by Dylan Newton
“Damn,” Drake groaned. The pictures were surging through his mind, like a faucet on full blast, and no amount of mental focus was going to shut off the torrent. He staggered out of the bathroom. He had one mission: make it to the front room and its sofa before he embarrassed himself.
Kate said something, but Drake couldn’t hear it over the ringing in his ears. He registered the horror on her face before gray clouded his vision. His body tilted, like the mast of a ship suddenly overtaken by a tidal wave, and he reached out for the wall.
“I’m going down,” he said.
And the darkness swallowed him whole.
Chapter 4
Kate recalled a band practice in middle school when she’d seen a girl slump over, right in the middle of doing scales. Her name was Jennifer, and she’d played the oboe and sat two seats over from Kate’s clarinet section. When the director had asked the girl to play the C scale, Jennifer had gotten a glazed look in her eyes—like they’d been miraculously switched from living flesh to marbles—and then she’d collapsed with a boneless grace, as if a puppeteer dropped the sticks controlling her strings. Jennifer plummeted to the floor, smacking her forehead into the music stand on the way down, splitting open a gash above her right eyebrow.
It was this oboe player’s sightless gaze that flashed through Kate’s mind when Drake Matthews had turned to her, his face pale and slightly shiny with sweat.
I’m going down.
If Drake—with his six-foot, muscular frame—took a header onto these hardwood floors, she’d have a dead client. And nobody wanted a dead client.
So she did the only thing she could think of to prevent her client from injury: she used her own body as a cushion to break his fall.
“I’ve got you!” Kate dashed around the man as he lurched down the entrance hall. She positioned herself in front of him just as his knees softened, shoving her shoulder under his armpit with such force, she accidentally knocked off his glasses, and they went clattering to the floor somewhere behind them. Kate winced, but had no time to see if she’d broken them because Drake’s head fell forward, bashing into her shoulder, and the rest of his body suddenly followed suit.
“Oh no!” she yelped as she realized she couldn’t take all his weight. She’d planned to guide Drake slowly to the leather couch she’d seen in the parlor, but no amount of her CrossFit training would enable her to lift his 180-plus pounds of dead weight that distance. All she could hope to do was slow his descent and protect his head.
She crumpled with him to the floor, keeping her arms and legs beneath him in the hope of cushioning his fall. They crashed onto the hardwood floor with a thump that shook the tiny table in the entryway, making the Tiffany lamp on top teeter precariously.
She had just enough time to duck her head against Drake, shielding both their faces as the multicolored glass shade smashed into pieces just a foot away.
When she was sure the worst was over, Kate opened her eyes. Her left leg was underneath her at an uncomfortable angle, but it wasn’t broken, and while the rest of her body felt bruised and squished, she was okay. Glass shards lay on the floor about three feet away, catching enough rays of dim light from the window in the door to glitter dully. Sasha gave one startled bark, then was quiet.
Drake lay on top of her, his big body entangled with hers, his weight pressing her into the floorboards in a very unromantic way. His head had mercifully landed against her shoulder, and they were pressed so close together, she felt the reassuring beat of his heart against her chest, and his breath tickled the hair at her neck. Her client was breathing. He was alive.
“Thank God,” she whispered. “I didn’t kill Drake Matthews.”
She lay there, thinking about how she was going to revive her client without smelling salts, when a knock came at the door behind her.
Sasha’s bark sounded excitedly from the parlor, and Kate could hear the dog’s little collar tags jingling as if she were jumping against the bars of the crate.
“Hello?” A chirpy woman’s voice came from behind the old wood door. “It’s Imani!”
Kate held Drake’s head to her as she craned her neck around to see the front door. Her friend’s silhouette showed through the door’s frosted glass panel.
“Mr. Matthews? Drake? Are you okay?” Kate asked, first jostling the writer with her hand, then shaking him by twitching her whole body in an attempt to revive him. But he didn’t move.
With effort, she straightened out her leg, leaving her still trapped but now spread-eagled under the world’s most infamous horror writer. While the position was a bit more comfortable, it could have been the picture above a caption reading Super Awkward.
