Power Play (9 page)

“I honestly didn't think about it, Luke. I didn't realize you were the person he was talking about until I met you today. It surprised me, actually.”

“Well, it's hard to say no when a guy is practically begging at your feet to give lessons to the girl he's had a crush on since childhood.”

You'd have thought Clancy accidentally poured straight vodka in my glass, with the way I choked on my water. “What?”

“Oh, Gaby. You're just as naive as he is. I'd say it was cute if we didn't live in a world that barely lets children be naive anymore, let alone adults.”

Other than his official title as captain of the Pilots, and his obvious camera knowledge, I didn't know anything about Luke, but I was pretty sure he had just confirmed the bomb Landon had dropped on me at the concert in Chicago. Just as I thought at the concert though, I knew it couldn't be right.

“There is no way Landon has had a crush on me since childhood.” I dismissed Luke's comments. He was baiting me.

Landon and his family had been customers at our family's stores for as far back as I can remember. If he had any interest in me, it would have manifested years ago, right? Landon had never shown any interest in me.

Well, not until he watched Papa have a heart attack right alongside me. But any good person would call 911 and stay to see if they could help, right? His sudden interest could easily be defined as classic White-Knight syndrome. I wasn't the kind of girl who would keep Landon's attention for long. I'd just enjoy it while I had it.

Luke looked at his watch. “Speak of the devil.” He took a sip of his Bloody Mary and lifted his eyes to the TV screen above the bar.

I spun around in my seat. There Landon stood, his arm extended and holding the door open for a man walking in behind him. It was probably because Luke's comments were so fresh, but Landon's face seemed to light up when our eyes met. His eyes widened ever so slightly and his lips turned up in a full smile. So that was something.

“Landon Taylor! What are
you
doing here?” Luke's voice dripped with mock surprise.

“I was out for a run. Stopped for some water.” Landon eased into a barstool next to me.

Luke leaned over me to sniff Landon. “You smell nice for someone out for a run.”

I stifled a laugh. Luke was right. Landon smelled like soap and cologne, not sweat. My heart sped up with the thought that he planned to be here. Maybe Luke wasn't pulling my chain.

“I don't have to smell bad.”

“Yeah, you do.” Luke took a sip of his drink. “You smell bad by nature.”

“Fuck off.” Landon reached around me and punched Luke's bicep. The Bloody Mary sloshed around in the glass but didn't spill. Landon turned his attention to me. “How did he do?”

“Luke knows his stuff. If I can remember one third of what he told me, I'll be fine.”

“You'll remember, Gaby. And you can always look it up in the manual, now that you know what it all means,” Luke assured me.

I nodded. I had no clue what it all meant; I just hoped I remembered how to set my camera up like he'd showed me to get the effects I wanted, because if I tried going back to the manual, it would still read like Russian to me.

“I'm surprised you let me help her with her camera, since you've been hiding her from us. When are you gonna bring Gaby out?” Luke asked Landon.

“I'm not hiding her. I'm trying to get her to like me before you fuckers scare her off. Or try to steal her.”

“Well, you don't have to worry about me, but you know Gribov will be sniffing around like a fucking dog.”

“Ugh, why couldn't he have stayed in Charlotte?”

“He needed to get knocked on his ass,” Luke said. “Did you see that celly?”

“After his first goal?”

Luke took a drink and nodded.

“Act like you've been there before, son.”

“And that's why he got sent down.”

“Such a fucking prick,” Landon added.

I felt left out of the conversation, since I had no clue what they were talking about. Instead of trying to keep up, I looked around the restaurant. From the outside it looked like an old-school diner, with its red neon sign above the door and blue horizontal stripes accenting the whitewashed brick. Inside, it had wood finishes and a bar spanning the entire width of the long back wall. With its proximity to Comerica Park and Ford Field, it was a great place to hang out on Tigers and Lions game days. I should branch out more. We had usually parked and partied in Greektown before games.

“She's right beside you,” Luke said.

My head whipped back toward the guys.

What had I missed? Something good?

“I know.” Landon placed his hand on my upper thigh and I tensed at his intimate touch.

“You really do have it bad.” Luke drained his Bloody Mary and raised his hand to get Clancy's attention.

