Learning to Trust (6 page)

In the safety of her room, she warned him. “You’d have to pay for a pitch, and a premium for protection.” She saw the puzzlement on his face. “A pitch is a spot to trade from. They’re not free.”

He grinned. “That sounds familiar. My grandfather used to tell stories about the Italians in New York. I know it existed, but I don’t think he had as much to do with them as he claimed.”

“What were your origins? I mean—”

He laughed and kissed her forehead. “I know what you mean. No affiliations. Not Italian, not Jewish, not Irish. My family settled on the West Coast. They made their fortune there before they came to New York. My grandfather was the first Brantley to set up business in the garment district, and we still have relatives in California, who run the business there. How about you?”

“My mother was from Milan. That’s why I came here, because I thought nobody would know me. And they don’t. I’m Lina Mazzaro here, a girl from Rome, an ex-addict who moved to start afresh.”

“So Franco knows you were an addict?”

She nodded. “He was brought up by the nuns in the same order that saved me, but he was an orphan, a street child. They keep in touch. So when Sister Francis asked him to take me, he had to agree. The sister used the similarity of their names for all she was worth, and reminded him what their namesake was famous for. Caring for animals and the poor. Sheltering the sick. He said he’d send me back if I didn’t work hard.”

He drew her close and curved his arms around her. “I want you, Lina. Please let me make love to you.”

Her mouth twisted. “You mean fuck.”

“No. Not necessarily. Don’t close your mind, Lina. I wanted you once, you know that.”

“When you were a lot younger, and so was I. Before—before everything went wrong.” With any luck he’d assume she just meant the drugs. Why should she mean anything else?

For answer he bent his head and kissed her. So gently, she hardly felt the press of his lips at first. When she opened her mouth, it felt like a natural development. As if there was no other option. He explored her gently, licking the roof of her mouth until she melted into him. She’d never felt this way before, as if this had to happen, no other choice.

He guided her to the bed and they undressed each other slowly. Not in a tantalizing way, no teasing, not ripping each other’s clothes but as they got in the way, they were removed, gently and carefully. It felt natural. Almost as if they’d done it many times before.

Shared kisses increased as the clothes decreased. He finished one kiss only to touch his lips to her cheek, her nose, and then returned to her mouth as if he couldn’t help himself. She returned them, sought them, each caress building her desire. His body against hers felt warm, not hot.

She sought its warmth, found comfort in it, as well as an exquisite friction she refused to deny herself. He cupped her breast, brought his thumb to her nipple and repeatedly rubbed the pad against it, whispering encouragement to her when she gave him a soft groan of delight.

With his other hand he stroked down, shaped her body and curved his palm around her bottom, using his hold to tug her closer.

They kicked off their underwear and stood naked together. They pushed aside the bed coverings and lay down together, side by side. There was only just room. He kissed her, stroked her and she returned his caresses. She learned his body, a small dent where he’d had some kind of minor accident on his hip, the shape and feel of his nipples, the way they hardened into sharp points under her fingers. She slid down the bed to kiss them, taste them and he gave a sigh of pleasure. “That feels so good.”

“Salty.” She licked again, gathered him up into her embrace and kissed down to his navel. He tasted different, sharper, lower down, where his chestnut pubic hair began to grow. Intrigued to find auburn glints in it, she combed her fingers through and kissed his balls, first one, then the other. She wanted to bring him comfort and solace, as well as hot sex. She knew what they’d find tomorrow or the day after. He deserved this respite.

His erect cock hardened even more under her fingers. When she kissed up the strong muscle at the center, heading for the sensitive tip, he sighed and touched her shoulders and hair, stroking her, caressing her. He neither encouraged nor discouraged, but accepted and enjoyed.

She licked away the precious drop of liquid that gathered there, and took it into her mouth to suckle before releasing it to kiss the tip. She sucked it again, loved the way it filled her mouth. His response fascinated her, the way his belly tensed under her cheek, his groans, his whispered encouragement.

She didn’t stay too long. She wanted more. When she finally released him, he passed her a wrapped condom he must have picked up from the bedside table. He accepted her, accepted what she wanted to do for him. To him.

Her pussy nudged his upper thighs when she sat up, leaving a patch of moisture. He looked so fine, felt so good. But she wouldn’t hurry this. She opened the condom and slid it on, but had to break eye contact to ensure she was doing it right. It had been a long time. He didn’t offer to help, although she knew he would if she asked. But she wanted to do this on her own. She lifted, parted her labia with her fingers, touched her clit, which was hard and ready for attention. This was not its night. Another time. Tonight belonged to him.

Hovering above him, she savored the moment, enjoyed the way he watched her, the light of—something—in his clear eyes. Something she didn’t want to define. They’d put on the bedside light, which cast a warm glow over them, not too bright that she could be mistaken. She wouldn’t analyze it, didn’t want to put any meaning on what they did tonight. It just existed; that was all.

Then she sank down and he moved his hand to his cock so that when she took him completely, he touched her clit. He didn’t manipulate, he just left it there, where she could use it if she wished. She smiled, he smiled back, and she rode him.

