CHERISH (43 page)

Promise

Come on, $100 an hour to read? He has to want something else.

What am I doing?

I’m making $400, is what I’m doing. That’s a dent in five-thousand. A visible dent.

A dent someone would notice if you left it in their car door.

It’s just a book. It’s just words. It’s not like I’ve never read before.

Sure, but out loud?
I remember the last time I’d read out loud in school. And every time before.

I remember Lilly Petridge sitting in front of me in fifth grade. It was my third school that year. She’d turned around and glared at me, passing on the open copy of
Gulliver’s Travels
, the classroom silent, waiting for me to start. I’d lifted the book, trying to ignore her smirk. My belly had tightened as I tried to breathe. My eyes fell on the top of page 127, and there it was scrawled in red marker across the page, across the book’s words.

FREAK GHOST GIRL Boooooooooo!!!!

I shake my head as I head down the hall to check on Mrs. Stephenson. She got herself into the shower but just like every other day, she will forget when it’s time to get back out. She’d just sit on the shower bench all day until she pickled.

I feel sad as I push open the door to hear Mrs. Stephenson in the shower, chatting away to no one in particular.

I bite my lip.

I didn’t take the money. It’s still sitting there. I can back out. I will back out.

But I need that money.
How can I turn down $100 an hour?
Actually, it’s more than that. He said four hundred for three hours total.

That is not turn-downable. That is grit-your-teeth-and-do-it money. I’d probably do a lot worse things for that hourly rate. Luckily no one has come right out and offered.

Luckily
he
hasn’t come right out and offered.

He’s got something. A gravity that pushes me away and then pulls me back. I feel like a ping-pong ball around him.

He’s got a face that tells more than his scars. There’s not even a hint of insecurity about him. Unlike me.

I am constantly thinking about how I look, about how the world sees me. He seems to have no awareness of how different he is. How his face tells what must be a sad story.

And, he’s got an energy that has me thinking about things I thought I never would again. Sexy things. He puts it out there like a tidal wave, and unfortunately, I am caught in it. That needs to stop.

Okay, I’ll do the reading.
But, I need to shake off whatever that vibration is I feel when he darts those Monet eyes at me. He looks like he’s seen a lot of trouble, and I’ve certainly had enough of that already in my life.

Yet, there’s a genuine softness to him. He looks like he’s been carved out of brimstone, but then he speaks, and there’s this complete lack of self-consciousness like he exists without any perception of himself. Without ego. And, for a man that looks the way he looks, I don’t know how that's possible.

He’s got more story in him than I need to know. No one has scars like that and doesn’t have a story. But, I resolve not to ask. No more small talk. I will stay professional, stoic.
I’m going to be the best book-reading-whore ever.

I play with the little gold cross around my neck, pulling it side to side and listening to the soft zip-zip-zip of the chain. Mr. Fitzgerald is lucky to have him. There’s a story there, too, but I don’t want to know it. I’ve got enough stories of my own.

Beckett

There is an enormous chrome, stylized eyeball staring back at me from behind the twenty-something, organized blonde at the front desk of Louis’s security company.

He’s done well.

Not only has his little private investigation and security startup, started, but it's also taking over the mid-west.

I've seen that eyeball logo on security vehicles about every twenty minutes while trying to settle back into civilian life around Cleveland. The city’s looking up, too.

And, I can feel the shift in me. The blonde behind the desk would normally draw my eye, but not today. It’s like a switch got flipped and that single-minded focus is set on ten.

“Mr. Spicer is ready for you now, Sir.” Patricia behind the front desk all but snaps her neck trying to catch my eye, and I do not miss the little lip-bite she adds for my benefit.

“Thanks.”
Sorry gorgeous, my brain and other parts are otherwise occupied. Should have caught me a while back. We could have had some fun.

Louis is smiling from behind the glass doors. He thinks he knows what I think as I give Patty-cakes a tip of my head.

“Nice, huh?” He gives me a knowing smirk as I enter his spacious office. “She’s smart, too. I don’t fish in my own pond, but I have no doubt you would make her day with the right offer.” Louis drapes a heavy arm over my shoulders.

“Where do you fish? You’re always fucking working.”

Louis’s eyes go flat for a second, and I realize I not only have I never seen him with a woman, but I've also never heard him talk about women. I think he once told me he was born somewhere outside of Cairo. Went through some of his own nasty shit in his childhood and who knows, maybe he’s sworn off women.

He’d texted me to stop by just as I was leaving Windfield, and I’d headed right over. He’s been important to me for a lot of years. After he had done his job as my court liaison, we forged a kind of friendship. He’s as close as I have to family outside my six SEAL brothers.

I almost miss my next step.

Four
SEAL brothers.

Inside his sleek glass-walled office, he lets out a heavy breath, settles his hands behind his head and eyeballs me, shaking his head.

“What?” I settle into a chair across from his desk with my hands in the air. “Man, I’m two days home. I just need to settle in. Don’t give me the fucking
look.
”

“Yeah? You need to talk. You need to process, man. I’ve been there. I’m not some schmuck trying to sell you rainbows and unicorns. Losing two of your brothers like that, with you driving.” He shakes his head again, staring me down. “You gotta get it out, or it comes out when you’re not ready. You’ve been through enough in your life, you know I’m right.”