Clancy nodded and immediately dropped what he'd been doing to make Luke another drink. It struck me as odd, since patrons were sitting elbow to elbow at the bar, occupying almost every seat. Bartenders usually don't stop everything during a rush, even for their regular customers. I wondered what kind of relationship Luke and Clancy had behind the scenes.

“I guess it's official.” Luke pushed his empty Bloody Mary glass toward the bartender's side of the bar and lifted his eyes to the screen above.

Landon ignored Luke, and said, “I thought of an amazing place to do a shoot.”

“I can't believe I've never been here.”

Tourist-mode kicked in as I spun in a slow circle, mouth agape at the bleak beauty of the skeleton that was once Michigan Central Station. The train depot stood tall, though now no longer a bustling hub but a run-down, graffiti-covered shell of its former glory.

The terminal, with its arches and columns and peaks, was straight out of a gothic dream. Such a perfect setting for a ghost story, I could practically see spirits gliding through the hundreds—literally hundreds—of tiny windows.

“I did a thirty-mile bike ride a few years back. We rode past here. A ton of people stopped to take pictures and check it out.” Landon took a step closer, now standing under a great arch.

“Can we go in?”

“Can we? Yes.” He chuckled. “Are we supposed to? Probably not.”

He extended his arm, silently urging me to take his hand. I slid my palm against his and squeezed before following him through the open entryway. A shiver racked my entire body and we walked through. Could have been from the touch of Landon's hand, or the queasy feeling nailing my stomach as we walked inside the dilapidated building. Like we'd burst through a mass of ghosts.

I was glad to be here with him, because I never in a million lifetimes would have walked through that creepy entryway myself. I'd watched Discovery Channel on various occasions, when they aired specials of divers uncovering treasures sunken in the sea. The train station reminded me of the footage around a shipwreck. A man-made marvel now rusted, frayed, forgotten, swallowed whole, and taken back by the land.

When Landon pulled me into the heart of the station, I almost cried. Even with all the building's fractures and flaws, the facade loomed, haunting and beautiful, though totally abandoned. The inside was wrecked. Cracked, broken, splintered, destroyed. Yet the columns were intact, but for multicolored words and art spray-painted across them.

Light poured in.

“Wouldn't that be awesome, Gaby?” Landon squeezed my hand. “Gaby?”

I did not hear what Landon had said, as I was so entrenched in sadness for the once- grandiose building. “Sorry. What was that?”

“I was thinking we could take pictures in front of the building. Unless you wanted to take them inside. I don't know if we should highlight how rough it looks in here.”

“Yeah, outside would work.” I let go of his hand and took a step toward one of the prominent pillars. I grabbed my camera and lifted it to my eye, squinting as I snapped a picture. I checked the image on the screen and shook my head. As I walked around the column, I adjusted a few settings and took another picture, trying to capture the light just right.

“Much better,” I whispered, cracking a slight smile.

I flinched when Landon's stomach pressed against my back. “Let's see.” He peered over my shoulder trying to catch a glimpse of the tiny playback screen.

I pressed a few buttons and held the camera up to him.

“That's sick, Gaby. You're getting really good.” In the frigid air of the open station, his breath warmed my cheek.

“Yeah, well, Photoshop helps a lot,” I said.

“No Photoshop on that one yet.”

I couldn't stop the smile that broke out across my lips. It seems conceited to say thank you when someone compliments me or my work. I didn't take compliments well. If I was going to scout photo shoot locations with Landon, I needed to rein in my absolute astonishment that he would even do this for me and my family.

I circled the room in slow motion. If it was possible to be completely creeped out and in awe at the same time, that was how I felt. The graffiti scared me. A gang member could walk in, paint cans drawn, at any minute. Then again, I'm pretty sure Mafia guys walked into Bertucci Produce on a regular basis, so I guess danger could be anywhere.

“What are you thinking?” Landon asked. He climbed onto a step at the bottom of one of the columns, wrapped one arm around it, and hung off. Like someone familiar with stripper poles.

“You don't want to know.” I shook my head, laughing off my thoughts.

Landon grabbed the column with his extended arm and jumped down. “I do. You're really quiet. I can't tell if you're freaked out or what?”

