Sweet Release (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) (25 page)

I hadn’t seen Annie in a few days, not since before the incident with Inferno and those other two. I supposed I should come up with a name for them as well. “Flying guy” and “Flying girl” weren’t that catchy. The media had actually come up with the same name as I did. Well, that and “Flame Man”, although the one paper that had started with that one switched to “Inferno” pretty quickly as well.

The papers were calling the others “Acid” and “Strong Spice”, which I assumed was a reference to Ginger Spice and the Spice Girls because of her red hair.

The morning after Inferno came over to the roof where I was reading, though, I got a text.

Hey Val, I drank way too much this weekend and now I feel disgusting. Wanna join me at the gym?

I smiled to myself as I read the text. Only Annie would try and cure a hangover with a workout. She was the type of person who always thought everything was a race with whoever was on the treadmill next to her.

Sure
, I replied. Why not? It had been a little while since I’d made time to go to the gym.

Good, meet you there in an hour
she texted back, and I yawned and wondered if I should eat some food before going, or if it was just going to make me want to puke.

I ended up deciding against breakfast, and forty minutes later packed a few workout clothes into my gym bag, grabbed my headphones and made my way towards the gym we went to.

Annie and I had decided to join a gym right by campus, naively thinking we were going to work out religiously in between classes, and that this summer we were going to have bikini bodies to die for. Of course, that didn’t work out at all, but we still usually went once a week or so. I suspected Annie went a lot more often than I did. When I got into the change room she was already there.

“I can’t believe you’d actually work out while hungover,” I told her.

“Ok, well maybe I’m exaggerating how much I drank. But I ate a whole bunch of chips and now I feel like a whale. I need to burn some calories.”

“I’ve been there,” I told her. “No judgement.”

“Good. And after this we’re going to lunch.”

My rumbling tummy thought this was a good idea, and about ninety minutes later, after an hour on the treadmill and a half hour lifting some weights, Annie and I left the gym feeling exhausted, but also pretty damn good.

“So there’s a little cafe down the street that one of the girls told me about,” Annie told me, turning us to the left as we left the gym. “Apparently they do the best protein smoothies ever, and some pretty good food, too.”

“You had me at ‘food’” I replied, and Annie led me three blocks away to The Purple Kale, a trendy little spot with red brick walls and antique tables. We sat down at one of them and grabbed a menu.

Five minutes later we’d ordered – a Greek yogurt mango and macadamia smoothie and a BLT for me – and started chatting.

“So what’s been going on?” I asked Annie. “It feels like I haven’t seen you in forever!”

“Right! It does. Well, I’ve been pretty busy. I started my internship at that engineering company, which is pretty awesome, but it sucks having to take the subway for like 15 stops every single day. But I love it. Everyone’s been super nice so far, and they do more than just ask me to make photocopies and coffee, so it’s nice to actually get to learn something and learn to use some of the awesome equipment. How about you, what have you been up to?”

I shrugged. “Not too much.” I didn’t want to tell her about Inferno. I was still ashamed at the fact that I let myself go in a
classroom
of all places. “I’ve just been relaxing after the hell that is exams. I’ve been thinking about volunteering at a free clinic near my place, but right now I’m just burnt out and taking a few weeks off.”

“Good plan,” Annie told me as the waitress brought our smoothies over. Mine was so nice I could have drank five of them.

“Wow, whoever told you about this place, you need to thank them from me,” I told Annie.

“I know, right? This is amazing. Did you see what happened that day when that building caught on fire? I was working, but I was watching it on the news. It looked insane, and sounds like the sort of thing you would have gone to just to play goodie two shoes.”

“Yeah, I was there,” I told her, trying to sound nonchalant about it.

“Well, what was it like?”

I shrugged. “You probably got a better view of it on TV than I did. There was so much smoke, and so many people around. But that Inferno guy saved the kid, and all the other people in that building.”

“Yeah,” Annie replied, looking at me closely while sipping her cherry pie smoothie. “Now what’s really going on, Val?”

As a blush crept up my face, I knew the gig was up. Damn my face that always displayed all of my emotions.

“What do you mean, really going on?” I still tried to play dumb, but even I could tell my voice had hit that weird pitch it always went to when I was trying to hide something. Annie grinned, knowing as well as I did that I was going to have to spill to her.

“Come on. I’m your best friend, and you’re a terrible, terrible liar. You’ve got
news
, and since it’s something you don’t want to tell me I bet it’s juicy.” She took another sip of her smoothie while watching me expectantly, her eyes glistening with the anticipation of a best friend getting some good gossip.

