Page 43 of Bitter Desire
And that had been that. I’d pushed past her, the duffle bag I’d packed slung over my shoulder and stormed off back down the long dirty driveway to the gravel road that led back into the shit town my mom had landed in. I’d ended up using the last sixty bucks I had to rent a room at the nearby hotel and washed dishes for a week in the local diner to make enough to get back to New York. It had been weird coming back to the city, but I would rather choose the unfeeling streets of a city that didn’t know me over the plain meanness of my own mother. One of those was far easier to swallow than the other.
The city owed no one a damn thing. The hurt it inflicted wasn’t personal. Everyone was fair game when it came to New York. But my mother? Well, that was plenty personal, and I didn’t have the taste for it anymore.
“It didn’t go well,” I told him, and pressed my hands into my thighs with a sigh, “she laughed at me. Didn’t help me when I needed it the most and I had to come back with even less than when I started.”
Law shook his head. “I’m sorry, Honey.”
“Don’t be. That’s just how my mom is. She’s mad at the world because her life didn’t work out the way she wanted. So she, well, that’s just how she is.”
“So she took it out on you.”
I nodded and looked at him, seeing that he was watching me in the way that always made me uncomfortable. It was the look that told me he saw everything I wasn’t saying. “Yeah.”
Law touched my cheek, finger gentle on my skin. “You deserve better than that.”
“I have you,” I told him, turning my face into his hand and kissing his hand. “I feel better now. Easy.” Law didn’t look convinced by what I was saying. Not if the frown on his face was anything to go by, so I went on talking. “That was the last time I was home. I was eighteen and broke. I just saw her the one time and I came back to New York as soon as I was able to.”
“You don’t have any other family?”
I shook my head. “No, my mom pretty much took off on her own. I never knew my family or my father. We never stayed put in one place long enough for me to make any real friends.”
“Why not?” Law asked.
“My mom was obsessed with her singing career,” I explained, turning my coffee cup around in my hands. “She was always having us move to work with a new producer or talent scout. She was convinced that the next move was going to be the last one, the one where she got discovered, but that never happened. All that we ended up with was a new lease, a new house full of lease-to-own furniture she never paid off, or some new hotel we lived out of for months. That’s the sad little story that was my life before I came to New York, okay? My mom is a failed lounge singer who blamed me for never making it big. She got pregnant by some producer, and I ruined the big shot she had going in Vegas. It was the only time she left the state, or,” I threw out my hands, “that’s what she always told me whenever she got drunk enough to talk about it. She never let me forget that I ruined her chances, or that her life would be better without me. I got tired of it and left home the second I graduated from a high school I can’t even remember because I didn’t go there more than a semester. That’s it. That’s the story.” I swallowed hard and glanced at him nervously, hoping to hell I didn’t see pity in his eyes, the same look that people got when I said I didn’t have any family to visit for the holidays, the one that Juana got when she knew I was spending my birthday alone. She didn’t like it. Said I spent too much time alone.
“It’s not good, mija. I know you like to be solita but try and have some fun with your friends this year?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her there was no one to spend it with.
I met Law’s eyes and to my relief, there wasn’t pity there. Only anguish. I swallowed again and fought not to look away from him when I said, “I don’t know who could be sending those text messages from a Texas number.”
“Fuck. Honey.” There was pain in Law’s voice and I shrugged, giving him a bitter smile.
“I know it sounds bad, but it wasn’t so bad, not really. I mean, if I had actually had roots then I never would have come here, and if I hadn’t then I wouldn’t have met you. Everything happened for a reason.”
The pained look left Law’s face and he straightened up, face going hard. “And now someone’s after you, so I’m not too sure on that one. Not everything happens for a reason.”
“Sure it does.” When he opened his mouth like he was going to fight me, I interrupted him with, “And you can’t prove that it doesn’t, so I’m going to go right on believing that. Law, I would go through it all again if it meant that I got to be with you. Every minute of it.”
Those blue eyes I loved so much narrowed. “I’d rather you be safe. I’d rather none of this shit happened to you.”
“You said it, you’d keep me safe, so I don’t see what the problem is. Last night was just one of those things that happens.”
He made a face at my words. “Last night is not one of those things. One of those things is getting rear ended or spilling your coffee on the way to work because the lid wasn’t on right, not someone trying to kidnap you, Honey. That shit isn’t normal.” He stood from the table and began to pace the length of the dining room. “I’d rather it have never happened to you. Even if that means you didn’t meet me. I want you safe. You are not safe with me. Us together...this is dangerous for you.”
His words made my heartbeat speed, a shot of adrenaline accompanying the hitch of my purse and I swallowed hard. I didn’t like hearing this kind of talk from him. What if...what if he decided that us together was too dangerous?
What if I lost him?
“Then who would keep me safe, hmm?” I asked, crossing my arms and watching him. He stopped, shoulder’s going stiff and he turned to meet my eyes when I asked, “What if this happened to me no matter where I went, no matter who I was with, and I didn’t have you to watch my back? What then?”
“And what if this is because of me?” he asked.
“You think this is because of you?” My question was barely above a whisper, but my voice shook all the same. I didn’t like going down this road. Didn’t like opening the door to this entire topic. If there was someone after me, or him, us, I wanted it to stay away from our relationship. The core of why we worked and functioned together was not the reason for someone coming for us. I didn’t care if it had pushed someone to put out a job on me, or texting me, I just didn’t.
Law was it for me. We were not a part of whatever game someone had decided to play. That was them, not us.
“You have no family to speak of. No connections to the Texas number Charlaine found, and you were not mixed up in this sort of shit when you weren't with me so, yeah, I think it has everything to do with me. Be honest with yourself, princess. You know this is because we are together. What’s happening to you is because of me. You aren’t going to be safe for as long as you're with me. You have to get away from me.”
