Driving myself into her, I fill her to the hilt, turn my face away from hers, and fuck her harder than I’ve ever fucked anyone before.
Her nails drive into my skin and she fucks me back, whispering in my ear to keep going … to not stop …
I’m glad she likes it because I couldn’t handle another second of looking into each other’s eyes and smiling like two lovesick fools.
This is how it has to be.
How it should be.
She finishes first, and then I pull out, brushing her shirt out of the way and releasing myself on her flawless, peaches-and-cream stomach.
By the time I stand up, I find that the client bed has migrated to the other side of the room, and in the midst of all that we knocked over two tool trays.
We clean up our mess, and a few minutes later the place is spotless and back in order. I check the lock on the front door before meeting her at the back entrance, but instead of being ready to go, she’s leaning against the wall with her arms folded and her head tilted sideways.
“Can we go somewhere?” she asks.
I check my watch. It’s almost eleven o’clock. “Like where?”
“Just a drive,” she says. “I could use some fresh air.”
“Don’t you have to work in the morning?”
Brighton lifts a shoulder to her ear. “I’m not tired … and I want to show you something.”
“Turn left at that stop sign.” Brighton points up ahead.
We’ve been driving for almost an hour now under a starry sky, windows down, music playing, and we just crossed into a town called Hidden Oaks, which for some reason rings vaguely familiar to me though I’m not sure why.
“Up there,” she says a few seconds later. “See that brick house? With the stone lions?”
Jesus. “Yeah. You can’t miss it.”
“Can you stop here?” she asks.
“Stop here?” We’re surrounded by multi-million dollar mansions, each one bigger than the one beside it. Despite the fact that this neighborhood isn’t gated and probably should be, I doubt these people want random strangers knocking on their door late at night.
“Yeah. Just park in the street,” she says. “This is what I wanted to show you.”
I pull up to the curb in front of the gargantuan brick estate and shift into park.
“This … house …” she sucks in a long breath, glassy eyes fixed on the massive exterior with enough lights to illuminate Wrigley Field, “is what I wanted to show you.”
“Okay …”
“When I was almost ten, I was staying the night with my grandparents,” she says. “It was this spur of the moment thing. Wasn’t planned. I just … missed them. And they were the best. Nicest people you’d ever meet in your life. Friendly and warm. They’d never met a stranger. Never had an enemy … anyway, I was staying the night at their house, and I asked if I could sleep in the attic bedroom. It was this space they’d converted to a kids’ loft for all their grandkids. It had bunk beds and a TV and video games. Even a little kitchenette they kept stocked with the kind of junk food our parents never let us have …”
Her voice drifts for a moment, her shoulders rising and falling. And then she lifts a finger to her cheek, brushing away a small tear.
“I’m sorry … I haven’t been back here in over a decade. I didn’t think it would hit me as hard as it is …” She swallows a gulp of air before continuing. “Anyway, so that night, I was asleep upstairs. I’d actually fallen asleep listening to my iPod, headphones in my ear and everything. Back then I always had to have something to listen to when I fell asleep. The next morning, I woke up and headed downstairs. The house was quiet, which I thought was strange because my grandparents were early risers. My grandma was known for her 5 AM walks and my grandpa would always have breakfast on the stove and the news blasting on his radio. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I realized my sock was wet. I looked down, and I’d just stepped in a puddle of dark red liquid.” She pauses, glancing down into her lap. “When I looked down the hall … I saw my grandparents, lying face down, covered in blood.”
Her hands lift to her face, and she wipes the fat tear tracks that dampen her cheeks.
“They caught the guys who did it,” she says. “I guess my grandfather shot and killed one of them. The other’s in prison now. The police said it was a botched burglary.”
And just like that … I remember now why Hidden Oaks sounded so familiar to me.
It was my father.
It was my father who killed her grandparents.
Her gaze returns to the front of the house and the saddest smile colors her expression. I’m sure she’s thinking of happier times.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t miss them,” she says. “They were my favorite people in the entire world.” She looks down again. “Still are. Wish you could’ve met them. They would’ve loved you. I mean, they loved everybody, but they really would’ve loved you.”
“I’m sorry, Brighton.” It’s the only thing I can say.
“I always think about what my life would be like had that never happened,” she says. “I mean, as far as my parents are concerned. They were so terrified that someone was going to come after me, that whoever did it had purposely targeted my grandparents and that we’d be next, that they pulled me out of school, hired a tutor, put me in therapy, and didn’t let me leave the house for almost an entire year. It wasn’t until my therapist told them they couldn’t imprison me like that, that they finally relented, but only a little. Everything they’ve ever done has been because they were terrified they were going to lose me. Though I’ll give my mom most of the credit. She’s the one who truly went overboard. I think losing her parents and, in her mind, almost losing her daughter, pushed her over the edge.” Brighton turns to me. “She was never the same after that night.”
I give her a few more minutes to bask in … whatever this is. Grief. Nostalgia. Bittersweetness. And then I say, “It’s getting late.”
“Yeah.” She pulls in a breath and lets it go, giving the house one last hard look. “We should go.”
We drive home in silence, though my mind is loud as hell.
Life has a sick sense of humor sometimes.
Who’d have thought this woman, this gorgeous, gentle-hearted creature, would be the granddaughter of the two innocent people my father murdered?
And the granddaughter of the man who shot my twin brother in the chest at point-blank range.
Thirty-Seven
Brighton
* * *
It’s past one in the morning when we get back to the apartment. I’m going to be exhausted tomorrow, but it was worth it. I hadn’t been back to my grandparents’ house in over ten years, and though I’d wanted to drive by it a hundred times, I never wanted to go alone and I never had the courage to ask my mom to come with me. God only knows it doesn’t take much to put her in a tailspin.
We strip out of our clothes, and I set the alarm on my phone before crawling into bed. He slides in beside me, rolling to his side, his back to me.