Code of Silence - 2. Chapter 2

A door banging shut startled me from my sleep. I wiped a spot of drool from the corner of my mouth and hurriedly covered the papers on my desk as I heard the approaching footsteps.

“There you are,” Nick said smiling at me as he took in my disheveled appearance. “New client?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled out hoping to God he wouldn’t realize what I was so desperately trying to cover with my arms.

“Well don’t work too hard, I’m gonna hop in the shower and then we can go.”

“Go?” I asked confused. Nick stared at me pointedly.

“My sister’s baby shower, you already forgot?”

“Oh, right…no, of course I remembered,” I lied. Nick shook his head.

“Right.”

After I heard the bathroom door shut, I quickly collected the scattered papers. They were copies of everything I could find in Nick’s office pertaining to James’ case. As I put them away in my desk drawer, I noticed James’ mugshot from his prison file. I stared at it for a while. No way was I letting that fucker get his ass back in prison.

The documents I was studying for hours before falling asleep didn’t tell me a lot. Just a bunch of surveillance and past information. I skimmed through them again, once more making sure my name didn’t pop up anywhere, and thankfully it didn’t. And there was no reason it should, James was pretty good at keeping me at an arm’s length from anything they were involved in. And after I left the town, we didn’t keep in touch, he never even tried to call. I shook my head trying to rid myself of the painful memories, but they kept coming in waves. Just when everything was starting to work out in my life, the past had to come back to remind me that I was still in his grip.

Nick knew the basics about my past. How I went to Hyde Park High School but moved when my dad passed away (or so I told him), what college I went to, what my childhood looked like, but he had no idea of the extent that I was involved with these “criminals” he was now pursuing. He had no idea I met a certain James Coleman on my way to gym class in 6th grade, and couldn’t get him off my mind, even though everyone told me he was trouble. He had no idea I was involved in drugs, and fights, and all the tears that I poured for this motherfucker. He had no idea the kind of pain it took to make the decision to leave James and my town behind. So Nick may have thought that he knew me, but if somebody isn’t aware of a huge chunk of you, how well could they really know you?

The thoughts painfully cluttered my brain as I once again tried to pick up the pieces of my life and put them back together. But if I was to go any further with the plan to save James from himself then I had to act normal. So, I got up and started getting ready for Nick’s sisters baby shower.

“Aww how cute!” Lisa exclaimed as she opened yet another pink present. I sat on the arm of the living room couch sipping on a beer and pretending to be as amazed by all the baby gifts as every other person in the room. Nick sat patiently next to me, looking as if he was actually enjoying all of it. I watched him carefully, trying to figure out what kind of father he would make. He would probably be strict, would sit with his kid and help them do homework. Definitely an All-American dad, he would take him/her to baseball games, throw the ball together and maybe even go to church. Responsible, he wouldn’t miss a school play, or a dance recital. And then I thought of me in that picture, twenty years later, raising a kid or two, married, doing everything by the book, becoming just somebody’s partner, and the image scared the crap out of me.

“Excuse me,” I mumbled and made my way to the bathroom. As I closed the door behind me, I was hit with a wave of emotions. “Fuck you James,” I mumbled to myself. “Fuck you for ever making me want something other than a normal life. Fuck you for screwing me up, fuck you for making me think there was more to life than this. Fuck you for making me like the thrill of the unknown and the excitement of the unexpected. Fuck you for making me love your demented and warped way of thinking. Fuuuckk,” I turned on the water before I slid down the wall sobbing, praying nobody would hear me.

“Ollie?” I heard Nick’s voice outside of the bathroom a few minutes later.

“I’m coming,” I replied softly. I splashed some water on my face, hoping it would make my cry fest go unnoticed. Thankfully Nick didn’t seem to realize anything was off when I reentered the living room.

“Sorry babe, I just got a call from work,” he said, apologetically.

“Oh,” I replied.

