Page 33 of Falling for Carla

The West Coast Lombardis were making sure that any operatives Russo’s organization had in place out in LA were being cut down, picked off or snatched off the street. To say that the Lombardis were picking the carcass clean after Russo’s untimely demise was an understatement.

The response from the Russo clan, presumably under direction from Carla’s brother Dominic, was of the knee-jerk shoot ‘em up variety. Two nights ago, a warehouse burned, and the same night, a room full of probably made guys were found tied to their chairs and shot execution style while playing what looked to be a round of Texas Hold ‘Em where at least three players were cheating heavily.

Vegas was a shit show. A curfew had gone in effect a week before to try to reduce the violence that was making news and causing havoc with the tourist trade.

It was getting more difficult to leave Carla at my place during the day, not because I didn’t trust her to stay put, but because I didn’t like being away from her. I knew I could protect her if I was there, but I didn’t trust myself to be near her, not after what happened between us on the first night she stayed with me.

By withholding any kind of friendship or even civil conversation to avoid the risk of getting personal, I was adding to the stress of her isolation, and I hated it. I didn’t want to drive her out of the apartment in search of any human contact. She couldn’t get on social media or even message with her friends. She’d had to drop out of her normal life, and I was making things worse for her in an effort to protect myself from the desire that seemed to get more powerful every day.

There was another kind of danger, too. The insidious comfort level, the fact that I looked forward to coming home to her every night. I sat there, eating the delicious food she prepared and listening to her remarks on the slide deck I’d left her to study because she was missing class or the citations she had to redo on an essay for a different course. She didn’t talk half as much as she wanted to, I knew. But she couldn’t resist sharing some of her day with me, even if I barely responded beyond an ‘okay’ or ‘hmm’. She was reaching out for connection every day and every day I was pulling away instead of reaching back for her. There was a small but real chance I might lose my mind over this, over having her so close and being unable to touch her, hold her, make love to her. It had been the longest three weeks of my life so far and that included the time I had to spend a month undercover in a chicken processing plant six years ago.

Every time I saw her, I wanted to reach out for her, touch her. The fact that she was cooking, making a special meal for us each night didn’t help. I knew that making her mom’s recipes was comforting to her and provided a distraction when she was stuck inside all day. I still didn’t miss the point—Carla was taking care of me.

I was giving her a safe haven to protect her, and in her own way, she was providing a haven for me in the only way I’d allow her to do so. By cooking big, delicious meals and sharing them with me, by trying to fill in the silence of my normally lonely apartment. Even as I resisted her conversation, her attempts to be closer friends or share inside jokes, she got to me. Carla Russo had gotten under my skin.

Part of it was her stubbornness, the determined way she still spoke to me kindly, cheerfully during dinner, telling me about her day and about when she learned to cook the recipe or what she would change about it next time to improve it.

Most people, when basically ignored by a temporary roommate, would have resorted to hiding out in their room, eating before I got home, avoiding me completely. Not her. She waited for me to get home, learned my schedule and which nights I had late classes or office hours, and she timed the meal for when I’d arrive home. Twice I had texted her to let her know I’d be late. She had just replied, I’ll wait. That was probably the most powerful thing she had said to me.

It’s exactly what she was doing. Waiting. Waiting on me to thaw out, to give up my fight to resist her, waiting for me to lose my resolve and give in. As soon as I did, as soon as I started talking with her, giving her my full attention, I would be hopeless. I was already all but lost. I couldn’t make the same mistake again.

If I gave in to the attraction, to the feelings I had for her, then it would cost more than my job and her reputation and possibly her degree. It would cost me what was left of my integrity. One of the greatest lessons I learned on the police force was that the measure of a man was in his values, how he treated others—were his choices ethical or selfish? When I thought of the man I wanted to be, I knew that sleeping with a student wasn’t something compatible with my values.

The man I wanted to be might have started to want Carla Russo, though. Because when I walked through the door at night and smelled a delicious supper waiting for me and heard her singing in the kitchen, I had a shameful surge of happiness climb up my spine. I was embarrassed to admit it even to myself, but I caught myself wondering what it would be like if this were real. If it weren’t a necessary arrangement to keep her safe for a few weeks. But if it were a relationship, the two of us together, eating together, laughing and talking together, sleeping together. When I thought about it, it sounded very much like heaven. That was the kind of temptation I was fighting every waking minute of my day.

Kyle was the only one I could talk to about this. The guys all knew what was going on, the basics of it, but he was the one I confided in. I didn’t think that Kyle having twins with his former student and marrying her left him in a position to judge me. So, I cravenly sought his counsel instead of the advice that Hamilton, Rick or Aaron would give me.

Ham would say it was a liability issue and that me and the university could be sued successfully for harassment and coercion. Rick would say not to trust her because she was probably setting me up so she could blackmail me or post a series of Tik Toks about her dirty old man professor, and Aaron would say she was hot and I should hit that.

I wanted Kyle’s support because he was a good man, a man I respected and whose opinion I valued. Kyle had a strong understanding of what was exploitative to women in our society. I needed him to tell me his regrets about his own situation as well as his intellectual views. But I knew he wouldn’t have regrets. The man was happy, or thought he was, after decades of bachelorhood. I was still unconvinced that marriage and children was the path to happiness but seeing the way he had opened up was enough to make me stop and think.

“I’ve got a problem.”

“Are you talking about the Mob war or the grad student you’ve moved into your bedroom?” he asked, typically pulling no punches.

“She has her own bedroom. With a lock.”

“And does she stay in there and lock the door?” he inquired.

“I haven’t tried the knob so I wouldn’t know,” I said truthfully, while avoiding the issue of having basically carried her into my bedroom on the first night.

“If you expect me to believe that you have had her staying with you for three weeks and exchanged no more than a platonic high-five, you must think marriage has made me senile, my old friend,” Kyle said.

I heaved a sigh that sounded like I’d been dragging the weight of the world around.

“I’ll ask you for the specifics, but first, let me guess,” Kyle said. “Consider it an exercise in psychology or even profiling as you would have it being a former cop.”

“Fine,” I said. “Tell me how well you know me. Go ahead,” I said grimly.

“You were attracted to a student. You struggled with it and possibly made an ass out of yourself by avoiding her. The attraction kept cropping up, more often and more inconveniently. You were stuck in a situation where you had no choice but to be in close quarters. In my case, it was being assigned to mentor Mindy in her internship, and you would never imagine how small my office is until you put an entire person in there that you cannot get anywhere near. I practically huddled in my chair behind my desk.”

“I’m not sure she’s ever been in my office. I’m barely in my office,” I said.

“Anyway, in your case, you’ve become involved in this woman’s personal life. You saved her from a mugger after we all left the bar. So you feel in some way responsible for her welfare now, and being a cop I imagine that’s magnified because of your whole cowboy-rides-in-to-save-the-day mentality.”

“That’s insulting.”

“I’m not trying to insult you. You were a good cop, and you’re a good criminal justice instructor. In the years I’ve known you, you’ve watched everyone’s back. It’s who you are. I suspect that Secret Service agents are similarly protective in their private lives. My point is, this danger came up with her father’s business and the trouble brewing with increased Mob violence. You took her in. She was alone and afraid. One thing, I expect, led to another and your better judgment took the day off. Am I on track?”

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