7– Complicated Ties

MARYJANE

“I’ll get you to your door,” he says.

“No, really, it’s ok.”

Gustavo grabs my hand and walks me closer the apartment, and I scream internally when Rina waves at me. I don’t want my new friend to think I hang around with criminals. Because looking at Gustavo, you can tell he’s a bad guy.

Tattoos run up his muscled biceps, and I’m almost positive some are Mafia related. His stature is enough to scare people off, and for the few who aren’t, the moody look he gives will do the trick.

I’m a good girl. I shouldn’t be within sneezing distance of someone like Gustavo.

“Is that your friend?” he asks as I wave back at Rina.

“Yes.”

“Hm.” He stops as we’re in her view, but not close enough to talk.

“It’d be a shame if I embarrassed you.”

“Huh?”

Gustavo wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me into him. He lightly kisses the crook of my neck and gives it his signature nibble.

I gasp from embarrassment and pleasure. “What are you—?”

He gives me an evil grin as he pulls away. “I had to. Your first mark has almost faded.”

I don’t think I’ve ever been so red in my life. “I, I can’t believe you!”

“Later, Sweetheart.”

He smirks at me as he walks off. I glare at his back, angry that he got me again, and even angrier that I liked it. Gustavo needs to stop this.

I’m still bright red as I approach Rina.

“Is that your boyfriend?”

She asks from the second floor and I cringe internally. We only have ten units here, so anyone that’s home heard her say it. I’m about to say no, but I realize it’ll make me look easy. “It’s…complicated.”

It’s not a lie. Whoever Gustavo is, our relationship is extremely complicated. When I was done stitching him up and dropping him off it should have been the end. But somehow, he works half a mile from me, and still wants to talk to me. Even though he works near me—is criminal activity work?—he’s not obligated to get to know me. Maybe he thinks I’ll tell the cops. I won’t, though.

It would be so much easier if he ignored me.

“You guys are cute together,” she says.

We are not cute together. We shouldn’t even be in the same vicinity of each other.

“Thanks,” I lie.

“Here.” She passes me a flyer through the bars of the second-floor walkway. I’m 5’9, so it’s not hard for me to reach it as she’s crouched down. “Will you go to this with me?”

The flyer is for a poetry group. I want to hang out with Rina, but I don’t think a poetry group is for me. I’ve never been able to speak in front of groups of people. If we go, I’ll have to perform a poorly written poem I wrote. And I mean it when I say poorly written. There’s a reason I majored in accounting.

Words have never been my thing. Written or spoken, I don’t like them. Conveying feelings to another person is too hard, and I avoid it at all cost.

“I’m just…not sure if I’ll be good at it,” I say.

“Me either. It’ll be nice to try something new, though.”

Rina is doing puppy dog face. I can’t say no. “Ok.”

“Yes! I can’t wait.”

“Me too,” I lie.

Rina starts to chatter about the logistics, and I nod half-heartedly. What have I gotten myself into?

We say goodbye and I walk into my apartment. “Hi Slippers.”

He heard me talking to Rina and is sitting by the door. By six o’clock he’s already looking grumpy and ready for food.

“I know, I know.” I pet his white fur and walk to the kitchen.

My phone interrupts me as I go to feed him. I glance at the caller ID and see it’s my dad. Ugh. I contemplate not answering it, but give in.

“Hi, Daddy,” I say.

“Maryjane. How’s my little girl?”

I think of the massive amount of work from the acquisition, Gustavo, and the poetry group I have to go to. “Fine.”

It’s not like he cares. Mom did, but she’s gone now.

“How’s work?”

I always regret asking. He launches into a ten-minute spiel about revenue increases and financial ratios. He’ll drone on even longer when it’s me, because he knows that I know exactly what he’s talking about. I know, but I don’t care.

“That’s great,” I say. “Any particular reason for your call?”

“There has to be a reason for me to call my little girl?”

There almost always is.

“No,” I say.

“Well, I’ve been doing some thinking. You should come back to the Bay Area and work in the finance department. I know we had a disagreement about your future with Diego Medical Supplies, but this will be fine, right? You love accounting.”

“I like working at Flux.”

“You can manage the department.”

My throat tightens. I don’t want to get a management position because of my father. It’s something I want to achieve myself. I’d rather spend my life as a Senior Accounts Payable Specialist than take something I didn’t earn. thought he got the picture that I’m not going to work at his company. I made it quite clear when he called me during med school. I was in the middle of inserting an IV when I walked out, drove to his office, threw my lab coat on the table and told him I quit.

It’s not that I wasn’t cut out for med school. I’m more than capable of passing the curriculum. I just hated the material, and my dream was to be an accountant. There’s more drama than just our disagreements about my chosen career path, but that’s what drove it home for me.

He hasn’t bothered me for months about this.

“Sorry, no.” I muster. It’s hard to defy him, but this is one thing I can’t budge on.

I hear him exhale over the phone. “I knew you’d say that.”

I’m not sure why he asked, then.

“Well, good to know,” he says. “Love you, Maryjane. Talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

I hang up the phone right as Slippers coughs up a furball. Even he’s nauseated at the thought of working for my father.