Hard Knox

by Nicole Williams

  He barely budged, still smiling. “I expected more from the bionic woman.”

  Hoping my anger would bolster my strength, I braced myself, got an even better grip around his wrist, and gave it my all. I pulled on him so hard, a few grunts actually slipped past my lips, and the only movement I managed out of Knox was his smile turning up.

  “Damn it, move!” I shouted.

  “You got it. As soon as you agree to move in, I will willingly move.”

  “Knox!” That was all I had left—nothing other than screaming his name in frustration as I collapsed back on the couch.

  “Charlie,” he whispered, making it clear he wasn’t going to be sucked into a screaming match, “the choice is yours.”

  In my adult life, I’d never been so close to wetting my pants. As tempting as it was to teach him a lesson and ruin the couch, I had too much dignity for that. Or just enough. “Fuck!” I bounced in my seat from frustration and trying to keep pissing my pants off of today’s to-do list. “Fine! I’ll do it!”

  “You’ll do what?” He looked ready to lope a victory lap as he dug around for something in his pocket.

  “I’ll move in with you. Temporarily,” I added. At that point, I would have agreed to anything—running naked through a hornet’s nest included.

  “See? Was that so hard?” Whatever he’d pulled from his pocket was small enough to hide in his hand.

  “Harder than I could ever express or you could ever imagine. Now, bolt cutters. Where the hell are they?”

  Knox held up what looked like a straightened paper-clip before he lowered it to the lock of my cuff. “Who needs bolt cutters when I’m”—after a twist of the paperclip, followed by a little wobble, the cuff sprang open—“a pro at busting out of handcuffs?”

  Knox was already working the lock of his cuff free when what he’d just done registered. I threw my hand toward the paperclip. “You had that thing with you the whole time?”

  “I never go anywhere without one of these things,” he said with a casual shrug as the cuff sprung free from his wrist. “You never know when you might find yourself in a tough situation.”

  “You had that thing with you the whole time, knew how to use it, and kept us cuffed together just so you could get me to agree to move in here?” I was already backing down the hall toward the bathroom, but I wanted him to see the look on my face.

  “For a so-called great journalist, you’re kind of slow on the uptake.” Knox dangled the cuffs before winking and stuffing them into his back pocket. In addition to being panty holders, they were also a handy place to store handcuffs.

  Instead of glaring at him like every fiber of me was dying to do, I smiled—a wide one that was all teeth and batting lashes. “You know what? I’m glad I’m moving in here.”

  Knox’s face went blank with surprise as he stood. “Oh yeah?”

  “Oh yeah. Because murdering you in your sleep will be so much easier now.”

  “I SAID TO pack some, not all.” I froze in the doorway of my dorm room, gaping at what Knox had managed to get done while I showered and brushed my teeth. I’d been gone twenty minutes, maybe thirty, but other than the top dresser drawer I’d told him not to even think about getting close to¸ he’d packed the rest of my stuff into the stack of cardboard boxes beside the door. Other than Harlow’s side, the room looked almost as empty and sterile as it had the first day I’d moved in.

  “I know how you girls are,” Knox said, dropping a final box beside the others. He’d even marked the boxes in black Sharpie—this one read: Books and Shit. “If you didn’t pack it, you’ll wish you had. If you don’t have it, you’ll need it. Better to just bring it all than make a million trips back and forth.”

  No need to worry about making trips, because other than my mini-fridge, hand-held vacuum, and paper chain, none of my personal items were staying behind. “Oh, I’m sure you know how girls are. I just figured your knowledge ended at the anatomy and didn’t stretch into the psyche.”

  “The man whore jokes have got to stop. I’ve heard them all, and yours are nowhere close to being the most clever ones out there. Know when you’re beat, Charlie Chase.”

  After adjusting a few more boxes—all of which read something to the effect of Pants and Shit, or Coats and Shit, or Junk and Shit (which seemed a bit repetitive) —Knox looked at me. His expression changed into the one that made my stomach do a whirly-Q—immediately followed by a dive bomb.

  “What?” I stopped toweling my hair dry.

