Reilly 13 - Dreams of the Dead by Perri O'Shaughnessy

because we only said that when we were right in the middle of it. “I need to know you do.”
    “Ah, c’mon. You’re my sweetie, bad boy. Let’s not get technical,” she teased.
    “I can show you how much I love you if you let me, but I need to know first. What are you willing to do to be with me?”
    After a long silence, she sat on the side of the bed, hair hanging over her eyes so I couldn’t see them. “We had this discussion. You promised me you wouldn’t bring it up again.”
    “Yes, but I don’t think you thought it through. We could live together in a beautiful, warm country in a beach house with a pool, a staff, a view of the world, a soft bed, privacy at last.”
    “I told you, no.”
    I came up behind her, pressed against her back, wound my legs around her body. “Listen one more time.” I held her close and told her about it again, laid it out a different way, sure I could convince her this was the only way, and it was the right way.
    When I finished, she turned sideways, her body against me, almost melting in the heat between us. “Forget it. I won’t commit a crime. I won’t go to prison. You should never have told me any of this.”
    “There’s no risk.”
    “Right. Sure.” Her body tensed. “My friend who went to the Nevada State Penitentiary for selling drugs? He died there.”
    I suppose my nerves and the time pressure got the better of me. “We’ll be rich and free. We can live our lives like we deserve to, not in a hellhole limbo like this. I need more time to explain all this, that damn second hand moving around is all you see—”
    “Because I have to go!” Cyndi struggled to stand up and leave.
    I tightened my hold.
    “Let me go. It’s twelve forty-five, and the maid could come in anytime after one. I have another life and it’s time to get back to it.”
    “Fuck your other life! You love me, I love you, I’m trying to talk about our future together and you’re—”
    “Let me go!”
    I felt my heart beat against her back. I felt her sweat on me, smelled perfume mixed with her body.
    After another minute, she quit fighting me. She turned her head away and closed her eyes, speaking so softly I had to work to hear her.
    “Should have known. Get close to somebody. Fall in love. It’s never enough. I should know by now, crazy shit every time.” Her eyes opened and she stared at me coldly. Her voice rose but held steady. “You need to let me get up now and put on my clothes. Then I’ll go back to work and you forget about me. We’re done. I mean that. Okay? I won’t tell anyone about your plans. I won’t do anything to stop you. But leave me out of it.”
    She meant it. I could hear it. She had detached herself right then with no return possible. I knew because I’d done it myself. She might as well have taken an ax and chopped right through my brain. I felt pops, storms. All thinking ceased. Memories attacked. I thought of the day I met her. I thought about how I have failed so many people and how life has failed me.
    “I told you from the start,” Cyndi said, shaking, pushing. “I won’t leave my kids. I won’t run with you. I won’t go to prison because you’ve got another set of cheap dreams. Fucking fool. Jesus.” She managed to pull away from me, but I jumped up and pushed her back down against the bed. I could see her sneaking furtive looks at the clock, the clock that read five minutes to one.
    “You’re gonna listen, and you’re gonna say yes.”
    “You’re hurting me, asshole!”
    She’s small but strong. She made a fist and right-hooked me in the side of the jaw. The pain made me lose it for a second. I hit her with the palm of my hand hard on the side of the head—a reflex, that’s all it was—and she went limp for a second, so I laid her on her back on the bed. Her mouth opened and kept getting wider and wider and she took in a breath as she got herself ready to let out a shriek that was going to bring witnesses and ruin. Her face went