Chapter Forty-One #2
"I had to lay it on thick about losing myself after leaving my job and such. Which he got, I think, because he struggled so hard after retiring."
"You don't feel guilty lying to him?" I asked as she turned around, lips pursed, seemingly unsure of where she should even start.
"You know something funny I learned when I was away at school?
Women feel guilt a lot more than men do.
Everything we do, we think we are neglecting someone or something, and we beat ourselves up about it.
Guys don't do that as much. So I decided to take a page out of their book and stop feeling guilty for doing something I felt like I had to do.
I don't like lying," she added, choosing to gather the mugs first, "but everyone lies.
In small and big ways. Sometimes to cover their own ass, or to be nice, or—like in my case—to save their parents unnecessary worry. "
"If it involves the mob, Clarke, I don't think the worry could be classified as unnecessary."
"To someone who doesn't know what they are doing, sure," she agreed, moving off into the bathroom, tapping her toe into the corner, leaning in at a snail's pace. I don't know what she thought she might find in there, but it was clear she was leaving all options open to turn and run if need be.
"And what, exactly, are you doing?" I asked. The question had been plaguing me almost as much as the one about why I allowed her into my life, into my office.
It just made no sense.
And things that made no sense had a tendency to drive me a little crazy, get under my skin and itch.
But the more I tried to figure it out, the more confusing it became.
She wasn’t—from what I could tell—using drugs.
She wasn't dating any of the guys. She was from a clean-cut family with no ties to those types of people.
What the hell was she doing sneaking around their place of operation?
"It's killing you, isn't it?" she asked, coming back out of the bathroom, moving toward the trash, seeming to want to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Normally, I would be happy about that. I didn't like people in my space.
I especially didn't like people in my space whose job it was to mess around with my things, to screw with my organized mess.
So why the hell was it bothering me that she was rushing around, that she didn't want to hang around any longer than necessary?
"I investigate things. Being curious is part of being successful at that."
"Speaking of, can't you afford a place bigger than this? You can practically touch both the walls, I swear. And there is no natural light. It feels like a morgue in here. How do you function?"
She was exaggerating. It wasn't that small. And maybe there was no natural light, but it was bright enough.
"When I first started out, this was all I could afford," I admitted, shrugging it off.
"But that was years ago, wasn't it? Surely you're making enough now to cover rent at a place with a window cutout on the door."
I could.
I would never make what Sawyer made, but I was comfortable enough. I could have a nicer office. I could have a bigger apartment. I just didn't want them.
"I am not a huge fan of change," I told her, even if it was a bit of an uncomfortable truth, something I didn't like everyone to know about me.
People didn't like people who were too stuck in their ways, too resistant to new things.
Maybe it wasn't so bad if I just didn't want to move apartments because it was where I was comfortable, but it went deeper than that.
And I didn't want people to find out just how deep.
"Hence the tin can on wheels," she mused.
"Your car isn't exactly new," I shot back as she stuck the old trash bag by the front door, going about picking random items off the floor - pieces of wood blocks from Diego's toys that he had splintered with his beak in seconds, books, a single sock, the mate of which seemed nowhere in sight.
"My car is a classic. There's a difference.
Old is just old. But a classic? A classic is always something you are proud to drive around.
I need to fix it up. I could only afford her because she needs some bodywork and reupholstering and because a good third of her functions don't work.
But it is all fixable. And when she is all done, she is going to be beauuutiful. "
"You like cars."
It wasn't exactly a question, but she answered anyway as she studied the titles of the books on the floor. If I remembered correctly, they had been about the cocaine trade in the seventies.
"When my father would find time to spend with me in the summers, he usually took me to car shows with him.
I don't think he knew what to do with a little girl.
His world was so hard and rough and, well, manly.
I instantly fell in love with old muscle cars.
There's just something about their square bodies that demands attention and respect.
I liked that. I told him when I was seven that I was going to have a car just like that when I got older.
Fast forward a couple decades, and I finally found one I could afford.
Maybe someday I can bring her to car shows so other little girls on visitation with their fathers can go all googly-eyed at her. "
I couldn't quite - and never could—bring myself to understand the appeal of things based on aesthetics.
It seemed a little wishy-washy to me. But maybe I could appreciate the idea of restoring something, keeping it from changing.
So many things in life—too many, really - changed.
There was something comforting in the idea that not everything had to, that there were people who appreciated things staying the same even decades later.
"You need a recycling bin," she informed me, picking up the sixth thrown about bottle of lemon-lime soda.
"Whales are full of this crap from people just tossing it," she added, shaking it at me like a stereotypical lecturing parent from a cartoon.
"And this paper..." she added, waving at all of it.
"Why is it all sitting out? You have filing cabinets.
