Tell Me Lies

by Locklyn Marx

  TELL ME LIES

  by

  Locklyn Marx

  Copyright 2012, Locklyn Marx, all rights reserved.

  Chapter 1

  Reid Lawson was going to kill his brother. There’d been times in the past he’d thought about killing Jack for one thing or another – pyramid schemes, gambling rings, the time Jack tried to use Reid’s name to get a credit card at the GAP – but this. This really took the cake.

  “I’m sorry,” Reid said to the girl standing in the hallway in front of his apartment.

  He shook his head. “Did you say you’re my new roommate?”

  “Yes.” She pushed her blonde hair away from her face and sighed. She seemed exasperated. Not that he blamed her. After all, he’d asked her the same question three times now. “I’m Alexis. Jack didn’t tell you I was coming?”

  “No.”

  She shook her head and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Why not?”

  “I have no idea.” Who knew what the hell his brother was thinking half the time?

  Jack was notoriously flakey and couldn’t be relied on for anything. So when he’d told Reid three weeks ago that he was moving out, Reid wasn’t angry. In fact, he was relieved. Jack had shown up in New York a couple of months ago, out of work (again), with no place to live (again), and looking for someone to help him get back on his feet (again.)

  Reid had let him stay in his spare room, until last week when Jack announced he was leaving. Apparently Jack had saved enough money from his temp jobs to travel around the country. His first stop was going to be the Napa Valley so that he could

  “experience wine country.” He’d been ridiculously excited about it, and kept babbling on about all the different kinds of grapes there were. It was very suspect. Jack had never shown an interest in wine in his life.

  “Excuse me for one moment,” Reid said now. “I have to make a phone call.”

  “Well, can I come in at least?” Alexis asked incredulously, like he was being rude. Which was pretty fucking nervy, since she was the one knocking on his door at seven in the morning on a random Wednesday, claiming to be his new roommate.

  “Oh, sorry, of course,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Come on in.” He thought about being a prick and asking her if she wanted him to whip her up some scrambled eggs while he was at it, but he stopped himself. It wasn’t her fault his brother was a complete screw-up.

  She pushed past him and into the apartment, and Reid took the opportunity to check her out. Long blonde hair that fell in soft waves around her shoulders. Sparkling blue eyes. She was wearing a pair of black yoga pants that showed off long legs, but her bulky sweatshirt didn’t give him any idea about what was hiding under there. It was a shame. If there was one thing Reid specialized in, it was blondes. Or brunettes. Hell, just women in general.

  Reid walked into his bedroom, shut the door, and immediately dialed Jack.

  “’Lo?” Jack said when he answered. In the background, Reid could hear people talking and clapping. Talking and clapping? Where the hell could Jack be at seven in the morning where there was apparently some kind of crowd?

  “Where the hell are you?” Reid demanded.

  “Out,” Jack said. “What do you want?” Jack got ornery in the mornings, a fact that had led to much strife between the two brothers when they’d been living together.

  “What I want is for you to explain to me why there’s a girl named Alexis here who’s claiming to be my roommate.” He opened his bedroom door a crack and peered out. Woman or not, Alexis was a stranger. Reid didn’t like strangers, especially ones who’d been left unattended in his apartment. Who knew what she could be doing out there? Filching things, contaminating things, poking around in his private, personal documents. Not that he had any private, personal documents hanging around out there.

  But if he did, she’d probably be looking for them.

  “Oh,” Jack said. He seemed to be thinking about it. “Well, she’s a girl.”

  “Yeah, thanks for that.” Reid watched through the crack as Alexis started wandering around the apartment. He kept his eyes on her hands just in case she tried to slip something in her pocket. “But what the hell is she doing here?

  “You told me to find you a new roommate, so I found you a new roommate.”

  “I didn’t tell you to find me a new roommate!”

  “Yes, you did. I told you I was leaving, and you said ‘That’s great, Jack, but you know you have to give me thirty days notice and find someone to take over your lease.’”

  Reid was speechless. He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a moment, unable to believe what he was hearing. He almost glanced around his room to see if maybe there were hidden cameras. Surely this had to be a joke.

  “Jack,” he said slowly. “I was being sarcastic. You don’t have a lease on this apartment. I own this apartment. It’s mine. I bought it. And I didn’t have a roommate before you moved in, so why would I need you to find me a replacement?”

  “Oh.” Silence. “Well, I thought it was kind of weird, but I know how you are about these things.”

  “How I am about what things?”

  “You know, etiquette and things like that. You’re so uptight about it. How was I supposed to know you were joking? I put an ad on Craigslist. Alexis was the first one that answered.”

  “And you thought I’d want to live with a woman?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Girls are cleaner.”

  “I would never live with a woman.” How would he be able to bring women back to the apartment if one was already here? It made no sense.

  “Reid, that kind of thing is illegal. It’s called sexual discrimination.”

  “Never mind,” Reid said, realizing that he was in an argument over a roommate that he didn’t even need and/or want. “Forget it. I’ll deal with it.” He hung up the phone.

