Unbreakable (21 page)

A young, dark-haired woman—maybe all of twenty years old and dressed in a bohemian-style dress—emerged from her small tent. “Hi. I’m Claire. Beautiful day, right?”

“Hi, Claire,” Cory said, releasing my hand to pull out his sketch. “We’re looking for some pieces that will eventually look like this: dresser, bedframe, maybe a small desk.”

“Holy shit!” Claire exclaimed. “I love this kind of vision, right? The ultimate DIY renovation. Come here, I think we’ve got some stuff that’ll work for you.” She beamed at us. “You’ll make a gorgeous room for your daughter.”

“Oh, she’s not our daughter…” I shouldered my purse. “I mean, she’s his…I’m not…we’re not…together.”

Claire’s smile didn’t waver. “Right on.” She took the sketch from Cory. “I think we have a bedframe back here if you want to check it out.”

We perused the furniture and once, amidst the haggling and inspecting and deal-making, Cory stepped aside to answer a call on his cell.

Claire sidled up to me. “This is all for his daughter? That’s so sweet.” I started to reply, but then the younger woman added, “And if you don’t mind my saying…He’s hot. I mean…
scorching
.”

Not for the first time that day—or since Cory had come into my life for that matter—I wondered where all of my courtroom poise had gone. Vanished. I felt an uncommon blush color my neck, and was torn between giggling like a teenager and telling Claire to back the hell off.
Oh my god,
I laughed at myself.
Grow up already.

Claire’s father joined us to do the final haggling, but when it was all over, Cory walked away with everything he needed for under $500. Claire wrote it all up with a smile for Cory that was one shade warmer than strictly professional. “Our guys will meet you at the loading. You have a great day now.”

“I still can’t believe you’re going to turn all that stuff into anything that remotely resembles your sketch,” I said as we walked back through the swap meet.

Cory shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

“Callie’s going to love it.” I looked up at him. “Do you really only see her every other weekend?”

“That’s the deal. Though Georgia and I split holidays and such. But these last few months, she’s been calling on me to pick Callie up from school more, to keep her overnight when it’s not my night, and drive her to school in the morning. Now that it’s summer, it’s happening even more. I don’t mind. Just the opposite. I get to see Callie, but it’s sometimes hard to juggle with work.”

“Why isn’t Georgia sticking to the schedule?”

“Beats me. Seems it’s been happening more and more lately.” Cory shrugged. “Anyway, paint. We need some, I suppose. Though it seems like overkill.”

“No such thing,” I said. “And while I’m sure I’m wasting my breath, I’m going to put in a futile request anyway that you let me buy it—”

“No.”

“You do realize you’re thwarting my God-given right to shop?” We’d arrived at his truck and I reached to open the door, but Cory was faster. I gave him an arch look. “Now you’re just being obnoxious.”

He crooked his smile at me. “You’re buying lunch. And that’s it.”

I rolled my eyes and climbed in.

Cory got behind the wheel and sat silently for a moment. Without looking at me he said, “Was it you?”

“Was it me…what?”

“Who leaked to the press? Who got the donations coming in?”

“I didn’t speak to the press,” I said.
I had Carol and Gil and Tanya and the entire nursing staff on your floor do that.

“But you had something to do with it? You told Vic…?”

“Hey.” I turned in my seat to face him. “Does it matter? I know you have this…
issue
about letting people help you, but you need to let it go. You did a heroic thing. You ended the standoff and you saved my life. You saved lots of lives. No hostage was killed. Not one. Because of you. In fact, you were the only one who came close to death, so you can either own that or not, but it’s rude to keep throwing it back in our faces. Or just mine, since I’m the one sitting here. Okay?” I softened my tone. “You got shot saving us, Cory. You almost died. Let people…let
us
thank you for that.”

Cory seemed to be biting back a smile. “Well, I was going to say that if it was you, thank you, but then you interrupted me with another courtroom monologue.” He started the engine. “Very impressive but sort of ruined the moment.”

