Breaking the Rules (36 page)

Eden nodded. “The sex video’s also off the Internet,” she said.

“
That
I did,” he admitted. “With the help of a friend who’s a lawyer.”

“Maria?” she asked, with the most amazing amount of casualness.

Izzy had to laugh at that. “No,” he said. “I would
never
have asked her to … See, Jenn’s boss is also a New York State assemblywoman. I think she wants to be the president someday, and she wouldn’t have wanted to get anywhere near a video like that. No, I, um, got some help from a guy named Martell Griffin, who works for Troubleshooters Incorporated. You don’t know him, he’s from their Florida office.”

She nodded. “Thank you for doing that. And … Please thank Martell when you get the chance.”

Izzy nodded, too, and they sat for a moment in silence. And then he figured what the hell, so he kept going, said more. “You know, sometimes when you say … the things you say? Like before? That you never stopped loving me? It makes me feel like crap, like you’re trying to, I don’t know, play me or”—she looked up and over at him at that, her eyes practically flashing in the darkness—“or maybe just manipulate me into … doing I don’t know what, because I already told you I’d stay. And can I give you a hot tip, sweetheart?” He didn’t wait for her to respond, he just said it. “All you have to do is look me in the eye and say,
Izzy, I’m glad that you’re sticking around. I appreciate that very much
. And if there’s something else that you need from me? Something I’m not giving you? Damn it, just freaking ask already. Don’t
make me have to guess. And don’t …”
Take money from my wallet without asking
. He didn’t finish the sentence because bringing that up right now would be dangerous.

“Don’t what?” Eden asked, but he just shook his head.

If he said,
Hey, about that twenty-dollar bill you took from my wallet at some point last night …?

And she said,
What twenty-dollar bill?

And he said,
The one that was in my wallet after I went to the ATM and then bought that box of condoms, but
wasn’t
in my wallet when I bought that ice cream at the mall, even though I had my wallet with me at all times, except when I was sleeping last night, when you and I were alone in your apartment …?

And if she said,
I didn’t take your money
, then he’d have to say,
There you go, fucking lying to me again
or
I must be mistaken
, even though he absolutely, positively knew that he wasn’t.

He also absolutely, positively had no idea
why
she should have taken a twenty from him when she was carrying around that freaking huge-large roll of tips from work, but he’d lived long enough to know that some people got off on stealing other people’s shit. And just as she didn’t really know him all that well, he really didn’t know Eden, either.

The solution wasn’t to get in her face about it, but instead to be more careful about safeguarding his cash. And he should probably include his heart along with his wallet, because as often as she said things like
I never stopped loving you
, he had to stay focused and remember that he
hadn’t
tamed her. And he never would. She was wild and, like the lyrics to that old Joni Mitchell song,
wild things run fast
.

Eden was going to leave again.

It didn’t matter what she said. He had to keep believing that her leaving was a given—another simple fact like the sex was great, and she hadn’t married him because she loved him—or his flipping heart was going to get trashed.

“Don’t what?” she asked again. “Because if there’s something you need from me, then you have to say it, too. Don’t make
me
guess, either.”

“I don’t want you to lie to me,” he said, going for a cryptic explanation. “I’d rather we just not talk about certain things.”

“Kind of the way
you
don’t want to talk about Maria?” she asked. “So you don’t have to lie to me?”

Izzy looked at her. “Are you actually jealous?”

She was. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in the way she said Maria’s name. She didn’t answer for a long time, and to her credit, when she finally did respond, she didn’t lie. She simply said, “I shouldn’t be.”

“Damn straight,” he said, because he, too, was unwilling to reveal the truth—that there was nothing for Eden to be jealous about, that he’d gone without sex for all those months, that he’d passed up some extremely golden opportunities to get laid, including with Maria, because he, in fact,
had
never stopped loving Eden. And yeah, he’d sooner cut his own heart from his chest and throw it on the floor for her to step on than tell her that. Let her think he and Maria Bonavita had screwed each other neon blue for all those days he’d been in New York City. Maybe it would make Eden stay with him a little bit longer.

