Brody (16 page)

She caught me staring and her menu went in front of her eyes. Like she was shy or something. The waitress penned down our order moments later. Alex got soup and a salad while I chose a sandwich. We finally had time alone and I reached into my pocket, taking out what I owed her. I pushed the wad of cash her way and she picked it up, sighing.

She chewed her lip. “Brody, I can’t take anything more from you. Money especially. It just doesn’t feel right.”

She got it all wrong and that made sense. I placed my hands on the table. “It’s actually yours,” I said, pointing at the stack. “Your friend at the club, the one in the pink wig? She said it was, uh, your earnings. She wanted me to give it to you.”

Her fingers toyed with the bills and her expression changed, sad instead of happy like I thought she’d be at getting what was hers. Setting it on the table, she did a quick feather through with her fingers and shook her head.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

She faced me. “It’s too much. I never earned this much the other nights.”

She caught on quickly and I knew I had to explain.

Tapping my fists on the table, I sat back. “It’s not just from the club.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s from Chloe,” I said, coming right out with it. There wasn’t a point in beating around the bush here. “What she took from you. She told me everything.”

I watched her hard, trying to get into her headspace. But like many times before, Alex proved to be an extra careful concealer, of everything, her emotions and all.

She put her hand to her mouth. “I don’t know what to say.”

The thing is, I did. So much, really. I started with this. “You should have told me, Alex. You had me thinking…” I didn’t want to finish. I couldn’t stomach the words what she’d allowed me to believe about her, that she was even capable of stealing. “What she did to you was wrong and because of it, had you thinking you needed to…”

I could hear myself getting frustrated, with Chloe and with myself for getting all riled up because of her. I looked up and Alex’s expression had me feeling so much worse, her eyes cringing.

“For what, Brody?” she asked, sitting back. “For thinking I had to what?”

I didn’t understand the question as the answer I felt obvious. “For the other night. She pushed you into a corner for money.”

Her arms folded over her chest. I had seen Alex closed off before. I found her that way, but even then wasn’t like this. She shut down. She felt far away all of a sudden and I had no idea why.

She played with her water glass. “You think better of me than I am,” she said, nodding with it. “I’ve done this before, Brody. Danced. So many times.”

The words didn’t surprise me. Though, she didn’t look comfortable up there, she did know her way around the stage. I leaned in. “Anything you’ve done is whatever you felt you needed to do to survive, Alex. To get by and I get that. I respect that.”

She pressed her lips together, looking on the cusp of shedding tears I had only heard on the road before, never right in front of me. I reached across the table, for her hand, to touch her, but I didn’t make it far. The waitress came back with our order, placing my sandwich and chips in front of me and her order in front of her. I thanked her and she left, but I just stared at my food, losing my appetite all of a sudden. Alex didn’t reach for her order either and I was ninety percent sure that didn’t have anything to do with her stomach. She was just so guarded and she didn’t have to be. I’d never judge her, ever, and I had a strong feeling all
this
, everything weaved up inside her wasn’t just about her, but a little boy a couple states away.

“You dancing…” I started, thinking about how to word what I had to say next. There was no easy way. “You dancing or anything else you’ve had to do for money is okay—”

“It’s only dancing,” she said, breathing. She played with her napkin. “It’s only ever been dancing. What you saw me doing, what you
found
me doing when we met, I’d never done before. That’s was the first time, Brody. I swear. I’ve also sold drugs, but that was back in New York when things when got really bad. With that guy at the diner, I had nothing and he offered and I needed it. I needed it so bad for us—”

Her own words, she silenced. She didn’t finish, but I had a feeling I knew where she was going. Kind of like I’d had a feeling about her. I had a feeling she had never tried to sell herself before that night. What she said only confirmed it. But what was going on? What all was she keeping in about her and…

Folding my hands, I rested them on the table. “How did your call go?” I dared to ask her, thinking this was exactly where I needed to go with the conversation. “Last night with your nephew?”

