by L. D. Fox
“Yeah… I think.”
“We should lock it. I don’t want that piece of shit coming back in.”
“What’s wrong, Kay? Why’re you so—”
Drew couldn’t hear the rest — he was halfway out the front door. He made it to the gate before a rectangle of light cut across the lawn.
If Kelly had seen him, she didn’t call out. And he didn’t turn around. Hopefully, if she’d seen him fleeing her house like a surprised burglar, then she’d assume it was Bryce and not him.
As if Bryce would ever run away.
He slammed the front door of his house much too hard.
“Hello?” Angel appeared at the top of the stairs while he was still trying to convince his hands to unclench. “Mr. Sugar? Everything okay?”
“No, Angel.” His voice was hoarse, tight with the effort of not shouting. “It never was. Never will be.”
The girl jogged down the stairs, holding tightly to the two halves of his dressing gown. It dragged on the floor behind her until she gathered it up tighter around her chest.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“What happened?” Drew swiped his hand through his hair. “He fucked her, is what happened. That asshole just—” He clamped his lips closed and stormed away from Angel, heading for the kitchen.
“Who?”
“My brother.”
“Your… brother? Wow, slow down.”
“He does this every fucking time.” He threw open a kitchen cupboard and rummaged around until he found the half-empty bottle of gin.
“Does what?” Angel grabbed his arm, but he shrugged her off.
Gin sloshed into an empty tumbler, barely settling before he threw it into the back of his throat with a grimace. “Forget it. Done’s done.”
“Wait, how did he manage—?”
“Shut up!” He glanced at the bottle of alcohol, twisted his lips, and shoved it back into the cupboard. “I’m going to bed.”
When he heard her footsteps pattering after him on the kitchen floor, he paused. “Alone.”
Surprisingly, the girl didn’t follow him.
* * *
“Coffee.”
Drew blinked, running a hand through his hair as he pushed himself onto an elbow. Another glorious headache accompanied wakefulness. He had to stop drinking — the pain was unbearable and intolerable this early in the morning. He glanced at his alarm clock. Still an hour before he had to leave for work. He could snooze for another few minutes and—
“I’m leaving,” Angel said. The mattress shifted as she sat on the edge of the mattress.
Drew took a swallow of coffee — it was too hot, but he desperately needed the caffeine. “Where you going?”
“To my mom’s.” Angel shrugged. “Probably should have gone there in the first place.” Her mouth twitched with distaste, but she smoothed it away before he could open his mouth to ask after it. “Anyway, breakfast is going to burn if I don’t—”
He caught her arm as she rose. “Thank you.”
She widened those cerulean blue eyes at him. They narrowed immediately, and she cocked her head to the side. “You feeling okay there, Mr. Sugar?”
He laughed, but quietly because of his head, and set down the coffee cup. Sighing heavily, he grabbed hold of her wrist, squeezing it.
“If you hadn’t kept me back last night, I’d probably have murdered my brother.”
“I doubt it.” Angel shrugged again, her gaze growing unfocused. “You’re not the kind of guy that goes around murdering people.”
He tried another laugh, but his head complained too much about it, so he stopped.
“You’re probably not even going to say anything about it, are you? You’re going to go to work, look your brother in the face, and smile like nothing’s the matter.”
Drew pushed himself into a sit, releasing Angel’s wrist. “What?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. Last night’s nightie had been replaced with a faded sleeping shirt that almost touched her knees. It was the most decent thing he’d seen her wear since she’d arrived. His blurry eyes took in other details too; no makeup, hair disheveled, the smell of cigarettes.
“Fuck it,” she murmured, turning to the door. “It’s your life. Screw it up if you want. It’s easier that way, right? Just letting stuff happen to you, instead of being the stuff that happens to other people?”
His mouth was open, a retort seconds away, but she was already gone. He downed the rest of his coffee, squeezed his eyes shut against a hard throb in his head, and climbed out of bed.
The shower marginally revived him, a shave a little more. By the time he was dressed for work, he almost felt like himself. Angel had left painkillers next to the coffee, and those had kicked in by the time he arrived in the kitchen; drawn by the smells and the need to explain himself.
But Angel wasn’t there. His breakfast waited for him, plate steaming and cutlery glinting red in the sunrise-tinted light of dawn.
“Angel?”
Shit, had she left already? Drew hurried back upstairs and pushed open the door to her room. The bed was made. None of her stuff lay around; the room didn’t even smell of her cigarettes. He went downstairs again and tried to eat something, but his stomach wasn’t having it. He made himself another cup of coffee, transferred it into his travel mug, and headed for the front door.
He paused with his hand on the handle.
Jesus, the house felt so empty again.
Squaring his shoulders, Drew left. He almost stopped walking when he realized he might bump into Kelly, but a glance over to her property made it clear that she’d already collected her newspaper; track marks through the dew on her lawn, her gate ajar.
His mouth twisted into a sour grimace. She’d apparently been wasted last night. Which meant she didn’t like him; she’d just been after anything with a dick.
He shook away the thought and stopped when he turned to go up the drive.
His car was gone.
