Chapter 4
He’s twenty-six
Dina
Twenty-six seems like forever ago for me, so I don’t comment on his age. Or mine.
“That’s good to know,” I say.
“Is it?” His smile turns into a sexy smirk.
Oh please. I walk into my kitchen and open the freezer, grab a bag of peas and carrots, and toss them to him. “Have a seat while I think on my terms. That’s all the ice I have.”
He wobbles to the couch and shrugs off his bag, then sits down with a pain-filled grunt. I grab another frozen vegetable pack and pull up the coffee table closer to him. “You can put your leg up here, and here’s one more bag.”
He tugs up his pants, revealing an ankle the size of my calf muscle. “Oh no,” I say.
“Echo,” he answers and ices the ankle.
“Echo?”
“You said, ‘Oh no.’ I echo your sentiment.”
Ah. Must be some sort of generational joke. While he stares at his leg, I watch him. I bet he cleans up nicely. “You have an accent,” I say.
“No, I don’t.”
Yes, he does. He’s not from around here. “Are you an expat?”
“No.”
“Are you on vacation?”
“A temporary job that’s now done.”
“You are an expat.” I sigh.
“An expat lives here for a period of time. I don’t and I never will.”
I lean back. “Why not?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I really do.”
“No you don’t.”
I fetch him some clean towels so he stops wiping his face with his dirty shirt.
“Thanks,” he says.
I sit back down. “I really do want to know why you would never want to live here. I grew up here.”
“I hate this damn city.”
Oh no, he didn’t. “Excuse me?”
He sighs. “I told you you wouldn’t want to know.”
I poke his chest with my finger. “You don’t know what I want.”
For a few seconds, he stares at his chest, then looks up, his eyes appearing brighter. “No?”
“Most certainly not.” I nest in my chair like a bird might before fluffing up her feathers.
My feathers are fluffed. He’s about to get it.
“For one, you just met me. For two, you are here in my apartment for reasons known only to you, and I don’t know what I want to do about it, so you can’t possibly know what I don’t when I don’t even know it. Are you following me?”
The man nods.
“How could you say you know what I want when you never asked what I wanted?”
He opens his mouth, but I shush him. “You never asked because you’re not interested, and you’re not interested because you’re too busy taking care of yourself.
” I sit back. “There you go.” I’ve turned into a bitter old lady who vents at random people at every opportunity.
We were talking about Selnoa, the city, not him or me or my ex or my messed-up life right now, and I drew parallels and circled back to my problems. But I’m right, you know. “You don’t know what I want.”
He’s quiet for a while. Then: “You want your old life back.”
I suck in a breath. “Shut up.”
The man shrugs.
“You know nothing about my life. New or old.”
“Fair enough,” he says.
I clear my throat. “You can’t tell me anything about yourself because your life is in danger? Along with mine?”
“Yes.”
“Were you staying at the Crossbow mansion?” I ask.
“Define staying.”
“Like you’re staying here.” My heart pounds in my ears. The man disassembled my gun in seconds. Seconds. He seems polite and nonthreatening in the sense that he promised not to hurt me. It doesn’t mean he won’t.
“I wasn’t staying there, no.”
“Did you work at the Crossbow mansion?”
“I’m not one of Crossbow’s men.”
Relieved, I sigh. “Thank God for that. You can stay here, then.” I walk to the bathroom and adjust the hot water.
“Take a shower before you sit on my daughter’s bed.
” I test the water. “We have an old boiler here that I never replaced, so when you need hot water, you have to turn it on and wait. But everything else has been upgraded. Almost. I mean things here and there, like the AC unit I need to get for my room, and other small things. Also, the bathroom is accessible—” I turn to go back and run into him, bumping my forehead on his hard chest. Damn. Does he work in construction?
“Excuse me.” I look up. He’s tall, and I’m five three, so this close up, I have to crane my neck as far as it’ll go.
“I thought you were using water to mask the sound of whatever you were actually doing,” he says to explain why he materialized behind me like Houdini.
“Oh. Oh no. I’m not creative with escape plans.
When it comes to hair, I’ve got all sorts of ideas but otherwise, it’s dull around here.
You don’t have much hair, so I have no ideas.
” Why am I overexplaining? Am I nervous?
Yes, I think I am, and I don’t think it has anything to do with fear but more to do with having a handsome man within arm’s reach.
Am I horny? It’s been a while. I should masturbate more. Really should do that more often.
