Never Been Kissed (21 page)

“Seemed?” Brody asked, arching an eyebrow at her. Sean had all but done cartwheels despite Brody explaining it was only for a while.

“I had a good time tonight,” she said. “I like your brother.”

Brody nodded.
I like him, too,
he thought.

Sean had been funny and engaging and taking shots at himself and Brody until even Ed had to smile. And for a while it had been about as normal a family dinner as one could ever imagine.

As he’d ever imagined.

But then his father had started coughing, deep hard coughs like they were coming up from his toes and Sean had helped him off to the bedroom, leaving Brody and Ashley stunned at the kitchen table.

“You worried about your dad?”

He dropped her hand and put some distance between them, because enough was enough. He couldn’t talk about his father and his brother and touch her skin and pretend like this was all part of his life. It wasn’t. None of this was what he was used to, or wanted to get used to.

“Sean’s got it under control,” he said. She stopped and her eyes shamed him. There had been a lot of pills on that table. And it all seemed pretty unorganized. He lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’ll talk to him.”

“Your dad told me about Linda getting pregnant with Sean, about how you were left alone for so long.”

“He and Sean were real chatty.” He stepped over a giant cracked section of sidewalk and then reached out a hand to help her.

“It must have been hard.”

“I was safe. Well fed. Had my own room.”

“Were you lonely?”

Lonely didn’t cover it. Lonely barely scratched the surface. “I had babysitters.”

“You know,” she said, real casual, “I used to have this fantasy of my mom apologizing to me for the way she treated me when I was a kid. She would tell me, with tears in her eyes, that I was good enough to be her daughter. And then I dreamt that she would come to Africa and see the work that I was doing and she’d tell me how proud she was. And then I just wanted her to send me a birthday card. Or call me at Christmas. The older I got the less I required from her to make what was wrong between us right. When we saw her in New York the other day I honest to God thought, if she warms up that soup herself and brings it to me—maybe with an apron on—it will be done. I will forgive her.”

“What’s your point, Ashley?”

“What will it take for you to forgive Ed?”

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

“Then why are you punishing him?”

“I’m not. He adopted me. Saved me from growing up in the foster system. I hold no grudge.”

“You could barely sit in that kitchen, Brody. You hated being there, everyone knew it.”

“Not every family is close, you know that better than most. Ed and I aren’t, we never have been. It is what it is.”

“Bullshit,” she whispered.

They circled the bar into the back alley and up the stairs. At the top, he unlocked the door and followed her into the hushed quiet of the apartment.

The night felt too small around him, the apartment with its shadows and quiet was crushing.

Her questions were crushing. He lived thousands of miles away from his family so he didn’t have to be reminded of how damaged they were.

“You all right?” he asked and she turned, her brown hair falling down over her yellow cardigan. The cardigan did her no favors, it made her bruises look worse, highlighted how skinny she was, and it didn’t matter—he wanted to touch her. Push those buttons from the holes and kiss the injuries, kiss away every moment of pain and fear she’d ever felt.

And when her deep brown eyes met his it felt like she wanted to do the same—for him.

For one brief horrifying moment, he felt the world open up under him, a corresponding hole in his stomach.

“I’m … going to make a few phone calls,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the open door. She nodded and he stepped back out into the night. Quickly, he scrambled up onto the roof and pulled out his cell phone.

He didn’t bother listening to his voicemail, just hit return for the last incoming number.

“Jesus Christ,” Clint said as he answered. “Look who has come out of his hole.”

“Sorry,” Brody said, feeling a pinch of guilt. For the last ten years Brody had lived his job. Or rather his life had been reduced to his job—he had no friends, really. Not much family. No wife, kids. It was just work. As a
private contractor to Clint’s business he’d taken a lot of pride in the fact that he was a good Marine. Reliable. Accessible and always ready to deploy. This was the first time he hadn’t answered Clint’s calls immediately. “It’s been busy.”

The bruised edges of the day were turning black and Brody propped his knees up. “What’s up?”

“Well, Senator Rawlings is headed over to Saudi Arabia—”

“What?”

