by A. L. Woods
It was one thing to send Terry to look for me, it was another thing entirely to send Dom in.
How could he do that to me? After everything?
Cash knew my hatred toward Dominic Espinosa went beyond his character. He was rotten to the core. If I had been the kindling for the tragedy that befell my family ten years ago, Dom had been the lighter.
Everything he touched burned, leaving nothing behind in its wake.
The anger that shook me from the inside out had breaths raking out of me faster than I could draw in oxygen. Hyperventilation threatened to consume me if I didn’t get a hold on it, my lungs squeezing with a pain that made me want to throw up.
Cash was so damn smug, not a care in the world, limbs sprawled out on the hood of the car, DMX’s “Party Up” reverberating through the white ’98 Mercedes-Benz C 200 that had its windows open—creating a nuisance for the rest of the North End. He looked up at the starless sky above him, the hood of his sweater drawn over his head, legs crossed at the ankles, and a lit joint pinched between this fingers. I stopped at the lip of the car, my chest struggling to keep up with my hasty inhalations.
Detecting my presence, he slid down the hood of the car, feet planting on the ground with a dramatic thud. Green eyes leered at me, like he was waiting for me to step into his embrace.
His smile was shy, the kind kids give on their first day of school…a layer of innocence in that curl of his lip that we both knew was complete and utter bullshit. It was a trick that Cash had been deploying for years, only this time it wouldn’t work.
He had gone too far.
“Really? You brought him?” I threw an outstretched palm in Dom’s direction, who sported a smirk so sinister it left me winded. He blew me a puckered kiss. I retaliated by giving him the finger, arousing another laugh from him that was absorbed by the five-story walk-ups that lined the street.
Cash gave me an unconcerned shrug. “He was in the neighborhood, came along for the drive.”
This was karmic justice being served to me. I’d let the anger, my abandonment issues, and the alcohol impair my judgement.
For the second time this evening, I was reminded how blinded I could be when I was being led by my own vindictiveness.
“You’re unbelievable.” I shook my head. “I’m walking home.”
“You’re asking to get jumped,” he retorted, brows dropping.
“I’ll take my chances.” The only thing I had to worry about in the North End was the size of the rats. It was a little before midnight, and if I left now, I could still grab the orange line at Haymarket Station. I was in a murderous mood that would have made me a liability to any pick-pocketer or idiot dumb enough to try jump me.
“C’mon, Cherry. Don’t be like that,” Dom called as I set out in the direction of the bar for the ten-minute trek to the station. I ignored the sounds of bedlam behind me that tempted me to glance back. No. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was getting in a car with Dom, not unless I was driving it head-first into a wall, and then into the Charles to drown the prick for good measure. My head was buzzing from the heightened effects of the alcohol and my rage, the ground feeling uneven underneath my feet as I lumbered forward.
I had just passed the door of O’Malley’s when I heard it swing open. I reflexively looked. Sean’s eyes met mine, a tremble rolling out of me as the heat of that imposing stare rendered me immobile. Terry slid out from behind him, the door creaking shut.
There was enough steam billowing from Sean’s mouth that he looked more like a dragon, his stature casting ominous shadows that imposed on my own. ‘Pissed’ didn’t feel like an accurate description of what was brewing from his body language. His fists were fixed into tight balls, knuckles taut against the skin. His spine was rod straight, shoulders squared, as if he was ready for anything.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to run into his arms or get mad at him too for deliberately disobeying what I had asked of him, just like he did every fucking time. As I waffled, he made the decision for me, more of that pissed-off, unadulterated energy suffusing through the sharpened angles of his face.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Behind him, Terry threw me a look that told me he was as over this night as I was, a cigarette trained between his lips. He set up post against the brick wall, his left foot perched next to his right knee, head bent while he lit his cigarette. The smell of his nicotine tickled the hunger of my own addiction.
