Eighteen

Joel

S he’s busting my balls, but she got good reason to. She’s also messing with my head, and that isn’t her fault, and I don’t need this shit but it’s happening.

I don’t have any calls to make. And she’s right, I could’ve taken her to the clubhouse, I chose not to do that. A rash decision, and I don’t know why I made it, but here she is. In my home.

Splashing my face with cold water, I take a second to think. I stare into the mirror and try to work out what the fuck’s going on. Skip stuck me with looking after her, and I fought that, and yet, now, I don’t want to let her out of my sight. When the fuck did that happen?

I head back downstairs. I don’t trust her not to have bolted the second I came up here, but she hasn’t gone anywhere. She’s in the living room, where I told her to go, sitting in the armchair by the window reading a book.

I lean back against the doorjamb and cross my arms. “See? I do have books.”

She looks up and throws me a small smile. She’s got the prettiest smile, and I’m only just realizing that she’s doing it a lot more often now. Smiling. I mean, she’s not doing it a lot, but she’s doing it more. That’s a plus.

“Yeah. You’re full of surprises.” She turns her attention back to the book, swinging her legs over the arm of the chair.

“I should probably get you back home.”

“I don’t have a home,” she says, without looking up.

“Jesus, Ana…”

She slams the book shut, her eyes boring into mine. “You can stand there and tell me that this is my life now, but I don’t have to believe you. I can humor you, sure, but don’t tell me this is all I have left. That this is my future. Don’t do that.”

She’s spoiling for a fight, but I’m not giving her one.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

She puts the book down on the window ledge and gets up: comes over to me, her eyes locked on mine.

“I don’t know if I want to leave yet.”

She pushes past me, goes back into the kitchen, and I follow her. “Freja will be wondering where you are.”

“So, tell her I’m with you. If I call her she won’t believe me.” She leans back against the counter and crosses her arms. And there’s something different about this woman now. Something harder. Colder. And that’s not surprising, given what she’s been through, but it kind of kills me that we did this to her. “You got any food in this place?” She looks around, rolls her eyes, and sighs quietly. “This ridiculously tidy place.”

“In the fridge. Help yourself.”

I go call the club: tell Freja that Ana’s with me, that I’ll keep an eye on her. And when I go back into the kitchen she’s making a sandwich and drinking beer, the TV now playing quietly in the background.

“Want one?” she asks, indicating the sandwich she’s making. I shake my head. She shrugs, and spreads mustard over some bread. “This is a nice house.”

“Well, it’s home, I suppose.”

She turns around, sandwich in one hand, and pushes herself up onto the countertop. “I’m finding it really disturbing that it’s so clean, though.”

“You think we all live like pigs, just because we ride bikes?”

She keeps her eyes on me as she takes a bite of her sandwich. “You do a lot more than just ride bikes, though.”

I smile. She doesn’t. “Maybe. Still doesn’t mean we need to live in squalor.”

She chews her food and glances back over her shoulder, into the yard outside. And for a moment or two there’s a not entirely uncomfortable silence.

“You must hate being on babysitting duties, huh?”

Her eyes are back on me, and I find myself smiling again. “I know I got a hundred other things I’d rather be doing.”

“Yeah.” She can tell I’ve got my tongue firmly in my cheek. “Of course you have.”

I grab another beer from the fridge and lean back against the center island. You’ve got a lot to learn about us, Ana. How we work. How we live.”

She finishes her sandwich and wipes her hands on her jeans. And you’re going to teach me, are you?”

I smile again, but say nothing. I just look at her, because the more I do that, the more I can see the kind of woman she really is: who she was, before the shit hit the fan and we became her world.

“I really should get you home.”

“Don’t keep calling it that. It isn’t my home.” She slides down from the countertop, putting her empty plate into the sink as she downs a long draft of beer. “And I don’t want to go back there. Not yet.”

The strange thing is, I’m not sure I want her to go, but she should. I don’t like what’s happening here, I don’t understand it, and I need it to stop.

“Doesn’t matter. I should still take you back.”

She turns around, her eyes hard as they stare into mine. “Do you want me to go?”

“Get your jacket. Come on.”

“Do you want me to go?”

What kind of shit is this? What the fuck is she doing? “Just get your jacket, Ana. I’m not in the mood for this crap.”

She shakes her head, comes over to me, and she’s smiling. She’s fucking playing me. “I told you, I don’t want to go yet.”

“And I told you I’m taking you home.”

“So you are tired of playing babysitter, then?”

She reaches out, places a hand on my chest, and I quickly remove it. “Why did Skip ask you to do that?”

“Do what?” I’m starting to get irritated now.