  Alexis was in the kitchen. She was in the middle of making herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich. At seven o’clock in the morning.

  “Hi,” she said when she saw him. She gave him an easy smile. “Everything okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, everything’s great.” He tried not to get pissed off that she was eating his peanut butter. Obviously no one had told Alexis that you don’t take a knife that has jelly on it and put it in the peanut butter jar.

  She caught him looking and held out the sandwich. “Want some?”

  He stared at her. Was she really offering him a bite of his own food? “No, that’s okay,” he said. “Listen, Alexis, I hate to tell you this, but there’s been a bit of a … mix-up.”

  “What kind of mix-up?” She crossed the room to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. She looked at it for a moment. “I’ll pay you back for this, okay?”

  “No, that’s okay, you can have it.” What was this, freshman year?

  She shrugged, then uncapped the bottle and took a long drink. She stepped back and launched herself up onto the counter so that she was sitting on it. “So what’s wrong?”

  “See, the thing is, Jack got a little confused. I don’t need a roommate.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean, you don’t need a roommate?”

  “Just what I said.” God, this was turning into huge fucking headache. He glanced at the clock on the microwave. 7:17 am. He was late for his run. And if he was late for his run, that meant he was going to be late for work. He hated being late for work.

  “If you didn’t need a roommate, then why did you post an ad for one?” She pulled a crinkled up piece of paper out of her purse and handed it to him.

  Reid’s eyes slid down the printout. Nice two-bedroom in Manhattan. Own room.

&nbs
p; Awesome roommate. One thousand dollars a month, includes heat and hot water.

  Reid’s face darkened. The mortgage on this place was thirty-five hundred dollars a month. If a roommate was going to pay half, the rent would be seventeen-fifty. Plus utilities. God, Jack was such an asshole. But whatever. It didn’t matter. Because there was going to be no roommate. He didn’t need a roommate.

  He continued moving his eyes down the printout. The description was followed by pictures of an apartment that looked amazing. It was big and open, with floor to ceiling windows and modern furniture. It was followed by a small line at the bottom that said “pictures are approximations only, and are only used for dramatic purposes.”

  Reid sighed. “Look,” he said, pushing the paper back at the girl. “You can’t stay here.”

  She snatched the printout from him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean there’s no apartment.”

  She looked around. “Yes, there is. It’s right here.”

  “Yes, but you’re not staying here.” He was starting to get annoyed. This girl was upsetting his perfectly ordered morning. He was supposed to be halfway around Central Park right now. He was hoping to run the New York City Marathon, and if he missed even one run, it was going to seriously set him back.

  “Oh, I get it,” Alexis said, crossing her arms over her chest. The motion pushed her breasts together, and they strained the material of her sweatshirt. It was too bad she was so bratty, Reid thought. He’d have loved to get a better look at what was under that sweatshirt she was wearing. “You don’t want me living here because I’m a woman.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “That’s not it at all. My old roommate – ”

  “Ha! So you admit that you do need a roommate.”

  “No.” God, she was infuriating. “He wasn’t really a roommate. Jack’s my brother. But he moved out. And now the place is mine.”

  “And mine.”

  “No, not yours.” What the hell was wrong with this girl? She obviously had some kind of screw loose and/or mental imbalance. It made sense. She was way too hot to be normal. Good-looking women were never normal.

  “I’ll sue you,” she declared, immediately supporting his mental imbalance theory.

  “Sue me? For what?”

  “For sexual discrimination, false advertising.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. A million different things.”

  “Your lawsuit would have no merit.” He wasn’t sure if it was true. He obviously didn’t know anything about the law. He was an advertising executive for God’s sakes.

  “Maybe, maybe not.” She said it like the merit of a case was inconsequential, like you could just bring lawsuits against people for no reason and possibly win. “My father’s a lawyer,” she said. “So I’d have to ask him. But most of the time these things settle out of court. To avoid a bigger lawsuit.”

  He glared at her. Who did this chick think she was? Showing up at his apartment, eating his goddamn peanut butter and jelly, and then threatening him with a frivolous lawsuit?

  “Yeah, well, I’m sure the judge will be interested in the fact that you basically just told me that you knew your lawsuit would be frivolous.”

  “Prove it.” Her eyes were on his, challenging.

  “I won’t have to,” he said smugly. “The burden of proof is on the plaintiff. Do whatever you have to do, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Again.”

  She looked shocked. She opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could get it out, her face crumpled. Her eyes filled with tears, and then, suddenly, she began to cry.

  Shit.

  Reid sighed. “You don’t have to cry about it,” he said, irritated.

  But she didn’t stop. She just kept crying.

  Oh, for the love of God. He crossed the kitchen to where she was standing and patted her shoulder. “Listen,” he said, “you’ll find another place. Don’t worry about it.

  There are a million listings for a million apartments in a million different parts of the city.”

  She mumbled something that sounded like, “NoIsland.”

  “What?” Reid asked. “No Island?”

