Forever (18 page)

His tall, muscular form froze in the doorway, filling the space. She could hear his deep, heaving breaths. The faint ticking of the clock, the drip of the sink and all the other usual noises in their condo faded away before the sounds he was making, and her vision narrowed to focus on him. She was vaguely aware another large body flanked him, and saw an equally large hand clamp down on his shoulder in an attempt to fix him in place when he leaned forward threateningly. The nails of that hand were clean, with the exception of badly bruised fingers, the nail beds purple and blue. Randy, his hand injured in the fight—was it only the day before? Her anxious mind seized on the details while quailing from the symbolism. It knew pain was in the offing, just not the form it would take.

“Get your shit and get out.” Her man’s handsome face was set in granite, offset only by the unsuppressed fury churning in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Was that her voice? That tiny, tentative whispering thread of sound?

Dean never turned his temper on her. Amy saw him angry, pissed, furious even. He didn’t hide his emotions. He acted many of them out, but she liked that about him because she didn’t have to watch so carefully and ensure the accuracy of what she was reading in order to protect herself. It had been a huge burden Amy had been glad, no, supremely grateful, to relinquish.

“Shut up, Amy. Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Did you think I’d be blinded forever by you spreading your legs for me and sucking me off each and every fucking day? Did you think you’d distract me?”

Shrinking back at the vitriol in his voice, a nugget of humiliation taking root and unfurling way down inside, Amy worked hard at masking her pain. She gave Dean everything sexually. Willingly. He’d never spoken to her with such disgust, aired their personal lives. He knew how ashamed she was of her past. She couldn’t think of anything to say, couldn’t respond in light of the fury he exuded. Snatching up a jar of spices from the cabinet he hurled it at the opposite wall where it smashed and shattered into slivers to emulate her crumbling life.

“Find out what?” She finally managed to croak the query past the tightening in her throat.

The envelope sailed across the short distance, windmilling, catching her thigh with an edge, a surprisingly solid blow. It settled at her feet. She stared down at it, lifting her other hand to link fingers with the one at her belly, to refrain from reaching for it. The innocuous yellow brown of the packet didn’t shed any light of explanation yet pulsed with dark warning. Squinting, she could make out Dean’s name, written in bold, black strokes, but no return address, at least not on the side she could see. Amy raised her eyes once again to his.

“Out. You’ve got a half hour. And you don’t show your face anywhere I do. You see me in the distance
, you turn and walk the other way. I come into a place you’re at—you haul your ass out. Or I won’t be responsible. Clear?”

It hit her then. She’d been wrong. She’d been wrong a whole lot of times when younger, but she was so certain she and Dean had it right.
Wrong.
And it gutted her, left her without an ounce of energy. She had no clue what it was she’d done, but it didn’t matter. Dean wasn’t going to give her a chance to explain, even if she could. His shit was deep and while knowing it well, she truly hadn’t believed it would drown what they had. Had. Past tense. She’d allowed herself to hope, been lulled by the apparent growth of their relationship, and was suddenly transported back in time to her expected reality.

Get over it, Amy, wrap it up. No time for tender reminiscences.
Making herself nod she looked away from his beloved face. The familiar numbness from all past mistakes flooded over her, the comforting shield of shock easing the wrenching pain. His boots hammered out the door and down the steps.

Amy became aware of the clearing rasp of a masculine throat and raised her gaze to meet Randy’s. Randy liked her and she liked him, and she and Andrea were cautiously developing a friendship. Past tense. He was staring at her with scorn, his upper lip ever so slightly curled, big body radiating disgust. He’d picked a side and that too was no surprise. Why would anyone pick hers? Amy thought she was making other friends within Dean’s circle, but loyalties being what they were, well, she was naturally on the losing end. She ignored Randy with not-so-surprising ease. It didn’t matter. Only her news mattered. She had to get gone and somehow regroup. If not for that news she would probably have opened her throat with the big knife set perpendicular to the carving board. Anything to end this.
Drama. Not the time.

