Chapter Seventeen
Angela
I’m stuck in the same dream I’ve had before, the one with no clear images, only a feeling of terror and dread.
It’s worse this time, more intense. I’m trying to wake up from it, to do anything to get away from it, but I can’t.
It has a grip on me that tightens more and more as I try to scream and gasp for air.
“Angie.”
Help me. I try to say it, but in the dream, my words sound like grotesque moans.
“Ange, wake up.”
A big, warm hand on my face makes me startle awake, jerking violently.
“Whoa. You okay, princess?”
Brady is lying next to me, propped up on an elbow, his copper waves tousled, his chest bare except for the medal that hangs around his neck. His other hand, the one that must have woken me, is still stretched toward me, resting on the bed.
I’m sitting up, my hands rigidly holding the sheet against my chest, my heart pounding, a feeling inside like I’ve been crying. I tentatively touch my face and am relieved to find it dry. I sink back onto the pillow, slowly releasing my grip on the sheet.
“Sorry, yeah,” I mutter, turning away from him and taking deep breaths. God, I hate that dream. It stays with me for hours sometimes. But as I feel Brady’s fingers in my hair, down my back, all the way to my waist, slow and gentle, over and over, I already feel the terror starting to recede.
“That was a hell of a nightmare,” he says. “I couldn’t wake you up at first.”
“Sorry about that,” I say, mortified. “What time is it?”
“About seven.”
I groan. “I have to go.”
“What for? We don’t have class today.”
“I work at Legal Aid every Wednesday.”
His hand travels down to where my hair ends and my hips begin. I swallow, feeling the familiar heat pool in my stomach. The feeling from my dream is already gone.
“You need to go right now? Like, right this second?” he asks.
Shit. I actually do need to get going, but I want more of what we did last night.
“What did you have in mind?” I ask as his hand moves lower, over my butt, down and around to where I’m instantly wet for him. I inhale deeply.
“I was kinda thinking I wouldn’t mind more World Series MVP action,” he says, the sudden hoarseness of his voice coinciding with his fingers finding their mark. “Goddamn, Ange,” he rasps. “Maybe you’re ready for that condom, though?”
“No,” I say hesitantly.
“Do you have, like, a rule or something?” he asks, moving his hand back to rest on my hip. “Three dates? Five? A hundred? Please don’t say a hundred. I mean, it’s totally cool if it’s a hundred. I can hold out for a hundred dates with you.”
“Shut up, Brady,” I say, laughing despite my increasing need for him. “I don’t have a rule. I just, um—”
“No, listen, it’s seriously okay,” he says, pulling me close. Ooh. Wow. I’m not the only one who has needs this morning. “You don’t need to explain nothin’, okay? Whatever you want, whenever you want. That’s the deal.”
And he seals that deal with a kiss that almost makes me tell him to get the damn condom.
I forget everything—my real name, my fake name, his name—and just melt into that kiss.
His hand spans the side of my face, and his body presses me into the mattress.
His lips devour mine like they could never get enough, making my breathing ragged and my skin heat up.
When his lips finally release mine, it takes me a few minutes to remember where I am.
Somewhere on earth is all I can come up with at first.
“You need to move in with me, Pines,” says Brady, his limbs draped across my body, his thumb brushing across the tattoo on my shoulder. “I need access to this,” he grabs my butt, “at all times.”
“Sure,” I say, trying to squeeze out from underneath him. “I’ll go home and pack up right now.”
“Not so fast,” he says, caging me in with his arm. “I’m not ready to let this soft, beautiful, laser-smooth body out of my sight.”
I don’t put up any resistance. I’m not quite ready to leave the comfort and security of Brady’s Fireman Calendar body and furnished-by-mom bedroom. I finger the medal around his neck. “What’s this?”
“Saint Florian. Patron saint of firefighters, believe it or not.”
“Oh, I believe it. There’s a patron saint for everything. Except ice cream. I got in trouble once in school for asking about it.”
Brady laughs. “Catholic school, huh?”
I freeze. Fuck. God, Angela. Just shut up.
“Ange.”
Fuck.
He nudges me. “Hey.”
“What?” I groan irritably.
“Relax. Everything’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” I say quietly. I know that he knows that most foster care kids don’t go to Catholic school. “I lose my mind around you a little bit.”
“Angie Pines,” he says, his hand on my face and the gummy-bear-stealing expression on his, “I am honored that you lose your mind around me.”
I just shake my head, annoyed at myself. “I have to go. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”
“Um, no, I won’t be there tomorrow. I have to go home.”
I still. “You’re going to New York tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” He seems to hesitate, so I wait. “Friday’s 9/11. I gotta go to the memorial.”
My heart plummets into my stomach, the realization as sudden as it is certain. “You lost someone,” I breathe.
He nods, his mouth turned up in a half-smirk. “A lot of people lost someone where I come from.”
“A firefighter?” I ask softly.
“Yeah.”
He would have been about five or six when the attacks happened. An uncle? An older brother or cousin? It has to be someone close if he’s going home for the anniversary.
Suddenly I remember the old FDNY sweatshirt I borrowed. It’s important to me , he said. “Was the sweatshirt his?” I ask, stunned that it was in my possession.
He nods, twisting a piece of my hair around his finger. “Yeah.”
I wrap my arms around his neck. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago,” he says, holding me against him and kissing the top of my head.
“I was barely two,” I say. “I don’t remember it.”
“I remember it.” His voice is tight and distant.
