The Good Fight (Time Served Book 3) (21 page)

“To stab me in the neck with one of my own scalpels?”

I smile and tuck a stray hair behind her ear. “She wants you to fight.”

“We fight all the time.”

“Not with her, doc. For her.”

She looks at me doubtfully, and it’s a knock to the heart, seeing the most confident woman I know look so lost. “For her?”

“Yeah. She says she wants to move to Cleveland, you don’t say okay.”

“What do I say?”

“You say, ‘Fuck no, Dorrie. This is your home, and this is where you’ll be living for the next seven years. When you’re eighteen, you can decide. But until then, I know what’s best, and this is it.’”

“Is that what your mother told you?”

“Among other things. Like I said, I had two sisters. You think they didn’t try this shit?”

“Like what?”

“Like running away. Threatening to marry their twenty-year-old boyfriend when they were sixteen. Saying they’d join the army if it meant escaping our mother’s tyranny.”

A tiny smile. “What did she do then?”

“Oh, it varied. Sometimes she threatened to have those twenty-year-old perverts tossed in jail if she saw them circling her daughters. Some days she swore she’d lock them in the attic until they were too weak to run away. And some days she gave them bus fare and a garbage bag to pack up their belongings.”

Susan laughs. It’s sad, but it’s there. “Did they ever leave?”

“Eva did, once, but she didn’t have anywhere to go so she tried to spend the night in a tent in the camping section at WalMart. They caught her and drove her to the police station. My mother had to go get her. I don’t know what she said, but neither Eva nor Carole ever tried to take off again.”

“What about you?”

“Did I ever run away?”

“Yeah.”

“No. I was a model child.”

Another laugh. “Liar.”

“I only left once, doc. When I went to college. I swore I’d come back every summer and my mother swore she’d kick my ass if she saw my face again before I got a degree.”

“That’s it? You never saw them after that?”

I shake my head, blinking so I don’t tear up. This conversation isn’t supposed to be about me. “No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Do you miss them?”

I sink back into the cushions, crossing my ankles on the coffee table, and absently rub circles over her knee. “All the time. They were the ones who insisted on calling me Oscar.”

“You really weren’t Oz before you left?”

“Nope. Don’t think I didn’t try to get a nickname, either. Because I did. But my mother said she named me Oscar, not Tank—that was the nickname I tried to make stick—” Susan snorts out an unladylike laugh “—and my sisters just used it because they knew I hated it.”

“So you became Oz in Boston, and that’s who came back.”

“What?”

“That’s what you said to me. That night you came here. After...the article.”

I remember it, then. The threats I made. How Oscar beat the shit out of people, but Oz gave out warnings.

“I’m sorry about that,” I mumble.

I expect her to say it doesn’t matter, so it startles me when she blurts out, “I want you to delete the picture.”

“What are you—” My brain supplies the answer to the incomplete question, and the answer is a very explicit photograph of a very beautiful doctor holding my dick in her mouth while gazing into the camera. It’s the only one I’ve got—of Susan or any other woman—and the very last thing I want is to delete it.

“I was just angry,” I say, turning to look at her. I nudge her arm when she only stares at her clasped hands. “I didn’t mean what I said about showing people that picture. I would never, no matter how mad I was.”

She looks at me. “I want you to delete it.”

I groan. “Susan, please don’t ask me to do that. I love that picture.”

“Please.”

I hold her stare, hoping she’ll waver when she sees how sincere I am, but she doesn’t. She’s not fighting, either, she’s just asking, and I know it must have been weighing on her for weeks now.

Maybe Oz isn’t much better than Oscar after all, because when I pull out the phone from my pocket and call up the picture, I don’t just see a crude pornographic image. It’s Susan trusting me, trusting me when she got on her knees, trusting me when I pulled out my phone promising I’d only take the one shot, please let me please let me please let me. She’d given the okay and I’d snapped the picture, and though I’d pulled it out fairly regularly to study at my leisure, never once had I intended to share it or use it to embarrass her. Until that stupid fucking night.

“Last chance,” I say, my thumb hovering over the delete button. “After this you won’t be able to pester me to look at it.”

“I’m sure,” she says.

I sigh heavily and press the key. The screen asks me to confirm, which I sadly do. Then it’s gone.

