Illicit Intent, page 10
Twitch squeezed her hand. The ever-cheerful ginger had had her own challenges making friends.
“I’ve lived in ten cities in seven years,” Calliope confessed.
“Why?”
Calliope ran her finger around the rim of her wine glass.
“I get bored, or another city strikes my fancy. I stay until I lose interest. I was in Istanbul for two months, Budapest for a year.” She lifted one shoulder in a careless gesture.
“That must get exhausting.”
“For me, it’s the opposite. I get exhausted staying in the same place. Adventure is invigorating.”
“Wow. That’s wow.” Twitch thought briefly to her childhood in nearby Westchester County. Mentally, she had moved very far away, just not physically.
“Plus my dad has hooked me up with some people who get me really interesting jobs. I’ve been a waitress, a photographer’s assistant, a tour guide. I worked on a salt farm in Malta.” She popped a grape in her mouth.
“That’s cool.”
“You never, eh hem, looked into my family?”
Twitch knew a thing or two about Calliope’s background, but she had a policy not to poke around in her friends’ lives. She trusted until she was given a reason not to.
“Nope.” Twitch sighed. “I mean, I know the basics, but I would never pry. We all have secrets, Calliope. Friends share secrets when the time is right.”
Calliope nodded.
“I think I told you he’s technically my stepdad. He married my mom when I was five, but he’s my real dad in all the ways that count. He’s traveled all his life for work. As you can imagine, he knows people everywhere. He’s willing to let me live my life, but he’s always watching out, you know?”
“Gotcha. So what does all this have to do with the flip?”
“I don’t know. None of it, really.” She confessed. “It’s just that my mom and dad love each other so much, I feel like if I don’t find my soulmate, I’ll somehow disappoint them. And I don’t even really believe in that stuff. I mean come on.”
“And if you did?”
“Did what?”
“Find your soulmate?”
“I’m certainly not scouring the planet looking for him. Let’s face it. I’d be a pretty difficult soul for the romance gods to match up. So far this system is working fine. I’ve never met anyone I loved more than my life the way it is.”
“Until you meet someone, and it goes somewhere before you can go anywhere.”
“Hasn’t happened so far. I can barely find guys I can stand for a week.” Both women laughed at that.
Twitch turned serious. “About Tox.”
Calliope stopped her glass halfway to her mouth, her cheeks pink. She met Twitch’s sparkling eyes with a hard truth.
“Yes, there’s the flip, but come on. We’re not exactly compatible.”
“How so?”
Calliope almost choked on her sip.
“You have to see it. It’s practically a running joke with us. He’s neat. I’m messy. I’m a free spirit. He’s structured. He’s a SEAL. I’m a chicken. I mean, I know what you’re going to say. Yes, opposites attract, or Yin Yang or whatever, and in theory, that’s great, but in reality, I don’t think it ever works. At the start, the lust burns so hot all those little things—his lists or his organized closet or his over-protectiveness are tolerable. Then you settle in, and those same qualities make you want to kill him. And the same with him. He can overlook a slob or a flake when the sex is consuming him, but then…he sees the real me without the fuck-blinders and poof.” Calliope made a little explosion with her fingers.
Twitch was momentarily stunned. Calliope’s analysis revealed some pretty profound insecurities in her confident friend.
“Fuck-blinders?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t think you should date him.” Twitch looked uncharacteristically serious.
“What? Why?” Calliope had been convinced Twitch would encourage a relationship. The women had oddly and suddenly switched positions on the topic.
“Damn, reverse psychology really does work,” Twitch laughed.
“Did you mean it?”
Twitch set her glass down and squared her shoulders.
“These guys, Tox, Steady, Cam, they all do the bang and bounce. They’re out the door before the sun comes up. A month to these guys is like an engagement to most men.”
Calliope noted Twitch had excluded Tox’s swim buddy and best friend Finn McIntyre from the list, despite the fact that he was the most egregious offender. There was a story there, but Twitch would share when she was ready. She gave Twitch her full attention.
“That being said.” Twitch took a bracing sip of wine. “Tox isn’t like that. I mean he is, but deep down he isn’t. He gets attached to people. Being an asshole is his way of staying detached. He tends to dive in the deep end, so one-night stands are his way of staying out of the pool altogether. Does that make sense?”
“I’m sensing there’s more to the story.”
“It’s not my story to tell, but just know, this may not be healthy for him. He’s already a little dazzled by you.”
“Just a little?”
“Truthfully, no. A lot.”
“Good.”
“I’m serious, Calliope. Tox has trouble letting go.”
“I don’t know how much longer I’ll even be in New York. He can’t have trouble letting go of something he can’t get a hold of.”
“Don’t underestimate his skills.”
“Not this gal.”
“The gal who was following him around Harlem?”
“Whatever.”
“Question.” Twitch set her wineglass on the coffee table, the surface of which was old metal band album covers laminated together.
Calliope quirked a brow.
“How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“End it? I mean, if a guy doesn’t want to end things and you do, how do you communicate that you’re serious?”
Calliope assessed her friend. Her usual pie-eyed optimism was tinged with a pained vulnerability.