“Liar,” I said with a short, incredulous burst of laughter. “You were not going to say thanks, you were going to ask me how to give the money back—”

“Hey, I’m proud but I’m not a moron. But I kind of like listening to your speeches, so if being the ungrateful lout is the only way to hear them…”

I socked his arm. “Just drive.”

The engine roared to life and Cory turned the wheel, a small smile playing over his lips as we drove to the loading area to get the furniture.

I smiled and sat back in my seat.
That was flirting. That was definitely flirting.

Alex

After the paint was purchased and stowed in the back of Cory’s truck with the furniture that looked like kindling to me, he drove us to Kings Row Gastropub on Colorado Boulevard in Old Town Pasadena. We sat in the brick-and-wood dimness, which was pleasant after an afternoon in the sun, and sipped microbrews.

“Are you really planning on going back to work on Monday?” I asked after the waiter had taken our order. “Seems awfully quick.”

Cory shrugged. “Don’t have much of a choice. Keeping Callie here is contingent on my having a job and my boss will only hold my spot until Monday.”

I arched a brow. “I’m going to hazard a guess that it’s completely against your hospital discharge instructions.”

“Like I said, don’t have much choice. Besides, what am I going to do? Sit around on my ass? I can’t skip a child support payment and I feel fine.” He sipped his beer and looked at me. “What about you? Why aren’t you working?”

I toyed with my glass. Bubbles spiraled up the amber liquid. “The powers that be have decided that a paid leave was in order. Ostensibly to give me time to recover from our terrible ordeal.”

“But that’s not true?”

“It’s partially true,” I said slowly. “I don’t think that case was very good for me but the time off isn’t exactly welcome. I have three other cases waiting in the wings. The backlog of work I’ll have when I return…” I shivered. “I don’t even want to think about it.”

“So in two weeks you’ll go back to work and then…uh, move back in with Drew?” Cory asked. “Business as usual?”

He said it lightly enough but I thought I detected something else behind his words. A twinge of disappointment maybe.

“That’s the plan,” I replied. “Our engagement party is two weeks from today. You, um…you’re welcome to come—”

“No, thanks,” Cory snapped with a stony finality.

“No, sorry, I…” I muttered something unintelligible even to me and sipped my beer.

There was a silence that felt full of static and then he said, “So you said they gave you time to off to recover. Are you? Recovered, I mean?”

“Not really. I don’t sleep and I’m in therapy—”

“You are?”

“
Yes
,” I said, more harshly than I intended. “Something wrong with that?”

“Not at all,” Cory said. “I just didn’t know how bad it was for you.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just tired. I can’t close my eyes without a nightmare ripping apart my sleep.”

He nodded. “Yeah, same for me. Is that why you’re really off work?”

“No, no, that’s the public reason; to give me time to heal. The actual reason is I’m being punished. The case was a mistrial, costing the firm millions of dollars, and one of my two bosses is not happy with me.”

Cory’s expression darkened. “How can they possibly blame you for what happened?”

“The same way your landlord can evict you for not paying your rent even though you were locked in a bank for three days. Money.” I ran my finger along the lip of my glass. “Isn’t that always the bottom line?”

Cory smirked. “That’s been my experience, yes. So all this time off…Must be an alien concept for you, yeah?”

“Yeah.” I shifted in my seat. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience to you. My being…apart from Drew and then being home from work all the time. I promise to stay out of your way. You won’t even know I’m there.”

He looked at me askance. “Why would you think I’d mind having you there? It’s your house, after all,” he added quickly. “I’m not really in a position to make demands.”

“I just didn’t want you to feel…squashed. Because of that excessive amount of pride of yours.” I tucked some hair behind my ear. “I figured you’d be happier alone.”

“I’ve been alone a long time,” Cory said quietly. “I think I’d enjoy the company.”

