by Sarina Bowen
TWENTY
Ari’s day had started out well. First there was tantric sex with the hottest man in Brooklyn. Then, after her first massage appointment, a deliveryman showed up out of the blue to drop off half a dozen whoopie pies from One Girl Cookies.
“I didn’t order anything,” she told him.
“If you’re Ari, these are for you,” the kid insisted. “Sign here.”
Inside the bag, she found a card. A little bird told me you liked these. They must be good if they’re called whoopie pies.—P.
Ari ate one of them and set the others out of eyesight so she wouldn’t be tempted.
But her good fortune didn’t last. She checked her messages on her lunch break, and that’s when everything went sideways. She had a voice mail from Detective Miller asking her to stop by the precinct and drop off the hard copy of the photograph Vince had sent to Patrick. She’d been ducking this errand for days. But now she rescheduled her 1:30 massage—Castro didn’t have any injuries, he just liked having a rubdown—and headed over there.
When she tried to drop off the photo with the desk sergeant, they asked her to wait a moment. When Miller came out and asked her to stay for coffee, her stomach sank. “I just had one,” she said.
He smiled. “Come on back for a minute anyway. We have a couple more questions we need to ask you,” he said.
“All right.” Uneasy, she followed him into a messy office and sat down in the visitor’s chair.
“Were you able to serve your ex-boyfriend with his order of protection?” he asked immediately.
She shook her head. “The process server can’t find him. I don’t know where he’s staying.”
“I see.” The detective made a tent out of his fingers. “I need to show you a document and ask you if it’s your signature on the bottom.”
“Okay?” Her voice quavered, because that sounded bad. There couldn’t be many documents with her signature on them in the world. Except for tax forms, and anything she filled out for the Bruisers.
He opened a folder and slid a photocopy of what looked like a check in front of her. “Does this look familiar?”
She squinted at the document—a cancelled check drawn from a bank she’d never heard of, in the amount of nine thousand dollars. In the lower right-hand corner, someone had signed Ariana Bettini. “Oh my god. What is this?”
“That’s what I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I certainly don’t write checks for that amount. And I don’t know this bank.”
“I see.” The detective passed her a form. Signature Verification it read. “Would you mind filling this out, please? In the middle section, sign your name five times.”
Her fingers shook as she first printed her name in the space at the top. “What the hell is going on? Why are you asking me to do this?”
“I can’t comment on the investigation,” he said.
Ari took a deep breath, but the pen was sweaty in her hand. “There’s a bank account with my name on it somewhere? What does that mean?”
He just shook his head.
Ari signed her name five times in rapid succession. Then she passed the paper to the cop and stood up.
“Hang on—I have a few more questions.”
“Too bad,” she said, hefting her purse onto her shoulder. “I’m going home to call my lawyer. You can clear your questions through him.”
The cop didn’t bother arguing as she got the hell out of there.
* * *
When she got back to the practice rink, she called her lawyer. When she was finished filling him in, there were twenty minutes left before Massey’s appointment. So she walked through the gym to see if he wanted to get started early. There were voices—lots of them—echoing from the stretching room.
She stuck her head through the doorway to see what all the fuss was about. Players lined the room, watching Patrick and Crikey in the middle. The two players were wearing protective gear and circling each other on the mat.
“Keep your chin up,” Patrick prompted. “Yeah.” They were both sweating profusely. They must have been at this for a while. “Your reach is better than mine, so stay loose and don’t let me get near you until you’re ready to grab the sweater. Ready?” Patrick moved in, trying to grab Crikey. Crikey dodged him and then made his own grab.
“Yeah!” players cheered. “You got this!”
Nobody was working out. They were all just standing around, enjoying the spectacle.
Crikey punched Patrick (with a boxing glove) and Patrick pounded on Crikey. The younger man went down, and Jimbo blew a whistle. They rolled apart from each other, panting.
“You’re gettin’ the hang of it,” Patrick said, sounding tired.
“Dude. What a rush,” Crikey breathed from his back. “Where’d you learn to fight, anyway? Who taught you?”
“When I was ten I started hanging out at a boxing gym. You never heard this story?”
“No. Ten? Fuck. You’re a prodigy.”
Patrick reached his arms over his head and stretched out his rib cage. “Eh. It was necessary. The older kids at the group home where I lived kept stealing my food . . .”
Ari stopped breathing.
“. . . I hung around the boxing gym because I needed to figure out how to shut that shit down. The guys in there thought it was funny that a kid wanted to fight, so they taught me.”
“Jesus.” Crikey sat up. “Did it work?”
“Sure. Eventually. I’m here now, right? Didn’t starve. You want to go one more time?” He planted a hand on the mat and sat up.
Ari didn’t react quickly enough and his icy gaze landed right on her startled face. His mouth got tight and he looked away.
Even though he’d told this ugly little tale to a room full of people, she had the guilty feeling of someone who’d just eavesdropped. “Is . . .” she cleared her throat. “Massey? Are you ready for your appointment?”
The defenseman high-fived both Crikey and Patrick, then followed her out of the room.