Slowly at first, she let the mood take her and tell her how to move. Every time she descended, his thumb nudged her clit, sending a sharp spike of sensation through. She could feel it right to the tips of her toes.

Their movements built. He moved his hips up to meet her, caught his bottom lip between sharp teeth. An edge of passion turned into a slow deluge, subsuming them both. She watched him, kept staring into those fabulous eyes, watched them turn incandescent and envelop her. He gripped her hip, guided her until the tide took them. Then he moved his other hand to steady her so they could meet, their flesh slapping together in a regular rhythm. He stroked her deep inside, and when she was sure she was about to come, when the still point of their movements arrived, he came. His groan and final thrust up into her body proved the final stimulus. She cried out, her hands clutching for him, finally finding purchase on his chest.

“Bella!”

She didn’t correct him. She loved the way he cried her name, and she gave him his in return.

He firmed his hands around her waist, then guided her off him to lie by his side. After a quick kiss he left her, slipping out of the room and returning a moment later when he’d disposed of the condom. They had to arrange their bodies carefully to fit on the narrow bed together. Although lithe, he was no lightweight. She rested her head on his chest, and the last thing she remembered was his hands sifting through her hair, soothing her to sleep.

They found Byron the next day, at the second morgue they visited. At least there weren’t as many morgues as there were shelters.

Dark rooms lined with drawers that went back for just over six feet and ran on noiseless runners, probably ball bearings,
Lina thought, trying desperately to distract her mind. She’d seen one or two dead people. When you worked with drug addicts, had been one yourself, that went with the territory. But she’d never been in the presence of so many dead people at once before.

Jon stood by her side, effectively dumb because of his lack of Italian. She spoke, asked the questions for him, showed the photograph, said thank you and led the way to the car. They sat in silence except for the electronic voice of the sat-nav directing them to the next place. Fatalism affected them today.

The second morgue had the cold tiles and reeked of disinfectant, its tang clawing its way to the back of Lina’s throat. But she kept her voice steady and waited for the man who wasn’t too impressed by her photo to actually look at it. Eventually he did. His eyes narrowed and he crossed the room to his computer, ominously covered by a see-through plastic cover. Probably to protect it against spatter. He keyed in his password and found something on his screen, careful to keep his body between them and it. “Yes, we have him,” he said. “At least it looks like him. Would you like to do a formal identification now?”

“Yes please.” Because the only way they’d get her back in this place was feet first and flat on her back.

The man, a Signor Bertoli, signaled to his assistant. The woman rose from the bench where she’d been peering through a microscope and found a sheet of paper in a file cabinet. She clipped it to a board before she crossed the room to give it to him. Signor Bertoli found the right place by the number, then he opened it a little so a pair of feet came into view. Clean feet, marked with tracks and bruises where the owner had used needles. Bertoli checked the tag. “This is the one.”

The drawer was about waist level. Her wandering mind wondered how they got to the ones higher up. She didn’t see a stepladder anywhere, and in any case, that wouldn’t be a great way to view the body of a loved one.

Lina didn’t speak to Jon but glanced at him as he took his place at the other side, his face solemn but unreadable. Even to her. Bertoli pulled on the handle and the drawer slid out almost noiselessly.

They’d covered Byron with a sheet, but they drew it back to his waist once they’d pulled him out. Jon and Lina stared, the air between them fragile with tension. If she said anything it might shatter like glass and shower its shards down on them all.

It was nice to see him clean, at least, and at peace. He had some of the looks of the boy she’d first met, the boy she’d partied with so lightheartedly. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Someone had washed his long, unkempt hair and it shone midbrown, a similar color to his brother’s. She’d forgotten about that detail. His gaunt face showed signs of deprivation but none of the despair she’d seen when she’d said goodbye to him. The tracks and burned-out veins on his arms, his stomach, anywhere he could find a vein showed how he’d spent his last months. He hadn’t lost his taste for the drugs she’d moved cities to escape. But eventually they’d given him up.

Jon stared without speaking, so in the end she identified him. “Yes, that’s Byron Brantley. And this is his brother, Jonathan. He doesn’t speak Italian so I came with him. I knew Byron. His family will be glad to have a body to bury.”

While she just buried her youth. Some people knew when they could draw a line under their lives and move on to another phase. For her, that was now. She’d spent the last two years in limbo, recovering and discovering things about herself. Now the time had come for something new. She hadn’t the faintest idea what that might be. But she said goodbye to Byron now, waving at him the way she did every time she saw him, right until the end. Their special wave, two fingers extended in a semirude gesture. A laugh. Until the day they’d taken the plane to Rome most things had made them laugh.

She didn’t cry but she saw Jon’s eyes as he lifted his gaze and met hers for a brief instant. Glossy with unshed tears, bleak with incomprehension. “It’s him. I have things to do.” And she saw him close off, cut his private feelings away from everyone else, even her. He turned to the official and made an impatient gesture with one hand. “Ask him where I sign.”

Instead she asked him another question. “What did he die from?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Did you do tests?”

The man grunted. “Of course. He’s not Chinese and he’s not a known person. I had to investigate further. An overdose.”

Jon frowned. “Did he say Chinese?” He’d caught that, then.

