by A. Zavarelli
“What does it mean?” I felt her fingers graze the inked skin on my back. “Revelations 21:4?”
“It’s for Dawson,” I told her. “I got it to remind myself that he’s in a better place. That even if I hate every second I’m not with him, he’s at peace.”
Gypsy was quiet for a moment while her fingertips fluttered over the design, taking it all in. “I guess that’s probably the best way to look at it,” she said quietly. “Isn’t it?”
The torment in her voice made me wonder what was going through her mind. “That’s the only way I can look at it. That’s how I’ve managed to survive the past seventeen years.”
Her head dipped, and she tried to hide her emotion. “I understand. It’s just that, if I were to believe in your God the way that you do, it would mean Birdie and I are going to hell.”
I tipped her chin back up and met her stormy gaze. “That’s not going to happen, pet.”
“How can you be so sure?” she argued. “If you believe what the church tells you, then you have to believe we’ve committed the ultimate sin.”
“That’s an ancient way of thinking, and it doesn’t apply to you,” I assured her. “If anyone is in hell, it’s Ricky. What happened that day was not your fault, and it wasn’t Birdie’s either. Someday, I hope you will come to understand and accept that.”
“Can you ever accept that what happened with Dawson wasn’t your fault?”
My fingers fell away from her, and a dark cloud descended over us. She was within her rights to say it, but it didn’t mean I liked it. “Let’s change the subject,” I said. “And save that conversation for another day.”
She was quiet for a pause before she acknowledged what I’d said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I know.” Our hands came together in the water. “It’s just a subject that’s better left for another time.”
She nodded and stared off into the distance again. “How did you become a lawyer with a criminal record?”
“It wasn’t easy,” I told her. “After the news picked up the story of Dawson, some of the media outlets began to cast doubt on Nessie’s previous accusations against me. I wasn’t in any state of mind to care if my circumstances changed or not, but those stories were how Nolan found me.”
I felt her eyes on me, studying my face. “He helped you?”
“He saved me,” I said. “If he hadn’t come along, I honestly don’t know where I’d be right now. But he was the only one who had ever really believed in me, and he went to bat for me. He was able to prove that the cell phone records used to convict me weren’t reliable evidence, considering Nessie’s phone had pinged off the same towers. But that wasn’t enough to convince a judge, so he took it a step further by visiting my ex in prison. At that point, she knew she was facing life anyway, and he managed to get a full confession of what she’d done with one caveat.”
“What was it?” Gypsy asked.
“She wanted to see me.” I shook my head in disgust. “That was it. That was all she cared about. She wanted to see me one last time.”
“Did you go?”
“I’m a man of my word,” I said. “As soon as I was released, I went to visit her. And I’m not going to lie; if there hadn’t been plate glass between us, I might have murdered her.”
Gypsy nodded, no judgment in her eyes as she tangled her fingers in mine. “She would have deserved it.”
I didn’t want to discuss that anymore or give her any more minutes of my life, so I moved on. “Legally, I was exonerated, but there were still issues. It wasn’t easy to get my license. I had to pass a character exam, and there were questions. I had to go into details I didn’t want to. But in the end, they determined I was of reasonable character.”
She rested her chin on the edge of the pool and peeked up at me beneath her long dark lashes. “And you’ve been saving lost souls ever since.”
“It didn’t really start out that way,” I admitted. “At first, it took me some time to figure out what my path was. I took on a few cases that I probably shouldn’t have, but it was a learning experience for me. Nolan was my mentor, and with his help, we found a happy medium. I worked for him in the beginning, and he helped me get established until he retired. Then I moved to another firm, and Nolan and I started a foundation for wrongful convictions.”
Gypsy reached up and toyed with a loose strand of my hair. “Do you always believe in the innocence of the cases you take on?”
I stared out over the water, watching the waves ripple back and forth as I tried to find a way to explain it. I never had to justify myself to anyone before, but I wanted her to understand. “It isn’t always that black and white. Some of my clients might not be innocent in the eyes of the law, but morally, I can relate to the crimes they’ve committed in the name of justice. It doesn’t mean I condone what they’ve done, but I can understand it, and I want to help them.”
“Like, for example, someone who kills a child molester,” Gypsy ventured.
She was referring to Ricky, testing the water to see how I felt about the circumstances. Even though she hadn’t committed the crime, she’d taken on the moral responsibility of it.
I met her gaze. “If it had been you, it wouldn’t change anything for me.”
Her eyes moved over my features, trying to discern the truth. It was a dangerous confession to make. In a way, I’d just admitted my feelings for her. I’d done the one thing I said I wouldn’t and given her an out if she wanted it.
“Are you telling me that you don’t care what happened?” she asked.
“I do care.” I sighed. “I wish that the two of you were never put in that situation. I wish that you didn’t have to be the ones to do it. But if someone else had, would I care that he was dead? No.”
“So you never really wanted to put me in prison?”
I wiped away the froth bubbling at the top of the water and gave her an honest answer. “No.”
