3. Tim
3
TIM
WHEN IN ROME AND ALL THAT SHIT
V isiting New York City, when your home is in a whole other state, would imply hotels. Big, fancy, multi-room suites and silver-tray service delivered to one’s door. The money my family possesses, oodles of it, split five ways, means I could stay anywhere, for any price, and have the best views and the most sought-after servants money can buy.
And yet, Felix Malone makes damn sure we stay in our childhood bedrooms.
“You all know where you’re sleeping,” he announces, striding through the front door of the massive, multi-story mansion set not so far from the beach—a fair drive outside of Manhattan. He’s never seemed to mind the commute each day when he conducts business in the city, and it’s never been an issue for me, considering I left this fuckhole almost half my lifetime ago. “Your bags are already in your rooms,” he adds, dragging Christabelle closer, the trailing tail of her gown bundled in his fist so she doesn’t risk tripping on the fabric. Heavy footsteps pound across the house as Bastard, the mutt dog that stands way too fucking large for comfort, sniffs out his visitors. “We’re going to bed, and we’re flying out early tomorrow for Spain. Stay as long as you want after we’re gone. We’ll be back in a week.”
“We’re leaving tomorrow.” I bend to collect the bottom of Aubree’s dress and bat the dog’s snuffling nose away as he sidles up on her left. I don’t care what everyone else is doing; Archer and Minka. Cato. Micah. I have absolutely no fucks to give about the rest of them. “You and I are on the plane at noon tomorrow,” I tell her. “It’s time to get you the hell out of this city.”
“Your insistence on telling me what to do is exhausting.” She snatches her gown and turns right with the dog, shadowing the direction Minka and Archer walk. Because she’ll follow Minka Mayet to the fucking grave, and she’ll ride the hound if he’s willing. “I’ll see you tomorrow sometime. Goodnight, Tim.”
I scoff and keep moving, because she’s not allowed to wander this house without me. Not for a single second. Not for a quick dash to the bathroom. Not for a coffee run in the morning.
The stairs we climb: my father threw me down them and broke my arm in three places.
The banister to my left: he fucked my girlfriend when I was seventeen. She was sixteen and, until that point, still a virgin.
The painting at the top of the landing: he stole that from an art house, slammed Archer’s head through the canvas when he was eleven, and then made Micah sew the fucking thing back together.
The painting. Not the boy.
This house is haunted by the memories of my trauma. It may be Felix’s now, and perhaps the occupants are happy, reasonably healthy people who possess hearts. But the building, and the ghosts inside, are not so easily exorcised. So the less time I have to be here, the better.
The fact I couldn’t keep Aubree away: my failure.
Archer and Minka cut left when they find their room, moving through the door and gently closing it at their backs. Because it’s nearing three in the morning, and no one is hanging around to socialize after the day we’ve had.
“What was in the envelope Estefan gave you tonight at dinner?” Aubree’s pink streaked hair still looks as good now as it did when it was set approximately fifteen hours ago. Her platinum blonde locks—a lie, I think, considering her darker brows—sit perfectly in place despite dancing and walking aisles. Drinking with gangsters and socializing with guards. She acted as though Felix’s wedding was just another event. Regular people. Regular lives. She saw the guns and power and side glances and whispered orders, yet she acted like she’s un-fucking-touchable.
Her nonchalance is enough to give me a stomach ulcer.
“Tim?” She comes to a stop outside my bedroom door, her fingers brushing through Bastard’s short hair and her back pressed to the wood when I attempt to continue forward. “I asked you a question. The envelope?”
“Asking a question is your right.” I snag her wrist and yank her out of the way, earning a warning growl from the dog that I ignore. Then I shove the door open to find not only my bags stacked on the end of a massive four-poster bed—rich with dark brown covers and gold leaf edges—but I find hers, too. A tan colored duffel bag with fabric that appears softer than tissue paper, and beside it, a backpack with buttons and glitters and all sorts of memorable artifacts that are easily reported to the cops when asked about a pink-streak-haired woman wearing puffer jackets and platform boots. The fact is, Aubree Emeri is not a forgettable woman. And knowing that makes my nerves stand on edge. “Giving you answers,” I finally add, “or not, is my right. Let’s go.”
