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The first time Rio visits her, he just observes; the vision of her through her kitchen sink window clear as a camera’s lens from his viewpoint across her backyard. An invisible line preventing him from taking the step forward that would put him on her porch, a mere five paces from her back door. She’s so close to him, yet so far away, and he knows that that won’t be changing for a long time.
He thinks maybe it never will.
He doesn’t allow himself to indulge in any fantasies of a life where they recover from this mess they’ve both played a hand in conducting. Sure, he thinks, it was her finger that pulled the trigger, but it was his hand that had placed the gun in hers. It was his palm at her back, pressuring her to accept the ugly realities of this world she’d inducted herself into before she was truly ready for it. He knew how far she had come since he’d first offered to teach her, but, then again, he’s been around far too many armed, unstable characters to tread carelessly. That was his fatal mistake; he had underestimated Elizabeth again, and it had almost cost him his life. Had almost cost Marcus his father.
So he observes her from a distance carefully crafted to protect himself from any further damage; possibly, hidden somewhere within his surface intentions, to protect Elizabeth as well, from any hope of a future involving him.
Rio isn’t a good person; this he knows. He handles what he needs to handle, and in his mind, Turner was the most prominent threat to their entire operation. She had yet to accept that in his world, their world, problems weren’t handled with a well-worded complaint card and the exchanging of baked goods. He knows she can handle herself, but her methods are dated, more efficiently executed among her maternal suburbia than his drug-pushing clientele. All lessons have a time and place to be learned, and she had asked for his help. She had expressed anger at his impassiveness when informing him that she was on the brink of being arrested for murder, but was no more prepared for a solution to it then he reckoned she could handle.
And he had been right; rash words were exchanged, voices were raised, and before he could process the repercussions of having lost his temper, he had three bullets splayed throughout his torso.
He knew that willing Elizabeth to complete such a gruesome deed would have taken extensive preemptive measures, but he hadn’t anticipated the anger that came rolling off of her in waves, that laced every syllable she threw back at him. The pain that steeled her shaky voice, wrapping around his chest and squeezing with remorse that he made futile efforts to bat away.
Through the kitchen window, he can see Elizabeth perched at her kitchen island, nursing what he can only assume is a glass of bourbon. He already knows she’s drinking alone, having already surveyed the empty driveway and the blackened windows of each room, and he figures it isn’t a rare occurrence. He allows himself to take a step closer in order to confirm his suspicions, and his chest tightens when he realizes that she’s crying. Her porcelain skin is red and blotchy, her eyebrows are pinched together in sorrow, and her eyes are squeezed shut as a sob wracks through her body.
He doesn’t stay for much longer after that, having no intentions of slipping inside nor any sadistic desire to watch her spill her tears into an empty bourbon glass. He simply clenches his fists inside his pockets, his jaw rocking back and forth with restrained emotion, before stalking off the way he came in.
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The next time he visits her, he knows he won’t be able to hold himself back. All it takes is her face coming into his line of vision, her hair hastily tied behind her head and the key to the storage unit resting on the table beside an empty wine glass. She isn’t sobbing this time, but he knows the telltale signs of someone who’s been crying like he knows his own birthday.
So, making a decision he knows he’ll likely regret by daybreak, he strides up to her back door and reaches his hand into the pocket of his wool coat, pulling out the string of pearls he had refused to part with, against his better judgement, for so many months. He loops one end of them around the doorknob and raps lightly on the wood three times, slipping into the shadows towards the side of the house in the following moments.
He only catches the sound of the door creaking open before he picks up the pace, rounding the house to his Cadillac parked a block down the street. He slides into the driver’s seat, hoping Elizabeth isn’t curious enough to investigate her entire property but knowing she’s smart enough to figure out where to find him.
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When Rio sees Elizabeth next, the roles are flipped; she’s the one seeking him out rather than the other way around. He’s perched on a bar stool, has been since four o’clock, when eight o’clock rolls around and Elizabeth saunters through the front door. She has her mask on, he clocks instantly, because he does, too, both of them too short on trust for the other to be caught anywhere in the realm of vulnerable. Her expression is steeled, void of any emotion, and her body language is warped with a tension that has her coiled tighter than a mattress spring. He swallows the instinctive urge of wanting to relieve some of that tension himself with the remainder of the tequila in his glass, angling his body slightly towards hers as she spots him through the thinly packed crowd. Traffic in the bar is light for a Friday night, and he briefly wonders if she’s gotten that dumbass husband of hers to take the kids so she could meet him.
