CHAPTER 31
I FELT LATHAM’S ARM slip around my waist and I sighed, happy it had all been some horrible dream.
But it didn’t feel like Latham’s arm-it felt like a stranger’s-and everything came back at once and I jolted, then went rigid.
“You okay?” Phin, his voice sleepy.
“Yeah. Just forgot where I was.”
Phin’s hand was still on my hip, burning there like an iron. I nudged it off.
“I wasn’t trying anything.”
“I know.” My tone had more regret in it than I might have liked.
Sunlight peeked in through a crack in the drapes. I looked at the clock radio. A little past ten a.m. I’d managed about four hours of sleep. Not too bad. I’ve been able to function on less.
I rubbed my eyes, felt some crud in the corners, and immediately wondered how my hair looked. My breath was probably awful as well. I wanted to get up, dress in the bathroom, but didn’t want Phin to see me in my underwear. Earlier it seemed daring. Now it was just plain embarrassing.
“I’m not used to waking up next to cops,” Phin said. “Especially pretty ones.”
I felt his finger trail up my spine. I flinched away.
“Jesus, Jack. We’re both adults.”
I faced him, hugging the sheet to my chest.
“You’re a good-looking guy, Phin. I’m sure you’ll rebound quickly.”
He smiled and locked his hands behind his head, triceps bulging.
“Do you like being miserable? Is that your thing?”
His pillow talk needed some work.
“No, Phin. Like most other people in the world, I actually try to be happy. And sometimes I actually achieve it for brief periods of time. But to me, being an adult means having responsibilities.”
I was lecturing, but Phin appeared more amused than chastised.
“I used to be like that. Feeling like the only thing holding the world together was my self-discipline.”
“There’s a difference between taking care of business and being a control freak.”
“I know that. Do you?”
And to think I almost slept with this guy.
“I try to do my best. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, but I keep trying. It’s all I can do.”
Phin adopted a pensive look as if he was considering what to say next. I waited, feeling dorkier and dorkier in my sports bra and red pan ties.
Finally, he spoke.
“Let me tell you a story, Jack. Young man. Had a decent paying job in an office. Was in love with a girl who loved him back. They even had the wedding date set.”
“This is you, I’m guessing.”
“It was me. Living the American dream, on my way to two-point-five kids and a thirty-year fixed mortgage.”
“So what happened? One day you just decided a life of crime was sexier?”
His eyes went somewhere else. “I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Told I had eight months to live. Maria-Maria Kilborn, my bride to be-she and I were…right. Like we were supposed to be together. You know? When someone is just perfect for you?”
I nodded, a lump forming in my throat. “I know.”
Phin focused, smiled sadly. “But she wasn’t strong, Jack. She was strong in some ways. But not emotionally. She cared about people. A lot. Maybe too much. I remember driving home from the doctor’s office, thinking about how I was going to tell her, seeing it in my head. And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hurt her like that. Not only the telling her, but thinking about her watching me die…”
Phin cleared his throat, then scratched the back of his neck.
“So I didn’t go home. I rented a hotel room, called an escort ser vice, and fucked my brains out while Maria was going crazy wondering where I was. She tracked down our credit card usage, came to my room, saw me with the whore. There was screaming, crying. She told me she never wanted to see me again. And she kept the promise.”
I made a face. “Do you think that was noble, what you did? Breaking up with her instead of being honest?”
His gaze was intense. “You tell me, Jack. Is it easier to hate someone, or to miss them after they die?”
I thought about Alan, who left me, and Latham, who left me in a different way.
Phin was right. Losing Latham hurt more.
So was he a coward, or was he being strong?
When I met Phin, on the Job, I’d immediately liked him. He’d been involved in a gang fight, three against one. They were armed. Phin wasn’t. All three wound up in the hospital.
During the arrest Phin was compliant, polite, even jovial. Like he didn’t have a care in the world. I bumped into him accidentally sometime later, at a local pool hall, and we began playing eight ball on a somewhat regular basis. He was attractive, sure, but I think the thing that drew me to him was his attitude. He seemed free. Even bald from the chemo, taking breaks between games to go throw up, he seemed more at ease with himself than anyone I’d ever met.
I wondered what it would be like to live in the moment like that. To not worry about anything other than the now. Was it liberating? Or empty? Brave or weak?
“This was a few years ago.” Phin turned on his side, propping his head up on his hand. “I had surgery. Had treatments. Still kept getting worse. Nine to five didn’t really seem that important anymore, so I quit. Eventually I ran out of money, lost my insurance. Lived on the street, day by day, getting by. But something funny happened. I didn’t die.”
“Remission.”
He shook his head. “Not really. Cancer’s still there. Pain is still there. I’m going to die from it. But it isn’t killing me as fast as the doctors have hoped. I thought I’d rob a few gangbangers, hustle a little pool, spend a few weeks partying like a rock star and then die in a gutter somewhere. But here I am. Still alive. Here. With you.”
He touched my back again, and this time I didn’t flinch. But since I’m cursed with the burden of overanalyzing everything, I ruined what could have been a romantic moment by asking, “Why are you here, Phin? Why are you helping me? This isn’t your fight. Am I a diversion? Any port in the storm? A way to kill some time so you don’t have to think about your life?”
Damn my big mouth. If he walked out the door right then, I couldn’t have blamed him.
But he didn’t walk out. He just stared at me. Not angry. But patient. Understanding. And I filled in the blanks. He wasn’t with me because he wanted a little action, or because I helped him take his mind off his death sentence. He actually cared about me. I saw it in his face. Here was a guy who divorced himself from life, packing his feelings away like winter clothes in the summertime. He worked to keep people out.
And he let me in.
And the least I could do in return was live in the now.
In one quick motion I billowed up the sheets and cast them off the bed, exposing Phin in his red boxer briefs. His body was long and lean and cut, and I wasn’t sure where I wanted to touch him first. I chose his abs, running my hand along his six-pack while sliding alongside him and hooking my leg up over his thigh.
The kiss could have been morning breath bad, but all I tasted was heat. Heat and passion and possibilities that I promised myself would be explored.
His arms encircled me, fingers of one hand running through my hair and tingling my scalp, the other wandering over the back of my sports bra.
I smiled while his tongue probed mine, then pulled slightly away.
“Sports bra,” I said, “no clasps.”
I dug under the elastic, stretched it up over my arms, and he helped me pull the bra over my head and arms. I paused, letting him look at me, drinking in how much he seemed to like the view. Then I grabbed his wrists and put his hands on my breasts.
He rubbed the flat of his palm over my nipples, rolled one between his fingers, tugging on it gently, making it stiffen. Then his arm was around the small of my back and he tugged me next to him, urgent, his mouth on mine.