Taming Val Page 5

  Her wet eyes flew back to his.

  “Do you understand?” he asked.

  “Yes, I understand that you’re a fucking asshole.”

  “And not your brother,” he reiterated, before putting the phone back in his pocket. “Don’t forget that part. That part’s important.”

  The wood chair cried out against the floors as she flew from her seat, almost taking the entire table with her.

  Leo watched her storm out, before frowning at his twin brother. “Val, why? You gotta know by now how much that kills her.”

  “Since when do you stand up for Zo?” Val asked. “I’m telling her the truth.”

  “Sometimes that’s not necessary, man. Sometimes it’s just a dick move. Is it really that hard to just fucking humor her? You’re hurting her feelings. Why are you so desperate to hurt her?”

  Val didn’t answer.

  ***

  Minutes later, Zoey had curled herself into a couch in the dark living room, licking her wounds, and waiting for the guys to tell her they were ready to go. Val had been particularly cruel that evening. He was always cold with her, but the kind of shots he’d fired tonight had left her feeling rife with bullet holes she didn’t deserve.

  She hadn’t even provoked him.

  Then she realized she had.

  There was something about that word. It had always set Val off, from the day she’d met him.

  She’s not my fucking sister.

  Zoey heard his voice saying the words like it was yesterday. It was so fresh in her mind, so real, that when she saw Val making his way into the living room, she jolted in pure shock, wondering if he’d said the words out loud, or if she’d imagined them.

  He responded to the sight of her, as well, stopping short, before turning to leave. He almost made it out of the room before he heard her call out.

  “Hi Val.”

  Zoey hadn’t missed the way he’d tried to sneak out unseen, and she’d had enough. She’d had enough of taking this treatment from Val. More than ever, she was ready to knock down the invisible wall that’d existed between them for ten years.

  She shook her head. Ten years. Had this really been going on for that long?

  “I meant to ask you how your doctor’s appointment went the other day?” she asked, conversationally, trying to forget about the incident in the kitchen. “It wasn’t anything serious was it?”

  “How did you know I had a doctor’s appointment?” His voice was laced with accusation. “That’s none of your business.”

  She held her hands up, feeling the familiar rumbling in her gut that always came alive whenever she was alone with him. She was reminded of why they never spoke, because he made her feel like this, angry, attacked, and a little out of control. “Relax. Roman told me he was picking you up from the doctor the other day. I figured if you couldn’t drive yourself it might be something serious.” It would certainly explain why she’d found him crying in the bathroom.

  “What else did he tell you?”

  “Nothing, gosh.” She curled her body into a ball, tucking her chin into her knees. “Forget it,” she grumbled. “Forget I asked.”

  “I will forget you asked.”

  She waited until he left the room to run her fingers through her hair. The constant vitriol Val spewed at her had always thrown her into a black hole of hurt and confusion. Now was no exception.

  Just like that, she was rocketed back to high school. She’d been a freshman, and he a junior, when she’d first moved into the house. Every once in a while, they would run into each other in the halls at school, and his friends would nudge Val and let him know his “new sister” was there.

  She’s not my fucking sister.

  Those were the five words that spilled out of his mouth, without hesitation, anytime someone dared call her his sister back in high school. She’d never considered herself a nuisance back then, at least not when it came to Val. She’d understood that high school boys were delicate flowers, and Val was popular, so she’d made it a point to never nip at his heels the way she nipped at Gary and Roman’s. That was what’d made his constant need to disassociate himself from her on every level so heart wrenching, because she’d truly done nothing to deserve it, and he was the only one of the brothers who ever did that to her.

  What’d really killed her was that, just as quickly as he was venomously denying any relation between the two of them, he’d be punching some guy’s face in for looking at her the wrong way, or saying something disrespectful about her. Whenever someone dared make fun of her last name—which, as a dark skinned girl with the last name Black, was quite often—in front of Val, they were lucky to walk away with all their teeth.

  That was what had thrown her, what had kept her up at night. He couldn’t have hated her, right? Why would he have gone to bat for her as many times as he had, if he hated her?

  There was no way he liked her, either. How could anyone who liked another person treat Zoey the way Val did?

  Perhaps he only stood up for her because it was what Tony had demanded of all the brothers from the second she’d moved in.

  “Zo is family now, and we protect our family. Before her father died, I promised him that I would never let anything happen to her, and I’m asking for the same from you guys.”

  The brothers had taken their father’s words to heart, but with Val, the buck seemed to stop there. He would fuck somebody up for her, but he wouldn’t sit down and have a conversation with her.

  It made her feel like an obligation, and she hated that feeling.

  She’s not my fucking sister.

  After a while, those words started to get to her so much that, when she found herself crying in bed late at night, she began to wonder if the tears in her eyes were for her dead parents, or for Val. After a while, it became hard to tell the difference.

  Her confusion had only been compounded when, during those late nights, as she cried quietly into her pillow, he would sneak into her room, and climb under her covers. He’d let her tuck her tear stained face into his neck, holding her as tightly as he could without breaking her bones, until she either stopped crying, or passed out. They never spoke, not a word, but somehow those nights felt like entire conversations. The kind of deep conversations you only had with someone you trusted with your whole heart.

