A Mother's Love - Part Twenty Two
Oct. 24th, 2011 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigo_angelsIt was a warm night in the Angel Stadium and Face found that he was, rather bizarrely, actually enjoying himself. Murdock had agreed to the plan as soon as Face had suggested it, they often went to watch the Angels together and it had been a while; even the news that Adele was coming hadn’t put him off. Murdock had offered to drive so that Face could have a few beers and while he had originally agreed feeling that he might need the beer just to get through the night, he now felt just quietly buzzed, relaxed even. Happy.
He and Murdock had turned up at Adele’s hotel spot on time to find her waiting out on the sidewalk for them, jeans and sneakers, Gap zip-up with a t-shirt underneath, smiling and waving as the old Chevy appeared.
“Hi!” she said enthusiastically as she slid into the back of the car, “I am so looking forward to this! I haven’t been to a baseball game in years!” Face looked at her in surprise and she beamed at him. “Lovely to see you, darling,” then she turned to Murdock, “And you must be Murdock, I’m so pleased to finally meet you.”
She held out her hand and Murdock looked at her for a moment in silence before reaching out and taking it, “Nice to meet you too ma’am,” he said solemnly before turning back to the traffic and pulling out.
Adele settled herself into the back and put her seatbelt on as Murdock eased into the flow of traffic. They hadn’t gone far, not even a block, before he turned, feeling Face’s eyes heavy on the side of his head. “What?” he asked, seeing the confusion in Face’s expression.
“Ma’am?” Face mouthed silently at him as Murdock just shrugged and turned back to the road.
__________________________
They had good seats. Face knew a few people here and there, still liked to do a few favours – you never knew when you might need to call them in. They were level with first base, just low enough to be able to see all the detail, just high enough to have a good view of the whole field. Face was lounging back in his seat, feet on the empty one in front, listening to Murdock and Adele on either side of him as they continued their long discussion on the rules of the game that had started before they had even parked.
He had never in a million years thought that his best friend and his flaky mother would click the way they seemed to have done, he’d been worried on many, many fronts in the run up to this night. First of all, he’d worried for Murdock. The guy could be so damn naive sometimes, just like a child when it came down to it, and Face had absolutely no doubt at all in his mind that Adele could strip flesh off with that tongue of hers. He’d decided straight off that he wouldn’t be tolerating any snide comments aimed at Murdock tonight, just one and they were out of there.
But then he’d remembered that Murdock himself had so far been less than enamoured with Adele herself, and worried that the night would consist of lots of thinly veiled barbs, traps for Adele to walk into and digs that might just let her know how much all of this business had rattled him – something he was very keen to avoid.
And now it seemed that his concerns were unfounded on both counts, Murdock and Adele were acting as though they were long lost friends and he was actually, embarrassingly, starting to feel a little left out – he almost wished he’d brought Hannibal along, then at least it might have been funny to watch Adele flirting with him while her John was happily oblivious.
Finally, with a full bladder and an empty beer bottle, Face decided to stretch his legs. “Beer run,” he announced, hauling himself to his feet and interrupting Murdock’s explanation over the differences between a splitter and a forkball. “Another coke?” he asked their designated driver.
“Sure, Face,” Murdock smiled at him, “And pizza?”
Face rolled his eyes but nodded before turning his attention to Adele. He was still at that awkward stage of not really knowing what to call her; ‘Adele’ seemed too formal and awkward, while ‘Mother’ or even worse, ‘Mom’, was just wrong on every level. Instead, the usually uber-composed lady’s man suddenly found himself tongue tied and stuttering when faced with his mother’s smile, and only managed to croak out a rather brusque sounding, “And you?”
If Adele even noticed, she hid it well and gestured to her almost empty bottle, “Another Bud would be fine, Danny, thank you.”
Face nodded, “Pizza?”
“Love one,” she smiled, “get me something spicy.”
Face nodded and pushed past Murdock’s knees, making his way up to the tunnel.
Silence fell on the two people left behind and Adele sat forward, smiling at Murdock, “So,” she said pleasantly, “essentially they are both the same except a forkball doesn’t drop so fast, right?”