“All right,” I say. “You want to take another one? Better lighting?”

She doesn’t laugh at my attempt at humor, she just looks relieved. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I wish I’d never done it in the first place.”

“The blowjob or the picture?”

“The picture. It wasn’t for...the right reasons.”

“What does that mean?”

She grabs my hand when she registers my uncertainty. “Nothing,” she says, too bright suddenly, too dismissive. “It just means I have a career and I can’t afford something like that ever getting out.”

“I would never—”

She interrupts. “Speaking of which.”

“Which what?”

“My job. The hospital. There are a couple of things coming up. An awards night and then a couple of weeks later, an auction. A fundraiser for the hospital. They’re black tie—dinner, dancing, et cetera. It might be a good chance for you to meet some people who could support the Green Space. If you wanted to...come. With me.”

I stare at her. She’s good. Insult my integrity with the picture situation—not that I don’t semi-deserve it—then change the subject by inviting me to some big deal hospital functions. I mean, women come on to me from time to time, but I can’t even remember the last time one asked me on a proper date. Dinner. Dancing. Et cetera. Just to make her squirm I say, “Susan, are you asking me on a date?
Two
dates?”

Her cheeks turn pink but she holds my stare. “Yes. If you’d like. I have to go anyway because I’m getting an award, and people will talk if I skip the auction. I don’t think they’ll be all that interesting for you, but as an opportunity—”

I hold up a hand to stop her before she ruins this. “I’ll come.”

“You will?”

“Sure. Yeah. When are they?”

“July thirty-first and August fourteenth.”

“Okay. You’ve got a date. For both nights.”

“Well, okay then. Good.” She looks relieved as she rifles through a stack of papers on the coffee table until she finds a sturdy white envelope, her name in gold cursive on the front. It’s an invitation to the Chicago-Davis Awards Gala & Auction, and I watch, bemused, as she carefully checks off the boxes to indicate she has a plus one for both events, then puts the card in the enclosed return envelope and seals it shut. I suddenly feel an overwhelming rush of affection for her.

“C’mere,” I say, throwing an arm around her shoulders and pulling her in close.

“Why?” she asks, letting me. “What’s happening?”

“I like you,” I tell her. “And I want to sit with you.”

“Sit?” she echoes. “Like this?”

“Exactly like this.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

She manages to be quiet for a full ten seconds, then, “This seems like a waste of time.”

Laughter rumbles up out of my chest. I feel her head bump against my shoulder from the vibrations, but she stays put.

* * *

“So you’re banging her nonstop, she asked you on out on a very fancy date
and
she lets you head over to Titan’s to get your ass kicked four times a week but you’re not in love with her?”

I’m giving Rian a tour of the rooftop garden at the Green Space, and though he’s supposed to be using the time to offer useful suggestions, he’s spent the past fifteen minutes grilling me about Susan.

“Would you not?” I ask, jerking a chin in Wyatt’s direction. A month in and we’ve got thriving tomato plants and baskets full of zucchini and cucumber. I’d said as much to Rian on the phone and he’d offered to come by with a few ingredients to show the kids how to prepare the vegetables. It seemed like a great idea until he got here and started to annoy the hell out of me.

“Where’s the mint?” he calls to Wyatt, who doesn’t reply. “See?” he adds to me. “He’s not listening.”

“He’s listening,” I counter, “he’s just smart enough to pretend not to be. Isn’t that right, Wy?”

“That’s right,” Wyatt replies before directing us to a corner planter teeming with masses of herbs.

Rian laughs and plucks a leaf off something, then pops it in his mouth and chews. With a satisfied nod he tears up a handful and, upon catching my wince, explains, “Grows like a weed. This time next week it’ll be back and we’ll make something else.”

“You’re not invited back,” I tell him. “You’re a pain.”

“What’s the deal, then?” he asks, not offended. He leans against the waist-high rail that runs along the perimeter of the roof, eyeballing me.

“It’s lunchtime. Let’s go downstairs.”

“Not yet. Come on. Last time I saw you you were alone in a restaurant getting stood up. Now you’re growing vegetables, getting laid and fighting again.”

“Your point, please.”

