Tomorrow Is the Day

Lazy days in the house usually consisted of drinking at least a quart of whiskey but today, Talia didn’t want to deal with that.

She didn’t want to deal with the slow burn in her esophagus, the way her throat tightened up whenever she spoke, or the feeling of her stomach, full of liquor but empty of everything else. She didn’t want to deal with the sneer that would come from Vengeance as she sat alone, drunk, at the table to stare out at the beach.

Most importantly, Talia couldn’t deal with how slowly her brain worked after downing two glasses because today, what everyone would assume was another lazy day in the house, was the day that she was going to get some answers.

After all, there were so many things going on that just didn’t make any sense.

Since her birthday, she’d been thinking a lot about the circumstances. Shadows had become increasingly friendly towards her, not to be mistaken as friendship of course, but definitely less standoffish on a noticeable level. Talia also didn’t understand his willingness to allow her out of the house for one outing but his refusal to let her speak to her family.

What could a phone call hurt anyway? Talia hadn’t wanted to speak to her traitorous cousins at first but now she wouldn’t mind a familiar voice—or speaking to her uncle. She wanted to hear firsthand about the threats made against her and her family by her father’s old business partner.

Other than that, there were a plethora of other odd happenings as well. It seemed there was always someone home, someone keeping her entertained or preoccupied, and for a house full of busy men, that seemed highly unlikely. There was the way they stopped talking whenever she walked into a room and Talia highly suspected that they weren’t constantly talking about business, so what else was there to hide?

And, still buzzing around in her brain on what seemed to be a never-ending loop, was the way Johnny had perfectly impersonated her father’s Brooklyn accent.

No, Talia did not have the time to be drunk today so she bypassed the whiskey after she got ready for the day and settled herself into the kitchen with a book, waiting for the first unsuspecting man to walk through.

Brian, luckily, was that unsuspecting man.

Despite being noon, he appeared to have just woken up. He merely grunted at Talia in what she assumed was a greeting and then stood in front of the coffee pot, as though trying to telekinetically get it to produce coffee.

“Honestly, I’m so hungover right now. Can you make coffee?” was the first coherent thing he said and Talia smiled genuinely. Hungover she could definitely work with.

“Sure, sit down,” she instructed, closing her book and moving around the counter to start the process. He mumbled something about her being an angel as he sat in the seat previously hers. Talia busied herself with pulling two mugs out of the cabinet and, while waiting for the coffee to brew, poured him a tall glass of cool water.

“Definitely an angel,” he said in thanks, as she pushed the glass toward him. She smiled again as he emptied the glass and leaned on the counter with her chin in one hand to watch him. He attempted to avoid her gaze but failed, letting her drink in his appearance.

His eyes were bloodshot and the bags underneath them, usually nonexistent, were a deep purple. His hair was unkempt, dirty and sticking up from every possible direction though somehow flatter than usual. There was a distinct curve to his posture, a feature she didn’t believe was usually present, and Talia remarked on these facts.

“You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit,” he answered with a snort, as the coffeemaker beeped and Talia turned to fix their cups. She knew how everyone in the house took their coffee and their liquor, just out of habit and observation, so she knew to skip the milk in his when she put it in her own and that he liked double the amount of sugar that she did. “Don’t ever mix liquors.”

“Like I need you to tell me how to avoid a hangover,” she snorted back, carrying the mug around and setting it in front of him. “Don’t binge drink and then complain you feel like shit.”

“Cheers,” he lifted the mug up to her and then took three long gulps, as though the heat didn’t bother him at all. She watched him again, calculating.

They finished their coffee in silence. Talia had reached over him for her book when her mug was mostly empty and he sat quietly, alternating between resting his head on the cool counter and slumping in his seat looking at her. Try as she might to ignore him, Talia failed the majority of the time, glancing up with a small smile to catch his eye from time to time.

“Let’s go outside,” he suggested suddenly, his voice deeper and raspier than it had been before. She glanced at him and nodded, closing her book. He was at the door before she’d even stood up but he held it for her anyway, letting her step out into the warm sun with a squint.

“It’s nice out today,” she commented, “Not too hot.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely napping in the sun,” he agreed, smiling back at her as he stepped down to sit on one of the lounge chairs by the pool. He spilled himself haphazardly into one, groaning and stretching in an attempt to get comfortable.

“Why so hungover?”