Or you could scan it in to have it in digital instead. "
"I don't trust computers."
"Your website says you specialize in computers."
"It doesn't mean I trust them. They're not safe."
"Well, seeing as this is in..." she paused, scrutinizing a piece of paper from the top of a stack, "Polish?
And maybe... code, I don't think it is much of an issue.
Besides, I bet these pages on the bottom have faded ink.
What good are files if you can't even read them or reference back to them?
And, I mean, no one is saying you have to keep the files on the internet somewhere.
But you could download them onto disks or drives.
And then bury them somewhere if you are that paranoid.
This is just, quite frankly, wasteful. And inefficient.
I could start it for you. I mean... if I have time left over from cleaning up your filth.
It's..." Her voice trailed off as the door opened, bringing in the loud, squawking of Diego, something clearly unexpected to her because she did this duck-and-spin thing like some guy in an action movie, ready to fight.
"Oh, holy hell. He's huge. Just for the record, I draw the line at cleaning up bird poop.
That's all you. From the looks of him, he makes dinner plate-sized splatters.
And, quite frankly, you are messy enough. "
Luce's gaze went to me, brows raised as he placed Diego down on a branch of his play stand, giving his head a scratch.
"Evan and I need to head out for a few days," he told me, tone pointed.
Anyone who knew Luce knew he worked as a, well, vigilante.
Meaning, in general, he killed assholes who deserved killing when the law failed to do so.
Then he got rid of the evidence. He had someone who needed disposing of.
And Diego was staying with me while he handled it.
"That's fine. I have no cases right now. Just let me know when you're going to be picking him back up."
With that, he was gone.
We weren't exactly the sort for long-winded conversations.
"He knows it's summer, right?" she asked, head cocked. At my blank look, she added, "He's wearing a black hoodie," she explained.
Oh, right.
Sometimes you get so used to things that you forget to question if they are normal or not.
Like Luce and his hoodies. It was something he did for anonymity, not wanting anyone to know who he was, get too curious about him.
So he looked like a perpetually moody teenager hiding from the world.
People generally didn't give those dressed like teenagers too much notice. And cameras rarely caught his face.
"He has reasons for not wanting people to look at him," I told her.
"Ah, I see."
"That's it?" I asked, knowing most people had follow-up questions to something as vague as that.
"This is Navesink Bank," she told me, sweeping the dust and dirt hard across the room against one wall. "You don't ask what shady characters are into."
"Why are you sweeping like that?"
"What? Oh, I worked at a coffee place when I was a teenager.
It was part of my job to sweep and mop. But people were always walking around, so it wasn't like you could be standing there in everyone's way with a dustpan.
So you swept everything against one wall, then swept it into a dustpan.
It's a habit that stuck. And it's faster," she told me, already starting to scoop up the mess.
She'd only been in my office for maybe fifteen minutes, and it already looked cleaner than it had in months. "What?"
"What what?" I asked, shocking out of my thoughts.
"You're staring at me."
"Looking at you doesn't mean I'm staring at you," I corrected.
But I had totally been staring at her. As she shrugged and turned from me to dig the wet duster mop thing out of the storage closet, I couldn't seem to make myself look away even though I had been caught doing it already.
She wasn't particularly long-legged, but they were toned and soft somehow at the same time.
And on almost full display with her short shorts.
I wouldn't say it was uncharacteristic of me to notice a woman's body.
But, as a whole, I was usually too distracted by something more important, or when I did notice, it was in a sort of detached way.
I wasn't like Brock, like my brother had been before he settled down; I wasn't sex-driven.
That didn't mean I didn’t—very occasionally—enjoy the company of a woman.
I was human. I had urges. But that was all it ever was for me. Just an itch that needed scratching.
I'd been told over and over again that I wasn't great at one-on-one relationships of any sort. So the idea of even trying to engage with a woman that way was foreign to me.
But I was noticing Clarke.
With full focus.
And thinking shit because of it.
Things that involved bodies and sheets and release.
That wasn't all, though.
There was more.
Those same entwined limbs, those same sheets. With a pizza. A movie.
And this was the most fucked up of all - talking.
Talking.
I wanted to fuck her.
Then share pizza and talk to her.
That, well, that was all kinds of uncharacteristic.
Problematic.
Because I had just invited her into my life for the foreseeable future.
"Christ," I grumbled, realizing I was scratching at my forearm again, forcing my arm down, balling my hand into a fist.
"What?" Clarke asked, turning, brow raised, expecting a clarification.
Clarification.
I snorted to myself.
How could I clarify it to her when I had no idea what it was about myself?
"Nothing," I told her, shaking my head, moving behind my desk, picking up the phone, checking my machine, praying for a case, an uncomfortable social engagement to fret about.
Something.
Anything.
That would take my focus away from her.