That's why, after only a few weeks of knowing her, I had something to ask her that I hadn't asked anybody in over a decade, because I was never remotely sure that I could make the commitment the question required. Holy fuck, what was I thinking?
"Sarina?"
"Hmmm?"
She'd been bent over, looking at my movie collection, and as she stood up straight again, the hem of my shirt she was wearing lowered with her movement, covering her ass again. This plan was already backfiring.
"Come here, would ya?" I patted the couch next to me.
Sarina cradled her cup of coffee in her hands and came over with a quizzical look in her beautiful blue eyes. I took the cup from her hands when she sat down, and put it on the coffee table, then held her hands in mine.
I was on the verge of breaking out in a cold sweat, which was almost as unbelievable as what I was about to say. The Acardis' lives were cheap to me, but they were still lives, and yet it seemed like taking them was going to be a lot easier than asking this one simple question.
"So, I'm not sure if you noticed, but I haven't been seeing anybody else since I met you. The thing is … I don't really want to either … uh … so I was thinking, maybe, it might be an idea, you know to make it … official?"
Sarina's eyes went wide, showing a whole bunch of white around the blue, and her bottom lip quivered a few times as she tried to remember the English language.
"Official?" she squeaked.
"Yeah. As far as a friendship goes, the benefits in this one are pretty great … but I want more."
"More?" she parroted.
It was pretty blatant that she was even more intimidated by this conversation than I was. Fuck she was adorable, I couldn't help but smile, feeling a potentially misplaced sense of control flow back into me.
"How about I call you my girlfriend, and you can call me your boyfriend?" I said.
Sarina looked like she was about to cry. "I can't."
The smile dropped from my face as if it suddenly weighed too much to hold up. "But … why not?"
She floundered for a second. "Because … I don't think you're being honest with me."
"About what?"
Sarina took a deep breath. "There's been something bothering me … like … I don't know how to say it."
"Just ask, Sarina."
"I've never felt like this about anybody, Ryan. That's the truth." She cast her eyes down for a moment, trying to hide what I was sure was a flash of bitterness, then looked up again. "I've been kind of pushing this … stuff … down while we've been … doing whatever it is we've been doing, but if you want to be with me, like really be with me, you need to tell me the truth."
"About what?" I repeated.
"That first night in the club, I saw some … things. I noticed you come in, but it seemed like a lot of people did. There were some men that came up to you, gave you some money, and then you gave them something. They didn't look like the kind of guys who used moisturizing cream or lipstick. Then there was the fight with the gang. They didn't look like the kind of people concerned with the cosmetics industry either. What aren't you telling me, Ryan?"
Oh fuck. Looked like Sarina was already crashing like a meteorite into the world I was trying to take over. Fuck.
My heart sank. If I told her the truth, it would drive her away, I'd be "with" her even less than now, not more. How the fuck could I explain this?
Sarina
Ryan probably wouldn't have had any different expression on his face if he'd been tied to a post in front of a firing squad. The way that hopeful smile dropped from his face broke my heart. I felt like an ogre, taking this perfect, sweet, sincere moment and using it for my own purposes.
I had to remember I was a cop, I was working here, even though a huge part of me wanted to scream "Yes!" and dive on top of him. A boyfriend? For me? How fucking amazing would that be? Instead, I risked losing that beautiful thing.
Then there was the fact that I'd also just put out an ultimatum for Ryan. If he didn't think I was worth it, then he'd just tell me to get my things and go. Then where would the investigation be?
My heart stopped what it was doing and focused on Ryan, to see if he'd been feeling these utterly forbidden things as strongly as I had. What was taking him so long? If only my life was as simple as his I'd have admitted everything by now.
Just tell me, Ryan … the things I've already done have probably put you out of the reach of the law anyway. You won't get prosecuted in the end, you'll be safe. I won't let them get to you. Just tell me you sell F, that's all I need for now … say it and we can be together. We can work everything else out later …
"I wasn't lying about the cosmetics business," said Ryan.
My heart considered not resuming its work, but then reluctantly started beating, as I dealt with a shrinking feeling that made me try to retract my hands from Ryan's grasp. He didn't let go.
"I wasn't, the company exists and turns a good profit. But," he took a deep breath and paused for an eternity, licking his lips and eyes looking upwards as if searching his head for the right words. "I don't even know how to explain this."
"Just tell me, Ryan … It's OK … "
"I never tell anybody … "
I squeezed his hand.
"I'm an only child," he began.
What that had to do with selling drugs, I had no idea, but I didn't press him any further. I just listened carefully, hoping that was all the encouragement he needed to keep talking.
"Never knew my dad. Apparently he needed a girl who could take a beating a lot better than my mom. It took her finding out about being pregnant with me to work up the courage to get herself out of there and leave the cheating and the hitting behind."
Ryan shut his eyes, raised his eyebrows and sighed as if he couldn't believe these words were coming out of his mouth.
"For my whole life, it's been just her and me. She had to work like a fucking slave to make ends meet. She had a part-time job during the day, looked after me between school and bedtime, and then a part-time job in the evenings, and odd-jobs all over the place. I can only imagine how exhausted she must have been."
I gripped his hands tighter and shuffled closer so my knee touched his. Ryan had noticeably paled as he talked, and the heat seemed to have been sucked out of the room.
"I remember this one time, I must have been nine years old. I came home from school and she wasn't there. We didn't have a TV and there was nothing in the cupboards like the kind of packaged snacks my friends at school had. It'd been kind of a shitty day, kids being assholes like only kids can, and I was sitting there for a while feeling sorry for myself, angry at her for not having money like them. What a piece of shit … "
I shook my head. "You were only a-"
"Kid. Yeah. So I was sitting there on the couch and I heard her car kinda cough and splutter its way into the driveway and a minute later she came inside. She had this look on her face I was too young to understand, but I remember it and I know what it means now. She was nervous. What was she nervous about? Well, I was sitting there pouting like a spoiled brat and she knelt in front of me and she had this soccer ball in her hand. I looked at it, and then I looked at her."
Ryan stopped for a second and then almost gave me a heart attack when he sobbed. A tear dropped from his eye, and I reached up to cradle his face and wipe it away with my thumb without thinking.
There was an impending sense of doom growing inside of me that was terrifying, as Ryan waved his hand in the general area in front of him, as if the memory of his mother was right there for us both to see.
"She had these bags under her eyes, wearing one of the two dresses I'd seen her wear in … ever. She had nothing for herself and she bought me a soccer ball. She must have been tired right down to her bones, but you know what she said?"
I shook my head, feeling cool air on tear-streaks on my own face.
"She said, "Sorry I'm late, sweetie, you wanna come play kicks with me in the park?""
Ryan didn't talk for a while and I dropped my hand back down.
"I couldn't have put it into words then, but that was the first time I had an inkling that she was giving me everything, and I promised to myself that, no matter what it took, I'd give her everything too. Only, when I gave it, it really would be everything. The world on a silver platter. Before I could do that, though, she got cancer."
"Oh, Ryan … "
"Probably from one of the shitty jobs she forced herself to have so that I could have anything at all," he muttered. "But the medical bills kept on getting bigger until I wasn't breaking even anymore. So, I knew this guy who could get some F, and I managed to make some arrangements so that I could buy from him and sell it on. Pretty much straight away, that started making even more than the cosmetics business. It covers the medical bills and then some."