* * *
That night she was restless. She paced her bedroom, a nervous wreck. The lawyer had just instructed her not to speak to the police again without counsel. If Vince had involved her name and social security number in any shady dealings, she would have to prove her innocence.
Lawyer bills could sink her. This week she’d bought a new window and a new basement door. Those costs paled in comparison to a lawyer’s fee. Moonlighting might be one solution. If she fit some private massages into her schedule on the evenings she wasn’t traveling with the team, the extra money would help.
But she didn’t want the team to know she was moonlighting, so she’d have to keep it a secret.
More secrets. Yay.
Her Katt Phone rang. The number read PRIVATE CALLER. She hesitated a moment before answering. But it could be the lawyer. “Hello?”
“Ariana.” After eight years, it was easy to pick out Vince’s voice at just one word. “Don’t hang up.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” she yelped. “What the hell, Vince. You got yourself mixed up in some bullshit and now the cops want to talk to me.”
“That will all go away,” he said quickly. “But you have to do this one thing for me.”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
“Yeah, you do. It will take you fifteen minutes, and you’ll never hear from the cops again.”
She wanted to hang up. She really did. But she also wanted to be rid of this hassle. “What is it? No promises.”
“I need to get into the house.”
“Why? I put all your things in the b . . .”
“Listen to me, girl. If you don’t want your boyfriend’s ass hung out to dry. You. Will. Listen.”
He’s not my boyfriend, her brain offered up. But she already knew that arguing the point was a bad idea.
&n
bsp; “We’ll set a time,” Vince said, his voice low. “You’ll exit from the front door and leave it open behind you. Take a walk around the neighborhood for fifteen minutes. There’s something I need to retrieve.”
A chill snaked down her back. “What is it?”
“Never you mind. It’s nothing you can find without my help. And if you touch it, everything turns to shit. I promise you do not want any part in this.”
She shivered. “What the hell have you done?”
“Nothing,” he said vehemently. “And I aim to prove it. You screw this up for me, and your boyfriend will regret it.”
“Don’t threaten me. A judge gave me a restraining order with your name on it.”
“Leave it on the coffee table for me,” he snarled. “I need in there. Fifteen minutes. After eight years, you can give me fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
When he spoke again it was between clenched teeth. “I don’t have time for you to think about it.”
“Yeah? I’m done being bullied by you.” Feeling absolutely crazy, she ended the call.
It rang again a moment later. She tossed the phone onto the bed as if it was a venomous snake.
If she thought she’d been tense earlier, she’d been wrong. There was nothing like wondering what awful thing Vince had hidden in her home.
She did the obvious thing and began ransacking closets. Standing on chairs, she reacquainted herself with everything on the top shelves of her few closets. But there was nothing terrifying to be found. She turned up nothing more interesting than the term paper she’d written while studying anatomy for her massage therapy certificate.
By nine o’clock she felt both paranoid and irritated. Maybe a better woman would have plopped down on her yoga mat and meditated, but she didn’t think she could relax in this house. That asshole had ruined her peace again.
Ari put on her coat and tossed a toothbrush into her bag. Then, feeling paranoid, she left an upstairs lamp on and tiptoed down her own stairs in the dark. In the kitchen she grabbed the pastry bag full of whoopie pies off the counter. Then, in the living room, she peered out onto the street, taking care not to ruffle the curtains.
No van. No Vince.
Quickly, she left by the front door, locking the place securely behind her. Walking fast, she headed for the more populous part of her neighborhood, stopping at the liquor store on Jay Street. She bought a bottle of good tequila and her favorite margarita mix. Then she called Becca from the checkout counter.
“Hi,” she said while handing over her credit card. “Can I come over? It’s an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?” Becca asked over the sounds of a baby crying in the background.
“The kind that needs a margarita. Not a bail bondsman.”
“Whew. You had me worried there. It’s, uh, not that relaxing here. Meet me across the street in the lobby of 220. We’ll go to Georgia’s.”
“Okay.”
It was a two minute walk, so she got there just as Becca was exiting her little building across Water Street from the pricey converted condo building where Georgia, Leo, (and Patrick) lived. “Hey!” Becca said, giving her a hug. “Is this latest news going to piss me off?”
“Probably.”
Becca looped her arm in Ari’s. “Come on then. You can tell me while we’re drinking.”
In the lobby of Georgia’s building, Becca began to explain to the doorman where they were headed. “We’re going up to . . .” she began.
But the doorman nodded, waving them up without a phone call upstairs. “Have a nice night, ladies.”
“I’m here a lot,” Becca explained.
When they knocked on Leo and Georgia’s apartment door, there were voices and TV noise inside. “Hey!” Georgia said when she pulled open the door. Then her face fell. “Tequila and a bakery bag? And Becca has her pedicure satchel? Oh, crap. Who died?”
“Ari is having a bad day,” Becca explained. “And my nephew is teething. So we came to your place.”
She looked over her shoulder and wrinkled her nose. “March Madness is on, and half the team is here to watch it.”
“Fuck,” Becca said.
