Hold Me Close Read online

  Effie pressed her lips together. “How do you know?”

  “Because they made a report,” Bill said as if she was stupid. “She admitted to it. She signed her fucking name to the report, and the two of them went off together making fucking goo-goo eyes all over the place, I almost had to arrest them both for public indecency.”

  “Oh.”

  Bill put his hands on his hips. “Yeah.”

  “Well,” she said after a moment. “You still think it’s okay to judge a woman based on what she’s wearing.”

  “Everyone does that!”

  “Does that make it okay?” she shot back. “You think it’s all right to catcall a girl as she walks down the street because she decided to put on a pretty dress today that had nothing to do with you? And if she answers you, she’s a slut, and she’s a whore bitch if she doesn’t.”

  Bill looked utterly stunned. His mouth opened, then shut. Opened again.

  “The fuck is wrong with you tonight? I was talking about how you like it sometimes when I talk dirty to you, Effie. You asked me to! And it’s hot, sometimes, sure, but I didn’t really mean... Dammit. A guy can’t get a break. You want us to notice you when you look good, and if we don’t, you get all bent out of shape.”

  “I’m just saying, what if that was your daughter walking down the street?” she said abruptly and clamped her mouth shut before she could totally lose her shit all over him.

  “But I don’t have a daughter,” Bill said as though that made it all okay.

  Effie let out a long, slow breath. “Right.”

  Bill took a step closer to her but stopped and put his hands up when she bristled. “Right, okay. So what the hell is all this about?”

  “If you ask me if I’m on my period, I swear to God I will punch you in the junk.”

  Bill laughed. “Uh-huh. See? Totally okay for a chick to threaten violence, but not a dude. Yep. That’s equality, all right.”

  “Thanks for letting me suck your dick. And for dinner.” She lifted her chin and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll get out of here.”

  “Fine. Whatever. You’ll do what you want to do. You always do.”

  Effie frowned. “So do you. Don’t act like you don’t.”

  “Look, let’s not fight. Okay? I feel like shit enough as it is. I wanted you to come over because I...wanted to see you,” Bill said with a brief hesitation. “Not so we could circle each other like fucking feral cats. I wanted to see you.”

  “I’m here,” Effie said.

  After a second, Bill reached for her. This time, she let him pull her closer. Her head fit neatly under his chin. Against his broad chest, she could rest her cheek and feel the thumping of his heart. She could put her arms around him and let him hold her. She could, if she wanted to, pretend she loved him.

  But she didn’t.

  She let him hold her anyway. Bill had been there when she needed him more than once. She could be there for him now.

  With her face still pressed to his bare skin, she finally asked him the question that had been burning in her mind since she’d first heard it was possible, no matter how many times she’d tried to rationalize it away. “Is it true?”

  “Is what true?” Bill asked and pushed her away to look into her face. Then he looked guilty. “It’s really unlikely he’ll get out, Effie. You know that.”

  “You did hear! And you didn’t tell me?” Effie backed up and cupped her elbows, forcing herself not to make fists or to pace. “Dammit, Bill. You told me you’d always tell me if you heard anything about him.”

  “It’s one of those things. He’s up for parole, he’s ancient, he has people making appeals for him.” Bill took his plate to the sink.

  Effie frowned. “But...he won’t get out.”

  “I don’t think so, no.” Bill looked over his shoulder at her. “It’s just something that comes up every so often. It has before, and it’s been okay. It will be all right this time, too.”

  When she didn’t say anything, he wiped his hands on the dish towel and came over to her. His big hands took her gently by the shoulders. He looked into her eyes.

  “If I hear anything otherwise, I’ll let you know. Otherwise, it’s all just rumors. Soccer moms getting bent out of shape so they have something to gossip about.”

  “You’re not responsible for protecting me, you know,” she told him.

  Bill shrugged. “I’m responsible for protecting everyone. It’s my job.”

  He was good at it. Being a cop. Neanderthal attitude aside, Bill cared very much about keeping the world safe.

  “You don’t have to worry about him. I promise,” Bill said.

  How could she explain that she wasn’t worried? Not in the way anyone would expect. She wasn’t thirteen anymore, and Stan Andrews was an old man. Even if Daddy got out of prison, he wouldn’t come for her. She was too old now, to be his little girl.

  “He deserves to rot and die in there, that’s all,” she said. “For what he did to us.”

  “Right. The two of you. You know your boyfriend got picked up for drunk and disorderly, right? He got in a fight over at the Shamrock. Punched a wall, and also Dickie Alonzo. He was with Sheila Monroe. Apparently, he punched Dickie for impugning Sheila’s honor.” Bill paused as though to gauge Effie’s reaction to that, but she had none.

  Sheila Monroe was both the town drunk and the town pump and had been forever. She had no honor. But Heath did. What Heath did with her was complicated and none of Effie’s business. Also, she’d long ago stopped correcting Bill when he referred to Heath as her boyfriend. She was never sure if Bill knew she and Heath still fucked on occasion. She’d never actually admitted to Bill that she’d ever fucked Heath at all.

  “I didn’t. But you just couldn’t wait to tell me. Could you?”

  “I thought you’d like to know, that’s all. If he’s not careful,” Bill said, “he’s going to end up in prison right alongside his Daddy.”

  For a moment, all she could see or hear was the blank, wretched noise of her own beating heart. She was aware of the chair clattering to the floor behind her as she whirled. Of the rattle of plates and silverware on the table. Then Bill had her in his arms, gripping her tight with his good arm while she struggled.

  “Don’t touch me,” Effie said.

  Bill let her go. “I’m sorry. It’s the pain meds. They make me say dumb shit.”

  “You are a dumb shit,” Effie said. “Jesus, Bill.”

  Bill didn’t look sorry. He looked as if he scored a point off her in some game only he’d known he was playing. Effie headed for the front door.

  “You don’t have to worry about that guy, Effie, I told you that!” Bill called after her.

  Effie flipped him the finger and slammed the door behind her.

  chapter seventeen

  Mitchell had lost his phone, and it had taken him a while to get a new one set up. Warily, Effie had accepted this excuse because, besides seeing a small green circle next to his name on a dating site when they’d never even skated close to talking about exclusivity, she had no reason to think he was jerking her around. Because if she wasn’t going to take a chance and trust someone, why the hell should she bother trying at all?

  He really was a nice guy. Normal. He did wear khaki pants and a polo shirt and his hair was rumpled, but adorably so. He had rimless glasses that somehow made him cuter than he ought to be. A nice, normal man without a dark past who wrote computer programs for a living and didn’t seem bothered that she listened more than she spoke.

  She was going to try this, Effie thought firmly as she and Mitchell exited the movie theater. She was going to figure out this dating thing, once and for all, and she was going to do what she’d told Heath she was doing. Moving forward with her life.

  “I thought the mo