It had been about a week since her birthday and Talia had spent the majority of that time hanging out with Brian during the day and Johnny at night, mostly because that’s when each of them were available. She had noticed the odd shifts that they seemed to take in watching her.

“A client got me wasted,” he answered simply, throwing an arm over his eyes to block the brightness of the sun. Talia stood above him, appraising the situation. “It was terrible.”

“Drinking on the job?”

She knew it was too obvious, pressing into what Brian’s aspect of the workload was. It had never been hinted at, by himself or any of the guys, and since she’d been openly told that Vengeance ran the arms division, Talia could hardly wonder why Brian’s hadn’t even been mentioned. Could there be something worse than that? Anyway, she didn’t want to start nagging him on questions that pertained to her arrival in the house too soon and scare him off.

“Some jobs you need to drink for,” he said mysteriously, raising his arm off of one eye to look at her. Talia still stood over him, one hand on her hip and the other against her bare leg. Her tank top barely covered the hip bones exposed by extremely low rise denim shorts and, even with a pounding head, Brian didn’t see fit to neglect the sight. “Will you sit?”

Talia obliged his request, ignoring the two seats on either side of him in favor of nudging him over so she could lie down next to him on his own chair. He sighed happily, winding his free arm around her shoulders and allowing her to scoot comfortably into his side. Glancing up at him, Talia noticed him watching her from underneath the arm still thrown over his face and she blushed, turning away.

As usual, being in close proximity left her with a heart beating erratically and a slow burn of both anxiety and excitement. He smelled good despite his hangover, she noticed. Hidden under stale cigarette smoke and whiskey was the distinct smell of a sleepy man and Talia’s body responded wonderfully to it.

“I know what you mean,” she spoke when she’d settled comfortably, “My job required me to drink everyday.”

“You helped out your cousin in the record store he owned twice a week,” Brian pointed out. His breaths came perfectly even and at the realization that he was relaxed, Talia tried to time her breathing with his as she chuckled.

“True, but since I didn’t need to be there because I didn’t need to work because I kind of have a decent amount of money I did need to be entertained so I just fucked around and drank in the back with Teddy,” she explained, a smile ghosting over her lips.

Teddy had opened a record store almost three years ago, right across the street from the beach and directly next to the most amazing taco shop. Talia always spent her Monday’s and Wednesday’s there after her Pilates class as a worker, though she mostly did nothing with Teddy except help him choose which records to order in. Brian had snorted at her description of her time there but it was the most accurate way to describe it.

“Do you miss him?” Brian asked softly. She knew this was a way for him to turn her mind off of her previous interest in what work he’d been taking care of last night. A drunk mind would have turned her emotional and while she felt a small twinge of sadness and sentimentality, Talia was ready for the question.

“Yes,” was her honest answer, “At first I hated him but now…I miss him more than anyone else. You probably know but, we didn’t do anything without each other.”

He was silent for a long moment.

“Do you think—or well, I don’t know, do you think Shadows would let me talk to him?” she asked. She thought she sounded a lot more coy than she felt. He stiffened slightly and she felt him sigh, rather than heard it.

“I don’t think he’ll let you see him,” he answered cautiously. He moved himself up on the chair, sitting up more fully than the slouch they’d been in before. Talia moved herself so she sat with her legs tossed over his, effectively strapping him down for the conversation on the horizon. He seemed at ease though, if just slightly ruffled, and let his hands rest on her thighs as he watched her.

“I didn’t expect him to,” she answered. Now that he was watching her, she had to be careful of her face. She didn’t want to appear calculating and she was aware that she could be an open book—to him especially. “Even if it were just a phone call, I mean, it’s not like he doesn't know where I am.”

“Well, he doesn’t technically,” Brian answered, no trace of a smile on his face. “As far as he knows, you could be anywhere in the country. I think it’s just the concern of what you might say, if you let them know that you’re still in the area, shit like that.”

Talia thought about that for a moment. It hadn’t occurred to her that her family didn’t even know what state she might be in. They all probably assumed that she was in a small house in the middle of Missouri, living miserably. She smirked at the current situation as she stared at the luxurious house sprawled in front of her and felt Brian’s large hands tightening on her thighs.

“Don’t think it’s that we don’t trust you,” he said, and he corrected himself at the deadpan look she gave him, “Okay, we probably don’t but, try to think of it as a safety precaution rather than a punishment.”

“You don’t trust me?”

