Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(63)

“I was going to Columbia,” she began. “Full scholarship. I was going to get my BA and my masters both in four years. I had one year to go, my thesis to write. Then I discovered that Howard hadn’t paid the property taxes on his house. He’d spaced it, for years. I had to come up with eighteen thousand dollars, or he’d have lost the house.”

“Whoa,” he murmured. “Ouch.”

“Bad enough, him being a junkie,” she said. “But him being a junkie under a bridge, or in the subway, well. That I could not face.”

“I hear you,” he said.

“So there was this Greek guy I knew who was struggling with his doctoral thesis in history of medicine. He offered me three thousand bucks to write it for him.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t turn it down.”

“Of course you couldn’t,” he said. “I wouldn’t have, either.”

She blinked. Wow. Nice of him to be so understanding. “So, word got around,” she continued. “I started getting referrals.”

“Did you pay the property taxes?”

“Yes. But I never managed to finish my own degree. There was no time. I was at it twelve hours a day. Then Howard had another episode.”

“Episode?” Bruno repeated gently.

“Overdose. Suicide attempt. I decided to put him in a clinic, since I’d finally found a way to pay for it. And if someone was watching him, I figured, I might even be able to sleep at night. When I wasn’t working.”

“Sounds tough,” he murmured. “I’m sorry that you—”

“I’m trolling for sympathy,” she said, abruptly.

He held up his hands. “God, no. Never that.”

The fire crackled in the heavy silence. Lily decided it was time to conclude the touchy subject and move on. “I was stuck, once Howard was committed,” she said. “It was the only work I could do that earned me enough to live, plus fork out eleven thousand bucks a month.”

He winced. “A month? Good God.”

“And that was one of the more reasonable places. So, that’s normal, for me. Writing for cheaters. Go ahead. I’m braced for it.”

“You are?” He actually looked like he was trying not to smile, the smart-ass bastard. “Braced for what? What am I supposed to say?”

“You don’t have to say it. I’ve heard it all,” she said. “Wasted potential. Pearls before swine. Prostituting my gifts. Bad karma. It broke my friend Nina’s heart. She thought I should have just pulled the plug on Howard and let whatever happened to him happen. But I just . . . couldn’t.” She looked down. “The joke was on me, though. The worst happened anyway. He’s dead. All that effort. Down the drain.”

“No.” Bruno’s voice was resolute. “Your friend was right in that it wasn’t the smartest thing to do. But I still admire you for trying.”

She was taken aback. “Ah. Um, thanks. I guess.”

“I read somewhere, if you do something for love, the effort is never wasted.”

The memory flashed through her mind. Those long-ago Sundays in Riverside Park, playing cards, joking around, laughing and people-watching with Howard. She looked away from Bruno, eyes stinging.

“Sappy greeting-card platitudes like that bite my ass,” she said.

He choked off muffled laughter. “Tough bitch.”

“Yep, that’s me.” She didn’t want to go any deeper, but she couldn’t bear the silence. “And you? What’s normal for you?”

“Why ask? You know everything there is to know about me.”

She felt absurdly hurt. “That’s not true! I know you have a part ownership in the diner. I know you own a business selling kites and educational toys. And that’s all. It’s a very superficial level of knowing.”

“What else is there?”

“You’re being deliberately stupid and annoying,” she snapped.

“Yeah, about that. Just to be fair. I’m stupid and annoying even under normal circumstances. So what do you want to know, anyhow?”

“How you feel about it,” she said, crabbily. “If you like it. If you’re satisfied. If it’s what you dreamed about when you were a kid.”

He stared into the fire. “I don’t know.” He sounded reluctant. “It’s a good business. I like that I call the shots, that I own the outfit. But it’s not something I set out to do with a clear plan. It just grew. I saw profit potential in Kev’s designs, and I went for it. I just wanted to make money. I thought it would make me feel . . .”

“What?” she urged, after he petered out. “Make you feel what?”

He flapped his hand. “I don’t know. Safe, maybe.”

“From what?” she prodded.

He frowned. “I don’t know. I’m just talking out my ass, Lily. Safe from feeling like shit, I guess. Safe from feeling scared.”

It took her a minute to work uptheerve to ask. “Does it work?”

His face was like a stone mask. “No,” he said.

It took a while to breathe down the tears. “What pathetic schlubs we both are,” she said. “Going after the moon with a butterfly net.”

His dimples flashed. “That’s a poetic way of describing pathetic schlub behavior.”