“I don’t get it,” she said. “I was exactly the thing you should have hated. A con artist. A manipulator. A liar. You should hate women like me after—”
“Don’t ever compare yourself to her,” I snarled. It came out more vicious than I’d intended, and I immediately regretted it. I needed to tread carefully with her. Sometimes, it was easy for me to forget how much shame she felt inside because she didn’t show it often.
I pulled her closer, burrowing my face against her neck. “I believed in you.”
Pain welled in her eyes, and she tried to look away, but I turned her gaze back to me. “I saw too much in you to believe that you were the person you were trying to be.”
“Or maybe you only saw what you wanted to,” she said. “Maybe I’m not as salvageable as you’d like me to be.”
“Then I don’t care,” I murmured against her lips. “Salvageable or not, I want you. Every broken and jagged piece of you.”
Her fingers curled in my hair, and she dragged my lips to hers, hungry, starving. She crawled into my lap, her breasts wet against my chest as she pivoted her hips against my cock. Even in the water, she was wet for me, and I needed to be inside her. I didn’t care if it was wrong anymore. I wanted to be inside her every second that I could until all my seconds were gone.
I hoisted her up into my arms, and she wrapped her legs around my waist as I set her on the edge of the pool and rubbed the head of my cock against her.
“Lucian,” she pleaded.
Nothing had ever sounded as sweet as her voice begging for me. Wanting me. I plunged inside her, and she dug her fingers into my back. We were wet and sloppy and disjointed when we came together, but none of it mattered. We raced toward that invisible line, desperate to throw ourselves off the cliff.
I needed to bury myself inside her and fill her with a part of me that I hoped would stay there forever, embedded in her DNA and chaining us together long after I ceased to exist on this earth.
“Fuck me like you’ll never let me go,” she whispered in my ear.
My c
hest contracted, and I buried my face in her neck, so she couldn’t see the lies in my eyes.
I fucked her like I’d never let her go.
“HAVE YOU ENJOYED YOUR TIME here?” Lucian asked sleepily.
We were lazing on the hammock strung between two trees outside our villa in Nice, the final stop on our trip. I couldn’t ever remember feeling so relaxed, and trying to downplay what Lucian had gifted me would be a crime.
“I’ve loved every minute of it.”
Over the past two weeks, we’d been to places I only ever dreamed about seeing. We’d rode the gondolas in Venice, eaten cannoli for breakfast, and gotten lost in the maze of canals as we tried to find Saint Mark’s Basilica.
In Paris, we strolled hand in hand down the Champs-Élysées, eating croissants and watching the sun set over the Eiffel Tower. I saw the Mona Lisa, walked beneath the Arc de Triomphe, and kissed Lucian at the top of the Ferris wheel.
It had been a dream, one day blending into the next as we napped, and ate, and made love like the world was coming to an end. They were the best days of my life, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him so.
When I looked at him now, his eyes heavy and satisfied, his body warm against mine, he looked more at peace than I’d ever seen him. Maybe it was because he knew I could have cut and run the moment he told me he never intended to turn me in, but I didn’t. I was still here with him, and it was the elephant in the room that neither of us wanted to address.
After everything, it felt like we had the makings for a successful marriage. Even though we hated almost everybody else, we liked each other, and that said a lot. We matched, and I didn’t think I’d ever match with anybody.
But Lucian never talked about the future. He never gave me hope that this could be anything more than two years. And as he’d reminded me multiple times, he was a man of his word.
The thought of this disappearing—slipping from my grasp like dust in the wind—was so depressing I couldn’t bear to think about it. Not when we were like this. I needed to hold onto him just a little bit longer. I needed to believe that, for once, something good could really happen in my life.
Lucian threaded his fingers through mine and gave me a soft, leisurely kiss before he rested his head against my chest. His eyes traced over the still fading ink of the bold statement he’d inscribed on my hip with permanent marker, and something dark seemed to shadow his features.
“We should enjoy this,” he said quietly. “When the trial starts, these moments will be few and far between.”
I nodded against him, already mourning the loss of his presence in a way that ached so profoundly, I couldn’t speak.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
I BREEZED OUT THE FRONT doors of the learning center and skipped down the stairs, my backpack swinging loose from one shoulder.
“Gypsy.”
I paused and looked up to find that Luna was waiting for me at the bottom, carrying two coffees in her hands.
“Peace offering?” She gave me a soft smile as she approached, extending one of the cups.
“What’s in it?” I raised an eyebrow. “A little arsenic? Another spiritual experience for me?”
She looked wounded, and I felt like an asshole, so I took the cup.
“I probably deserved that,” she said.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear in a way that showed her nerves. “I wanted to check in on you. And maybe ply you with coffee and somehow convince you to be my friend again.”
There was that word again. Friend. She wanted me to be her friend. Even though we’d only hung out once and it was a terrible experience, I couldn’t deny that I wondered what it would be like to have an actual friend.
I took the coffee from her and offered a tentative smile. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try. Although, fair warning, I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it. I tend to be selfish.”