It wasn’t part of the script but Talia had never been good at following guidelines, even her own. Brian’s gaze softened at that simple question and he raised one of his hands to touch her face. Talia resisted the urge to close her eyes when his thumb slid back and forth over her cheekbone, instead watching as his eyes flickered over her face.

“For some fucking reason,” he said softly, “I do trust you.”

Talia said nothing, though her heartbeat slowed considerably and she relaxed her face into his hand. She closed her eyes as he started pushing some of her hair out of her face and sighed contentedly. His hands were warm in contrast to her skin.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he sighed, withdrawing his hand from her face and sitting back. Talia hadn’t even realized he’d moved forward and opened her eyes at the abrupt lack of contact. “About getting you on the phone with your cousin, I mean.”

Talia dipped her head in thanks. She was humbled by his admission of trusting her—silently wracked with guilt because she knew she didn’t deserve it—and didn’t want to break the quiet moment. She angled her body so that she could rest against his chest, tangling her legs with his and resting a hand on his chest.

They were quiet like that for a long time. It was the most intimate they’d ever been with each other, despite the fact that they’d become extremely comfortable over the past week. Talia was lost in her thoughts, happy with the idea of speaking to her cousin and maybe finding some information out but still curious about everything else.

“You know,” she broke the silence, sitting up slightly so her face was level with his. He tightened his grip on her waist, thinking she might leave, but loosened it once she made no move to do so. “I don’t trust you, not completely, but I do trust you the most, out of everyone here, to not hurt me or do anything bad. I trust that you’ll always at least listen to my side.”

He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it, as though thinking better of it. The tension was there again, glittering in the air between them. Talia smiled widely, showing all of her teeth and shrugging.

“You’re my favorite,” she whispered, dragging her eyes from his brown ones, over his cheekbones and down to look at his lips. Talia was practically praying for this moment to end in what she’d been waiting for for what felt like months but had barely even been weeks.

“I’m your favorite?” he questioned. His voice was so low and husky that the hair on the back of Talia’s neck stood up. He licked his bottom lip and smirked as she nodded.

“By a long shot.”

At that, Brian leaned forward with purpose and pressed his lips against Talia’s. Her hand found his shoulder and she gripped it, pressing her lips against his with more urgency than she knew she had in her body. He smiled into the kiss as his hand wound its way into her hair, giving a gentle tug that forced her to catch a moan in the back of her throat.

He was the one to pull back, surveying Talia with bright mischievous eyes. Her own were heavy-lidded with lust and her mouth was open slightly, a darker pink to her lips now. Brian’s hand stayed in her hand as he cocked his head with a smirk. She waited expectantly before she realized what he was waiting for.

Talia complied, dipping her head to press her lips against his in another kiss. She brushed her fingers against his jawbone and sat up to straddle his hips. He sighed into her mouth as his hands found her hips and Talia thought she could die and be okay with it. She couldn’t help but smile; she felt triumphant.

“What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours, smiley?” Brian asked, slightly out of breath, when she pulled away from him. Talia merely bit her lip and settled down into his lap as he rubbed his hands up and down her sides.

“Nothing of substance, I promise,” she practically purred, shaking her hair out. Brian rolled his eyes and pulled her down with limited force so that he could kiss her again. She could feel the excitement between them, as if it were something completely and totally palpable.

“I always knew the day would come when I’d find you two making out by the pool,” Johnny drawled, pulling his sunglasses off of his head and tucking them into the front of his black shirt. He was walking down the steps, a smirk on his face.

“Don’t be a buzzkill,” Talia groaned, sitting up but remaining on Brian, a leg on either side of his hips. Brian, in turn, rolled his eyes and let his hands rest just underneath her hipbones, thumbs dangerously close to the hem of her shorts.

“Never took you for someone who got off on watching,” Brian joked, smirking as Johnny dropped into the seat next to them. Johnny laughed then, loudly and openly.

“It was bad enough with Matt and Val, now we’re gonna have you two being disgusting all over the house,” Johnny commented, pushing Brian’s shoulder and shaking his head. Talia snorted at that and it was her turn to roll her eyes.

She highly doubted that they’d be found in odd corners of the house like this on a regular basis, though it wouldn’t necessarily bother her if they were. In fact, she probably wanted to be able to find herself in this position, if she bothered admitting it to herself.

“But I didn’t come out here to get off on watching you,” Johnny snorted, “Shadows wants you in his office.”

Talia didn’t miss the casual way that he interchanged Matt with Shadows and the careful way that Brian knew not to protest. She shifted her weight off of him, taking his seat fully when he stood up with a stretch and a groan. He smirked down at her and she settled into the chair as he walked away without another word.

