by Kendall Ryan
I let him take my hand and forced a smile. And when he leaned in for a kiss, I kissed him back.
It was obvious something was off with the way he acted around Blondie, but when I searched my feelings, I found I didn’t care. In fact, it was almost a relief. Because if Chris was cheating on me, it meant I had nothing to worry about.
The whole time I’d told myself I would be able to trick Ian into thinking I was happy with Chris, I was seriously conflicted about one thing—I’d thought Chris was a good guy, and I wasn’t sure if I could continue to pretend with him. It felt like betrayal.
But now I knew. He was a douche-bag, just as horrible as I was. Maybe we deserved each other.
When he bent down to kiss me, I allowed it despite feeling not at all into it. Maybe this was what I deserved.
Thirty
MacKenzie
It was Thursday, our usual girls’ night. I’d begged off, telling Alexa I wasn’t in the mood, and was just curling up on my sofa with a blanket and a pint of ice cream when my buzzer rang. I considered ignoring it, but it could be one of my neighbors. A woman down on the second floor was always locking herself out.
I peeked out the window at the stoop to find Ty and Alexa staring up at me. Shoot. Couldn’t a girl have a night alone without her friends freaking out?
I buzzed them up and unlocked my door, plopping back down on the couch to wait for them.
Ty’s giggling preceded them as they came to my door and then knocked.
“It’s open.”
“Hey, sweetie,” Alexa said as she came in, brandishing two unopened bottles of my favorite cheap chardonnay, one in each hand. “Where’s your corkscrew?”
Ty followed her in. “I brought shots.” He laughed and held up a big mixing bowl with a cover on it.
“What kind of shots come in a mixing bowl?” I asked.
“I tried to make Jell-O shots. But I didn’t have time to let the Jell-O set, so it’s more like vodka infused with strawberry-flavored sugar.” He followed Alexa into the kitchen, where both of them made themselves at home. “They’re really good. I’ve had like two of them already.”
“Three if you count the one you had while mixing the stuff,” Alexa shouted loud enough for me to hear. I heard the clanking of metal as someone dug through my utensil drawer.
“Where’s your corkscrew, lady?” Alexa asked again.
I sighed, replaced the lid on my pint of ice cream, and headed into the kitchen.
“You’re looking too hard, Alexa,” I said when I saw her digging around like a fool in my utensil drawer. Meanwhile, my corkscrew was out on the counter in front of her.
“Oh, there you are,” she said to the corkscrew, plucking it off the counter like it was her new best friend.
“Which one of you drove?” I asked.
“I did.” Alexa turned toward me as she worked the corkscrew into the cork. “I haven’t had anything to drink—yet.”
“And why are you guys here?”
“We were worried,” she said. “You tried to duck out on girls’ night.”
“So?”
“You live for girls’ night,” Ty said. “I knew there was something wrong the second Alexa told me you weren’t coming. So I said, ‘We should go check on her. She would do the same thing for us.’ So here we are.”
“So here we are,” Alexa echoed as she poured a glass of wine for me and another for herself. “So, what’s up?”
Oh crap. They were going all intervention on me again. Please, no.
“Can’t I just have a night at home alone? Does there need to be something wrong with me?”
“No,” Ty said. “But there is something wrong, I can tell by your lousy makeup job. You’ve got ten times your usual cover-up around the eyes, and I can still see they’re all puffy from crying.”
I frowned. I’d been tear-free for most of the evening, save for the tiny crying jag right after I got home. But I was getting better. In fact, just before they showed up, I’d decided that tonight was my last night of grieving. Tomorrow I would pull myself up by my bootstraps and suck it up. Tonight was my last night of self-pity. And apparently they weren’t going to let me go through it alone.
“I was having some PMS issues,” I said pointedly, hoping that the mention of girly moodiness would make him back off.
“You don’t get PMS,” Alexa said, “you said so yourself. If you don’t want to talk about it right now, that’s fine, but you’re drinking with us whether you want to or not.” She handed me a glass of wine and a lowball full of red liquid. “Drink,” she ordered.
I rolled my eyes at her and threw back the shot, almost choking on how sweet it was. “Geez, Ty, did you add enough sugar to this?” I chased the shot with some wine.
Alexa placed another shot in front of me, holding one for herself too. “We have to catch up to Ty.”
She held up her glass and I toasted her, throwing back another ridiculously sweet shot. My tolerance was better than either of theirs, and getting Alexa drunk was always fun to watch, so I decided to play along. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and went back to the mixing bowl to get us each another shot, ladling the jellied liquid out with a spoon.
Two hours and countless sugar/vodka shots later, we were all on my living room floor with a seriously juvenile case of the giggles. None of us could even remember what we were laughing about, but I was suddenly struck with how awesome they both were to have cared enough to come over and get me wasted in my time of need.
“I really love you guys. You know that, right?”
“Aw,” Alexa sang. “We love you too, sweetie.”
“I mean it. I needed this. Things were just getting too messed up at the gym, you know? Ever since the day I screwed up and let things get out of hand with Ian, he’s been all awkward with me, and now I’m hiding things from Chris.”
