Pull (Push #2) (13 page)

Chapter 22

David—Present Day

Emma’s getting pretty good at shooting the gun. She actually hit the target a couple dozen times tonight, and I can’t help but feel proud of her. The look on her face when a bullet pierces the paper rings is priceless. Not to mention the fact that watching her pull the trigger is completely arousing. I can see she likes the power she feels when she scores multiple hits in quick succession. It’s almost a religious experience to watch each empty casing fly out of the chamber.

After our allotted range-time expires, we head out to grab some dinner and have a couple of beers. Emma gives me more details about her superhero conversation with Matt and the amusing Daredevil versus Batman exchange that followed. There’s no pressure for us to entertain each other anymore. The long moments of silence splattered between our various conversations don’t seem to bother either one of us. It’s never been that way for me before. I’ve never been with a woman who was okay to sometimes
not
talk, and I like it. Because it lets me breathe.

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I spend Thursday morning face-first in various projects. I fix a staircase railing, sand and paint a dog-scratched door, replace the glass in a broken window, and re-caulk someone’s bathtub. As I work, I think. I think about my plan to deal with Ray. I think about Nikki’s words and how sick they made me feel. Her remarks about how Ricky is obsessed with his own sister and about how that kind of shit never goes away, twist at my insides. I also think about Clive and the promise I made him. And it’s because of that promise that I also think about Emma and all the things I need to do so she never stops loving me. It’s the same stuff I’ll be thinking about every day from now until who knows when. These are my worries. These are my insecurities. The old David wouldn’t have given two fucks about any of it. The old David didn’t have worries or insecurities. He had opportunities. He had complete control.

But I’ve also come to realize he had nothing that mattered.

A few months ago, I could’ve put my own life into a bag even smaller than Nikki’s. I was surviving, for sure, but that’s about it. Beyond the next fleeting, bridge-fueled rush, there was nothing to look forward to. I’m discovering that having a life means having shit to worry about. Everything is more vulnerable than it was before Emma, because now I’ve got something to lose. I’ve got something to protect.

For the first time ever, I have a real life.

Knowing how vulnerable that life is to the actions of a bunch of unpredictable, asinine human beings pushes my confidence out onto a rickety limb. It’s a new feeling for me, and I can’t say I like it very much. I don’t like depending on chance.

So tomorrow, I’m going to make sure Ray
never
has the opportunity to hurt Emma, and then I’m going to focus on handling Ricky before he decides to revert to idiocy and show up here again. In other words, I’m going to wipe chance out of the picture.

It means that if I do those two things right, I’ll only have one worry left, and it’s Emma. Everything ends if she stops loving me and walks away. Once the other risks are eliminated, she’s the only thing left that’s capable of making the grown-up me disintegrate.

Which means, it’s all up to me. I have to
make
her want to stay. I have to do everything right. I can’t control
her
, but I can control
me.
I’ll do everything I can to squelch this one final risk. I’ll do all the things I need to do so she never stops loving me. And I know just where to start.

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At 6:52 Emma walks in the door of her apartment. I’m standing in her living room with my shirt off, smiling like an idiot. I can’t help it. She’s got one hand on the doorknob while the other grips the strap of her bag. When she sees me standing here, her head dips slightly to the side and her eyes narrow. She looks at me suspiciously, and the corners of her mouth twist up into a smile of her own.

“Hi.” I lift my right hand in a sheepish wave.

“Hi back,” she says, still frozen in the doorway.

“How was your day?”

“Fine,” she says with an intonation of drawn-out, playful distrust. “And yours?”

“My day was…” I roll my eyes up into my head as if I’m thinking hard, even though I already know exactly what I’m going to say. “Well, let’s just say it was fulfilling.”

“Is that so?” she asks as she puts her bag down on the floor and closes the door. “Do your day’s activities, by chance, have something to do with why you are standing in my living room half-naked?”

“Yep.”

“And is it also why you are smiling like a Cheshire dandy?”

“Yep.”

“And are you going to tell me what was so damn fulfilling?”

“Nope.” I shake my head. She hasn’t moved from her spot by the door. She just keeps looking at me exactly how I want her to. Like I’m some kind of mysterious and amazing spectacle. Like I’m totally worth keeping around.

“No?” she questions, bending down to take off her shoes. When she’s back upright, she crosses her arms over her chest and drops her weight down onto one hip.

“You have to figure it out for yourself.”

“And how will I do that?”

“With your eyes.”

Emma uncrosses her arms and starts looking around her apartment. As she walks over toward the kitchen, I say one word.

“Cold.”

She turns around and walks toward the hallway.

“Colder.”

“So it’s here?” she says, standing next to the sofa. “In this room?”

“Yep.” And now I
am
smiling like a Cheshire dandy. As she looks at me, her eyes change. She knows now. She knows it’s something about me, not her apartment. But I don’t think she knows exactly what.

“Now let me see.” She runs her fingertips across the top of my shoulders and around the back of my neck as she walks behind me. I have to stop myself from grabbing her.

“You didn’t get a haircut or shave today, that’s for sure,” she notes as she touches my ear with her index finger, running it along the outer edge and down to my earlobe. “You didn’t pierce anything else, did you?” She touches the metal rings, and I quietly shake my head no.

She’s standing in front of me now, her eyes moving from my face to my chest and down my arms. She grabs my left arm and moves her fingers across my skin, looking for some sign of change. When she doesn’t find it, she walks behind me, touching the phoenix there and leaning in for a long, careful, unsuccessful look. When she holds my right arm and her eyes begin to scan over it, my breath skips with a small laugh and she looks back at my eyes.