I didn’t know how to answer Sean, or where to begin even if I attempted. I was a victim to my own follies, crumbling at the behest of my own foibles. I lacked the dominion over my own mind, my mouth opening and closing but no words leaving it.
“Who’s your friend, Cherry?” Dom called, breaking me from my trance, tossing a can of gasoline onto the lit match inside of me that I’d worked so hard to smother. “We never did get that introduction, since his tongue was down your throat.”
That fucker. The comment hung in the air; I ignored the weight of Cash’s glare in my direction.
He could spare me that shit. I didn’t owe him any more than I owed Dom an introduction.
“Do you ever stop talking?” I snapped. Dom laughed, Terry watched a rat skitter by, and Cash—he watched us dead on. Nerves lodged themselves in my throat, but I swallowed the feeling away. I wasn’t his anymore; I hadn’t been for years.
I would deal with his attempt at possessive machismo later. In the meantime, I needed to get Sean away from all this. I couldn’t control this situation if he stuck around.
I turned my attention back to Sean and found him glowering at me, brows full-on furrowed, eyes engulfed in flames, as if someone had fallen asleep with a candle on, jaw ticking as if every minute that passed without an answer put him one second closer to flipping his shit.
“Okay,” he said, more to himself than to me, punctuated by a nod of his head, before his blackened eyes found mine. “I’m only going to ask you this once, Raquel.” His voice was eerily smooth, sending the frozen hairs that lined the back of my neck upward. “Are you sleeping with any of those guys?”
He may as well have slapped me with an open palm. The question winded me, like someone had sucked all the oxygen out of the air.
My jaw slackened as I slammed him with my own death stare. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I snarled, leaning toward him. “I cannot believe you just asked me that.”
It hadn’t mattered that with enough alcohol I would have…I had thought about letting Cash…no, Sean had no right to ask me that.
Terry whistled, a short dropping note that sounded like he agreed that had been the wrong question to ask me.
Dom howled with laughter. “Who the fuck is this guy?”
“That’s what I’d like to know, too,” Cash said thinly, toking on the joint.
Sean didn’t even so much as falter, looking at me with unadulterated stoicism, his face full of patience, as if he was waiting for confirmation on a conclusion he had already drawn.
I was such an idiot. He was just like every other guy with that territorial, dick-size contest bullshit. He fleshed out his own narrative, pieced the fragments of the story together and there he was, a full-fledged writer, too.
The longer the protracted silence stretched between us, the more upset I became.
“You know what?” I said, rocking my jaw together. “Fuck you, too.” I was done with this. I turned to leave, but he caught me by the elbow, pulling me to him with a gentleness that didn’t match the anger rolling off of him.
Sean searched my face, his hand warm on my bicep, thumb creating friction as it worked back and forth. Never before had any man handled me with that kind of care, and that just added fuel to an already terrible situation. “The question wasn’t meant to offend you,” he said, his voice dropping low enough where only he and I could hear. “I need to know what I’m working with here, Hemingway. I’m not going to rush into a burning building if you don’t wanna be saved.”
Saved? I blinked at him, my face col
lapsing. I had never needed to be rescued by anyone before; I had always been the one doing the protecting. I had warded off evil and fought the bad guys. I stuck up for myself. I didn’t need a prince from Fall River sporting kingly garments to ride gallantly on his horse to try to bail me out from the shitstorm I had caused, like I was some sort of South Boston damsel in distress.
“Maybe we should introduce ourselves,” Cash said.
Fuck, it was too late to bow out of this gracefully. If I left for the subway, they’d just set their sights on Sean…and I didn’t trust them to fight fair.
This was my fault, the repercussions of my choices. I had to fix this, and fast.
“I don’t need to be saved, Sean.” My hand rose to find his, knotting our fingers together against my bicep. My frosted digits savored the heat of his warm hands, somehow knowing this would be the last time we were like this. “I’m not the princess in this situation. I’m the knight.”