Luckily, Imani wouldn’t judge.
“Dra-aake? Kaaa-te?” Imani pounded on the door again. “Sorry I’m late, but I brought along a bii-iiig surprise.”
“C’mon in, Imani,” Kate called. “We’ve got a…bit of a surprise for you, too.”
The door opened, and Imani breezed in, impeccably dressed in a white tunic-style top paired with black palazzo pants, matching heels, and an ornate, geometric belt under her burnt-orange trench coat. Her signature red lipstick looked freshly applied, and her long chestnut hair had the perfectly coifed look Kate’s had lacked in this weather. As always, she was armed with her massive black Mary Poppins bag, and she looked prepared for anything.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” Kate arched her neck to give her friend a relieved smile…and then she froze.
Her best friend wasn’t alone.
Next to Imani stood an older white man in his mid-fifties, carrying a cane and wearing a black overcoat. The man’s thinning salt-and-pepper hair was barely mussed from the rainstorm outside, and his signature handlebar mustache was perfectly waxed, the ends turned up like a smile above his lips. With the cane he always carried, he looked like a trim, updated version of the guy on the Monopoly board.
Evan Everstone.
Kate had never wished for the earth to open up beneath her more fervently than she did right now. Standing two feet from her was the “it” Hollywood producer, known primarily for his special effects and blockbuster films. He also happened to be the star judge for the annual EVPLEX awards—the award she’d been striving for since starting her business five years ago.
And here she was, trapped under the Knight of Nightmares.
Evan’s eyes widened as his gaze traveled from Drake’s prostrate form, her spread legs under him, and finally the blush burning up Kate’s cheeks.
“Oh, my,” he said, turning to Imani. His fingers twisted the ends of his mustache in a rapid gesture that looked more like a tic than like grooming. “Should we, perhaps, come back at a better time?”
Imani opened her mouth, but all that came out was a warbled, distressed noise, like a cat whose tail had been half stepped upon.
Realizing that the ground wasn’t going to swallow her and she had no other way to escape, Kate offered a weak smile to the two standing in the doorway.
“Surprise!” She grinned like a maniac at her best friend and the judge who could single-handedly give her an EVPLEX on a gilded platter. “Apparently, my book launch idea was so amazing, it knocked him out. Literally.”
Sasha chose that time to renew her barking, the sound of her paws jangling the door of her metal cage illustrating her eagerness to be part of whatever fun was happening in the entryway. At the dog’s barking, Imani recovered, hurrying to close the door behind them and turning the bolt for good measure. She rushed to Kate, shushing the dog on the way, and dropped to her knees, smelling of rain and rose-scented perfume. Imani’s hands hovered over her client’s body, as if to yank him up.
“Be careful. He’s bleeding,” Kate said, and Imani froze, her chocolate eyes wide. “Don’t worry, though. He’s not dead. He just looks that way.”
“What in the world happened here?” Imani asked. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, nothing like that. It was an accident, but I’m fine. Just squished. I don’t
dare move him in case he whacked his head on the wall before I caught him. Or tried to catch him,” Kate said, a little breathless from explaining the inexplicable under the watchful gaze of the world’s most famous movie producer. “See, he fainted. Sort of unexpectedly.”
“Should we call for some, erm, help?” Evan asked, spinning slightly around as if hoping help would arrive from either the parlor or the front door. Hanging his cane on his wrist, he reached into his overcoat, pulling out a cell phone. “Maybe a doctor?”
Just then, Drake’s breathing changed tempo and he sighed, mumbling incoherently.
“No, I think he’s coming to,” Kate said. She reached around the writer’s broad shoulders, shaking him slightly. “Drake? Mr. Matthews?”
The writer groaned, shifting his weight on top of her. Lifting his bleeding arm, he rubbed his face but didn’t sit up. “Mmph. Wh-what happened? Where’s…glasses?”