“Hang on.” Ty held up his hand to stop me. “You’re dating Ian, right?”
I shook my head. “I’m dating Chris. I just screwed up with Ian.”
Alexa’s eyes widened and she turned to me. “But if you never broke up with Chris, who was the blond girl Cade and I saw him with the other night? They were all over each other. Seriously, they needed to get a room.”
I thought back to the girl I’d seen come out of the office with Chris. It had to be Blondie, but if Alexa had confirmation that Chris was cheating on me, that could get back to Ian. And I needed everything to maintain status quo until his fight was over.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t Chris. Or the girl was his sister?”
Alexa frowned for a moment, looking like she was considering it. Maybe she was just drunk enough to go for it.
I looked down at my hands. Now I was lying to Alexa and Ty. First Chris, then Ian, and now my best friends. When had life become so complicated? How had things gotten this messed up?
One thing was for sure—I couldn’t maintain this much longer. As soon as Ian’s fight was over, I needed to end it with Chris, and maybe even find a new job.
Thirty-One
Ian
I was glad to be back at the gym. Not only was it good for me to be around other people again—a great distraction from MacKenzie—but I’d also been pushing myself harder.
Part of that was thanks to MacKenzie. She’d been killing me, adding extra sets and upping the weights every day. At first I thought she was doing it to push me away, but after a few days of her coming back again and again, I realized it wasn’t that at all; she was giving me the push I needed to pass my next physical. I was thankful to her for that.
Still, by the end of the fourth day back at the gym, my body was so brutalized that when I got home around seven, I hardly had enough energy to feed myself before stumbling into bed. Not that I could go out partying anyway; I was back in full training mode. But I was so shit tired I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.
I woke to the sound of my phone in the dead of night. I used to turn off the ringer before bed, but because
of recent events, I’d cranked up the volume so that if my sister called, I would hear it.
My arm muscles screamed from the day’s workout as I fumbled for my phone on the nightstand. The clock said it was only ten thirty, but my body and mind were of the opinion that it must be much later.
“Yeah,” I grumbled when I finally found the answer button.
“Is this Ian?” a man’s voice asked.
I pulled the phone away to see who was calling. My phone said it was Sophia. I shot up in bed. “Who is this?”
“Ian…” There was a pause. “Don’t get too excited. It’s Rick.”
“Rick?” My brain was too fucking tired to figure out what was going on. “Rick who? Where’s Sophia?”
“Rick, Cade’s buddy from the adult-film industry. Sophia’s here with me. She’s safe, but you need to come get her.”
I was so upset I couldn’t fucking speak. All I wanted to do was reach through the phone and strangle Rick. I actually held the phone away from my ear for a second, trying to figure out if there was some way to achieve that magical feat. But there wasn’t.
“Just tell me where you are and I promise not to kill you.” Just torture you to within an inch of your life, that’s all.
“Hey, I called you, remember? I haven’t touched her. I don’t know how she found my studio, but she showed up with some guy asking if she could work for me.”
“Don’t you dare hire her. I will end you,” I yelled.
“Are you kidding me? I remember our last meeting, the one where you dragged me out of Sara’s apartment by the arm and told me not to touch your little sister. I value my life, which is why I contacted you as soon as I could.”
“How did you get her phone?” I asked.
“I lifted it from her purse. Listen, in order to keep her here, I had to tell her I’d hire her, so you need to get your ass over here soon and pull her out. Right now I have one of the techs giving her a tour of our facilities, but I won’t be able to stall her here much longer.”
“Just tell me where and I’ll be there,” I said and got up, pulling on clothes as I talked.
He gave me the address, and I was about to hang up so that I could plug the location into my phone. “One more thing,” he said. “I think she might be coked up.”
“How the hell did she get that? I better not find out she got it from you.”
“No. Like I said, I value my life. But the guy she came here with seems a little shady. I told my guys to get rid of him.”
“Don’t,” I said.
“No. We’re not keeping him here for you, sorry. I run a clean operation here, and can’t have you murdering some loser on my property. He’ll be gone by the time you get here. I have a business to run.”
I sighed. “Fine, but if by some miracle he’s still there when I get there, you will have a mess to clean up.”
I hung up, pulled up my GPS, and plugged in the address as I made my way down to the garage and hopped into my car.
Red.
All I could see was the color red. Luckily, my body seemed to be able to operate the vehicle, even though I’d fucking lost it. The address was a good twenty miles away, but I made it there in ten minutes.
Rick’s “studio” was in a semi-posh part of town with a lot of older warehouse buildings that had been renovated into lofts. His film company occupied several upper floors of one of these old refurbished buildings. I took the stairs five at a time as I raced up to the fourth floor where Rick said I would find her.
The scene I walked in on was massively fucked up. It was a movie set with a bedroom all lit up with studio lights, and a couple sitting on the bed, half-naked. The filming had stopped and they were both watching the commotion in the corner.
Two guys held down Sophia, who was screaming, “I can do this. Just give me a chance.”