I sighed. “Fine. But it’s embarrassing.”

“Even better!” I had to laugh despite myself.

“I… might have had a one night stand,” I told her, and my face flushed so hard I was pretty sure I was doing a great impression of a tomato.

Annie gasped overdramatically.

“Oh no! Prudes of America are going to revoke your membership if they hear about this!”

“Oh shut up,” I laughed. “I’m not that bad.”

“You are that bad. I can count on like, half a hand, how many times you’ve had sex with a stranger. And if you throw in your boyfriends, I still only need the one full hand.”

“Well, we can’t all be giant sluts,” I teased.

“True, it’s hard work being me. But come on, spill. Tell me everything.”

Uh oh. This had been impromptu enough a lunch date that I hadn’t expected to have to tell Annie everything. I didn’t have a cover story planned, so I went with the old classic.

“I, uh, met him at this club that I went to. A bar. I just needed a drink after seeing all that stuff with Inferno, and Strong Spice and Acid. So I met him there. And we started talking, and then I dunno, things just happened and I went home with him.” I shrugged and tried to make it sound like not a big deal at all. That was how the cool girls did it after all, right?

Annie burst out laughing.

“Haven’t I already told you you’re a terrible liar? Tell me the truth, girl. Believe me, whatever it is, I have done worse. You know this.”

“I, uh, don’t think you’ve ever done anything like this.”

“Really? Because I once had sex on top of a water tower next to a highway in a small town in Idaho.”

“What? How does that even happen?”

“It’s a long story. But no matter what you did, it’s a better story than yours. So don’t worry, I have not only heard worse, I have done worse. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Maybe Annie had a point. Still.

“No, my story is worse.”

“Well, you’re just going to have to tell me about it so we can compare.”

Just then, the waitress brought over our sandwiches. I took a big bite from mine and took my time chewing while Annie nibbled on a fry.

“You can’t eat forever,” she told me.

“Challenge accepted,” I replied through a mouthful of bread.

But of course, she was right.

“I… I had sex with Inferno,” I finally spat out. I knew if I beat around the bush I just wouldn’t say it. Annie’s mouth dropped.

“As in… as in…
that
Inferno?” I nodded as my face flamed up once more. I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t have admitted it. Oh man, it wasn’t bad enough that I’d slept with him in the first place, but now I’d admitted it to my best friend.

“Well… was he really good?” she asked, and I looked at her, surprised.
That
was her first question?

“Amazing, actually,” I had to admit. Annie gasped as she grinned; I was pretty sure I’d never seen her this excited before.

“Holy shit, Val. You are so not the person I would have expected to do that kind of thing. Oh my God. How do you even get into that situation?”

I broke down and told Annie everything. From seeing him on the roof, to him flying me to the college, to how we ended up banging on a professor’s desk at the front of the room. Of course, I did all of this in a hushed whisper, even though the closest person was at least five feet away at any given point, just to be safe. No one could know what I’d done except Annie.

It was just too embarrassing.

“That is amazing,” Annie told me when I was finished. “I can’t believe it. I seriously can’t believe it. That you, of all people, would end up in bed with the local superhero. Do you think he’s banging other women?”

“Annie!”

“Well, it’s not like you’re exclusive with him.”

“I know that, but it’s none of your business if he is. Or mine.”

“I don’t think you understand the point of gossiping, Val.”

“Well, I don’t care if he does. It was a one-time thing, and it’s never happening again.”

“Awww, you don’t know that!”

“I do. I’m not having sex with him again.”

“Why not? You said he was amazing!”

“He was. But it’s… it’s not something I do. In a
classroom,
Annie. In a
classroom.
Does that sound like me?”

Annie laughed. “No, it really doesn’t. But hey, I think it’s a good thing. Are you seeing him again? How do you even contact a superhero? Buy a big light and make a bat signal?”

This time it was my turn to laugh. “I’m seeing him again tonight. I want to take his stitches out and re-bandage his arm and make sure it’s not infected.”

“Perfect! Then you can bang him again.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Fine. But I don’t think this is the big deal you’re making it out to be.”

As we left the restaurant, I couldn’t help but think about what Annie had said. Was she right? After all, things with Inferno
had
felt amazing. Was I overreacting? Was this a normal thing people my age did, and I’d just never gotten into it before? I just didn’t know.

I’d been looking forward to seeing Valerie that night way too much.

Fuck.