  “Nothing,” he answered after a pause, heaving several boxes into his arms and heading through the door. “I’m going to take another load down to the truck. I’ll be right back.”

  “Another load?” Surely I hadn’t packed that much stuff into my parents’ mini-van when we’d left for Sinclair in the fall.

  “You’ve got a lot of shit,” Knox’s voice boomed from down the hall.

  “And the black Sharpie to prove it,” I muttered, waiting until Knox had disappeared into the stairwell before I rushed toward my dresser. From the looks of it, no unwanted guests had been rifling through the top drawer, but that didn’t mean Knox hadn’t kipped a peek. If he hadn’t, his name wasn’t Knox Jagger.

  After grabbing my duffel bag from the closet, I stuffed panties and bras by the armload into it like I was in a race against the clock. When Knox and I drove to campus after I’d finally gotten to pee for what felt like an hour—followed by me resisting the urge to coldcock him for basically tricking me into agreeing to move in, followed by his peace offering in the form of fresh coffee and ham and cheese omelets—we’d had to park about as far out in the parking lot as a person could get from the dorm. Knox would be gone at least ten minutes, so I didn’t know why I was about to break into a sweat from packing my underwear, but I was almost paralyzed by the thought of him seeing them. Not because they were nothing like the kind that wound up in his back pockets, I reassured myself a few times, but because . . . because Knox didn’t have the right to anything else personal when it came to me. He’d finagled me into leaving my dorm, he’d witnessed me writhing in nature-calling agony, he’d held my hair while I’d unloaded the contents of my stomach—he didn’t get to bear witness to one more personal piece of me. However, that reason took a bit more effort to sell to myself than it should have.

  I’d just stuffed my last sensible beige bra into the bag when someone popped inside the doorway. I jolted so hard that I managed to thump my funny bone into the dresser. “Ouch!” I dropped the bag so I could rub my elbow. “So not a funny bone.”

  “Do you need a hug?” Harlow leaned into the doorjamb, giving me the perfect balance of a smile and a smirk.

  Harlow had an edgy name and dressed the part, but all that edge couldn’t hide that she’d been raised a Southern Belle. You could take the girl out of the debutante ball, but you couldn’t take the debutante out of the girl. Her effortless curtain of cornflower hair, her easy and perfect—no exaggeration—smile, and her face that was meant to be sighed at wistfully could not be marred by whatever knotted, slashed-up band shirt she’d pulled on or whatever holy-hell-that’s-bright! shade of lipstick she used. It didn’t stop her from trying, but it seemed like the harder she tried to disguise her roots, the more they broke through the surface.

  “What I need is a stiff drink, but since I can’t seem to sip anything around this campus without wondering if some tiny white pill might have been dissolved in it, I guess I’ll settle for a hug.” I opened my arms, and Harlow skipped across the room. When she threw her arms around me, she squeezed me so hard a whoosh of air rushed from my mouth.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” she said, smelling like magnolias and sweet tea . . . even though she wore perfume that came from a black bottle with a leather cap. North Carolina simply couldn’t be rinsed off of the girl.

  “Tell me about it. You’re not the one who’s moving in with Knox Jagger.” After that morning’s events, I wouldn’t have felt particularly bad about going back on
my word. He’d pretty much tricked, bribed, and tortured me into agreeing to move in, so reneging on my promise didn’t seem like that big of a deal.

  But there was one big reason why I didn’t. Or maybe two. First, living with him and being in his so-called element would give me the perfect opportunity to figure out just who he was and who he wasn’t. Whatever secrets or shadowed past Neve was convinced Knox was hiding could all be found somewhere in his personal space if there was anything to find. Second—and I’d never admit it to him—I was scared. Not in a crippling capacity, not even in a paranoid one—yet—but I’d definitely gone from fearless to fear-more after my second roofie experience. Living off campus and having Knox a room away—a guy who was well-known for putting a guy out cold with one hit—gave me a measure of peace.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean I can’t believe this is happening in regards to you moving in with Knox—although, hello, let’s get back to that in a moment. I meant I can’t believe some dick is messing with you like this.” Harlow rubbed small circles into my back just like my mom would have if she’d been here. It was one of the many things I loved about my roommate . . . or my old roommate. She took better care of me than I did.

