Iain

 

She didn’t call me.

That thought had pounded through my head like some sort of fucked-up mantra over the past few days, but I had come to terms with it. It was, I supposed, for the best. I was completely out of line giving my number to her in the first place.

I was supposed to be a private investigator, not some flirtatious douche-bag hounding a hot girl at a bar.

I’d found her by accident - again, walking the same street we’d run into each other on that day I’d asked her if she was lost; I’d been trying to decide on my next move. I had, up until that point, been dragging my feet on scoping Michele, and I knew that if I didn’t find her again soon, this case would drag on and on forever. Brandon hadn’t called me again, but I knew it was only a matter of time.

Part of me wanted to call and tell him that I couldn’t do it. There was no shame in that. Something about her with that wide-eyed stare and inquisitive expression made me feel incredibly dirty in thinking I could turn her back over to her husband when she so obviously wanted to be apart from him. But I had made a promise, not only to him, but to myself, that I would finish the job.

I’d thought that until I had by chance seen her head into Catfish with an apron draped over her arm. It was barely two blocks from my apartment, and two blocks from that same street corner where I’d run into her last week. Seeing her hadn’t forced me into work mode like I would have thought. Seeing her invoked something within me that I couldn’t ignore.

I had wanted to go inside, just to see her again.

And what kind of luck was that, anyway? All this time and this woman had been so close, right down the street from me. How many times had I passed her on the street and hadn’t even known it?

I passed the door several times, back and forth, indecisively. I’d gone back home and forced a cup of coffee down and idled while telling myself that I was being absolutely fucking stupid. I knew where she worked. This had been what I wanted. This had been exactly the shove I needed to do the right thing for Brandon.

Totally wired, I had bundled back up and walked back to the bar. I peeked through the window and saw her talking with a dark-haired guy who was leaning against the bar, a look on his face that I just didn’t like. Something urgent and primal ran through me, and I walked inside without even thinking about the implications.

And what followed was enough to confuse the shit out of me. She told me she was married. She also told me that she had escaped her marriage. She didn’t say why, but the look on her face had given me plenty to think about.

Had Brandon… done something to her? Hurt her, or worse? I thought about the things he had said, the reasons he needed me to help him. To keep it quiet, to bring his wife back home… he had said he loved her, but what did I know, really?

My own experience with love had taught me that it was so fleeting. And love was so easily faked, like that text message Emily had sent me while I was thirty thousand feet above the ground, oblivious that my life would never be the same once I’d landed.

It was hard to believe that Brandon would have anything but pure intentions. Sure, he had a temper in the Army. We all did. We were at war, being shot at on a daily basis. We were hot and dirty and running on hardly any sleep.

All too vividly, I remembered the explosion, the screaming of metal against sand and the heat of fire and smoke billowing against my face. I had felt the rough grit of sand and something worse against my mouth, the blinding sun in my eyes, and the knowledge that whatever happened, I couldn’t stop it from spreading.

I remembered Brandon’s shout - “Move out of the way, soldier!” - I could still feel the rough blow against my chest as he shoved me, the weight of his body on mine as he lay on me, his elbow crushing against my sternum. My eyes had been blind wide open; I couldn’t remember seeing a single thing. Only whiteness. And then, too suddenly to even comprehend, there was another explosion, and the sound of his voice in my ear: “I got you. I got you.”

I should have died, but I didn’t. Because of him.

But did that mean anything now?

The sound of my phone ringing jarred me out of my memories. I blinked, half expecting to see that high Iraqi sun, but I only saw the dull brown ceiling fan above my bed. It was after eleven, and I couldn’t imagine who would be calling me this late.

“This is Iain.”

There was a split second of silence on the other line, a sense of hesitation.

“Hi Iain. It’s Lila.”

The sound of her soft voice in my ear brought me up out of bed and onto my feet. I clutched the phone tighter, as if certain it would disappear if I didn’t.

“Lila. How are you?”

“I’m good.”

“Good.” I swallowed, struggling for something to say. “Did you work tonight?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry for calling you so late,” she said, and I thought I heard a twinge of fear in her voice. “I just… I’ve been thinking about you.”

Her words sped my heart up. “Don’t be sorry. I was up anyway.” I paused. “I’ve been thinking about you, too,” I admitted. “A lot.”

Saying those words made me realize just how true they were. Ever since Brandon called me, there’d been little else on my mind. I thought that maybe now was a good time to tell her the truth. To admit that Brandon was onto her, to tell her to hide somewhere else while she still could. But the selfish part of me, the part that wanted to take her to Central Park and know her better, consumed me. The idea of pushing her away before I even had the chance to know her felt so empty and wrong.

“I thought I’d take you up on your offer. To see Central Park,” she said, and I could hear an uptick in confidence as she spoke. “Or the Empire State Building.”

“How long have you been in New York?” I asked, hating myself for pretending to not know. I began to pace back and forth in the small space, nervous energy overcoming me.

“Just over four months.”

“Okay, so what have you seen so far?”

There was an obvious and prolonged beat before she said, “Nothing. Except what I saw of the park last week.”

“No shit? I guess I’ll have to be your own personal tour guide. I won’t even charge you an arm and a leg for it.”

Michele giggled, one of the cutest fucking noises I’d ever heard, and I forgot all about my ethical dilemma for a moment.

“Sounds good,” she said. “When do you want to do this? Will you plan a route? Will you dress up like a professor in a history museum?”

Laughing, I asked, “Why the hell would I dress up like a professor to take you on a tour of the city?”

“I dunno. It just seems like something tour guides do,” she said, earnestly. And then she giggled again.

“I will definitely plan a route to make sure we get the maximum amount of sight-seeing in one trip. And we can do it as soon as you’re able. I’m a pr- a… freelancer, so I’m able to choose my own hours most of the time.”

My face burned at my near slip-up. I’d almost told her I was a private investigator, which would have totally freaked her out. Frustrated, I walked back to the bed and sat, running a hand through my hair.

Would I have blamed her?

“That sounds great,” she said. She sounded so genuine, I felt guilty all over again. “What do you freelance?”

“Er - writing. Journalism, I mean,” I replied, the lie coming out so roughly I was half expecting her to call me out on that bullshit right then and there, but she didn’t.

“That’s so cool! I’ve never met a journalist before.”

“Well, um, now you have.”

“I’m off the day after tomorrow,” Michele said, seemingly oblivious to my discomfort talking about my fake profession. “Why don’t we meet again on the same corner where we first met? Say, nine?”

I was not surprised that she didn’t ask me to show up at her door. With everything she’d done to fall off the radar, I was honestly quite surprised she’d agree to this at all.

I wished I could have agreed to this guilt-free, but there was no way around my conscience. I knew, without a doubt, that this was wrong. It was worse than leading her on - it was treachery. And this was Brandon’s wife, no matter the circumstances. No matter what he’d done, she didn’t belong to me.

But she didn’t belong to him, either. She was free to make her own choices, and her choice was to spend the day with me.

I could agree to this for one day, but then that was it. We’d part ways, and I’d call Brandon and tell him that I had a family emergency and couldn’t continue the case. He wouldn’t be able to dispute a family emergency, right? He could hire someone else. With his money, he could hire anyone.

Why I would torture myself with only one day with this fascinating woman, I had no idea, but something inside of me was bidding me to do this. Stumbling upon her that day didn’t feel like simply chance. At the very least, I had to figure out why I felt so drawn to her. I could do that in a day.

“It’s a date,” I said, and she laughed, causing my heart to warm in my chest for reasons I couldn’t explain.

I could do it in a day, right?