Spin (Songs of Corruption #1)(8)

He shrugged. “Getting you a late dinner.” He indicated the array inside the machine like a tall blonde turning letters. “Cheese chips? Ring Pop?”

I felt alone on a Serengeti plain with a cheetah circling. “You waited for me all this time?”

“I noticed you might need a ride home, so I followed the ambulance.”

“A lawyer. Chasing an ambulance.”

He smirked, and I wasn’t sure if he got the joke or if it was outside of his cultural matrix. “What kind of gentleman would I be?”

“Again. What are you doing here?” My mouth tasted as if a piece of week-old roast beef had been folded into it. I was wearing scrubs that wouldn’t have fit even if they were the right size, and my spiked heels felt like torture devices. My head hurt, my sister was in the hospital for alcohol poisoning, and a beautiful god of a man wanted to share a Ring Pop with me.

Antonio took out a bill and fed the machine. “I think I made a bad impression in the parking lot.” He punched more buttons than any one item required.

“Your intentions were good. Thank you for that.”

“My methods, however?”

Things dropped into the opening. Chips, candy, crackers, cookies, plop, plop, plop, plop. He must have put a twenty in there.

“I’m trying not to think too hard about it.”

“You were very composed.” He crouched to retrieve his pile of packages. “I’ve never met a woman like that.”

“Except for looking aroused?” I crossed my arms, feeling exposed.

“That, I’ve met.” He handed me an apple, the one piece of real food available in the hospital vending machine. He looked at me in a way I didn’t like. Not one bit.

Except I did like it. I took the apple. I became too aware of the teddy bears on my shirt and my hair falling all over the place. My lips were chapped, and my eyes were heavy from too many hours awake. Maybe that was for the best. Looking early-morning fresh would have made his gaze seem sexual rather than intense.

He stepped back next to an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair, indicating I should sit. Holding my apple to my chest, I sat. He dumped our meal into the seat next to me and sat on the other side of it.

“How’s your sister?” he asked.

I sighed. “She’ll be fine. I mean, she won’t, because she’ll do it again. But she’ll be up and running by afternoon.”

He looked pensive, plucking a bag of nuts from the chair and putting it back. “It’s impossible to change what you are. You drink like that when you fight yourself.”

“How did you get so educated on the matter?”

“I had an uncle.”

He opened a granola bar, and I watched his finger slipping into the fold of cellophane, exerting enough pressure to weaken and split the bond between the layers. It took exactly no effort. A child could do it. But the grace of that simple thing was exquisite. I pressed my legs together because I kept imagining those hands flat on the insides of my thighs.

“It was my job to collect him in the mornings,” he continued. “He supported my mother, so he had to go make money. Every morning, I had to look for him. I found him in the street, in the piazza, wherever. Passed out with wine all over his shirt. I splashed water on his face and sent him to work at the dock. I mean, he called me a stronzo first, but I got the job done.”

His story opened doors and corridors to further questions. The possibility of spending hours in that waiting room with him was a little too appealing. I’d seen what he’d done to the man who’d kicked my sister, and I had the feeling he wasn’t a normal lawyer. Something was up, and finding out was akin to stroking a snake to feel the click of the scales.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “In Los Angeles?”

He shrugged. “The California bar is easy. And the weather’s nice.”

“My name is Theresa.”

“I know.” He smiled at my shocked expression, looking about as concerned as a cat on a windowsill. “I used to see you on TV during Daniel Brower’s campaign for mayor. Part of it, at least. I think he might win.”

I must have turned purple, though my face didn’t shift and my shoulders stayed straight.

He cast his eyes down as if he’d said too much. “It’s not my business, of course.”

“It’s Los Angeles’s business, apparently, that my fiancé was having sex with his speechwriter. Any details in the paper you missed and want me to fill in?” I was having a complete emotional shut down. Not even his full lips or the arch of his eyebrows could pierce my veil of defensiveness. “That’s why you were watching me at Frontage that first night. Trying to put the face with the story.”

“No.”

“I’m not interested in your pity, or in you proving yourself, or anything for that matter.” I stood. I’d talked myself into a deep enough hole, and the shame of the entire incident swelled inside me. “Thanks for dinner.”

I spun on my heel and walked to the nearest door that led outside. I should have headed back to Deirdre. I should have gone to the ladies’ room. I should have gone to the desk. But outside looked so appealingly anonymous, as if I could walk into the darkness and disappear. Once I got there though, I had nowhere to go, and the cars speeding down LaCienega didn’t slow enough for me to cross. In any case, I couldn’t go far. Deirdre needed me.