Lightning Strikes (The Almeida Brothers Trilogy #3) (16 page)

***

Nina couldn’t believe it.  When the burly officer who’d arrested her and Jack for breaking and entering came to her cell and let her out, she’d been frozen in shock.  After consulting with her unofficial Aries lawyer through the walls of their respective jail cells, she’d made her peace with the fact that they would be sleeping in the jail tonight.  She hadn’t laughed when he’d joked that, by the time they got out, the air traffic control strike would definitely be over.

So when that burly guard unlocked her cell and waved her out, she’d looked over her shoulder wondering who he was speaking to.  Of course, her cell had been empty from the moment she’d been led inside of it, so she was met with nothing but the tattered bed and the off-white toilet she’d been too disgusted to utilize.

If she thought being freed was shocking, it was only because she’d yet to lay eyes on the man who’d bailed her out, sitting in the waiting room of the police precinct.  The man met her eyes, and they both smiled at the same time.

“Dammit, Nina, it really i-i-is you!” A diminutive man with balding gray hair, sunburnt skin, and a slight wobble stood from his seat on shaky legs.  A cane was clutched in his right hand, wiggling under his hold just enough to leave every able bodied person around him in a perpetual state of paranoia, always primed and ready for the moment his crippled bones gave in, and he finally toppled over.

“Rudy!” Nina beamed, covering her mouth with her hands as she approached him, leaning down and giving him the closest thing to a hug she could without breaking his bones.

Just like she’d remembered, Rudy was always in motion, and as she pulled back, she found herself keeping the tips of her fingers on his elbows, just in case she had to catch his fall.

His blue eyes grew bigger, and his hoarse voice seemed ready to give in with every word he uttered.  “D-d-doll, when they told me someone got into my boat I was t-t-
this
close—” He held up his thumb and pointer finger, shaking like a leaf, an inch apart.  “To telling them to throw away the key.”

Nina smiled when she saw that his days as a lightweight boxing champion were still reaping havoc on his diction.  For the rest of his life, his brain would always need a little extra time to catch up to his mouth, and Nina nodded patiently as she took in his every stuttered word.

“Then I s-s-aw that name!”  He pointed toward the ceiling.  “
G-G-Grammio
, and I said, ‘it can’t be.’  Not my little Nina.  I couldn’t let my little Nina sit in jail.  Not after e-e-everything she’s done for me.”

Nina laughed.  “God I love you, Rudy.”  She squeezed his arms.  “And I’m going to pay you back every penny.  You’re not going to
believe
the last few days I’ve had.”

“Why don’t we go, get some l-lunch, and you can tell me all about it.”

Just as she was about to agree and fall into a deep conversation catching up with Rudy, Nina’s eyes went wide.

“Wait!” she cried, hurrying over to the precinct counter.

***

“Almeida? Bail’s posted.”

When the guard slid the bars of his cell open, Jack stepped out with his hands in his pockets.  He signed out as quickly and calmly as he could before entering the precinct’s waiting room.

“Only took you a whole hour to bail me out, huh?” he asked, coming to a stop in front of Nina.  She was seated next to an older man; they were face-to-face and knee-to-knee, looking deep in conversation.

Nina was the first to look up at him, and when she flashed him a dazzling smile, Jack knew he had to get away from her.  That smile had earned him a fist to the face, a bed in a jail cell, and a seat on a quick train to Disasterville, USA, and somehow he knew it was only the beginning.  From her amazing collectedness through this entire ordeal, it was occurring to him that Nina was the type of person prone to this kind of madness.  It had become her norm.

Nina put her hand on the old man’s shoulder, motioning to Jack.  “Rudy, this is Jack.  Jack’s the guy I’ve been telling you about.”

With an eyebrow lifted high, Rudy nodded to Jack.

“Jack, this is Rudy.  That was
his
boat we were on.  Can you believe it?  He was going to press charges until he saw my name, and then he posted my bail instead.  Who’s the karmic curse now, huh? 
Huh?
”

Jack gave her a look, then moved his eyes to Rudy.

