Текст книги "Forever Innocent"

Автор книги: Deanna Roy

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Over the years, I got to know Rosa better. She always seemed happy to see me, and now that I was restless about Corabelle, I wanted only her.

The apartments where she lived were stacked in rundown buildings with adobe facades. Normally I wouldn’t enter one alone, being so obviously an outsider, but every time I thought about what Corabelle might be doing with that baby-faced punk, I couldn’t give a shit about any of it. Bring on the switchblades, the fistfight, even the gunpoint. Anything was easier than trying to be the good guy again just so Corabelle could finish me off.

I knew better than to leave my bike on that street, so I rolled it right into the corridor between the two halves of the building. I kept my back to the wall as I pulled out my phone to text her.

It took a few minutes, but she finally responded with “I’m coming down.” I didn’t know if that meant she was rushing someone out, but I didn’t much care either. Rosa was my top choice, and tonight it would take more than any ordinary girl to settle me.

The locks began twisting and creaking as someone fumbled with the other side. When Rosa opened the door, I didn’t respond like I expected. She looked the same, long black hair now laced with blond, her curvy body strapped into things that pushed up and squeezed in. She motioned me inside, looking both ways down the corridor into the night. I grasped the handlebars of my bike and rolled it in as I always did, and we shoved it into a little room under the stairs where people stuffed their trash until collection.

“Mi amante,” she said. “I am glad to see you.” She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me in to her lips. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off, but I managed a passable kiss. She led me up the stairs to her door.

Some people would probably have considered the place squalor, but to me it was typical for the district. The walls were peeling and the rail rusted out. A weak light sputtered at the landing.

Inside the apartments, the tenants took care of their spaces. Rosa covered her walls with large woven tapestries in red and gold and green. Candles burned in every corner, and a CD turned low just covered the street sounds with rhapsodic love songs in Spanish.

“Sit,” Rosa said, pushing me to the sofa, also covered in bright blankets. She moved to her kitchen and returned with a Corona. “Bad day?”

I nodded and knocked back half the bottle. Rosa could handle this. I’d come here in bad shape before.

“Ah, pobrecito. Let me fix.” She knelt and began to untie my boots.

I laid my head back on the sofa and tried to relax. Her ceiling was covered in stains. We were all born into such different circumstances. I hadn’t been that much better off than Rosa, a tumbledown house on a bad street in a small town. My biggest luck had been to back up to middle-class row houses across the alley, and Corabelle.

Damn it, I’d come back to her again. I took a long pull of the beer and watched Rosa set the heavy boots aside. She wore some tight contraption of a shirt with lace strings up the front. It pushed her breasts up so that they started spilling over. She caught me looking and tugged on one of the strings, letting it loose.

Normally I’d already have my hands on her, pulling that off, burying my face against her skin, but today I felt so detached, like she was on a screen rather than in the room. She seemed to understand this and stood up, turning in a slow circle as she plucked at the rest of the laces. They came out, one by one, until the shirt fell open and she shrugged the whole thing off her shoulders.

Her dark naked breasts were kissed by candlelight. I should have been feeling it, and alarms started going off that I wasn’t. This couldn’t be about Corabelle. I wouldn’t let it. Rosa had been my escape for years, easy and friendly and open to whatever I wanted.

Damn it, it was already happening. I couldn’t help but compare them, Corabelle’s innocent beauty next to Rosa, who seemed to be trying so hard with the eyelashes and rouged cheeks. Where Rosa was ample, Corabelle was slight. I should have had my hands and mouth on the feast in front of me, but I just sat there like a chair, nothing stirring in my pants.

I’d make this happen. I would force it. With a growl, I grasped Rosa’s hand and pulled her toward me. She tumbled into my lap with a light laugh.

I pulled her into a kiss, plumbing her mouth with my tongue. She met me with practiced ease, and as soon as I sensed her working to please me rather than responding on her own, I jerked away again. Bloody hell. She’d been fine before.

“Very bad day,” she said, smoothing down my hair. “Let me fix.” She reached between my legs and squeezed.

It wasn’t going to work. Not today. I lifted her off my lap and set her on the sofa. The window beckoned and I stood beside it, looking out on the streets. People walked down below, making deals, passing cash for women or drugs or wagers. I didn’t used to know any of this. If none of the crap had happened four years ago, I still wouldn’t know. I’d be out of school, teaching kids like we’d planned. Finn would be wandering around, a year away from kindergarten, and WHY THE HELL WAS THIS ON MY MIND AGAIN?