“Yeah, remember that case I told you about? It’s all going down tonight. So I gotta be there for the big finish. If all goes well, I’ll be home for dinner though,” he smiled and kissed me on the cheek, leaving me with a sick feeling in my stomach.

I spent the next hour pacing back and forth, biting my nails, and nervously checking me cellphone every few minutes. I desperately wanted to text James, but I knew better than to, just in case the FBI was monitoring his cell. Finally, when I was able to leave Lisa’s house I drove home like a maniac, wondering if Nick had already returned. When I found the apartment empty my anxiety shot through the roof. I turned on the TV and skipped through every news channel waiting for something, anything. But the stations were all silent. No bank robberies, no illegal activities except for some small stuff. I sat dejected, feeling sicker with every minute. Why did I even care what happened to the fucker? Every minute turned into an hour, and when I thought I was surely going to have a heart attack, the key turned in the lock and Nick walked through the door. I carefully studied his face, trying to gauge his mood.

“Hey,” I said softly.

“Hey,” he said and right away I know something did not go right.

“What happened?” I asked. He breathed out heavily, then slowly walked up to the couch and sat next to me. He shook his head.

“The assholes got away,” he said, clenching his teeth.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah, I mean this shit is unbelievable. We had this shit planned to the T. I mean every single aspect, and still, they were a step ahead of us. They completely changed the plan. It’s like they knew we were onto them or something. It was un-fucking-believable.”

Inside, I breathed a sigh of relief, even though I was furious that after what I told him, James still decided to go through with his fucking crazy criminal activity.

“That is crazy,” I replied, not really knowing what to say.

“You know what, it really is. I mean more than half of these guys are close to retarded. I mean fucking dumb inbred townies. How the fuck have they been avoiding getting caught all this time? We have the technology, we have the manpower, what the fuck do they have?”

I swallowed hard and bit my tongue, annoyed that somehow Nick didn’t think calling Hyde Park people ‘retarded’ wouldn’t be an insult to me.

“I mean, I’m serious. One is a fat and lazy ass loser, one still lives with his mom, one is an alcoholic, and the worst one is a product of an HIV ridden junkie and her drug dealer,” he went on shaking his head, “and these are the guys that have been fucking with us for years? How?” He mused out loud while I tried with every fiber of my being not to slap the shit out of his upstanding citizen ass.

I got up, “Hey babe, sorry to leave you like this, but I totally forgot I was meeting Jenna tonight. I should be back in a few, okay?” I said, lying so that I could get out of the house as soon as possible. He looked puzzled and disappointed, but just nodded his head in defeat. I walked out the door and got into my car. I angrily stepped on the gas pedal as tears streamed down my face. Only when I parked in front of the triple-decker did I realize where I was going. “Stupid boy,” I repeated to myself, as I got out of the car. I opened the door and headed upstairs to James’ room. My body running on a current of fury and anger and a million other emotions. By the time I was at his door I basically ripped it open. He turned around surprised, as he took in my disheveled appearance.

“You asshole,” I spat out. He raised an eyebrow, not many people got away with talking to him like that. He was still in his navy uniform, clearly just having walked through the door himself. I stood there, my heart beating wildly, not knowing why I really came or what else to say. Finally, he started unbuttoning the shirt of his uniform, then took it off. He threw it on the bed and walked over to me, his body covered with a thin layer of sweat shining off his tattoos, his muscles flexing as he walked. When he was inches away from me he reached for the door and closed it behind me, then turned me around to face it. For some unknown reason I just stood there, letting him manhandle me like a rag doll. My breath became even more uneven and wild as I felt his body behind me, hovering like a dangerous predator right before taking a bite out of his pray. I heard him mess with his belt buckle followed by the tell-tale sound of his zipper, and then the sound of him spitting. He then quickly pushed down my pants and underwear in one motion, and in one swift movement drove himself right into me.