  The next morning, he’d be gone, and they’d be right back to square one. As if none of it ever happened.

  I’m not her fucking brother.

  It’d confused her then.

  It confused her now.

  She was sick and tired of it.

  Four

  When they finally managed to leave the house and head for the lounge downtown, it was pushing midnight. As she heard four pairs of shoes disagreeing with the gravel on the cobblestoned walkway behind her, Zoey found herself wondering if the lounge would even be open by the time they made it. Gary and Roman were already borderline buzzed from the beers they’d had at dinner, though not enough to make them fail a breathalyzer if it came to that. If Zoey had anything to say about it, they wouldn’t drive on even one beer, but the past had proven that was an argument she would never win with these guys.

  Zoey wondered if she would even be in the mood to drink by the time she got there.

  She laughed out loud at her thoughts. Who was she kidding? She was always in the mood to drink.

  “You ready, Zoey?” Gary asked, pulling open the passenger side door to his car. The sweet smile on his face slowly dropped as she breezed past him, with a hand on his arm.

  “Thanks, Gar, but I think I’ll ride with Val tonight,” she said.

  Gary’s face went from a smile to a bewildered frown. When he looked over to Roman, he was relieved to see that he wasn’t the only one who was confused as hell.

  Val was already in the car when Zoey opened the passenger side door to his silver Audi convertible. She climbed in, closing the door behind her and crossing her arms over her chest without a word. She could feel her breasts heaving, her
heart felt like it had taken a hammer straight to her ribcage, and her heels tapped against the floor anxiously, making her knees dance up and down.

  She stared straight ahead, but could feel his eyes watching her. She felt them stay on her, waiting for her to look at him.

  She didn’t. She honed in on the apple tree that had grown outside of the house for years like her life depended on it.

  What had to be a full minute of silence passed, then… a growl, a rumble, the delightful vibration of her seat coming to life underneath her, as he started the car.

  A smile of victory raced across her face. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to happen when she jumped into Val’s car. She never rode with Val. Perhaps he would circle around, open the door, and pull her out, reminding her that Gary was her favorite Romanovsky, or perhaps even Roman, all the while reaffirming that she still wasn’t his sister. Then he’d climb back into his car, rev the engine, and disappear from sight, knowing that everyone would eventually follow him.

  But he hadn’t done any of that. He’d let her stay. She bit her lip around her smile as the anxiety that’d been rolling around in her belly cooled from a hot boil to a pleasant simmer. She settled into her seat, all while adjusting the hem of her black dress. It suddenly felt too short, barely passing her mid-thigh sitting down.

  She looked at Val, and caught his eyes riveted to that hem as he switched gears with ease.

  Her seat vibrated to life under the roar of the engine, once more. In the back of her mind somewhere, she knew that she was wet, and blamed it on the pleasant, if not torturously so, shudder of the seat.

  “I--” She clapped her mouth shut. She had no idea how to talk to him.

  She looked to the driver’s seat, again, where he was navigating the streets with familiar ease, the open palm of his hand barely touching the steering wheel as he guided the growling vehicle. He didn’t look at her, but something in his eyes told her he was listening loud and clear. “I finished the proof for the new ad. I emailed it to you before I left the house.”

  “I saw it.” His eyes went to her legs, again, but he didn’t look her in the eye. When she crossed one long, brown limb over the other, he willed his eyes away.

  “Did you like it?” she asked.

  “I always like your work.”

  News to her. “Did you like the thing I did with the damask background? I thought you’d hate that. You never struck me as a damask guy.”

  “It was fine.”

  She pouted and looked forward. He was making this tough. Surely he was doing it on purpose. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  This time, he did look at her, right in the eye. It was a miracle they were at a stoplight, because he couldn’t look away. “Talk about what?”

  “I dunno. It just seems like something’s bothering you today. Even more than usual.”

  She was prying, and Val was dying to speak to someone about the catastrophic news he’d been blasted with a few days ago, but he couldn’t do it, especially not with Zoey. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted her to know. The light turned green, and he switched gears, charging forward.

  The silence went on for a long while, and Zoey was convinced that their “conversation” was over.

  “It’s nothing you need to be concerned about. You just focus on continuing to churn out that beautiful artwork.”

  “Churn out? What am I, some kind of graphic design factory? Is that how you see me?” It would certainly explain a lot. Why he was always so by the book with her, so short, so technical.

  A smirk curled up on the edge of his plush lips, but made its exit quickly. He didn’t respond.

  She didn’t need him to. He’d smiled. Val! Smiling! At words that had come out of her mouth.

  She cuddled back into her seat, unable to fight her own smile, feeling victorious.

  They spent the rest of the long drive in silence, and it wasn’t until they were ten minutes from the bar that she realized she wasn’t quite ready to relinquish the nice moment she and Val had shared. Val being nice to her had made her feel like a meth-head who hadn’t had a hit in weeks.

  She needed another hit. Not later, right now.

  “You know…” she started.

