Up to Me (10 page)

“Oh God! That sounds dangerous.”

Gavin shrugs.  “He holds all the cards right now.”

“No, he doesn’t.  They still have Marissa.”

“Okay, he holds
most
of the cards right now.  If they don’t hand her over, he’ll give them the books.  They’ll be with Nash, who he’ll call in
only
if things get crazy.”

“So, he’s hoping to get away with the books, the video and Marissa?”

“Yeah.”

“And worst case scenario would be…?”

“That he has to give them the books as an act of good faith to get the girl.  But he’ll still have the video. And whatever help Greg called in along with Nash.”

“Greg?  Is that Cash’s father?”

“Yeah.  He’s a good man.”

I say nothing.  I still haven’t decided if I think Cash’s father is a good man or not.  At the moment, I’d be more inclined to say not.  He’s the reason we’re all in this mess to begin with. I’m sure he has some redeeming qualities; right now I just don’t see them.

“Have you known him long?”

“Yeah, we go way back.”

“I find that hard to believe. You can’t be
that
old.”

“I’m too hot to get old,” he declares with a cocky grin and a wink.  I roll my eyes and he laughs.  “Nah, I started very, very early.”

“Started what?”

He shrugs, but this time I think it’s because he doesn’t really want to answer, not because he’s nonchalant. 

“For a few years I was hired out to do all kinds of…odd jobs.  But I can also fly planes and helicopters, which is how I met Greg.  And then Cash.”

I nod slowly.  “Odd jobs, huh?  So you’re in a similar…business?”

“Not really.  The work I did was dangerous and unsavory in a different way.  That’s why I got out.”

It almost seems scarier to think what kind of person I’m riding with because he’s so vague about what he does.  Or what he
did. 
And the way Cash talked about him, I can’t help but wonder if I’m sitting next to a felon or something.  Just because he’s not in jail doesn’t mean he’s not guilty; it just means he never got caught.

All of a sudden, I’m much less curious about…everything!  It seems that there’s nothing but darkness and disappointment everywhere I look.  For the first time in maybe
ever
, my mother’s guest room is looking like a little slice of heaven.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN- Cash

Letting Olivia go with Gavin was much harder than I expected.  And now, as I guide my bike back toward the club, I keep thinking of what she looked like in my rear view mirror as I drove past her on the street.  Very upset.  She looked very, very upset.

I remind myself that Gavin is both trustworthy and capable.  Doubting my judgment at this point would be as counterproductive as it would be stupid.  There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s too late to make any big changes, especially ones that could risk Olivia.  My gut was to go with Gavin.  Now I have to trust it.  Period.

Pulling into my garage and seeing the door to my apartment open reminds me I’ve got more problems than just worrying about Gavin’s role in all this.

Nash.

I park the bike and walk in to find Nash in the bathroom shaving.  After rinsing his cheeks, he meets my eyes in the mirror. I’m glad to see the hair of his goatee intact; I don’t want him looking any more like me than he absolutely has to.  This could get too sticky otherwise. Plus, I just don’t like the guy. He grew into an even bigger asshole than he was when we were younger.

“Make yourself at home,” I bite sarcastically.

“Oh, don’t worry.  I did.”

I don’t even want to ask what that means. It’ll just make me mad, and for the next twelve hours or so, I need to focus.   And that doesn’t mean on my brother.

“If you need to get a couple hours of sleep or do any more cleaning up, I can give you the keys to the apartment up town and you can drive the car over there.”

“Trying to get rid of me so soon?”

“Actually, yeah. I am.”

“That’s not very brotherly of you.”

“Look man, you’re gonna have to leave the attitude at the door for a while.  I don’t have time for your mouth or your shit.  Just stick to the plan and leave me the hell alone otherwise.”

“Well, the plan includes a need for the video, which I’ve stashed in a safe place.  I might take you up on the offer of the car.  I don’t have one since I’ve been in exile for seven years.”

Again with the bitterness. I want to roll my eyes, but I grit my teeth and resist the urge.  Obviously one of us is going to have to be the cool-headed adult of the bunch.  And it sure as hell doesn’t look like it’s gonna be Nash.

I walk into the bedroom and open the top chest drawer and dig out my alternate set of keys.  “Take the Beamer.  The gold key is the one for the condo.”