“Rudy and I used to be neighbors,” Nina said, patting Rudy’s shoulder.  “Right across the hall.  Remember, Jack; how I told you I used to rent a place on the Marina?”

A slow smile crossed Jack’s face.

Nina nodded, recognizing the knowing look in his eyes as she pointed to Rudy.  “Rudy was a six-time heavyweight champion back in his day. 
Undefeated
.”  She threw a few punches through the air, aimed at Rudy, who pretended to dodge them with smiling eyes.  “An old back injury got away from him a little while after I moved in.  He was in incredible pain—pretty much all the time—and I used to help him out every now and again.”

“H-h-help me out?” Rudy pointed to her, looking to Jack with wide eyes.  “She saved my life.  If it weren’t for her, my e-e-evil ex-wife would’ve loved nothing more than to see me choke on my own vomit, just so she could bleed my estate dry.  Evil cunt!”

Nina shook her head while rubbing Rudy’s back.  “He’s exaggerating.”

Jack didn’t hear her, too busy watching Rudy with alarm in his eyes.  “I’m sorry.  Wait.
Stop.
  Six-time undefeated heavyweight champion?  ’68 to ’74?”

Nina cut a look at him.  “Were you even breathing in ’74, Aries?”

It was as if Nina had ceased to exist.  With a slack jaw and wide eyes, Jack pointed to Rudy.  “Are you…
Rudy Kalveeno
?”

“Guilty.” Rudy laughed.

It was as if a fourteen-year-old girl had just walked through the door and spotted Justin Bieber.  And Justin Bieber had gone straight to bended knee and pledged his life to her.  The way Jack’s entire aura went to the wolves—parted lips blooming into a smile, hands in his hair, feet shuffling back and forth as he struggled to accept that this was real—could only be described as fangirling.

“I. Cannot…” Jack bent down in front of Rudy with manic eyes, clutching each handle of Rudy’s chair.  “You don’t understand…”

Nina cocked her head back and placed a protective hand on Rudy’s shoulder, fearful of what was happening.

“You don’t
understand
,” Jack whispered, making claws.  “What you’ve done for me.”

Nina’s eyes widened.

Jack shot up.  “That left hook against Alessini in ’69?” Jack threw a left hook through the air, moaning and biting his bottom lip with a frown.

Nina jolted, officially scared.

Rudy laughed heartily.  “Alessini!  That hack.”

Jack continued grunting through various sub-par boxing moves as he recounted Rudy’s six-year legacy, earning himself the distrustful eyes of the officers in the precinct who’d been ignoring them up until then.

“You knocked him the
fuck out,”
Jack cried.  “First round, boom!  Don King hadn’t even rolled out of bed before you knocked him the fuck out!  I’ve never seen anything like it.”  Jack curled his fingers into his hair as the smile on his face suddenly vanished.  “I can’t believe this is happening right now.”

“I have never seen him like this,” Nina whispered to Rudy, keeping an eye on Jack just in case he became even more unhinged.  He was looking at Rudy like a man in love.  “Granted, I’ve only known him for four days, so…”

“Ah, the blind w-w-worship.  I never get sick of it.”  Rudy said, waving a hand through the air.

“I played Scrabble on
Rudy Kalveeno’s
boat.”  Jack’s eyes went wide as if he could now die happy.  He pressed his knuckles against his teeth.

Rudy held his hands out.  “Why don’t we get some l-l…”  Rudy jammed his eyes shut and took a moment.

Jack leaned forward, eyes going even wider, waiting with baited, fan-girl breath.

Nina eyed him suspiciously.

“Lunch,” Rudy finally sputtered, nodding to Jack.

Jack stood tall with an expression of awe.  As if he were about two seconds from bursting into applause.  As if with one word,
lunch
, Rudy Kalveeno had changed his life all over again.

“I love lunch,” Jack said, with an amazed shake of his head.