“Something’s different, Gavinito.”

I shrugged. “Old life came back.”

“Like the day we met?”

“Something like that.”

“The reason why you get cut so young?”

I whirled around, tugging out several bills – money I couldn’t really afford to be wasting – and left them on the table. “I have to go.”

Rosa nodded, picking up her shirt. “I see you again soon, when day not so bad?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

She worked the series of locks on her door and pressed against the doorframe. She seemed to know I wouldn’t be back. “Adios, Gavinito.”

“Good-bye, Rosa.”

I rushed down the stairs, anxious to be out of there. I shouldn’t be messing with Corabelle for the same damn reasons. It’s not like her learning about the vasectomy four years later would make it any easier. She’d want kids eventually, and I’d screwed her over.

But then, what if she didn’t? What if she felt like I did? Maybe this would be the right thing.

I had to talk to her. I had to know what she wanted, where she was going. And if there was any place for me. I’d make one. I’d make her see.

My anxiety rose as I headed for the trash room. Of all the times I’d been in Tijuana and hadn’t cared what happened to me or what could go wrong, this night I just knew the bike would be stolen or I’d get thrown in an alley. Murphy’s Law, my dad used to say when something went south. “Shit that can go wrong, will go wrong. Right when you need it not to.”

I was relieved as hell to see the Harley sitting where I left it. I rolled it out and opened the outer door more cautiously than usual, watching to make sure I wasn’t interrupting a deal. I normally rode through with swagger that made people leave me alone, but right now I felt like a nervous tourist trying to get the hell back home.

The corridor was empty so I walked the bike down to the street. I’d go to the coffee shop, live there if I had to, until I saw Corabelle again. I didn’t think for a minute that that pink-haired chick would give Corabelle my number, not after she ran off with the other guy.

When I popped out on the street, a pair of men just a few feet away looked up. Damn it, I’d been distracted. You couldn’t do that in Zona Norte.

“Who the fuck is that?” one of them said, some college kid from stateside, and he took off running.

Shit.

The other man, short and thick and blasting machismo in a leather jacket, strode up to me, smoothing his long sideburns with his fingers. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Just moving on.” I threw my leg over the Harley, but I misjudged his intention. Sideburns rushed me, arms around my chest, and dragged me off the bike.

“You lost me a fine customer.” He delivered a sharp kick to my gut, and sparks flew behind my eyes. He ran his hand along the chrome. “Nice ride.”

When he started to lift it from the ground, I swung my boot around to knock him off his feet. By the time he recovered, I was up again and ready to finish this out. No way was someone going to screw me over this late in the game.

Sideburns seemed to relish the thought of a fight, and I caught the glint of a set of brass knuckles. That was good, I thought. He felt he needed an edge, which meant he wasn’t a street fighter.

He lunged first, and my fist connected with his jaw in a crunch of bone. I had no time to think about the pain, because he was back, delivering several sharp blows to my ribs.

He could hit me there all day. I whipped around, grabbing him by the shoulders and shoving him into the street. He stumbled off the curb, shook himself, and charged again.

I’d had enough of this bullshit, so I let him get close enough to take a poorly aimed shot at my chest, then I aimed low and hard, a forward punch into his gut followed by two in a row to his face. He blew backward, falling into the wall.

He raised his hands in the air and stumbled toward the curb like he was leaving. He seemed calm, too calm, and that’s when I knew he was packing.

This was no good. A sorry-ass punk like him would take a potshot at me when I rode away. I had to shut him down.

“Hey!” I shouted.

When he turned back around, I ran at him with a growl, knocking him into a car. Four rapid punches to his face kept him still long enough that I could reach around and feel for the gun stuck in the back of his waistband, under the coat. I jerked it out, knowing I’d have to ditch it somewhere before I got to the border.

I aimed it at his head. “Back off. I have no issue with you.”

I kept the gun trained on him as I moved to the bike. I couldn’t lift the Harley without lowering my arm. If he had a second one, this was over. Adrenaline soared through my body and I wondered for a moment if Corabelle would notice if I disappeared, rolled into some ditch in Mexico.

Sideburns watched me as I lifted the bike. Normally I would have pocketed the shells and tossed the weapon, but my prints were on it, and the last thing I needed was for him to kill somebody later and drag me into it.