“Look after me. Why didn’t he get one of the younger guys to do that? Prospects, isn’t that what you call them?”

“Maybe he thought they couldn’t be trusted. He trusts me.”

“Trusts you to, what? Not touch me?”

“Jesus, Ana, what the fuck is this? ’Cause let me tell you one thing, sweetheart, you’re playing a really dangerous game here.”

“Who’s playing?”

She holds my gaze, hers doesn’t flinch. Cold eyes stare into even colder ones, and I know I have two choices now: get her out of here, or risk giving into something wrong and dangerous, shit I really don’t need. Shit neither of us needs.

“You think, after everything I’ve been through, I’m in the mood to play games? Is that what you think, Joel?”

“I don’t know what the fuck to think anymore.” I’m done. I’m fucked. I’ve made my choice, and I’ll probably go to hell for it but I’ve given every fuck I had.

“If I’ve really got to stay here, if that really is the only option I have, and I’m still not sure that it is, but if, for now, this is all I’ve got, I might as well live this life. Right? Until I can start a new one, because I will, start a new one, Joel. This isn’t my world, and I don’t ever want it to be.”

“If I was to say to you, walk out that door and don’t look back. You’re free. Would you do it? Would you walk?”

Her gaze remains rock steady, except, was that a flicker I just saw there?

“Would you walk, Ana?”

She doesn’t answer, still holds my gaze, but the flicker is more prominent now. “You wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t give me that option.”

I raise an eyebrow, the corner of my mouth inching up a little. “Wouldn’t I?”

“Don’t be an asshole, Joel.”

“Go. Go on. I’ll tell them I turned my back, you took a chance, and you ran. I’ll take the blame.”

“Skip will only send people out to look for me.”

There’s something in her voice now, an uncertainty. She’s wary of my words, I’m confusing her. I’ve got the upper hand back, and that was necessary.

“I can persuade him to let it go. To let you go. Skip trusts me, trusts my judgement, so, if you want to go, go.” I jerk my head back toward the door and step aside. “I won’t stand in your way.”

She’s staring me out now, a darkness clouding her blue eyes.

“You’re free to leave, Ana. All you have to do is open that door, and walk out.”

The confusion on her face mounts with each word, each passing second, and even I’m starting to think this tactic could backfire spectacularly. But, deep down, I know she isn’t going anywhere. For all her bravado and hollow threats she knows we’re keeping her safe. She’ll stay, because she needs to. She’s not stupid.

“Do you want me to go?” she whispers, and the coldness in her eyes is starting to recede, replaced by the sadness that’s been ever present since the day she came to us.

“It’s your decision, Ana. I’m not going to tell you what to do.”

“You aren’t being fair.” She shakes her head and takes a step back from me. “This is bullshit, Joel.”

She turns around, starts to walk away, but I grab her wrist, swing her back around, into my arms, and I kiss her like the fucking world is ending. And she resists, at first, tries to push me away, but that resistance lasts less than a second. Her fingers grasp my T-shirt, her body pressed against mine, and I rest a hand on the small of her back and keep her close because she tastes like fucking heaven.

“I hate you,” she murmurs, her mouth still touching mine, her breath shallow, I can feel her heart beating against my chest. And I just laugh, and kiss her again, and this time her fingers are in my hair, pulling at it as the kiss deepens, man, she’s freakin’ killing me! This is dangerous shit, and I shouldn’t have gone here, I thought the days of thinking with my dick were long gone, but, I’m not sure that’s actually what’s happening here. “No!”

As soon as the word is out of her mouth, I let her go. I step back. She puts her hands on her hips and bows her head, her shoulders heaving as she struggles to catch her breath.

“Look, Ana, I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have–”

“What are you sorry for?” She lifts her head: looks me right in the eye. “ I’m not sorry.”

I don’t know what I’m feeling now. Don’t know what’s happening here. All I know is shit’s changed. Something’s shifted. Ana isn’t the kid I first thought she was, she’s a woman who’s had her world turned inside out and did I just take advantage of that?

“We can’t do this,” I whisper, even though I don’t mean that. With every fiber of my fucking being I want to do this.

“Too dangerous, huh?”

For me, yeah. For her, too.

She grabs her jacket from the counter and shrugs it on. “Come on, then. Take me home.”

“I thought you didn’t have one of those.”

“I’ve got a temporary one.” Her eyes once more lock on mine, and I feel a kick to the gut I don’t think I’ve ever felt before. It’s hard, and it fucking hurts. “But know this, Joel. Everything I said before, I meant it. This isn’t my world, and I’m not staying here forever.”

Maybe she means that. Maybe she doesn’t. Right now, I’m not going to argue with her.