I wanted to be with her. I needed to be with my friend but I wasn’t sure I could risk going to her. She was safe. I would call her when she’d had a chance to calm down and when I got to where I was going. I still felt like a rotten friend about it. It was my fault she was in this mess anyway. Dammit. When would my life get back to normal?
We stopped for a bite to eat about halfway there, some BBQ restaurant that Bill knew. We mostly ate in silence, at least at first. I didn’t feel like talking. I was just too upset. I needed some time and some space to process all this.
“So, you own this other place?” I asked.
“Yeah. I’ve got a few properties around. This is one of my favorites actually.”
“Where do you get money for all that?”
“That’s a little rude,” Bill teased me. “But I do own a few real estate investments, and I have some money saved from work I did when I was younger. Plus, I do make a good living with my current projects.”
“I’m impressed,” I said. “Here I thought I had to become a lawyer or get some swanky job like that to actually get somewhere in life.”
Bill laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, that’s the punch they want you to swallow, but it’s not going to get you anywhere. That’s what they want. They want employees, they want grunts who will work and keep their mouths shut. They don’t want competition.”
“I see. So, what are we going to do at this place?”
“Well, we are going to rest and then do some digging to find out what other information we can get on these guys. They are leaving trails of themselves all over the place. But let’s not focus on them right now. Let’s just try to relax and think of this as a vacation.”
“A what?”
He smiled. “A vacation. We could both use one.”
I laughed. “You’re serious? You think this should be a fun vacation.”
“Sure. Why not? And while we are at it we might do a little work into figuring out who these guys are and where they are. We have already identified one guy. It’s only a matter of time before we find him.”
“I wish I could be as confident about this as you are, but I’m just not. I feel really insecure about it all.”
He nodded. “As well you should. But that isn’t going to help anything. Not really.”
“You don’t think so?”
He stared at me. I was trying to get him to show some emotion but he was showing nothing so far. He was so strong that way.
“How about you tell me more about yourself,” Bill said.
“Like what?”
“What made you really want to be a lawyer? Just money and power? Do you want power? Do you want to go into politics? Is all this in your family?”
I laughed. “Wow, you are really full of the questions. Ok. I’ll play along with it.”
“Great,” he said. He leaned forward eagerly like some little boy waiting for something great to happen.
I couldn’t stop laughing. “Ok, well. No, it isn’t in my family. I’ve always wanted to go into the legal profession. At first it was for more noble causes of wanting to help people, so I wanted to go into the criminal law field. Then I ventured out into corporate law, tax law, et cetera and it was interesting and it was financially lucrative. And yes, I would like to enter politics one day. Why do you ask?”
“I’m just curious. I think you’d be a great one. You have guts. It took a lot of guts today to stand there in front of some psycho holding a gun.”
“Well, I didn’t feel I had much choice. And I was shaking in my boots. But I would do it again if I had to.”
“That’s the guts I’m talking about. But hopefully you won’t have to worry about that again.”
“Yeah, hopefully.” I let silence fill the air a few moments and then I decided to go for it. I had to get some things off my chest. “I was so glad you were there today. I knew you had my back, but when it counted you sprang into action to protect me. That means something. Thank you.”
“Of course.”
“Well, I think this proves to me that you actually love me as much as I love you.”
He was stunned silent for a moment. I’d actually admitted the “L” word to him. I was stunned myself that I’d actually said that. Wow. Here we go. This was going to be different. I held my breath and waited for his response.
“I do love you,” he said. “But that’s dangerous for me.”
“Why?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Well, share them with me. This is something we are in together and we can actually work through. That’s what couples do.”