She shook her head, wild curls spilling around her shoulders. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re a product of your environment.”
It irked me that she seemed to know me so well already, but I shrugged it off. “Am I that transparent?”
“Probably not to everybody,” she mused.
We sat down on the stairs, and I took a sip of the iced caramel latte. My favorite. “How did you know?”
“Just a guess, but I like these too.”
“If we’re going to be friends, then you should probably tell me a few things about yourself,” I said.
She giggled, but her amusement slowly drifted away. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
“How did you end up here?”
“Probably the same way you did,” she joked. “I looked at a map and thought Vegas sounded good.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Sounds about right.”
She took a sip of her drink and stared ahead, watching the people as they walked by. “Let’s just say I was a good little gypsy girl. I was raised in a strict community and then sacrificed as a virgin at the altar of proper gypsy man with strong Romani blood in his veins.”
I plucked a piece of grass and rolled it between my fingers. “I’m going to take a wild stab and guess that didn’t work out?”
Disgrace etched its way onto her features. “No, it didn’t. I was young and naïve, and boy, was I proud to land him. All the girls wanted him, and I was the one he chose. I thought I was pretty special, but it turned out I was just pretty dumb.”
“Did he hurt you?” I asked.
It took her a while to answer, but she did. “You could say that.”
We didn’t say anything else after that, but as it turned out, we didn’t need to. And I guess that was what having a friend was all about.
“HOW DID IT GO?” KATE chirped as I walked out of the testing room.
“I don’t know,” I answered irritably.
“It will be fine,” she assured me. “No matter what happens, it will be fine. But regardless, you’ll know in twenty-four hours. They are quick here.”
I wasn’t as confident as she sounded about everything being so fine. I’d been anxious throughout the entire test, so certain that I hadn’t really learned anything at all and wrote complete nonsense on all the questions.
When Kate told me last week that she thought I might be ready to test, I had several minor panic attacks. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to go back to my original plan of pretending I would have failed anyway and just bailing altogether. But I knew Lucian would be disappointed in me if I did that, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. I still hadn’t told him that I took the test. I figured I would wait until I got the results, and if by some miracle I passed, then I would let him know.
Since we’d returned from our trip two months ago, he’d been working like a dog. He left for the office right after he woke me up every day and returned when I was already in bed. He wasn’t getting enough sleep, and I could tell he was worried about Emmanuel’s case, but I was worried about him.
The shadows beneath his eyes only seemed to darken every day. He seemed like he had no energy, and I noticed that he’d been coughing a lot again. I mentioned once in the middle of the night that he should go back to the doctor, but he ignored the suggestion entirely. This morning, there was a rash on his chest, and with his shirt off, I realized he’d lost weight too.
“You really don’t have to worry.” Kate’s voice pulled me back to the present. “Even if it doesn’t go right the first time, we can call it a practice test, remember?”
“Okay.” I shrugged.
Kate frowned, examining me the way I imagine a mother would. “Is something else bothering you?”
Kate was my teacher, but more importantly, she was Lucian’s friend, and I wondered how much she knew about him.
“Lucian’s been working a lot, preparing for trial. I’m just worried about him.”
“Oh, he’ll be fine.” She waved it off. “He always w
orks like a lunatic before trial. It’s nothing to be concerned about.”
“I guess so,” I murmured. But in my gut, it felt like I should be worried.
“You said your sister was coming next weekend, right?” Kate asked brightly, trying to change my focus.
“Yes, she’s coming to visit.”
Finally. She’d been pushing it back every time I talked to her. And now that I’d completed my GED program, I wasn’t sure what to make of the fact it was taking so long for Birdie to complete hers.
“Why don’t we grab a coffee?” Kate suggested. “And you can tell me all about it.”
Lucian came home late again, but I’d waited up for him tonight. Beneath my silk bathrobe, I was wearing lingerie, and in my mind, I was determined to steal away a few moments of intimacy with him. But the minute he walked in the door, I saw that wasn’t going to be the case.
His face was worn, and his hair messy the way it often was when he ran his fingers through it too much. He was exhausted and beat down, but more than that, he looked worried.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
His gaze drifted toward the couch, registering my face in the dim light. He kicked off his shoes and dropped his briefcase before coming to sit beside me. “How long have you been waiting for me?”
“A while.” I shrugged.
He dragged a hand over his face and shook his head. “I’m sorry I haven’t been here.”
I reached out and took his hand in mine. “You don’t need to be sorry. You’re doing something important, and I get it. I wouldn’t want you to sacrifice that for time with me. We have plenty of time after the trial.”
Lucian looked at the floor, and my gut churned because it was the first time he didn’t agree with me. I reminded him often that I was here, and time was on our side. It was my way of fishing for reassurances from him. Reassurances I desperately craved, and he usually gave. But tonight, he didn’t.
We were both quiet for a while, and I didn’t know what to do. Lucian was the one to break the silence with heavy, serious words. “The prosecution knows how Emmanuel was conceived, and the judge has decided to allow it at trial. I need to tell him.”