Like, what was I going to do about it? Ask to take her on a date? Yeah, right. Wouldn’t that be a sight. Me with my mask and costume on, walking into Lupino’s Pasta with a date. That was obviously out of the question.

The idea of me
dating
at all was a bit of a weird one even. I mean, there had been Sam, sometimes. But apart from her, whenever we were split up I was totally a player. And I’d never thought about Sam as much as I was thinking about Valerie now.

Why the fuck couldn’t I get this chick out of my head?

She was waiting for me on the roof of the building when I landed there, about two minutes late.

Instantly, she went straight down to business.

“I want to change the bandage on your arm first,” she told me. “This is probably going to hurt.”

Carefully, Valerie took the bandage off and looked at the wound. Satisfied, she ripped the bandage down my arm.

“Wow, try doing that more slowly,” I muttered, wincing.

“If I do it faster if any of the bandage has caught on the healing wound it’s going to hurt a hell of a lot more than this,” she replied as she stripped off the last part of the bandage. “I don’t tell you how to save people, do I?”

Damn, she had spunk.

“Sorry,” I found myself saying. I didn’t know when the last time I’d apologized to
anyone
was.

She dabbed at the wound with something, cleaning it, then put a new bandage over the top.

“There. It’s healing up nicely. I think you can probably leave this bandage on for another five days or so, then it will probably be fine if you just take it off and leave it open. Now, let me get rid of those stitches.”

She worked in silence, focusing on cutting the stitches. I was fine with that. Superhero or not, I wasn’t a big fan of having a pair of scissors a couple inches away from my eye.

When she was done, she looked at my cheek, then stood up.

“I think we’re done,” she said. I smiled at her.

“I liked what we did last time at this point,” I tried, and got a look so piercing from her that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Is that a no then? That’d be a first.”

“I told you. I enjoyed myself, but it’s not something we can do again.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure? Of fun?”

“You’re the one who has adventures. I’m the one who stands in the crowd and watches. And I’m ok with that.”

“Well, maybe you should let yourself go every so often. If you ever want the best sex of your life, you know where to find me.”

I winked at her and flew off. I knew she was watching me as I left. It wasn’t just that I wanted to fuck her brains out again. It was also that no woman had ever slept with me once, then said no to a second time. Ever. And it bugged me that Valerie seemed to be able to.

* * *

As the nights began to get shorter rather than longer, the media began to get impatient.

While I hadn’t seen Keith or Sam get into any trouble since the last time, it seemed they inspired copycats – people without any superpowers who still tried to rob people in Olympus. I was starting to do my best to stop them. At night, I’d listen to a police scanner I picked up from a pawn shop, and if someone reported a robbery, I’d often be the first one there. It was never any trouble stopping the perpetrators, and I’d leave them tied up or otherwise incapacitated for the cops to arrest when they arrived.

But for the media, that wasn’t enough. Every day headlines screamed about the increase in crime. And it was true; I couldn’t be there to stop every crime from happening.

Three days ago, the governor had finally stepped in. He overrode the mayor and fired the chief of police, replacing him with a man named Nathan Miller, a vet who had joined the police force after three tours in Iraq and had started quickly rising up the ranks – apparently ruffling some feathers along the way, according to news reports. It was very much the opposite of a political appointment; the man was supposed to be a strong leader who wasn’t afraid to go against the establishment if it meant getting results.

That night, I had just finished “responding” to a report of a break-in at an electronics store downtown. Three punk kids, none of them over eighteen, had just put on black masks, picked the lock to the bars covering the windows at night and gone to town on them with baseball bats. I stopped them down the street, their arms laden with a TV, a brand new X-Box One, and what looked like three shopping bags full of video games. It was pretty much amateur hour.

As soon as they saw me the kids dropped their loot and tried to run. I grabbed one of them by the scruff of the neck as I flew past him and swung him into one of the other ones, making him drop to the ground.

Dropping the kid that I’d been carrying I went after the third, who by the smell of things had already wet himself. He stopped and curled up into a little ball as soon as he saw me land in front of him, and I used some of the rope I’d started carrying around to tie him to a lamppost until the cops showed up. I didn’t need to bother with his two friends; they were unconscious and didn’t look like they were going to be coming to anytime soon.

Another good night’s work done, I flew up into the sky. I was just getting ready to go home when a flash of red light to my left caught my attention. It was about a mile away, on top of the highest skyscraper in the city.

Weird
, I thought to myself. Flying just a little bit closer, I realized it was flames. The building was on fire!

Shit.