Softer Than Steel (A Love & Steel Novel) (23 page)

Tough Love

Rick made it as far as the Bowery before he lost it, retching in the gutter like some homeless bum on a bender. Bile replaced the sweet taste of Sidra in his mouth as he choked on the bitter thought of his discovery.

Don’t jump to conclusions. It’s probably nothing.

Yeah. Right.

Simone’s “nothing” was stage four by the time it was discovered.

A car horn blared, sending his heart into slingshot mode as he reeled off the curb, trying to get his bearings. He propelled his feet forward, not caring if he headed north or south. Anywhere, away from the hell that was going on in his mind. Streets intersected at odd angles, and Rick expected to meet his Maker at the crossroads, any minute now.

A young street musician paced the corner with his guitar, strumming away on the battered acoustic despite his meager audience. Rick allowed his feet to slow and willed his pulse rate to match the chord progressions. The kid was good. He reminded Rick of Adrian, loaded with talent and not a pot to piss in, as evident from the open guitar case at his feet. Three dollars, give or take, was scattered in coins across the threadbare velvet lining.

But he also reminded Rick of himself. The dark, rebel hair. The strong jut of his jaw as he sang about life passing him by, eyes burning with a cause.

Rick scrounged in his pocket and threw a bill into the case. Ten dollars didn’t seem quite enough. In went a fifty. That didn’t feel sufficient. Two crisp hundreds. The busker’s eyes widened, but his fingers never broke contact with the strings.
Remember being that pure, that driven? That devil-may-care?

“Your cell phone’s ringing.”

It took Rick a moment to distinguish lyrics from layman’s terms. Fantasy from reality. He focused on the device clutched in his hand. Isabelle.

“Not a good time.”

“When is it ever, Riff? I swear to Christ. While you’ve been living out your
Slumdog Millionaire
fantasies in yogaland, I’ve had to play nice with the label heads. They aren’t happy with the rough cuts Thor sent.”

Rick closed his eyes. He couldn’t do this. Not tonight. “That’s why they’re called ‘rough,’ Iz. They’re nowhere near done.”

“How did they put it? Oh, yeah. ‘This album might be too
complicated
to market through traditional label means.’ Translation: The Daddy Warbuckses up top have no qualms about orphaning your ass and abandoning this project, Rick.”

“Can you stall them?”

“No amount of record executive dick sucking is going to make the album sound better! It’s all on you.”

Busker boy was playing to beat the band, but there was no escaping the publicist’s verbal assault. Had it been this bad with Wren? It had been different, Rick reasoned. He’d employed a wholly original brand of tough love.

“For fuck’s sake, Iz! A little lip service doesn’t require you to
suck
anything. Can you get behind me, for once?”

“A is for effort, honey . . . not for amateur hour.” Her murmur led Rick to believe she was lighting one cigarette off another, chain smoking while tightening the noose around his neck. “You’ve been shooting blanks since you got into the goddamn studio! And butting heads with Thor, when he’s only trying to help. It’s not going to be perfect, so get over yourself. God, you’re impossible. I don’t know how Simone lived with you.”

She didn’t.

Perhaps that was Isabelle’s point.

Rick bit his lip. He contemplated the guitar case once more, with its purple threads of velvet. Frayed, like his nerves, as she laundry-listed the consequences of delivering a dud. He was tempted to drop his phone in, to dump the whole lot—the record contracts, the merch licensing, the tours—but at this point, he wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

“You’ve made yourself clear.”

“Well,
you’d
better make it your priority.”

The young man doffed his hat as if bidding Rick adieu, or paying his respects.
Hell,
Rick thought, slowly lowering the phone,
maybe he was offering his condolences.

Dead man walking.

“Any advice for someone like me, just starting out?” the bloke asked, scraping up the cash and coin and pocketing it before his next song. They were, after all, still on the sketchy side of Lower East Manhattan.

