I open my mouth to tell him this but a movement by the house catches my eye.
I crane my neck past him to see the front door opening and April stepping out, walking toward the station wagon in the driveway. Her dark hair is hanging in her face, she’s wearing the same jeans and cardigan I saw her in yesterday, dirty Converse on her feet.
“There she is,” I say, and before I know it, I’m getting out of the van and storming across the street toward her. I hope the Swede has enough presence of mind to stay in the car while I deal with this.
“April,” I bark and in seconds I know I’m not taking my dad’s role of quiet disappointment, but my mom’s volcanic one.
She jerks back in surprise, stopping in her tracks by broken beer bottles. “What are you doing here?” she says, and I watch as her eyes go from shocked to angry. Angry that I’ve intruded into this part of her life, angry that I have the nerve to act like her parent.
“You didn’t come home last night,” I tell her, doing my best to keep my voice steady, to keep my emotions in check.
Think like dad, think like dad.
“So?” she answers defiantly. Hands go to her hips, hair gets flipped over her shoulder.
This is not going to be easy.
“So we were worried first of all,” I tell her, “and second of all, what are you doing here? You know you can’t spend the night anywhere without telling me first, especially not here!”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t have let me come.”
“I know, no one in their right mind would have,” I tell her and reach out, grabbing her arm. “But now you’re coming back home with me.”
“Whatever,” she says, ripping herself out of my grasp and fixing the most bitter, damaging eyes on me, the kind that really tells me how much she hates me. “You can’t make me.”
The front door to the house opens and Tito steps outside, immediately walking toward me with enough posturing and bravado to make me think he’s going to fuck me up. “What the fuck is going on? Fucking, Maggie McPherson. You’re looking good.”
“Yeah hi, Tito, just claiming my fourteen-year-old sister here,” I tell him, reaching for her again.
“Fuck off,” April swears, immediately going behind the wall of Tito. “We’re going to the mall.”
“The mall?” I repeat. “The mall? There is no damn mall in this town.”
“There is in Bako,” Tito says, taking a step toward me. “She’d like some new clothes for school. Do you know how she gets bullied for wearing that shit you dress her in?”
“I don’t dress her!” What the fuck. I look at April. “Bullied?”
She shrugs. “I’m tired of wearing second-hand shit. Tito is going to buy me a whole new wardrobe.”
“Oh yeah, and what are you giving him in return?”
“Fuck you,” April says.
Oh, I am seconds away from saying “fuck you too” but I can’t, I can’t. I have to push through this, be the better person, the older person, the guardian, the parent. Fuck, even the wise older sister will do.
I jerk my head to the van. “Please, April. Now.”
“She’s not going,” Tito says putting his hand on my shoulder and pushing me until I have to take a step back. “You’re not her fucking mother.”
That shouldn’t sting but it does. It does enough that I forget to be afraid that he just fucking touched me.
“I’m her legal guardian,” I eke out the words, trying to hold back tears. “She’s coming with me.”
“Go home, Maggie,” April says but now her tone is quiet and unsure. She actually looks a little scared until she pushes her hair into her face and hides behind him again.
“Yeah go fucking home you little bitch,” Tito says, getting in my face. He reeks like pot, his eyes are bloodshot, his forehead pale and sweating. I don’t care if I have to call the cops, but I am not leaving my sister here with him. She can hate me for the rest of my life, but I’m not backing down.
“Are you okay, Maggie?” I hear a voice from behind me and my stomach tightens. I look over my shoulder to see the Swede striding over to us. And while the sight of his gloriously tall and commanding frame coming this way feels something like a knight in shining armor, I know this isn’t going to go well.
“What the fuck?” Tito snarls as he takes in the stranger. “Who the fuck is this?”
“A friend.” The Swede cocks his head, stopping right beside me, observing Tito like an animal at the zoo. “And who might you be?”
“Fuck off,” Tito says though I pick up slight hesitation in his voice. The Swede towers over him and though Tito is packed with muscle, I know, personally, the Swede is too.
“Not the best manners,” the Swede says, pretending to wipe spit off his face.
“Who is this?” hisses April as she looks him up and down.
“This is Mr. Sverige,” I tell them because, shit, in my panic I’ve forgotten his real name. “A friend of mine.”
Having him here now gives me the courage to step around Tito and reach for April again.
She shrinks back but I see the fear in her face again, like she’s acting out of her own control and now Tito is stepping to the side, his chest blocking my view, his meaty, dirty hand on my shoulder and shoving me back.
“She doesn’t want to—”
Before Tito can finish his sentence, the Swede is placing his hands on Tito’s shoulder and shoving him back. He shoves him back so hard that he stumbles and almost goes down on the ground.
“Fuck!” Tito yells, throwing his arms out, one of his arms colliding with April on her chest and knocking her over.
She yelps as she falls and I scamper over to her just as Tito lunges himself at the Swede.
“You fuck!” Tito roars, trying to tackle him, arms out, head first, but the Swede is quick and steps out of the way rather effortlessly. But instead of just avoiding contact, he then brings his elbow down on the back of Tito’s head and the guy goes down in a second, sprawled out on the gravel.
