Campbell (47 page)

While it had been a long time fantasy of hers, she knew in reality there was no way in hell she’d ever sleep with both of them. The emotions involved were painful to think about. “I don’t know if it’s about
that
. It’s not always about
that
.”

Zoey nodded and her posture stiffened. “I know…I know you’re tired, and this war, it’s taking a lot out of you. I’ll try. I can try harder.”

“Zoe, you’re great. You’re fine…It’s…it’s not about that, or you, or anything. I’m just,” she exhaled loudly and wiped her eyes. “I’m just going through a lot, without him. I feel like I’m still falling from that.”

Lucy knew immediately from her girlfriend’s expression that Zoey had targeted the wrong ‘he’, and that made her heart ache.
 

“What happened…with Tal? When you were out there?” she asked carefully. “You can tell—”

“I mean Cole.”

“Oh,” she said quietly as her face sunk. “I wasn’t thinking….”

“It’s not just his…him being a boy that’s complicated with Tal. It’s that. I’ve told you this. I’ve asked for a bit of understanding, and you push and push.”

“I won’t push,” she promised. “I’ll do better.”

Lucy hoped that would keep Zoey busy enough to allow her the space to figure out what she wanted.

February 2016

Los Angeles, West

“I’ll have Bull bring the books next time he’s down,” Lucy said tersely over the speakerphone. “You can transition Seattle to your systems however you want.”

Bull piped in. “I’ll be down soon. Maybe next week.”

Leah rolled her eyes at Tal, who poked her in the ribs, causing her to squirm uncontrollably. “Okay, cool. That’s it then?”

“Seattle is officially West territory. Send in the clowns,” she said dryly. “Enjoy.”

“We can have another election in three—”

“I don’t give a shit. It’s one more hassle.”

Tal swallowed and frowned, thinking of how much she’d wanted Seattle not long ago. “Should we move to new business?” Leah muttered sourly, as she did whenever they had a business phone call with Campbell. Tal knew they got along okay when he wasn’t involved, but Leah didn’t like the way she spoke to him.

“Fine, yes. Let’s. We need two hundred and fifty cell phones. The new ones that the buttons don’t fall off of when it gets cold. We need citrus too. As much as you can send.”

Leah’s nostrils flared. “Anything else?”

“Any weapons or ammo you can spare.”

Tal shook his head at Leah silently. “We’ll do what we can with the phones and the citrus. I thought you were in a ceasefire.”

“We are, but you can’t make peace without preparing for war, or so I’m told,” she grumbled. “I’m sure everyone will get fired up again once it warms up a bit. Spring fever and all.”

“You’re such a fucking pessimist, Goose. Let’s not think that,” Bull muttered, his booming voice cracking through the phone. “The phones are great, and the citrus would be very much appreciated, Bauman.”

Tal had never imagined a time when Bull would be the rational one in Campbell. “We’ll meet when you’re down and go over the details. There’s a few new phone models in the works—”

“I’d like to see those,” he agreed. “I’ll bring you down some beef and we’ll have steaks.”

He wondered if he’d ever like really Bull. He respected him, tolerated him, thought he was reasonably intelligent, but there was something about him that made Tal twitch. It was his alpha male swagger, his awareness of his physicality; his relationship with a person Tal thought could do much better.
 

“Great. Steaks. We’ll set something up,” Leah yawned loudly. “Anything else?”

“I have one thing,” Tal announced. “Zoey is working for me in Seattle.”

“Oh, boy,” Bull chuckled. “Really, now.”

“Doing what?” Lucy snapped, and if Tal had to guess, he’d say she’d just smacked Bull from the groan he let out.

“She’s working gathering correspondence for Rika, since Rika handles correspondence.”

“She blow you
again
for the position?” Lucy asked coolly. “No,” Tal replied calmly, his face growing hot. “She called me, and we met when I was there, and I agreed to give her the job. She’s qualified, from working with you.”

“Hmm,” Lucy muttered. “And you trust her?”

