Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(27)
“I know you think I’m afflicted with a crazy eccentricity, but it is what it is. I have to go back. I can’t live like this anymore.”
David’s throat went dry. “Live like what?”
Julian didn’t answer, but smiled ruefully. “Merry Christmas, David. Go home now,” he said as he retreated to his room. “Your family will think I’m a tyrant to have you work on the holiday.”
It wasn’t fair, David thought with a curse, as he left the penthouse and keyed the code behind him. He was working so hard to protect Julian. It wasn’t fair that it should be this difficult, or that Julian’s love should be spent on an unworthy nobody instead of on him. The elevator took him down, out of the heights of the city, to the street.
He got into his fire-engine red Audi Quattro—Julian paid him well—and drove with sullen lethargy back to his parent’s home in Colma. A city decorated with graveyards. A city where the dead outnumbered the living. David shuddered as he drove past row after crooked row of headstones, imaging his own: neglected and flowerless if he failed. It was a strong reminder that coffee shop Natalie was the least of his worries.
Chapter Eleven
The following day David went to United One Bank and asked for Grace Choi. She smiled warmly at him as she prepared the envelope. “I trust the homeless shelter had a wonderful Christmas?”
David blinked. “What? Oh, yes. They did.”
She passed him the withdrawal form and a pen. “Thanks to your generosity.”
Her smile made his teeth ache. “And now I’m hoping they have a Happy New Year as well,” he said.
“I’m sure they will.” Grace Choi discreetly counted out twenty thousand dollars and handed him the bulging envelope that he slipped into his briefcase. “You’re doing a good thing,” she called after him when he strode for the exit.
He shoved open the glass door. “I know.”
#
It was early for the club to be open. Sharp shards of cold December light pierced David’s eyes as he drove along Mission Street. It wasn’t even noon but he recognized Cliff’s white pick-up in the Club Orbit’s tiny back parking lot. David’s heart thudded dully in his chest. He pulled up next to the truck, glass crunching under his tires. If he pulled a nail out of one of the Audi’s tires later, he thought, he’d be pissed.
From behind, Orbit looked less like a nightclub, and more like a run-down, one-story business that might sell siding or do car detailing. Dirty white walls tagged with unintelligible graffiti faced the parking lot. Adjacent to a shuttered, barred window, was a backdoor that sealed the place shut. David knocked on it smartly and squared his shoulders. It was humiliating enough, what he had to do. They didn’t have to read it on his face.
Cliff Tate answered the door himself. His brother, Garrett, the ugly blond beast of a bouncer, must not be in yet. Cliff was a fatter, older version of Garrett, and the owner, proprietor and bartender of the club. It was to this odious man David had inadvertently spilled Julian’s secret. To have that day back…
Cliff blinked into the sunlight. “What? Oh, it’s you.” He held out his hand in an indifferent, presumptive manner that made David bristle.
David handed over the envelope. “January’s payment,” he said coldly, as if he were the one collecting.
Cliff peered into the envelope and flipped through the bills with his thumb. He nodded and started to shut the door on David. “See you next month.”
“Cliff, wait.”
The man halted the door, not bothering to conceal his irritation. “Yeah?”
David swallowed. “How many more? It’s been eight months. I can’t keep doing this…”
Cliff heaved a sigh. “Every month, Dave. Every month you give me this tired song and dance about how you can’t keep doing this, and every month you keep doing this. So let’s just spare each other the spiel. You will keep doing this so long as I tell you to. If you want your boy to keep his cover—and his brains—intact, that’s all you gotta know. There? Feel better? Okay, bye-bye now.”
The door closed and David heard the clicking and sliding of at least three locks. He clutched his stomach as the burn of his ulcer flared. “It’s not fair. Not fair at all.”
He sped from the driveway, his tires spitting gravel and glass in a satisfying hail against the side of the club. “Serves them right,” he muttered.
When he reached his apartment in Bernal Heights, the right front tire was flat.
Chapter Twelve
In mid-January the three friends met up in Liberty’s favorite bar in the Mission where they sipped margaritas under the watchful gazes of Carmen Miranda and James Dean. Cuban music filled the darkened spaces, and the crack of a pool game starting sounded from behind them. Liberty and Marshall bickered and gossiped as per usual, both seeming to have forgotten about Julian. Natalie thought that was appropriate.
“I’m going to get drunk,” she announced.
“I second that.” Liberty leaned over the bar and hailed the bartender who knew her by name.
Marshall cocked a brow at Natalie. “You okay?”
“I survived the holidays.”
He watched her. “If you say so.”
Liberty procured another round of cocktails but instead of fulfilling her vow to get drunk, she sipped slowly at her margarita and listened to her friends’ good-natured griping.