I found myself falling into the dark pools of his eyes, like a pleasant vertigo, and I blinked rapidly. “Yes, that sounds…nice. Been awhile since I’ve had a roommate.”

“Yeah, roommates.” Cory cleared his throat. “But no more thanking me, no more apologizing for living in your own place, no more buying me things.” He leaned forward and for a moment I thought he was going to touch my hand or take it in his. “But if you want to talk about anything, I’m here.”

I struggled to find my voice. “Okay, thank you. And same goes for you…I mean, if it still haunts you.”

“Haunts me,” Cory said, leaning back. “Yeah, that sounds about right. The strongest memories aren’t whole events, but shadows. Flashes of pain. Or fear. Like when Frankie…” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

Now it was my turn to lean forward. “You can tell me.”

“No, I can’t.” A strange look came over his face then and he shook his head, smiling almost sadly. “I can’t. It’d just bring up ugly stuff for you and I don’t want to add to whatever you’re going through.”

Is he saying his worst memories are about what happened to me?
I chided myself for being so self-centered.
He got shot. I’m pretty sure that wins Worst Experience Ever.

“Anyway,” Cory said slowly, not quite meeting my eyes. “A nightmare’s a nightmare no matter the subject, I suppose. Right?”

I spun my glass in a slow circle. “My therapist was right.”

“About what?”

“He said that we’re likely…bonded. Because of the shared trauma.”

Cory frowned. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes. He says people who experience a crisis together sometimes become attached to one another. That explains why I slept so much better that night I visited you in the hospital, and why you kissed me—”

“I’m sorry, what?” Cory held up his hand. “
I
kissed
you
? I distinctly recall you leaning down to kiss me.”

“On the
cheek
,” I said. “You turned your head.”

“The hell I did,” he laughed. “You kissed me. On the lips. And not a short peck either.”

“Of course it couldn’t be short,” I said. “Not with you holding my…” I let my words trail, unwilling to speak of his gentle hand on my cheek, holding me there…Talking about it could lead us back further, to the little office, where we’d done a hell of a lot more than kiss.

“It doesn’t matter anyway who kissed whom,” I said quickly. “It’s just leftovers from the robbery. Nothing more.”

“Right,” Cory said as the waiter arrived with our food. “Nothing more.”

Cory

We drove back to Santa Monica. I tried not to take the turns too hard or lay on the gas whenever the traffic allowed me. The lunchtime conversation with Alex turned over in my mind.
You saved my life
, she told me, again and again. My hands gripping the wheel tightened. That’s why she was being so generous. The only reason.

No,
I thought bitterly,
her therapist gave her a tidy little reason too. But what did you expect?

I didn’t know what I’d expected, but what I
hoped
was something more than payback or some clinical diagnosis.
If she thanks me one more time, I’m going to lose it.

I glanced over at her quickly, taking her in in bits and pieces. Her profile was stunning. A small nose, slightly upturned, with a smattering of freckle, soft chin, high cheekbones. And her eyes, like pieces of the sky when the sun had burned every cloud away.

It can’t be like this,
I thought.
It can’t be this hard. It’s only the first day, for chrissakes.
I wondered if her therapist was right after all. How else to explain why I couldn’t get her out of my thoughts when I was apart from her, or how I couldn’t stop looking at her when we were together? Because we didn’t make sense. She wasn’t my type. She was too prissy, too fastidious, too elegant. But as they so often did, my thoughts went to the ambulance ride out of the bank. Even amid the pain, which was like a hand squeezing the air—and life—out of me, despite the blood and fear and chaos, it was then that something had shifted irrevocably in me as Alex held my hand and begged me not to leave her.

She was scared. And she’s a decent human being. Of course she didn’t want me to die.

I’d told myself those same excuses a hundred times and they fell flat now just as they had then. Because in the end, it didn’t matter what Alex was thinking on that harrowing hospital ride. It was my own feelings that clamored to be acknowledged. To be
named.

