Sparrow (28 page)

SPARROW

THERE WAS A
lot I didn’t like about my job at Rouge Bis. I didn’t like how Brock tried to worm his way into my good graces like we were friends, despite my best efforts to show him how uncomfortable I was around him after that kiss. I didn’t like Pierre’s attitude toward me, and the way he tried to come up with little, creative ways to make my life hell, just like I tried coming up with ways to piss off Troy.

But there was one thing I definitely looked forward to every shift—my break. When Brock wasn’t there to try and strike up a conversation, it was my favorite part of the day. I was granted thirty minutes and a choice of entrée to eat in a quiet corner of the restaurant, shielded from the rest of the tables and booths. It was my
me
time at work, before the hectic dinner service.

I was twirling a forkful of pasta, relishing the quiet when I heard a pair of heels approaching, clack-clacking on the floor like bullet fire in the dark
.
The woman’s hip swayed seductively as she strode in my direction on her stilettos. I smiled when I noticed she was wearing a pair of exactly the same shoes I’d worn on my first date with Troy, the ones Maria’s daughter had lent me.

But when I lifted my gaze from her feet to her face, my smile froze. Her glossy lips were pouted in disapproval as we drank each other in. I hadn’t seen Catalina Greystone since my wedding day.

She slid into the opposite bench of my booth and tossed a folded napkin over my plate to signal to me that dinner was over.

Stunned, I put the silverware down, tilting my chin up.

Her shoes.

My feet burned with anger. Catalina was Maria’s daughter.

Her eyes.

She was furious. Something had pissed her off, and it had everything to do with me.

“Looking for Brock?” My smile was raw. She was another secret Troy hadn’t shared with me.

“Actually, I was looking for you.”

The idea that Brock had told her we kissed crossed my mind briefly, but disappeared just as fast.
He kissed you, silly. Not the other way around.
Anyway, that was months ago. Why would Catalina suddenly confront me now?

I leaned back in my seat, acutely aware of my foot that kept bouncing underneath the table, making the utensils clatter against my plate. I toyed with my cell phone. “Well?” I asked.

“You know, Sparrow, we never really got to know one another properly.” She propped forward on her elbows, like she was about to share a secret, but her voice was anything but friendly. “I’m kind of sorry we haven’t had time to talk.”

Every muscle in my body tensed. I felt the persistent hum of a catastrophe in the making.

“Catalina,” I said evenly, “I have ten more minutes before I need to get back to gutting fish. Whatever you came here to say, just spit it out. I don’t have all day.”

That seemed to shake her a little. She reached for the cell I held in my hand and stopped me from scrolling my thumb over the screen.

“Troy’s in love with me,” she said.

It never ceased to amaze me how a few simple words could shake you to your soul.

“He is,” she continued. “You know, we were engaged before I had Sam. Dated for three full years.” She was trying to catch my eyes. Desperately.

I refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing my shock, but inside, the pieces of the puzzle were falling together, quickly, clumsily, with a screechy sound. They’d once been engaged. They were in love. They were a
real
couple.

“Funny, I don’t see a ring on your finger. Oh, wait, there it is.” I motioned at her left hand. “And whaddaya know? It belongs to Brock Greystone.”

“What, this thing?” She sniffed, waving her hand dismissively. Her engagement ring was considerably smaller than mine, but still gigantic to anyone who wasn’t a real-life princess. She wore a thin wedding band on the same finger. “Brock and I are just an arrangement,” she explained, smiling coyly.

And I believed her. After all, Brock had said so himself.

“Troy and I are a real item. That’s why he crawls back to me every Friday. You always work Fridays don’t you? I’m the only thing that keeps his charade with you bearable. Don’t get me wrong. He thinks you’re a nice girl. But, you know, just not a woman.”

My body vibrated with fury. My lungs squeezed, and every nerve and cell in me urged me to lunge across the table and strangle her.

Troy had a mistress.

