East Rising (Naive Mistakes #2) (20 page)

"I work when I want to. You know that."

"I know, just checking if you'd gotten any
discipline in your life yet. Obviously not. I'm sure this lady here
will finally put the leash on you. It's about time." The man gave
Conall a light punch on the chest. Conall fell back lightly.

"Thanks, Trey," he said quietly. "Thanks for
everything."

"No sweat, little brother. Anytime." They
did that manly hug thing where they tap each other on the back or
something. This "Trey" guy turned and walked toward me.

I must say, being called a "lady" twice by
him in less than a minute had more than made me a little abashed by
now. "Trey, as you might've heard," he said to me. "Conall has
always been the uncouth, bohemian sort, never introducing people
and such." He stuck out his hand, now unwrapped of his hand-wraps.
I shook it.

"Leora," I said, feeling self-conscious and
a little shy. I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, barely able
to make eye contact with him! "Leora Caivano."

"I know who you are. I was only playing
there, pushing Conall's buttons, you know. Take care of him. He'll
lose his pretty face if he keeps coming in here to let off steam.
Conall talks with his fists when he's worried. Isn't that so,
Conall?"

"Shouldn't you be gone already?" said
Conall.

"Hey, I own this fucking
place. Want me to kick you out? I need breakfast." Trey turned to
me, looked once more at Conall, then bent down and whispered in my
ear. "He needs you now more than ever. But he'll
never
tell you that. Be
there for him, OK?"

I nodded. That was twice this morning I'd
been given the duty of taking care of Conall... What the fuck?

"Trey?" Conall's voice was suspicious.

"Conall," he said, "I was
just telling this delightful girl that you are one ugly
son-of-a-bitch. And that I will
always
be available if she needs some
real loving." He turned to me, winked once. "Right,
love?"

I smiled, getting the point. He'd confided
in me... "Of course, and thanks for giving me your number as well,"
I said, loud enough so Conall would definitely hear. I smiled.
Conall's face became briefly shocked, but only just.

Trey squeezed my shoulder as he left. "OK,
enough kidding around here. See you."

Conall and I stood staring at each other as
Trey's footsteps faded away, then the creak of the door, a slam
shut, silence.

"Nice place," I said, looking up at the
warehouse-slash-gym around me. We were about fifteen feet from each
other.

"What are you doing here, Leora?"

Hmmm, I wasn't sure how to react to that.
"You never came home. I was worried...about us. And about you. Alex
showed me where you were."

"Yes, I'm sorry about that." He sat back on
the low wall again.

"Conall, where do we stand? I mean, you tell
me things and I believe them and — "

"I've never lied to you, Leora. Everything
I've told you is true."

"I know. I know. But there's more to it,
isn't there? I mean, today, last night, what's this about?"

He shook his head, raked his fingers through
his sweaty hair. "I need a shower. Look, I'm sorry. I should've
texted you last night. But I figured you would message me if you
got worried."

"Wow, that's a lame excuse."

"Leora..." He cleared his throat. "Look,
I've been faithful to you. What else do you want? I... Sometimes I
just need to be left alone. It's just... It's who I am."

"You want to know what I want?" He nodded.
"I want you to let me in."

Conall processed it, then stood up. "I need
a shower. I stink. And there's blood all over my top. I'll be ten
minutes." He got up, walked away, into the room from which Trey had
earlier come out of.

And I was alone.

A man walked in when Conall was gone,
dressed in shorts and a sweatshirt. His footsteps echoed menacingly
as he approached me. He hooked his chin up in greeting to me. Even
in the dim light I could make out the huge tattoos on his neck —
spiderwebs. He took off the sweatshirt, revealing a ripped body
under a tank top. He walked my way, said nothing. I looked to where
Conall had been. It was dark behind the door he'd entered.

I turned and moved away, to the low wall
Conall had been sitting at. My heart thumped like a pneumatic
drill. Velcro unstrapped behind me. I turned. The man was putting
on hand-wraps. He frowned. "You OK?" he asked.

