He had the good sense to step away. “Baby, if you want to go back to where we were when you threw me out, I’m all for it. But right now I’m a little busy running for my life.”
“Do not call me ‘baby.’“ My hand, which had been hovering in the air, clenched into a fist. “You don’t ever get to call me ‘baby’ again.”
The pain in my voice surprised me. I’d thought I’d gotten over his betrayal. Guess not.
“Fine.” He sighed. “Just don’t touch me. I—” He broke off and ran a hand through his hair. Longer than I remembered, but just as sleek and black. “Never mind.”
Everything about him was dark—his eyes, his clothes, his heart. His complexion, tan even in the middle of winter, pointed at several heritages, but he didn’t know any for certain. Like me, Jimmy had been dumped. He hadn’t a clue who his parents were any more than I did.
Despite the shiner—or perhaps because of it—he still looked the same. Too good. Jimmy Sanducci was major eye candy, always had been. It was how he’d survived on the streets for so long.
There were things he’d done even I didn’t know about, and I didn’t want to. I’d done things too. Until you’re so hungry you’d wrestle garbage away from a rat, you have no idea what you’re capable of. Jimmy and I knew. We were two of a kind.
“Did you do it?” I asked.
His black eyes flicked to mine. “Fuck you.”
“Not in this lifetime. Or at least not again.”
“What the hell did I come here for?”
He started toward the door; I blocked his way. “What did you come here for?”
“Lizzy,” he warned.
Jimmy was the only one who dared call me that. To everyone else I was Elizabeth—Liz if you were really trying to be my pal. But Lizzy? Just try it, and Jimmy’s shiner would look good to you in the morning.
“Did. You. Do. It.” I punctuated each word with a step forward; with each one he took a step back until his shoulders slammed against the wall.
He wanted to deck me; I saw it in his eyes. But while Jimmy might have done things he couldn’t forgive himself for, he would never hit a woman, especially me. I hit back. He’d learned that the hard way when we were twelve.
I smiled at the memory of the first day we’d met. He’d been living at Ruthie’s for two years; I was brand-new. Fresh from another foster home that hadn’t wanted to keep me.
I was an angry twelve-year-old. Taller than the other girls, already “developing” and mortified by it. I wore shapeless clothes, hunched my shoulders, let my hair cover my face. On the streets, in the system, you didn’t want to be noticed. And a girl like me, with my special talents, wanted to be noticed even less than most.
“What’s so funny?” Jimmy slumped against the wall as if he needed it to hold him up. Were there more bruises than the ones I could see?
Always.
“I was remembering the first time I had to kick your ass.”
He tilted his head and his too-long hair slid over his injured eye. “And that was funny?” “Hilarious.” Jimmy was the big cheese at Ruthie’s place. He’d had to move in with one of the other boys so I could have his room. He wasn’t pleased, so he’d put a grass snake in my bed.
I’d named the snake James, found him a cage, then loosened Sanducci’s teeth the next morning. He hadn’t messed with me again.
Until we were seventeen.
And there was a memory 1 didn’t want to revisit. Not now with him so close and me naked beneath my thin, gaping hospital gown.
“Who hit you?” I asked.
“Does it matter?”
“If you want me to help, you need to tell me everything.”
“Who said I wanted help?”
“Why did you come here if not for that?”
He looked away, out the window where the snow still swirled. “Maybe I wanted to keep an eye on you.”
I recalled waking up once, the sensation that I wasn’t alone, then that weird flash of monsters.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“How long?”
I could just see him hiding in the bathroom, watching me. Hell, he’d done it before. Back when peeping at me was his idea of foreplay.
“Not long.” He flicked a finger at my hair. “When did you cut it?”
I blinked at the change of subject. What did my hair have to do with anything?
“Years ago,” I snapped, the amount of time reminding me that when I’d thrown him out, he hadn’t returned. Why was that almost harder to forgive than his betrayal had been?
“You had really pretty hair.”
Everything seemed out of sync. Jimmy in my hospital room, talking about my hair when the cops wanted to arrest him for Ruthie’s murder. I’d had dreams like this before—so full of mundane activities that they must mean something, though I never could figure out what.
The reality of Ruthie’s loss hit me, making me a little dizzy, causing me to snap out an answer. “Having hair down to your ass causes too many problems when you’re a cop.”
“I heard you weren’t a cop anymore.”
As if 1 needed to be reminded.