Chapter Twenty-One
Brady
She was never my girlfriend. We went out one time, two if you count the party. She lied to my face. She got my dad in trouble. She has attitude for miles.
So why do I feel like complete shit? I’ve never been much of a pity partier. But with Angie out of my life, I’m wallowing in that shit.
The day after I get back from New York, more hungover from missing Angela than from the Forget Angela party I threw last night, Lou calls.
“Human trafficking, huh?”
“Yep.” I could not be less in the mood for this conversation.
“I like it. Maybe she’s a little more committed to bringing down Daddy than I gave her credit for,” he muses. “This can all go away if she talks.”
If she talks ? Hell to the N-O. “That wasn’t the deal.”
“We never had an actual deal. What we’ve got here is me doing your dad a big favor. Anyway, a lot of this is out of my control, kid.”
“She’s scared enough as it is. She’s not going to talk to you.” And I don’t want her talking to him. I don’t want her putting herself at risk.
“Did you forget?” says Lou. I can hear his smirk all the way through the phone. “She already did. Before she took off for Cali, she tipped us off. It’s the whole reason your dad agreed to help her.”
“Anonymously, though,” I counter.
“So she thought. But these days, anonymity is hard to come by.”
I did something they’ll never forgive. She meant it. She was never planning to go back home to her luxurious existence. I didn’t believe it—or want to believe it—but hearing it from Lou and having gotten to know Angela a little, I have to face it. She’s committed to that walk-up in Queens.
“Still, man,” I say. “She’s a twenty-two-year-old law student. What could she possibly know beyond what she already told you?”
“That’s what we’d like to find out.”
“That’s on you. I can’t get her to do that.”
“You’ve done enough, Brady. Now it’s between me and your dad. And Angela Pines.”
We end the call. I should feel great. I’ve done what I could to help my dad, and Angela never found out. Debt paid, no more favors owed. We’re even.
But I feel worse than ever. Every protective instinct in my body is telling me I need to be close to her, protecting her with everything I have. Instead, I’m leaving her on her own.
I look at my phone. I still have that picture of us on my home screen. I should just call her. I’ve blown her off for only a couple of days. I can explain that away. Why am I doing this again? Oh yeah, because I used her and exposed her to danger and she’s going to find out and hate me.
At the end of the day, Angela needs to move on with her life, and I need to get back to mine—in New York, attending Columbia Law School, close to my friends and my family. In short, I need to wrap things up here and get the hell out of California.
About a week after returning from New York, I get a call from my dad.
I’ve been avoiding him ever since Siobhan opened her big mouth at dinner.
But I’m lying on my sofa after the gym, wondering if Angie got home from work okay the night before, and feeling like such a pathetic loser that I take his call just to hear his voice.
“You sound like shit.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You sick or something?”
“No. I just, uh, haven’t been sleeping much. You know, stress and all.”
“Uh-huh.” My dad is quiet for a moment. “Is it the girl?”
“What girl?”
“The tall, beautiful one, who I’m pretty sure has a California ID and a social security card with the name Angela Pines.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. It’s no use. I can’t lie to my dad. He knows me too well. And he doesn’t deserve it. “Dad, I screwed up. Big time. I never, ever meant for this to happen.”
My dad chuckles. “You fell for her, didn’t you?”
I don’t say anything. I just exhale and punch my sofa.
“It’s okay, Brady,” he says. “I know what it’s like to fall for the wrong girl.”
“Don’t even say that, Dad,” I say. “Mom was not the wrong girl.”
“She was my best friend’s wife, kid.”
“He would have wanted it.”
“That’s what your mom and I believe, but it still wasn’t easy. I was sick over it at first, you know? We both were. But then there was you, Brady. You made it all okay.”
“You’re the one who made it all okay, Dad,” I say, forcing down the lump in my throat. “And this was one thing I could do for you, and I fucked it up.”
“Brady. Son. You don’t owe me anything. Do you hear me? There are no favors between us, no debts. I love you guys. You, your ma, Mikey, Siobhan. And you guys love me. That’s all there is to it.”
“I gave the information to Lou,” I press on. “He knows who she is, where she is, what she does. I gave him everything he needs.”
“I know you did, son. And thanks for that. But now we’ve got to focus on you. Does she know?”
“No. She doesn’t have a clue.”
“So where does that leave you with her?”
“Nowhere.” I swallow, forcing myself to say the next words. “I cut her off. I haven’t said a word to her since I got back.”
I hear my dad sigh over the line. “How’s she taking it?”