  “We’re talking about Knox, right?”

  Harlow held my shoulders, giving me one of her looks. “I’m talking about the other dick messing with you—the one who’s making it a habit to drop an illegal substance into your drinks.”

  “Oh, that dick,” I said, nodding. “There’s just so many in my life right now, it’s hard to keep up.”

  “Stop making jokes for two minutes.” Harlow wandered over to the mini-fridge. “Do you have any idea who it might be?”

  “Some dick?”

  “The jokes. Enough with them.” Harlow pulled a couple of sodas from the fridge and tossed one my way. It wasn’t a stiff drink, but some sugar and caffeine couldn’t hurt.

  “Sorry, I can’t accept drinks from anyone. Friend or not.” I was already opening the tab.

  “And after all of the trouble I went through lacing it with poison before hermetically sealing it right back up.” Harlow popped her soda open and took a sip. “There’s ten hours of my life I’ll never get back.”

  “And I thought I was being accused of making light of a serious situation,” I muttered before taking a drink.

  “Being crammed into this room with you for the past couple of months and a different room all of last year means more than just your wide smile has rubbed off on me.”

  “And I’d hoped it would be my evil plans for world domination that rubbed off on you.” I rolled my fingers against my soda can. “Because, after all, every depraved dictator needs a trusty sidekick.”

  “Whatever.” Harlow tossed one of her pillows at me. “I’m no one’s sidekick. However, I will throw in my application if the position of criminal mastermind ever opens up.”

  The idea of Harlow doing anything illegal, even tossing an apple core from a moving car, was enough to make me laugh. I would miss our daily chats about nothing. I would miss the ones about those harder-to-breech somethings too. Harlow had become my confidant, one of the few people I could count on. When I heard a sigh slipping from my mouth, I reminded myself that this was only a temporary move. The faster I figured out who was after me and just who Knox was, the faster life could get back to normal.

  “So? Any ideas who this dillweed is?”

  Dillweed? Yeah, not one of my top choices for describing the puss-filled scum-of-the-earth. “No clue. None. Which is such an ideal place to be when trying to narrow down a list of suspects.”

  “God, I can’t believe someone’s doing this to you. When Knox called me this morning—”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. He doesn’t really have a discretion meter.” I plopped down on my bare bed and tucked my legs under me.

  “I’m not. I would have been pissed if he hadn’t called me. You really need to stop acting like this is grade school and some kid’s pulling a lame prank on you. This isn’t a prank, and it isn’t something to take lightly.” Harlow set her soda on her nightstand, and her sparkling blue eyes locked on me. “This is about attempted rape.”

  I bobbed my head from side to side. “Well, nothing’s been attempted, so . . .”

  “Fine,” Harlow’s voice was shaking. She didn’t scream and holler like the rest of us, but I could tell she was getting pissed when her voice took on that shaky tone. “Then it’s about someone drugging you. That’s known as a felony where I come from. So please explain why you’re expecting me to treat this like it’s no big thing?” A couple of tears looked close to spilling from the corners of her eyes.

  Harlow cared about me, and as inconvenient as that might have been at this conversation juncture, I wouldn’t repay that care with more attitude. “Listen, you’re right. I know I’m in some deep, deep shit here. I know someone’s after me and what they’re probably planning to do if Knox isn’t ever lying in wait one night. I even know what could happen if the sick bastard slips one too many pills into my orange juice. I know what’s going on, and I know the danger . . . I just can’t let it cripple me.”

  After setting my soda down, I combed my fingers through my hair and relaxed my head into my hands. Talking about getting drugged and raped was just as crippling as thinking and fretting about it. “If I don’t come at this thing with my typical ho-hum Eeyore attitude, I’m done. I’ll hide behind a steel door until this guy is caught, and I refuse to live as a victim. This guy wants me to be scared, so I’ll be fearless. He wants me to feel threatened, so I’ll be carefree. He wants me to feel cornered, so I’ll be boundless. He wants me to feel like a victim, so I’ll play like I’m the victor . . . until the day I figure out who he is, get the sick fuck arrested, and really am the victor. Playing his game with one of my own is the only way I’ll make it through this. If it helps you to know that I’m close to pissing my pants in fear, then yes, I’ll admit that to you, but don’t expect me to admit it to everyone else.” When I glanced up, her whole face had softened, and she looked about to go all nurturing mother on me again. I added, “I can only confess these types of character flaws to my trusty sidekick, after all.”

