by JA Huss
“Just listen to her.”
“What if she has nothing to say?” I ask. “What if she blows us off and just says, ‘Fuck you guys?’”
“Then…” Chella shrugs. “Then walk out and don’t look back.”
“The baby, Chella.”
“Shit,” she says, biting her lip. “I forgot about that.”
“I might want to walk out on Rochelle, but not the baby.”
“It could be Bric’s,” Chella says, a little hint of hope in her voice. We both know Bric isn’t into kids. He might be happy if Rochelle walked away with his kid.
“It’s not,” I say.
“You don’t know.”
“Sometimes you know, and this is one of those times. I just know.”
“Well, let’s take one step at a time, OK?”
“Ready?” Smith says, walking up to us. Bric looks nervous, which surprises me. But Smith looks… angry.
Why is he pissed off?
“Ready,” I say, sighing.
We walk towards the elevator and wait until the doors open. The ride up to the twenty-first floor seems to take forever, but then when the doors open, it’s all going too fast as we walk down the hall. She’s at the very end. A suite, from the looks of the door.
Smith knocks, no hesitation. I hear a baby fussing inside and look over at Bric. He still looks very nervous. Chella grabs my hand just as the lock disengages and the door swings in.
Rochelle. My beautiful, beautiful Rochelle. She doesn’t look anything like the girl I lost. She looks… so much better.
“I should’ve known,” she says, no hello or greeting.
“I’m sorry,” Chella says, letting go of my hand and stepping forward. “He needed to know. We’ll leave if you want, but I think you owe them a conversation.”
“Fine,” Rochelle says, waving her hand for us to enter. “I probably do deserve this.”
Deserve this. That’s all she has to say? Just, Fine, I deserve this?
Chella enters first, then Smith, then Bric and I’m last. I hesitate for a second, but then the heavy door begins to swing closed and Bric stops it, last second, pulling it open for me again. “Come on,” he says. “Give it five minutes. Then you can leave.”
I enter into a hallway—master bedroom off to the right, large bathroom right in front of me with one of those huge soaking tubs—and then go left and follow Chella into the living room. There’s a couch, three chairs, a small office table, and, once I get fully into the suite, a dining room off to the left that seats one, two, three… eight. Eight fucking people. Sweeping mountain and city views from the two windows that flank the corner fireplace draw my attention back to what’s happening.
I wonder who’s paying for this? This room has got to cost two thousand a night, easy.
“Might as well sit down,” Rochelle says, picking up the baby from a seat sitting on the floor.
God, they are so beautiful.
Smith takes a seat in a chair, propping a foot on his knee and leaning back like he’s making himself comfortable. Chella sits in the chair closest to him, Bric takes the couch and I… I just stare at them.
Not them. Rochelle and the baby.
Rochelle is wearing light-colored jeans, a pale-blue t-shirt that says Pagosa Springs in faded white letters, and nothing on her feet. Her hair is even longer than the last time I saw her, and it was halfway down her back then. It’s golden in the light that pours into the room from the windows. Her stunning blue-green hazel eyes are trained on me, waiting to see what I’ll say.
I say nothing. Just take my gaze to the baby in her arms. A girl. She’s wearing a pink and white dress with eyelet lace trim. Downy tufts of blonde hair end in soft curls right at the top of her shoulders. She has a red plastic block in her mouth and she looks like she’s about to cry.
“Adley,” Rochelle says, still staring at me.
“Adley,” I repeat back. “How old is she?”
“Six months.”
I nod and look over at Smith. Help me out, man, my look says. Because I have no idea what to do.
Chella starts. “We just want to—”
“We want to know what the fuck, Rochelle,” Smith finishes for her.
“Don’t say fuck in front of the baby,” Bric says.
We all turn to look at him. Since when does he have baby rules?
“I’m just saying,” Bric explains. “Let’s try to keep this… professional.”
“Professional?” I ask.
