“You can lie with this,” I said, brushing her lips with my thumb. She was too stunned to flinch away. Her lips felt so fucking soft against the pad of my thumb that I almost kissed her right then, except she probably would have bit me for it. “But your body is sending me a perfectly clear signal. You want what I want. You always have. You’re just too stubborn to admit it.”
“You call it stubborn. I call it common sense.”
I grinned. “I’ll go see about those ducks.”
It was midnight, and surprise surprise, I couldn’t sleep. I plopped myself down in the hallway outside my room, setting my crutches to the side. I was already tired of the things, and considered ditching them all together tomorrow, but I enjoyed the distant look of fear they brought to Gardener Girl’s eyes, like a constant reminder that I had her by the throat. The carpet was patterned with repeating gold diamonds on a green background. I stared at it long enough to notice that every third diamond was slightly crooked, like a glitch in the pattern. It was too much to take. I pushed off the wall and wandered to the elevator, then tapped the button for the lobby.
It wasn’t my first midnight foray into a hotel lobby. Not by a long shot. I enjoyed the silence, and I enjoyed existing in that twilight zone outside normal operating hours. There was a peacefulness to knowing the world was asleep. It was as close as you could come to pressing the pause button on life, and fuck if I didn’t need a pause button sometimes.
But it looked like there wasn’t going to be any pause tonight, because I wasn’t alone in the lobby. Gardener Girl was curled up in a high-backed chair with a gel pen and one of those composite notebooks they made you buy back in elementary school. She hadn’t noticed me yet, and I thought briefly about going back to my room.
It was too late at night to be a dick. I worried if I talked to her now, I might end up saying something I’d regret. Something too nice. I had a very specific kind of torture planned for her, and mental whiplash wasn’t in those plans. She needed to see the depths of my darkness and still decide to fuck me. That was how I wanted it to happen.
I should have walked away, but I’d never been good at doing the smart thing.
“The chair in your room wasn’t good enough?” I asked.
She looked up, startled. For a flickering moment, her guard was down. I saw the innocent, wounded girl behind those eyes she liked to harden around me. In that instant, I felt a stab of guilt because I knew I had played my part in that pain.
“The air conditioner was making a kind of wheezing noise,” she admitted.
I raised an eyebrow, plopping down on the ground with my elbows on my knees in front of her chair. “I have earplugs in my suitcase,” I said.
“Okay, hold on. Am I hearing things, or was that actually something considerate that just came out of your mouth?”
“Make me repeat it, and the next thing you hear won’t be considerate at all.”
“Say it again,” she said with a wicked little grin.
This fucking girl. “I said you could come to my room if your air conditioner is bothering you. Though I doubt you’d get much sleep if you were in my bed.”
“There we go. Just needed to reset the whole crude asshole barometer. It was on the fritz for a second, there.”
“What are you working on there?” I asked, nodding to her notebook.
She closed it and folded her hands over it. They were soft hands with stubby fingers. I remembered the first time I noticed those ridiculous little sausage fingers. “Let me see those,” I said, reaching for her hand.
She looked down in confusion as I lifted her hand and peeled her fingers open so that her palm was facing me like she was waiting for a high five.
I chuckled. “These are the most ridiculous fingers I’ve ever seen.”
She snapped her hand shut and yanked it back. I expected her to look hurt or wounded, but instead her impish little grin returned. “They get the job done.”
A laugh burst from me. When she realized how I interpreted her words, she finally blushed.
“I meant writing, and you know, things like that…”
“Right,” I said.
A few moments of quiet passed between us. She was still curled up in the chair like a cat, her feet tucked under her ass and her hands still folded over the notebook. I was sitting beneath her, wondering what the hell I was doing. The night was quiet. It was the kind of silence you could lean into like an old friend.
“Do you ever feel bad about everything that happened?” she asked.
“No,” I said instantly. I said it before I had a chance to really think it through, to admit that there were a thousand things I would’ve changed, done differently. That time was gone. I’d rather close the door on it.
She nodded, like she was expecting as much. She uncurled herself from the chair, got up, and walked straight past me without another word.
She could suit herself. I had six months. Six long-ass months to chip away at her defenses. It was a battle she had already lost, but if she wanted to see how it played out, that was fine by me. I’d enjoy the ride.
13
Aribella
We had been at the Peabody for two days now. Zach and the guys had their concert tonight at Levitt Shell. He had mostly left me alone after our late night conversation in the lobby, except for a little note card slipped under my door telling me when the duck parade would happen. I was surprised when he didn’t insist on having one of his meals with me, like he had threatened.
I didn’t regret walking out on him in the lobby. It served him right. A normal person would have said they regretted what they had done, even if it was a lie. They would’ve said it because it was easier, and they wouldn’t have wanted to look like a monster.
Zach wasn’t a normal person, and he hadn’t hesitated to remind me he was every bit as cruel as I remembered.
I was in my room, trying to ignore the wheezing sound of the air conditioner and wondering when I’d risk exiting my room to rummage for lunch. Zach had slid a credit card under my door with “Gardener Girl” written in black sharpie across the face. There was a post-it note stuck to the card that said, “buy whatever dumb shit you want with this.”