The Harley roared, and I kept the gun in my left hand as I took off down the street, watching him for as long as possible. I had to give the universe credit, she was going to direct me the way she wanted me to go, closing off other avenues until I followed her path. I couldn’t come back to Zona Norte anytime soon. Sideburns would be watching this street, assuming I’d be back, and next time wouldn’t go so easy for me.

I took the most direct route back to the main highway and as soon as I hit the stretch that was unpopulated, mostly trees and brush, I pulled over.

I yanked an oil rag from my saddlebag, and in the light from the headlamp, I emptied the gun, a Glock, letting the ammunition fall onto the rag. I was careful not to touch any of the bullets as I used the rag to toss them into the thick brush.

Then I wiped down the gun as best I could, letting the oily rag take off any prints. I pushed aside a thorny bush and kicked at the dirt to create a shallow hole. Once the Glock was buried and the brush back over it, I breathed out a relieved sigh. That had been too close. Way too close. I’d been in fights before, back when I’d shoot pool in Tijuana and sometimes some punk didn’t want to give up his losses. But this was more. This was another sign that my life was going some other direction.

I got back on the bike and headed toward the border crossing. It wasn’t until the guard checked my ID and waved me back through that I realized how lucky I’d been.

Now it was time to take that luck and make it work on Corabelle. Time to man up and face everything.

Chapter 15: Corabelle

The day had actually gone pretty well.

Austin and I had walked through campus, gotten cheap noodles from a cart vendor, and hung out near the Sun God statue, staring up into its colorful protective face. I suspected he might have skipped a class for me, but I didn’t ask him about it. Fridays were my clear days, catch-up days, but this early in the quarter I could goof off still.

When evening came, he asked if I wanted to walk over to his place. “Don’t worry that I’m trying to get you alone,” he said. “I have six roommates and nobody ever gets anybody alone.”

“Six!” I appreciated, as I had throughout the day, how easy Austin had made everything, as if anticipating my every point of concern.

“If you’re after me for my money, I might as well just give it all to you now.” He pulled a quarter from his pocket and pressed it into my palm.

I swallowed at the contact. Austin had been super hands off, even though I had grabbed him when we hurried out of the building as Jenny stalled Gavin. There was nothing about this guy I hadn’t liked. The world seemed to understand that at this very moment, I needed something like him. I’d doubted fate for so long that it was a relief to actually believe in it again, if just for a day.

He let go and I closed my fingers around the quarter. “So poverty means you live in barracks?”

“It’s a townhouse with three bedrooms. So it’s not too bad.”

We walked along a path through a forest of trees, past the towering library and away from the roof where I spent time with Gavin. I chided myself for thinking about him when the day had been so easy.

“So tell me something,” Austin said, and his change of tone made my heart hammer. Don’t ruin it, I begged. Let it be.

He stuck his hands in his pockets, as if trying to stall for time. My anxiety rose.

“We’ve had a good day, right?” He looked out over the diagonal panels of the sidewalk instead of at me. A few other students were heading out toward the parking lots. We were almost back to the engineering hall, where we’d started.

“Yeah, sure. It’s been good.”

“So why do you seem so sad?”

Back to that. I remembered when he gave me the note. He knocked on the counter, as if knowing he’d done something special by making me smile for a second. Everyone was right, he had been watching me all along.

“Is that too personal?” He stopped walking, still not looking at me.

I came up beside him. “Might be a story for another day.”

“Okay.” He turned finally, gazing at my face. “I guess making you laugh will just have to become my new goal in life.”

I forced a smile, for his sake, even if it wasn’t too convincing.

“See, I’m halfway there.” He reached out and took my hand. “Is this okay?”

I had to smile that he asked permission. “In some countries, I think it means we’re betrothed.”

“A joke!” He slapped a palm against his forehead. “I’m better than I thought!”

I punched him on the arm and he grasped my other hand, facing me like we were about to say wedding vows. His tone got all serious and I swallowed. What would he do now? Try to kiss me in the middle of the quad? I glanced around nervously. Gavin could be on campus somewhere.

Austin let go of my hands. I’d messed up the moment. I’d probably do that a lot.

“Let’s go see what trouble everyone’s into,” he said. “Someone’s bound to have ordered cheap pizza, and then I can feed you.”

“Do you work?”

“No time for a job,” he said. “Engineering kills me. I’m just trying to get done before my loans overrun my earning potential.”

