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“School,” I throw another example out there.
“Yeah. We had it particularly bad,” he agrees. “Although I’m about twelve years ahead of you there.”
I’m sure he doesn’t want me to see it, but I notice his quick grimace.
“We’re the sexually repressed generation,” he carries on, oblivious to my perusal, “emotionally sandwichedbetween the Hippies and the Love Everyone kids of today.”
I know I could give another example: The law. But I don’t. Instead, I say, “We literally had a teen mom come into our high school and give us a speech about how she ruined her life with pre-marital sex.” I think back on her. “Jenny Wilkinson.”
“Do you ever wonder what happened to her?”
“No,” I admit. “Never. They only asked her to come in because she was an ex-student.” The truth that I’m only just realizing is I never thought about her again once she walked out the door of Saint Mary’s High School. And I didn’t stop having sex with my boyfriend either.
Thinking back on eighteen-year-old Jenny’s hand-wringing anxiety as she stood before us angers me now. “I hope she made a million bucks,” I decide right then, “traveling the country and giving speeches, her illegitimate kid in tow.”
“That would be a good end to the story.”
“Yeah. It would.”
“Maybe her kid went on to write a New York Times Bestselling adventure series about it?” he suggests.
“It would have to have a catchy name,” I carry the story forward. “LikeConversations with my Mother.”
“A Bastard’s Guide to Traveling Light,” he proposes.
“Heck, I’d read it.”
Aiden laughs, and the deep sound reverberates in the car. It’s a shock to hear it, that carefree laugh. It startles me and then wraps around me like a warm hug, turning the surprise into contentment. I can’t remember if I’ve ever done this before.This. Laughed with a man who considers me an equal, who’s not afraid to hide his honest thoughts from me, however damning they may be.
“Here we are.”
At Aiden’s announcement, I look out of the windshield and pause. We’re street parked in front of what looks like an abandoned high-rise. The structure is there, sitting tall but defeated behind a tired, chain-link fence, but it’s a mass of windowless concrete and steel. Looking around, I try to gauge my surroundings, but nothing is familiar. “Where are we exactly?”
“Best view in LA.” Without offering more, he climbs out.
He walks around the car and opens my door. When he holds out a hand for me, I find it impossible to resist him. I slide my fingers between his and climb from the SUV before following after him, carefully picking up my feet to avoid snapping an ankle on a chunk of abandoned debris. When I stumble, Aiden pauses, his grip tightening on my hand as I right myself.
“Twelfth Street Tower,” he says, offering an explanation. “They spent over two hundred million dollars permitting it and got this far into the construction before the funding regulations changed, stopping their equity from China. It was going to be the tallest residential tower in downtown Los Angeles. Now,” he pauses as we come to a makeshift gate, “they pay a private security firm a small fortune to keep the premises trespasser free until they can figure out how to sell the project.”
“Or finish it.”
I yelp as a deep voice echoes from the confines of the dark building.
“Corey,” Aiden chastises.
“Sorry.” A man steps out of the shadows. He is not a tall man, but there’s something about his lean, athletic frame that conveys danger. He is black. More, he is dressed completely in black—black jeans, black poloshirt, black Nikes—so that he could almost be a shadow of the night. The only color on him is a blinking diamond stud in his right ear. He is built like a fighter, small and compact but strong.
“Corey. Catherine.” Aiden tucks his hands into his pockets as Corey comes forward. “Corey and I went to high school together.”
“Go Tigers,” Corey says in reply as he begins to unlock the gate.
“He owns the private security firm—C&D Security—I was telling you about. He works here on Wednesday nights.”
“Why?” I ask, genuinely curious. If the man owns the firm, surely he doesn’t have to slum the graveyard shift any longer?
“Poker night,” they reply at the same time.
“Speaking of which,” Corey swings open the gate, “we missed you tonight. Rafi took the pot.”