Huh?
Sweat broke out on my skin, probably out of relief. "Uh, um,
yeah, sure, I'm fine."

"Good. It's just that you look a little
freaked out. American, eh?"

"Yeah. You English, eh?"

"No, Australian, actually. Anyway, Americans
can never tell."

I smiled. He had that right. Although...
"Actually... Um, never mind."

"Suit yourself." He started hitting a
punching bag.

The safest place in
London
, Alex had said.

Conall came back out. He had a towel around
his shoulders... And he didn't have a shred of clothing on his
upper body.

Fuck me.
Two things caught my eye: He was bruised, all
around the ribs on the left — dark blue and light brown colored
bruises. Trey must pack quite a punch. Or kick. Both, most
likely.

And, the second thing I saw: He looked so
friggin ripped that my mouth watered. His abs wriggled and fought
for position as he walked toward me.

"'ey bup," said Spiderweb
Man to Conall.
Bup?

"Hey Keith." Conall leaned down next to me.
"Forgot my clothes." He picked up a black travel bag by my feet and
went back into that dark room. I guessed the showers were in there,
somewhere, like where the lights were finally on, down deep some
fricking corridor or something.

I listened to Spiderweb Keith mutilate the
punching bag. I felt like doing it myself.

Conall came back out after
a few minutes, no bag, so I guessed he had a permanent locker in
here or something. He had on a dress shirt, suit pants, a blazer,
fresh hair. He'd put some stuff on the cut above his eye to stop
the bleeding. It looked like it needed stitches. I wanted to tell
him that. But I didn't. If there was one thing I'd learned from
being with my dad in his gym it was that this was like their
frickin Mecca or something. If you're a woman in here, you don't go
and embarrass them by telling them they are "hurt" or some bullshit
like that. That's the whole point of them coming here — to get
hurt! (As Alex had said:
Men!
)

"Had breakfast?" Conall asked.

I shook my head.

"Most important meal of the day."

What, were we up in some business meeting in
here or something? I felt his distance from me. Not physically, but
in the ether, a metaphysical barrier of some sort, thick as a
wall.

"Is that your way of inviting me for a meal,
Mr. Williams?" I batted my eyelids.

And that did the trick:

Conall smiled, finally, and some tension
eased. He shook his head. "Come on." He put his arm around me.
"This place stinks."

Dani called.

"Hey, love. How are
you?"
'ey, love. 'Ow ahh ya?

"Hey, Dani. Nice to hear
from you. That's odd that you call." I couldn't remember if Dani
and I had
ever
spoken to each other on the phone... We always
texted.

"Oh, yeah, well, I just
wanted to know if everything was fine, you know. I mean,
this
is
the reason
you came to this place in the first place, isn't it? This Conall
bloke, that is."

"Yeah... Yeah, it is. That's sweet of
you."

"And?"

"Well..." I turned to Conall and asked him
to wait just a second, then I moved out of earshot. We were outside
now. "It's going...good, I guess. By the way, did Kayla tell you
about all the designer clothes that will be coming your way?"

"Oh, yeah, um, that's too much, love. I
can't accept — "

"C'mon!"

"Look, sweetie, I just
wanted to check that everything was fine. So, everything
is
fine, isn't it? I
mean, you two are now, um, dating?"

"Um..." I coughed.
"
Yeah
, yeah, I
guess we are..."

We
were
dating. That much was clear. Was
it going well? Hmmm, that was an entirely different question
altogether.

Dani had never really been
my go-to girl for deep emotional issues. I mean, she was cool, but
I saved all the really deep shit for Kayla. It was always Kayla. It
always would be. I figured this call from her was another step in
the direction of having a close friend. I could use that. As fucked
up as all the girls were around me, at least they
communicated
!

This strong and silent shit from Conall was
driving me fucking fruity.

She continued: "Well, that's good for you,
love. Anyway. Any idea when you'll be back?"