And there she sat, in front of me, telling me that they were in love, no less.

Worst of all, I recognized her sweet, flowery, in-your-face perfume. The one that hung in the air in my bedroom the day we flew to Miami. The day Troy had sex with someone else.

“Bullshit.” My voice was low, even though I knew she spoke the truth. My lips kept moving, and what they said next surprised me. “If Troy loved you, he would have never shared you. It’s not in his DNA. He wouldn’t even share someone he doesn’t love.”
Like me
. “So if he had feelings for you? It would be you in his bed. Not me. Not anyone else.”

I made sense.

I made sense and it gave me a little strength. I pushed to my feet, pointing my cell at her face. “He’s stopped seeing you, hasn’t he? Months ago, I’m betting. That’s why you’re here. You’re desperate.”

By the color rising from her chest to her neck and up to her cheeks, I knew I was right.

She got up herself, glaring at me through a pinched smile. “The only reason it’s you in his bed and not me is because he made a deal with the devil. I know all about your marriage, Sparrow. It ain’t real.”

Somewhere in my mind, there was a tiny, cartoon version of me getting punched square in the face by a cartoon version of Cat. The cartoon-me stumbled backward and dropped to her knees.

But the real me strode toward the door that said Staff Only, knowing that if I stayed, I’d do something I’d regret.

Catalina followed, still taunting me from behind. “And the only reason you aren’t six feet under and Troy hasn’t gotten rid of you to make room for me is because I cheated on him with Brock. The little fling I had with my husband ended up with me getting pregnant with Sam.”

Her words were rushed, leaving her no room to inhale. Cartoon-Me took a shot in the shoulder, blood smeared on the wall behind her.

“Last but not least,” she said, making me hesitate in the doorway, “even after I crushed him, had someone else’s baby in my belly, Troy still took care of me. Did everything for me. What he and I have…honey, you don’t want to try and top that. It’d only mean more heartache for you, and I’d hate to see you getting your hopes up.”

Cartoon-Me jumped back to her feet, summoning false-strength for what she had to do next. “You know nothing about my relationship with my husband. Know nothing about what’s going on. All you know is this that Troy stopped showing up, and it’s killing you. You’re worried. And you should be.” I smiled. “Things change. People, too. Move on, I know he has. Bye, Catalina.”

With that, I slammed the door in her face so hard, the walls around me quaked.

Cartoon-Me kicked cartoon Catalina in the butt, sending her out of the blackening, shrinking cartoon frame. But the second Cat was out of the frame, it expanded again and Cartoon-Me went back to lying in a pool of her own blood.

Because Catalina was right. He might not love her.

But he didn’t love me either.

And the truth was, she knew the one thing he wouldn’t tell me—what made him marry me.

And what made him tick.

TROY

I PARKED IN
front of the foggy graveyard.

My father was buried in one of the oldest cemeteries in Boston. Untamed grass, mud, moss and spider webs adorned the tombstones like Halloween decorations. The place was a rusty gate short of looking like a bad horror flick set, and I had to admit, I kind of liked the extra-touch of morbidity it had. Despite the cemetery looking like hell, I knew Dad wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. The graveyard was at the back of the South Boston church we used to go to every Sunday. Practically his second home.

Here were buried not only my relatives, but also many memories. Some I remembered fondly, some I wished I could forget, like McGregor.

I came here every Friday afternoon, before the weekend rolled around and with it, new, fresh sins to commit. Came here to talk to the man I so desperately missed. He was my priest, his gravestone my confession booth.

He never judged.

Never gave me shit for being who I was.

And coming here also reminded me that I had an unfinished business to take care of. To find out who was responsible for my father’s death.

I whistled as I wove through the graveyard, my own personal touch of irony. Visiting his grave wasn’t a sad affair nowadays. It was like going out for a beer with an old friend.

