Thorns & Oranges

Like Sugar and Cyanide

This chapter is the reason this story is rated Mature. Read at your own...risk? Maturity level? Let's just say you have to be able to enter a rated R movie without a parent. K?

Chapter Twenty-One

Five minutes after he was gone, my phone rang. I glanced at the number and sighed. What was he doing calling me?

"Yeah?"

"I need to see you."

"Blunt as ever. Might I ask why?"

"You were shot at? Again?"

"That news finally reached your ears, huh?" I frowned down at the row of comic books. "And thanks for asking if I was ok, Jorge. I'm touched about how concerned you are."

"Considering you're an escape artist of death, I thought I shouldn't be too worried."

"You checked the hospitals."

"And all the twenty-four hour places. So, care to explain?"

"You know I can't."

He sighed. "You're giving me gray hair."

"Tell me, Jorge. Does your fiancée know you're calling me and seeing me so often? Or are you telling her it's just work?"

"You don't tell me anything about your personal life so I'm not going to tell you anything about mine."

"You're the one who called me and I know plenty about your personal life. You like your coffee to be about the same shade as my skin tone. You toast your bagels and then slather them with cream cheese. You sleep on your stomach and half the time you're naked. You have a scar just above your hip bone from your one and only attempt at being a criminal. You like looking at the woman you're sleeping with so you prefer to be on top. Oh and you have a commitment phobia, unless it's with someone who isn't me."

"Ari, stop it."

"What? You say you wanted to marry me but it was one big fat lie..."

"You're the one who ended it," he hissed. "Not me. I never stopped caring about you. I never stopped wondering if the next call I got would be someone letting me know you were dead. So don't fucking go there."

"You forgot to mention you're the one who got engaged a month after our last scheduled meet. Admit it, I was nothing more than a booty call. You wanted to walk on the dangerous side and when you got tired of it, you told me it could be nothing more than it was. You left me standing at the starting gate without even blowing the whistle."

"Ari..."

"You were never planning on telling anyone about us and you lied to me when you said you would. I was too much of a risk and it's time you let go. Stop calling me, stop trying to figure out ways to see me. It's getting old and you're putting my life on the line. Same with your partner. Thanks to the both of you, my brother..."

I cut off my words midstream, knowing I'd said too much already. And since he was a good cop, he nailed it.

"I was right. Your brother was the one whodid that to you."

"That's not what I'm saying..."

"He beat you to a pulp because you talked to Houston. That's what happened, isn't it?" The sound he made was pissed off and relieved at the same time. "I thought..."

"You thought it was about you just like you always do. But that's how you are. All you think about is yourself, screw everyone else."

"That's not true. I think about you."