“Lunch it is,” Nina said, clapping a hand on Rudy’s knee, and standing tall.

When Jack nearly elbowed her to the floor in his rush to help Rudy to his feet, Nina stepped away with her arms up in surrender, biting back a smile.

Before they’d sat down for lunch, if you’d asked Nina whether or not she’d ever seen Jack smile, she would’ve answered with a resounding yes.  Sure, she had to scam most of them out of him with well-timed bouts of intense self-deprecation, and sometimes pity, but never the less… she had seen his smile.

Or, at least, she thought she had.

Across the table at Rudy’s favorite restaurant in The Hollywood Park Casino in Inglewood, minutes after giving the teenage waitress their orders, Jack had already scooted his chair closer to Rudy. The edge of the wood table jammed into his gut as they found themselves entrenched in boxing talk.

The smile on Jack’s face was luminous.  Showing both rows of teeth and, to Nina’s complete shock, even a little bit of his
gum line
as he basked in Rudy’s glory.

She had
never
seen Jack’s gums
.

And his eyes.  Those brown eyes that sometimes flickered brighter if they were assaulted by the sunlight at just the right angle.  Those eyes that sometimes lit up for a fraction of a second whenever she was making a fool out of herself.  At that moment, talking to Rudy, new life had been breathed into Jack’s eyes from his genuine smiles and laughter.

Nina found herself entranced at the sight of him, and embarrassingly, a little jealous of her former neighbor.  What was so special about Rudy that he’d pulled a happiness out of Jack she’d concluded didn’t even exist?  Just because he used to knock people out?

She leaned her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand, frowning at Jack as the conversation he was having with Rudy escalated.

“Nah,” Rudy’s voice rose.  “The Allen match wasn’t in ‘71.”

Jack’s smile spread even wider.

Nina cocked her lip at the sight, wondering how big that damn smile was capable of getting, and why
she’d
never been on the receiving end of it.

Jack held his hands out, leaning in closer.  The edge of the table pushed deeper into his stomach.  “It was
’71,
” he insisted, giving the waitress only a half second of his attention as she dropped their drinks before going back to Rudy.  He slapped the back of his hand against his palm.  “I remember it like the back of my hand, Rudy.  It was the same year I got laid for the first time.”

Rudy howled with laughter and offered Jack his hand.

They shared a handshake before Jack slapped Rudy’s arm with the back of his hand.  “It was also the same year I learned that ignoring the bird you’re after to watch the big match is the best way to get her insecure enough to bust it open.”

Nina cringed as their laughter rose to howls.  “You were nine-years-old when you lost your virginity,” she accused.  “Was that really your thought process at
nine-years-old
?  How to break a girl down fast, so you could get between her legs?”

Jack shot Nina a blank look, blinking as if he’d forgotten she was even there.

She scoffed and snatched up the straw the waitress had left next to her coke, shoving it into the plastic glass and sucking hard, glaring at him as she did.

“I never claimed to be a saint, you know,” Jack said, motioning to himself.

“Women.” Rudy reclaimed his attention.  “They only w-w-ant you when they a-a-ain’t got you, but when they got ya—”

“They don’t want ya!” Jack finished, his eyes going wide as if Rudy had just uncovered the mystery of life.  They shared another high five.

Nina’s eyes nearly rolled out of the back of her head.

This time, Rudy shot her a look.  “Do you need some attention?”  He looked back to Jack and nodded to Nina.  “She’s feeling n-n—“

Jack waved a hand, hearing what Rudy was saying.  “She’s always feeling neglected.  She always needs attention.  There isn’t a body of water on Earth large enough to house all of the attention she needs.  About that uppercut in ’71, though…”

Nina couldn’t lie, as the two of them re-lived Rudy’s good old days, throwing punches through the air over the table, reenacting fights from decades ago, she wasn’t really annoyed.  She wasn’t
really
angry.  It was actually kind of adorable.