Murdock turned and looked at her, “He hates it when you call him Danny,” he said quietly.
For a second Adele looked more than taken aback, but then she turned away, looking back out onto the field and sipping her beer. “I know,” she admitted quietly, “I was just hoping he would get used to it.”
The silence was back for a moment until Murdock shifted over into Face’s seat so they were sat thigh to thigh. “Looking pretty good for a lady at death’s door, Adele,” he whispered quietly. Adele turned slowly and stared coolly at him. “I know you are lying to him, I just don’t know why.” Murdock continued, “And as soon as I get enough proof I will be telling him everything.”
That comment seemed to score a direct hit and he carefully held her furious stare. “You tell him that and you will ruin any chance we have of getting close,” she told him lethally. “Is that what you want for him?”
Murdock’s eyes widened, “You can say that to me when you are the one lying through your damn teeth to him?” Adele stared back. “He was happy until you turned up, what on earth do you want from him?”
Adele’s grey eyes, so similar in colour to Murdock’s, narrowed dangerously, “He’s my son, Murdock, I have a right to get to know him.”
“Your rights evaporated the day you left him behind,” Murdock spat. “And he might buy your ‘running from the mob’ crap, but I certainly don’t. Do you have any idea what you did to him when you walked out?”
“It was for the best,” Adele ground out, two spots of colour appearing high on her cheeks, “and I fail to see what any of this has to do with you!”
“I need to say this,” Murdock told her quietly, “because Face won’t. Your little ‘leukaemia’ scheme has knocked him for six, he won’t say anything to you in case he upsets you in your last few months, but I know he wants rid of you.” Adele visibly paled, “And I know that if he had the money he would gladly pay your ‘medical bills’ for the next twenty years, just as long as you promised just to fuck off and leave him the hell alone.”
Adele looked as she had been slapped, and for a second she stared at Murdock, her mouth open like a fish before she caught herself and glared at him in fury, “What do you mean, ‘If he had the money’?” she scoffed.
“If he had the money!” Murdock repeated, “I don’t know how much plainer I could be, if he could afford to pay you to leave, he would; anything just to get rid of you.”
“That’s not true...” Adele whispered.
“It is,” Murdock hissed back. “He will never, ever forgive you for what you did to him as a child.”
“What I did to him?” Murdock wondered if that was a hint of fear he saw in her eyes, “What do you mean?”
“Leaving him,” Murdock supplied. “To be brought up as just another kid in care; nobody’s ‘special person’, no one to fight in his corner.”
“It can’t have been as bad as he makes out...” Adele grumbled mutinously, eyes back on the game and Murdock just scoffed, secretly surprised that Face had opened up to her about his childhood.
“No?” he asked mildly, “Growing up without love, ending up on the streets, juvenile detention, letting people use him, the drugs and the drink? You think that’s not so bad?” Adele slowly turned to face him her face deathly white and Murdock shook his head disgustedly. “If it hadn’t been for one of the priests, the only one Face ever respected, running into him in a soup kitchen and persuading him to go back to the orphanage, helping him apply for the army, turning a blind eye to his age, Face would be locked up by now. Or dead. You still think that’s not too bad?” Adele just stared at him and Murdock turned away in distaste. “I will find out what your game is,” he promised her under his breath, “and I will get you away from Face. Just you think on that.”
The happy sounds of the crowd around them were in direct conflict with the heavy silence that hung over Murdock and Adele and Murdock began to wish he’d not been so blunt, wondered what Face would make of the obvious oppression when he got back. But then Adele moved, getting to her feet and pushing past him and he looked up in surprise hoping he wouldn’t be left to explain her absence to Face.
“Don’t worry,” she said sharply on seeing his expression, “I’m only going to the restroom, I’ll be back.”
__________________________
Hours later, Face was weaving his way unsteadily back to the table that he and Adele had occupied in the corner of the hotel’s terrace bar, carrying two more beers and two packets of nuts. He knew he was drunk, but it was a pleasant, chilled kind of drunk one that threatened only a mild headache in the morning and without the compulsion to dance on tables or sing far too loudly in the street on the way home. He smiled at Adele as he clinked the bottles down on the table and sat heavily in the wicker chair at her side, both of them staring at the huge turquoise rectangle of the illuminated outdoor pool.