Everyone turns to look at me. I don’t like the attention and Smith realizes this, because he picks right back up where he left off.
“You have a lot of actions to account for,” he says.
“Maybe,” Rochelle says. Calmly. She takes a seat in another chair, opposite Smith and just a few feet to my right, holding Adley tightly to her chest like she needs the comfort. Adley. What a pretty name. Something I’d agree to. “Maybe not. We did have an agreement, right? The contract said—”
“I don’t give one flying fuck what that contract said,” Smith spits, stabbing the wooden arm of the chair with his finger. He’s really pissed off. I don’t think Chella has ever seen him this way, because she looks at him, aghast, with a hand over her heart. “What you did was bullshit.”
“Can we stop with the swearing?” Bric interrupts again.
“Fuck off, Bric,” Smith counters. “You’re not gonna take her side now. Not after what she did to Quin. Fuck that contract, you know? He loved you, Rochelle. And you knew he loved you. And even Bric cared.”
“You never did though, right?”
“Right,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Your decision to leave didn’t hurt me one bit. But the way you treated them”—Smith hikes a thumb in the direction of Bric and me—“that did hurt me, Rochelle. So I’m gonna be as pissed off as I want right now.”
“Look,” Rochelle says, huffing out some air. “I don’t have to explain myself.”
“I paid you ten thousand dollars a month, you sneaky bitch,” Smith says. “So you goddamned will explain yourself.”
“What?” Bric and I both say at the same time.
“That’s right,” Smith says, not taking his eyes off Rochelle. “I kept paying my part. And you know why I kept paying my part, Rochelle?” He spits out her name like it tastes bad.
Rochelle stays silent.
“I paid you to stay gone.”
“What the fuck is happening?” I ask. “You paid her to leave?” I ask Smith.
“Not to leave, dumbass. To stay away. But now that she’s back, and she took my money, now she fucking owes me. I have questions for you, Rochelle Bastille. I paid you over three hundred thousand dollars for these answers. And you’re gonna give them to me right the fuck now.”
A part of me wants to stop Smith’s angry outburst, but most of me doesn’t. I have so many questions too.
Where did you go? Why did you leave? Whose baby is that? What day was she born? Is she healthy? How long are you staying?
“And my first question is…” Smith continues. “Why the fuck are you here?”
Rochelle says nothing. She’s not afraid of Smith. I’ve heard them have small arguments before. Nothing this dramatic. But she’s not a pushover for him like she is for Bric.
Chella stands up, takes a deep breath, and says, “Maybe we should go.”
Smith continues, undeterred. “And once we get past that little formality, I want you to tell Quin just what the fuck happened last year. And then I want to know when the fuck you’re leaving Denver. Because we don’t want you here.”
“I plan on telling you all those things,” Rochelle sneers back at Smith.
“Liar. Such a little fucking liar. You were trying to use that fucking contract to get out of it, so don’t—”
“Smith,” Chella says in an uncharacteristically loud voice. “We’re leaving. This has nothing to do with us. This is between Bric, Rochelle, and Quin. So let’s go.” She stands up, holding the dog in one hand while simult
aneously pulling on Smith’s arm.
Smith waits a full second, staring at Rochelle. Then he looks at Chella and gives in to her request.
I expect him to get the last word on his way out, because that’s just the kind of guy Smith is, but he drops it and they leave quietly.
Rochelle huffs out a breath of air that makes the baby’s hair fly up. “Well, he hasn’t changed.”
“He actually has,” I say, feeling the need to defend my friend. “A lot.”
Rochelle looks at Bric and shakes her head. “What can I say other than sorry, right?” She switches to me. “I’m sorry.”
“Whose baby?” I ask.
“I don’t know. If I knew do you really think I would’ve left without saying something? It could be either of you.”
“No one else?” Bric asks.
“What the fuck, Bric?” I say.
“I’m just asking to make sure,” he continues, his eyes squarely on Rochelle’s face.