Johnny was watching her, she was hyperaware of his gaze, but Talia chose to simply watch the water of the pool as it drifted in small circles. She struggled to keep the self-satisfied smirk off of her face though, and he laughed loudly again.

“Oh shove it Johnny!” she practically shrieked, the smile fully taking over her face now. His laugh continued and Talia giggled along with him. It was a ridiculous situation.

“I think it’s cool,” he said, “You suit each other.”

“Oh god, now you sound just like Val.”

“She’s usually right about these things,” he rebutted, turning a stern eye to Talia. She didn’t say anything but her blood felt as though it was running cold all of a sudden. It would be truly unfortunate for her to become attached to Brian so much so that it would be difficult for her to leave when this was all over.

Talia and Johnny didn’t say anything for a while after that. They listened to the waves rolling into the shore and basically ignored each other, lost in their own thoughts. It occurred to Talia that it was annoying she couldn’t know what the man’s thoughts might be.

Her own were trying to push past the glow that Brian had left dancing in her mind so that she could reassess the knowledge that he’d help her speak to Teddy. The day hadn’t taken the turn she’d thought it would, though she wasn’t unhappy with the way it had gone, and she felt like there still weren’t any answers.

“Hey Johnny,” she prompted, more than a little unsure of herself. He grunted in recognition that she’d something and Talia realized he’d been dozing off. It took plenty of courage that she knew she had deep down somewhere to ask the next question.

“Did you ever meet my father?”

She’d been watching him, ready to gauge his reaction, ready to decipher any lies. His reaction did not disappoint and she was sure he hadn’t been expecting the question at all. Johnny’s eyes popped open and his mouth turned down into a frown. He didn’t look at her immediately, instead staring up at the sky.

There was a long pause and then, like any good liar, Johnny answered with another question.

“Why do you ask that?”

Talia sighed in disappointment, wondering if she’d get anything out of him now that he’d outmaneuvered her surprise tactic.

“No reason,” she answered with a shrug, “I just feel like there was no way you would have nailed his accent with that amount of precision without ever having met him.”

“I never met your dad Tal,” he answered. His eye contact burned almost and he sounded sincere but for some reason, Talia didn’t believe him. She nodded though, turning her body back so she was lying down and relieving him of the contact. He had to be lying.

“I knew he was from New York, that’s all,” he continued, “Just a good guess.”

Talia still didn’t buy it. In fact, his explanation only made her believe him less. He was still looking at her so she kept her face passive but inside, her heart was beating wildly. If Shadows wouldn’t let her speak to her family and now she was finding out that they knew her father, what was to say they didn’t actually kidnap her?

Head reeling, Talia didn’t want to give away the fact that she was sure she had caught on to them. After all, the whole thing with Val could have been a stunt. Maybe when they’d been friends in school they’d known who Talia and her father were. She’d never heard the name Avenged Sevenfold but that didn’t mean they hadn’t heard hers.

“Talia,” Johnny probed, sitting up slightly to see her face. She couldn’t control the slight jump she made at the sound of his voice. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she answered, too quickly, “Just miss him that’s all.”

He seemed to relax at that answer and settled back into his chair. Talia, meanwhile, was on the border of a panic attack at her realizations.

When Brian had told her that he’d never met her father she’d believed him, and now, after learning about the inner workings of their little operation, maybe he hadn’t met him. That didn’t mean none of the guys did. Johnny—so unsettled by her question that she could still feel the waves of his tension—definitely had met, or even known, her father.

Had her father done business with these people? Had he owed them money at the time of his death? Was she being held for ransom from her uncle—an uncle who barely liked her or had the kind of money these people would require?

“I’m gonna go nap or something,” Talia said. Her voice sounded stiff to her own ears and her movements as she walked up to the house felt robotic. She could feel Johnny’s anxious stare on her back all the way until she entered the kitchen, which was deserted.

She padded through the empty house, walking on her bare toes. She could hear voices coming from Shadows office. The door was usually either closed or completely open, but it was only slightly ajar this time. Recognizing Brian’s voice speaking her name in a quiet tone, Talia faltered to listen in, being careful to not even breathe.

“She’s miserable Matt, she just wants to talk to her cousin.”

His voice sounded more friendly than business and Talia wondered on what terms he was asking. Shadows said nothing but Brian continued.