  He looked at her, again. His golden eyes started at her legs, went dark, and then rose to her eyes.

  “If you’re worried that the guys will find out what your problem is… or maybe that they’ll overhear… then we can go somewhere else. We can talk… just the two of us.” She was suddenly remembering all the nights back in high school that she’d missed her parents so badly that she thought her entire body might come apart from the pain. She thought about how he would hold her on those nights, until the pain stopped, or until she realized the sweet release of sleep. However cruel he was to her, Val had played a huge part in helping her cope with the greatest loss she’d ever experienced. It’d been easy to hold him at arms length all these years, because he’d been doing the same to her—and being an asshole on top of it—but now, something was very obviously killing him. She felt it was only right that she extend a hand to him when something was bothering him this deeply.

  “I know a place we can go,” she said. “A place where the guys won’t find us.” She laughed to herself. “Hell, at this point, they probably wouldn’t be able to find us anywhere… since Gary and Roman are already buzzed, and Leo could give a shit.” Leo Romanovsky did not have a single shit to give--about anything.

  Val was clearly thinking the same, because he smiled again.

  She drank in his smile. She’d been wrong. Val being nice to her wasn’t the hit she needed. It was his smile that had her intoxicated, yearning for more.

  “Where?” he asked, his deep voice booming across the car.

  Her head snapped toward him, surprised. “Excuse me?” she asked, stupidly. She’d meant what she’d said, she did know a place they could go, where no one else would find them, but never in a million years did she imagine he’d actually accept.

  “Where?” He looked at her.

  Zoey could’ve sworn that she saw moisture pooling in those unbelievable eyes of his, but convinced herself she was crazy. Val didn’t feel emotion, and he certainly didn’t cry. At least not anywhere where there could be possible witnesses.

  Something had seriously shifted here. He was feeling something so succinctly that it was driving him to an extremely emotional place. And he wasn’t fighting it.

  “Make a right here,” she said, pointing out of the window.

  He went to the highest gear, sending her flying back against the seat as he pressed the petal all the way to the floor.

  ***

  Zoey fumbled with the keys to her building, hating that she was so nervous.

  His warmth was distractedly present behind her, so close that she was sure if she took even one step back, she would go crashing into his chest. They stepped into the quiet hallway of her apartment building and into the first open elevator, and her breath caught.

  The elevator clicked slowly passed each floor, and Val spoke up for the first time in minutes. “This is your place where nobody will find us? Your apartment? Gary is probably already on his way over here as we speak.”

  “Relax, I’m not taking you to my apartment,” she said, just as the elevator dinged right passed her floor, and came to a stop. It buzzed open, revealing the beautiful rooftop of the building. There was no pool, but the roof was lined with dozens of crispy white lounge chairs, sofas, and ottomans. Long strings of paper lanterns glowed in haphazard yellow crisscrosses overhead, stretching the length the roof. The lights bounced pleasantly off of the barely used stainless steel bbqs, and were the perfect complement to the NYC skyline, which glowed unobstructed from across the river.

  Val came to a stop, still holding the door. “Wow.”

  “I know,” Zoey said, looking over her shoulder proudly, as if she’d put that whole rooftop together herself. “I come here when I have no idea what to do for the company’s next ad. It’s a prett
y great place for inspiration. But we’re not supposed to be here, so we have to keep it quiet.” She said the words, and then remembered who she was talking to. Val was the single most quiet person she’d ever known next to Roman, and Roman was basically a man who never spoke unless spoken to, so that wasn’t saying much. If anybody needed a warning about keeping it down between she and Val it was her, not him.

  “This is…” Val’s eyes searched the rooftop appreciatively, then his eyes landed on hers. For the first time, she noticed that his eyes, and the lanterns flicking above, were almost exactly the same color. He fit here. He matched, blended, like this rooftop had always been missing one elusive, Val shaped puzzle piece, and was finally complete. His eyes went from gold to bronze, and back again, under the swinging lanterns as they met hers. “Beautiful,” he finished.

  She turned to face him completely as he finally allowed the door to close. It slammed shut hard, showing its age, and Val placed his hands quietly in his pockets.

  The soft breeze blew her curls into her face, but she didn’t have the courage to reach up and fix them. She was suddenly afraid to move under his probing gaze. Not many people had the power to make her nervous, but she was suddenly rambling. “There was a murder suicide up here last year. That’s why a rooftop this beautiful continues to go deserted. Even on beautiful nights like tonight.”

  Val’s face curled into a soft cringe. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Pretty brutal, but… I can handle brutal. I guess the rest of the building can’t. The super likes us to reserve the space before we use it, but that’s pointless, because no one has the stomach to come up here.”

  “No one but you.”

  “Death doesn’t scare me the way it scares everyone else. Most people have more time to deny that it’s a reality. I only got fourteen years.”

  Val nodded, and she was sure he wasn’t going to respond. “I know,” he said.

  She saw a wisp of real pain in his eyes, for her, but convinced herself she was imagining it. She began making her way to the edge of the roof, realizing that she wasn’t sure what to say to him. It was amazing how she could have so much to talk about with this man, but at the same time, nothing at all.