“It’s here, isn’t it?” she asks with a sideways grin. “It’s somewhere on your right arm.” Her eyes move back to the birds and she strokes them as if they were real; soft and feathery things. Her brow furrows with frustration when she can’t find anything different. But then, in a flash of realization, she lifts my arm up over my head and looks on the underside.

“Did Jake do it?” she asks, touching the outline of a second freshly inked raven with her fingertip. It’s Emma’s raven, and she’s tucked under the now outstretched wing of my own. It’s one raven protecting the other. It’s me protecting her.

“Yep.”

“Well, he did a damn fine job. I’m even cute in raven form,” she says with her face still up under my arm. A moment later, a quick puff of air jets out of her nose, and her shoulders rise and fall with a silent laugh. She sees it. “And what’s that around her neck?” She leans in very close to examine that single, important detail. Her hand rises to her own neck, and she pulls the chain of her father’s dog tags out from beneath her shirt. She scuffles through the tags and rubs her thumb into the silver raven pendant. “It’s the pendant, isn’t it?” She drops my arm and looks up to my face.

“Yep,” I say again. She keeps looking at me, and I see all the faith and hope inside her. It’s shouting at me.

“I like how you’ve got your wing around me. It’s sweet.”

“I’m always gonna have my wing around you, Emma,” I say, feeling awkwardly fantastic. She stretches up on her tiptoes and kisses me in a way that makes the whole world right.

When she pulls her mouth away, I keep my arms around her and hold her against me. We stay like that for a long time. Her breath weaves into my skin.

“Batman has wings, too, you know,” she says eventually. The words make me snort. My chest fills with air and a deep laugh wells up out of me. My arms squeeze into her with each chuckle, and soon enough, she’s laughing, too. It feels good.

“Yes. Yes, he does,” I say when we both quiet. “Well, actually, he doesn’t have wings. He has a cape. But either way, he’s got your back.” She’s stone silent for a few seconds. So silent, I can hear her breathe.

“I know he does.” I brush the hair off her face and kiss the top of her forehead. She looks very serious. “I just wish I wouldn’t have had to wait so long for him to show up. I really could’ve used him back when I was a kid. It would’ve been pretty amazing to have my very own masked crusader shadowing me every day, ready to pulverize Michael or my brothers at a moment’s notice.”

“You’re right. That would’ve been pretty amazing.”

“And it would’ve saved me a whole hell of a lot of trouble.” Even though her voice is quiet, the words sink into me hard, and the presence of the backpack in my closet pushes on my heart.

“Well, the good news is that, from here on out, he’s going to do everything he can to keep you safe.”

“Atta boy.” She pulls back from me with a smile in her eyes. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

                            ------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time Carl calls me Friday morning to run down my list of jobs for the day, Emma’s already on the bus to work. When I answer the phone, I tell Carl to fuck off. I tell him his jobs are going to have to wait until Monday. We’re moving the poker tables, bar fixtures, and liquor over to the new place today. And God knows I’ve got plenty of other things to deal with today that are far more important than Mrs. Fowler’s dryer. He’s pissed as hell, of course, and threatens to start charging me rent, but I promise him he can be the first player to toss in on Tuesday night. My words seem to placate him for the time being. Maybe now that he sees this move is happening for real, he’ll start acting like a sane person instead of a two-bit whack-job.

I’m meeting the guys on Carson Street at nine o’clock so I’ve got an hour before I have to leave. I grab what I need from Emma’s place then head up to my apartment for a shower and toast with coffee. There’s a series of actions running through my brain the entire time. I flip them around in my head and mentally prioritize them as efficiently as I can. While Emma slept last night, I thought about everything I need to do. I thought about how I can make all this happen without leaving any loose ends. I need to deal with Ray without fucking anything up.

This is me, calculating.

The trouble is that to get rid of big risks, sometimes you have to take little ones. And that’s why I’m dissecting each potential move to make sure the road I’m about to take is the fastest, most effective way to the finish line.

I eat my boring-ass breakfast and walk back to the bedroom. I stick my hand deep into the pillowcase in search of my little yellow, folded-over Emma. When I find my miniature talisman, I smooth her between my fingers. Then I put her into the left front pocket of my jeans.

                            ---------------------------------------------------------------

It takes six of us two full hours to load everything onto the truck and drive over to the new place. When we arrive, Ray’s crew of minions is there to greet us. I think for a second that maybe he sent them to help us unload, but it’s quickly obvious they’re just here to keep an eye on us. And to make sure Ray is somehow included in this auspicious day. Whatever, fucker. I’ll be seeing those stupid-ass gold teeth later today anyway, so if it makes him happy to have his homies represent, so be it. We unload and set up the tables as quickly as we can. By the time two o’clock swings in, we’re done.

Fifteen minutes after we leave, I’m banging on the door of a shit hole in the east end of the city.

“Open the goddamned door, Nikki. I know you’re in there,” I scream, even though I know she isn’t. My fist is hammering on the door, and I start to kick at the base with my foot. “Open the fucking door! Open it.”

A few seconds later, I hear a voice from inside.

“What kind of fool is bangin’ on my door like a motherfuckin’ jackhammer? You gonna meet your end when I open this door, motherfuckin' piece of shit.”

Perfect. Franklin is home.

“Fuck you, Franklin,” I shout at the door. “I know she’s in there. Bring that bitch out here before I beat in this door and your fucking head.”

“Shit. David, is that you, you little punkass pussy?” Franklin whips open the door. “Jesus Christ, you fool. What the fuck do you want?” He’s standing in the open doorway in a stained wife-beater, holding a 40 of King Cobra and a remote. He’s rocked out of his mind.