I tug her into the room and kick the door shut, though not fast enough to lock out her guard.
“Tim!” She attempts to peel my fingers from her wrist, digging her nails into the top of my hand and stumbling in her heels when her focus is on me and not the excessive fabric of her gown. “What the hell are you doing?”
I release her when she’s only two feet from the bed, gratified when she drops to the edge and almost flops to her back. Steam builds between her ears as she shoves back to her feet and grabs a post for balance. She bends and angrily unsnaps the strap of her shoe, dragging the weapon off her foot. “I didn’t invite you into this room.” She lobs the heel at my legs, missing, though I’m not entirely confident she intended to hit me.
I feel, if she wanted to put a hole in me, she’d do it. First time. Every time.
“This is my room.” She goes to work on the second heel. “Your intrusion is a violation of my privacy.”
“This is my room.” I catch the second heel and study the sharp prong that could pierce a man’s artery if she wanted it to. “You’re staying in my room.”
“Yours?” She looks around, panic etched on her face as she searches for… I’m not sure. It’s not like I keep—in the past, or now—family pictures in here. Or trophies. Awards. Football cleats. Never in my entire life have I personalized my bedroom. “No. This is where I’m staying!”
I move closer to the bed and carefully set the heels on top of her bags. “We’re both staying in here tonight. So calm your shit and get over your tantrum.”
“Surely there are other bedrooms inside this monstrous house! We are not sharing. ”
“There are other rooms.” I shuck my jacket back, bouncing my shoulders and lowering the fabric until I can bring it around and fold it neatly. I drape the five-thousand-dollar material over my bag with an exhale of fatigue. “But I’m not sleeping anywhere else.”
“So, I will.” She snatches up her heels again, ready to move out and find somewhere else. Immediately, the dog snaps to attention and prepares to follow. “I’ll knock on doors until I find one. I doubt it’ll be that difficult.”
“I don’t think you’re listening to me.” I work on the cufflinks at my wrists, dropping the gold squares into my pockets, then I roll my sleeves up—one fold, then another. Another. Until my forearms are exposed and, for the first time today, it feels like I can finally breathe. “You’re not staying somewhere else without me. It’s not safe, and I’m uninterested in pretense. I won’t fake nobility all so you can get your own way. We’re sharing this room tonight. We’re sharing a flight home tomorrow. Then when your feet are back on the ground in the city we share , you can do as you please and I’ll maintain my fucking sanity, knowing you’re as far from this place as I can get you.”
“I’m not sleeping in here with you!” She shouts so fucking loud, I bet her beloved boss and best friend’s ears prick up in the next room. “If you think this is how you force a relationship after I’ve told you no?—”
“I might have his name…” I snag her hand and jerk her to a stop, pulling her in and inhaling her breath when we collide. Then I stare into her eyes, blue like the ocean, and mean like we’ve been enemies our whole lives. “But I’m not like him. So cut the shit.”
“I’m allowed to not be okay with this arrangement!” Her heart pounds, visible in the pulse in her throat, and physical as her wrist thuds against my palm. “I don’t want to stay in a room with you, Tim. I want privacy. I want to not share a bed, and I especially don’t want to share a bed with the man who refuses to respect my opinion on anything .”
“It’s not about respecting your opinion.” I drag her closer, so her head tilts back and her eyes turn glassy with need. With desire. “It’s about knowing better than you do.”
“Pompous asshole.”
I flash a wide, feral grin. But I don’t feel any of the pleasure it implies. “You wanted me, and I said no because it wasn’t safe for you.”