I give him the address.  He raises his eyebrows and nods appreciatively, but he keeps his sarcasm to a minimum.  I’m glad about that.  Maybe I got through to him.

“Nice.”

“Maybe for a lawyer, but I prefer this place.”

He looks me in the eye, like he’s trying to determine if I’m lying. 

“I can’t believe you did it.”

“Did what?”

“Finished school and went to college. And actually graduated and became a lawyer.”

I sift through his words for an underlying meaning, for derision or malice, but I find none. He just seems…surprised.

“It’s not like I enjoyed it.  That was always your thing, not mine.  But it’s what I had to do to help Dad. Or at least I thought it was.”

I have to work to keep the bitterness from my own tone. It still stings knowing how much they kept me in the dark, remembering all the sacrifices I made because I thought Dad needed my help.

“I guess neither of us turned out quite like we expected.”

“I suppose not.  I just hope, in some ways, we’re both better off for what we’ve done and the way things turned out. Maybe it was good for both of us.  I needed a little bit of you, I guess.”

Nash shrugs.  “Maybe I needed a little bit of you, too.  Just not this much.”

His smile seems genuine and it’s easier for me to return it than I would’ve thought, considering how things started out between us.

Maybe there’s hope after all.

I see Nash’s few possessions thrown over the bed.

“I’ll give you a minute to get your stuff together. I’ve gotta get something out of the car.”

That’s a lie. I actually have to get the books out of the safe and I don’t want him to see where I keep important things.  I still don’t fully trust my brother, so I consider the fib prudent and necessary.

 He nods and I walk back out to the garage, closing the door behind me.

I cross to the hook racks and peg boards on the wall opposite the car.  There’s a small lever and hidden hinges on the second board. It opens silently to reveal a safe built into the wall.  I punch in the combination.  The click lets me know it’s ready.

The only things inside the safe besides the ledgers are an expandable file full of papers related to the club and a small stack of hundred dollar bills.  I hate not to have some cash on hand.

I remove the ledgers and shut the door then replace the peg board over it, concealing its presence perfectly.  I retrieve my jacket from the back seat of the BMW and then head back to the apartment.  Nash is putting on his sunglasses as I walk in.

“Seriously?  At night?”

“All these years of the sun reflecting off the water has made my eyes sensitive to light. The glare of traffic lights at night bothers me.  Plus, I look pretty bad ass.”

His lopsided grin reminds me of the happy-go-lucky kid from our childhood. 

“All you need is some leather pants and an Austrian accent and you could scare the shit out of some kids, Terminator style.”

“In that case, I’m borrowing your bike for Halloween.”

I smile, but say nothing.  That sounds an awful lot like he’s planning to stick around and I’m just not sure how I feel about that.

“One fright night at a time, man,” I say lightly.  “Let’s get this one out of the way first.  Can you be back here by eight or so?”

“Yep.”

“And would you mind stopping by an office supply store on your way back and picking up some of these?”

I hold up the ledgers for him to see.  He frowns and reaches out and grabs one.  Flipping through the pages, he says quietly, “So this is what caused so much trouble?”

“No.  Dad’s choices are what caused so much trouble,” I say flatly.

Nash looks up at me. His gaze is hard, unyielding, but he says nothing, just hands me the ledger.

“I’ll bring ‘em.”

“See you in a few then.”

And with that, he turns and walks out of the apartment.

CHAPTER NINETEEN- Olivia

With only about twenty minutes left before we get to her house, I brainstorm some sort of believable reason I’d be showing up on my mother’s doorstep in the middle of the night.  With a strange guy in tow.

It’s been so long since I’ve called her, it takes me three tries to get the number right.  It’s programmed into my phone, but
my
phone is at Cash’s apartment. I’m using one of the little cheapies that Cash wants me to toss in the trash every day or two.

My stepfather Lyle’s sleepy voice sounds on the other end of the line. I breathe a sigh of relief. I didn’t know any other number combinations to try, so I’d have been up the creek if this one hadn’t been right.

“Lyle, it’s Olivia.  I’m sorry to call so late. Can I speak to Mom?”

I hear an exasperated sigh and some muffled sounds as he covers the mouthpiece with his hand.  A few seconds later, my mother’s voice comes on the line.

“Olivia, do you know what time it is, young lady?”