I ran at the guys, fully expecting to brutally murder them both, but as I neared, I realized they were not so much holding her down as they were trying to keep her shirt on her. She kept on trying to pull it up, and they were restraining her in order to prevent her from stripping.
“Sophia,” I yelled, my voice demanding that she stop her crap, and she did. Taking in a breath, she looked up at me with wide eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”
The room went silent, and guys who’d been forcibly keeping her clothed backed away. When I made it to her and she still hadn’t spoken, I knelt down in front of her, grabbed her arms, and looked into her eyes.
I lowered my voice and tried to calm myself. “Why are you here?” I stared into her eyes, which were seriously bloodshot, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes as her gaze pinged around the room, apparently looking for an escape. “Sophia?”
She tried to turn away from me, but I still caught the tears that were filling her eyes.
Thirty-Two
MacKenzie
I’d filled the tub with warm water and lavender essential oil and was trying to calm my nerves when the phone rang. I let it ring for a while, thinking I’d let it go to voice mail and check it later. But the ringing kept going and going, and then, when it finally did stop, it picked up again a few seconds later and started all over again.
I sighed. My phone was in the living room. Who would be calling me anyway? I went through my short mental list as I got up and grabbed my towel. Maybe it was my neighbor Soni. After the last incident with her grandson, I’d given her my number and told her to call me if he ever showed up again. Maybe it was her.
I picked up my pace and snatched the phone from the coffee table. “Hello.”
“MacKenzie, I need you.”
It wasn’t Soni, but I knew the voice instantly. My heart danced. “Yes,” I said.
“It’s Sophia. I need to get her to treatment. Can you help? I’m not sure how to do this.”
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll make some calls. Where are you?”
“We’re on our way to your place. See you soon.” He hung up.
The desperation in his voice caught me off guard. Ian needed me. Sweet relief washed over me. Even if I couldn’t have him the way I wanted him, I was still a part of his world. I’d pushed him away, but some invisible thread had tied us together, at least for now. A sense of purpose pushed me into action and I got to work.
I switched on my computer, threw on some yoga pants and a T-shirt, and began typing.
Finding a rehab center with openings late at night wasn’t an easy thing. Ian’s family could afford to pay, which made things a little easier, but I still ended up calling a handful of places before finally talking one into taking her.
The downside was that the place was a full three-hour drive away.
Ian hadn’t told me anything about the state Sophia was in, though I assumed she was high. When they arrived, I found I was right, although, thank God, she was going to treatment of her own free will.
“Three hours away. Isn’t there somewhere closer?” he asked when I told him the news.
I shook my head. “It’s hard to find a bed at one of these places at the last minute. Three hours isn’t that bad. I can drive part of the way.”
“No, I can’t ask you to come. You found us a place. That’s enough.”
“Oh no, I’m going with you.”
My firm gaze met his. Sorry, buddy, there’s no room for argument. He couldn’t possibly think it was a good idea to drive three hours alone with his coked-up sister. She needed a sitter.
He looked tired; I’d noticed it when he first came in. It was like he’d been fighting so long and so hard, he just didn’t know if he had any more fight left in him. I hated seeing him like that.
I grabbed the backpack I’d packed while waiting for them to arrive and handed it to Sophia. “It’s just a few things that might help.” She looked at me curiously. “We’re about the same size—T-shirts, yoga pants, underwear, and a toothbrush.”
I shrugged as Ian watched me silently, his eyes tracking my every movement. Then I grabbed my purse and took Sophia’s hand. “
Come on. I want to do this for you. Please let me help.”
Sophia was quiet, but pushed her arms through the straps of the backpack.
Ian led the way to his car. I sat in the back with Sophia and played as many car games as I could think of before switching to watching videos on Ian’s tablet.
Occasionally I let myself glance up at Ian. I could see in his face that he was exhausted. He needed sleep. But every time I offered, he refused to let me drive. So I sat with Sophia and tried to keep her mood upbeat on the long ride.
We arrived at one in the morning. I’d never checked anyone in for treatment before, but I imagined it would take a ton of time. However, since she was willing to go, they hardly wanted us there at all. They needed Ian for his checkbook, but all the other paperwork could be filled out by Sophia since she was the consenting adult, and we were all but pushed back into Ian’s car, and found ourselves back out on the road again by one fifteen.
We’d hardly had time to say good-bye to Sophia before they whisked her away. She’d hugged her brother and he’d whispered something that made her smile, then she’d walked away clutching the backpack I’d given her.
Ian let me drive on the way home. He tried to get me to listen to music, but I feigned a headache so we could leave it off in hopes that he would get some sleep. Thankfully he did fall asleep about a half hour into the ride back, leaving me awake with my thoughts.
Thirty-Three
MacKenzie
It was four a.m. when I finally pulled into Ian’s garage. I found his usual parking spot and turned off the car. He lay back in the passenger seat, eyes closed, looking so peaceful as he slept.
I hated the idea of waking him and forcing him back into the reality of the situation, so I sat there, barely breathing, and let my eyes adjust to the dim light from the garage that crept in through the window, painting his face in shadows.