“We could have her on speaker—in here. We could be right there listening. She won’t fight it, I don’t think. She won’t say anything.”

“It’s not what she’d say that bothers me,” Shadows rumbled, “It’s what her family will try to say.”

With that as a confirmation of her worst fears and an engrained fear that she’d get caught eavesdropping, Talia quickly moved away from the hallway and up the staircase to disappear into the solitude of her bedroom.

What was she supposed to do now? They’d obviously lulled her into some false sense of security. Pretend it’s a resort, Val had said, but now it was more of a prison than ever. She felt suddenly unsafe, standing in the middle of the huge room with her arms wrapped around herself. Suddenly, Talia felt very small.

She tried to calm herself down, stripping out of her shorts and pulling her hair down. If anyone came upstairs—and she was sure Brian would, after Johnny explained what had happened—she wanted to be able to jump into bed and feign sleep.

It didn’t make complete sense anyway. If her father owed Avenged Sevenfold money, then logically all of that money was now Talia’s. There was no sense in kidnapping her to get the money from her uncle. If anything they should have taken her family in order to extort the money from her.

Talia stopped pacing then and went cautiously over to the window. Brian was outside now, standing over Johnny who was speaking. The two men looked up at her bedroom simultaneously and she ducked back, realizing they wouldn’t have been able to see her anyway with the sun glaring off of this side of the house.

She shouldn’t have slipped away, she thought, mourning the decision as she climbed into her bed. If she could have just continued to sit outside, maybe then it wouldn’t have been as suspicious. Talia closed her eyes and worked on steadying her breathing.

As predicted, minutes later, Talia heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. She continued her slow breathing and pulled the blanket up a little higher. Whoever it was, though inherently she knew it was Brian, stopped outside the door and said nothing. Talia waited with bated breath as he hesitated.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of tension through the door, there came a soft knock. Talia didn’t answer right away, waiting for a second, softer knock.

“Hm,” she answered, humming loudly in the back of her throat and making a show of rolling around under the covers. He opened the door slowly and stepped inside. The room was still bright from the sunlight and through her purposely heavy-lidded eyes, Talia saw him looking more than a little unsure of himself. “What’s up?”

He stepped inside and then faltered, hanging back as Talia made a show of sitting up and shaking sleepiness off of her.

“Nothing,” he said, “It’s just—well, Johnny said…that you were upset?”

“Oh,” Talia let the world fall flat as she looked down at her fingers, poised against the soft blanket of her bed. “Yes, it was just talking about Teddy. It made me think of my dad and I’m still not really used to the idea that he’s actually, you know…gone.”

It wasn’t a lie, not truly.

Talia still couldn’t fathom that her father was dead, gone forever. She sometimes would pretend that this was the new house he’d bought, that he was just away on business, that he’d sent her back to rehab—she’d pretend any number of things if it meant having him back in her mind, even just for a moment.

She attempted a smile but it dragged down at the corners, presumably for the weight of grief in her heart and the worry of treachery in her mind.

Brian said nothing. Though he knew the depths of despair that grief could spiral into, he also knew that the best thing to sometimes say was nothing at all. To that end, he merely nodded once in understanding, trying to convey that he knew loss too.
“I know you’re probably busy but, will you lay with me for a little?”

The moment was infinitesimal and it meant two different things for the two people in the room. After all, Talia was in the middle of a very important deception with only a modicum of truth in the mix. All of the vulnerability and innocence she portrayed was real but not for the reasons Brian assumed it was there.

He, of course, obliged.

He closed the door with delicacy and Talia watched him with muted interest as he padded across the floor to the bed. She flung the blanket back for him before she laid back down, settling into the soft mattress as he moved an arm over her body.

Talia couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

She could have cried in frustration at the way she fit so perfectly into his body. She could have screamed at the unfairness of the situation. It wasn’t fair that she was intelligent enough to figure this out, to understand exactly what was happening. She could have continued living in the bliss of ignorance and had a wonderful time but instead, she’d had to go investigating where she didn’t have to.

And now, Talia remarked, she was lying in the arms of an enemy, even if he was an enemy by association. Her sanity would be lost if she admitted to herself that Brian was actively lying to her. Better to pretend he knew nothing of it. His heart, she realized as she settled back into him, was beating remarkably fast.

“Your heart’s beating like crazy,” Brian whispered to her, sending chills down her body.

It wasn’t fair. It really wasn’t.

With a throat burned raw from the desire to cry, Talia whispered back.

“So is yours.”