This hit a trigger like I knew it would. It hit because it was something personal. I’d heard some of what she and her nephew exchanged faintly through the door, but nothing of note. I just knew Aiden wanted her to come home so bad, urgently, and with what she was willing to do in order to make that happen, red flags were definitely set off with me.

Alex only shook her head in response, but that made me want to push more as she didn’t look any closer to holding her tears back. In fact, they looked on the cusp of spilling over at any moment.

“Is he okay?” I asked, going there. “Aiden. Is he all right?”

Her arms folded over her chest and she whispered, “I don’t know.”

The words absolutely chilled me. I swallowed. “Why? Is he hurt? Is he in danger? Alex…”

I lost her again when she looked away, but she couldn’t escape this time. No, I wouldn’t let her. I grabbed her hand, holding it and keeping her here with me.

I squeezed. “I want to help you, but I can’t do that if I don’t know what I’m dealing with.”

Her bottom lip slid into her mouth. She nibbled on it. “I can’t ask that of you. Your help? I can’t take another thing, Brody. Not another damn thing.”

“You didn’t ask,” I told her, urging the statement. “You didn’t, so if something’s wrong I need you to tell me. I need you to let me help.”

Her hand clenched in a tight fist on the table, so I slid over, taking that one, too. What I didn’t expect was her to be holding something I hadn’t seen in so long. She opened her hand and square in the middle, sat the mood ring I gave her on the road. She never got rid of it. She had it this whole time.

I placed my hand on top of it, holding hers underneath.

Please let me help you.

“There’s a guy,” she said, like she heard my silent plea. “There’s a man.”

It wasn’t much but it was something. “Aiden’s dad?”

She shook her head. “Aiden’s dad is in jail. Has been since he was born. Real winners my sister chooses.”

One thing the man did do was bring her nephew into this world and that could only be fate. I squeezed her hands and she continued.

“He was a guy who gave a good illusion. He was perfect.” She paused, laughing a little. “My sister doesn’t draw people like that. She never draws good people. She’s such a mess.”

“What happened?” I had a feeling I might not want the answer, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need it.

Her lips went tight. “He turned out to be a bad guy. A bad guy that did bad things and went to jail for them. But before that, he worked his way in. He got to her, my sister. He got her to trust him. He got
me
to trust him and think he was different. Growing up, my sister and I didn’t have much. Our mom’s serving time for drugs. Our dad, we have no idea where he is.”

What she said wasn’t easy to hear, not at all, and I hated we had as much in common as we did. We both grew up without a biological mother in our lives.

“And then, my sister had Aiden,” she went on. “He was our only good thing. But even with him, he couldn’t keep my sister and I from butting heads. We fought all the time, about the bills, her boyfriends. She had this one that spent all our rent money on drugs and she got high right alongside him. She even let him take the money set aside for Aiden’s diapers one day, Brody,” she paused, shaking her head. “The baby’s diapers. I couldn’t take it and she couldn’t take the nagging from her
younger
sister
.
She kicked me out and I pretty much couch surfed through middle school.”

She was so young to be on her own, just a baby herself.

“But then this guy came in,” she said, folding her hands on the table. “He came in and made things different. My sister didn’t get high anymore. She was responsible with her money. She even asked me to move back in just before high school. I would have too, but I got into a fine arts school on the coast for dancing. I was given a scholarship and boarding, doing things I thought were impossible, and my sister and this guy were so supportive. He even drove her and Aiden up to my recitals. He never missed one and looked happy to do it, to be there. He was just so nice. He was perfect until he wasn’t.”

Her voice cracked then, broke down, and choking, she got it back.

“I didn’t see the bruises, Brody,” she said, her eyes glassing. “I didn’t see them. She always hid them when I saw her, and Aiden… he kept quiet for
years
.”

My face blazed, and my hands in hers, I tried to keep them from shaking at this guy’s cowardice. Because that’s what a man was, a coward, to ever lay his hands on a woman.