“If you mean it, they know.”
Twitch nodded, defeated.
Calliope thought about pressing Twitch to spill whatever was hurting her heart, but she could sense her reticence. So she raised her glass in a toast and winked at her friend. A knock on the door had them both looking up.
“Expecting anyone?”
Calliope scampered to the door, peeked through the sidelight, and squealed. Coco barked from the couch but didn’t move. Twitch joined her at the door as Emily Bishop wedged a double stroller through. Her thirteen-month-old twin boys, Jack and Charlie, wide awake in the passenger seats. Calliope and Twitch threw their arms around Emily, and the group moved into the living room. Twitch unbuckled the boys and situated them on the plush carpet while Calliope poured Emily a glass of pinot noir.
“Why didn’t you text? I could have helped you up the stairs.”
“JT helped me.” She gestured through the front window to the man in the driver’s seat of a black Escalade. “Trust me, pulling these two little hulks up ten stairs exceeds my load limit.”
“You still have a bodyguard?” Calliope questioned.
“Have you met my husband?” Emily rolled her eyes. “Besides, JT’s practically family. Nathan hired him so he could continue working for me. He’s actually from South Carolina, so he was happy to move. He’s helping Nathan with the renovation of the office space.”
Twitch and Calliope each snatched a toddler and perched them on their laps. Twitch asked, “How are things in South Carolina?”
“So good. I thought I would miss New York, but, well, I grew up in a small southern town, and it’s home.” She clarified for Calliope. “Nathan’s Uncle Charlie lives on one of the barrier islands, but our home is inland, near the town of Beaufort. It’s right out of a storybook. My best friend Caroline and her husband bought a gorgeous beach house nearby on Kiawah Island. No kids yet, because she’s still lighting the world on fire.”
“Oh, Caroline Fitzhugh! She broke that big story about that movie star murder in the 90s.” Calliope gushed.
“She’s writing a true crime novel about it,” Emily confirmed.
“Cool.” Twitch sipped her wine.
Emily got comfortable in her seat. “Okay, give me the dirt. I spend my days playing peek-a-boo and bathtub games.”
“And what do you do when Nathan leaves for work?” Twitch grinned.
“Boom.” Calliope gave her a fist bump.
“Quit stalling.” Emily scolded through her blush.
After Twitch brought Emily up to speed on the Tox situation, Emily sat back in the overstuffed chair, observing Calliope over the rim of her glass.
“What?”
“It’s just not very you. Long term compatibility doesn’t seem like something you factor into decision making. I mean you hate clocks. You once got lost on a run because you were chasing a stray dog. You eat when you’re hungry and sleep when you’re tired no matter when or where you are. Are you really saying you’re not interested in Tox because you don’t see it lasting?”
No, I’m saying I’m not interested in Tox because I do see it lasting. Aloud, she said, “It’s not that. I can’t be obligated to someone or force someone to be obligated to me. I don’t want someone in my life who thinks of me as their responsibility, their burden. I want, no, I need to be free.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Emily laid her hand on Calliope’s forearm.
“What?”
“It’s just…I don’t think I knew what free was until I found Nathan.”
Twitch sighed and squeezed the baby on her lap.
Calliope set her wine glass down on the floor. “I don’t think that’s in the cards for me. I think I’ll just have to be happy with the moments, you know?”
“That’s just it, though. Loving someone is having those moments. I think a great love story is just the accumulation of shared moments. Some of them are sad, some are funny, some are terrifying, and some are magical, but each of them and all of them are…”
Twitch finished the thought. “Epic.”
New York City
April 20
The following morning, Calliope stood on her front stoop and stretched her quads. Years of yoga and running had honed her body, and she pulled her ankle behind her and up to touch the back of her head. As was her habit, she checked her surroundings. There was the usual activity on her quiet Brooklyn street; a mother pushed her child in a stroller toward the small park on the corner. An older man with a bushy beard sat on a bench outside the small Italian pastry shop, sipping coffee, watching the world go by, and enjoying his day.
Calliope trotted down her steps and started off at a slow jog. Ahead on the corner, a man emerged from the passenger door of a white van with a logo of a painting company on the side. The man moved slowly, one eye on her as he fiddled with a paint can. As she approached, he moved to block her path, but Calliope was nimble and skirted him. Asshole.
It wasn’t until he turned as she ran by and tried to grab her wrist that Calliope registered alarm. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the man outside the pastry shop stand with an urgency that belied his age. She risked a quick glance over her shoulder, and her concern turned to panic as the man from the van began chasing her. She picked up speed and rounded the corner. In the middle of the next block, two men emerged from a dark sedan and headed in her direction. She started to flag them down for help when she noticed one of the men withdrawing a taser from his coat.
Calliope knew the basics of how to keep safe in a city. Her mother had drummed various strategies into her before she left their quaint town, and she’d had some training. She moved into the street hoping to draw the attention of a passing car or even hail a cab. She aimed for the Henry Street subway station; even at this early hour, there would be activity and people. The two men from the sedan veered into the street on foot, the pursuer from the painting van was about thirty yards back. She rounded a corner and slipped into the twenty-four-hour donut shop, Graphic Donuts, and ducked into a booth as the three men raced by. She darted out again in the opposite direction. She was moving away from the busier sections of Henry Street and Montague Street up ahead, but she needed to be where these men were not.
