Conviction (28 page)

Ben Walden smiled and looked at me. “Most definitely.” He sighed, though I barely heard him over Yuri and Polo ramming back into the galley.

I smiled. “I’m beginning to think all you guys do is fight.”

“Only when it’s important,” Ben said

I winced at the use of words, the tone of his voice, to know that I had been deemed important.

I looked around the galley, everyone was there except for Charlie and Reid, though I knew Charlie was all right, and I was somewhat afraid to ask about the latter.

“Is, uh—
everyone
all right?”

Yuri laughed. “You mean Big Mouth?  He’s pouting around here somewhere.”

I sighed unintentionally; I had to admit it was good to know Reid was okay too, no matter what a nuisance he had been.

Elise wandered back from a window where she had been pointing something out to Tyler in an attempt to keep him calm. She handed him off to Ben and stopped me just as I was considering sneaking out of the room.

“Addie?”

“Hey.” I tried to smile but my head still hurt a little and the effort seemed tremendous.

Though she bit her lip, hesitating, she embraced me before she could stop herself. Choking back something between a cry and a laugh, she said, “No matter what Benjamin says, we—I owe you for the rest of my life.”

I tried to push her off me as gently as I could without being too obtrusive, but her grip was surprisingly strong. Vaguely, I considered if the extra estrogen had something to do with it. “No, Elise, really—”

She choked another laugh. “I have my boys because of you and Charlie…” and again she made the laugh-cry sound. “Well, maybe a girl.”

“Okay, sweetheart—” Ben was just as hesitant as I was to pry Elise away. It seemed I wasn’t the only one afraid of her death-grip. “Why don’t we let her have some oxygen, hmm?”

As I escaped I saw Polo trying to sneak a cupcake half to Tyler. Yuri rolled his eyes as he looked back and forth between them and Elise. “Kids everywhere,” he muttered.

“I think we can handle it.” I felt myself smile.

“Speaking of which,” Ben said.

I turned back at the mere mention, my toes tingling at the slightly possibility that Charlie was near. “Where is he?”

Chapter 22

I skipped on the remainder of the spaghetti and Hostess cupcakes, more motivated by the possibility of seeing Charlie, who I heard from different sources was in both Hold A
and
the Rec Room. Yet I knew he wouldn’t be in either of those places. I knew him well enough to know that walls wouldn’t hold him for very long, especially when he was stressed.

I worked my way up to the Deck, taking my time to re-familiarize myself with the heavy pipes and metal floors so that I didn’t get lost along the way.

I hardly dared to catch my breath as I pushed open the door; the smell of sea-salt was already burning my nose. There were even fewer crew members working out here than the last time, but considering the lack of containers, I reasoned that maybe there wasn’t a lot of work to be done.

My shoes had a good grip so I didn’t slip, and even better were the clouds passing over the mid-day sun, keeping a glare from my eyes. It seemed while I hadn’t exactly come prepared, this would still be a good trip.

“Charlie?”

He didn’t hear me right away, my voice hacked by the wind. So I watched him for a minute as he tried to flex his left knuckles. Though they were now free from the cast, they had perhaps been done so prematurely, because his neck bolted out just slightly as if the motions his hand made gave him a great deal of pain. I winced with him as he stretched his arm out to the water, reaching for something neither of us could see. When he pulled back, he flexed his elbow, his eyes following the pain that seemed to go with it. I tried to move before he saw me, wanted to watch him without being detected, but sure enough I was spotted. And once I was caught in his gaze, there was no escape.

“Hey, you.”

I bit my lip. “Hi.”

Charlie smiled and slowly gestured for me to come forward with his hand. Maybe I should have restrained myself, but I was still in the throes of relief, both of us safe, together, nothing else seemed to matter much.

Every step I made, he made one more, meeting me halfway until we were just touching and I could wrap my arms around him without anything between us. And though he hugged me in return, I couldn’t help but notice the slightest hesitation there.

I breathed him in, crushed between his shirt and the muscles of his torso. I wanted to crawl inside him and find out what was making his heart race so badly, what exactly, made him hesitate to embrace me back.

“Charlie? Are you all right?”

“Why didn’t you listen to me?”

I smiled against him. “Because Tyler takes after Ben. Your problem is with him,” I added for good measure, “not with me.”