“I’m not trying to play you,” she said quietly. “And I’m
very
glad that you said that you’d stay to help with Ben. I do appreciate that. Very much. I just … The sex is really great, I agree, and … I appreciate that, too.”

And okay. He was sitting here, getting thanked for having sex with the most desirable woman he’d ever known. And yeah, somehow during this little conversation, they’d switched from using her label—making love—to his. Having sex.

And that was probably better, too.

“I think,” Eden continued, “that I have this, I don’t know, estrogen-based thing inside of my head that creates … confusion. When I … have sex, like we have? Really
great
sex?”

And okay again, he really loved that she was saying that, with a huge emphasis on the
great
. His bullshit meter was silent, which meant either she was being honest,
or
that he was willing to be manipulated
as long as she waxed poetic about how awesome it was when he banged her.

But she wasn’t done. She said, “I feel these, I don’t know, really huge, overwhelming feelings and … It feels a lot like love, but maybe it’s just … Maybe what I really should have said before was … that I never stopped
wanting
you.”

Oh, ding.

And maybe, in the cosmic scheme of things, that should have been just as difficult to believe as
I never stopped loving you
. But Izzy was happy to take this particular ride through MakeBelieveLand aboard the Eden-Wants-Him bus. And who knows? Maybe she
was
telling the truth.

Whatever the case, he could respond to her statement by being completely honest in return. So he did. “Same here,” he said. “And I’ll raise you one. I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting you.”

She smiled at that, but it was a touch sadly. “That
I
don’t believe.”

“It’s a fact,” Izzy told her, “that I’m happy to have to keep proving to you.”

Now her smile was more genuine. “Well, good,” she said, but then her expression went back to serious as she added, “You know, I also left, the way I did after Pinkie died? Because I couldn’t breathe. Everything just hurt too much. I had to go somewhere, where you weren’t, and I’m so sorry if I hurt you, but I just … I don’t know. I guess I had to learn to just … 
be.
”

He had nothing to say in response to that.

“You don’t have to believe me,” she whispered. “But I hope that you do.”

“I believe you,” Izzy conceded. “I know how hard it was for me, to lose Pinkie and … Still, I’m not going to say it’s okay, because it’s not. You
did
hurt me. Pretty fucking badly. But I do accept your apology.”

“I’m glad,” she said quietly.

And when she looked at him like that, with the sorrow and regret in her eyes mixed together with something that looked a whole lot like
hope, he had to look away. Because if he gazed back at her, it was too easy to pretend that this could be something that it wasn’t.

She
was
going to leave him. She
was
. It was just a matter of when.

But right now she was here, although it was definitely time to head all the way back to the real world, where Dan and Jenn were waiting for them, back in Eden’s crowded apartment.

Izzy powered down the window, reached out, and pulled what remained of the dangling mirror off the car. There were sharp pieces of glass still attached, so instead of tossing it into the backseat, he popped the trunk and got out of the car and stashed it back there.

As he climbed back in, Eden was now looking at him as if he were crazy, so he explained. “The broken mirror makes us easier to spot,” he said as he put the window back up. “Having it be missing altogether, well, we’re a little less easy to identify this way.”

“Do you think that … whoever he was, he’s still looking for us?” she asked.

“I think?” he said as he put the car into gear and headed out of the lot. “That first thing in the morning—I’m talking 0600—we need to head on back to the hospital to give your little brother a double dose of our very best what-the-fuck faces.”

“There’s definitely something,” Eden agreed, “that Ben didn’t tell me. Something that this girl told him.”

“We’ll get him to talk,” Izzy promised her, turning his headlights on as he pulled out onto the road. “But first, we’ll bring him home.”

“Greg’s gonna—”

“Greg’s not going to be at the hospital,” he reassured her. “Not that early in the morning.”