A thrill runs through him at the thought, but he shoves that down, too.
She approaches the bar counter timidly, choosing the seat positioned farther away from him but still adjacent to his. He can tell she isn’t going to be the first to speak, most likely assuming he has something to say himself first before she has the right to converse.
He most definitely won’t tell her that he’s already achieved his goal of seeing her, breathing and present before him.
Instead, he goes with, “Long time no see, Elizabeth,” satisfied with the way her name can roll off his tongue once again rather than lying in the back of his mind.
She shuffles in her seat, something that may have made him grin at a different time but now has him settling his full attention on her in anticipation of her response. He expects maybe a run-on sentence full of explanations, apologies, excuses, accusations, even, but none of what he expects fits the criteria for what she says next.
“Is Marcus alright?”
He knows the surprise must be evident in his expression, despite his efforts of keeping it smooth and carefully passive, but she waits patiently for his response, her expecting gaze and guarded posture not faltering once. Her hands are folded on her lap, her purse pressed tightly to her chest as if it were armor.
“He’s good. Got back from a road trip with him a few days ago. Kid loves ‘em cause he gets the job of counting the animals when we pass by farms,” he recalls with a soft chuckle, nodding his head in thanks as the barkeep fills his glass.
Elizabeth takes several moments to respond, seeming to chew on a thought regarding the influx of information. Suddenly, she blurts out, “Why are you doing this?”
He lulls his head to the side, sparing her a glance before swinging his gaze back behind the bar.
“What’chu mean?” He inquires, knocking his drink back in one swig. Honestly, he’s surprised he’s been able to pace himself so well this evening with the nerves coursing through him. He suppresses the nagging reminder that it’s because he knew Elizabeth would come. That he wanted a clear head and fully-functioning memory for this encounter.
“I mean, why are you telling me about a trip you took with your son? Why are you giving me so much when I’ve asked so little?” After what I’ve done, is clearly insinuated but her sentence ends there. When he turns his head to get a good look at her face, her expression has softened and her eyes are curious, but her walls are still stacked high.
“Why not?” Comes his simple response, genuinely intrigued with what she’ll have to say to such an open-ended question.
She’s treading carefully, he can read it in her voice and her wide doe-eyes. The carefree teasing they used to share with each other is dangerous territory to her, like there’s an invisible tripwire marking a boundary between their past intimacy and the present reality. The consequences of her decision are hanging heavy in the air with every word they utter and she’s fearful of stumbling over that wire.
“I can’t think of a single reason you’d ever want to see me again,” She says, her words laced with defeat and marked with an air of absolution, and he wants to agree with her. He does.
“You ain’t easy to walk away from,” is what he settles on, holding her gaze with his own as his words sink in.
Her eyes widen a fraction before she clears her throat, breaking their eye contact and settling one arm steadily on the counter. “So where do we go from here?” She asks, keeping her eyes on the wide array of bottles behind the counter.
In lieu of a response, he angles his body back towards the bar, immediately catching the eye of the bartender who had refilled his drink minutes ago. He jerks his head towards Elizabeth, a rigid little motion, and the barkeep nods his understanding before moving to grab hold of the bottle of bourbon sitting among the selection of bottles Elizabeth had been minutely surveying. He settles a glass in front of Elizabeth, pouring her a generous serving, and she only glances up when he’s mid-pour, offering a distracted “thank you.”
When she glances back at Rio, he can’t resist the way the corner of his mouth lifts at the familiarity of it all. She raises the glass to her lips, shooting him a gentle and borderline timid quirk of her lips before diverting her gaze elsewhere and taking a sip.
“Let’s just start here, yeah?” He says lightly after a comfortable silence settles between them. He sees Elizabeth nod her head in agreement, her eyes still on the amber liquid rippling within her glass before she takes a generous sip.
And, yeah, Rio thinks. It’s a start.