Freeing Tuesday (12 page)

“Pretty… You seem more like a Tuesday type of girl, but Mallory is nice too. Now, how about you tell me why you're hiding.”

I blow out a breath, “That’s a loaded question.”

“Alright let’s try this one. Is it just your husband you're running from?”

“No,” I don't know what has happened to me. I used to be in command of myself but evidently I've gone soft when it came to talking to Evan.

“What are you running from?”

I hesitate so he asks the question again and with all the alcohol running through my system I blurt everything out. Twenty-seven years of secrets. Twenty-seven years of keeping my mouth shut. Five years of running and hiding and right now my alcohol induced word vomit gets the best of me.

“The mob! OK? I'm running from my life. I'm fucking hiding and that’s why I didn't want to tell you! Why couldn't you just leave well enough alone?” The words come out in a jumbled up mess, high pitched and squeaky and my hand shoots to cover my mouth to try and keep more words from coming out.

His eyes widen with every word that I say. “The mob?” I nod. “Quit fuckin’ with me.”

“I'm not joking, Evan,” I squeak out past my fingers. He grabs my hand and pulls it away from my face and tells me to talk. I take a deep breath, knowing that he knows too much already but I can’t seem to get myself to shut up. “My father is Robert Austin. As in Las Vegas mob boss Robert Austin. I grew up as the daughter of a mob boss and when a new guy came to town my father traded me for his fucking life! Is this what you want to hear? That my life is this one big fucking mess where I can't let anyone close enough because it would put them in danger too!”

“The new guy?” He asks, completely ignoring my outburst about putting him in danger.

“Anthony Daniello. My… husband.” Just talking about him causes me to shiver and look around. Like my body thinks just speaking his name will cause some Bloody Mary shit and he will show up.

“Daniello? I've heard that name before.” He drops his hands and I take the opportunity to pour myself another shot. My hands shake so bad that the alcohol spills over the sides of the glass as I bring it to my lips. “You married him?” he asks quietly.

“Not willingly,” I breathe out, “it was another way for him to control me.”

“Tell me what happened. I promise you can trust me, Tuesday.”

I think about it for a minute before looking back at him. He really hasn’t given me a reason not to trust him and I know I won’t be able to do this sober.

“My father made some bad deals that backfired on him. The night it all came crashing down, they found him and I was there, they held a gun to his head so he offered me up in exchange for his life,” I shrug. The facts are the facts and I tell them just like I would tell him the forecast for the week. Now that I’m talking about it, it just kind of tumbles out of my mouth. “He made us get married three days later. I had skills he found handy, just like my father did.”

His eyebrows hit his hairline as he takes in the information I throw at him. “Skills?”

Evan

“What type of skills?” I ask. I can’t believe what I’m hearing but just the look on her face tells me that none of it is a lie.

“Aren’t you tired of this yet? I think I’ve given up enough.”

“Not even close. I want to know everything.”

Her eyes plead with me not to do this but I can’t stop. I have to know everything about her now that she’s let me in. “You don’t what to know it all, I promise.”

I reach for her hand and pull it towards me. My lips press against the pulse point in her wrist as I meet her eyes. “Everything, Tuesday. Nothing is going to change how I feel about you, I promise.”

She softens and rests her head against her hand before speaking again. “I made runs. I scared people,“ she shrugs, “I uh, I took care of problems.”

“You still scare people, Tuesday. That look you have is deadly,” I chuckle and the corner of her mouth perks up.

“Yeah. That has always come in handy”

“Why did you do all that? Didn’t they have guys to do it?”

She nods, “Yeah, they had guys, but guys don’t have tits and tits get you out of
a lot
of trouble. I was groomed to do all of it growing up so I was good at it.”

“Tits. I knew I was missing something,” I joke, knowing that if I don’t at least act like myself she is going to clam up and stop talking. She snorts and punches me in the shoulder.

“It’s true; these babies have gotten me out of some major shit before. I bet if they were bigger I could have gotten away with everything.” I know the alcohol she has drunk is starting to get to her as she cups her breasts and laughs.

My eyes drop to what she is doing with her hands and I clear my throat and adjust myself, “They’re perfect.”

Her eyes lock with mine and I can tell that she’s thinking far too hard for her drunken mind. “You just told me you think my boobs are perfect. That’s so sweet.”

I laugh, “OK, I can’t talk about your chest anymore.”

“How do you not hate me right now?” she asks, sadness filling her voice.

I brush another piece hair away from her face and tuck it behind her ear before cupping her cheek, “I don’t think I could ever hate you, Tuesday. The past doesn’t define who you become.”

Her head drops and the smile falls from her face. “I’ve killed people,” she whispers.

My mind reels from what just came out of her mouth. The whys, how and how many spin so fast I can barely get my mind to cooperate with my mouth. I can tell by the look on her face that the fact that she killed people wrecks her. I pull my dog tags from under my shirt and squeeze my fist around them.

“Me too.”

“That’s different. Yours were justified.”

“Still the same end result. I can tell it has the same effect on you that it did on me. How many?”

She hesitates, “Seven.”

Holy shit
.

“How did you deal with it?” I ask quietly.