“Did he hurt Aiden?” I asked, and I didn’t know how I managed to voice the question. My right mind had left the moment she admitted what this fucker did. “Did he ever—”

“No.” She sniffed. “Not him. I asked. He never laid hands on him, but did just as much damage. It would always happen the same time every night. He’d get off work, get home from the bar super late, and my baby…” She finally let it go then, her tears. “I thought Aiden just called to talk to me, Brody. But he called because he was in the closet as that man beat the shit out of my sister. And he still calls every night long after because of the nightmares.”

I closed my eyes. The watch. Her watch. He needs a call the same time every night.

How fucked up…

“And he never told you?” I asked her. “Aiden, never told you what was going on?”

She shook her head. “I think he was just scared. He was just so small then. A little thing.”

Letting out a breath, I relieved some anger no matter how little. “How did you find out?”

“My sister was good at hiding it, but she couldn’t do it forever. I figured it out when she, Aiden, and I went to the beach. She admitted everything, but she wouldn’t leave him. She wouldn’t. She said she loved him and I told her if she didn’t do it for herself, she had to do it for Aiden. She still didn’t listen. She wouldn’t tell. She stayed silent.”

A single tear dropped from her cheek then and her hands were the ones that started shaking in mine this time.

“Alex?”

Her lashes blinked up. “She stayed silent, but I did something. I did something and he’s in jail now for the bad things he did. At least, I thought he was.”

I didn’t understand, but she went on.

“After he started his sentence, my sister and I had a falling out. Any good relationship we’d developed after she got clean just wiped away as if it never happened. She blamed me for putting her boyfriend there. Pissed off, hurt, I went to New York and left California behind me. I thought I could make it out there. I danced so well in school. I really thought I could make it and knew it’d be the only shot I’d have at working out my problems with my sister. If I made something for myself, provided for her and Aiden both, I could pull them out of California and we could all just start over. We’d be a family and…”

Pushing our hands together, I rubbed hers. She didn’t have to keep going with this and I hated to hear the pain in her voice. Eventually, I had to hear more.

“But it didn’t work out that way,” she whispered swallowing. “Days passed,
months
in which I couldn’t find work. All the good leads I had going in fell through and no auditions led to anything worthwhile. I was stuck, couldn’t pay my rent, and ended up dancing in nightclubs just to keep a roof over my head. But then those clubs turned into exotic ones and when I wasn’t doing that, I was hustling and selling all kinds of things I’m not proud of. I almost came home so many times, my tail between my legs, but I chickened out every time. I guess it was my pride. But one day, I got a call from him, Aiden. A call that changed everything.”

I was afraid to ask the extent. “What did he say?”

Her hand moved over her hair, lowering to her neck. “He said he called. The guy. He called asking for my sister, Elena. They’d moved since he and Elena were together and a guy with a similar sounding voice called one day asking about my sister. Aiden wouldn’t say anything to him, though. He was silent after the initial hello and ended up hanging up on him. He called me immediately after. Aiden thought he might be back. He thought he might be
out
.”

I let out a breath, all this so much to take in. “But there could be a chance he’s not back? He could have called your sister from the inside, and Alex, that might not even have been him on the phone. Aiden could have been mistaken.”

She shook her and my gut did nothing but turn. “I looked him up. He was up for parole, and…”

He could get out and go for the family he believed sent him there.

“He’s out, Brody,” she said, nearly shaking. “It’s all public record. He’s out and I’m scared. What if he finds them? And when he does, what if he doesn’t just go for Elena this time? What if he goes for Aiden?”

And she was going to take on all this alone, go to California into God only knew what. Alex, she was resourceful no doubt about that. But the odds were definitely stacked against her here.

I pushed my hand through my hair. “And you said, he hasn’t come around yet?”

“Not that I know of. Aiden would have told me.”

That was good, so good. But one other thing concerned me and that was her sister. She said her turning this guy in led to their falling out. What if she went all the way there and she was only met with resistance?

“What if your sister doesn’t want the help?” I asked her, hating that I had to. But with what she told me, it was a possibility. “What if you get all the way there only for her to turn you away? What if she wants to be with this guy still?” It hurt to say because all women deserved more than that, but sometimes, they didn’t realize that with the rest of the world.