“There’s no one else,” Rochelle says, looking at me. “I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
I rub a hand down my face and laugh.
“I didn’t think you loved me,” Rochelle continues. “I told you I loved you and you said nothing that night.”
“That’s no excuse,” I say, turning my back to her. “No excuse for what you did. You told Chella to get in your bed, pretend to be you—” I almost want to fucking choke her right now, that’s how angry thinking about that night makes me.
I take a deep, deep breath instead.
“I’m sorry,” Rochelle says again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you—”
“You didn’t mean to hurt me?” I laugh so loud the baby cries.
Rochelle morphs into some version of herself I have no knowledge of. She shushes the baby, walks to the small counter where the hotel-room-sized refrigerator is, takes out a bottle, and then sticks it inside some contraption as she rocks the baby on her hip.
I look over at Bric, who is watching everything she does with a look of fascination. “What’s that thing?” he asks.
I kinda want to know too, but wasn’t gonna ask.
“A bottle warmer,” Rochelle says, turning to face us. “You came at a bad time. She needs to eat and then nap. We were on the road since early this morning. So we’re both tired.”
“Where did you come from?” I ask.
Rochelle pulls on her t-shirt. “Here.”
Pagosa Springs. “Where are you going?” I ask, wanting to tick off as many questions as I can before she boots us out. Because we are definitely being booted out of here in a matter of minutes.
“Jackson,” she says. “I was gonna go up to Jackson.”
“You have a place up there?” Bric asks.
“I’m gonna check into a hotel for a while.”
“Good luck with that,” I say. “There’s no rooms in Jackson the week after Thanksgiving. So unless you booked ahead, you’re fucked.”
“Swearing,” Bric says, tired of repeating himself.
I roll my eyes, which makes Rochelle smile. “I’ll be OK.”
“One night then?” I ask. “You came here for one night to what? Fuck with us again?”
“I called Chella, not you.”
“Yeah, I heard. Passing through. Don’t tell Quin.”
The little bottle warmer thing dings and the baby must know that means food, because she suddenly gets very fussy. Rochelle turns away, juggling the baby and the bottle for a few seconds, until she gets everything straight, and then walks over to the couch and plops down with the baby in her lap.
Tiny hands eagerly clasp around the bottle and bring it to her mouth. Seconds later there is the sound of sucking.
I want to touch her. Both of them. I want to walk over to that couch, sit my ass down, and be with them. But I won’t. I refuse to give in that easily.
“We should go,” Bric says. “It was nice, I guess, Rochelle. But you do what you have to do.”
“Do what you have to do?” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. “No. Nope. I want a DNA test. I want that right now, before you leave town, Rochelle. I want a fucking DNA test.”
When I look at Bric he’s got a weird smug look on his face. But I ignore it and pull out my phone, doing a search for paternity testing in Denver. “Here’s one.” I press the contact number and let it ring though.
“You’re doing this now?” Bric asks.
“She’s passing though,” I say. “If not now, when?”
“Rochelle,” Bric says, swiping my phone from me and ending the call.
“What the fuck, asshole?” He opens his mouth and I cut him off. “If you bitch at me one more time about swearing in front of a baby who can’t even talk yet, I’ll punch you in the eye.”
Bric looks back to Rochelle. “You don’t have a room booked, right?”
She shakes her head.
“Then you’re not in a hurry. Passing through can mean a lot of things. It can mean one night. It can mean one week. It can mean one month.”
“Not really in any hurry,” she says.
“So just… hang out for a little bit. Let’s talk about this stuff. Take more time with it. You’re at least staying one night. You already have the room. So we’ll go, let you have time with the baby. Get settled. And we’ll come back tomorrow.”
They both look at me like I’m the one in charge here.
“OK,” she finally says. “I can stay a few days. Try to work this out.”
“Good,” Bric says. “Perfect. You happy?” he asks, looking at me.
No. No, I’m not happy at all. I’m fucking pissed off.
