Pinned Down: A Triple Threat Sports Romance (34 page)

“Not so fast, brother.” I grinned. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“With you. You just said, we have to find this guy.”

“Correction. I said I have to find this guy, not we. I need you to stay here and keep an eye on the two of them.”

“What?” He looked less than thrilled. “Oh, come on. I’m not a babysitter. I’m your VP. I should be with you when you’re working on something like this.”

“Yeah, well, I feel like you’d be more use to me here. Besides, you’re a fucking mess. I can’t take you out with me right now. Take a shower or something, try to find something in the closet that fits you. A t-shirt, at least. Don’t scare my kid, okay?” I got up, going to the bedroom door. Tony followed me with a grumble. I pretended not to hear him muttering under his breath about how pissed he was at me.

I sat down with Jess and David. “Hey, you guys. I’m gonna go out, but Tony’s gonna stay here with you while I’m gone.” I looked at David. “Didn’t I tell you he’s a big guy? Nothing’s gonna get to you while he’s here. He’s an old friend of your mom, too. We all grew up together.”

“You did?” He looked a Tony, over my shoulder. The look on his face told me he couldn’t imagine Tony being a little kid. I held back a smile.

“When will you be back?” Jess asked. I heard the nervousness in her voice.

“As soon as possible. I promise. I’ll check in with you, too. Okay?”

“Okay.” She didn’t look convinced—in fact, she looked terrified. I reached out to stroke her cheek, and I tried to give her a little strength. She smiled, taking my hand and kissing the palm. We had so much to catch up on—I only hoped she wanted to catch up on it as much as I did. It would be hell to find out she didn’t want anything to do with me after finding each other again.

Chapter Eighteen

Jess

To say it was hilarious watching Tony interact with David would be an understatement. He was the bumbling fool I’d assumed Grayson would be, tripping over his tongue, struggling to watch his language.

The first thing he did was take a shower, which was a relief seeing as how he stank like he’d died at some point during the night. Once he finished, he walked slowly into the living room, wearing a t-shirt from Grayson’s closet. It was a bit too snug, and the hems of the short sleeves looked as though they might cut off his circulation.

“Are you a giant?” David asked, plainly. I laughed out loud, waiting for Tony’s response.

“What do you think?” he asked. He shot me a panicked look. I did nothing to help him.

“I didn’t think there was any such thing as giants. But you sure do look like one.”

“He does sort of look like one, doesn’t he?” I grinned up at Tony. “Hey, can you say fee-fi-fo-fum?”

“Really funny, Jess.” He plopped down on the sofa, taking up half of it. David crawled into my lap, a little intimidated.

“How old are you?” he asked, staring at Tony.

“Sweetheart, it’s not nice to ask questions like that,” I said. “It’s a little impolite. I think you should apologize.”

“I’m sorry,” David said, looking contrite.

“But to answer your question, he’s twenty-nine. He doesn’t look twenty-nine, does he?” I grinned at Tony, who gave me a withering look.

“How old are you, Mama?”

“She’s twenty-seven,” Tony answered. I stuck my tongue out at him. All that time, and we’d fallen right back into our old roles. He was the big brother I’d never had.

“Twenty-seven?” David looked up at me in shock.

“Jeez Louise, buddy. How old did you think I was, anyway?”

“Eighteen!”

“From the mouths of babes,” Tony snorted.

“Shut up.” I turned back to David. “That’s very nice of you, honey, but twenty-seven isn’t that old. I mean, remember the librarian at school? I bet she’s at least sixty years old.”

“That’s almost dead, isn’t it?” I bit my lip to keep from laughing, and only shook my head. Tony guffawed.

“You knew my Mama when she was little?” David asked. I was glad he had stopped asking Tony personal questions, though I shuddered to think where the current line of questioning would go. Tony didn’t seem to mind—in fact, he seemed to relish the chance to tease me.

“Yeah, I knew her when she was little. She was a real pain in the—butt,” he said, glancing at me. I grinned.

“How was she a pain in the butt?”

“David…” I warned.

“No, no, he’s curious. I wanna answer his questions,” Tony joked.

“I bet you do.”

He looked at David. “Your mama was a pain in the butt like little girls can sometimes be. Like, once, your—Grayson and me, we broke the mirror on a car parked on our street.” I winced a little at his near-slip, but David didn’t seem to notice.

“Did you get in trouble?” David asked, eyes wide.

“Yeah, but we wouldn’t have if your mama didn’t tell on us.” He glared at me. “We had to do chores to pay for it for a whole month.”

“And do you know why I told on Grayson and Tony, baby? Because telling the truth is always the right thing to do. Tony didn’t like it because he had to do chores, but if he had gotten away with it, the poor man whose mirror he broke would have had to pay for it all on his own. That wouldn’t have been fair, would it? Because he wasn’t the one who broke it.”

“So Mama did the right thing,” David declared, looking at Tony.

“It all depends on your point of view,” he grumbled. “She was a tattle-tale. And whenever we would tease her, she would get upset and tell the teacher.”

“Oh, I know girls who do that. You pull their pigtail or push them, and they cry.”

I looked down at my son, who sounded so wise and worldly. “Oh, you know little girls who do that? Like who, for instance?”

David looked at his hands. “Nobody.”

“Are you teasing little girls and making them cry?” I asked.

Tony chuckled. “Aww, come on, Mom. Have a heart. He’s only doing what all little boys do when they like a girl.”

“Yeah, Mama, have a heart.” I gasped, then laughed. I turned to Tony.

“You’re not a good influence on my son,” I said, swatting playfully at Tony, who ducked.

“Hey, kid, you wanna hear the story of how your mama knocked my tooth loose this one time?”