Charming.
I considered slipping it back out into the hallway and hoping somebody would find it and rack up charge after charge on his account, but decided the least he could do was pay for my meals if I was going to play along with his blackmail game.
There was a knock at the door.
I opened it just a sliver so I could peek through. It was Brent. I opened the door all the way, taking in his gray v-neck and broad shoulders. He flashed the easy smile I remembered, dimples and all.
“Hey Aribella,” he said. “Can I have a sec?”
I looked over his shoulder to Zach’s door, wondering if he was in there, and then I nodded. “Okay.”
“Can I come in?”
I hesitated, and Brent read me like a book. He gave me a disappointed look.
“Come on,” he said. “Have a little backbone around him or he’ll walk all over you.”
The implication that I was scared of Zach was offensive enough for me to let Brent in, against my better judgment. The door closed behind him and I felt a kind of wrongness at being alone in my room with him, especially when I knew how close Zach could be.
Brent sat on the edge of my bed, intensifying the feeling of unease swirling in my stomach. I took a chair from the desk and turned it around, sitting down to face him but keeping a safe distance.
Safe. From who? Me? Zach? Brent? I wasn’t sure, but my brain was screaming that this wasn’t a good idea.
“I wanted to apologize for how I was on the bus,” Brent said. “I didn’t expect to see you after all this time. I got a little stupid.”
For a moment, I stopped to marvel at where I was right now and what I had done for the past two days. One moment, I had been a glorified groupie running from her past. The next, I had band members from the biggest band in the wor
ld practically fighting over me. It was insane.
“You don’t owe me an apology, Brent.”
He sniffed. “I can see why you’d think that, but no. I don’t blame you for how things went. We both know whose fault all that was.”
“I can’t shift the blame for all my bad decisions to Zach. I was a big girl. I made my own choices.”
“It was your choice to leave your family behind senior year? To drop out of school and run?”
Pain stabbed at me. I remembered the late night packing. Grabbing what I thought I’d need and just driving. Driving and driving and crying until I felt like I had gone far enough, which was when I hit the coast on the opposite end of the country. Florida.
“Did you come here to convince me to hate Zach? Because I’m one step ahead of you. Don’t worry.”
He watched me, eyes searching for something. “What are you doing here?”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I mean, nothing has changed between you two. It doesn’t make sense.”
“He’s paying me well,” I said. It was true, and it was a lie, because if things went my way I wouldn’t take a penny of the money he was trying to send my way. If I couldn’t avoid taking it, I’d donate it to a charity or something. Anything to know I wasn’t in his debt. Resentment and hate toward Zach was the fuel that pushed me forward in life. I don’t know what I’d do without it after all this time.
Brent looked at me in a way I didn’t like. There was pity in his soft brown eyes. In that moment, I knew I became smaller to him. Some of the magic rubbed off. “If you’re hurting for cash, I can help you out. You don’t have to put yourself through this for him.”
I shook my head. “I can’t take your money, Brent.”
“But you’ll take his?” He asked. The first traces of anger were in his voice, now, and I saw that this wasn’t just about helping me. Nothing had changed since high school. He was still locked in an eternal struggle with Zach, and I was nothing but a pawn on their board, something to fight over.
“At least Zach is honest about it,” I blurted.
Brent looked at me in confusion.
“You pretend you care about me, but I’m just a tool to you. At least Zach doesn’t bother hiding it.”
“Aribella, that’s not true.”
I heard the electronic beep of a keycard being used outside my room and saw the handle turn. For a second, I thought it will be housekeeping, but instead, the door swung open and I saw Zach standing there with that old, familiar storm in his eyes.
“You both have about one second before I start breaking things,” said Zach. His voice was cold, but there was fire in his eyes.
Brent stood, facing him. He was bigger than Zach. Maybe a fraction of an inch shorter but with thicker muscles and a broader build. Brent had power, but he would stop from doing serious damage in a fight. Zach wouldn’t. He was a bottled thunderstorm with a loose lid, just waiting for the slightest provocation to unleash all that anger and hate roiling inside him.
“You want to break things? Jenika would love that,” Brent said.
Jenika? I wondered if it was a girlfriend of Zach's, but I dismissed that idea. Zach had never done girlfriends. He was the poster boy for casual sex. That was all he ever offered. A fun time and then the door.
“Out,” Zach growled.
Brent shook his head dejectedly and looked like he was about to actually obey Zach. He made it a few steps toward the door before he paused with clenched fists and then slammed his hand down on the dresser. "Fuck, man. What is it with you?" he snapped. "You act like this is still high school. Like your ‘dibs' mean shit anymore. Aribella is a grown ass woman."
Zach dropped his crutches to square up with Brent, confirming my suspicions that he was playing up the injury all along. Even with the medical boot on his foot, the liquid look of cold hatred in his eyes made up for every bit of the size disadvantage he had.
“Stop it,” I said, feeling for all the world like I was sixteen again. I had been a prize to them back then. Something to prove a point. I had come full circle, it seemed, but this time I was trapped. I wouldn’t be able to move across the country to escape it. I had six more months of this left, unless I wanted to risk calling Zach’s bluff. Something told me he wasn’t bluffing, though. I felt sure he would do everything in his power to make me miserable if I tried to back out of this arrangement.