But Bric moves on and says, “You?” He looks at Rochelle. She nods. “Perfect. Then we’ll get going and one of us will call you in the morning.”
Bric turns towards the door and I follow, snatching my phone from his hand as he passes me. I don’t want to look back as I turn the corner towards the short hallway. But I do.
And it hurts. So bad.
God, I want them.
Chapter Five - Bric
When I get back to the Club I head straight for my office. I have two messages from Jordan asking if I have anyone in mind from the Club to take the last girl’s place.
The Club girls never work out. I knew this once, but had forgotten it. Rochelle was around too long. Important things like that slipped my mind, even though they were hard-won lessons back in the early years.
I text him back. No. I’m taking a break.
I don’t wait for his response—I know he’s in court this afternoon, so he can’t answer anyway. So I take out the card the former FBI guy gave me, and call Rochelle’s cell phone using the landline.
“Hey,” she says in a soft voice, picking up on the first ring.
“That baby sleeping?”
“Almost.”
“I think it went well.”
“If you say so,” she whispers. I hear rustling, then some hushed shushing, like she’s trying to walk away from the baby without upsetting her. And then she’s back, talking normal. “Smith? What the hell was that?”
“I have no idea,” I say truthfully. “I really have no clue why he was so angry.”
“And the money? I feel dirty, Bric.”
“Don’t be dumb. His money’s just as good as Quin’s.”
“But it’s the reason why he sent it. Stay away. Fuck him. Just fuck him.”
“Anyway,” I say, changing the subject. “I think Quin’s on board.”
“With me?”
“No.” I laugh.
“Why is that funny?”
“Because you hurt him, Rochelle. I’m pretty sure he came to see you just for the baby. And he thinks it’s his. One hundred percent his. So we probably should let him do that DNA test.”
“If he’s not coming around for me then… he’s coming around for you? Are you guys getting someone else?”
She sounds worried. Maybe genuinely worried that this might not work out the way she’s planned.
>
When she told me she didn’t want to take part in my plan down in Pagosa Springs yesterday I thought, OK. Well, I tried. But then she explained. She didn’t want me taking her back, presenting her like a gift, making things right. Starting the game again, just the three of us.
But she had her own plan. It’s not much different from mine, except she wanted to show up in Denver herself, call Chella—whom I knew would go straight to Quin—and Quin would show up at her hotel room and have the confrontation. For lack of a better word to call it.
She didn’t want me to bring her into the game because that would make me number one. Which makes sense. I’m not her number one, Quin is. He needs to be the guy to make the first move.
I didn’t count on Smith being so dead set on going over there with him. Or dragging me along, for that matter. I figured it would be a one-on-one. Just Rochelle and Quin. I imagined some tears from Rochelle. Quin comforting her. Then some make-up sex.
Bam, we’d set the stage for me to propose a new game. Quin would object, but I know he misses it. And he admitted that to me before we left the Club. So he’d give in.
My life would be back on track. Maybe not the quad I’m used to, but a threesome arrangement is almost as good. It’s practically what we had before, right? Smith was never around. It was just me and Quin. But last time I wasn’t invited into their relationship much. Every once in a while, but not often.
This time it’ll be different.
And if Smith didn’t interfere like that, we’d probably be on our way.
But he did. Asshole. And now we’re not quite there yet.
Rochelle came here expecting to be let back in. So it would be a big blow if she had to leave town with her tail between her legs. Worse yet, if she tried to stay and was overlooked when it came to Quin’s choice in the new game.
“I don’t know, Rochelle. We kinda had a talk today and I admitted I’d like him to play along again. Of course, no mention of your name. That was before we left the Club. But he was willing to give it a try. Just me and him and whomever we decide to choose.”
“So you might choose someone else?”
“Was I just speaking another language?”
“Don’t be an asshole. And ease up on the swearing-in-front-of-the-baby shit. It’s not like you to care about things like that. You’re only saying that because I said something to you yesterday.”