“Part of a Yetarzikstan peace negotiations team. Top secret.”

“That’s nonsense.” Rawlings wouldn’t stick his neck out for peace. Or negotiations. He was cooking up something else … selling weapons to the rebels? Maybe.

“Probably, but he wants a private detail.”

“When is he leaving?”

“In five days. We’ll need you back tomorrow for briefings.”

Weird how relieved he felt, how happy he was to not be going. Not merely because it was Yetarzikstan—fuck, no one wanted to go there—but also because he had no desire to be a protector of Senator Rawlings’ sticky little web of deceit and lies. “I can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“That’s what I said.”

Clint was silent for a second. “You know it’s not any of my business, but that visitor in Cook’s Bay … Harrison Montgomery?”

“You’re right, it’s not your business. I’m sorry I can’t help you out this time, but I’ll call you when I get back to D.C.” Brody lifted the phone away from his ear and was about to disconnect when he heard Clint say: “Wait—wait, man. Just wait a second.”

“What?”

“Look, I wanted to talk to you about this when you
got back, but I need to start making some decisions around here and I can’t wait forever.” Clint took a deep breath. “I want to offer you the chance to be partner.”

“Partner? In the company?”

“You’re too smart for these assignments, Brody. I need your brain on logistics. Planning.” Clint rambled on a little longer about new contracts and moneymaking potential.

Brody was a cog in the wheel, a piece of the machinery. It’s all he’d been and it was where he was comfortable. But he was getting older, and with his knee, getting out of the field made sense.

“Brody, you there?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t need an answer now, but I want you to think about it.”

“I will,” he said, though he wasn’t sure what he would think about it.

“Can you give me an idea when you’ll be back?”

Brody thought about Ed and the coughing, Ashley’s bruises and how long they’d take to go away. He scrubbed at his forehead and ran his fingers through his hair, locked into a place and a timeline that was already making him crazy. “A week. Maybe two.”

“Are you okay?”

What a weird question from Clint. “Fine. It’s just some family stuff. I’ll be in touch,” Brody said and hung up.

He watched the black edge of night advance across the sky until all the light was eradicated.

A partner. Responsibility. He didn’t need the money, he had more than enough of that. And it would be nice to not be the guy on the midnight shift of a twenty-four-hour detail.

And Yetarzikstan … what a relief to avoid places like Yetarzikstan. Once upon a time he’d have eagerly jumped on that detail. The danger of it would have been exciting.

I’m getting old,
he thought.

And sitting behind a desk doing the planning was a smart step for him. For his knee.

But do I want it?
His wants had all been survival-based. Even wanting his dad, his real dad, had been survival. No five-year-old could imagine surviving without the person who tucked him in at night.

And then he wanted to be adopted. Because no six-year-old could want the alternative. Foster care, with crowded houses, adults who tried their best but could never truly assuage the constant, gut-rotting uncertainty of every child in their care.

And then when it all seemed to happen, all his wants met by a woman with crazy red hair and a serious man with a fishing pole, Sean came and Brody was left alone for that year, when Linda and Sean had both nearly died a few times.

And it seemed like it had all been there, everything he should be grateful for—a family, a home, even a brother, but it had been wrong somehow, misaligned. How could he ask for more when his brother was so sick? His mother so tired?

He’d wanted the Marines, but that had ended so fast he practically missed it.

So now he didn’t know what to want.

You’re thirty-four years old. You should want something more than what you’ve got.

That’s what people did. They wanted more. Sean wanted the bar.

What did he want?

Ashley.

He wanted Ashley.

Not that the wanting ever did him any good.

Tired of himself, he picked his way down the roof to the landing and into the apartment.

The door to the bathroom was open, letting a wedge of light into the shadowed living area.

He could hear her in there, moving around, humming something to herself, and he wasn’t entirely sure he could stay in this apartment with her. Things felt … loose in him. Dangerously insecure.

Courting danger, he grabbed a beer from the fridge and popped the lid into the sink, where it rattled around.