“Well . . .” Ari cleared her throat. She looked past Georgia to count the players in the room, and did not find the one she was looking for. “I have an idea. Come with me.”
She led them to Patrick’s door and knocked. He opened up with a look of utter surprise on his face. “Ladies? Everything okay?”
“No, but Ari hasn’t given us the update yet,” Becca said, pushing past him. “We need your apartment. You can go watch basketball with Leo.”
Ari lifted her eyes to Patrick’s and found amusement there. “If you were going to stay in tonight, I can drag the girls back to my place. But I didn’t want to be alone there.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Dare I ask why?”
“Don’t tell him before us,” Becca argued from the kitchen area. “Doulie, do you have martini glasses? Hey—you do! I’m astonished.”
Without comment, Patrick opened the door wider, ushering Ari and Georgia inside.
Becca rooted around in Patrick’s freezer, filling his cocktail shaker with ice. “Okay, Ari. Do your magic. I’ll open the tequila. You bought the big bottle. Damn. Is it that bad?”
“It’s pretty bad,” she admitted. “Can you check the fridge for limes?”
“I’ll do it,” Georgia volunteered.
Across the room, Patrick had taken a seat on a leather club chair, feet propped onto the coffee table, hands behind his back. He was watching the three of them as if they were a show put on just for him.
“Found one!” Georgia said. “Knife?”
Becca opened a drawer and handed one over.
“Cutting board?”
“Men never have cutting boards,” Becca explained.
“Not true!” Patrick called from the chair.
“No way,” Georgia said, opening cabinets until she came up with a lime green cutting board. “After Patrick leaves we’re going to discuss his ridiculously civilized apartment.”
“Who says I’m leaving?”
“You can stay,” Becca offered. “But everyone who stays is having his or her toenails painted.”
“Hmm,” he said. “That’s not really my scene.”
“Exactly,” Becca agreed.
“You’d better have four glasses out over there, though,” Patrick threatened. “I’m not leaving until someone gives me a margarita.”
“Fair enough,” Becca sighed, reaching into a cabinet for one more. “I guess you can have a drink, since we invaded your home and everything.”
“She guesses,” he muttered.
Ari put ice water into the glasses to chill them down, then she mixed the drinks. It took two shakers-full to serve everyone. She brought Patrick’s drink over to him and bent down to whisper in his ear. “You are very patient with us.”
“You are very amusing to me,” he whispered back. Then he kissed her neck.
When Ari straightened up again, she found a stunned expression on Georgia’s face. She felt her face begin to heat. “Okay, kids. Drink up. Because I need you all nice and loose to help me guess what my douchewhistle ex has done this time.”
Ari plopped down in the middle of Patrick’s thick wool rug. The texture was like that of a sheep skin. She folded her legs into Sukhasana position and then told them everything about her awful day—from the check with her supposed signature on it to the creepy story of Vince’s call, and ransacking her closets. “Then I just had to get out of there. Now I feel watched.”
Patrick hadn’t said a word while she spooled through all the day’s events. But his expression had darkened with each new revelation. Now he drained his drink, a stony expression on his face. “Sweetheart. Don’t leave here bef
ore I get back, promise?” He stood up, fixing her with his icy blue stare.
“Where are you going?”
“Basketball down the hall. ‘Cause my nails are fine the way they are.” He carried his glass over to the shaker on the sideboard and poured himself the dregs. “Just don’t go home alone, please.”
“Okay,” she said quietly.
He gave the three of them a wink, then strode out of his apartment, margarita glass in hand.
The second the door clicked shut, Georgia got up off the couch and sat down on the rug in front of Ari. “Omigod. You need to spill.”
“I just did.”
Georgia rolled her eyes. “No, honey. Not about your ex. About Doulie. You told me—and this is a direct quote—it’s not like that.”
“Well, it’s sort of like that now. I assumed Becca told you.”
“I am a vault,” Becca crowed. “You told me to keep my trap shut.”
“And I thank you,” Ari said quickly. “I don’t want the team to know.”
“I won’t tell a soul,” Georgia promised. “Not even Leo. But I don’t know why you’re so worried. The team is nice to me,” Georgia pointed out. “Hell, I think they like me better now.”
“But you don’t touch their naked bodies every day.” Ari didn’t even want to know where her clients’ minds would go if they knew she was sleeping with Patrick. “I don’t want anyone imagining sex with me on the massage table.”
Becca gave a little moan and flattened herself onto the sofa. “I hear where you’re coming from. But maybe you should give massage table sex a try with Doulie. That sounds extraordinary.”
“It was,” Ari whispered and the other two burst out laughing. “But we didn’t do it at work. God.”
“God,” Georgia echoed. But then she turned red and put both hands over her face.
Becca sat up fast. “Wait. What did you get up to at work?”
“I didn’t mean it to happen,” Georgia said from behind the wall of her hands. “But Leo came to find me in my office one day last week . . .”
“And?” Becca prompted.
Georgia peeked out from behind her palms. “He discovered that my office door locks. We did it on my desk.”