“What time is Murdock picking you up?” Adele asked watching as Face wrestled with a packet of nuts.
Face glanced at his watch, “Another forty minutes,” he answered, just as the bag split, emptying the contents into the lap of his jeans. “Shit...” he muttered and started to pick them up, aware of Adele giggling at his misfortune. He had had a really good night. His mother and Murdock getting on so well had been a bonus he had never anticipated, and despite a bit of a weird patch just after he had returned with the pizza where they were both a bit... quiet, they had got on well, like a house on fire in fact.
At first he’d thought it strange when, on pulling up to Adele’s hotel and her inviting them both in for a drink on the terrace, Murdock had declined with some rubbish excuse about picking up groceries in the twenty four hour Wal-Mart, but now Face just realised that the pilot probably felt he was intruding on Face’s ‘alone time’ with Adele, and so had offered to make himself scarce for a couple of hours, let them have that time to bond.
And amazingly, they had. Face liked this type of mom, one who went to baseball matches and drank beer with you, one pointed out pretty girls who may or may not be giving him the eye at the bar, one who got on well with his best friend and laughed when he emptied peanuts all over himself; this kind of mom he could maybe start to get used to...
“Have you had a nice night, then?” Adele asked, breaking into his thoughts as he rescued the last peanut from between his thighs.
Face nodded, “I have thanks. You?”
Adele smiled and returned his nod as she sipped her beer. “I thought so; you seem so much more relaxed. At ease. I like you like this.” Looking up sharply, Face felt himself flush, wondering if she could read his mind, but she only tipped her head slightly, considering. “The question is,” she continued, thinking out loud, “which you is the real you. This one in jeans and t-shirt, drinking Buds from the bottle, the beach bum from the other day or the guy in the suit who was holding onto his composure so tight it must have hurt?”
Face held her stare as his heart hammered against his ribs, “Which one do you think it is?”
Adele’s lips twitched as she reached for her beer. “This one. I think this is you.”
He relaxed back into his seat, his own eyes now running over her, “And I could say the same about you. You have been many different people as well since we first met. Were you trying them all out? Finding one that fit?” Face laughed at his own joke and reached forward to carefully place the torn peanut wrapper back on the table, missing the momentary tightness of Adele’s lips.
“So many people have hurt me,” she answered quietly instead, “that I need to keep the real me locked up inside, hidden behind expensive dresses and make up. You have no idea how good it is to at last meet someone I can trust, who I can just relax with and be me, you know?”
Face’s eyes narrowed in concern. “You’ve never had that?” Adele shook her head. “What about your husband, you obviously loved each other, surely you felt that way with him?”
Adele thought of Nari and for the first time a sliver of cold ran through her. Nari had been a good man, he had lots of contacts, knew how to live the high life, he appreciated fine wine and food, liked his homes huge and comfortable and he and Adele had got along just fine. But love? No. Nari hadn’t loved Adele, of that she had been pretty convinced, and she hadn’t loved him. Liked and respected, of course, but not loved. She’d never loved a man, not for a long time, not since...
Face’s voice jolted her back to reality, “Why did you marry him when you didn’t love him?” he was asking quietly, reading the expressions on her face to perfection.
She smiled at his concerned face and reached out to pat his arm gently, amazed and a little disconcerted that he had read her so well. “When you get to my age, darling,” she told him, “you start to realise that just maybe that handsome prince isn’t going to come galloping in on his white horse and change your whole life around. And then you need to realise that it’s maybe time to settle for something a little less grand.”
Face looked sadly at her, thinking, not for the first time just how damn lucky he was that his handsome prince had ridden in and changed his whole life. He dreaded to think where he would be if he hadn’t...
“Don’t make my mistakes,” Adele continued. “Don’t wait as long as I have until you let someone know the real you,” she rubbed his arm. “Let them in now, and when you get them make sure you do everything you can to never, ever, let them go.”