Ignoring the drizzle—it really had been the weirdest summer I could remember in Boston, and to my delight, the fall was starting out just as grim—I squatted down in front of my father’s grave, my elbows over my knees. Like all fathers and sons, we had our tough talks, even after his eternal slumber.

The past few weeks, I’d been pre-occupied again with trying to figure out who’d murdered him. Who sent Crupti. Whoever it was, they used a middle-man (a sorry ass local kid who died in an accident a few months after dad’s death) and bitcoin. The person behind dad’s death was smart. Calculated…
and as good as dead
.

I had people digging more, trying to figure out who sent Crupti to kill him. I intended to leave no stone in greater Boston unturned. But it was hard. All of my father’s enemies were either dead or in the clear. Something didn’t add up.

I was beginning to wonder if the person who sent Crupti was an enemy of
mine
, not of my father’s.

At least I’d settled the score with Paddy Rowan, the old shit. Though this wasn’t only for him, it was also for her.

I’d spoken about Sparrow with my father often recently.

“Was Robyn such a huge fucking pain in the ass, too? Sparrow must’ve gotten her sass from somewhere, and it’s not from Abe.”

Dad didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t. He never did. But I had a feeling that if he were here next to me, he would have snorted out a laugh and said something crude about the Raynes girls. I had a feeling that even if he’d loved Robyn, he’d never outwardly shown his feelings.

Couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t exactly in touch with my emotions either. Most of the time, I wasn’t even sure if they existed.

And now I was fucking Red exclusively. I plucked a few blades of grass and threw them on his grave. It’d been a while since I’d limited myself to one woman. Catalina was my last attempt at monogamy, and that had ended up being a magnificent failure.

“Baby? Baby, is that you?”

Speak of the devil. Cat was struggling toward me in her high heels, her blow-dried hair flattened against her head, raindrops spattered on her forehead. Her teeth chattered in the cold drizzle.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that she was there. She’d always had stalkerish tendencies. Even before I first broke it off. When she still wore the sweet, shy-girl mask that made me want her in the first place. She’d accompany Maria when she came to clean for us at my parents’ house, always eyeing me through her long, curly eyelashes, smiling like I hung the moon in the sky and lit up the sun myself.

But she was also possessive as hell.

Always sniffing around to make sure I was only hers.

I stood straight, only then realizing how soaking wet I was from the rain, and stood in front of her, my face hard and unwelcoming. She stopped a good few feet away from me. The rain picked up making it difficult to make out her expression.

“She is a child,” she announced. “Your marriage was supposed to be an arrangement, you said so yourself. You said she was a burden you had to deal with for your dad.” Her body shook, and it wasn’t from the cold. “I need you back, Troy.”

She was crying, talking about Sparrow, and as much as it surprised me, I wasn’t so hot about seeing her shattered.

“Let it go.” I huddled in my soaked pea coat. “We had our farewell fuck, said our goodbyes in my apartment months ago. We’re done.”

“Troy, baby, no.” She fell on her knees in front of me, mud splashing everywhere around us. She clasped my legs like they were an anchor as tears streamed down her face, mixing with the raindrops. “Please. She is nothing, no one. She doesn’t want you. Doesn’t need you. Doesn’t deserve you. We’ve got history. Chemistry. We’ve got something fucked up and twisted, but it’s ours. It’s us. It’s always been us.”

“You really should’ve thought about that before you let Brock get you pregnant.” My tone was harsh, but the edge was gone. I wasn’t high on fucking Brock’s wife anymore. Everything about the situation felt tasteless. Worthless. Guess I’d moved on.

“You told me to marry him.” She sniffed, her nose dripping, her fingernails still clawing into my pants. “You said it’d be the best thing for everybody because of that goddamned pregnancy. Oh, Troy.”

“Cat,” I growled, “the
goddamned
pregnancy is now a kid. Maybe you should consider taking care of him.” But I knew what Cat never said out loud. She resented Sam, because Sam was the final straw between us. I couldn’t take her back after that betrayal.