I squeeze him harder. Sad, subdued Brady is an anomaly. He’s the laughing, freckle-faced boy, sunshine and light. When something upsets him, it’s like a dark storm cloud blocking out the sun.
“I’m glad you have a family to go back to,” I say. “Even though it’s for this. It’s good that you guys have one another.”
“I would do anything for my family,” he murmurs into my neck. “They’re my whole world.” Something about the way he said it makes me pause. It sounded like…a warning.
“That’s how it should be,” I say.
“Can you come back tonight?” he asks, the clouds already clearing.
“I don’t know,” I say hesitantly. “We can’t…you know…be a thing.”
“Who said we’re a thing?” he asks, cocking an eyebrow. “We’re just friends with benefits.”
“Friends with benefits?” I say doubtfully. It sounds so…cliché and…indifferent.
“You’re right. Benefits is kind of an understatement,” he says. “Fucking jackpot is more like it. And, you know, I’d probably lose my shit if anyone else was benefitting.”
“So we’re exclusive friends with benefits?”
“Yeah. I don’t have a strong ability to multitask in the chick department, so you’re safe there.”
“Um, that’s not what I’m concerned about,” I say. “That sounds a whole lot like a thing.”
“Call it whatever you want, princess. I have needs, you have needs, and neither one of us is going to get those needs met by someone else while I’m gone, so you might as well come over here tonight. I’ll pick you up and we’ll get dinner.”
“Just text me later,” I say, slightly overwhelmed. “And hand me my clothes.”
I finally manage to escape from Brady’s bed. He insists on taking me home and making sure my apartment wasn’t broken into. Before he leaves, he fists my hair and plants a kiss on my mouth, his light copper stubble scratching my face.
“See you tonight, princess.”
“Maybe,” I say, rolling my eyes.
He winks at me and strolls down the drive, wearing navy mesh shorts and a gray T-shirt, copper waves tousled from my fingers gripping them. I’m turned on just watching him walk away.
Snap out of it, moron , I chide myself as I go inside and head to my bathroom for a quick shower. This is a staggeringly bad idea.
I need to focus on myself, on making ends meet, on getting good grades, on staying completely off the grid. I can’t let a man get in the way, or in the crossfire, if it comes to that.
Especially Brady. He wouldn’t just walk away if my family brought the heat. He’d run right into it.
There are so many thoughts going through my head as I get ready for work that I can barely keep them straight.
I’ve been on dates, but I’ve never felt like this after one—elated, exhausted, excited for more.
If I’m being completely honest (not exactly my forte), I’ve never been as close to anyone as I’ve been to Brady over the last twelve hours.
As soon as I’m showered and dressed, I ride my bike over to Legal Aid, Brady still firmly on the brain.
All of that changes when I’m confronted with Elisa’s ashen face.
She sits at her desk, the phone receiver in one hand, a pen in the other.
She waves me in with the pen hand, and I sit down in the chair across from her desk.
“What about the others?… Are you sure?… Okay.” She listens to the person on the other line for a couple more minutes and then hangs up.
“That was Sergeant Barstow from the Task Force,” she says, her eyes spilling over with tears as alarm courses through my body.
“The boyfriend of one of the seamstresses is in the hospital.”
Brady’s handsome, smiling face immediately flashes through my mind and alarm turns to cold panic.
“He was attacked in Los Angeles coming home from work last night,” Elisa continues. “They think he’ll be okay. He’s at UCLA Medical Center.”
I debate whether to act shocked by the news. I decide against it. “She won’t testify now.”
Elisa swallows. “No, I can no longer counsel her to testify.”
“It was a message,” I say. “He’s lucky they didn’t kill him.”
“They being…the mob,” says Elisa.
I nod. Elisa and I look at each other for a minute.
“And you know this from your…research,” she finally says. She has that same strange look that she had the other day, like she doesn’t quite know who I am. I’m so tired of people not knowing who I am.
Be careful , I remind myself. “There was a lot of field research involved,” I admit.
“I see,” she says slowly, still watching me with dark, uneasy eyes. “And, um, according to your…research,” she continues, “are you and I in any danger? Or our families?”
I shake my head. “No. Hurting us in any way would provide way too much exposure and not achieve anything. The seamstresses are a threat to them because they can name them and testify against them. The bosses sent a message—to her and the others: keep this up, and next time it’ll be a bullet.”
“Oh my gosh,” she whispers, wide-eyed. “Is there, like, anything else I should know?”
No. Definitely not. Then why am I still talking? “I don’t know the people who did this.”
I am not them. I will never be them. I need her to know this. I need to see the trace of relief in her eyes, hear the slight exhalation of breath.
“Right,” she says shakily. “I mean, of course you don’t. Right?”
“Okay, well, I’m going to get to work on the visa applications, unless there’s something else you want me to work on.”
“No, I mean yes, the visa applications. Thanks, Angela.”
I stand up to leave, but Elisa’s voice stops me at the door.
“Angela.”
I turn.
“Did your thesis paper get you in any… I mean, are you in danger at all? I would think doing field research with the mob would be risky.”
“I was careful,” I say. “I’m not in any danger.” Only part of that statement is true.
The news about our client’s boyfriend reverberates in my head for the rest of the day. I think about who would be at risk if my family ever found out I crossed them. Only me. No husband, no kids. No boyfriend.
When I get home from work, I text Brady.
I can’t come over tonight.
I cry for an hour after I send it. Which is precisely why I had to send it. This can’t go any further.