Face looked into her wide grey eyes, shining with tears which he misinterpreted as fear for his happiness and reacted without thought, “Oh, hey, it’s okay,” he reassured her, placing his hand over hers, dwarfing her fingers with his own, “I’m okay, don’t worry about me, I already have the person who knows me better than I know myself.”
Adele frowned, disappointed he had misinterpreted her, “You do?” she asked. Face nodded, his own eyes filling with tears at her obvious concern for him. “Who?”
“Hannibal,” Face replied without pause.
There was a silence, just long enough for Face to start to think that maybe he had misjudged the time to be honest before Adele replied, “Hannibal?” with as much scorn and derision in her voice that it hurt almost as much as the way she tugged her hand away from him.
“Yes,” Face replied, recovering fast, his quick mind forcing its way up through all the alcohol to try and rescue the situation from his loose mouth. “And Murdock and BA. They are my team and my family. They know me better than anyone else alive.” He shrugged, “The way our lives are just now, who else can I trust?”
Adele looked hard at him, measuring him carefully with her eyes and he fought to keep his expression steady. Eventually she smiled and sat back in her chair reaching for her own packet of nuts as Face slowly exhaled, letting the tension go as well and grabbed his beer, almost finishing it in one go. That had been close. Too, too close. He would have to watch himself from now on, no letting his guard down around her; it was far too dangerous still.
Being very careful to keep his body language relaxed and slightly tipsy, even though he now felt stone cold sober, he started talking about the game, and who the Angels were playing next and league positions and Adele responded in a friendly interested manner, and they continued in this vein until Murdock arrived to pick Face up.
________________________________
Eight hours after Face and Murdock had left, Adele was once again sitting on the terrace, this time pushing her scrambled eggs around on her plate and thinking back over the night before. It was frustrating to have been so close to making some real progress with Danny, only to have it all slip away from her again at the last. She’d planned so carefully as well, spent so long in thinking about what he would want from a mother, what would be the way to get under his skin, and there it was, she’d found it. He’d wanted a buddy-mom, someone he could hang out with, drink beers, talk girls and baseball. So that’s what she had done, that’s who she had been and there he’d opened, right in front of her like a precious little flower, the petals no one had ever seen before. Or so she thought.
It had felt like he was there, right in the palm of her hand. But when she’d closed her fingers, ready to spring the trap that would have him signing all that money over to her he’d come out with that comment about Hannibal. For a second that had thrown her; the way that he’d said ‘Hannibal’ had sounded so - reverent - as if it were the most precious word in the world, as if he actually loved his commanding officer...
But then he’d clarified the situation and that had made more sense to Adele. Of course the lonely boy who’d grown up without a family would seize on the friends around him like this. And now they were running from the law the way they were, he was right, he had no hope of a ‘normal’ existence, a regular girlfriend, so it made sense for him to fixate on his team like he had.
Adele frowned as she watched the waiter refill her coffee. There had to be a way she could use these revelations to her advantage, there must be a way to get around his natural greed and get her hands on that money. She knew that Silas wouldn’t give her much more time, and she would be damned before she let him take this victory away from her.
If there is even a victory still to be had... a little voice inside her head whispered. She thought back to Murdock’s comment about how if Face had the money then he would gladly pay just to get rid of her. That made her uneasy. Why would Murdock say such a thing unless he there really was no money or maybe he knew what Adele was after and was just trying to throw her off the scent? That made no sense though, if Murdock knew what she was doing then why hadn’t he warned Danny off? He’d made no secret of his intentions with regard to her presence, so surely he wouldn’t wait if he knew? But that only left the fact that there really and truly was no money and Silas was so sure... Unless they had spent it of course. But what on?
Adele rubbed her brow and sipped her coffee and decided to leave that conundrum for another day. What was much, much more pressing at this moment in time was Murdock’s threats and the very real possibility that he could find holes in her story and point them out to Danny which would have the whole team, and their money, running for the hills. What she needed was a way to get Murdock out of the picture for a while, make sure that he was in no position to threaten her. She thought hard as she watched the pool attendant sift dead leaves from the surface of the pool and reviewed what she knew about the man from Eddie’s research, what, if anything, she could use against him. And then, there it was, a beautiful shining bauble of opportunity and she smiled to herself. Oh, yes, Captain Murdock wouldn’t know what had hit him at all, not one little bit. She would teach him not to mess with Adele Armando...