She explained to him in English. “A lot of the Chinese knockoffs and fakes that tourists buy come through Naples. That’s where most of the organized crime is these days. So they get quite a few unexplained deaths in that community.”

He sighed and lifted his hand to run it through his hair. “I see. No, he’s not Chinese.”

“He had barely anything in his stomach,” the man said.

“How long has he been here?”

Bertoli studied his notes and lifted the top sheet. “They brought him in on the twenty-first of July.”

That meant Byron had died soon after he’d scored at the train station. It explained a few things, such as why they’d been unable to find anyone who’d seen him at the shelters. Only one question remained. One the morgue attendant couldn’t answer.

She helped Jon with the forms necessary for him to reclaim his brother’s body. Jon chose to have Byron’s remains cremated. He’d arrange to take them home, he said. “I don’t think my parents should see him like this,” he murmured to her. He showed no sign of emotion but when he signed his name on the form, his hand retained a tiny tremor.

Lina was coming to understand Jon better than she’d ever had before. Her feelings toward him were already too dangerously powerful. She’d miss him when he left, but she feared she might miss him too much. It would hurt. How much she had yet to discover.

They walked slowly back to the car and she drove this time. She pulled up by the garage, gave him the keys and watched him open the doors. No fancy electronics here.

Even now, when she’d set her mind to making the events of the day as easy as possible for him, she couldn’t help noticing his butt. The curves just waited for her touch, for her to clutch them, drag him deeper inside her. Her hands tightened on the wheel and she forced a bland expression on her face as she drove forward into the small space. How perverted was she?

They went upstairs in silence, and she put on the coffee machine. It was one she’d taken from the trash in the café after the jug had broken, but she’d replaced the jug with one she’d found in a thrift store. It was probably the only thing she was addicted to these days, her morning jolt of caffeine, and good coffee was her only indulgence.

Her mind retained the image of Byron, pale and forever still on that metal slab. In that drawer. He’d always hated being shut in anywhere, always preferred to leave doors unlocked if he could. He gave up too easily. When his art career had stalled, he’d turned to drugs, claiming they inspired him. Then for solace, when the art world sneered at his efforts. “He should have fought.”

“Sorry?”

Shit, she’d spoken that aloud. She turned around to face him. “Byron. He should have fought harder.” She paused, bit her lip. “I shouldn’t have left him in Rome, should I?”

He crossed the room in two strides and grasped her shoulders. “You’re never to think that. You saved yourself. It could have been two bodies I claimed today, not one. Lina, your survival is what’s keeping me going here.”

“At least you did everything you could for him. You never stopped looking.”

He sighed. “We did, in a way. Oh, at first, we pushed for finding you. But we couldn’t even discover what flights you’d taken. Not until you were long gone. It took a while to get through the red tape. You’d done nothing criminally wrong, so we had no grounds to see the passenger lists. Eventually we found where you’d gone and for a year we hunted, but you never surfaced.”

She owed him something. To tell him how it had been. She guessed he needed to know before he could find closure. “We had enough money to lie low. We stayed in cheap rooms and I got a job as a waitress. It eked out what we had.” And they’d been happy, for a while. Until the habit got too expensive. Until she began to realize that Byron wasn’t the love of her life, nowhere near. He’d annoyed her at times, especially when he started to whine about nothing ever being his fault. But she wouldn’t remember that now. Only the fun-loving, good-looking boy whom she’d found a breath of fresh air after the fetid atmosphere in her own home.

“We scaled down the search after the first year. Cut back. We should have kept looking. Fuck, we abandoned Byron. I even felt relieved that he’d gone and taken his problems with him. How do you think that makes me feel, Lina?”

“Guilty?” she ventured, since he seemed to want that answer.

“Sure as fuck I feel guilty. If we’d kept looking we’d have found him.”

She pulled her chin free of his hand. “Then what? What would you have done, Jon? Byron never took responsibility for his own actions. He whined. A lot. He said they hadn’t understood his genius, that your mother always loved you best and ignored him, that the drugs were being cut with more filth than before. Not that our situations had changed, or that we couldn’t afford the good stuff. Or that if we hadn’t started on the junk in the first place, we wouldn’t have found ourselves there.”

The coffee bubbled and she turned to pour them a mug each. “It’s not your fault, Jon. Nor is it mine. We’ll feel as if we’re guilty. That’s only normal, but we can’t let it take over.”

“You sound like a therapist.” He accepted his coffee when she gave it to him and raised it to his lips. He must have an asbestos mouth.

“What can I say? I picked up a lot of the jargon when I went through rehab.” She shrugged. “But it makes sense.”

“So does this,” he said quietly. “Us. Put your therapy to work there. I know I’ll never stop feeling guilty about my brother. I could have done more, I should have noticed earlier, I should have made him go to rehab, not tried to persuade him. Maybe he’d be alive today.”

“Or maybe not. Maybe that car that knocked me down would have killed me, maybe Byron would have killed me. Maybe I’d have killed him. Maybe we’d have gotten a bad score that killed us both. Maybe we’d have been on a plane that went down.”

She told herself that mantra every day. Never had it sounded less convincing.