Split (22 page)

He leaned back against the small sink, studying me. “You’re all grown up.”

Was I imagining the sensuality in his voice?

He cracked a smile. “How’d you know how to find me?”

“Your brother tried to arrest me.”

Nick chuckled. “Fuckin’ Bunny boy.” He picked up the bottle and poured two other shots. “So you guys are hanging out again. Good stuff.”

“Yes—” I noticed the tension in my voice had let out. I felt calmer. More together. “Just recently. We were over for supper at his house. Lene and your parents—”

“We?”

Had I said we? I dug my fingernails into my palms.

Nick threw back his shot and glanced down at the silver band around my finger.

I inwardly cursed myself to the pyres of hell.

“You married?”

The question sounded more like an accusation.

“No-no.”

“Didn’t think so.” He lolled his head, peering into my heated face. “Are you a fag?”

I have always hated that cursed word.

Why does Nick make it sound like a sexy triple chocolate fudge cake?

Oh yes, baby. I am a fag.

A smile was my only reply.

“So who’s
we
?”

“Chef Nicolas, le gars d’la ville est là pour les tuyaux.”
The young man who had greeted me with disdain stood by the kitchen’s open door.

Nick glanced over and gave him a quick nod. The boy hesitated by the door, his eyes lingering on every fantastic line of Nick’s body, then he spun around, and disappeared.

I pushed the glass up. “You’re busy. I should go.”

“What? Him?” Nick rubbed his chin, laughing.

“Would you like to ha-have din-in-ner maybe?”

I had meant to stutter
drinks
, but my soul had betrayed me.

Nick moistened his lips again, then pressed them together, watching me. He bounced off the sink, and without a word, headed for the kitchen.

My mouth sagged, and my eyes followed him out.

What had just happened?

I stared down at the empty shot glasses, trying to put everything back together in my frazzled mind. I waited, glancing at the kitchen door every other second. Then, after five minutes of this torture, with a heavy hand, I gathered my bag off the counter.

I shuffled to the front door.

“O’Reilly.”

My pulse quickened, but I didn’t turn around. “Yes?”

Nick’s voice rustled at the edge of my ear. He had walked up to me. “Gimme your number,” he ordered.

I turned around. “I’ll give you my card—”

“No cards, I fucking hate cards. Shoot.” He punched my number into his phone. “All right,” he said before turning back. “I’ll see you around.”

At the sound of those words, a chill surged through me.

*

Dear Bump,

Officer Di Paglio asked Aunt Frannie to marry him, but she said no.

She’s been crying for two days. Dad keeps shuffling his feet around, watching her out of the corner of his eye.

She’s going to be moving out. Somewhere near the Jolicoeur metro, you know, the one we never get off at.

“It isn’t very far from here hon, just on the other side of the canal, ’bout ten minutes.”

She was folding some clothes, making neat little stacks of them.

“But why do you-ou have to-to?”

“It isn’t right for an unmarried woman to live with her sister and her husband. Just not right.”

“Why don’t you ma-marry Scott, then?”

Her hands stopped folding, but her eyes remained glued to the sweater in her fingers. “Because that’s not the life I want, baby. I don’t have the nerves to be a cop’s wife. And I enjoy my freedom. Though it comes at high price. Someday you’ll understand.”

What do nerves have to do with anything?

“Besides, your mom’s coming home next week. You don’t need me here anymore.”

How could I not need Aunt Frannie? That’s ridiculous.

“Can I-I co-come with you?”

Tears twinkled in her pale green eyes. “Hon,” she whispered, “you don’t know how much I want to take you with me. I dream of it, baby. You’re my special boy, my friend too.” She blinked and the tears ran down her powdered cheeks. “Oh, Red, why do people keep hurting you all the time?”

Dunno.

“I’m going to miss you more than you’ll ever really understand.” She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “Derek. Life is like a staring contest. One blink and it’s over, baby. So don’t blink, okay? I want you to stare life right in the face until she gives you what you want. What you need.”

Whatever that means.

*

As I ran down the hallway of the infamous cancer ward of the Hotel Dieu hospital, memories raced beside me.

One in particular gained momentum.

A boy with a fat lip wandering the halls in search of his clothes.

I turned the corner in haste, skidding down the white linoleum floor, and for a moment, I wondered, was I running to or from?

“Aunt Fran?” The door was ajar, but I had yet to enter.

A voice cackled. “You better have some booze.”

I pushed on the door and walked in with dread tightening my jaw.

The woman whom the bed had swallowed whole wasn’t my auntie.

No.

“Don’t look at me like that,” the feverish-eyed skeleton said. “It’s not as bad as I look.”

My kneecaps locked. And I hugged myself. “Why didn’t you-ou tell-tell me? How could—”

“Hush, baby.”

She tried to sit up, and I tried to stand.

“Hon, come here.” Her voice was strained. “Come closer.”

A cruel, sadistic sorrow bit the back of my throat, and once again, I was propelled into the past.

In our kitchen on First Avenue.

“You gotta let the sauce boil a little first, hon.”

“Do you-ou think it’ll co-come out good?”

“Oh, hon, everything you pour your little heart into comes out good.”

By Aunt Fran’s hospital bed, I realized, I haven’t poured my heart into anything for the last decade.

I sat in the chair, at her bedside, and reached for her fingers. “Aunt Frannie—” But I was too choked up to speak.