“Here’s my
real
tip: If someone like me offers you a million dollars to trade places with him . . . don’t.”

Expectations

“He said
what
?”

Liz punched the register keys angrily and thrust change at the hapless customer who dared interrupt Sidra’s story. The Naked Bagel, it turned out, wasn’t just down a man with Seamus gone. Sidra’s brother had done the work of three people.

“It wasn’t so much
what
he said. It was how he said it,” Sidra mumbled, straightening the tip jars on the counter. Today they were labeled Dumbledore and Gandalf. Sidra would’ve gladly paid off either fictional wizard to rid her of any feelings for Rick. “He
barked
at me.”

Like a dog.

“He sounds like a dick, from what little you’ve told me. You’re better off without him.”

“You’re right. I don’t need a boyfriend. I’d be better off with one of those tumor-sniffing dogs.”

“Oh, Sid.” Liz’s brow wrinkled sympathetically. “It’s probably not . . .” She couldn’t seem to voice it. “Probably not anything serious. A cyst, perhaps? You’ll get it checked out. It’ll be okay.”

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“Any family history . . . ?” Liz trailed off.

Sidra shook her head no, but what she really meant was she didn’t know. Her mother died young. Who knows what may have developed over time? An aunt had it—but wait, no, that was an aunt by marriage. Her mind swam laps around her family gene pool.

A gentle hand eclipsed her wrist. “I’ll go with you.”

“No, it’s fine.” Sidra backed away. She didn’t like the thought of Liz and her baby bump anywhere near her potentially poisonous self. Or the toxic radiation from machinery the doctors would use to confirm or refute her fears. “I’ll get Fiona to go with me.”

Fiona, with her massive, nonlumpy rack.

Liz gave a stink eye to the Con Ed worker who was next in line, and he quickly switched his order from “for here” to “to go.”

“I’m gonna jet. My problems are bad for business.” If she lingered any longer, she’d no doubt wax neurotic on the fact that her uncle had jumped on the first offer made on the building. Was he that desperate to unload? She’d be teaching yoga out of a cardboard box on the Bowery by next week, at this rate.

Liz huffed a sigh of protest. “No. It’s not you. It’s the damn hormones. Some women get a pregnancy glow. I’m phosphorescent with rage.” She expertly wrapped Con Ed guy’s Hell Hole—aptly named for the heat level of the jalapeño bagel stuffed with turkey and pepper jack cheese—and thrust it at him. Forcing a smile, she managed, “Thank you, come again soon.”

When he was out of earshot, she muttered, “Come again and go. That’s all men ever do. They’re dicks, every single one of them. Dicks with arms, Sidra.”

Sidra couldn’t help it. Despite the last hellish twelve hours, she laughed. The mental image of Liz’s words, along with the utter conviction in which she said them, was too funny.

Liz just shrugged and grabbed a huge apple from the fruit bowl next to her. Chomping down with gusto, she mumbled between mouthfuls, “Eve was an idiot to give Adam a taste of anything.”

“When’s the last time you saw Kevin?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Liz gestured toward the general vicinity of her abdomen and snorted. “It’s been at least a trimester or so.”

“Oh, jeez.” Like preparing to clear her mind for yoga practice, Sidra tucked her worries under her mental mat to concentrate on her friend. “You have every right to be upset with him. Does he expect you to deal with this all on your own?”

“He’s not . . .
expecting
anything.” Liz tossed the apple core into the trash.

Sidra gasped. “Liz! You haven’t told him?”

“My baby. My problem.” Her friend pushed her lip out, aiming for strong, but Sidra wasn’t fooled by the way her voice broke.

“That’s it.” Sidra marched to the door. Flipping the lock and the sign from
OPEN
to
CLOSED
, she ignored Liz’s protests. “You need a break. And you’re too stubborn to see it.” She forced Liz off her feet by sliding a stool behind her knees. “What, were you going to hide out from him for nine months, and then what?”