“A little freaked out. This place is creepy on the inside. But cool. Creepy cool.”

I snapped a few more shots of the interior, trying to get the daylight streaming through the windows. I wanted to capture the haunted feel; a halo, a shadow, something.

“Creepy cool. Haunted. Abandoned. I just described our whole fucking life as Detroiters, eh?” A bitter laugh escaped him.

“I know, right? I don't know one person without a painful story.”

“What's yours?”

“Hmm?” I lowered the camera.

“What's your story? I see a shy girl from a successful family.”

“Success comes with hard work.”

“I never said it didn't.”

“My story? Arson. Murder. Most recently theft.” I ticked off the tragedies that my family had gone through, and those were only the ones that affected me directly. It sounded like a suspense novel.

“Holy shit, Gaby.”

“I should be in jail, right?” I smiled to lighten the mood. “But this is Detroit.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

A beam of sunlight bounced off a piece of broken glass in the debris covering the floor, creating a prism across one of the large columns. Sunshine and rainbows and murder and arson.

Life. And death.

I kicked the pile, sending debris flying, but that piece of glass stayed. Stubborn. I brought my camera to my eye and snapped a picture of the tiny rainbow against the dirty column covered in graffiti.

“Well, the murder had nothing to do with me. It was Papa's best friend. It just took a huge toll on our family. Shot while he was helping Papa unload a produce truck one morning. Senseless. Drive-by. Papa was devastated. We were all devastated.”

“I'm sorry.”

I shrugged and continued. “Remember when the night before Halloween was an unofficial holiday to set houses on fire?”

Landon nodded. “Devil's Night.”

“Yeah, well, evidently no one told the people who burned our house down that it's called Angels' Night now.”

“Fuck, Gaby. Recently?”

“Nine years ago. We lost everything. Seriously, every earthly possession. Thankfully, we weren't home. One of Papa's friends who's a cop called him when he heard our address on the scanner.”

“I'm so sorry, Gaby.”

“Life.” I dismissed his pity and took a step toward the exit of the train station, flipping the off switch on my camera as I moved. Claustrophobia set in. Despite the open air, the hallowed-out station echoed the hallowed-out shell of our house.

Too similar. Too eerie. Too close.

“But you didn't leave the city?”

I stopped in the doorway, waiting until Landon caught up to me. “Nope. Papa was going to rebuild, but why rebuild when we could buy a beautiful old house around the corner for almost nothing?

“We were lucky. We had family to stay with while we house hunted. We had the means to buy another house. We had the means to buy clothes and toys and…stuff.”

“Doesn't make it any easier. Or justifiable.” Landon changed his voice to a low, doltish timbre. “These people can afford to rebuild their life, so let's set their house on fire.”

“That's exactly how I imagine the arsonist sounding.”

Landon laughed. We stepped outside together. “What do you miss the most?”

“My bedroom.” The wonderful memories of my old room filled me with warmth. “Oh, Landon, I don't even know how to explain it. Papa built my bed to look like a castle. It took up an entire wall.” I spread my arms to demonstrate the enormity of the structure. “A wide, short staircase led up to the second bunk. It looked like I stood on the balcony of a castle when I was on the top bunk. And next to the staircase was a tall, white bookshelf with a pink turret on top. There was one on the other side by the slide, too.”

“The slide?” Landon asked, feeding my excitement.

“Yes. A fat, stubby little slide.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, as if the air outside an abandoned train station held magical molecules that could transport me back to a time when I'd been a tiny princess in an enormous castle. “And between the bookshelves, there was a rounded opening, like the entrance to a castle, that led to the lower bunk. I had to sweep aside a sheer, pink drape to get in.”

“Sounds amazing.”

Landon's voice brought me back to the present and I reluctantly opened my eyes.

His eyebrows were scrunched together and a small smile sat on his lips. “I can't see you with a princess room.”

“Well, Papa built it for me to use when I left my crib. I suppose I was getting a little old for it when the fire happened,” I admitted, feeling like a complete baby. Does a girl ever outgrow a castle? I don't think so. We just want bigger. Less pink, more granite.

“What does your room look like now?”

