If You Fall (Brimstone 1)

“Are we going to try to find an MCMAP class somewhere to take?” she asked as we walked down Fifth Avenue.

I shook my head. “It would just remind me of Beckett.”

“And how he had his nice big strong hands all over your body…” Leah said and wagged her eyebrows.

I nodded. “We had great sex,” I said softly. “Lots of great sex. I thought I could get used to it.”

“Talk to him. He left his number on your phone…”

I turned to her and made a face of disbelief. “You seriously think I should talk to him after what he did? Leah, he lied to me. He pretended not to know who I was when he knew all along.”

She shrugged. “He must have had a reason. His note said he was nothing but bad news for you. What could that possibly mean?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea.”

We walked in silence back towards the subway. “Call him,” she said again. “Give him a chance to tell you the truth. He seemed like a really great guy. Brandon thinks the world of him.”

I exhaled. There was a part of me that wanted to know what he meant by that remark about bad news. There was a part of me that wanted everything to be explained and for us to be together. I hated that part of me, because I deserved honestly and to be treated with respect.

I didn’t think I could trust Beckett because he didn’t come clean right away.

“I don’t know, Leah,” I said and stood beside the stairs to the subway. “Would you?”

She nodded vigorously. “I’m seeing Brandon again.”

“He didn’t lie to you.”

“Look, Miranda, it’s up to you, but if you like him, if you really liked him, give him the chance to explain. It would be a gas if we were to all get together and do things. Have dinner. Go dancing. Beckett seemed to like to dance…”

I sighed. As much as I had hoped we could get together once we returned to Manhattan, and for me to prepare dinner for him at his apartment like he suggested, I was afraid of what he’d tell me.

He said he was bad news… Maybe I should believe him.

I hugged Leah and we parted ways.

I started bartending the following weekend at my grandfather’s pub in Queens. To mark my first day back, I invited Leah to come and sit at the bar while I bartended. She said of course, and so I looked forward to seeing her and chatting on my first shift. It was great to be back, and I was so glad I was going to see Gramps again, after a year away.

When I arrived, the place was just as I remembered it from over a year earlier, when I was last there before going to Topsail Beach to marry Dan and live with Scott and Jeanne for a few weeks. The pub was comprised of one long narrow room with a huge wooden bar with polished brass fixtures. Behind the bar was a wall-length mirror and glass shelves on which were stacked glasses and bottles of liquor. A dozen stools sat under the lip of the bar. It was still pretty early, but the place was half-filled with patrons, most of the cops who came in from the local precincts.

Gramps was standing behind the bar, leaning over and speaking with two patrons, a white bar cloth in his hand. He was mid-sixties and looked like an aging Robert Duvall, with a bald head and eagle eyes. He glanced my way when I entered, and his face lit up when he recognized me.

“Mira!” he called out and put down the cloth, opening the bar hatch and coming out to give me a big hug. “I am so damn glad to see you, you can’t know. It’s been hell not having your smiling face here this past year.”

I hugged him back and we kissed each other a couple of times, laughing and smiling. I was truly happy to see him again.

“Gramps, I’m so sorry to have stayed away for so long, but I’m back now.”

Gramps led me to a table in the corner, out of the way of the other patrons, and we sat down. The cocktail waitress came right over. She was new so she didn’t know me, but Gramps must have told her about me coming.

“Is this your granddaughter?” she asked and gave me a smile. “Your grandfather has been talking about you non-stop since the summer when I started working.”

I glanced at Gramps and smiled. “I missed him and I missed this place.” I turned to her. “Are you working tonight?”

She nodded. She seemed pleasant enough and if Gramps liked her, she was all right in my books. He had a very good sense about people, having been a cop for his entire career.

Before my shift, we had dinner, the two of us eating heaping platters of corned beef and fries at a local deli down the street like we used to before I left for Topsail Beach a year earlier.

“So how are you, sweetheart? Ready to start your new life?”