  “No, I won’t find another place! I don’t know anyone in the city. I don’t have anywhere…anywhere else to go!” The volume of her voice had been slowly rising, and by the time she’d finished talking, she was wailing.

  Great. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? Throw her out on the street?

  He took a deep breath and patted her shoulder again. And then, suddenly and surprisingly, Alexis threw herself against him, burying her face in his chest.

  Her hair brushed against his face, soft and silky. She was wearing some kind of bright-smelling perfume. Her breasts flattened out against his chest, and even through her sweatshirt he could feel her curves.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have come here,” Alexis sniffed. Her tears were making wet spots on his shirt. “Everyone said the city was going to eat me up and spit me out, but did I listen? No.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true,” he said. “This is just a minor setback. You’re going to find something even – ”

  “No, I won’t,” she wailed. “I can’t even if I wanted to. I don’t have any money.

  I gave it all to your brother!”

  “Jack took money from you?” Reid was shocked. This was a new low, even for Jack.

  She nodded. “He took all of it! I paypaled him five hundred dollars, half of the first month’s rent.” She sniffed again “He said he needed a show of goodwill.”

  Reid shook his head. He was going to kill that asshole. First, Jack shouldn’t have taken money from this poor girl, especially not over the internet. And second, if Jack had taken money, he should have given it to Reid. It was Reid’s apartment!

  Alexis was crying again. She pulled back from him, reached for a paper towel from the holder and wiped her eyes.

  “I’m so embarrassed,” she said shyly. Her blue eyes were big and shiny from her tears. Her cheeks were flushed, but she didn’t look like a big crying mess the way a lot of women did when they started crying. She just looked vulnerable.

  An instinct to protect her kicked in out of nowhere. What kind of person would he be if he kicked her out onto the streets of New York? It wouldn’t be fair. She was obviously timid and afraid. Her attempt at trying to make him think she was going to sue him was almost laughable now. Apparently she felt like she needed to put on a front, some kind of false bravado to make him think he should be afraid of her. But really, she was just an innocent little lamb in need of rescuing.

  He pulled another paper towel off the roll and handed it to her. “Here,” he said.

  She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “I’ll be okay,” she said, trying to sound brave. “Like you said, it’s just a setback.” Her smiled wavered.

  Reid knew he was probably going to regret what he was about to say. But really, what choice did he have? “Fine,” he said, “you can stay here.”

  “Really?’ Her face brightened.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She threw her arms around him. Her ample breasts flattened against his chest again, and he took in a deep breath. How was he going to keep his hands off her with her always being close by? It would be a test of his self-control for sure.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you to your room.”

  He led her down the hall to the room that used to be Jack’s, and opened the door.

  “It’s small,” he said, “but you should be able to fit a bed.”

  “Oh.” She bit her lip. “Jack said the bed came with it.”

  Of course he did. “Well, then, I guess you can have his bed. But I’d at least flip the mattress and make sure you use double sheets.”

  She grinned.

  He glanced at his watch. If he didn’t hurry, he wasn’t going to have time for his run before work. “I need to get going.”

  He wasn’t sure if he should leave her in the apartm
ent by herself, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t take his offer back now. The poor girl was obviously completely fragile. Who knows what she’d do or where she’d end up? Probably in one of those God forsaken hostels where people were always getting beaten and robbed.

  “Okay,” Alexis said. “I’ll just start unpacking my stuff.”

  He nodded, and then turned to go.

  “And Reid,” she called after him.

  He turned.

  “Thanks. You saved my life.”

  Chapter Two

  As soon as Reid left the room and shut the door behind him, Alexis rolled her eyes. God, what a poser that guy was. The way he answered the door all dressed in his workout clothes? Who was up and ready to work out at seven in the morning? Posers, that was who. And metrosexuals.

  Of course, he didn’t look like a metrosexual, with his dark hair and strong jaw line. He’d had a bit of stubble on his chin, and his hair had been slightly rumpled, like he’d just rolled out of bed.

  But still.

  She’d felt how hard his chest was when she’d been close to him. It had probably gotten that way from all the time he spent at the gym “taking care of himself.” She didn’t know for a fact that he used that phrase, but she’d bet anything that he did.

  Guys like Reid were always “taking care of themselves.” It was really just a fancy way of saying they were self-absorbed assholes. They all wanted women who took care of themselves, too. And of course all that meant was that they wanted an anorexic.

  Any sane person would still be sleeping at this time of morning. She would have been to, if it weren’t for… well, for what had happened.

  She looked over her shoulder at the bed, wishing she could just curl up and go to sleep. The bus ride from Pennsylvania had been bumpy and tiring. She’d tried to sleep, taking her pillow and folding it in two, then scrunching it up against the window and pressing her head against it. But the woman sitting behind her had been having a loud cell phone conversation about her nephew being sent to jail or something, and it had kept Alexis awake. It was just as well. She probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway.

  She crossed the room to the heavy oak dresser and opened the top drawer. Inside was a copy of the Bible, with a yellow post-it note and a key labeled “front door” stuck to the cover.