Penny’s car was still there, windows glazed with condensation, but his car was—
Parked down the road. He rolled his eyes and began trudging down the street, glancing around for any nosy neighbors. The car’s handle was wet, the inside chilly. Drew got into his car, but he didn’t drive off immediately. He sat, cradling the coffee mug in his lap as he stared sightlessly down the road.
He’d resigned himself to being with Angel, at least for as long as she was around. And why the hell not? She was spectacular in bed, and she’d never asked for anything except his attention. Fuck Bryce saying she was in it for the money; she hadn’t asked for a red cent yet.
Now she was gone. And what did that leave him with? An empty house, an empty bed, and the conviction that Bryce would be wearing a sleazy, victorious smile when he went into work. If he didn’t have to hand in his preliminary report for VDK Manufacturing this morning, he’d have turned the fuck around and just climbed back—
A knock at his window made him jerk so hard that coffee sloshed warm against the inside of the travel mug.
“Drew?” came a muffled voice.
He set his mug down inside one of the cup holders, took a deep breath, and lowered the window. Kelly’s face appeared, bleary-eyed and streaked with makeup.
“Morning.” God, he sounded as frosty as the inside of his car.
“Hey. So… uh… you never came back last night.” Her eyes were red; from her hangover, or tears?
“And?”
She pulled back, blinking at him as her mouth worked. “I… I thought you were going to…”
“I was drunk,” he said, switching on his car’s engine. “And now I’m late.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Kelly stepped back, hugging herself. “You were just sitting here—”
“Hope you had fun last night.”
Apparently, she couldn’t decipher the hidden meaning in his words. She shrugged and let out a low laugh. “Yeah. I’m feeling it this morning, but it was fun. Last guys only left roundabo
ut one or so.”
“You sleep with them too?” He wanted those words back the instant they left his mouth, but they hung in the air like Kelly’s misted breath.
She let out a small, confused laugh, taking another step back. “What?”
“See you around.” The window closed and Drew forced himself not to look at the woman’s blurred shape as he put his car into drive and pulled away.
He couldn’t stop himself looking in the rearview mirror though. Kelly stared at him, a death grip around herself, head slowly shaking from side to side.
18
My Little Princess
Bryce looked up as a shadow briefly darkened his office door. His brother — all hunched shoulders and tucked-in chin — strode past without glancing inside.
He smiled. With Drew in sulk, everything was right with the world again. He squared the papers in front of him and slid them back into the file he’d been working on, standing and stretching. He’d come in an hour before he usually did, hoping to catch Drew’s walk of shame — it had been worth getting out of bed early.
Drew jerked at the knock on his open office door.
“Morning, bro.” Bryce leaned against the door frame and widened his smile. “Feeling a little tender this morning?”
“I’m fine.” Drew chugged back whatever had been in his travel mug and made a face at him. “And I’m busy.”
“Whoa, where’s the love?”
“Get out.”
Instead, he stepped inside. Drew slammed his briefcase on his desk and glared at him over the top, but it only made his smile deepen.
“So, Kelly seems fun.”
Drew, in the act of opening his briefcase, paused. “Get out.”
“Not exactly my type — a bit too uppity, you know? — but I can see why you’re after her.”
“I swear if you don’t leave—”
“You’ll toss me out?” Bryce crossed his arms over his chest. “Like you tossed Angel out?”
“What?”
“Your other girlfriend. You know, the barely legal one?”
“She’s not—” Drew bit off whatever he’d been going to say and pushed the top of his fist onto his desk, staring out the window. “I did toss her out, okay? She’s gone.”
Bryce snorted. “Yeah? Pull the other one.”
His brother began unnecessarily straightening the things on his desk. A pile of already neat papers was subjected to a few seconds of intense scrutiny as Drew’s mouth worked.
“She left this morning.”
Bryce pushed away from the door with his shoulder, frowning. “For real?”
“For real. Made me breakfast and took off while I was in the shower. Didn’t even say goodbye.” Drew shook his head and then let out a bitter laugh. “Who can blame her? I was probably the worse lay she’d ever had. God knows why she stuck around as long as she did.”
“True.” He shrugged when Drew shot him a scathing glare. “What? It is.”
His brother straightened, shoved aside his chair when it caught his leg, and stormed up to him. He kept his ground — Drew pissed off wasn’t the scariest shit he’d ever seen — but warmth flooded his chest and neck. What the hell was up with his brother? Why wasn’t he backing down? Why would he be looking to pick a fight?
“I said get out.” Drew stabbed at the doorway, stopping less than an inch from him.
“That’s it? No exchanging pleasantries before the meeting? I thought we could talk about Kelly. You know, compare notes?”
He should have seen it coming — if he hadn’t been so busy trying to figure out if his brother was lying about Angel, then maybe he would have.
Drew’s fist connected with the side of his jaw. He staggered back, lifting a hand to touch his aching flesh. Drew’s snarl didn’t disintegrate like he expected. It stayed there, growing more ferocious when his brother made another stab into the hallway.
“Get—the—fuck—out.”