She made quick, frequent turns as she raced through Brooklyn Heights. There. She spotted the building about halfway down the block. The four-story structure was being converted from a single-family home to high-end condos. Opaque plastic covered the front door and the windows. A dumpster in a parking spot on the street was filled with broken bathroom fixtures, old lights, and plaster chunks. Halfway down the block, the man ostensibly hired to watch the place stood with his back to the building, smoking a joint and scrolling through his phone.
Calliope darted up the broad cement stairs and slipped inside. She leaped up the remnants of what was once a grand staircase, raced down the second-floor hall, and up another flight, mindful of the fact that the staircase currently had no banister. On the third floor, she moved gingerly around sawhorses and equipment—presumably what the man downstairs was hired to protect—and approached the front window.
The street was quiet. A couple of teenagers with backpacks walked casually, staring at their phones. Their phones. Calliope reached for her iPhone strapped to her arm. Oddly, her first instinct wasn’t to dial 911 but rather to call a certain Navy SEAL. She forced down the antiquated damsel in distress fantasy floating around in her head and rationalized the police would surely ask questions she was unwilling or unable to answer. There. Perfectly reasonable excuse. She brought up her contacts. At the bottom, she touched the entry labeled, Tox, and the call rang through. A grizzly bear answered.
“This better be good.”
“Tox?”
“Calliope?”
“I need your help I think.”
“What’s going on?”
“I went out for a run this morning, and three men started following me. Chasing me really. Still are, I think.”
Calliope could hear activity over the line and a bam followed by a muffled curse, then the applause of feet flying down the stairs.
“Where are you?”
“Brooklyn Heights. Hicks Street I think. I’m hiding inside a building under construction.”
“Share your location.”
She hit the location-share icon on her phone.
“Done.”
“Shit. Fuck. At this hour the fastest way to get to you is the subway. It’ll take me thirty minutes. Can you hide?”
A car horn blared over the line and she could hear Tox swearing.
“Yes. There are plenty of hiding places, and there’s no sign of the men right now.”
“Okay, good. Get someplace where you can watch the street but scope out a hiding place if they show. I’m going to lose you on the train, but I’ll be there.”
“Tox?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you stay on the phone with me until I lose you?”
“You bet.”
And just like that Tox switched gears, his ploy to keep her calm obvious but appreciated.
“So, baseball or football?”
“American football?”
“Obviously.”
“Ew, neither. Benfica Lisbon is my team. Real football.”
“What? Oh, you mean soccer.” Tox faked a snore.
“I’ll take you to a match, and we’ll see if you’re bored.”
“Fine. And I’ll take you to an NFL game, and it’ll kill you for soccer forever.”
“What’s your team?” she asked, trying to keep the quiver from her voice.
“Go Pack Go!”
“What does that even mean?”
“Packers. Green Bay?”
“If you say so.”
“You think I’m making it up?”
“It just doesn’t sound like a real place or a real team.”
“I think I’m going to enjoy proving you wrong.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’m heading into the station. I hear a train. I’ll stay on the line until the call drops.”
Calliope just then realized Tox had been having this entire conversation at a flat-out run and wasn’t even short of breath.
“Okay.”
“Tell me something weird about you.” Tox’s voice was fading in and out.
“How long do you have?”
“I’m guessing about three minutes.”
She sighed. “We won’t even scratch the surface. Let’s see. I can lie on my stomach and pull both my legs over my shoulders so my toes touch the floor by my face.” She thought she heard a groan over the line.
“You’re a freak. What else?” he asked.
“Patterns in nature freak me out. Like beehives or nautilus shells or algae.” She shuddered.
“That’s a thing. I read about it. Next.”
“Uh-uh, your turn. Show me your weird.” Calliope heard the squealing brakes of the subway and the rumble of the cars.
“Hmm, let’s see. Where to begin? I’m friends with a trans prostitute.”
“That’s pretty good. You owe me one more.” The call was starting to break up.
“I have an involuntary tattoo.”
“A what?”
“A non-consensual tattoo,” he said, louder.
“Tox?”
“It’s not a tramp stamp or anything, but…”
“Tox, they’re here.”
“Say it again. I’m losing you.”
“They’re here. They just…”
Tox checked his screen. The “call failed” and “no service” notifications mocked him as the train continued. He zipped his hoodie a little higher and tugged at the hem. If he got caught carrying a handgun on a subway, he wouldn’t make it out of the station, and his Magnum Desert Eagle .50 Caliber was not an inconspicuous weapon. He had big hands; he needed a big gun. Each time-consuming stop of the subway had Tox ready to explode.
Finally, the train plunged under the East River toward Brooklyn. The subway emerged from the tunnel and began to slow as it entered the station. Tox stood in front of the closed doors willing them to part. When they finally did, he bolted for the stairs. It took him a few seconds to get his bearings, and he sprinted in the direction the GPS indicated. He needed to get to Calliope, and he needed some answers.