“You trusted her for a long time, and if she did something to betray your trust, I doubt you would have allowed her to go to Seattle. I’d think she’d be in East now, or locked up in your jail.” Tal glanced at Leah who was enjoying their back and forth a little too much, a sly grin on her face. “I think she’ll be a wonderful addition in Seattle.”

The line went quiet for a minute. Lucy broke the silence by clearing her throat. “Well, if that’s everything, I’m sure we all have things to do.”

“Indeed,” Tal replied. “I’ll send the first round of phones with Otis tomorrow. Same time next week?”

“Yep,” she said tersely. “Think about the weapons.”

“Yeah, I will,” Tal said, although he knew he wouldn’t change his mind. “Bye.”

Leah laughed until she was red in the face once he hung up. “She is
not
happy with you.”

“What do I give a shit? So I hired her ex.” He busied himself with a pile of papers on his desk. “Big fucking deal.”

“You used to give a shit.”

He leaned back in his chair. “She’s war hungry and bitter. I can’t help that. Everything I do lately pisses her off so I might as well do what I want.”

“Hear, hear,” Leah agreed, clinking her water with Tal’s. “With that, I’m going to call it a day. I’ve got a date.”

“With who?” Tal asked suspiciously. “That guy from the piano bar?”

“He owns the piano bar,” she corrected. “And yes. Desmond. He’s got a sister.—”

“Nope,” Tal shook his head. He didn’t like Desmond, and he knew Leah would tire of him quickly, so he didn’t worry about making his feelings known. “Too weird.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t like a little strange,” she replied, her eyes gleaming. “You and I both know—”

“Be home by two,” he chuckled. “Or at least take your keys so I don’t have to get up and let you in.”

“I’m going to sleep over,” she said coyly. “So don’t wait up.”

Tal liked the way their relationship had evolved. It was much more clearly familial, and he allowed himself to feel protective of her, but the part of him that would have been jealous in the past was practically non-existent. He was proud of the way they’d grown in their relationship and ended up in a better place.
 

When he got home around six, he made a light dinner, consisting of a BLT and a bowl of chicken soup, and found himself itching to get out of the house. A couple of phone calls later, and he firmed up plans that would ensure him a good night’s sleep.

He had first learned about parkour a couple of years earlier when he’d come across some kids running through the ruins of a mansion near his house. He’d hidden and watched them jump and leap effortlessly around the foundation, in and out of the swimming pool, and clear several overgrown shrubs with unexpected precision for a couple of hours.
 
It had taken him a few nights to introduce himself to the two boys and the girl that seemed to regularly practice near his house. They ranged from fifteen to his age, and were uninterested in Tal’s political standing, which he found refreshing.

The first few times he’d traced, he hurt like hell, not from strained muscles, but from falling. He loved it from the beginning though; the freedom of moving through a variety of environments unhindered, focusing on moving and letting the day-to-day stress of his life float away as he challenged himself physically. He and the other three formed a club, and now there were about twenty traceurs in LA who met periodically to challenge themselves together.
 

It was a good use of his limited free time. He’d never felt stronger physically than he had in the past year or so, and his parkour friends, while not terribly close, were more into strategizing how he cleared fences and scaled walls than how he balanced budgets. It was escapism at its finest.
 

A newish girl, April, showed up a few minutes before he’d finished up for the night. Tal thought she was cute, with a bleach blonde pixie cut and green eyes that seemed to invite a challenge. She nodded at him as she wrapped her weak ankle.

“You’re done?” she chirped, pulling up her socks.

“Yep,” he replied, wiping his forehead with his t-shirt.
 

“Sorry I missed your moves. I hear you’re good.” She stood and smiled brightly at him. “Another time.”

He glanced at her for a second and quickly weighed a few pros and cons before he fumbled in his bag for a pen and paper. “Call me sometime and we’ll go out together.”

She looked at the piece of paper before tucking it into her shoe, her eyes gleaming. “Will do.”

He walked away with a smile on his face. He’d had good luck with girls through parkour, short and long term. Alvi, the last girl he’d dated for six months, was an amazing traceuse. He’d grown bored of her, she tired of him, but the sex never faltered. It had been bar none, the best of his life.
 