So she allowed Jack to fangirl in peace, through the appetizers and the main course, before he finally seemed to realize she was still at the table.

“Pass the salt?”  Jack pointed to the salt at the end of her table after the waitress dropped their entrees.

Nina slid the salt shaker across the table with a little more effort than necessary.

He caught it with ease, giving her a knowing smirk before going back to his food.  The only thing in the world that could shut the fangirl up at that moment, protein, took hold, and as Jack dug into his steak, Rudy turned to her.

“Really, Nina,” he said, his hoarse voice even more so after screaming through his glory days with Jack.  “You been doing okay?”

Nina pointed to herself, eyes wide.  “Who me?”

“Yes, you.”  Rudy laughed.

“Wow.  Me, huh?  Okay.”  She set down her fork, trying to smile.  “Truth is, I been good, Rudy.  Real good.”

“You look good.”  He patted her arm.  “What about the little firecracker?  How’s he been?”

The air left Nina’s lungs.  Her heart ground to a halt.   She looked at Jack and found him looking right back at her.  The curiosity in his gaze was something she still wasn’t used to, and her eyes shot down to her plate to avoid it.

“Sometimes I feel like that little guy is the real reason I g-g-got through it all.  Swear to God, he brought the Fourth of July to my heart, Nina.”

“He loved you too, Rudy,” Nina whispered.  “Very much.”

“Where is he?” Rudy asked.  “Is he still working on that right hook I taught him?”

Nina pushed her hair behind her ear before leaning both elbows on the table, covering her eyes with her hands.

“Who’s the little firecracker?” Jack asked.

Nina looked up at him, keeping a hand over her mouth.  She gazed over at Rudy, and when Rudy raised his eyebrows, she gave him the slightest shake of her head.

Only when she saw Rudy look down at his plate did Nina let herself breathe again.

Jack watched the exchange, motioning to Nina with his fork.  “The kid in the photo?  Your cousin?”

Nina searched his eyes.  Four days ago, she’d been hoping for this moment.  The moment when Jack finally became just as curious about her as she’d been about him.  It had been happening, little by little.  Sometimes she swore she could
physically
see his skin peeling away from his body, revealing the deeper layers that he worked so hard to hide.

Now, however, she felt like it was
her
layers being peeled away.

“Yeah,” she said, meeting Rudy’s eyes again when he shot her a squinted look.  “My cousin,” she said, looking back to Jack.  “He used to visit me a lot when I lived out here.”

Jack nodded and then went back to his food.

Nina went back to hers, too, feeling Rudy’s eyes burning into the side of her face the entire time.

***

“Will you let me give you a c-c-couple dollars?” Rudy asked Nina after lunch.  They stood in the parking lot of the casino, leaning on the bumper of his classic Mercedes.

On the other side of the lot, Jack was pacing back and forth, giving her and Rudy space to say goodbye.  Of course, he couldn’t tear his fangirl eyes away from Rudy for two seconds, and Nina rolled her eyes with a smile.

“You’ve already paid my bail
and
paid for lunch.  I refuse to take another dime from you.  And I’m going to pay you back.  Every dollar.  I’m serious, Rudy.” She pushed her curls out of her eyes with her pointed finger.  “I’ll be fine.”

“I know you spent a good c-c-chunk of that cash you’re holding to b-b-bail Jack out.”   He clutched his cane.  “Why you holding that k-kind of money?”  His gaze traveled to her black eye, which he’d been too polite to bring up at the table.  He lowered his voice.  “You in trouble?”

She sighed.  “No.  No.   The eye was an accident.  And the money is to pay for my divorce lawyer once I get back to New York.”

“Finally leaving that ingrate?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“It’s about d-damn time.  Son of a bitch never knew what he had with you and Noah.”

Her eyes fell, and she nodded.

He reached out and took her arm.  “I’m sorry if I overstepped, bringing him up back there.”