Remembering the roast, she slipped for an instant into the banality of everyday life. Turning off the oven, she grabbed the oven mitts to lift out the partially cooked meat, carefully setting it on top of the stove. The rich scent made her nauseous now and she doubted she would ever be able to smell roasting beef again without an olfactory stab of painful remembrance.

Randy passed behind her and from the corner of her eye saw him dip his knees. He snagged the envelope and shook the contents onto the granite countertop. The glossy papers slithered like a snake and one came to rest directly within her sight line. Staring at it in confusion, Amy could feel her eyes narrow and her brow furrow. Why had someone taken pictures of her talking to Saul Burrows? She looked the question at Randy.

“Dean got them in the mail, Amy. Imagine his surprise, bitch.”

Involuntarily flinching back at the epithet, she still had to ask. “Why would anyone take a picture of me and Mr. Burrows?”

“Mr.
Burrows
?” Randy’s tone was almost comically high pitched.

“Yes, Saul Burrows. He works in the deli
I found. He saves me stuff and arranges for me to get different ingredients I can’t get other places. Orders it special. I bought the prime rib from him this morning.”

“That’s Saul
Burnett
, Amy. And he doesn’t work in a deli. He’s moving to control street betting as well as our other interests and is pushing Dean hard. And he knows a lot about Dean’s business.”

Shaking her head, glancing at the clock, she was unable to process and had no time for mysteries. Dean’s ultimatum rang in her ears. Now twenty minutes and counting. She had to go. Turning on her heel, she hurried into the bedroom, the one she’d shared with Dean and would no longer. Nearly a year of carefully working out the bumps along the way, sweetly balanced by need. The moving in after such a short time made it formal, a day she’d remember forever as a turning point in her life—to hell.

Standing there for a few moments staring blindly around, brain not registering what it was she needed. It came to her. Nothing. Her clothes filled one of the closets, and part of another, not to mention her shoes. Amy’s weakness was shoes and Dean indulged her, but they meant nothing to her now. She needed him and he wasn’t hers to have, if he ever was. It was like she was a different person, all hint of the past year with Dean extinguished like time travel. Her purse sat on the dresser and she grabbed it up.

Dropping the strap over her head, settling it on her shoulder, ignoring Randy’s speculative look she crossed to the bed, carefully picking up the little black bear from its nest on the throw pillows. Her one and only tie with the best part of her life, even if she couldn’t really remember her parents.
Moving to the den where her laptop lay, she hefted it. It fit into the wide mouth of her bag, and accommodated the cord too.

Her heart wasn’t so numb anymore. It was hurting like a mother, and Amy wondered if it might fail before she got out the door.
How can you mend a broken heart?
The line from a juke box oldie pounded behind her temples.

“Uh, Amy? Maybe I should talk with Dean for a minute before you leave.”

Randy was a smart guy. Amy knew that. He was also Dean’s best friend and trusted right hand, his lieutenant. Maybe he saw something Dean missed, because Randy wasn’t blinded by her sucking
him
off each and every day. That bitter thought came out of nowhere and gave her strength. Managing a final grand gesture, as hollow as it was, she unhooked the delicate gold bracelet from her wrist and let it curl onto the dresser, a slender shower of symbolism. That bracelet had meant as much to her as any wedding band. She answered Randy, avoiding his eyes.

“Wouldn’t matter, Randy. He was just looking for an excuse. Always has been. I knew it for the truth, but I hoped and fooled myself. I thought I was enough for him, that he actually trusted me…
Anyhow, wrong again. So more fool me.”

A shard of defensive memory pierced her single
-minded purpose to get clear. Amy detoured into the dining room, carefully keeping her body between Randy’s sharp eyes and a place setting at the head of the table, her hand drifting over it. Sleight of hand, learned at the tables in Vegas in another life. The little paper stick with its proud plus sign, tucked into the little plastic bag, like a party treat for the aborted dinner, fit right into the crease of her palm. A no brainer.