Brent and Zach looked at me, towered over me. I refused to be intimidated. Being here wasn’t just about the blackmail. It was about redemption. I wasn’t going to be mowed over like I was back then. I had grown, and Zach was due for a wakeup call.
“I can talk to Brent if I want to. You don’t own me. You never did. Keep trying if you want, but it’s not going to work like it used to. Be an ass. Be vile. Be a complete and total jerk. It’s not going to scare me into compliance this time. Until you learn to treat me like a human being, you’re not even going to get so much as a cup of coffee from me.”
Zach watched me with an empty expression on his face. Brent grinned triumphantly, like I just handed him the first place prize.
“And you,” I said, spinning to face Brent. “You only ever wanted me because Zach said you couldn’t have me. So please don’t pretend to be Mr. Nice Guy, here.”
Both men watched me with their mouths slightly agape, like I just did a backflip and started juggling flaming chainsaws. It was satisfying to see something other than cold confidence in Zach, and I decided to shove both of them from my room and close the door before they had a chance to say anything else. As an afterthought, I went and grabbed Zach’s crutches, throwing them into the hallway. “Don’t forget these, you stupid faker!” I shouted.
I leaned against the closed door, blowing out a long, shuddering breath, and grinned to myself. I could do this. It was only six months.
I felt a little bad, even though they both deserved what I gave them and more. After all, for Zach, it was just a taste of his own medicine. I felt worse about snapping at Brent. I meant what I said, but I should have waited until I was calmer. He deserved to hear it more delicately.
I had to be harder than that. If I was going to survive the next six months, I needed to put up a steel curtain around my heart. Zach could only hurt what parts of myself I gave him, and if I held everything inside, he couldn’t touch me.
14
Zach
Jenika stared at me with a sour expression. I was FaceTiming her from a bakery near our hotel. Brent and Taylor were beside me, leaning in to make sure they could see her too.
“They’re breathing down my neck for the next release, guys. I’ve bought as much time as I think I can.”
“Fuck ‘em,” I said. “They’ll get the next album when they get it.”
Jenika looked exactly like a disappointed teacher then. She was in her late twenties with a pretty face but she looked too stern for my tastes. Tight lips, big eyes, and a small, upturned nose that barely held up her thick-rimmed glasses. She always wore her hair back in one of those scalp-breaking combat ponytails, too, as if she was ready to go Tomb Raider on someone’s ass at a moment’s notice. She was a good manager, though, and I’m still glad we went with her over some of the greasy big name guys that had pitched themselves to us as we were starting our come-up.
Jenika had been there when we were doing thirty dollar gigs at bars and trying to go viral with homemade music videos.
“Easy there, cowboy,” said Taylor. “I’d rather not fuck them, if it was up to me.”
Jenika pointed to him, nodding enthusiastically. “Listen to Taylor. Please. You realize they already paid you all the advance for your second album, right? A year and a half ago. Do any of you remember how much that advance was for?”
She shook her head at our silence.
“Two million. Each. Know what happens when their patience runs out? They come after the money with lawyers. If you can’t pay them back in full, it’s going to cost you a lot more than two million to hold them off until you can.
If you can.”
I could afford it. I’d write a check and forget the money was ever there. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was I didn’t like giving people what they wanted. I especially didn’t like giving back what was given to me.
The look on Taylor and Brent’s face said they’d very much like to keep their two million, and they knew who was at fault if it went away. I was the one who refused to let someone else write our songs. I was also the one who had produced nothing but trash cans full of crumpled up yellow pages filled with crossed out sentence after crossed out sentence.
“We’ll get it done. Right?” he asked, looking to me.
Taylor watched me expectantly.
“Don’t worry, Jenika. I have an ace up my sleeve. We’ll be fine.”
She raised her eyebrow, looking between Brent and Taylor. “Is this something I even want to know about?”
Taylor shook his head. “That depends. Do you want to worry if Zach is going to be writing this miracle album from jail, or would you rather go back to picturing him doing too many drugs to think straight between shows?”
I sighed. Both were exaggerations, but I didn’t bother to make a point of it. I never felt like the drugs were a problem. I didn’t touch the hard shit, anyway. Just a couple pills when they were around and some alcohol to take off the edge. Then again, pills were always around on the road. I promised Gardener Girl I would quit it all, and I had. For now. What had it been, a whopping two days? Three? I had the pulsing headache and cold sweats already. I was also feeling a not-so-dignified itch for something. Anything. I had been distancing myself from the real world for so long that being here and being totally sober felt like too much to take in.
“Zach…” Jenika’s voice carried a warning.
“Don’t worry about it. Everything is under control.”
I closed the call and shoved my phone in my pocket.
Once the guys were gone, I made another call--a call that would hopefully be the last crossed "t" and dotted "i" in the plan to fuck over my stepmom and my dad. Eight years in the making, and it was almost time. Almost fucking time. I couldn’t wait to see their faces when I showed them what I had been so busy working on all this time.
Hate at First Sight Page 9
