Page 42 of Brick

“The company. I went out to dinner with Carol and her girlfriend. We ate and had margaritas. I’ve got a new book, and I’m curled up on the sofa, which by the way, is my favorite way to spend a Friday night. Now I’m talking to you. So yeah, fantastic.” She ignored the temptation to ask him what he’d been doing tonight. She had a feeling he wouldn’t want to share.

“I was…working.”

“I figured,” she said softly. “I know you don’t want to talk about it.”

“No. I want to keep the shit part of my life far away from this. From you.”

She picked up one of the throw-pillows she’d tossed on the floor and hugged it to her. “I feel like you know everything about me, but I don’t know anything about you. Tell me…about your childhood. What were you like as a kid?”

“I was poor.” His response came quick and razor sharp.

She refused to fill the silence afterward. It stretched for nearly a minute.

Eventually, he sighed. His words resumed haltingly. “My mom worked two jobs. Waitressing and cleaning houses. She was a first-generation Machwaya immigrant. Even though she grew up in Chicago, mostly in foster care, she was a Rom born in Serbia. I thought she was beautiful, but she looked different, sounded different from anyone around here. Even with a green card, good work was hard to come by.” He paused. “My dad…was a junkie. Maybe he was less of a piece of shit when she married him, but who knows?”

He continued briskly. “I never saw much of either one of them. Mom did the best she could, but we had my grandma to take care of too. She slept on the sofa. I took the floor. Things were hard, but it was all I ever knew, you know?”

She wished she could see his face for this. Hold his hand. Then again, maybe this came easier for him when he didn’t have to look at her.

“When my mom died, there was no money at all. My grandma has diabetes, and while Medicaid helped with her insulin, there had to be decent food in the house. There was no money for rent. There was nothing.”

He cleared his throat. “Sucre was my dad’s dealer. I went to him. I begged him to cut my father off. He said no, but he did offer me a job—doing little shit for him at first. Pushing pot on the corner. Selling it at school. It was enough to keep us off the street, but it wouldn’t feed my grandma. Her legs were bad, so she couldn’t stand up for very long. She had vision problems too, so she couldn’t work. Eventually, I dropped out of school and got a job hauling lumber during the day and working for Sucre at night. It was okay, until Sucre noticed how big I was getting. Decided I’d be more valuable to him as muscle.”

This was far more than she had expected to hear. It wasn’t merely a story about a birthday lunch like she’d shared at the Majestic. This was how he came to be the kind of man her brother had warned her away from. She felt a pang she’d never told him about the cancer; happy memories were a whole lot easier to share.

His words came faster now. “I told him no the first time he asked me. The next day, my dad’s tab ran out. Apparently, Sucre had only been keeping him alive as a ‘favor’ to me. It’s what he told me anyway, and did I think my grandma had the money to pay off my father’s drug debt? If she didn’t, he was sure we could work something out if I started working for him full-time. It wasn’t so much a question this time as an ultimatum.”

Tears filled her eyes, but she kept her voice steady. “You sacrificed yourself for her.”

“Don’t make me into some saint,” he growled. “I’ve done some really bad shit since then. I’ve worked for Sucre half my life now. You don’t want to know what I do.”

He drew a good enough picture she got the idea, but she pushed it down. “And your grandma?”

“She’s in a nursing home now. I pay for it. The problem is, Sucre knows exactly where she is. He likes to remind me he can get to her at any time. Today, he sent me a picture of a bruise on her arm.” He lowered his voice. “But I’m saving. Saving every cent to get her out of there. Some place where he can’t find her, and he can’t touch her.”

“Until then, though,” she whispered.

“Until then, he owns me, and if he ever finds out about you…”

“I’ll be the person he holds over your head.” No wonder he tried to stay away from her.

“I do fights on the side for extra cash. They’re all fixed. Sucre thinks it’s why I do construction too. The truth is, when I’m building houses, it’s the only time I don’t hate myself. Then and when I’m with you.”

Her heart ached for all he’d been through. “I wish I could take it all away.”

“Don’t you understand?” He breathed deeply and gentled his voice. “You do.”

Wow.

“When can I see you?” she choked out.

“Soon…but not tonight. I’ve got to get back out there. No rest for the wicked.”

Her stomach wrenched at the idea he had to go back out into the night. To do God knows what for a man he hated.

“Be safe,” she whispered. But he was already gone.

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