But that train of thought was dangerous and only led to pain. The thing to do was throw myself to the task at hand. I pulled into the drive and set about unloading the truck.

We set the dresser, bedframe, and desk in the backyard, and three cans of paint—lavender, pale green and primer—in the guest room.

“I’ve got all the brushes, rollers, and stuff in the shed in the back,” Alex told me. “A tarp too, I think, from when I painted the living room. It was a hideous orange color when I first bought it. You should have seen it. Looked like a hash den from the seventies.”

Inside, we surveyed the spare room. Alex had already cleaned everything out, but the furniture. Together, we stowed the futon and desk in the large, mostly empty attic that had stairs off the kitchen. Then we laid out the tarp and set to painting.

It was easier to talk to her when there was work to keep my thoughts from veering off track. We chatted easily and lightly about all kinds of stuff with none of the tension that plagued my conversations with Georgia whenever we spent longer than five minutes together. Georgia always appeared to be forming her next response, a ready retort on her lips. Alex actually listened. She didn’t look at me spitefully, or with her mouth turned down in perpetual disapproval.

By dusk, the first coats of paint were drying. We’d done the three walls in lavender, one in pale green as an accent.

“Not bad,” Alex said, surveying our work. She arched a brow. “It’s almost as if you’ve done this before.’

“Once or twice,” I said. “You’re not half-bad yourself. Though I think you got more paint on your shirt than on the wall.”

Alex glanced down at her spattered clothes. “I throw myself into my work.”

“I noticed.”

“Dinner?” Alex said, heading to the kitchen. “I can’t cook to save my life—nor do I want to—but we can do pizza, or Szechuan…” Her phone rang and her smile slipped off her face like a paper mask when she read it. “It’s Drew. I’ll just…uh, hold on.” She headed toward her room. “Drew? Hi. Yes, I’m fine.”

She shut the door and I stood in the living room as dusk fell outside the front windows. I wandered into the kitchen and poked around. The cupboards were bare of even the essentials: salt, pepper, flour. I reminded myself that she hadn’t lived here in ages. Wandering around kitchen wasn’t enough to keep my thoughts occupied.

I went outside, to the hot tub. Alex had mentioned it was empty and was broken to boot. Here was a problem I could fix. I inspected the panel on the side and saw that it wouldn’t take much. Restore a few connections, maybe. I lifted the heavy, two-flapped leather cover and saw that while it was empty, the spa was still relatively clean. A refill and some water treatment and it would work just fine. I nodded to myself just as Alex emerged, her smile tense.

“Diagnosis complete?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Couple of easy fixes. It’s pretty warm out for it, but I think Callie would like it. She’s never been in one. Mind if I get it working again?”

“Are you kidding? That was one of the first things I had put in when I moved and I hardly ever used it. It would be great if you could fix it.” Alex watched me expectantly, rocking on her heels.

“What?”

“I’m standing here,
not
thanking you. I know how you hate that.”

I smiled thinly. “Did you tell him?”

“Tell who what?”

“Tell Drew that I’m staying here.”

Alex rubbed an invisible mark off the spa cover with her thumb. “Why wouldn’t I?”

I nodded. “No, right. No reason not to.”

“He understands,” she said quickly. “And he’s grateful to you too, for…everything you did for me—”

I waved my hands
.
“Yeah, okay, that’s cool.”

“So,” she said, after a silence. “Did we decide on dinner?”

And just like that, I had to get out of there. It had been easy to pretend she didn’t have a fiancé all day, and all it took was one phone call and he was right here.

“I gotta get to Vic’s. Pick up the rest of my stuff.”

Her smile slipped. “Oh, of course.”

“I won’t be long,” I said quickly. “An hour, tops.”

