AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s also been hitting me that I’ll have to give up what I’ve been doing.
I won’t be able to keep acting as Bo Peep, which is as much a part of my identity as being a shut-in who has a problem with eighty percent of people. Maybe ninety.
I should have already stopped, and then we wouldn’t be stuck in this fucking mess of my own making.
Still, it’s a depressing thought.
I hear the door open, and something inside of me lifts, because I’m expecting Mira with a smart word and maybe a drink. But it’s Burke. He closes the door behind him and sits in the chair next to mine, a glass of straight whiskey in his hand that clearly didn’t get the Mira treatment.
“You’re upset with me,” I say, feeling pretty damn upset with myself. “I was supposed to take care of Mira, and I fucked up.”
“No,” he says. “I’m glad you’re into her. I…It’s like one of my brothers getting with Delia’s sister. She and I have been hoping this would happen. Leonard too.”
I feel choked up.Brother. He’s always taken care of me like I’m his little brother, even though he’s only a year older than me. He let me live here in this apartment, and insisted on getting me braces when I was in college because he knew I was self-conscious about my teeth being crooked. I let him. I feel guilty for that, and for living here for all these years, for taking so much. I’ve given him things too, but if there’s some celestial book chronicling giving and taking, I know that I’m in his debt to an amount that can never be repaid. I’m aware of it. I’m grateful for it. I’m fucking sorry for it too.
“I should have told you,” I say, my throat raw and sore. “I should have told you that I was still doing Black Hat shit. I should have told all of you. I just…”
“You couldn’t stop,” he says, rotating the glass of whiskey. “It’s part of who you are. It’s not a bad part of you, Danny. Some people wield it like a weapon, but I know you were just trying to help people.”
“We need to keep Mira safe. She shouldn’t be here.”
“You’re in love with her,” he says. “You fit together, man.”
Even though I balked at the same accusation from Ruthie this morning, I’m not balking now, however ridiculous it may be for me to have fallen in love with a woman in two weeks. As for his second statement…
There’s no denying I want it to be true—and there’s nothing so easy to believe in as the things you want to be true. My mother is the best example of that. She’s spent half her life living at the bottom of a bottle and ignoring my sister and me, the other half raging at us, and now that she’s found Jesus, she calls up Ruthie every few months asking to see Izzy.
I’ve never gotten a call.
Half the time, Ruthie says she’s slurring her words in her voice messages, so even if she loves Jesus, it’s obvious she loves the bottle more. I haven’t told Ruthie not to answer, but I don’t think she does. She cares more about that scar on my forehead than I do—and I don’t blame her. You don’t take chances with the people who are precious to you, or at least you shouldn’t.
“Yeah…yeah, I think I am,” I finally say. “Mira has to be safe. I want her out of here.”
He shrugs. “You heard what Deacon said. It’s not a good time to change the routine. Besides, I’m having a new security system put in tomorrow.”
Tomorrow’s a Sunday, but I don’t doubt him. He’s a determined man with deep pockets.
“Thanks. But I still think it would be better if she stayed somewhere else. Somewhere…”
He gives me a wry look. “She’s not going anywhere. I think you know that. Delia wouldn’t leave either.”
He’s right, dammit.
“I’ve fucked everything up,” I say, and return my head to my hands, needing pressure on my temples.
He doesn’t try to touch me. He just says, “We all feel like that at times, bud, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. If you’re worried about fucking things up—all it means is that you have things in your life you care enough about that you don’t want to lose.”
The door opens again. This time it’s Leonard who comes through. I hear Mira’s laugh through the open doorway before he shuts the sliding glass door behind him, sealing her off. There’s a moment of panic, as if she’ll be separated from me forever, but logic chases it away. She’s not going anywhere, although it would be better if she did leave.
“You reading him the riot act?” he asks with a grin. “Because ain’t no way I want to miss that.”
“I don’t think he needs it,” Burke says, his gaze still on me. I can feel it more than see it.
“You tell him what I said to you earlier about Josie?” Leonard asks as he lowers into the third chair. He whistles. “Goddamn, it’s colder than a witch’s titties out here.”
My gaze swerves to him. “You want to talk aboutJosie?”
“Damn straight, I do.”