“I haven’t. All I see when I look at myself in the mirror is the horrible things I have done. I still wake up in the middle of the night because I have nightmares where I’m doing it all over again.”

I have to turn the subject away from killing, to lighten the mood before she closes herself off again. I hate knowing she feels like this and not being able to do anything about it. “So, are you going to tell me why there can’t be anything between us?”

She laughs but it’s hollow and forced, “That’s what’s running through your head right now?” I smile and nod. “Did you not just see what happened when we walked in here?”

“What? The seven digit security code and the searching; the gun under your pillow?” Her face pales. “I’m not an idiot, Tuesday. I can put two and two together.”

She sighs, “All of it, Evan. It’s been five years and I’m never sure if I’m going to see the light of day or if I’m going to have to find a new state to live in without saying goodbye to anyone. I don’t want to be more attached than I already am.”

“How do you even know they are still looking for you? I mean it’s been that long so maybe they gave up.”

She shakes her head and stands up, her body swaying from the alcohol. Her hand reaches out for mine and when I grasp it she hauls me towards the couch. Pushing me down, she grabs her laptop and sits a few inches from me but I’m not having any of that.

I pull her towards me until her whole side is pressed against me and wrap my arm around her shoulders. She stiffens for a minute before melting into me.

Her fingers type furiously across the keyboard and before I can tell what she was doing an FBI search page was pulled up on the screen.
Holy hell!
She continued typing until a blonde version of herself popped up on the screen.

“They never stop looking unless there’s a body. They stopped searching for Mallory Daniello after a while and started using my maiden name of Austin. Like I’m stupid enough to just go back to that or something,” she leans forward and puts the laptop back on the coffee table. “So, now do you understand why it’s not safe for you to be with me?”

“I get why you don’t want to get attached but I’m a big boy, Tuesday.”

“You don’t get-”

I cut her off by running my thumb over her lips before pressing my mouth to hers. My hands snake up into her hair and tangle themselves there, holding her to me.

“I do,” I whisper when I pull back, “but I also know that I’ve never wanted anything more than I want this and I’ll do whatever it takes to make you see that.”

She pulls me back toward her and stares into my eyes while she barely grazes her lips over mine; her fingers skim over my head. I grab her hips and pull her over me so she is straddling my thighs and I attack her mouth with mine. Her lips part and she meets my tongue with the same passion that I show her. My teeth graze over her bottom lip and she moans into my mouth.

I only pull back when neither one of us can breathe, she buries her face into my neck and I can feel her heart racing right along with mine. My fingers trace patterns over her back before finally sliding into the back pockets on her jeans.

“Are we ok for right now?” her voice rumbles off my neck.

“More ok than we’ve ever been.” She squeezes me tightly in her arms and just when I think she’s going to pull back and leave me hanging here by myself she pulls herself closer to me and sighs.

“I have to help get stuff ready for Jameson’s birthday dinner. Please tell me you’re going.”

I chuckle, “Abby threatened to cut my balls off if I don’t, and since I’m kind of attached to them, yeah, I’m going.”

She nuzzles her face into me and before I know it her breathing evens out and I don’t dare move because I don’t want to wake her up. So I pull the blanket from behind us, drape it over her, rest my head back on the couch and fall asleep to the tiny snores coming out of Tuesday.

Evan

I stand up from the island and walk over to Tuesday when Abby takes the girls out of the kitchen to play outside. Looking around I make sure no one has come back in before I draw my finger down her back. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

“What are you doing?” I laugh when I look over her shoulder and she’s elbow deep inside a turkey.

She turns around and smirks at me. I can tell she’s got something brewing in her head and it eases my nerves a bit. After this morning and the way she tried to push me away I thought we were going to have a fight on our hands. She didn’t give in until I told her I wasn’t going to let her do it anymore. Whether she dropped the subject just to please me or because she wanted this too, I’m still not sure.

“I’m stuffing a damn turkey. What the hell does it look like?”

“Well, if that turkey was me I’d be begging for some foreplay before I let you stuff me like that.”

She tries to hide her laughter but her hand is still inside the bird and she makes no attempt to move it which makes us both laugh. Once she gains control of herself I lean into her.

“Does your turkey need a little foreplay before you stuff it?” I whisper against her ear, “or would you like it if I stuffed your turkey.”

“You wanna stuff my turkey?” she asks with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

I run my finger over the cold raw skin of the turkey and up her arm. “Foreplay and all, baby. How tender do you like your meat?”

“I like my meat tough. I want it to last while it’s in my mouth.”

I almost choke on my tongue because this is my Tuesday. This is the girl that I lose every once in a while when she gets in her own head; my dirty pervert that gives me a run for my money.

She turns and winks at me, “I’m more than willing to let you stuff my turkey. You don’t even have to romance it first.”

“That’s good, because I’m not very patient when I’m hungry.”

Her mouth drops open a little. I watch her breathing get harder. “Yeah? I’ll make sure it’s precooked. I mean, I don’t want you getting sick.”

“Mmm… Good, then I can just slide it right into the oven and warm it up.”

“I certainly hope you have a big enough baster for this. I need to make sure you can reach all the spots that need to be... basted.”