“I’d like that too, and I appreciate the advice.”
He shrugged. “Don’t cost nothing.”
“I suppose not.” My lips twitched. “You mind me asking why you’re called Bagpipes?”
The guard heaved a sigh like I was the most wearisome thing in the world, but I didn’t mind, especially when he replied, “When I got married, my wife insisted on walking down the aisle to bagpipes. The piper stuck around for the reception. I got a little drunk, me and him got into a small fight when I saw him eying up my bride like she was a T-bone, and he whacked me over the head with it. The name stuck with me ever since, especially when Kerry-Louise started learning how the oven worked.” He patted his belly. “Got the gut to prove she’s a brilliant cook.”
Laughing, I asked, “Does she call you Bagpipes?”
He arched a brow. “No. Would you call Brennan that?”
“True. What’s your real name?”
“Donal.”
“Thank you for telling me, Baggy,” I murmured.
He just shrugged, and a few minutes later, he dropped me about twenty yards from the coffee shop thanks to a pedestrian crossing, handing me a burner cell with instructions to call him when I was done at the nail salon.
As I climbed out, it felt strange to be wearing an evening dress for coffee when I was in such a nice part of the city. Couldn’t be helped, though. I’d had to leave everything behind apart from the bare minimum like a tub of Vaseline that could fit into my purse alongside the dress that needed destroying.
Before he’d left on business, Brennan had asked for it, and I’d felt nothing about leaving it with him, even though I knew he could hold it against me for life.
But I preferred it that way.
It was a means of showing him I was willing to have faith in him, and I wanted him to know that more than I cared about my freedom.
That rested with him anyway, so what was another piece of leverage in the grand scheme of things?
As I walked toward the coffee shop, there was a used coffee cup on the ground and a dirty sleeping bag with someone huddled underneath it.
It wasn’t that cold,yet, but I didn’t know how miserable it would be later on. Too miserable to stay in a damn sleeping bag, that was for damn sure.
Since my return from New Jersey, I’d noticed there were so many more homeless people on the streets, and though I couldn’t help them all, I tried to do what I could.
At the same time he’d asked for my dress, Brennan had given me a wad of cash. I had to assume that was supposed to last me a while, but I couldn’t, in good conscience, go into the nail salon to have my nails filed while this poor guy was sleeping rough outside it.
Dipping into my purse, I pulled out a couple of hundred dollar notes, and placed them into the cup. As I straightened, I saw Inessa was outside the coffee shop, watching me, and a few yards away, her guard hovered, watching me as well.
My cheeks turned pink as I strode toward them. As always, I wanted to reach out to Inessa, to have her hug me, but there might as well have been a ‘back off’ sign hanging around her neck. I respected her boundaries and just shot her a wary smile.
There was a lot I had to say to her, a lot Icouldn’tsay to her, but I needed to kill two birds with one stone and eating before I got back to the apartment would accomplish that.
“Shall we go in?” I asked her, pushing the door open before she could question what she’d just seen.
She’d painted me as a bitch for leaving them a long time ago, but that didn’t make me one. If I’d shaken that belief with human decency, then so be it. I hadn’t set out to do that.
The coffee shop was quiet, because it was a weird time to grab a drink and a snack, so I strode straight over to the counter without waiting on her, and placed an order for an open-faced chicken cobb salad sandwich and a latte.
After I’d paid, I left Inessa to make her own order and took a seat in the corner. It was a little cold out, especially with my meager outfit, but it was toasty warm in here.
A quick glance around told me we could talk in privacy, as the only patrons were at the other side of the storefront, clustered around a bunch of armchairs and sofas.
It reminded me ofFriends, to be honest. There were three girls, three guys, all smiling and hanging out.
God, how simple their lives were.
Did they appreciate the freedom they had?