“Of course you didn’t overstep,” Nina beamed, tears coming to her eyes.  “God, he worshiped you.  He was the main one waking me up at six on the dot every morning, asking if he could go across the hall and make sure you were doing your exercises.”  She sniffled, slapping away the tears falling from her eyes.  “He loved you, Rudy.  Don’t ever be sorry for asking about him.”

“Has he been getting better?” Rudy frowned.  “Been so long since I seen him, but he was always a fighter.  My little firecracker.”

Nina took a deep breath.  “Everything was supposed to be okay, and then the kidney didn’t take,” she said, shaking her head.  “It just didn’t take, Rudy.  It’s been six years, but it’s still so hard for me to… to talk about him…”

Rudy gave his wobbling cane all his weight before reaching out and squeezing her arm, tears coming to his own eyes.  “Okay, Nina,” he said, his voice soft.  “That’s okay.  That’s good.  You don’t have to say any more.”

She nodded, pushing her hands into the back pockets of her pants as she struggled to compose herself.

Rudy sniffled and jammed his eyes shut.  He breathed deep and took his own moment before he claimed her gaze.  “Will you let me give you a c-couple dollars?  Please?”

“No.”  She laughed through wet eyes, grabbing his arm when he reached into his pocket. “No, Rudy.  It means the world to me but… I’ll be okay.”

He begrudgingly removed his hand from his pocket.  “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“You always have a home with me; you know that.”

She nodded.

“I mean it.  If you won’t let me give you some money, at least know that.  You’re family to me.  Always will be.”

Nina wrapped her arms around his neck.

“I’m so sorry, Nina.”  He embraced her in return.

Nina jammed her eyes shut and nodded against his shoulder.  She waited until the tears had completely dried.  Until the threat of them popping up again was close to zero, before pulling back.  Her eyes searched Rudy’s and then she looked toward Jack with a laugh.

Jack jolted the moment their eyes met, and like an anxious puppy, his eyebrows rose in question.

Nina waved him over.  “Let’s go, Runaway.   Come and say goodbye.”

Jack skipped into a run, not even looking both ways before he was jetting across the parking lot with his palm out to Rudy.

Rudy took his hand in a solid shake.

“It’s been an honor.  A true honor.  You have no idea.”  Jack spoke a mile a minute.  “This might be completely presumptuous, but do you think I could get a picture with you?  Just for the mantle in my living room?”

“Of course, of course,” Rudy laughed.

They both looked at Nina, who was pulling Jack’s phone out of her bag with a shake of her head.  She unlocked it while mumbling under her breath, and nearly laughed out loud when she saw the photos that Jack had on his phone.

Zero.  He had zero photos.  It didn’t surprise her, he never had struck her as a picture taker, but it was still hilarious to her that a photo of him and Rudy was going to be the first and only one.

“Smile,” she said, holding up the camera.

Jack did smile, so bright she was sure he was causing permanent damage to his jaw.  Rudy smiled as well, but it struck her as the kind of smile a hostage would give to a stranger who happened to be passing by, smiling while his eyes screamed out for help.

***

“That.  Was.  Ridiculous.  That.  Was.  Insane.”  Jack was still on another level long after Rudy had departed.  He and Nina had waved him off before making their way back into the casino in search of a television so they could get an update on the strike.  It was a Saturday, and the casino was packed, so they had to weave and wag their way through the crowd once they’d spotted a bar.  “That.  Was. 
Epic
.”

Even as the cartoon chimes of slot machines crashed together and sent a tumultuous racket
floating through the air, Nina could hear Jack loud and clear.

“Incredible,” she said, voice dry. “Unfathomable.  Inconceivable. Mind-boggling.  Insane.  Epic.  Pretty soon even
you
are going to run out of adjectives, Aries.”

“But…” Jack shook his head, still processing everything.  He pointed toward the exit doors.  “That was Rudy Kalveeno.”

“Yep.”  Nina nodded.

“
Rudy Kalveeno.”

“Yes, Jack, I know his name.  Just in case you’ve forgotten, he was my friend
first—before you
stole
him from me.”