“No, no, take your time,” she said just as quickly. “I’ll order a pizza. Should be here by the time you get back. Or you can have some later…Or whenever.”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

I had to stop myself from jogging to my truck to escape the awful tension that hung in the air between us, like a fog. I drove to Vic’s place in Reseda with a half a mind to stay there, inspection be damned. But Callie…I couldn’t lose her over something as trivial—and hopeless—as whatever it was I felt for Alex.

Sensations and memories from our too-short tryst in the bank tried to invade my thoughts but I banished them quickly.
That never happened. Not in real life. It happened in the bank and what happened in the bank stays there. Like Vegas.

But in Vic’s driveway, I closed my eyes and lightly banged my forehead on the steering wheel. It was already too hard.

And it was just the first night.

#

I returned to the bungalow well after midnight. The house was dark but for the kitchen light Alex had left on. A note on the counter in her looping, feminine script said there was leftover pizza in the oven.

And dammit, if that simple little note didn’t drag a wash of guilt out of me for ditching her. There was nothing recriminating about “pizza’s in the oven” and my self-preservation reminded me that I didn’t owe her anything. We were roommates, nothing more. She’d said as much herself. Still…

I pulled out my wallet and tossed a ten-dollar bill next to the note—my share for the pizza that I wasn’t going to eat.

In the living area, I turned on the lamp next to the couch. Alex had left a neat stack of sheets, blankets, and a pillow there for me, and I swore under my breath.

I set up a bed on the couch and lay down. The pillow didn’t smell of Alex. Only detergent and a faint mustiness from being in a linen closet for who knew how long. I wished it did. Then maybe I’d be able to sleep. But I’d weathered enough sleepless nights to know this one wouldn’t be any different.

I closed my eyes and drifted…I heard gunshots, screams. Saw red flashes of blood—my blood on her skirt—and fear in her eyes. I saw Frankie groping her breast and grinding his groin against her until the rage was almost too much for me to take. I saw that asshole in the vampire mask put a gun to her head, not knowing—or caring—what kind of incredible human being he was about to destroy.

I sat up and flipped on the television. On ESPN I found a replay of Sports Center and kept the volume low so as not to wake Alex. I didn’t really pay attention, anyway. I just needed the mindless banality of the commercials, and the drone of the commentators while they discussed the latest baseball highlights.

Close to two a.m., Alex stepped lightly in to the living area. She wore a plain t-shirt and baggy sleeping pants, but my heart stuttered anyway.

She crossed her arms over her breasts. “Can’t sleep?”

“Nope.”

“Me neither.” She glanced at the TV. “What are you watching?”

“Nothing. Baseball.”

“You a fan?”

“I bleed Dodger blue,” I said, mustering a smile.

“I hate baseball.” A pause. “Can I watch with you?”

I nodded and watched her as she sat next to me on the couch. We said nothing but listened to the talking heads debate who was going to trade whom, and which pitcher had the stuff to be the season’s best closer. I watched this information wash over Alex. She wasn’t paying attention. Her eyes were heavy and unfocused.
She needs the distraction too.

“Hey.” I tapped my shoulder. “Be my guest.”

Her pale blue eyes—dark in the dimness—met mine, and they were full of gratitude.

“I’m so tired,” she said, leaning her head against me. “How can I be so tired and yet not be able sleep?”

“I don’t know but it’s the same for me.”

Yet, with Alex so close, a pleasant, heavy fatigue fell over me like a warm blanket. My eyes started to droop immediately. I realized it was quiet here. No traffic outside, no neighbors on the other side of the wall, shouting or playing their TV too loud. Her house was peaceful and quiet, on a safe street in a nice neighborhood. When was the last time I’d had that? When I was a kid, I thought, ages ago.

I glanced down at the red hair on my shoulder, which smelled of vanilla and cinnamon. Gently, I rested my cheek on that softness, and she snuggled closer to me.

“You still awake, Alex?”

“Mmmm.”

Hardly. She was almost out. Very softly, I kissed the top of her head. “Thank you,” I whispered. “For everything.”

But she was already gone. I smiled and followed after.