The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,30

at the television. Bottom of the eighth inning. How long had he been sleeping? Twenty minutes? Longer? Since the Sox were up in the sixth.

“Don’t be,” Ash answered. “You’ve been working twelve-hour days all week.”

Eddie rolled his head, neck stiff. “No kidding.” He checked his watch. Almost four. “You working tonight?”

“Yeah. Told Marty I’d come in around five-thirty. He hired another new girl, asked me to train her.” She paused. “Can I ask you something?”

Eddie winced. He hoped whatever question Ash had worked up during his nap wasn’t too probing or painful. Just thinking about opening the memory of Cal again, a rusty tin can with sharp, bloody edges, stole his breath. That’s what he got for falling asleep. She’d figure out what had happened sooner or later. If he didn’t tell her himself, she’d guess from the nightmares.

But to his relief, Ash’s question didn’t have anything to do with that. “What’s the story with that woman from the shop?”

Eddie’s cheeks heated up. “Cassandra?”

“The redhead who stopped in the other day, yeah.”

He cocked his head, not wanting to answer right away. “Why? You jealous?”

“Please.” She narrowed her eyes. “So what’s the deal?”

“We dated a while back.”

“So I gathered.”

“And then we broke up.”

“Does she know that?”

“She should. She’s the reason it happened.”

* * *

Eddie had let himself in the back door of her apartment, the same way he always had when he stopped by after work. This time, though, Cass wasn’t waiting for him. She wasn’t standing in the kitchen, frying pork chops in her black bra and his red plaid boxer shorts. She wasn’t sitting in the living room, a glass of wine in one hand for her and a cold beer in the other for him. A strange stillness filled the apartment for a fraction of a second. Then he noticed the sounds.

They came from the bedroom, low laughter and the swish of fabric on fabric. Eddie looked at the clock above the sink, the dishtowels below it, the cutting board, unwashed, lying on the counter. The laughter changed to soft moans, and a humming grew in his ears. He flipped on the hall switch, and too-bright light chased shadows from the pictures Cass had hung on the walls from last summer’s vacation. He’d walked down the hall and stopped in the open bedroom doorway. A man he didn’t know lay in bed on top of his girlfriend. Cass took one look at Eddie and yanked up the sheet.

She’d yelled at him as if it were his fault he’d walked in on them. He wondered how long it had been going on, and how stupid and blind he’d been not to see it sooner. She’d tried calling him at work and later at his parents’, but he wouldn’t talk to her. He returned to the apartment only once, to get a few lousy things he thought probably belonged to him, and that was it.

He hoped he never saw the bitch again.

* * *

Ash raised her eyebrows as Eddie finished the story. “Rough. Sorry.”

“Me too. Doesn’t matter.”

“You sure about that? Looks like she’s interested in a second chance.”

He shifted on the couch. One bare ankle brushed Ash’s, and he drew it back before his mind went in directions it shouldn’t. “Damn sure. Cass might want to get back together, but I’m done with her.”

Don’t forget who was there for you that night. Don’t forget who held your hand when the doctors told you there was nothing else they could do.

Eddie hoped Ash wasn’t thinking of what Cass had said the other day. He couldn’t explain. He couldn’t tell her, that yeah, Cass had come to the hospital the night of the accident. She’d waited for him to wake up, and then she’d held his hand when the doctor came in and told them about his brother. She’d wiped away his tears when he couldn’t find the strength to do it himself. She’d let him sleep at her place for days at a time, pulling the blankets over him when he kicked them off in nightmares so violent he’d wake up shivering. But so what? She’d cheated on him, too, less than six months later, so what did that say about her devotion?

Ash was asking him something. Eddie fought back the fog of anger and tried to focus. “Sorry. What?”

“I just wondered if you’ve ever had a serious girlfriend. In your life?”

“Depends on how you define serious. “Not really. Cass was close for a while, but…” He didn’t know how to