“You were dead,” he whispered in my ear. “Did you know that?”

I shuddered in his arms, let him pull me closer.

“You were lying on the side of that lake a-and it was just like before.”

“Before?”

His voice hardened, muscles clenched around me. “In the hold.”

I cut him off. “Oh.”

“By then me and the fellas had taken care of most of the Albanians, but nobody knew how long you had been under—”

“Stop, Charlie, don’t do this to yourself.”

“No,” he said fiercely, pulling me away enough to look me in the eye. “You gotta know what you do to me.”

I nodded slowly. I had made him listen, now it was my turn.

“Everybody was talkin’ all at once but all I could think was that I had to get you to breathe, if I never did anything else right for the rest of my life, I had to get you to breathe.”

I leaned my head up against his chest, forbidding the tears that wanted to work their way through. “Charlie.”

“It was forever later…everybody finally shut up, but only for a second.” He paused, breathed into my hair. “Yuri was telling me to stop, and Ben was saying something ‘bout leaving you somewhere to be found ‘cause we had to go.” I felt him shake his head. “I wanted to laugh, Vicious, but I couldn’t, you know? Like I could go anywhere without you. They didn’t get it.” He moved to squeeze me tighter but winced instead. I glanced up at him before looking at his arm again, remembering the cast and lack of motion.

I pushed myself away, careful to roll up his sleeve as gently as I could without hurting him. Two months in an arm cast had done its damage; the scabs from a wound I couldn’t identify refused to heal, making his skin look particularly pale. The muscles there had atrophied slightly as well, making the inside of his elbow look sunken in and hollowed out.

“It’s okay.” Whether he said it to me or him, I wasn’t sure.

“It doesn’t look okay.” I rolled the sleeve back down. Even in the murky sun, it looked as though he could burn. “Did you take it off yourself?”

He shook his head. “Nah, the doc in Churchill did.”

I looked up at the mention, nearly forgetting at we were on the move to somewhere. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Marseilles.” He smiled

“Marseilles? As in France?”

“I hope that’s okay.”

“Okay?” I smiled. “Better than your arm okay.”

He laughed. “It’s fine. It just means I’ll be out of commission for awhile.”

I lit up at the prospect. Did this mean no more smuggling? A hiatus from criminal activity? “Are you referring to a break from illicit activities? As in ‘a lack of illegal acts’? Because if you aren’t, tell me right now so I don’t get my hopes up.”

He smiled, brushing away the hair from my neck. “Illicit activities? Well, I was hoping not. But that other stuff…”

“How long?”

“How long what?”

“How long are you taking a break?”

He shrugged. “Forever?”

I was flabbergasted, above and beyond the word. Of course a million reasons could have brought the decision on, and without specific details I was still reluctant to get excited about the idea.

“What?” he asked. “You don’t believe me?”

“It’s not that,” I tried to point my phrasing, “I just—why?”

He laughed, true and full in that way I appreciated so well. It made me laugh too, though I wasn’t sure why. “Why? Really, Vicious,
why
? You want a list?”

My eyes rolled. “Humor me.”

He reached out his hand and began counting out the points. “One: Ben and Elise wanna have a safer house for the kids.”

I nodded; I had already figured that one.

“Two: with the Albanians there will probably be more trouble-makers--maybe more Albanians—” He stopped at my expression, but I stood fast and crossed my arms over myself, remaining vigilant to not let him persuade me until I was confident about this new arrangement.

“Three: We all have a decent amount of money to do something with ourselves that ain’t so dangerous, and with all the heat, we kinda don’t have a better option.”

I sighed. “Is that all?”

He shrugged. “I guess Yuri is thinking of doing something legit.”

“That’s nice.”

“I also can’t live without you…so there’s that.”

I smiled though I tried not to. “Uh huh.”

“I shoulda quit this racket the day I met you.”

I wanted to argue, to put up a fight. There was a part of Charlie that was untamed, animalistic, and I had loved that about him as much as he loved the unknown of his work, the thrill it gave him. If he gave that up and ended up regretting it, would he resent me?

“I—I don’t want you to do something just because of me,” I tried. “You should live whatever kind of life you think will make you happy long-term—”

“Are you kidding me? When you were lying in my arms as dead as anything, all I could think about was target practice.”

