Mr. E and grumpy giant share a look, one that says they aren’t happy about the mention of Dominick.
“Do you have any proof that you’ve been paying this every week? I don’t believe that you could make enough to pay me that much and still have a roof over your head,” Mr. E says.
I give him a shaky smile, so glad that I’ve saved every deposit receipt I’d gotten when I’d gone to the bank.
“It hasn’t been easy to make that kind of money and keep me and my sister fed and clothed. I work three jobs and pray that Dominick doesn’t come in most weeks so I can make the loan payment and pay my rent, too.”
I reach into my duffle- and the unhappy giant bodyguard takes a step closer to me to make sure I’m not going to pull out a weapon, I suppose- and pull out a shoe box with every deposit slip neatly stacked in it. I slide it across the table toward Mr. E who immediately pulls out two of the small slips and scans them.
After a few seconds of scanning, he curses under his breath and glances up at the standing statue of menace next to us.
“Mack, call Dominick, and tell him I need him to meet me here, pronto.” My eyes widen and my spine tingles with fear at the thought of Dominick coming here. Mr. E must see the terror on my face, and he reaches across the table to pat my balled fists.
“Don’t worry, darlin’. He won’t hurt you, but I need to have a word with him.” I nod and listen to Mr. Ball of Sunshine grunting into his phone.
“Dom, boss wants to see you at the diner.”
His face hardens at whatever Dominick has said. “Where the fuck are you? You were here not even ten hours ago.”
“Well, I don’t give a shit what you’re doing. Just get your ass back here now. Boss needs to speak to you.” He hangs up the phone.