“I think they fell off, but we’ll find them,” Kate said, then shifted her attention to Imani. “He’s got a pretty nasty cut on his arm, but I don’t think he’ll need an ambulance. Let’s let him come to and get him cleaned up. There are some first-aid supplies in the bathroom down the hall.”
Imani sprang into action, her long legs easily sidestepping the debris. “Of course. And I’ll get a broom to clean up this mess so nobody cuts themselves.”
“Watch your step,” Evan said, grabbing Imani before she could crush the black-framed glasses on the floor next to the wall. Using his cane to brush shards from the Tiffany lamp out of the way, he stepped over Kate’s and Drake’s bodies to scoop up the specs, peering at them in the dim light. “The bow is broken at the hinge. I’ll go check the kitchen to see if our Mr. Matthews has any tool sets lying around, and we’ll see if we can salvage these. Unless you need me here?”
Drake moved on top of Kate, his arms and legs beginning to take some of his own weight, allowing her to take the first full breath she’d had since falling to the floor.
“No. We’re fine. He’s coming to.”
Without waiting for any other assurances, Evan beat a hasty retreat down the entrance hall, disappearing through the swinging door behind her best friend just as Drake lifted his head from her neck. His face had a sleepy quality to it, and his striking amber eyes blinked as they focused on her. In this close proximity, without the glasses hiding them, she could see the little flecks of black and green in their bronze depth, and his pupils—both the same size, she was glad to note—dilated as he gazed down at her. Although he’d lifted most of his weight onto his forearms, Kate’s breath caught as he used his uninjured hand to brush an errant lock of hair from her forehead, smoothing it back, his touch deliberate and slow. Kate’s heart picked up tempo as those amber eyes followed the movement of his hand in her hair. Then he cupped the side of her cheek, his thumb brushing something gently from under her eye.
“Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” Kate asked, her voice barely above a whisper. His gentle touch had unnerved her, reminding her how long it had been since anyone had caressed her like that. Too long, judging by her body’s immediate and eager response. Kate stumbled to put things back on their appropriate, and professional, track. “Th-that’s my line. Are you okay?”
Drake’s eyebrows drew together in confusion, and she felt his words vibrating from his chest as he spoke, deep and low.
“I…don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” he began, looking at their bodies, then squinting at the glass and the toppled lamp base around them. Meeting her eyes, he smiled crookedly, finishing his sentence. “But I can’t seem to remember how I ended up…here. Not that I’m complaining.”
Kate wasn’t sure what to do with her hands. Oh, she knew what she wanted to do with them. She wanted to wrap them around his broad shoulders, yank him down to her, and see if those soft, sensual lips tasted as good as they looked. But she was supposed to be working for him, not under him, so she patted him awkwardly on the back again, ignoring the crazy signals her body was throwing out there.
“Well, um, you sort of passed out. On me. And I tried to catch you to make sure you didn’t…die…and we ended up like this.” Kate gestured to their bodies.
Drake winced. Slowly, he took his weight to his knees and sat up, holding his arm against his chest. Kate moved to sit up as soon as he did, and was surprised by how strange it felt to have his weight lifted from her. Strange…and sort of bereft, like she’d gotten used to his warmth and the woodsy smell of him, and with it taken away, she’d just now noticed the chill of her rain-damp body. She adjusted her disheveled skirt, but since he was still sitting, she made no move to stand amidst the glass.
“Okay,” Drake said, “it’s all coming back now. I leaned over to pick the button up off the floor, and you stabbed me with your shoes—”
“Accidentally,” Kate put in.
“—accidentally,” Drake amended, but raised an eyebrow as if he doubted her words. “And when I went to clean off my arm—”
“You saw the blood and you passed out,” Kate finished. “I tried to get you to a couch, but we didn’t make it. After stabbing you, the least I could do was save you from cracking your head open.”
A hint of a smile replaced the grimace on his face.
“Fine. You saved me. After you filleted me open with those killer heels, you saved me, and since I saved you from an attack of the deadly shih tzu, I guess that makes us even. We are true heroes.”
An unexpected laugh burst from Kate’s mouth.