He eats another mint leaf and offers the bunch to me, but I decline. “My point is, which came first? The woman, then the lifestyle changes, or the changes, then the woman?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Look. I didn’t want to psychoanalyze you, but you’ve been pretty...apathetic lately. Like you didn’t care about much. I don’t know the last time you sounded excited about anything, never mind a woman or an abandoned fucking building. So I’m just wondering if you met Susan and she inspired all these changes, or you made these changes and as a result, found a woman.”

“Who cares?”

He stares at me, considering. “I care,” he says finally. “Because this is good for you.” He gestures around the rooftop. “And if you made these changes for a woman and things don’t work out, I don’t want to see it all fall apart.”

“I didn’t change for Susan. And your original instincts about not psychoanalyzing me were right.”

“Okay, man. Your call. I’m just saying, she’s a doctor. She knows how to cut out people’s hearts.”

“That’s not what she does, dumbass. Now get down—”

The stairwell door swings open and Jade steps out, long white cotton dress clinging to every one of her curves. She’s wearing platform wedges and gold hoop earrings, her hair loose. I notice all of this because Rian’s gawking at her, the way most men do when seeing her for the first—or tenth—time.

“What the hell’s taking so long?” she demands, shielding her eyes from the sun as she stomps onto the roof. “The kids are starv—” It takes her a second to spot us, and though she’s less obvious than Rian, I see her checking him out. She doesn’t have a fixed schedule at the Green Space but she normally turns up later on Saturdays, so she wasn’t in when Rian arrived earlier. If I’m not mistaken the dress and heels are less for Rian’s benefit than Wyatt’s—he’s watching her from the corner of his eye, though I think that’s motivated more by a strong sense of self-preservation than lust—but Jade’s never been one to waste an opportunity.

“Hi,” she says, coming forward with a sultry smile. Red lipstick. Dammit. Rian’s a sucker for any beautiful woman, and Jade’s got it in spades. “I’m Jade Romero. Oz’s assistant.”

“Rian McConnell,” Rian says, extending a hand. “Chef at Mache 42.”

“I’ve heard of it,” Jade replies, slipping her fingers into his. “It takes months to get a reservation.”

He smiles back. “Depends on who you know.”

Uh-oh. “Let’s not keep the kids waiting,” I say loudly, interrupting the moment and hopefully ending their flirtation. “Everybody needs to eat!”

Jade gives me a weird look. “Where’s the food?”

“The baskets are right there. Wyatt filled them.” I toss out his name, hoping to remind her of her real interest. The guy who doesn’t reciprocate her feelings. But Jade doesn’t take the bait, just shrugs and picks up one of the two baskets and disappears down the stairs without glancing at Wyatt, who watches her go.

“What’s the story there?” Rian asks under his breath, staring at the empty doorway.

“She’s twenty-four,” I tell my thirty-four-year-old friend.

“So...perfectly legal.”

“And like a sister to me.”

“Still legal.”

“I’ll ask Susan if she knows any pretty nurses,” I try. “Hell—Jade has a friend. Sheree. She’s your type.”

Rian gives me an unimpressed look. “I don’t need your help.”

I know telling him—begging him—to stay away from Jade will only pique his interest further, so I feign indifference and pick up the last basket. “If you say so. Let’s make this salad. You coming, Wyatt?”

I glance over at Wyatt just in time to see him look away, a scowl on his face. He’s normally the most laidback, easygoing guy, so the expression is jarring. And I don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t like Rian, or Jade, or the potential combination of the two.

Fuck it. I can’t dwell on this. It’s none of my business. I’m not her father. Or Rian’s father. This isn’t eighth grade. People can do whatever—and whomever—they want.

Except...I watch Rian head for the stairwell, designer jeans that cost half of Jade’s weekly paycheck, overpriced vintage T-shirt, limited edition sneakers. That’s Jade’s type. The guy who looks like a ticket out. She’s got her sights set on some soft-focus destination that’s merely better than here, and he’s only looking for a short-term diversion. I don’t want to see them hurt each other. I don’t want to witness the aftermath.

I close my eyes and take a breath. I have my own problems to deal with.

* * *

The first time Wyatt calls to tell me about the scratches on the front door to the Green Space, I dismiss it as kids goofing off, trying to see how easy it would be to break in. The locks held, the alarm company was notified and nothing bad happened.