“Oh my god,” I say, and the Swede meets my eyes, breathing hard and looking somewhat ashamed. “Is he–?”
But my question is answered before I can finish my sentence.
Like the T-1000, Tito is suddenly up on his feet, coming to life again before my very eyes. The Swede barely has the time to turn around before Tito is throwing a punch, getting him in the corner of his jaw.
I yell something.
April yells something.
The Swede barely reacts except for the look of pure fire in his eyes.
With one hard, smooth swing he punches Tito square in the face, making him spin and tumble to the ground yet again. He lands with a groan, head in his hands, trying feebly to get to his feet and failing.
The Swede shakes his hand out, wincing, and then looks around with a wild look in his eyes. “We should go, yes?”
I stare down at Tito. He seems okay but…
“Tito,” April cries out pitifully, ready to fall to her knees by him like Broken Juliet over Thug Romeo but I grab her by the arm and yank her toward the van.
“He’ll be fine,” I tell her, my nails desperately digging into her cardigan.
“We need to go,” the Swede says again and I’m wondering why he looks so cagey. Maybe getting busted for fighting when you’re a foreigner means him getting deported, who knows. But I don’t want to stick around here either.
“I don’t want to go with you!” April yells at me, tears in her eyes, and for a second, I am struck with the deepest fear; what if she runs off? What if she physically won’t go? I’m only five-foot-four, she’s an inch shorter, I have more muscle, but she can fight like a wild, cornered animal. If she’s not scared of me, of my discipline, if she doesn’t care and hates me and is full of spite, how will I survive this? How will I survive the next four years?
But for some reason—praise the Lord—she relents. She lets me take her over to the van and I watch with my breath in my mouth as she climbs in the backseat, w
orried that at the last minute she’s going to bail.
She doesn’t. The door slides to a close with a punctuated click.
I let out a long, shaking breath and look up at the Swede who is standing right at my side.
“I am so sorry you had to see that,” I tell him, my voice small. “That you had to witness that. Do that.” I glance at his knuckles that are raw and bleeding. “Shit.”
He quickly glances at his hand and shrugs.
“There’s no cow on the ice,” he says with a warm smile. “It’s fine. I’m just glad I was here.”
“There’s no cow?” I repeat, dazzled by both that strange phrase and the way he came to my rescue, the way he’s looking at me now, like it was his honor.
His smile widens, and he lets out a laugh that makes my stomach fill with butterflies. “Yes. Sorry. It is a saying we have. Det är ingen ko på isen,” he says in Swedish, the language sounding so light and beautiful. “There’s no cow on the ice. It means don’t worry.”
“Because you would worry if there was a cow on the ice?”
“Well yes. Wouldn’t you?”
I laugh despite myself. “I guess I would.” I reach out and touch his hand, his warm, strong hand, and hold it, examining his knuckles. “You need to get fixed up.”
“Too bad there isn’t a nurse at the hotel,” he says in a low voice, still watching me intently. I’m not sure if it’s because of the adrenaline running through our bodies or the way we’re standing so close, but I swear his eyes seem to darken, like clouds coming over a summer sky. Nothing ominous, just mercurial, like an intensity is building.
I swallow. “I have to take April back home. You don’t mind coming along for the ride? Again?”
“Not at all. I have nowhere to be and you’re the only person I now know in this town. I think it would be rather lonely if I went back to my hotel room right now. Not to mention boring. There are no fistfights there.”
“No cows on the ice either,” I point out as I walk around the hood to the driver’s side.
“You’re picking up on Swedish already,” he says. “I’m rather proud.”
Now I’m grinning like an idiot and for a second, I forget all the horrible shit that just happened.
I’m reminded of it the minute I get back in the car.
April is crying in the backseat while simultaneously giving me the finger when I ask if she’s okay. Outside, Tito staggers to his feet and goes back inside his drug den. Then there’s the Swede buckling in beside me with his long legs and bleeding knuckles. I can’t believe he just fucking took that beast Tito down like that. I’m having a hard time processing all of this, it all happened so fast.
But rather than an uncomfortable silence all the way back to the house, the Swede fills the air by talking about his trip in America so far. How he started out in New York City and spent a few days there before buying a vintage mustang from a collector and driving across the Midwest, through the Rockies and all the way here before his car decided to bite the dust.
I hate to admit it, but I’m envious. Here’s a man who seems so self-assured, who is traveling by himself through America doing whatever he wants. Money doesn’t seem to be an issue. Time doesn’t seem to be an issue. I’ve never seen someone look so free.
I want that. I want that freedom to drop everything and just run away. Run away like a coward but at least I would feel the wind in my face and hope under my wings. At least for a little while I could live under the pretence that anything can happen until the guilt and shame and responsibility would drag me back home.
I hate that I feel that way. And then I hate myself for hating myself.
The cycle never breaks.
Before I know it, I’m pulling the van back up to the house and my heart feels waterlogged. April immediately jumps out and runs inside even before I’ve had a chance to cut the engine.
I sigh and look over at him with a weak smile before resting my head on the steering wheel. “Back again.”