“You need to wait, Amy. Something stinks here.” She could very nearly see his clever brain ticking over. But Dean had crossed the line. Betrayal, only not on her part. She couldn’t expose her secret—Amy shoved the thought away, afraid Randy might read her.

Brushing past the man, pausing at the coat closet to snag her jacket, she shoved the baggie into the pocket, and was out the door after toeing into her flats. He said something, but Amy couldn’t hear the words past the increasing sound of those lyrics and their accompanying melody filling her head.
How do you mend those broken dreams? How does a loser ever win?
She fumbled the keys out of her purse and stabbed them into the lock on the driver’s door of her car. The close call in Vegas allowed her to buy that vehicle. It was only five years old, had low mileage and was in good shape. It would get her where she needed to go.

She had two stops to make before she really got gone. One at the bank and the second at Sandra’s. Sandra wouldn’t say she told her so, although Amy would feel it all the same, getting involved with such a dangerous man. Sandra would tell Amy she loved her and cared about her and for Amy to call when she got where she was going. She owed it to her friend to say goodbye face to face.

****

“What?” Dean’s voice shook the rafters. Randy actually stepped back half a pace, so he could only imagine what his face looked like. His guts roiled.

“It was a set up. Something to tie you in knots and have you looking the wrong direction while his minions swept in. And it would have worked except for your refusal to let Amy cloud your thinking. I don’t know how you did it.”

A hint of the other man’s regret got through and rubbed salt in Dean’s mortal emotional wound. He sourly reflected on how past dire necessity taught him how to wrap up his angst over Amy and shove it away.

“I saw your woman’s shock ’cause it wasn’t as personal for me. She looked so fucking bewildered. She actually asked me why someone would want to take a picture of her and the deli guy. It took me the rest of yesterday and half the night but I found the asshole who took the pics. He said he had to work real hard to get the right angle to make it look like Amy was more than just a customer. Burnett was selling her fucking meat and other grocery crap, Dean. Pretending to work the deli. I’ve already had a word with the owner.”

The words pushed past the stricture in Dean’s chest. He felt blindly for his chair and nearly fell into it, peering up at Randy. “Fuck me, no. And I fell for it. So we’ve got somebody else sharing my shit with Burnett and I dealt harsh with Amy. Didn’t even question it. Didn’t even give her the benefit of the doubt or ask her. Fuck. Where is she?”

Randy shrugged. “Dunno. She took you at your word and got gone. Grabbed her purse and jacket, her computer, drove her car away. I called Mike but he couldn’t make it across town in time to track her and I had to look into this as a priority. She moved right along, Dean.”

Dean sucked in air and struggled to control himself. “She didn’t pack her shit?”

“You didn’t give her time to do much of anything, buddy.”

Randy’s practicality rubbed Dean the wrong way, a sure sign he’d fucked up royally. He relied on Randy’s realism. But if she didn’t take her stuff
, then she’d have to come back for it. Wouldn’t she?

“I didn’t go home,” he muttered. “Didn’t want to smell her, feel her there. Stayed at
Crystal’s. Thought I’d give it a couple of days.” And thought to erase the pain by turning to Crystal, a woman who knew the score, one who’d fuck him and hardly notice when he’d gone. Except he couldn’t make himself go through with it, and slept in her spare room. Seemed one part of him knew Amy better than his stupid fucking pride did, contaminated as it was by his fucking past.

Randy nodded sagely as though he totally understood, and maybe he did. Randy goddamn near pushed Andrea away with his own brand of shit. Dean focused. Amy would go to Sandra. She had slowly been building a posse amongst the crew’s women, but not one of them meant what Sandra did.

“I’ll go see Sandra.”

“Mike missed her there
, too, and Sandra sent him packing with some choice words. Amy wasn’t in real good shape, Dean, just so you know. I asked her to give me some time with you, but she said it didn’t matter.”

Dean fought the unfamiliar panic blooming in his chest, dissolving that earlier tightness, but it felt worse, it that was possible. “What else did she say?”