There was a physicality about it that led him to rise to the occasion in ways he’d never imagined. It had made a lot of the other stuff not matter for months and months.

When he walked through his front door later that night, his house was quiet. He showered, and sat down to look at the monthly budget. Financially, West was doing very well. He’d raised taxes two points and it had led to a great surplus, which he hoped he’d eventually be able to use to start upgrading infrastructure in more rural areas to encourage people to move outside the city core and grow more of their own food.
 

He was flipping through his mail from the week when he found a small envelope addressed to him in the most precise handwriting he’d ever seen. It was card-sized, and he reached for his father’s letter opener to break the seal.

It had a picture of a pier on the front and was from the Elected Governing Body of the Democratic Republic of East, thanking him for meeting with their representatives briefly and extending an olive branch for the future. No requests, no demands. Just a simple thank-you card.
 

Tal felt uneasy possessing it, since it was a reminder that he was keeping a secret from the person who allowed him to keep his region in the lifestyle he felt they deserved. Lucy’s leniency on her oil pricing, and the taxes Tal could subsequently place on it kept a lot of things going. He immediately balled it up and threw it in his trash can. Tal’s feelings about his contemporary shifted on a daily basis, but there was always an underlying thread of respect present, because she was great at what she did, and meeting with Lucy’s enemies, no matter how he’d been ambushed into it, or how little had actually been said, felt fundamentally wrong. Like a betrayal.
 

He’d just fallen asleep when he woke up to the phone beside his bed ringing.
 

“How fucking dare you. You knew…And still, you went and fucking saw her. You couldn’t resist, could you?” she hissed.
 

Tal hadn’t received a late night phone call from Lucy for more than two years. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and sighed. “Hi.”

“Go fuck yourself. And now I suppose you talk to her every fucking day, and you’re balls deep in her every time you’re in Seattle—”

He’d had enough of her insinuations about him hiring people because he was sleeping with them. It wasn’t the first time she’d made one; every time Tal hired anyone moderately attractive, there was a dig. “You’re nuts, you know that? You’re absolutely nuts. I’m not fucking Zoey. She reports to Rika. I don’t talk to her, and I don’t want to have anything to do with her. I have no idea why you care so much, or why you’d be obsessed with a girl whose heart you broke, but you don’t have to worry about me and Zoey. There is no me and Zoey. I don’t understand why we’re having this conversation—”

“You knew you’d get a reaction out of me. That’s why—”

“I hired her because I was hiring people, and she asked me for a job. That’s it. I don’t know why I have to explain myself to
you
.”

“You’re so fucking dense. You really have no idea why I’d be mad?” The bitterness in her voice seeped out and for a moment, Tal considered hanging up to avoid the toxicity. He knew that would piss her off more though, so he decided to stick it out for a few more minutes.

“I know exactly why you’re mad, and it’s childish. You’ve moved on, let her move on. I think you’d be happy that someone you once cared about is successful.” He did his best to speak calmly and rationally, partially to irritate her, and partially because he didn’t want her to know she still affected him, and her late night call had left him unwittingly nostalgic.
 

“I suppose you’re all having a good laugh about it too.” Her tone turned emotional and raw, and Tal’s heart ached, as it always did when she spoke from hers.
 

“No one’s laughing. What? Do you want me to fire her?”

“No,” she squeaked. “I don’t want that.”

“Then what do you want?”

“You know that’s a stupid question to ask me,” she mumbled. “I…I should go.”

“Night, Ce,” he murmured. “Sweet dreams.”

The phone clicked and she was gone. Tal hung his up and stretched out in his bed, both confused and saddened by her call. He’d missed their calls for a while, then forcibly convinced himself they’d been stupid from the beginning, but the pain in her voice, which she masked so well in their work calls took him back to some of the moments they’d shared, and he found himself lost, adrift in them for the better part of the night.
 

Copyright © 2014 C.S. Starr

All rights reserved.