Like a champ, of course. A hell of a lot better than I am.
“She’s good at hiding her feelings,” I say. Seeing her at school is torture. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she stayed awake at night planning outfits designed to make me insane. But she doesn’t even try to talk to me. It’s like I never existed.
“I definitely hurt her, you know?” I think of Angie’s text: I miss my friend . I swallow down another lump.
“Yep, that is quite the pickle there, kid,” my dad muses. “But if you’re that miserable without her, it’s worth a shot, you know? You owe it to both of you.”
“How’s Ma?” I ask, not-so-subtly changing the subject.
“That’s actually why I’m calling,” he says. “We have a bit of a problem.”
Anxiety explodes in my chest. “What’s wrong with Mom?”
“Nothing, she’s fine,” he reassures me. “But she knows. I couldn’t keep it from her anymore.” He sighs. “She was bummed about the birthday trip, and you know I can’t stand to see her sad… I had to tell her.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Did she lose her shit?”
“She was handling it…until she found out that you were involved.”
“Oh no.” Anxiety for my mom instantly turns to anxiety for my own well-being.
“Yeah. So, uh, she’s not talking to me at the moment. She just left to go to your aunt Marianne’s house. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from her soon.” He says it in the same tone he would use when I brought home a less-than-stellar report card.
Sure enough, my phone vibrates with a text from my mom. Call me now, Brady.
“I gotta go,” I say.
I hang up with my dad and debate ripping the Band-Aid off and calling my mom. Then I remember her temper and decide to give her a little time to cool off.
You’re ignoring me at your own peril , she texts an hour later.
I set an alarm for five o’clock the next morning, when she’ll be drinking her coffee at our (or my aunt’s) kitchen table before heading to work, and hope that will give her enough time to calm down.
When my phone alarm wakes me, the room still dark and my head pounding after a night spent tossing and turning, I call her. Her phone goes straight to voicemail. I breathe a sigh of relief, leave her a message asking her to call me, and go for a run before heading to school.
It’s still early when I arrive on campus.
Angela’s beach cruiser is the only bike on the rack.
I head to the library on autopilot, looking for silver-and-purple hair.
Then I remind myself that I’m a selfish jerk who doesn’t deserve her.
I’m going back to New York and she’s staying here.
I’m not going to mess with that; it’s not fair to either of us. I turn around to leave.
And I run smack into Angela Pines.
“Oops, sorry!” she says as she bends to retrieve the phone she dropped. “I was looking at my…phone.” Her voice drops off as she stands up and realizes who ran into her. She freezes briefly, her eyes locked on mine, before recovering herself and stepping around me.
I grab her elbow. “Ange.”
There’s a brief moment where she remains facing away from me. Then she turns and presents me with a perfectly blank, very beautiful face. “Yes?”
“Hey, um, what are you doing?” No, Brady, what are you doing?
She looks around the library with her usual snark. “Studying?” The “you idiot” is implied.
“Right,” I say. “Are you free after class?”
“For what?”
“I thought maybe we could talk.”
“Nope. See ya.” She starts to leave.
“Angela.”
She turns back around and huffs out an annoyed sigh. “Whatever you have to say to me had better be good, Brady.”
Yeah, well, I’m not promising anything. “Can we go get a coffee or a drink or something?”
She hitches her backpack higher on her shoulder and folds her arms. “I’ll meet you at Finnegan’s at three thirty.”
A burst of highly premature relief shoots through me. “Yeah, yeah, that’s great. I’ll see you there.”
She heads deep into the library without another word.
Well, great, you idiot. What the hell are you planning on telling her? “Hey, Angie, I’ve been totally using you to get my dad out of trouble. It might have even put you at risk. Now that I’ve got that off my chest, how about we catch a movie?”
I guess I’ll just figure it out as we go. The mere thought of sitting across from her is enough to set my pulse racing. Even if she ends up leaving after an hour having said nothing but “You’re an asshole”—a point I would decline to argue—I’ll still be happy I got to spend time with her.
The rest of the morning drags by. I take notes in class but can’t remember what we actually discussed. Afterward, I watch Angela pack up her stuff and leave. I wonder if she’ll meet me at three thirty. There’s every chance she won’t.
I go to Finnegan’s a little early, sit at a booth facing the door, and order a Guinness. Thankfully, Kelsey isn’t there. She’s already given me an earful about Angela being mopey and how she suspects from Angela’s radio silence about me that it’s all my fault.
My phone buzzes with a text.
Where are you?