Leave it to my mother to be more concerned with propriety than the fact that her daughter is calling out of the blue at an ungodly hour.

“Mom, there was a gas leak at my place in town.  Can I come stay the night with you?”

I hear a variety of noises before she speaks, none of which sound pleased.  “Why aren’t you staying with your father?  Don’t you have a key?”

“Dad broke his leg.  It’s hard for him to get around.  Calling him in the middle of the night might cause him to hurt himself.  So would just showing up.”

Everything I’m telling her is true except the gas leak.  “And I’m bringing someone with me.  He’s…well, he’s a friend. I hope that’s okay.”

It’s funny that I couldn’t even force the lie that Gavin means something more to me.  It seems that even my tongue is tied to Cash, which is freakin’ ridiculous.  But, knowing my mother, she’ll make something else of it anyway. She’ll see and hear and perceive what she wants to and make all her judgments based on what’s in her head.  That’s the way it’s always been with her.

“If you think you’re sleeping in the same room with this ‘friend,’ you can think again, Olivia.”

I can almost see her lips thinning into a self-righteous pucker.

“I wasn’t even going to ask, Mom.  We just need a safe place.  For tonight.”  Gavin pokes me, looking meaningfully at me.  “A couple days at the most.”

“A couple of days?”  Oh yeah, she’s outraged now.  Inconveniencing my mother is a huge no-no.

“We won’t interfere with any plans you’ve got.  You won’t even know we’re there.”

“I doubt that,” she mumbles.  “All right.  When will you be here?”

“We’re about fifteen minutes out now.”

“All right.” 

With a click, the line goes dead.  I sigh and hang up on my end.  I look to Gavin and he grins. 

“Sounds like a gem.”

“Oh, she is.”

Perceptive guy.

Just under twenty minutes later, Gavin is carrying my bag and following me up the long, curving, lighted walkway to my mother’s front door.  I stop on the stoop and take a deep breath, glancing at Gavin to my left. He’s looking the house over, taking in the fancy brick exterior, the neverending supply of windows and the expensive brass knocker attached to the huge wooden door.

“This ought to be interesting.”

I smile.  “Oh, you have no idea.”

So I knock.

Within seconds, the door swings open to reveal my mother, standing just inside, wrapped in a high-dollar silk robe.  From her perfectly coiffed (yes, even in the middle of the night) sable hair to her sharp blue eyes to her thin arms crossed over her chest, she oozes disapproval.  Essentially, she looks much like she did last time I saw her a couple of years ago.  She’s pretty much always disapproving.  And she’s pretty much always the same age.  No doubt she spends thousands of dollars on preservatives.  Eventually I’ll catch up to her and we’ll be the same age.

I wonder if they make any night creams laced with formaldehyde,
I think obtusely as I take in her smooth, taut skin. 

“Hi, Mom.  Sorry to wake you.”

She steps back and lets us into the foyer.  “Not sorry enough, I see.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes.  My mother has always been the type that can’t let something go.  She’ll get something stuck in her head or fixate on a particular oversight and she’ll beat it to a bloody pulp.

“I suppose not,” I say agreeably.  “We won’t keep you up.  This is Gavin.  I’ll show him to one of the guest rooms.  I’ll take the other.  You won’t even know we’re here.”

She
hmphs
and closes the door behind us.  “You know the rules,” she warns, looking pointedly at Gavin.

“I know, but I told you he’s just a friend, Mom.”

“I know that’s what you
said.”

This time I do roll my eyes.  “Well, I’ll see you in the morning.  ‘Night.”

 I reach for Gavin’s hand and tug him forward.

********

To be as exhausted as I am, I’m having a terrible time getting to sleep.  All I can think of are the things I didn’t say.  The things I didn’t do or enjoy because of fear, because I don’t trust myself. It was never about Cash and not trusting him because he’s a bad boy.  Yes, he is a bad boy. In some ways.  But that’s not the problem.  Being a bad boy doesn’t make him a bad person or a bad companion.  But I couldn’t see that past my own bias. I didn’t trust my judgment.  After having made so many wrong decisions and let my feelings blind me, I finally found someone worth loving and I froze.

And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

Now I’m stuck with all the unsaid things, all the regret for having been afraid. For
not
having acted.  Or spoken.  Or jumped.

If, by some miracle of God, I get another chance before all this is said and done, I won’t be such a coward next time.