“How was it, hon?” Her eyes had livened, and it gave me strength. “How was the dinner party? How is Boone? Lene? Everybody?”

I swallowed the grief and squeezed her bony fingers. “It was magical, Aunt Fran. Really.”

She smiled. Her gums were white. “And did you see him? Did you see Nicolas?”

There was urgency to her tone.

I leaned in. “Yes, I have.”

She tightened her grip around my fingers, as if she might fall off a cliff if she ever let me go. “And? Is he still dangerous?”

I thought of Nick’s eyes as they had roamed over me.

The effect of them.

“Oh yes, he is, Aunt Fran. More than ever.”

Aunt Fran is dying.

I’m not going to let her do this alone, no matter how much cynicism and false confidence she throws my way.

Because I know she’s scared.

*

“You’re gonna get yourself fired, Derek.”

Nathan and I were getting ready for bed.

“I don’t care, Nate.”

“You said Goldman asked you to—”

“She’s more important.”

Nathan’s eyes flared up. “You could visit her in the evenings, or go there on your lunch hour.”

“You don’t understand.” I crawled into bed, aligning my body at the very edge of it, and pulled the blanket over my ear. “She’s the only person who’s ever really loved me.”

“How can you say that? How can you lie there and say something like that?”

I sighed, and pulled the blanket higher still. “Because it’s true.”

“What about me? I slave day in and day out for you, to please you, to—”

“Nathan,” I snapped. “I can’t hear this again.”

He ripped the blanket off my face. “No? You can’t be bothered with how I feel? Okay, all right. I’m getting pretty fucking tired of living with a ghost, you know that? Where are you, Derek? Where the hell are you!”

I cringed a little.

Nathan sighed deeply. “Every day, I tell myself that you’re gonna change, that you’re gonna realize what I do for you, but, Derek, every night, I go to bed feeling more and more disconnected from us.” He crouched down at my side, and when I caught sight of his dark brown eyes, my heart warmed a little. “Der, do you love me?”

For two years I have managed to avoid that question.

My imagination is limitless when it comes to finding new ways to slither out of actually saying those three words.

“I need to know.” His eyes insisted. “I need to hear you say it.”

Nick.

To touch his glorious skin.

To hear him come.

For me.

“Derek? Do you?”

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t dirty the words that belong to another.

Nathan slumped back against the nightstand, looking down at his hands. “I’ve been offered a job, Derek.” He turned his face to mine. “A transfer, really. An opportunity to get out of the pressure cooker. Out of sales for good.”

I frowned. “What?”

“International relations. Setting up some contacts in Europe, getting a feel for the market over there.”

“Over there,” I echoed meekly.

“Yeah, Der.
Over there
.”

Europe.

Paris. London. Lisbon. Berlin.

Dublin, even.

“They wanna set me up in Milan.
Milan
, Derek. All expenses paid. A twelve to eighteen month contract. Do you know what that means? You and me, in Milan—” He stopped, and then added, more softly. “We could skip the engagement party and get married before November—”

“November?”

He nodded.

“Is that when—”

“I gotta let them know before the third week of October.”

The walls leaned in on me, and I shut my eyes. “What about-bout the condo, my job…my aunt?”

And Nick.

Nathan drew in a long, hard breath. “The condo we can sublease. Your job? You just said you wanna take off for a few months, so what’s the big deal? We can work something out after the wedding, get you a visa—”

“Oh my Go-god,” I gasped. “You’ve already-dy planned all of this.”

“I want you to come with me. I
need
you to come with me.” He got to is knees and bent his face to mine. “Baby. Please. Don’t make me choose.”

And I’m supposed to?

*

Lene and Boone accompanied me to the Hotel Dieu this afternoon.

We met in the lobby of the cancer ward.

As I walked up to them, I had an urge to grab hold of their beautiful smooth hands and run down the hall, until our feet left the ground, to leave Death far behind.

Let that miserable wretch eat our dust.

Boone came to me and squeezed my shoulder. “Hey. How are you?”

Lene had already wrapped herself around me. Her hot tears wet my neck. The news of Aunt Fran’s imminent death has rattled Lene. She remembers her vividly.

Boone gently nudged her out of my embrace. “Come on, let’s go say hello.”

We huddled together and walked slowly to 1019.

As we came to Aunt Fran’s door, Boone flinched, stepping back into the hall. “Wait,” he whispered. “Can’t do this—”

“Boone.” Lene wrapped her fingers around her brother’s. “It’s okay.” She pulled him closer. “Come on, she needs to see that life makes sense. Things go on.”

His eyes found mine. “She real beat up?”

I nodded.

Boone rubbed his chin for a moment. He hadn’t shaved, and the blond stubble covering his cheeks gave his face an air of weakening virility. How handsome Boone has become.

Testosterone soaks his every move.

“All right,” he said at length.

Aunt Fran was sitting up in bed, leafing through a men’s fashion magazine. Obviously, the cancer has yet to rob her of her phenomenal libido. At the sound of my voice, she peered over the glossy paper.

On the cover, a blond boy held on to his flimsy shirt as some kind of tornado blew through it. I caught a veiled annoyance in her green eyes.

I had snatched her out of her daydreaming.

Boone and Lene were a step behind, still out of view.

“Aunt Fran.” I bent to kiss her sunken cheek. “Boone and Lene Lund are here to see you.”