She and Holly talk for another ten minutes before they finally hug goodbye.
“I’m all yours now,” she says after, beaning at me.“We can get some lunch, then I can show you around the city if you want, or just show you my apartment…”
She winks at me, the smile making her whole face sparkle.I won’t deny it.I’ve spent a lot of the past decade thinking about touching and kissing and yes, fucking, Bella.But this is moving at breakneck, rollercoaster speed and we’re not wearing any seatbelts.I should slow it down.Then again, life with Bella always was a rollercoaster and just as impossible to stop once it gets going.But she’s been so quiet for so long I forgot what a wild ride it could be.
Her smile falters and wanes while I sort all that out in my head.
“Let’s just go get lunch and catch up some more,” she adds, sounding quiet again.Dejected.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” I say heartily, much too excitedly and loudly.But I just can’t stand her being quiet anymore.Her apartment sounds like a much better idea, but I said what I said and it’d be weird if I said so now.
She stuffs her large sketchbook into a tote bag, which is already jam-packed with all sorts of other things.And heavy, I realize as I take it from her hands so I can carry it.
“What do you do, live out of this thing?”
She smiles.“You know I can’t pack light.”
I do.Just the stuff she left behind when she left me was too much to carry.But I don’t need to slide into that kind of weird philosophical thinking now.All I need to do is let her take me for this ride.This walk.This whateverthisis.
Doogie is nowhere to be seen or heard as we walk through the reception area.Bella doesn’t slow her stride until we exit the parlor and are once again greeted by the smells, and especially the sounds of the city.
She doesn’t take my arm this time as she leads the way down the sidewalk, setting a fast pace that soon wakes some residual pain from the gunshot wound in my stomach.It’s been three months, so I should be healed.This is probably just some weird sort of ghost pain.
“Are we moving too fast?”she asks as we stop at a traffic light, waiting to cross an avenue.
She could just be talking about the pace she’s setting, but she’s not.Or maybe I’m just hearing what I want to hear.
“I’m sorry, I’ve just been very alone for a very long time,” she adds and sounds it.“I don’t even have any real friends to talk to.”
The light turns to WALK, but we don’t.
“This conversation is like eating desert before the main course, Bella,” I say and start crossing the wide street.“How about we just start with the salad?”
“Gotcha,” she says and grins at me.“But this place I’m taking you to, I don’t think they do salads.”
I laugh at that.She always could make me laugh.Even when she was eyeballs deep in addiction, she was still the only person that could, without fail, bring me out of any kind of funk.Even the ones she caused.
“I’m sure it’ll be just fine.”
She gives me a weird over-the-shoulder look like maybe she doesn’t think I’m just talking about the salad.I might actually be.
Our destination is an Indian restaurant that’s on the first floor of an old brownstone, accessible via a narrow and very steep staircase.We have to take off our shoes at the door, which tells me this is a very traditional place before she does.I’m wearing my cut under a long black trench coat and I leave it on as we enter the restaurant proper and are shown to a table next to one of the tall windows.
“Vice president, huh?”she says.“Congrats.”
I nod and try not to groan as I lower myself onto one of the round, fake leather pillows they have in place of chairs.The doc who saved my life had to take out a part of my liver and despite all assurances that everything will heal just fine, it’s just not happening fast.
“And I love the artwork,” she adds as she looks at the back of my cut, our club colors.It’s a hooded figure praying, with angel wings sprouting from its back.
“Who did it?”she asks as she sits down across from me.
“A very talented guy named Jack,” I say.“He joined the MC right after we formed it, but we lost him to suicide soon after.He just couldn’t get over the death of his fiancée.”
“Oh, man, that’s rough,” she says.
“Yeah.”
I’m spared having to say anything more because the waiter comes to take our order.I have no idea what anything is on the menu, so I just go with what Bella suggests.On top of everything else, my mind is now filled with memories of Jack.He was only twenty-five years old when he took his life.