I gave up, sighing in exasperation.

***

A few hours later, David went down for a nap in the guest room. When I returned to the living room, Tony looked eager to ask questions. I groaned inwardly, steeling myself for what I was sure would be something akin to the Spanish Inquisition.

“Where’ve you been all this time?” he asked. He didn’t sound angry or accusatory, only curious.

“Home. In my apartment.” I grinned when I saw how frustrated I made him.

“Come on. Be serious. Where’d you go?”

“I moved to another part of town, is all. Over in Queens. I mean, there are a lot of places to hide in plain view in the city. It wasn’t difficult, especially when I went back to my maiden name.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I figured you did that when Grayson couldn’t find you. I didn’t clue him in, though.”

“Why not?” His confession surprised me. He’d always been fully faithful to his best friend, as I knew Grayson was to him. They’d been like brothers since they were David’s age.

“Because I figured you must have had a pretty serious reason to disappear like that. I mean, you can think you know a couple. You can spend tons of time with them. You can know both of them your whole life, even. But it’s not the same as being part of their relationship. Know what I mean? I didn’t know what things were like for you two, since Grayson wouldn’t tell me a damn thing and neither would you. It’s like pulling teeth or talkin’ to a wall, I swear.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “Yeah, we’re both pretty tough,” I admitted.

“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it. Anyway, I figured you had a good reason, and it was none of my business. I mean, Grayson’s my best friend, but you were like my little sister. I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”

I didn’t know what to say. All I could do was give him a hug and kiss his stubbled cheek. “It really is good to see you,” I whispered. “I missed you.”

“Missed you too, Jess.” He sounded a little choked up, so I pulled away and changed the subject---slightly, anyway.

“I’m not asking this to be overly nosy or anything, and I know it won’t be easy for you to answer…but how did he take it? When I left, I mean?”

“How do you think he took it?” Tony blew out a big sigh, slouching on the sofa. “He was a total mess. He couldn’t believe you would do something like that. At first, he thought you had to be screwing around with another guy.” He shook his head. “None of us believed that, though. It wasn’t your style.”

“Thank you for giving me a little credit,” I murmured.

“Then, he looked for you. All over the place. It was like an obsession. No matter what I told him—and I told him a lot of things—he wouldn’t give up. I mean, I begged him once. I told him, if you left, you had your reasons. You told him in your letter that you couldn’t go on the way things were. And hey, I knew how he was back then. He couldn’t handle the shit we were into. You know what I mean. All the violent shit. God, he hated himself for that.”

“He did?” I sat up a little straighter, looking at Tony. “What did he say to you?”

“He didn’t have to say anything. You know those pictures you see of guys who came back from the war a little…different? Like they couldn’t handle remembering the things they did when they were there? That was Grayson. He couldn’t handle it. He used to sit there just staring into space. Or he would walk around with blood on his hands after he got in a fight with somebody—I used to have to tell him to wash up. When he would get hurt, he wouldn’t take care of himself. We all had to look out for him. One time after you left, somebody hit him over the head, and he needed six stitches in his scalp. He didn’t even wanna go to the hospital.”

“Oh, God,” I murmured.

“And that wasn’t your fault, the stitches thing. That’s just the way he was then. He didn’t wanna have anything to do with anybody he used to care about. Not even himself. It was a bad time.” He sighed, looking at the ceiling. “I guess he couldn’t have been easy to live with.”

“That’s an understatement,” I murmured, mimicking Tony’s posture. “It was the worst. And I knew something was eating him up inside, I just knew it. But he wouldn’t come to me. He wouldn’t tell me anything about it. How could I help him?”

“You couldn’t. The only reason any of us put up with him was that we were in the club with him—I know that sounds shitty, but it’s true. I mean, I wouldn’t ditch him no matter what, but that’s not the same as being married to somebody. I don’t think I could have stood it.”

I smiled at Tony. “You’re a good friend. You know that? I’m glad he’s had you all this time.”

“What about you? Do you have any good friends? Anybody to help you through?”

“My friend Cindy.”

“She cute?”

“Jesus, Tone.” I smacked his arm. “But yes, she’s cute.”

“Single?”

“Yes. But I don’t think she’s interested in club life.”

“How do you know? Did you ever ask?”

“Of course not. She’s the kind of girl who goes to coffee shops and off-off-Broadway shows about men trapped in glass cages and poetry slams.”

He wrinkled his nose. “You can’t blame me for asking.”

“Anyway, she’s my best friend. She’s been an amazing help to me, too.” I told him all about losing my job, how Cindy kept an eye on David for me while I looked for new jobs, how she sometimes floated me a little money or offered to make dinner for us. Then I got to the part where the heat in my apartment was cut off.

“Well, I think you know the rest,” I said, nearly whispering. I was so ashamed. Looking back, how could I have thought that going to a loan shark was the way out? I reminded myself that hindsight was twenty/twenty.

“If anybody can find a way to get you through this, it’s Grayson.” Tony sounded supremely confident.

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

“Because I know him. I know he won’t give up until he finds this guy and makes him pay for what he’s doing to you.”

“I don’t even want to make him pay,” I admitted. “I just want to make him stop.”

“Sweetheart, guys like this don’t stop unless they’re made to pay. They won’t just give up. Know what I mean? They take shit like this personally. You gotta make sure they won’t come back. It’s like a cockroach. You can’t just hope he goes away if you leave him alone. You’ve gotta kill him.”

I shuddered, not liking the direction our conversation had taken. “What about trapping him under a glass and setting him free somewhere else?”

Tony smirked. “You ever done that to a cockroach? Honestly?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

We sat in silence for a long time, both of us staring up at the ceiling. “Do you think he still loves me?” I asked.