Next
He and Murdock had turned up at Adele’s hotel spot on time to find her waiting out on the sidewalk for them, jeans and sneakers, Gap zip-up with a t-shirt underneath, smiling and waving as the old Chevy appeared.
“Hi!” she said enthusiastically as she slid into the back of the car, “I am so looking forward to this! I haven’t been to a baseball game in years!” Face looked at her in surprise and she beamed at him. “Lovely to see you, darling,” then she turned to Murdock, “And you must be Murdock, I’m so pleased to finally meet you.”
She held out her hand and Murdock looked at her for a moment in silence before reaching out and taking it, “Nice to meet you too ma’am,” he said solemnly before turning back to the traffic and pulling out.
Adele settled herself into the back and put her seatbelt on as Murdock eased into the flow of traffic. They hadn’t gone far, not even a block, before he turned, feeling Face’s eyes heavy on the side of his head. “What?” he asked, seeing the confusion in Face’s expression.
“Ma’am?” Face mouthed silently at him as Murdock just shrugged and turned back to the road.
__________________________
They had good seats. Face knew a few people here and there, still liked to do a few favours – you never knew when you might need to call them in. They were level with first base, just low enough to be able to see all the detail, just high enough to have a good view of the whole field. Face was lounging back in his seat, feet on the empty one in front, listening to Murdock and Adele on either side of him as they continued their long discussion on the rules of the game that had started before they had even parked.
He had never in a million years thought that his best friend and his flaky mother would click the way they seemed to have done, he’d been worried on many, many fronts in the run up to this night. First of all, he’d worried for Murdock. The guy could be so damn naive sometimes, just like a child when it came down to it, and Face had absolutely no doubt at all in his mind that Adele could strip flesh off with that tongue of hers. He’d decided straight off that he wouldn’t be tolerating any snide comments aimed at Murdock tonight, just one and they were out of there.
But then he’d remembered that Murdock himself had so far been less than enamoured with Adele herself, and worried that the night would consist of lots of thinly veiled barbs, traps for Adele to walk into and digs that might just let her know how much all of this business had rattled him – something he was very keen to avoid.
And now it seemed that his concerns were unfounded on both counts, Murdock and Adele were acting as though they were long lost friends and he was actually, embarrassingly, starting to feel a little left out – he almost wished he’d brought Hannibal along, then at least it might have been funny to watch Adele flirting with him while her John was happily oblivious.
Finally, with a full bladder and an empty beer bottle, Face decided to stretch his legs. “Beer run,” he announced, hauling himself to his feet and interrupting Murdock’s explanation over the differences between a splitter and a forkball. “Another coke?” he asked their designated driver.
“Sure, Face,” Murdock smiled at him, “And pizza?”
Face rolled his eyes but nodded before turning his attention to Adele. He was still at that awkward stage of not really knowing what to call her; ‘Adele’ seemed too formal and awkward, while ‘Mother’ or even worse, ‘Mom’, was just wrong on every level. Instead, the usually uber-composed lady’s man suddenly found himself tongue tied and stuttering when faced with his mother’s smile, and only managed to croak out a rather brusque sounding, “And you?”
If Adele even noticed, she hid it well and gestured to her almost empty bottle, “Another Bud would be fine, Danny, thank you.”
Face nodded, “Pizza?”
“Love one,” she smiled, “get me something spicy.”
Face nodded and pushed past Murdock’s knees, making his way up to the tunnel.
Silence fell on the two people left behind and Adele sat forward, smiling at Murdock, “So,” she said pleasantly, “essentially they are both the same except a forkball doesn’t drop so fast, right?”
Murdock turned and looked at her, “He hates it when you call him Danny,” he said quietly.
For a second Adele looked more than taken aback, but then she turned away, looking back out onto the field and sipping her beer. “I know,” she admitted quietly, “I was just hoping he would get used to it.”