I exclaimed in pain and heard him take in a sharp breath as our bodies reconnected after years of absence. My hands firmly on the door trying to steady myself, surprised by the sudden and quick intrusion. He leaned into my ear, “This why you came here?” as he continued his unrelenting movement. I moaned but refused to answer. I heard him chuckle, “Always were stubborn.” I felt one of his hands caress my chest underneath my shirt, and then I felt the rough fingers of his other hand directly on my cock. I moaned like crazy as his movement quickened.

“You...are...such...an...asshole,” I said in between moans and harsh breaths, but he only quickened his pace, driving me completely out of my mind.

“You are a fucking bitch,” he retorted, “that’s why I can’t even look at you when I fuck you.” I moaned at his statement with a mixture of pleasure and pain. Pleasure because it was hot when James talked dirty. Pain because I knew he was partly telling the truth. He couldn’t look at me because I had hurt him more than anyone in his life when I decided to leave him, and he would hold it against me forever. His pace quickened even more and his hand movements became erratic. My heart beat wildly and I felt myself just at the edge of orgasm when he came deep inside of me. He retracted his hands right away, seconds away from my orgasm, and I exclaimed in protest, but he quickly pulled out of me and took a few steps back, leaving an obvious distance between us. I stood there, confused, disheveled, and yearning for his touch. He quickly pulled up his pants, without even looking at me.

“Get out,” he said. I just stared at him in disbelief. Suddenly, I heard a knock on the door followed by a male voice.

“Laundry time fucker,” he exclaimed. Laundry being the keyword for washing their dirty money. I pulled my underwear and pants back up, as I heard the steps retreat in the distance.

“Strip club time?” I asked James, sexually frustrated and annoyed.

“None of ya business time,” he replied going to his closet and fishing out a grey t-shirt.

“I saved you from going to jail tonight, and you’re really gonna treat me like a hooker?” He looked at me, annoyance written all over his face.

“Like a hooker? I treat hookers a hundred times better,” he replied, fakely offended. I shook my head in disbelief, I must be a sadomasochist to put up with this bullshit, I thought.

“You can’t be mad at me forever James, I did what I had to do,” I replied, finally getting his attention.

“Really? You had to? I’m sorry, was there a gun to your head I didn’t know about? Did someone force ya? Cause what I remember is you asking me to snitch on my friends, and then you leaving me when I got locked up,” he said, driving the stake through my heart. Finally, all the culminating emotions of the day came out as the tears poured down my face.

“I asked you to tell the truth, so that you wouldn’t have to spend years in prison over some bullshit sense of loyalty to the people that got you in that fucking predicament in the first place. I asked you to tell the truth so that you and I could have some type of future. But no, your stupid friends always had to come first. Then you told me you never wanted to see my face again, and that I would probably cheat on you while you were locked up anyway. And now you’re mad that I didn’t wait around for years because of the dumb choices you made!” I replied and walked out of the room feeling crushed. I got into my car and drove for 10 minutes before pulling over and finally letting myself sob like a crazy person. I let all my emotions come out, all the anger. I cried until there were no more tears left, and then I cried some more. Finally, I calmed myself down and drove back to my place, texting Nick that I was too tired to make it to his. I changed into my sweats and lifelessly laid on my bed for an hour trying to figure out how I was going to move forward with my life, when I heard a knock on the door.

“Ollie, open up,” I heard Nick’s voice. I got up, freaking out that somehow, he had found out where I was. I opened the door and he barged in looking around the apartment.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, confused.

“I think you might be in danger, I’m going to station an officer outside your door,” he replied.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“Remember the case I was dealing with today? Well, I’ve had a tracking device on those guys’ cars, and my men just called me and said that one of their cars was parked outside your apartment for twenty minutes. So I raced over here, but right as I pulled up he saw me and drove away. He knows we’re dating and he’s trying to send me a massage,” Nick said, adding, “I’m so sorry about all this.” I looked at him speechless, not understanding why for some reason I felt happy to know that James Coleman was clearly thinking about me too.