“He might be,” she worried. “For some reason this is important to him. And if Danny doesn’t reach Ivette …”

“Greg’s not going to be there,” Izzy said. “I know this because I sent him a little present earlier this evening. A little let’s-be-friends gift from his relatively new stepson-in-law, with an implied apology for twisting his wrist.”

Eden was incredulous. “You want to be
friends
with Greg?”

“Hell, no,” he told her. “I just wanted him to get shitfaced drunk tonight so that he’d be guaranteed absent in the morning, when Ben is released. My present was a case of liquor from Ye Olde Wine Shoppe, where their motto is
No party too large or small—we deliver to your door.
”

Eden was laughing, but at the same time she ferociously wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “That’s unbelievably brilliant,” she said, her husky voice even thicker with emotion. “Thank
God
you’re here.”

Neesha puked.

Behind the huge garbage bin, out behind the steakhouse where the private party had been held.

A private party with an even more private back room.

Neesha and the blond-haired woman named Clarice had been kept busy for the full two hours.

Most of the men in the party had just wanted her to dance for them or sit on their laps while they touched her or slipped dollar bills into her sequined bra and panties. But she’d gone into the back room five separate and thankfully very short times.

All of the men paid Clarice upfront, and Neesha’d performed their requests in a daze as she realized how wealthy she would have been had she not been working all those years as a slave.

And even though most of the money the men had paid went to Clarice as her “commission for finding the gig,” Neesha now had five ten-dollar bills in her pocket. Fifty dollars. It was more money than she’d ever had in her entire life.

And with one more night like this one, she’d have the cash she needed to pay back Ben’s sister for the food and the clothes, and to pay for that ticket for the bus to L.A.

One more night, and she’d never have to do this, not ever again.

“You okay, there, hon?” Clarice said as she lit a cigarette and exhaled a long, large cloud of smoke.

Neesha nodded as she wiped her mouth.

“I gotta go. The babysitter’s gonna start calling me. I don’t want to piss her off.” Clarice took one last drag on her cigarette, then tossed it onto the pitted pavement, grinding it out with her pointy-toed high heel. “You need a ride back …?”

Neesha shook her head. No.

“We good for tomorrow?” Clarice asked.

Neesha nodded again.

“I’ll meet you at the same place,” she said. “At the Micky D’s.” She smiled but it didn’t soften the hardness of her once-pretty face. “Those good old boys sure do like you Asian gals. You are going to make us both rich.” She paused. “You got a place to stay tonight, hon?”

Neesha nodded again because she didn’t trust Clarice entirely, and didn’t want to get into her car with her again. It had been hard enough, driving over here with her, earlier.

“Six o’clock, then,” Clarice said as she clicked and clopped her way over to her car and beeped open the lock. “I know it’s early, and I used to think it was better to start later, to let those boys get good and drunk, but this is Las Vegas. They’re drinking hard at noon. Wait too long, and the older gents can’t get it up.”

“I’ll need more,” Neesha said, and Clarice turned to look at her in surprise. “Tomorrow night. I want half.”

“Well, aren’t you the greedy little bitch,” the older woman said, her musical laughter softening the harshness of her words. “I’ll give you forty.”

Neesha didn’t understand that. Clarice has already given her more than forty dollars, that couldn’t be what she meant. She shook her head and kept it simple. “Half of what they pay you.”

“Hmm, I don’t know, hon …”

Neesha turned to leave, even though her heart was pounding. Finding Clarice had been a lucky break. Not having to get into the client’s car and risk being recognized by someone who would drive her back to Todd or Mr. Nelson …? It was worth a lot to Neesha. Still …

She didn’t take more than a few steps before Clarice said, “Well,
all right. I guess giving you half is fair enough. But I will expect you to chip in now and then to help pay for gas.”

But there wasn’t going to be a
then
. There would only be tomorrow night.

“Do we have a deal?” Clarice asked.

Neesha nodded.

“See you tomorrow at six,” Clarice said, and got into her car.

She started it with a roar and pulled out of the lot, leaving Neesha alone in the shadows.

One more night of hell, and she’d finally be free.

Jenn woke up to the sound of raised voices from the living room.