“Then I didn’t want you,” she spits right back, “and now suddenly you’ve decided you’re in. I changed my mind. And if I knew what the hair clip represented, I wouldn’t have accepted it.”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t have worn it today. You haven’t changed your mind, Aubree Grace. You’re just proud.” I bring her closer, because fuck it, I want so badly to have her on my lips. But I’m not like the Tim who came before me, so instead of pressing a kiss to her mouth, I lay one on her cheek. Softly. Gently. And so fucking drawn out, she relaxes in my hands and accepts what we both know is true.
“You’re mad at me,” I whisper, “because we have a lifetime of yes-no-in-out-bruised feelings and over-inflated pride hurting us.” Pulling back, just an inch or two until I can look into her eyes, I smile and breathe a little easier when her gaze drops. “You still want me, Aubree. You just wanna be an insufferable brat about it first.” I release her wrist and feel bad when she stumbles back, her stubborn streak making her stance too rigid, then I tap her hip and reach up to loosen the tie that threatens to choke me. “You’re sleeping in this room tonight. In that bed,” I glance over her shoulder. “And I’ll sleep on the floor. No funny business. No bullshit. I’ll close my eyes while you change, and I won’t remind you that you still fucking want me.”
“I do not!”
“You blush when I look into your eyes. You look for me in every single room you’re in.”
A low, kitten growl rolls along the back of her throat. “I can’t help my physiological response to your presence.”
“Trust me,” I wrench the tie free, “I feel that same way about you. The fact you’ve been drinking tonight means I’m taking my ass to bed right now. And so are you. It’s late, physiology fucks over the best of people, and three a.m. is when the devil is out messing with perfectly functional relationships. You looked really beautiful today, by the way. I don’t know if I told you yet.”
She turns from me, grumbling something unpleasant under her breath, then she tugs her bag closer, tearing the zipper down and snatching swaths of fabric from its mysterious depths. “No. You didn’t tell me. In fact, your lack of telling me has contributed to my bad mood.”
“I thought you weren’t interested in anything to do with me?” I undo the buttons on my shirt and slowly begin undressing. My body hurts from being awake so fucking long. On a plane hours before the sun came up this morning—yesterday morning, to be precise—flying six more across the country to attend my brother’s wedding, and getting a late start because my cop brother, his medical examiner wife, and Aubree— Aubree fucking Emeri , the most beautiful pain in my ass I’ve ever known —were busy with dead people until close to midnight.
I wasn’t leaving Copeland without Aubree, and she wasn’t leaving without Mayet .
So now we’re all sleep deprived and flirt with insanity.
“Of course you’re allowed to compliment me after I have my hair and makeup professionally applied. It’s a flattering remark, not a whole marriage proposal.” Muttering, she bends and steps into a pair of pyjama shorts with little monkeys and bright yellow bananas decorating the material. She keeps the dress on to cover her body and retain her modesty, pulling the shorts up and bouncing to set the elastic band in place on her hips. Then she goes back for the matching top.
I’m bananas about sleep.
“A woman likes to be told she’s pretty when she is, in fact, professionally made up.”
“You’re prettier when you’re the regular you.”
She freezes, clutching her tank and glaring over her shoulder like she thinks her heated stare will burn me.
“That’s not to say you weren’t stunning today,” I explain. “Or that seeing you didn’t take my breath away. But a regular day in Copeland, when you wear those stupid flare jeans you do, and the four-inch platform kick his ass boots, the way you style your hair sometimes, and the earrings you like with the dangling rainbows…” I shrug and open my shirt when she peels her eyes frontward again. She slips the tank down over the gown and stabs her arms through the spaghetti straps. Then she contorts her body and reaches back to release the zipper, hidden beneath the monkey pjs, so when she releases herself from the dress’s confines, she literally exhales and slumps.
Fuck knows how tight she’s been wrapped up all day.
“Seeing the regular, medical examiner, smells-a-bit-like-decay you is how I like you most.”