He flinched, his grasp softening on my arm as if the analogy was registering. I stepped out of his hold, my heart squeezing. My mind screamed at me to abort the mission as I took cautious steps backward away from him—away from the man who handled me with care, and straight into the belly of the beast.
That was what knights did.
Maybe Penelope had been right that day when she said I had a toxic dependency problem, that I did things that hurt me just to remind myself that this was all I deserved. I wouldn’t get the happily ever after, the rustic castle in the country, or the prince whose aid I refused. Instead I got two sets of gleeful eyes who could barely contain their elation that I was still who I had always been at my crux: another lowly girl from Southie, too consumed by her legacy and the repetition of her bad habits to do anything about them otherwise.
The loyalty that bound me to them forever is what would keep Sean safe in the end. If they could focus on me, they would forget about him.
My shit kickers skittered across the sidewalk, carrying me toward the car. I didn’t say anything to Cash or Dom, just observed as they took my cue and followed me. Sean remained rooted in his spot, his gaze trained on me while I sat in the passenger seat, hands I was sure were still balled into fists now back inside his peacoat pockets. He didn’t call for me, and for the first time, he didn’t follow me, either. Terry clapped him on the shoulder as he passed with a ‘Better luck next time, brother’ look.
The back passenger door opened, letting it in another bluster of cold late fall air that I was too numb to feel.
“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The car pulled away from the curb, performing an illegal U-turn. Sean’s figure became a fuzzy silhouette in the darkened distance from the side mirror, the outline of his body disappearing as the car rolled down a hill. The headlights bounced off the glass windowpanes of shops closed for the evening, casting threatening shadows across the stretch of road, rolling to a complete stop at the bottom of the hill at a red light.
The interior of the car was chilly despite the heat being cranked, the MB-Tex imitation leather cold under the seat of my jeans. The cabin stank of roaches from joints and cigarettes. The streetlights we passed lit up the interior, revealing a layer of thick dust that lined the tortoise shell dashboard, fingerprints marring the surface. I took in the dust and stench, my foot pushing an empty Coke bottle away from my ankle. Dom’s laughter at something Terry had said burned my eardrums, my mind filling with white noise that made everything seem muffled, as if my head was being held underwater.
I’d done the right thing by going with them, so why did I feel so awful?
My chin turned in Cash’s direction. His fingers strummed along the perimeter of the steering wheel, his face pinched with concentration, though we both knew he didn’t have a fucking care in the world other than blazing, cock blocking and epitomizing the definition of a chucklehead (damn you for reintroducing me to that term, Penelope)—and didn’t that realization just send me over the edge.
Everything I had been compressing, compartmentalizing, trying to fit back inside of the tiny box that housed the rest of my bullshit came to a head. The box was finally at capacity, and I could fit nothing else in it. If there was a metaphor in there, it was wasted on me because I was suddenly driven by my need for a fight, and any one of these fuckers would do.
Cash, who looked perpetually nonchalant, nary a wrinkle between his brows. Terry, who cared about me as much as he did the empty bottle of Coke at my feet. And Dom, who had ruined my life.
My fist reared back before I slammed it into Cash’s arm with all the upper body strength I could muster, abs compressing as I had plunged my waist forward. I winced as white pain flared in my hand, enough to completely sober up what was left of the buzz I had been nursing.
He shouted in response. His foot slipped from the brake, the car propelling forward through the crosswalk. A shrill shriek sounded from an unsuspecting female pedestrian with a J. Lo vibe who was sporting massive hoop earrings, and a ponytail that gave her a free facelift.
He almost hit her.
“The fuck is your problem?” she yawped, stalking toward the hood of the car with about as much finesse as a newborn doe, slamming her closed fist on the hood of the car with a thwack that dented it for sure. New Englanders were not afraid to express their grievances with a very prompt “Fuck you!”. We were also not above physical confrontation—and no, we didn’t care if you had the upper hand and three hundred horsepower on your side.
It was an East Coast thing.