“I miss my Harry Potter books the most, though,” I continued without answering his question. “I mean, they were all first edition since Joey got the new book every time it got released. I could easily buy another set at a bookstore, but those were perfectly worn by three grubby Bertucci kids' hands.”

Landon slid his hand in mine as we walked to where he'd parked. “You miss books the most. Can't say I'm surprised.”

The warm feelings from my trip down memory lane melted and disintegrated, just like everything had in the fire. Back to reality.

I squeezed his hand and whispered, “Don't make fun of me.”

“I'm not.”

We stopped in front of his car. Landon set his hands on my hips and lifted me onto the hood. “You are the last person I'd ever make fun of, Gabriella Bertucci.”

I leaned into him, grabbed each side of his unbuttoned coat, and pulled him toward me. I needed to kiss him. I needed his air to breathe, after choking on memories of life before the fire.

Landon didn't disappoint, lowering his head to mine. His lips touched my mouth, but instead of kissing me, he spoke. “You are strong.” His hands roved, skimmed, squeezed my sides. He dipped them under my sweater and his frigid fingers pulsed against my warm skin.

I wrapped my arms around his neck before he had me sprawled flat against the freezing metal hood.

“You are beautiful.” His hands, now warm, slid from my waist up to the wire of my bra, thumbs slipping underneath to caress the soft, sensitive skin.

My feet searched for some ledge or opening in the front of the car, but instead they slipped down the rounded sleek hood. Damn Landon and his tiny foreign vehicle with no open grill for me to rest my feet. My limbs had a mind of their own, stimulated by each pass of his fingers over my tender flesh. Landon must've noticed my legs bicycling in an attempt to ground myself, and took pity on me. He removed his hands from under my sweater, grabbed my legs behind my knees, and wrapped them around his hips.

“Perfect.” He lowered his head and licked my neck before taking my earlobe in his teeth.

My chest slammed against his as I slipped my arms around his neck and squeezed his torso with a viselike leg lock.

“Now tell me what your room looks like,” he commanded, lifting me off the car.

I laughed and kicked him in the butt with my heel, while tightening my grip on his neck.

Landon met my eyes before he lowered his lips to my ear and whispered, “I'll find out, Gabriella. Someday I'll see your room.”

“I live with my parents.”

“They sleep, don't they?”

“Very lightly.”

“Not a problem for me, but I have a feeling you're a screamer.”

“Oh my gosh!” I reeled back in embarrassment, giving Landon no choice but to set me down on the hood again. I released my hold on his neck to cover my face with my hands, and fell backward. My head bumped the bottom of the windshield with a
thud
and I banged my shoulder blades on the hood. Quickly, I moved one hand to rub the back of my head. “Ouch!”

Landon reached for me and cupped his hands under my head, forming a pillow, a bony pillow but a pillow nonetheless. “Are you okay?” Despite his concern, Landon's shoulders shook with silent laughter.

“Shut up.”

“No, seriously, are you okay?” His laugh ceased, but his lips still turned up in a warm smile.

“Yes.”

“Never let me go, Gaby.”

“Now you tell me,” I deadpanned.

“I knew you'd be loud. It's always the quiet ones.”

“This whole making-me-blush thing is getting old.”

“Just let me enjoy it. Once I officially get my hands on you, you won't be as easy to embarrass.”

“You just had your hands on me.” Using his coat for stability, I pulled myself into a sitting position again.

“Don't make me get dirty with you, Gaby. You'll just get mad at me for making you blush again.” Landon helped me slide off the hood.

“No one talks dirty to me in real life, but I'm a book geek. I've read it all before.”

“I thought you didn't read books like that.”

“I don't,
usually,
but I have.” On my way to the passenger side, I inched by Landon and brushed up against the front of his jeans. On purpose.

“Don't do things like that, Gabriella.” Landon closed my door.

Pride filled me when he adjusted his jeans as he walked around to the driver's side. Had Landon opened up a comfortable, sexy part of me that I never knew I possessed? I'll never be the girl who tosses her glasses aside and unleashes her ponytail, but it's nice to know there's a sexy side hiding behind my introverted bookish ways.

“Just so you know”—Landon paused to catch my eyes before he started the car—”I can be as gentle as you need me to be, but once we get going, you're going to want a mattress, not a car hood, beneath you.”