Liz pulled an unsliced bagel from the basket behind her and nibbled at it like a manic little mouse. “I’ll tell him as it gets closer.”

“Closer? Liz, you’re half-baked! That bun is cooked more than your bagels.”

“Let’s become lesbians,” Liz begged. “We’ll swear off guys and raise the baby ourselves.”

Sidra quirked a brow.

“Okay, okay. At least be my date, then? His sister is getting married next month and I’m going to need a buffer.”

“Next
month
? To hell with a buffer!” Sidra joked. “You’ll need an epidural and a midwife by then.”

“Nuh-uh. Not till after I get my money out of wearing that bridesmaid’s dress.”

Sidra’s eyes bugged. Liz was delusional. “When’s your due date, anyway?” Having demolished the bagel, Liz reached for a bear claw next. “Maybe eat a calendar, so the baby will know exactly when to be born.” Sidra plucked the pastry out of her friend’s hand and took a flaky bite. Liz’s eyes immediately brimmed, like emerald pools at the base of a waterfall. “Jeez, I take it back! Sorry, sorry.” Sidra pushed the treat back.

“It’s not you,” Liz blubbered. “Or this.” She waved the bear claw forlornly. “It’s me. I . . . I’ve never told anyone this. Not even my oldest, closest girlfriends. But when Kev and I dated in high school, I . . .”

Sidra waited patiently as Liz took a deep sniff, composed herself, and continued. “
We
got pregnant. It was just as much on him as it was on me. He was great about it. I mean, as great as any scared-out-of-his-wits sixteen-year-old could be. We . . . you know. Made it all go away.”

“Oh, honey.” Sidra embraced her friend.

“And maybe afterward, I regretted it a little. Even though I knew it was for the best, at the time. But now?” Liz reciprocated, tightening her arms around Sidra. “The longer I wait to tell Kev . . .” She dwindled, but Sidra caught the drift. “I may lose him because I didn’t include him in the choice, but . . . I want to keep it.”

Her abdomen, straining at the hem of her Naked Bagel T-shirt, felt like a strong bundle of energy against Sidra’s own. It was both humbling and terrifying to think about the cycle of cells rapidly dividing. Ever since Rick discovered the lump, Sidra couldn’t stop imagining the worst within her own body. But now, pressed up against the amazing life force growing inside her friend, she allowed her mind to conjure up strength and positivity. Life and its unknowns were scary, but amazing at the same time.
You are stronger than you know,
Sidra advised herself, and her friend, silently. She felt a strong jab to her belly, as if Liz’s baby had decided to say,
Hey! Me too!

“Whoa, did you feel that?” Liz backed up, hands clapping against the little mound.

Sidra smiled. “I think your little yogi just did a perfect Standing Split.”

Bombed

Rick came so close. He could practically feel the doorknob, solid and warm beneath his fingers. But his feet continued to make tracks. He passed the blinking Open sign as his brain flashed messages like
C-A-N’ T can’t-can’t-can’t
.

Can’t.

Cancer.

I can’t do it again.

He found himself on Essex Street, walking fast and close to the storefronts with no destination in mind. A bloke in a black leather waistcoat burst through a doorway, with more belly and beard than Santa Claus. Rick halted in his tracks to keep from being barreled over, but the man had paused, too, propping the door open for Rick with a chubby elbow.

“Going in?”

Rick considered the lettering above the door. “Yes, cheers.”

I can’t do it again because I’m a selfish bastard,
he thought, making his way toward the mostly empty stools lining the bar of the Whiskey Ward.

Rick contemplated the rows of bottles lining the exposed brick of the wall. In his mind, he saw rows and rows of yoga mats. And Sidra, sitting in lotus, all alone.

“Jameson, please.” He stared dully at the wood of the bar, even after the drink was placed in front of him.

