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We roll to a stop and the plane’s engines wind down. “I asked for clothes,” I tell her, unwilling to move and let her go even for a minute. “We can change here. A car will be waiting for us.”
To take me home. Fuck.
I wonder if Rook heard the news and will come visit. The idea is both exciting and alarming. Rook can be one scary motherfucker when he’s in a bad mood, and my vanishing act is sure to have pissed him off.
Meet my friends: Hawk, sarcasm incarnate, and Rook, the eternal grump.
I relinquish my hold on Raylin when the attendant comes in with our clothes. Black pressed pants, shirt, and jacket for me, and a gray dress for Raylin. She also brings shoes, coats and even generic underwear.
The attendant hangs the clothes on a hook and turns to help Raylin undress.
Raylin takes a step back, and I get between them. “We’re fine, Sondra. Go ahead and check if the car is here.”
Raylin grabs the dress, then glances up at me, slender dark brows knitted. I’m not sure she’s enraged about the conservative gray knee-length dress or just shocked.
“I didn’t ask for anything specific,” I say, wincing inwardly at the pants, jacket, and white shirt. I ignore the tie as I start undressing. “They brought what they thought we might want.”
She nods, and her silence is yet another sign she’s not dealing with this so well. Dammit. I need to get her alone with me again, work her over until she relaxes and tells me what’s on her mind.
That requires putting on clothes and get into that car.
A glance at my phone make me wince again. I put it on silent during the flight, and I only have, like, thirty missed calls and countless text messages to wade through. Everyone, from the company Board of Directors to the cleaning lady needs to talk to me and have my signature on something. I hope I can put off meeting with the lawyers until tomorrow, at least.
My heart is hammering with adrenaline. What I want to do right now is run, let it out of my system. Or swim. That might do the trick. Do some laps in the pool.
I’m falling back into my old habits and barely noticing. Back into my old life, though my apartment where we’ll be heading in a minute came to me only after my uncle died. But this… this lack of worry about where everything comes from, transport, money, food, this lack of effort on my part for most things people have to fight for is like slipping into my discarded skin and becoming that guy again.
That guy, that snake, lurking in the Garden of Good and Evil, and knowing the truth has never been a blessing. At least, not to me.
***
The white limo drives us to the city center. The short drive there is spent in silence. Raylin keeps tugging on the hem of her dress. She kicked off her shoes the moment we stepped into the car. She looks different, in that dress, and yet the same. Just as sexy, and the cut clings to her curves, making my mouth water.
Shit, I wish the building had a helipad like the one where my uncle used to live, but I couldn’t do it after he died and I came back. Couldn’t live in his apartment or the family home. No way.
My leg throbs in rhythm to the pounding in my head. I watch the city roll by through the tinted windows, and I’m so sure something else will happen on the way—another accident, like a car crashing into us, bullets slamming through us, a bomb going off and tearing us to pieces—that I start when Raylin puts a hand on my thigh.
“We stopped,” she says. “Where are we?”
I blink, and sure enough we have arrived. The building soars up into the sky, sparkling in the midday sun, a tower of glass and polished steel.
“We’re home,” I say, the word meaningless to me, but at least we made it here. So far so good.
Paranoid, my mind accuses, and I hear Hawk’s voice like an echo behind it. Paranoid. When will you accept the fact nobody’s after you?
The doorman gets my door, and I squint into the daylight. I climb out and quickly round the limo to open Raylin’s door myself. She gives me her hand and I pull her out, put an arm around her, keeping her close to me as we hurry to the entrance.
Could it be all in my head? Could he be right? I guess everyone thinks his luck is worse than that of others, when in fact we’re all struggling to keep our heads above the water. Fact is, tragedy can strike just about anyone, rich or poor, ugly or beautiful. I should know.
Only problem is, I don’t really believe in luck. I believe in consequences. You lie in the bed you made for yourself, that’s what I believe. No matter how my parents’ death fucked me up, how it tore me apart, I’m pretty sure they brought it on themselves. Karma, man. It’s a bitch.
As for my uncle, I think he tread waters too deep to keep his footing.
We enter the elevator, and I insert my key to start it. The doors close and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Yeah, karma. And as for myself… No clue. Guess I must have been an asshole in a past life. A real first-class motherfucker.
“You okay, Storm?” Her voice is a silver thread in the maze of my thoughts, and I follow it to find her staring up at me with those big eyes that look right into my soul.