“Shit, damn, fuck, asshole, God, mother, holy—” Ashley yelled and he pushed away from the counter, across the room in a heartbeat.

“You okay?” he asked, outside the bathroom door.

“Ouch!” she cried, but no longer sounded so frantic. “No.”

With his bottle of beer he pushed open the door, only to find her standing in front of the mirror, her hair piled up into a knot on her head.

And wearing one of his shirts. A gray Marine Corps T-shirt that skimmed her thighs. The sleeve was rolled up under her chin.

She’s wearing my shirt.

Never in his life had he ever seen anything hotter.

She was twisted around trying to pull the stitches from her arm with a pair of little nail scissors.

“What the hell, Ashley?” He put the beer down on the sink and snatched the clippers from her hand. “Are you nuts?”

“No,” she said, her eyes meeting his in the mirror. “I’m not nuts, but it itches. Like mad. And it’s been over a week, Brody. The itching means it’s healed.”

“What kind of bullshit medical opinion is that?” he asked.

“Look at it,” she said, lifting her arm into his face. “It’s good.”

He didn’t have to look, he knew it was good. The
stitches had been ready to come out the last time he saw them.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

She nearly sagged against the counter. “Good, I couldn’t see what I was doing. Kept stabbing myself.”

“Why didn’t you ask me?” He carefully pressed the sharp edge of the scissors under the small black stitch. It pulled taut and snapped, the fragments falling loose on her pale arm.

She was silent and that seemed to be plenty answer. The room was a hushed white cocoon of intimacy and as aware as he was of his own desire for her, he was doubly aware of hers for him.

She wants you. She’s not seventeen anymore. Why are you fighting this so hard?

Carefully, he clipped away another stitch and his whole world was focused down to her—the skin of her arm; the black lace of the stitches; her waiting, expectant face in the mirror—and it was so damn hard pretending he felt nothing. So damn hard swallowing everything down so far and so deep that he didn’t even know what the hell he wanted!

“How did this happen?” he asked, changing the subject almost violently. “This slice on your arm?”

“I wouldn’t let go of Kate and Yeri cut me with the knife. His first warning.”

His fingers tightened around the scissors but he kept his touch gentle. Quick.

“I should have shot him when I had the chance,” Brody muttered.

“I had about a hundred murder fantasies about him.”

“Which was your favorite?”

“Castration and a long slow bleed out.”

“A classic.”

They smiled at each other in the mirror until he cleared his throat and got back to work on her arm.

“Killing him wouldn’t have changed anything,” she said. “There would have been another Yeri to take his place and perhaps ten more after that.”

“Are you saying you forgive him?”

“No.” Her eyes were round and big in her face and he realized how tired she must be. How dinner must have wiped her out. “But I understand him in a way. I saw a thousand versions of him in Dadaab.”

Even as he did it, even as his hand lifted from her arm to her face, he told himself to stop. To put the clippers down, grab his beer and the rest of the six-pack, and go sit on the roof until he got drunk and fell off it.

But he didn’t.

I want her. I have always wanted her and she’s here and she wants me, too.

There was part of him that totally understood that the past was the past, that if he wanted he could step over the fences he’d built around himself. He wasn’t a total emotional cripple.

He didn’t have to punish himself for the mistakes Ed had made when Brody was a kid.

But the unknown on the other side of that fence was what kept him locked in. Who was he outside of these narrow boundaries? Who was he if he
wanted
something?
Needed
something? And actually took it?

And what would happen when it was taken away? Because it would be.

She inspired him to try and find out. To test his courage against the scary dark of the unknown him.

His hand without the clippers cupped her cheek, his thumb at her chin, and when she gasped—her eyes dilating past interested into instantly and totally aroused—his thumb touched her lip.

And he went from interested to instantly and totally aroused as well and he knew the moment to leave was past. He was here, right here. Touching Ashley.

“You’re so special,” he told her, because he knew no one probably ever had. Or maybe millions of people had, maybe every lover and friend threw roses at her as she walked, but he’d never told her how special she was and that seemed like something that had to be rectified immediately. “You really are.”