by JA Huss
I nod my head. Slowly. There’s no point in pretending now. I already did it. I can hear the boat just off shore as the girls paddle it up next to the beach.
We’re going through with this whether I want to or not.
CHAPTER TWLEVE - JESSE
KEY WEST - THIRTEEN YEARS AGO
Her name is Emma. I asked a friend of a friend to find out for me and that’s the answer he came back with.
Local. Working a shaved ice kiosk down in Mallory Square. Her parents own a dive shop, she has three brothers, and she plans on going out of state for college after graduation.
I must’ve been too drunk that first night we arrived. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for why I didn’t immediately see this little pig-tailed siren of a girl with the plump pouty lips calling me to my death on her rocky island of shaved ice.
I missed her. I’ve been here two whole weeks already. Two weeks I could’ve been spending with her, and only her. And instead I’ve settled for stand-ins and second-bests.
How? How did I miss you?
“What can I get for you?” she says.
It’s hot as fuck today and the sun is blazing down on me with the heat of an eternal hell I will surely end up in once I get this sweet siren of a girl back to my yacht.
She’s wearing a white tank top that hugs her bronze skin, a pair of Daisy Duke cut-off shorts, and those goddamned curly pigtails bob and bounce around her heart-shaped face like we’re floating underwater.
“Hello?” she says. “I don’t have all day here. There’s like fifty people in my line. What flavor do you want?”
“You,” I say.
She makes a face. She has this perpetual frown, I’ve noticed. My friend calls it her resting bitch face, but that’s not right. That’s totally wrong. It’s a pout only one girl in a million can pull off. Her mouth is small and perky. Her lips are bright pink and plump. And just the outer corners turn down. Not like she’s mad or sad.
But like someone disappointed her. Someone let her down.
“Oh, God,” she says. “Look. I’ve got pineapple, I’ve got berry berry, I’ve got piña colada, cherry vanilla, banana cream, and key lime pie. And just so you know, there’s no cream in the banana cream. It’s just a name.”
I smile at her.
“OK, piña colada.”
“No,” I say, snapping out of my trance. “Cherry.”
“Cherry vanilla. Very original. What size?”
“I don’t care.”
“Good. Large it is. In a souvenir cup. I get a bonus every time I sell ten of those. That’ll be twelve fifty.”
She turns her back to me and starts scooping ice into a large pink plastic cup that says Mallory Square on it. I should be looking at her ass. Or the way her back moves underneath the thin white tank top. Or her pigtails, still bouncing and bobbing around her head as she places my cup of ice underneath a vat of cherry-flavored sugar juice.
But that’s not what I see at all.
I see us. Tonight. Maybe watching the sunset from the upper deck of my yacht. Or down below, doing other things.
She turns back around and smiles.
And holy mother of God. The smile is even better than the pout. “Uh,” she says. “You’re cute and all, but it’s not free. Twelve fifty.”
I reach for my wallet in the back pocket of my board shorts, pull out a twenty, and say, “You can keep the change.”
She sucks in a deep breath of air. Looks at my bill. Then takes it and says, “Whatever,” as she punches buttons on the cash register and the drawer pops open.
“So… tonight,” I say.
She frowns at me. “Tonight what?”
“What time do you get off?”
She glances nervously over my shoulder at the people waiting in line behind me, then says, “Are you serious right now? I’m working.”
“What time?” I say again. Because I’m not walking away from this girl without a date.
“Seven.”
“I’ll be back at seven.”
I take my pink cup and walk away. And I swear to fucking God, I have never grinned so big in all my life.
The only thing I really remember about later was on the deck of the yacht. I didn’t have my team with me because I wasn’t racing, I was down in the Keys fucking off. No reason, really. Just ended up there. I hooked up with a few guys from the racing circuit and that’s who I was bumming around with.
But that night with Emma it was just her and me under the stars. We missed the sunset. Didn’t care. There was plenty to look at up there after it was gone.
She was standing at the railing and I was behind her.
Every time I touched her she said, “No.”
But it was the sweetest fucking no ever. And eventually I had my arms around her. My hand between her legs. She never even took her shorts off and I made her come with just my fingers.
After that I was pretty sure she was just gonna bail on me and never come back, but she didn’t. She took off her shirt, then her shorts, and placed both hands on my bare chest, pushing me down onto the cushions of the top-deck couch. And the next thing I knew she was climbing into my lap.
She stayed the whole night.
I remember that because I was surprised. Every minute that ticked off, I was surprised. I kept thinking, Any second now. She’s gonna get up and leave and I’ll never see her again.
It hurt. Thinking that fucking hurt. Because I liked this girl. She was the first girl—the only girl—I’d ever longed for.
But all those minutes kept passing by and she was still there. I don’t think we slept. I know I didn’t. If she was gonna sneak out in the middle of the night I wanted one last chance to talk her out of it before she disappeared from my life as quick as she blew into it.
And the funny thing is… I’d been high and drunk for weeks at that point. So high, so drunk, I didn’t even know the difference anymore.