“Are you okay?” he asks, one brow delicately raised.
Funny how he asks it, his tone suggesting we’ve been friends for many years. We’re not even friends. We don’t even know each other. I barely remember his real name. And yet there’s no denying this feeling.
It’s only because you’ve seen him naked, I remind myself. Don’t be fooled by your hormones.
But I know that’s not the only reason.
I give a slight nod. “I’ll be okay. I guess I better go inside and see how Pike is handling it. Who knows what version of our story she’s giving him.”
He studies me for a moment through those long lashes of his. Finally, he says, “You’re a lot stronger than you think you are.”
I flinch, taken aback. “What?”
“I just don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”
I can’t help but frown. “No offense, Mr. Sweden, but you don’t actually know me.”
He rubs his lips together and shrugs. “No. I suppose I don’t. And you don’t know me either.” He pauses. “Would you like to have dinner tonight?”
I blink, floored by the question. “Dinner?”
Dinner?
Is he asking me out for dinner?
Like…a date?
After all that, why the hell would he ask me out on a date? Shouldn’t I be taking him out for dinner after the way he came to my defense and knocked Tito out?
“You do eat dinner, don’t you?” he adds.
“Uh, usually.”
He continues to stare at me expectantly. “So? Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”
“But…why?” I blurt out.
“Because I like you,” he says. He says it so simply, so earnestly, that it could be the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me. “I find you very interesting. And it would be nice to not eat alone for once.”
“There isn’t anywhere nice to eat here,” I tell him, aware that my palms are starting to get sweaty.
“But I’m sure there’s somewhere good, yes?”
There are a few restaurants that I personally love, even if they aren’t anything fancy, but I haven’t gone out to eat in a year. Not since New York. “I’ll have to ask Pike,” I tell him. “He was stuck with the kids last night when I was…well, with you at the bar.”
“All right,” he says with a slow nod. “And if he says no to tonight, how about tomorrow night?”
God, he’s persistent too.
I’m in heaven.
A sweaty-palmed, heart-racing, lightheaded kind of heaven.
“Maggie?”
My name on his lips sounds sweeter than a love song.
I come back to earth.
Give him a smile. “I would love to.”
Chapter Six
Viktor
I’m living a lie.
I’m living a lie and for the first time in three weeks, I hate it.
Up until my damn dream car broke down outside of however you pronounce this town’s name, I was reveling in the freedom that being Johan Andersson brought me.
It was fucking unbelievable.
From the moment I stepped on that private jet leaving Arlanda airport in Stockholm, to landing in Germany where I took one last glimpse of my bodyguard and started my journey under a fake passport, I’ve been living a life I’d only dreamed of.
I was no longer shadowed by guards. I was no longer recognized. I was no longer of interest to anyone. I was no longer on my best behavior. I was no longer conscious of anything other than remembering my new name and my new job. Johan Andersson, heir to a fictional Swedish pharmaceutical fortune. I was free.
There was no better place to land than New York City, Manhattan, the city where dreams are made. It was everything I thought it would be. I was immediately enveloped by the bright lights and honking cabs and endless streets, swallowed by the pulse of millions of people. I was anonymous. I was free to be whoever I wanted.
The first day I slept in until past noon. No one was th
ere to wake me up. I had a new mobile just for this trip and no one was calling it wanting anything. There was no Freddie making sure I was on task. There were no butlers knocking at my door. I got up when I felt like it and even though I was groggy and jet-lagged, I went out onto the streets to a coffee shop and spent hours at the window just watching the world go by.
I’ve never been able to look at people that way. Unabashedly. Openly. Observing strangers like I’d never been around humanity before. No one noticed. No one minded. I was just another face in the crowd. I wasn’t a prince at all, I was just a human being.
It felt fucking good.
That’s pretty much all I did in New York. I wandered the streets, I watched people. I went to both rooftop bars full of the types of socialites I grew up around and I went to hipster bars where people pretended not to care but really did and I went to the dive bars where people sat in silence and drank until their minds were silent too. I sat on park benches, I watched dogs run around tiny dog parks, I saw tourists run from pigeons and drivers arguing about traffic.
I even tried to see Hamilton but lost patience trying to get tickets. Maybe next time.
After New York, I took the train to Chicago, something I’d always wanted to do after I saw the movie North by Northwest and under a false identity, I really felt like Roger Kaplan. Then in Chicago I spent a few more days walking, observing, eating and found myself the car of my dreams from a private seller on Craigslist. A Caspian Blue 1965 Mustang hardtop in near mint condition. I handed over the money in cash and hit the open road. Windows down. Wind in my smile.
Smile. I hadn’t smiled since Alex died and yet now I was. I was smiling and every time the guilt crept up on me, reminding me of what I lost, that I had no right to smile, I buried the feeling and pretended that Johan Andersson has never experienced loss. And I kept smiling.
With each day I spent driving across the States, the more into my new character I became. It was fairly easy. When you’re thrust from one type of life, a very bizarre, very specific life that you’ve only ever known, and into one the total opposite, it becomes easy to pretend to be somebody else.