The silence was back for a moment until Murdock shifted over into Face’s seat so they were sat thigh to thigh. “Looking pretty good for a lady at death’s door, Adele,” he whispered quietly. Adele turned slowly and stared coolly at him. “I know you are lying to him, I just don’t know why.” Murdock continued, “And as soon as I get enough proof I will be telling him everything.”
That comment seemed to score a direct hit and he carefully held her furious stare. “You tell him that and you will ruin any chance we have of getting close,” she told him lethally. “Is that what you want for him?”
Murdock’s eyes widened, “You can say that to me when you are the one lying through your damn teeth to him?” Adele stared back. “He was happy until you turned up, what on earth do you want from him?”
Adele’s grey eyes, so similar in colour to Murdock’s, narrowed dangerously, “He’s my son, Murdock, I have a right to get to know him.”
“Your rights evaporated the day you left him behind,” Murdock spat. “And he might buy your ‘running from the mob’ crap, but I certainly don’t. Do you have any idea what you did to him when you walked out?”
“It was for the best,” Adele ground out, two spots of colour appearing high on her cheeks, “and I fail to see what any of this has to do with you!”
“I need to say this,” Murdock told her quietly, “because Face won’t. Your little ‘leukaemia’ scheme has knocked him for six, he won’t say anything to you in case he upsets you in your last few months, but I know he wants rid of you.” Adele visibly paled, “And I know that if he had the money he would gladly pay your ‘medical bills’ for the next twenty years, just as long as you promised just to fuck off and leave him the hell alone.”
Adele looked as she had been slapped, and for a second she stared at Murdock, her mouth open like a fish before she caught herself and glared at him in fury, “What do you mean, ‘If he had the money’?” she scoffed.
“If he had the money!” Murdock repeated, “I don’t know how much plainer I could be, if he could afford to pay you to leave, he would; anything just to get rid of you.”
“That’s not true...” Adele whispered.
“It is,” Murdock hissed back. “He will never, ever forgive you for what you did to him as a child.”
“What I did to him?” Murdock wondered if that was a hint of fear he saw in her eyes, “What do you mean?”
“Leaving him,” Murdock supplied. “To be brought up as just another kid in care; nobody’s ‘special person’, no one to fight in his corner.”
“It can’t have been as bad as he makes out...” Adele grumbled mutinously, eyes back on the game and Murdock just scoffed, secretly surprised that Face had opened up to her about his childhood.
“No?” he asked mildly, “Growing up without love, ending up on the streets, juvenile detention, letting people use him, the drugs and the drink? You think that’s not so bad?” Adele slowly turned to face him her face deathly white and Murdock shook his head disgustedly. “If it hadn’t been for one of the priests, the only one Face ever respected, running into him in a soup kitchen and persuading him to go back to the orphanage, helping him apply for the army, turning a blind eye to his age, Face would be locked up by now. Or dead. You still think that’s not too bad?” Adele just stared at him and Murdock turned away in distaste. “I will find out what your game is,” he promised her under his breath, “and I will get you away from Face. Just you think on that.”
The happy sounds of the crowd around them were in direct conflict with the heavy silence that hung over Murdock and Adele and Murdock began to wish he’d not been so blunt, wondered what Face would make of the obvious oppression when he got back. But then Adele moved, getting to her feet and pushing past him and he looked up in surprise hoping he wouldn’t be left to explain her absence to Face.
“Don’t worry,” she said sharply on seeing his expression, “I’m only going to the restroom, I’ll be back.”
__________________________
Hours later, Face was weaving his way unsteadily back to the table that he and Adele had occupied in the corner of the hotel’s terrace bar, carrying two more beers and two packets of nuts. He knew he was drunk, but it was a pleasant, chilled kind of drunk one that threatened only a mild headache in the morning and without the compulsion to dance on tables or sing far too loudly in the street on the way home. He smiled at Adele as he clinked the bottles down on the table and sat heavily in the wicker chair at her side, both of them staring at the huge turquoise rectangle of the illuminated outdoor pool.
“What time is Murdock picking you up?” Adele asked watching as Face wrestled with a packet of nuts.