We resumed walking along the mall, past the engineering building. I could picture Gavin on his motorcycle, talking to Jenny. I hadn’t had a single free moment to call or text her and find out what they had discussed. Maybe she’d reneged on her deal and gone off with him. My belly burned.

“Still with us?” Austin asked.

Dang it. He deserved more than my scattered attention. “I am,” I said. “I may be more ditzy headed than you figured.”

He bumped his shoulder against mine. We were almost the same height. “I’d go for deep over ditzy.”

We left campus behind and wandered a few streets into the adjoining neighborhood, a mass of apartment complexes. “You live near campus?” he asked.

“Oh, no. I’m way out.”

“Did you bus in?”

“I have a car.”

“Hoity-toity, are we?” He turned us down a side street.

“I have a job. It helps.” And, of course, three years of school paid by scholarship. My debt would be minimal as long as I was careful.

We walked along a sidewalk to a row of townhouse condos that looked to be mostly rentals, judging by the scraggly lawns and ill-kept hedges, all signs of students who couldn’t care less about curb appeal.

The buildings looked identical to me, but Austin turned us in at one near the middle of the street. “See, not too tiny. We can probably find some little corner to ourselves.”

The wood steps were peeling and scarred. A tower of pizza boxes filled one side of the porch, awkwardly stacked in a way that couldn’t possibly stand on its own.

“The leaning tower of pizza,” Austin explained. “Impaled on a center stake. Our little student engineering joke.” He opened the door and stepped aside to let me through.

The smell of beer and stale bread accosted me as my eyes adjusted. We were approaching full dark now, and only a few small corner lamps lit the living room.

A girl sprawled on a ratty recliner, her face glowing from the light of her laptop. She didn’t look up. “That’s Daryl’s girl,” Austin said in my ear. “I’d introduce you but I can’t remember her name.”

To the left was another large room, wall to wall with sofas. In it, several guys sat around a television, playing a video game. “You want to meet them?” Austin asked. “Or save it for later?”

I suddenly wasn’t up for being friendly to a roomful of strangers. “Show me around first.”

We went straight back to the kitchen, cluttered with paper cups and more pizza boxes. “This is a good day,” he said. “Usually you can’t find the sink.” Off to one side was a dining room with a huge rough-hewn picnic table in it. “Seating for ten,” he said. “For all our grand occasions.”

“I’ll keep it in mind for my next formal banquet.”

He reached for my hand and squeezed. “You want to see my room? Ben might be there, so we’d have a chaperone.”

I swallowed. What if he wasn’t? Being alone with Austin didn’t feel right, not yet. But I was being silly. I was twenty-two and not exactly a virgin.

Austin sensed my hesitation. “Or we can sit here.” He pointed at the table.

“No, it’s fine. Show me your space.”

We crossed back into the kitchen and through a narrow hallway that led to a set of tightly turning stairs. “I’m on the second floor. All the bedrooms are upstairs.”

I followed him up. On the walls were posters of scientists, cheaply framed. Einstein with his shock of crazy hair. Madame Curie looking serious and smart.

“Door closed, no sock, looks like Ben’s there but not in any compromising positions.”

“Seriously? You use the sock method?”

He twisted the knob. “We do. Yes, we’re juvenile.” The door stuck a minute, then popped open. The smoke and smell hit me instantly.

“Hey, guys!” Austin said. “I brought a girl!”

“Bullshit!” someone said. “Did you lay a trap or something?”

Austin tried to pull me inside but my feet were rooted to the floor. Weed. They were all smoking marijuana. I began to back away, yanking my hand from his.

“Corabelle, you okay?” He looked inside. “Shit, guys, can you put those out?”

I couldn’t believe it. I thought all this time that fate was putting me here. That Austin would help. That Gavin was just a coincidence. That I’d be better.

I turned for the stairs. But no, it was worse. I could see it now. Things weren’t getting better. I was getting caught. Everything was catching up to me. The world wanted its punishment. I was going to pay again, all over again, and probably again and again and again throughout my whole life.

I started running, crashing down the stairs, knocking Einstein sideways, and hurtled back through the house. Austin was close behind, but when I crashed through the door and out onto the lawn, he called out. “Corabelle, stop! Please! I’m sorry! I didn’t know it would upset you! I should have checked first!”

My feet pounded the sidewalk in a full-on sprint. Hell was on my heels. I knew if I looked behind me, I would see it, a black cloud creeping up, like the way the ocean had bumped up against the lights of the city from the roof. My past was coming for me and this time there would be no way to escape it.