Passages 6

Wastin' time like it was free
Will you ever find where you'll be
And I'd only do for you what you'd do for me
And I only would do for you what you'd do for me

~Touche - Godsmack



Cruz eased into the parking space right at the front of the club, mildly amazed he’d found one so close, he’d been prepared to walk a couple of blocks. He stretched, looked around before going into the place, and saw her.


Rayne had her back turned to him. She was wearing some kind of leather thing, her back bare, and that got to him, that long bare tanned back, her hair pulled up and the nape of her neck exposed. She was flanked by that blonde he’d privately tagged Sorority Sam and she was talking to a guy he’d never seen before. Flirting with him, one hand on his bare arm fingering the band around his bicep.


Sorority Sam saw him and knew he saw Rayne. She looked like she felt embarrassed or sorry for him, hands clasped behind her back and a funny expression on her face. It was bad enough to stand there and watch the girl he was having trouble getting over coming on to another man, but getting the pity look from her damned friend made it a hell of a lot worse.


Cruz swallowed hard, watching them. He’d spent most of the week trying to figure out what had happened with Rayne, why she’d walked out on him, whether the sex was bad, if he’d done something, if she was playing some kind of game and wanted him to chase her. He thought he knew her and she wasn’t a game sort of girl. After half a dozen phone calls, most of which she wouldn’t even answer, he decided if it was a game, he didn’t want to play. And he didn’t want her to think he was following her around, which meant he wasn’t taking one more damned step. He’d find another club.


Discouraged, trying not to look at her, he turned to leave, taking one final look back. Rayne was following Sam inside into a blast of flickering light and heavy metal music, but the guy paused outside the door and looked down at him. He didn’t say anything or act like he intended to do anything, just stood there in that outfit with the gloves, tall and lean, maybe somebody in the band. Cruz set his hands on his hips and met his gaze.


Any other time he’d be all over somebody like that, but not this time. Cruz heard Rayne calling him, but the guy still stood there, watching him, more like he was curious than anything else. Kind of strange…whoever he was, he almost looked like he could be his own brother or cousin.


Fuck it, he didn’t have a brother or a cousin and he was out of here. He turned his back to the door and to the guy and to Rayne when he heard a woman shouting from the other side of the parking lot.

“Gabe?”

Cruz stopped and looked through the pool of parking lot light at a tall, striking woman striding purposely toward him, her voice loud, urgent.


“Gabe is that you?! Wait a minute! Don’t you walk away from me!” She used a voice that stopped a couple of pedestrians and sure got his attention, assuming she was talking to him.


He glanced around, didn’t see anybody else she could be yelling at, wondering if this was some kind of pickup, a whore, or a setup, but she was alone and didn’t seem like she was in a good mood. Had he bumped her car? “No,” he snapped. “You got the wrong guy.”


She crossed her arms. She was breathing hard, an impressive rack moving up and down with each agitated breath, and she was staring at him like she definitely recognized him and wasn’t particularly happy about it. Whoever the guy was, he must be on her major shit list. “Who are you?” she demanded.


This was the second time that week that someone came at him with that question, and he had no more idea what she was talking about than he had when Rayne said it. At least Rayne hadn’t confused him with some other guy. Cruz lowered his voice and responded, “Look lady, I don’t know who you think I am, but I don’t know you, and I’m leaving.”


Instead of apologizing for the mistake like a normal person, she reached out, grabbed his chin and turned his face into the light, what light there was, pink and purple neon and a couple of spotlights on the ground. Her long red nails scratched his skin as she murmured, “It can’t be but you look so much like him…”


Stunned, Cruz hesitated a second before striking her hand away and growling at her, “Hey bitch, keep your hands off me!”


“Who are you?” she insisted, her whole face tight and intent and close to scary like some kind of crazy stalker chick. “Who’s your father? What’s your name?”


His father? Completely taken aback, faced with a question that seemed insane, a question he couldn’t answer, he gaped at her, momentarily speechless. If this crazy bitch thought she recognized him, and, for all he knew, he might look like his father, whoever he was, and he was supposed to be dead, that’s what they’d told him, his real parents were dead, well it was her problem. He had enough weird shit in his life right now.


She had green eyes. She was so close he could see her pupils contract and expand in the flashing lights, camera shutters opening and closing, capturing him inside whatever lunatic brain she had. “I’m Camilla Lombardo and we need to talk.”


Cruz drew a deep breath. The name didn’t mean a thing to him. Wary, off balance, wanting nothing more than to get out of this place and away from her, but unnerved, he filed the name away. Maybe somebody at work had heard of her. “No we don’t. And you need to get the hell out of my way.”


Moving carefully, putting distance and his bike between them, Cruz started reaching for his keys, but she didn’t move out of his way. There was a strange sad look on her face now, dark, quiet, searching. Searching for what, his father? Why? The man was dead.


He didn’t understand it, and, for the first time in his life, Cruz wondered about his parents. He’d never wasted any time thinking about it, but he did now, looking at this woman who was so bent on knowing who he was, who his father was, he finally wondered. Who was the man?