“Yeah. And we both seem to have a knack for drawing a crowd at the least opportune time.” Her face reddened at the memory. “Your neighbor saw more of me than I intended, and with your unexpected visitor—”
Drake’s gaze sharpened. “What do you mean?”
Just then, Evan burst through the swinging door, brandishing his cane in one hand and a pair of black-framed glasses in the other.
“Well, my dear Mr. Matthews, we have fixed your glasses at last!”
Drake turned to her with a wounded, almost betrayed expression, reminding her of how he’d looked on that YouTube video when his date—that Rachel woman—had told him she was tired of always coming in second to his books.
Before Kate could say anything to reassure Drake that she’d had nothing to do with any visitors, he stood, swaying only slightly, and put a hand out to help her up, using his boots to swish away the glass next to her bare feet. He avoided her gaze and dropped her hand once she was steady.
Kate brushed herself off, feeling awkward in the movie producer’s hawk-eyed scrutiny, and was relieved when Evan’s attention focused on the writer once more.
“I’m afraid there are some scratches on your lens, but we were able to get the bow straightened around,” Evan said, holding the glasses up to the light of the chandelier to inspect his work. “Lucky for you, Imani had a tool kit in her purse. Can you imagine that? Ms. Lewis is a woman to have at your side if there ever really is a zombie apocalypse.”
As if on cue, Imani flew through the swinging door into the hallway with a towel and a broom. Her innate grace, honed by decades of taking and then teaching dance classes, made her maneuvers around the glass-strewn hallway appear like an elaborate bit of choreography.
Drake took the clean towel she offered him and wound it around his left arm, nodding his thanks. From Kate’s vantage point, the gash seemed to have stopped bleeding, and inwardly, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Imani cleared her throat. “Maybe I should find you some gauze, or bandages, or something?”
“No, I’m good.” Drake finished wrapping the wound and dipped his head toward his publicist with a ghost of a smile. “Nice to see you again, Imani. I’d offer to shake your hand, but…”
When Drake turned toward Evan, Kate noticed the writer’s expression had transformed to more of a teeth-baring gesture.
“Evan,” Drake said with a curt nod. He accepted the pair of black-framed glasses from the older man and slipped them up the bridge
of his nose, one-handed. Once his glasses were on, it was like Drake donned a suit of armor. His earlier smiling banter with Kate was miles away. “To what do I owe the…pleasure…of your company this morning?”
“I ran into the amazing Imani in LA,” Evan said. “She was updating me on your publisher’s new book launch–movie adaptation announcement plans, and since I had some open time on my schedule, I thought I’d fly in and hear them for myself from your new point person.”
Kate pinned a smile to her face when the movie producer glanced her way, but he apparently didn’t expect a verbal response, as he continued with barely a breath of a pause.
“With what your publisher’s marketing team has planned, the lead-up to this event will be like chumming the waters. We can gin up your fan base about the movie adaptation, and really take advantage of all this free press.”
“That’s what you and your people do best—take advantage.” Drake scowled first at Evan, then Imani, and then—to Kate’s horror—he scowled at her, as if she were in on this group visit.
Evan gave a full-bellied laugh, as if Drake had cracked a joke, but Kate sensed it was just a cover. Clapping the writer on the back, the older man steered Drake around the glass shards in the hallway and into the parlor.
“Let’s get you by the fire. With all that’s going on, your nerves must be frazzled. You got anything to drink in here?”
Drake mumbled a response, and their voices faded as Imani quickly swept the glass into the corner and propped the broom against the doorway to the parlor. She grabbed Kate’s arm, marching her in the opposite direction.
“What. In the hell. Happened?” Imani’s hand tightened incrementally with each word until her grip felt like a tourniquet.
“Everything terrible! That’s what happened!” Kate hissed, allowing herself to be dragged into Drake’s tiny powder room, where she pulled free as Imani closed the door behind them. “I was like a living embodiment of Murphy’s law from the moment I stepped inside the gates.”
At the sight of Kate’s distress, her best friend’s face softened.