Face glanced at his watch, “Another forty minutes,” he answered, just as the bag split, emptying the contents into the lap of his jeans. “Shit...” he muttered and started to pick them up, aware of Adele giggling at his misfortune. He had had a really good night. His mother and Murdock getting on so well had been a bonus he had never anticipated, and despite a bit of a weird patch just after he had returned with the pizza where they were both a bit... quiet, they had got on well, like a house on fire in fact.
At first he’d thought it strange when, on pulling up to Adele’s hotel and her inviting them both in for a drink on the terrace, Murdock had declined with some rubbish excuse about picking up groceries in the twenty four hour Wal-Mart, but now Face just realised that the pilot probably felt he was intruding on Face’s ‘alone time’ with Adele, and so had offered to make himself scarce for a couple of hours, let them have that time to bond.
And amazingly, they had. Face liked this type of mom, one who went to baseball matches and drank beer with you, one pointed out pretty girls who may or may not be giving him the eye at the bar, one who got on well with his best friend and laughed when he emptied peanuts all over himself; this kind of mom he could maybe start to get used to...
“Have you had a nice night, then?” Adele asked, breaking into his thoughts as he rescued the last peanut from between his thighs.
Face nodded, “I have thanks. You?”
Adele smiled and returned his nod as she sipped her beer. “I thought so; you seem so much more relaxed. At ease. I like you like this.” Looking up sharply, Face felt himself flush, wondering if she could read his mind, but she only tipped her head slightly, considering. “The question is,” she continued, thinking out loud, “which you is the real you. This one in jeans and t-shirt, drinking Buds from the bottle, the beach bum from the other day or the guy in the suit who was holding onto his composure so tight it must have hurt?”
Face held her stare as his heart hammered against his ribs, “Which one do you think it is?”
Adele’s lips twitched as she reached for her beer. “This one. I think this is you.”
He relaxed back into his seat, his own eyes now running over her, “And I could say the same about you. You have been many different people as well since we first met. Were you trying them all out? Finding one that fit?” Face laughed at his own joke and reached forward to carefully place the torn peanut wrapper back on the table, missing the momentary tightness of Adele’s lips.
“So many people have hurt me,” she answered quietly instead, “that I need to keep the real me locked up inside, hidden behind expensive dresses and make up. You have no idea how good it is to at last meet someone I can trust, who I can just relax with and be me, you know?”
Face’s eyes narrowed in concern. “You’ve never had that?” Adele shook her head. “What about your husband, you obviously loved each other, surely you felt that way with him?”
Adele thought of Nari and for the first time a sliver of cold ran through her. Nari had been a good man, he had lots of contacts, knew how to live the high life, he appreciated fine wine and food, liked his homes huge and comfortable and he and Adele had got along just fine. But love? No. Nari hadn’t loved Adele, of that she had been pretty convinced, and she hadn’t loved him. Liked and respected, of course, but not loved. She’d never loved a man, not for a long time, not since...
Face’s voice jolted her back to reality, “Why did you marry him when you didn’t love him?” he was asking quietly, reading the expressions on her face to perfection.
She smiled at his concerned face and reached out to pat his arm gently, amazed and a little disconcerted that he had read her so well. “When you get to my age, darling,” she told him, “you start to realise that just maybe that handsome prince isn’t going to come galloping in on his white horse and change your whole life around. And then you need to realise that it’s maybe time to settle for something a little less grand.”
Face looked sadly at her, thinking, not for the first time just how damn lucky he was that his handsome prince had ridden in and changed his whole life. He dreaded to think where he would be if he hadn’t...
“Don’t make my mistakes,” Adele continued. “Don’t wait as long as I have until you let someone know the real you,” she rubbed his arm. “Let them in now, and when you get them make sure you do everything you can to never, ever, let them go.”
Face looked into her wide grey eyes, shining with tears which he misinterpreted as fear for his happiness and reacted without thought, “Oh, hey, it’s okay,” he reassured her, placing his hand over hers, dwarfing her fingers with his own, “I’m okay, don’t worry about me, I already have the person who knows me better than I know myself.”