“What?”

“I was pissed at you. If you could aim better, then there woulda been enough bullets in that Albanian’s revolver to end me, too.”

I was wordless.

“Bein’ without you is worse than any death I can think of.” He laughed into my hair. 

“Wait, h-how do you know what happened?” I looked at the floor, “How do they—”

Charlie’s brow furrowed for a second. “Reid saw what happened from one of the stands in the trees and called us over. Moron figured out you weren’t part of a conspiracy.”

So if nothing else, I had proved myself to the guys after all, even if I had nearly lost my life in the process.

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

I shrugged. “What says ‘thanks for saving my life twice in a 48-hour period’? Fruit basket?”

He grinned and shook his head.

“I could always give him Melinda’s number…”

“God, I’ve missed you.”

I settled myself back in his arms, tucking myself under his chin. “So we can go away together, no more breaking the law, no more hiding?”

“Yep.”

“Then will you do something for me?”

His chuckle was low and soft against my earlobe. “I think it’s more like ‘what wouldn’t I do for you?’”

“Marry me.”

“What?”

“Marry. Me.”

“How hard in the head did you get kicked?”

“I’m serious.”

“Un-huh.” He rolled his eyes at me. “Now I get it.”

“Get what?”

“What this all is…”

“Enlighten me.”

“I’m still in that hospital, and all of this is one of those coma dreams.” He tapped the side of his head but flinched at the memory of pain. “All makes sense now.”

“Charlie Hays!” I hit him gently in the chest. “Do you love me?”

“More than I ever thought I was capable of lovin’ anything.”

“Then let’s get married.”

“You’re serious?”

“Completely. We love each other, and if we’re married, then you’ll never have an excuse to not tell me the whole truth again because of spousal privilege.” I pushed my nose against his. “And you and the whole rest of the world won’t ever doubt again that I belong to you.”

He grinned at me. “You really wanna marry me?”

I nodded eagerly; barely able to contain myself. “Only if you think you can tolerate me for a lifetime.”

When our lips touched, reunited after so long apart, it wasn’t like when we were on water, there was no weightlessness between us, no floating. It was more like sparks, something flaming and taking flight in the both of us at the same time, like seeing fire for the first time.

We took liftoff.

***

Shortly after, when the heat of passion had cooled off just enough for us to not burn one another, I called Melinda on a disposable cell phone. Calling anyone else would have been suspicious and ran the risk of having a traced line, but since I rarely communicated with Melinda via phone, I was somewhat confident. Regardless, no one was willing to deny me anything, particularly this one request.

“Hello?”

“Melinda, hi. It’s Addie.”

What followed was a loud squealing sound that even Charlie flinched from as I pulled the phone from my ear.

“Uh, Melinda?”

“Addie, oh my god. Is it really you? Are you okay? Where are you?”

I laughed. Always so dramatic. I knew I would miss her. “I’m okay. I can’t tell you where I am, though. Listen, I only have a second. I need you to call my Dad—”

“Whoo! He’s freaking out—”

“I know, that’s why I need you to call him.” I gave her the number and made her repeat it back to me once, twice.

“What do I tell him?”

“Tell him I love him, I’m okay. Better than okay, a-and that—” Charlie stared at me with his kaleidoscope eyes, a foggy blue under the hazy of sun. I knew I could look into them forever. “Tell him I found what I forgot.”

Whatever she scratched on the paper with stopped. “Huh?”

I laughed again. “He’ll know what it means. Do you have that?”

“Uh, yeah, got it. I’ll do it right now.”

“Melinda, thanks for everything. I mean it.”

She sighed. “You
will
tell me everything someday, Battes.”

“Of course I will.” I laughed. “Roommate code.”

After I hung up the phone I was smiling, but I couldn’t ignore the funny look Charlie gave me.

“What?”

“Roommate code?”

“Yeah, I owe Melinda some explanations. Actually—” I paused, stopping to think it through, though it might help Dad sleep through the night, he still didn’t have the entire story, which I more than owed him.

“Charlie, how long until we make port?”

“Hard to say.” He shrugged. “A week or so. Why?”

“I should talk to my family.” He looked down at the phone then back to me, obviously confused. “Not just to tell them I’m safe, I mean, but like, really talk to them.”