An unconcerned look filled the soft edges of Cash’s square jaw, his green eyes assessing the woman—who was questionably dressed for these frigid temperatures—that he had nearly run off the road.
A normal person would have held up a hand in apology.
Cash flipped her the bird before swinging his imposing gaze back at me like he didn’t have the time to express remorse toward the woman he would have pinned under his ten-year-old car had she not jumped away in time. His stare trailed over me, his lips straining together when I didn’t immediately offer him an explanation.
“Wanna tell me what that was for?” he finally asked, his tone clipped. His foot found the gas pedal, tires squealing as he depressed it. I had no idea who he was trying to impress, but the whole ‘I’m-a-wannabe-drag-racer’ thing died alongside the whole The Fast and the Furious franchise three movies ago. Him and this piece-of-shit car needed to let it go.
“Because I hate you.” I looked at his response from the corner of his eye, watching his jaw tick. “And you reminded me tonight of all the reasons why.”
My disdain for him was almost on par with what I felt toward myself for ending up in this predicament to begin with.
His grip tightened on the steering wheel. The comment normally would have rolled off his chest, but for some reason, that didn’t appear to be the case this time.
Sadly for him, I wasn’t in a remorseful mood.
I had known Tobias “Cash” Peake for a majority of my life. We grew up on the same block in South Boston, before the developers slid in with their ideas to ‘improve’ the gentrifying neighborhoods that surrounded us and lived up to its name over the decade to become the setting of one too many bad mob movies relating to Whitey Bulger himself. Cash’s Nan, Mrs. Peake, was one of the old hags my Dad had taken care of, since Mrs. Peake’s children couldn’t handle the idea of living another day and—was two for two on suicidal children. That cranky witch had raised Cash and his sisters, and in the end, her hubristic piety hadn’t mattered. Cash grew up to be a piece of shit, his younger half-sister had rightly fucked off, and his older sister was just waiting for their Nan to croak so she could toss her ashes into a dumpster behind a Dunkin’ Donuts.
Even that sounded too kind.
Cash was by far the least put together of the siblings and had never stepped up to the plate of being the man of the house…a fact my dad had reminded him of frequently when he was still alive. Cash was lazy, and content with preserving the status
quo. Dad used to smack him upside the head and tell him to get his shit together. Cash would just shrug and go smoke a joint at the end of the street because Dad didn’t have patience for that shit, and he didn’t want to listen to his Nan’s grating Irish lilt screaming at him inside the house. She was part of the problem. Dad never told her that, but we all knew. Cash had been coddled, and I didn’t entirely fault him for being a lazy scumbag—why aspire to do anything when he was on track to inherit the house from his Nan once she kicked the bucket?
No one wanted that rickety-ass thing that was a sneeze away from tumbling over except Cash. It was a damn miracle the city hadn’t deemed it inhabitable with the way the foundation was cracking, the building sloped to the right, and the shingles were lifting. The lawn got cut sparingly since my dad died. Cash wouldn’t know how to start a lawnmower if you gave him a thousand bucks, and every winter without fail, his Nan fell down the front steps because they hadn’t seen a lick of salt in eons.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a plot amongst him and his sisters to try to hurry their Nan along to her grave.
Much to my father’s chagrin, and Penelope’s annoyance, Cash and I had dated. Dad hadn’t filtered his reservations about it any better than Penelope had later on. Dad, like Penelope, wasn’t the type to mince words, and while he had generally stayed out of my way, he had his own uncanny way of reminding me that the future and success of my family’s legacy was riding on my back. “Keep your head down, and your legs closed. And if you can’t do that, go find yourself somethin’ better than that ’igit kid. A doctor or somethin’.”
And like every other Southie hoodsie, I never listened.
For the most part, Cash had been an okay boyfriend when his ego didn’t get the better of him. We had managed to make it work on and off for all of one year, two months, and three days before I found out he had been getting his dick wet in someone else the entire time we had been together.