Adele frowned, disappointed he had misinterpreted her, “You do?” she asked. Face nodded, his own eyes filling with tears at her obvious concern for him. “Who?”
“Hannibal,” Face replied without pause.
There was a silence, just long enough for Face to start to think that maybe he had misjudged the time to be honest before Adele replied, “Hannibal?” with as much scorn and derision in her voice that it hurt almost as much as the way she tugged her hand away from him.
“Yes,” Face replied, recovering fast, his quick mind forcing its way up through all the alcohol to try and rescue the situation from his loose mouth. “And Murdock and BA. They are my team and my family. They know me better than anyone else alive.” He shrugged, “The way our lives are just now, who else can I trust?”
Adele looked hard at him, measuring him carefully with her eyes and he fought to keep his expression steady. Eventually she smiled and sat back in her chair reaching for her own packet of nuts as Face slowly exhaled, letting the tension go as well and grabbed his beer, almost finishing it in one go. That had been close. Too, too close. He would have to watch himself from now on, no letting his guard down around her; it was far too dangerous still.
Being very careful to keep his body language relaxed and slightly tipsy, even though he now felt stone cold sober, he started talking about the game, and who the Angels were playing next and league positions and Adele responded in a friendly interested manner, and they continued in this vein until Murdock arrived to pick Face up.
________________________________
Eight hours after Face and Murdock had left, Adele was once again sitting on the terrace, this time pushing her scrambled eggs around on her plate and thinking back over the night before. It was frustrating to have been so close to making some real progress with Danny, only to have it all slip away from her again at the last. She’d planned so carefully as well, spent so long in thinking about what he would want from a mother, what would be the way to get under his skin, and there it was, she’d found it. He’d wanted a buddy-mom, someone he could hang out with, drink beers, talk girls and baseball. So that’s what she had done, that’s who she had been and there he’d opened, right in front of her like a precious little flower, the petals no one had ever seen before. Or so she thought.
It had felt like he was there, right in the palm of her hand. But when she’d closed her fingers, ready to spring the trap that would have him signing all that money over to her he’d come out with that comment about Hannibal. For a second that had thrown her; the way that he’d said ‘Hannibal’ had sounded so - reverent - as if it were the most precious word in the world, as if he actually loved his commanding officer...
But then he’d clarified the situation and that had made more sense to Adele. Of course the lonely boy who’d grown up without a family would seize on the friends around him like this. And now they were running from the law the way they were, he was right, he had no hope of a ‘normal’ existence, a regular girlfriend, so it made sense for him to fixate on his team like he had.
Adele frowned as she watched the waiter refill her coffee. There had to be a way she could use these revelations to her advantage, there must be a way to get around his natural greed and get her hands on that money. She knew that Silas wouldn’t give her much more time, and she would be damned before she let him take this victory away from her.
If there is even a victory still to be had... a little voice inside her head whispered. She thought back to Murdock’s comment about how if Face had the money then he would gladly pay just to get rid of her. That made her uneasy. Why would Murdock say such a thing unless he there really was no money or maybe he knew what Adele was after and was just trying to throw her off the scent? That made no sense though, if Murdock knew what she was doing then why hadn’t he warned Danny off? He’d made no secret of his intentions with regard to her presence, so surely he wouldn’t wait if he knew? But that only left the fact that there really and truly was no money and Silas was so sure... Unless they had spent it of course. But what on?
Adele rubbed her brow and sipped her coffee and decided to leave that conundrum for another day. What was much, much more pressing at this moment in time was Murdock’s threats and the very real possibility that he could find holes in her story and point them out to Danny which would have the whole team, and their money, running for the hills. What she needed was a way to get Murdock out of the picture for a while, make sure that he was in no position to threaten her. She thought hard as she watched the pool attendant sift dead leaves from the surface of the pool and reviewed what she knew about the man from Eddie’s research, what, if anything, she could use against him. And then, there it was, a beautiful shining bauble of opportunity and she smiled to herself. Oh, yes, Captain Murdock wouldn’t know what had hit him at all, not one little bit. She would teach him not to mess with Adele Armando...
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Date: 2011-10-25 08:10 pm (UTC)