“I get it, just not now. Not today. I need some time.”

The fresh face of Gentry flashes in my mind. He was the youngest member of our team. He was getting married in June, three months from now. Instead, he came home in a box.

The last time I saw him, he was screaming for me to find his legs. The legs that weren’t there because of my bad decision.

“So, what are we doing today?” Louis raises his hands from the desk, spreads his arms wide and upturns his hands.

Thank god for the subject change.

“I want to thank you for letting me crash last night and offering me the guesthouse until I go back. But, I need a place. Just for a few months. I’m still not sure what I’m doing.”

I need some space. I need to spread out a bit. Not feel like I’m in his back pocket.

“Funny you should say that. I’ll make you a deal. I’ve got a loft over near the river. Decent area, coming up but a little gritty. It’s empty. I’m planning on turning the building into upscale condo/lofts, but the legal shit is taking longer than I’d hoped. The building got broken into a couple times already. Kids drinking, fucking around in there. I’ll even send over some furniture and set you up. It’s huge. You could have a goddamn rave in there if you wanted. There’s also a separate apartment. Stay in the big space or in the apartment, I don’t care. Just keep it occupied and show a presence. You tend to keep the riffraff away.”

Leave it to Louis to know what I need and help me make it happen. I let out a sigh of relief. Dude has been a godsend in my life.

Before I can thank him yet again for saving my ass and settle on details, my phone rings. It’s Windfield.

An hour later, Dad and I are staring each other down. He’s pretending he has choices, and I’m pretending he’s reasonable.

“At least you’ll be out of here.” I snarl because I’m fucking pissed.

He’s a shadow of the man that used to throw me up in the air and catch me laughing and screaming just before I hit the ground. But, I still see that guy. He’s just broken and as scared as I am.

“I can find my own place.” He sucks on his teeth and looks out the window. The sky is gray, the temperature having dropped since yesterday, and I think about him sleeping on a sidewalk somewhere.

“Okay. Well then, stay with me until you do.”

I’m not going to battle. I’m going to figure out how to get him out of here—with me. I swore I wouldn’t take him in, but what am I going to do? Let him freeze out there? The next phone call I get will be the morgue.

When I got the call at Louis’s office, it all seemed to fall into place. Dad could live in the little side apartment, and I would take the big loft space. Perfect, right?

So, until I get him there, I’m going to play nice. I’ll tell him what he wants to hear if it gets the job done.

Yet, here and now in this little room, the walls seems to be inching in around us. The room is quickly becoming too small for all our memories.

This is not the mood I want to be in right now. It’s pushing three o’clock, and she will be here soon.

The two hundred-dollar bills are still sitting there. I start to wonder if she’ll show, and I hate to admit, but that feels more important than figuring out where my disabled, alcoholic, diabetic, train wreck of a father is going to live.

The phone call from Bruce an hour ago was to inform me that Dad was coming up on the end of his allotment of Medicare days. It’s a bit confusing, but the way it works, he would be required to transfer out of the private room and into a Medicaid bed. Three beds to a room.

Or, I could take him out . . . with me.

This is going to be interesting. We haven’t spent more than a few hours at a time together in at least ten years.

“
Three to a room,
Dad. Three to a room
here
or your own apartment attached to my loft space.” I try to keep my voice steady.

“Nope.” He shoots darts at me with his glare. “I’ll figure it out. I have a couple weeks. I’ll make some calls.” He points at me. “You mind your own business and let me tend to mine.”

He’s in rare form for Promise today. I’m trying to even him out before she comes through the door. The last thing I want is her figuring out that my more-than-generous hourly rate is not enough.

I flash back to my life with him before the fire, remembering how Dad was a giant like me. But, everyone gravitated to him. He liked everyone, and the feelings were mutual. In every picture of him from my childhood, he has this huge smile like someone just finished telling him a joke.

Then his smile disappeared, and I haven’t seen it since.

Our silence makes the dark room darker. Neither of us has a magic word to make any of it better.

“Hi. Are you ready for me?” Promise wades in slowly, her voice like a wind chime in the thick, heavy silence.

I shut my eyes and swallow hard. For a moment, I feel like I’m floating. Her damn voice is seeping through my veins and wandering around in parts of me I’ve put away for a long fucking time.

“Are you ready for me?”
Yes, I am very fucking ready for you. But, I doubt you are ready for me.

I appreciate beautiful women. And, I don’t just mean Sports Illustrated swimsuit model’s definition of beautiful either. I see more.

I feel drawn to more than physical beauty. Certain traits in women ignite me. But with Promise, it’s different. Stronger, inexplicably intense. It’s a predatory instinct when I sense pain or weakness. Docility. Fear or insecurity. I’m pulled, rapt, and Promise has me in her force field. I want more than anything to be the strength for her every weakness.

I want to curl her into me. Secure her next to me and banish all of her bad dreams.

She’s playing eye tag with my Dad, the floor, and the two hundred-dollar bills.

“
I’m
not ready. I think this is stupid.” Dad snaps.

For once I am thankful for my father’s unbridled rudeness.

Promise stuffs her hands into the square pockets of her scrub top. It hangs loosely down over where my eyes can only imagine my tongue would like to be right now. I think about the soft curves under the fabric, the way she moves like she is gliding instead of walking. I love the fullness of her hips, the swell of her ass.