He paused only long enough to paste a smile back on his mouth. Then he backed up, keeping an eye on Drew as he turned and headed back to his office. The only spectator to his brother’s sudden flash of bravery was one of the cleaning maids, and she already had her head down as she hurried away to attend to something that wasn’t in sight of Bryce.
He sat carefully in his chair, wincing at his jaw gave a hard throb.
There was no way in hell that Drew had sent Angel packing. He’d seen them last night; the girl had him hooked. She was the dealer, he was the crack whore. He glanced up at his closed office door, and then to the wall as if he could see through it and past the two offices separating him from Drew.
He sat for a long time, staring through the wall, thinking. Running various scenarios through his head. Anticipating.
Then he picked up the phone, hesitated only a second, and punched out a phone number. His chair creaked quietly under him as he shifted. It rang five times. Ten. Went to voicemail.
Bryce put the receiver down and tapped his index finger against the plastic. Then he lifted it to his ear again and redialed.
This time, it only rang twice.
“Yeah?”
Bryce smiled. “Angel? I thought you’d left.”
“Couldn’t just leave.” There was a soft sound as if the girl had sat down. “Not without saying goodbye.”
He shifted in his chair, and then spun around to face the painting mounted behind his head. It was some abstract piece full of textured blobs of paint that resembled an apocalyptic sky just after a nuclear blast.
“Well… can’t say I’m not looking forward to that.”
“Yeah?” Angel’s voice had transformed into something husky. “Why’s that?”
“Because I was hoping to get to see you naked one last time.”
“Yeah?”
He could picture her; wrapping the phone cord around her finger, twin braids dangling over her breasts. Wearing just a bra and pantie set; gold-colored satin.
“Almost not sure I can wait that long,” he murmured, looking up at the door. “In fact, I wish I was there right now.”
“Don’t you have that big meeting this morning with your boss?”
Jesus, did Drew sit up all night plaiting the girl’s hair and telling her of his dreary day? Bryce rolled his eyes, bit hard on his bottom lip, and then sighed heavily into the phone.
“I know. And it’s making me crazy that I can’t be with you. But I can’t skip out on it, you know I can’t.”
“Yeah, I know.” Fabric rustled. “But, Mr. Sugar, can’t you take an early lunch or something?”
Bryce’s lips curled into a beatific smile. “I sure can, princess.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the girl to mention the term of endearment — something he doubted Drew had ever used — and figure out who it was that was calling. He touched a finger to the bruise Drew had given him, wincing at the wriggle of pain that caused.
“Princess?” Angel giggled quietly. “What happened to sweetheart?”
He licked his lips and ran two fingers over the small bump on his jaw. Then again, harder. Another wince, but this one he forced off his face as soon as it arrived.
“You’re my little princess, aren’t you?”
Angel breathed into the phone and made a small, satisfied sound in the back of her throat. “You betcha, Mr. Sugar.”
“Well, princess.” Bryce leaned forward and rested both his elbows on the table. He glanced up at the door again, tilting the phone to put the receiver directly over his mouth. “Best get ready for me then.”
“When’ll you be here?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise, now would it?”
Angel drew breath, but if she spoke, he didn’t hear what she said. The receiver’s click sent a thrill down his spine that gave his dick another dose of blood it didn’t need.
He spent a few minutes wondering what the girl was doing — how she’d be getting herself ready — and then forced his hard-on away through focused and de
liberate thought.
All it really took was one.
Juliet.
Her beautiful face. The coy smile she’d given him over her shoulder as she got into her parked car and pulled away into traffic.
They met outside Denny’s bakery most afternoons of the week. Eventually, the clerk at the motel one block down didn’t even greet them when they came through the door; she’d just push the register over the table and hold out her hand for his credit card.
They never needed the full hour. But he’d paid for it anyway.
It had always been worth it.
Not the sex; sex with Juliet had only ever been average; even when she’d let him lash her to the headboard. It was the knowledge that, several miles away, Drew was hard at work at Trent & Morgan, oblivious to the fact that another man had a dick in his wife.
19
Denny's
Drew pressed the milk bottle against his knuckles. God, if his knuckles felt this bad, how did Bryce’s jaw feel?
“Sugar?”
He turned.
Gregory Trent stood in the passage just off the kitchen, his immaculately pressed Brioni bringing out the almost imperceptible blue of his pale eyes. Drew gave him a quick nod. “I’ll be right there. You want some coffee?”
Greg waved away the offer with a gracious smile, a wave that transformed into an airy beckon. Drew tipped coffee in his cup, splashed in some milk, and hurried after him without bothering to add sweetener.
Mr. Trent’s office was a corner unit overlooking the building’s spacious gardens. They even had a pair of mating swans, both twirling idly through the water as if they hadn’t noticed it was drizzling outside. They were nothing more than two white spots on the kidney-shaped artificial lake, but they drew his eye and held it until Gregory cleared his throat in a meaningful way.
He put the report down and went over to a chair to sit.
“That’s fine, Drew. Leave it with me for now.”
Drew hesitated, half-standing and half-sitting. “Sorry?”
“I’ll go through it later.” Greg gestured vaguely toward the file. “I’ll email if I have questions.”
