Page 93 of If Not for My Baby
My hands are still shaking on his neck when he releases me, slow and steady. For an instant, we breathe the same air. I can smell the blood on his face and the clean soap of his skin. Even with a broken nose, he is so ridiculously attractive I want to lick him clean.
Then the horde finds us. “There!”
“This way,” I say, because I know this city somewhat well from all the field trips and concerts and mall excursions Everly and I have taken over the years. Most importantly, I know where she’s working tonight. We sprint two straight blocks, my short legs fighting to keep up with Tom’s extended ones, his long hair bouncing like a warrior’s as he charges into battle, clicking cameras only ever a breath behind us, until we reach the Ladybird Playhouse.
“Hide there,” I tell him, pointing to a copse of shadowed trees out of range from the streetlights.
“Clem, you don’t—”
“Trust me,” I say.
Everly has worked front of house at the local Austin theater every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday since she moved back from college. I say a little prayer of thanks that she didn’t bail on her shift tonight to come see our show.
“Ev.” I’m pushing past patrons. “Everly!”
Everly’s red hair whirls as she scans the playhouse. Her expression warps from shock to delight to confusion in rapid succession. “Clementine? What are you doing here?”
I squeeze in between the couple that was about to hand over their tickets. “I need your car.”
“Yeah, okay—” She fishes through her pockets, her eyes wide with worry. “What’s happening?”
The couple behind me is getting restless. Whatever the evening’s late show is—some raunchy comedian based on the brightly colored poster behind Ev’s head—it’s starting soon. The man grunts. “Excuse me—”
“There’s been an emergency and I need to borrow it justfor tonight but I’ll leave it at your apartment later. Can you get another ride home?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” she says.
She hands me the keys just as the house lights dim, denoting five minutes until showtime. An image of Halloran strangling men with cameras around their necks flashes in my mind.
“Text me when you’re settled,” she says. “I want to know everything’s all right.”
“You’re a lifesaver. Missed you.” I kiss her on the cheek and sprint from the theater.
Everly’s 1980s Chevy Citation is a relic and takes two tries to start, like it has ever since she and I crashed it in high school avoiding a raccoon.
I yank it around from her parking spot and whip the thing in front of where I left Tom. Not a moment too soon, too. He slams the passenger door shut right as three stumped paparazzi clock him and hightail it after us.
The gas pedal hits the carpeting and we take off, their blinking lights a starry haze in the rearview.
For a moment, our labored breaths and the groans of the old car are all I hear.
“Let me see it,” I say, as we merge onto the freeway.
Halloran’s used his Trinity hoodie to stanch the bleeding, leaving him in a boxy crewneck T-shirt that does something marvelous to the length of his arms. When he removes the sweatshirt from his face, his nose is twice the size it should be, with a deep split cracked across the bridge. Not a moment later does the bleeding start up again, spilling over his lips.
“We need to get you to a hospital.” I step on the gas.
Tom grunts as he tries to compress the faucet of blood. “Calm down.”
“It’s broken. It’s broken for sure.”
“Fuck the nose,” he grits out. “The nose is fuckin’ fine. He fuckin’touchedyou, Clem.” Tom rolls down the window and spits. “He laid his hands on ya. Fuckin’ spanner, he is. Fuckin’ tool.”
“Okay, somehow you’re gettingmoreIrish.”
“I coulda fuckin’ killed him.”
That shuts me right up. A tense silence hovers between us.