“It’s all well and good to drink the Irish whiskey,” came a voice thick with malt, and Rick smelled the eighty-proof breath that followed it. “Marco,” the man called, holding up two fingers as he dropped unsteadily onto the stool next to Rick. He looked to be in his midsixties, with close-cropped silver hair and a face ruddy and puffy from drink. The bartender barely glanced up, but began to pull a pint of Guinness from the tap, apparently the customer’s drink of choice.

“Jesus Christ, am I the only one seeing double here?” the guy wanted to know. “I meant two, Marco.
Dos, zwei, deux,
two!” Another Guinness was poured. “Now bring us the Baileys.”

Us?
Rick hated instant alcohol-infused camaraderie. He threw back his drink, letting the whiskey burn dull the longing and regret he felt for altering his course that evening. Instantly, his empty glass was replaced with a foaming, blended shot of Irish cream and whiskey.

“Erm, many thanks but—” Rick stopped when his stool mate slid one of the pints of dark ruby velvet toward him.

“As I was saying, it’s all well and good to drink the Irish whiskey, but it’s really no fun to drink it alone.” And with that, the guy plunked his own shot directly into the thick head of his Guinness. He grabbed the overflowing glass and lobbed it in the direction of his mouth. Foam dappled the collar of his checkered shirt and ran down his fingers, but he didn’t pause until the pint glass was emptied.

“What in bloody hell was that?” Rick asked.

Marco threw down a bar rag and sopped up the aftermath. “Some places call it an Irish Car Bomb. We just call it the Jack #5 Combo.”

The drink’s namesake gave Rick a broad grin. His watery blue eyes didn’t seem to be smiling, though. “Well, son. Are you with me or against me?”

Rick contemplated the two vessels before him. He thought of Sidra’s creamy tan skin under his touch, the dark velvet of her hair whispering across his lips. The cold, unyielding glass was in his hands now, and he chugged the blended concoction before it could curdle.

No cheers or pats on the back. His drinking partner just lurched off to the toilet, leaving Rick with thoughts that soured in the back of his throat.

Feckless bastard. You should be with her. You told her you would be there for her.

Your lies will poison her.

You’re the poison.

The fire in his belly hadn’t dulled a thing. In fact, it flicked hot sparks, riling his nerves and smoldering up to his brain.
One more drink,
he thought. Although he must’ve thought it out loud, because Marco came down to his end of the bar, staring at him expectantly. “One more Jameson. With ginger, this time.” He needed something nonflammable. “And whatever he’s drinking next.”

Marco nodded. “Lime?”

“Sure, mate.”

A large figure had taken over the stool to Rick’s right and was nursing a bottle of beer that looked toylike under his great mitts. He appeared Native American, with a mane of hair to rival the length of Rick’s back in his heyday, worn in a long straight ponytail.

Marco delivered Rick’s drink and another Jack #5 Combo. Jack reappeared on Rick’s left.

“Ah, more spirits to lift my spirits!”

“Cheers, mate.” Rick clinked glasses and hoped that he was now relieved of his social obligations.

The knock of pool cues and a bit of trumpet bursting from the jukebox replaced conversation. The Rolling Stones were singing “Bitch.” Simone had always loved Jagger. Rick remembered buying her
Sticky Fingers
on vinyl during one of his visits to New York as a teen, and the cover had had a real working zipper to the trouser pants. It was probably in that big crate of vinyl her parents had pawned off on him.

He wondered if Revolve Records ever saw copies come through their door. The image of his hand almost on the doorknob forced an audible sigh. Sidra would be livid. Or hurt. Probably both.
Bloody hell.

“Women!” Jack proclaimed to no one in particular. “Women are always gonna leave.” The giant to Rick’s right flicked an annoyed glance. “Whether they go out with another man”—
burp
—“or they go out in a pine box. They leave.”

“Shut up, old man.”

Rick threw down some bills. It was not a line of discussion he wished to get into.

He didn’t see the fist coming, but heard the pop. Like a cue breaking and scattering the pool balls on the table. Then he felt the punch and went down, sunk like the eight ball.