He’s staring.
I point at the shower. “Go ahead. I’ll bring towels from Chi-chi’s room.” I use the door that leads to her room from the bathroom and come back with a stack of my daughter’s dark blue towels.
When he takes the towels, he traps my hands under his. “I don’t think it’s dull around here.” He squeezes my hands before releasing me. I remain standing there, his touch warming my skin in ways that my thirty-seven-year-old brain finds very, VERY stupid, and my vagina finds very exciting.
Not too sure how I arrived at the point in my life where I’m separating my brain from my vagina, but here I am, doing it anyway.
Listen, when I passed thirty-five, I stopped getting menstrual cramps in my lower belly and started feeling cramps in my calf muscles, so I attest that anything is possible.
Or maybe I’m just fucking desperate and as dull as Sergei said I was. He said I was boring. He said that waking up next to me had become a chore. And that man hated chores, let me tell you.
My dad, in the nicest way he could, because he loves me, said that when it came to Sergei, I was far too gullible.
I believed Sergei when he said Ashley was here taking a shower while I was at work because her boiler broke.
I believed the story he spun after Chi-chi told me she saw him with Ashley at the coffee shop out of town.
He didn’t know Chi-chi’s girlfriend worked next door, or he wouldn’t have exposed himself that way.
I believed Ashley had my best interests at heart when, two years ago, she advised me to leave Sergei.
My dad is probably right. I am gullible. But I am who I am, and I can’t be who I am not. And I am not a horrible, vindictive person. I want to help and believe the world is a great place with many wonderful people in it. Bad apples shouldn’t be allowed to ruin everything.
“You’re in my way,” the man says.
Ha! “My ex-husband said that before he moved in with my best friend.”
“Ouch.”
I stand at the door to my daughter’s room so I don’t rub against him as I squeeze past him. In fact, I don’t think my ass can pass. Honestly. I’m pear shaped and carry most of my weight in my bottom and my thighs. The space is too small to fit two people at the same time. The shower isn’t, though.
My vagina is having intrusive thoughts.
“What do I call you?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Whatever you want.”
“I mean, what’s your name?”
“I know what you mean.” He unbuckles his pants and starts to undress.
That’s my cue. I close the door and lean against it, hearing his buckle hit the tile when he drops his pants.
The glass door creaks as he opens it to enter the shower.
Naked. There’s a naked man in my shower.
This morning, my horoscope said something about Venus in retrograde. Is that why he’s here?
I’ve got no idea.
I double-check that the bedding in Chi-chi’s room is clean for him and step onto the terrace. The helicopters still circle above. They’re news station choppers. Not only local, but international. Whatever happened at the Crossbow mansion garnered international attention.
Maybe they finally arrested Massio Crossbow. Inwardly, I snort. I doubt that very much since everyone knows he funds the police department. Those poor men and women have no choice but to look the other way when it comes to him.
I should check the news and find out what happened at the mansion.
The men at Crossbow gate turned me around and wouldn’t let me pass, and my client was inside waiting for me.
I called her to tell her I couldn’t get in, and she said she would speak with them.
Nothing came of it. Their orders not to admit anyone onto the property came from Crossbow himself. I left. I hope my client is okay.
In the living room, it takes me ten minutes to find the remote since I never leave it in the same place. My dad’s been telling me to designate a space for my remote since I was a little girl. I find it on my vanity in the bedroom and turn on the news in the living room.
The helicopters flying over the mountain show us an aerial view of a sprawling mansion and all surrounding properties enclosed within the walls that Crossbow built as if he were a king inside a fortress.
The police swarm the place. Not only locals. Federal and international agents too. They’re guarding men in handcuffs who are kneeling on the grass.
I wonder where the man in my bathroom belongs.
On his knees or in uniform, executing justice?
He said he wasn’t one of Crossbow’s men, but he’s dangerous and capable, very calm and collected when dealing with a crisis.
I ran him over, and he hijacked my car and is now in my apartment.
That’s a capable, dangerous man, I’d say.
He could be an undercover cop, for all I know. If their cover is blown, they risk their lives and the lives of their families.
Is he married? Does he have children?
I sit on my couch and have a think. Do I really want to know his name?
Or if he’s married? Nope. I shake my head.
I do not. If he’s connected with what’s going on with Crossbow now, I want to remain in the dark.
I should heed what he’s telling me, which is to give him any name I want and help him get better as fast as possible so he can leave my apartment, never to return.