wasn’t an emotion I was aware I’d been programmed with, being that I’d never felt it before.
ONE
Fourteen months later
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Braelyn Bishop
“How long have you been in the area?”
The question came from the handsome, if a bit plain, man sitting across from me, and now that I thought about it, it was possible this was the second time he’d asked me that tonight. Maybe the third.
Question was: did he not believe me? Or did he just not listen?
Either way, I offered a smile, said (again), “All my life.”
Matthew “my friends call me Matty” Sandusky, my date for the evening, had been interrogating me with mundane and unimaginative questions ever since we sat down for dinner at one of the most popular restaurants in Chicago. And while the food was exquisite at this particular establishment, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it for a first date.
If Matty— Nope, can’t do it. He’s a grown man, for heaven’s sake.
If Matt had known anything about me at all, he would’ve known I wasn’t fond of pretentious, and this place had left pretentious a few rungs down on the ladder. This was one of those linen-and-candlelight venues, the kind you selected when you had something important to celebrate like a graduation or an engagement or most definitely an anniversary. Not a first date. Not with me, anyway.
But the wine was good, and Matt was paying, so who was I to complain?
“Well, you should consider yourself lucky,” Matt said kindly before taking a sip of his wine.
Ha! Lucky? That would be the last word I’d use when describing myself.
“Well, I do love it here,” I admitted. Just trying to play my part.
It wasn’t a lie. I couldn’t imagine myself living anywhere else, especially since I was born and raised in Chi-town.
Granted, there was no record of that. Not for Braelyn Bishop, anyway. That name belonged to the identity I’d taken when I was nine, back when my brother decided it was time we escaped our family’s sadistic clutches.
Not that I would share that with Matt. Or anyone else, for that matter.
When Ransom chose to hide us in plain sight, changing our names so that we could remain within the same city as the parents we were desperate to evade, I hadn’t asked questions. Not because I was too young to know what was going on, because that certainly hadn’t been the case. Having the parents I had, I’d been forced to grow up early. Rather, I hadn’t needed to question Ransom’s reasons. I trusted my brother with my life. Even to this day, he was the only person I truly trusted.
“Where’re you from?” I inquired in an effort to be polite.
“From here, of course.”
Of course. I smiled because it was obvious he expected it.
Having met Matt just a few days ago at the coffee shop near my apartment, I knew nothing about him aside from the fact he favored long sleeves, odd ties, and cold brew, plus a few tidbits I’d picked up tonight—only child, asshole father, graduated with honors. And while he seemed more than willing to divulge more, I couldn’t seem to get out of my own head long enough to enjoy the food, much less the conversation. I was still hung up on the fact I’d encountered him every morning this week at roughly eight, which, until I’d seen him three days in a row, I hadn’t realized had become my routine. One I would be discontinuing immediately, because if I’d learned nothing else in my life, I knew that routines were what could get you killed. A lesson my brother had browbeat into me since I was nine years old.
“I left for a bit,” he said, continuing to carry the conversation. “Took a couple of jobs in DC, but, like everyone who leaves here, I got back as soon as I could.”
I don’t think anyone had ever said that about Illinois, but hey, if Matt believed it, who was I to argue?
He laughed at his words, as though I was supposed to find them funny, so I plastered on a smile, asked, “What brought you back?”
“Unfinished business.” Matt waved me off, chuckling once more. “It’s not interesting, I assure you.”
My smile fell away as the hair on the back of my neck rose in warning. The way he said it wasn’t what concerned me. It was the words themselves. Unfinished business. When people used that phrase, it rocketed up my fear. After all, I considered myself someone’s unfinished business,