  She sniffed, wiping at her eyes. “Just when I want to take my Econ book and try to thump some sense into you, you go all up close and personal on me.” She popped off her bed, waving her arms at me. “Come on, girl. Let’s hug it out.”

  “Isn’t that just what we did?”

  “Fine. If you won’t meet me halfway, then I’ll go the distance.” With a giggle and a leap, Harlow tackled me, throwing me back on my bed as she unleashed one giant bear hug on me.

  “Go the distance?” a low male voice said from the doorway. “The exact three words every guy wants to hear when walking into a room where two girls are wrestling and giggling on a mattress.”

  Harlow froze in the midst of her hug-torture, and I groaned.

  “I suppose I don’t need two tries to guess whose voice that is,” she said before glancing at the doorway.

  “Well, it sure isn’t Prince Charming,” I muttered. My eyes narrowed on the figure hovering in the doorway.

  “If I was Prince Charming, I’d be wearing tights and serenading some fair maiden on bended knee.” Knox entered the room, appraising Harlow and me and our position with a wicked smile. “I’m more along the lines of Prince Reality.”

  “Prince? That’s a stretch and a half.” I rolled off the bed. Once I was standing, I crossed my arms and leveled him with a look.

  “Kind of like considering you a fair maiden. So aren’t we just a match made in un-fairytale heaven?”

  “Introductions,” Harlow stated in her no-nonsense voice. “Where I’m from, they’re considered good manners before two people duke it out with wits and words.”

  Knox grinned at me, sweeping his hand in a proceed fashion.

  Why his grin made me glare, I don’t know. It was like a knee-jerk reaction. “Harlow, meet Knox Jagger. The proverbial, literal, and metaphysical pain
in my ass.” I matched his grin. “Knox, meet Harlow, my former roommate and soon-to-be-again one, and my trusty sidekick.” When Harlow swept toward Knox, her man-catching smile on full beam, I added, “She’s also with someone—a lieutenant in the Air Force. Probably not someone you’d want to mess with.”

  Both Knox and Harlow gave me a strange look. Yeah, because I was the crazy one in the room.

  “Nice to meet you, Harlow. Sorry again for the crack-of-dawn call this morning.” Knox shook her hand, somehow managing to keep his eyes on her face.

  I hadn’t thought that was possible when any guy was introduced to any girl, let alone Knox Jagger meeting the indelible, drop-dead gorgeous Harlow Bennington.

  “Nice to meet you too, and again, no worries about the call. You can feel free to call me whenever you like.” Harlow paused with her mouth still open. “Or, you know what I mean . . . Whenever you need me . . .” Harlow shook her head. “Or whenever you feel like you need to do me . . .” Her hands clamped over her mouth right before she squeaked out, “Call me. Whenever you need to call me.”

  My eyes rolled to the ceiling. Just what Knox needed—another beautiful girl losing her sense around him. At least I didn’t have to worry about Harlow losing her panties to him as well. I hoped.

  Knox wasn’t quite gloating, but it was pretty damn close. “I like your roommate, Charlie.”

  “I do too,” I replied, folding my arms tighter. “Too bad I have to make a serious trade down.”

  Knox shouldered up beside Harlow, inspecting me with narrowed eyes. “Is she always like this? I mean, it’s like she’s confused insults for compliments.”

  “More like she’s forgotten what a compliment is—if she ever knew in the first place.” Harlow nudged Knox as they exchanged a look.

  When they chuckled together, I moved toward them. “Okay, that’s it. I refuse to let you two align. I’ve got enough enemies without you guys joining forces in the Charlie-Chase-is-the-devil theory.” Winding my arm through Harlow’s, I led her toward the door. “If you don’t leave now, you’re going to be late for Economics of Third World Countries.”