She drags her gown down, inadvertently showing off the small of her back and a sneaky tattoo—almost a tramp stamp, but a little off to the side—she maneuvers the gown and steps out of the excessive fabric. “No one likes the smell of decay. The fact you say you do is ridiculous and offensive.”
“Offensive?” My heart swells when she turns, and though I’m sure she meant for her eyes to come to mine, they drop instead to my torso. To the swaths of ink I started needling into my body long before I sat in a real tattoo parlor. What started as pen ink and a needle— don’t do that. It’s bad for you —ended with hundreds of hours with my artist, countless dollars, and enough line work on my torso to keep Aubree busy for a whole night.
If only she would allow herself the freedom to look.
“Why is my statement about how I like you offensive? ”
She tilts her head, reading the script that lines my biceps— Omertà —and attempts to translate things she doesn’t know.
She can’t know, because she’s not from my world.
“Aubree?”
“Hmm?” Her eyes snap up in confusion, her pupils wide and dark, edging out the refreshing blue I crave daily. “What does omertà mean?”
“It means we’re all punks. Especially now that Archer is a cop and there’s nothing I wouldn’t tell him. Also, decay is offensive to you? That’s odd, considering your vocation of choice.”
That air of dazedness washes away, replaced by renewed anger. “Nobody likes decay! So for you to say I’m prettier when I’m covered in death means you’re a jackass who essentially said I looked like shit today.”
“Does it give you a headache?”
“Does what give me a headache?”
“Your constant need to twist words and make me out to be the bad guy?” I bend and pick up the dress she’s abandoned, folding the bust and wishing so badly the built in boning was actually her. Her body. Her ribs. She’s so much smaller than me by comparison. Her tiny, hundred-and-ten-pound frame, doll-like and terrifying. But do I wish I could hold her?
Fuck yes. With every beat of my heart.
“I can be the monster in your stories, Emeri. But that doesn’t change what we’re doing here. You’re in the wrong city, and you’re friends with the wrong people. You insist on socializing with this mafia family, and I…”
“And you what? You’re gonna be a jealous shrew, ordering me around, but never truly taking accountability for the damage you cause?”
“I’m gonna make sure you live to the ripe old age of ninety-nine.” I bring her gown to my nose and inhale, noisy and shameless, so when I lower it again and find her face burning with a blush, I feel her indignation in my heart and savor the feeling for the rest of time. “Whether you’re talking to me is a moot point.”
“You don’t care?”
“I do. But I care more that you’re alive. The rest is noise and unfortunate consequences of the actions I consider non-negotiable. Though if I’m lucky, you might get over your tantrum and say yes to a fuckin’ dinner date between now and then. I’m not asking anyone else out, so…”
“You’re infuriating!” She spins toward the bed, her hair swinging with the momentum, then she tears the covers back to reveal silky black sheets I know were laid down in the last twenty-four hours. “Stop being charming and an asshole at the same time. It’s confusing. ”
Grinning, I bring her dress up again and sniff for good measure. “I’m taking this to the floor with me. I’ll use it as a blanket, since you won’t share yours with me.”
“I hope you get cold.” She pats the bed until the dog jumps up, then she stabs long, lean legs under the covers, her toenails painted a rainbow of colors and a delicate, glittering chain wrapped around her ankle. Finally, she flips the lamp off before I have myself organized. The room drops into a blinding darkness, stealing my vision and leaving me frozen in place for an impossibly long moment. “Oh, sorry,” she lies, oh so fucking innocently. “Can you see?”
“Nah, I’m good.” I blindly move toward the bed and feel around, none too carefully despite Bastard’s warning growl, and grab whatever may be near. A hip bone. Her hair. I smirk in the darkness when she slaps my hand away. But then I fist a lump of blanket and whip the whole thing away until a tiger-like snarl rips through the room. “Sorry.” I hug the blanket that already smells of her. “Goodnight, Doctor Emeri.”
“ You give me a headache.”
“Mmhmm. Dream of me. Maybe I’ll meet you there.”