"Um, I guess tomorrow... I really don't
know. I kinda tricked Troy into letting me off for a few days."

"Oh, you flirted with him?"

I laughed. "Yeah."

"Works every time. Anyway, so, what, a few
days?"

"Sure, something like that, I guess.
Why?"

"Just curious. OK, sweetie, see you
then!"

"Bye, '
luff
.'" I tried to emulate her
accent. I failed miserably at it.

Conall and I caught the tube (subway) headed
for close to Covent Garden, an awesome little place with the cutest
mall that makes you think of everything traditionally English when
you see it. Only that's not exactly where he intended taking
me.

Riding the tube at a little before nine A.M.
felt like we were being carried off to the U.S. in the hold of an
illegal immigration ship with about seven-thousand people inside
it. I was elbowed, jostled, my toes were stood on at least twice.
Someone bumped into my head.

When we got out, then up the stairs, and
finally saw the cloudy sky (England, almost always cloudy) I heaved
in a breath of fresh air and vowed never to take the tube so early
in the morning again!

"Virgin, eh?" said Conall.

"What?"

"The
tube
. Your first time at this time of
day?"

"Oh, right, yeah. I get it."

"Why do you think I work mostly from
home?"

"You really have an easy life, don't
you?"

He didn't answer, looked
away. "So, there's a nice little place just up the way here. It's
called
Smokey's
.
It's one of the few places you can get some peace and quiet around
here."

We weaved through several
roads, up some alleys, down a back street, behind some houses,
walked, walked, ...,
walked
. In all, it took us almost
forty-five minutes of walking!
Just up the
way here... Uh-huh.

At the end of an alley,
after some pubs and a few shady characters, lay a restaurant with a
sign covered in graffiti. The first S of
Smokey's
had a graffiti hat painted
on it. The apostrophe had a heart surrounding it. On the final S
of
Smokey's,
there
was a burger and smoke (not graffiti.)

Adding to the smoke motif, greasy clouds of
it filled the inside of this deli-slash-dive-slash-grill-place as
we entered it. Old men sat around and ate, some played cards. The
tables were wooden, the seats hard. Many had words and names etched
into them. And it was loud as hell in there! Something sizzled in
the kitchen, audible from where we were standing.

"'ey, look what the cat
dragged in!" said someone from behind the counter. "Ooh, and he
brought a lady with him!" No T's, no H's, and
with
came out as
wif
.

The man speaking had a gold tooth, wore a
hair net, and carried a spatula. He wiped his free hand on his
white coat and stuck it above the deli counter. Conall shook
it.

"Smokey, this is Leora. Leora Caivano."

Smokey, who looked to be in his forties (and
maybe an ex-marine because he was damn buff), paused a second, then
smiled knowingly. "Is that right, young Conall? Well, pleasure to
meet you ma'am." I shook his hand. "So, what'll it be? You're
looking a little thin, Conall. Full English?"

"Actually, I've been up most of the night
and just came from Trey's so, add two more eggs and another sausage
to that."

"Oh, it'll cost you. Say, an extra hundred
quid?"

Conall smiled. "Whatever, just feed me.
Quick!"

"Nah, fine, if you twist my arm like that,
it's on the house," said Smokey. "And for the pretty lady?" Damn
it, these English guys really had a way with me... Call me lady and
I'm putty.

"Um, h — half? Do you do a half English
breakfast?"

"Course not! But in your case we'll make an
exception. One Full-Plus-Extra coming up, and one Half." (No H on
the "half.")

"Smokey, we'll move a table outside, OK?"
Conall said.

"Sure, sure, no need to ask."

Conall shook hands with some other men in
there. He was a regular man-about-town here. Only this was clearly
not the town he was from. This was the London equivalent of The
Bronx kind of town. And what of Covent Garden? Long gone from
here...

Most of the men — not a single one under
fifty-five it seemed — looked at me and then smiled at Conall. One
grizzled man, donning a denim jacket and a tweed flat cap, said,
"Finally, one that looks like she can rein you in..."