But that night we didn’t even drink. Not one joint. Not even a fucking cigarette. I had one tomato in the fridge and a slab of good mozzarella. And that’s what we ate. Sliced tomatoes with cheese.
That was it. And it was enough.
She was enough.
For the first time in my life, I felt… full.
And then the next day Johnny showed up and I never saw her again.
Until tonight.
There are brief periods when I know I’m in a boat. My mind doesn’t have to be awake to be aware of the water underneath me. This is just something I feel.
I hear them too. Little bits of this and that.
“His suit is ruined.” And, “Jesus Christ, he’s fucking heavy.” And, “He’s such an asshole.”
But none of it makes sense because the words just float there like a dream. Then there’s a moment when everything rushes at me, all at once. Like I’m being blown over by a cyclone of words and suddenly—I’m awake.
My eyes are open, but I can’t see anything but the inside of a black hood over my head. I can hear and I’m breathing. So two out of three isn’t bad.
“He’s coming around,” a female voice says.
And the only thing I can think of is… How fucking ironic is this?
I haven’t talked about my father in years. Hell, I haven’t even seen Johnny since the goddamned funeral. So how the fuck does it happen? That I get kidnapped on the one night I decide to tell a girl these secrets?
“Slap him,” another girl says.
“Why?” a third asks.
“Just… make him wake up already. It’s getting late.”
“What? You got a hot date?” the second voice says.
“Don’t be dumb. I just want to slap him.”
Two separate chuckles at her admission. Both female.
One of them kicks me in the shin and I moan.
“He’s awake. Are you awake?”
Who are these bitches? Who sent them? And why now? After all these years? Was it the auction? And then I remember what I was doing last
night. “Emma,” I say, surprised at how weak and faint my voice sounds. “What did you do with Emma?”
Silence from them.
“If you hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you,” I say.
More lingering silence.
My head is still very fuzzy. If I could see, if this hood wasn’t over my head, I’m pretty sure the whole world would be spinning.
I was drugged. Who did that? What happened to Emma? Where am I? And was I really on a boat? Or was that just some leftover feeling from—
Shit.
I know her. It comes back to me in an instant. I know her. I knew it. I fucking knew it.
Emma Dumas was the girl back in Key West.
The hood is ripped off my head and the world comes into a sort of blurry focus.
Three people stand in front of me. All dressed in black, ski-masks over their faces. And even if I didn’t hear them speaking a few minutes ago, I’d know they were female because of their black Catwoman costumes.
Fucking girls.
My eyes narrow down into slits trying to get used to the light. “Where the fuck is Emma?”
They look at each other, but say nothing.
I’m tied to a chair. My legs to the chair legs. My arms twisted behind me at the shoulders. Hands behind my back.
“Who are you?” I ask. “And what the fuck do you want?”
They say nothing.
“You’d better start feeding me answers real fucking fast—”
“You’d better shut up real fucking fast,” the shortest one says. “For once in your life, Jesse Boston, you’re not in charge here. We are.”
“So get the fuck on with it and tell me what’s happening.”
The tallest one walks around me in a circle, face turned towards me, scowling underneath her ski mask. “You don’t remember us, but we remember you.”
“We remember the way you lied to us,” the third one says. I recognize her voice from the one earlier telling them I was coming around.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I say.
“What are we talking about?” the tallest one says. She’s completed her circle and stops right in front of me. So close I have to tilt my head up to see her hidden face. She places both her hands on my shoulders and leans down. “We’re talking about how you used us. Got what you wanted and then threw us away like trash. How many girls, Jesse? How many, over the course of your pathetic lifetime, did you treat this same way?”
I almost laugh.
“Is that funny?” the short one asks.
“You’re… ex-girlfriends?” I say. “Really?” Then the whole thing is too much and I do laugh.
“Ex-one-night-stands,” the third one says.
“And you know,” the tall one says, “it’s not even that, is it girls? Who cares if everyone is getting what they want? If expectations are set, and met, then who cares if you fuck around, right?”
The others agree.
“But you,” she seethes. Like I evoke some deep-rooted hated inside her. “That’s not how you do it, is it? You lead people on. You tell lies.”
“Lies like… ‘I’ve never felt this way about anyone before,’” the short one says.
“Lies like… ‘I think we have this deep connection,’” the third one says.
“Lies like… ‘I don’t want you to leave but I have to meet some friends. Promise me you’ll come back later. Because now that I’ve met you, I can’t live without you,’” the tall one finishes up.
All this is ringing a bell. I will say that. Because I have said those things to possibly dozens of girls. Maybe even more than that.
But that was a long time ago.
Long time ago.
“Who the fuck are you?” I ask.
They look at each other. Come to some kind of conclusion. Then the tall one begins to speak.
“Key West. Thirteen years ago.”
My stomach sinks. My heart gets this immediate ache. Because she’s telling me about how we met in a bar on Key West, and I took her back to my yacht and we fucked on the upper deck, and then I may or may not have said all those things they just ticked off and moved on to the next one.
Who is now talking. Telling me how we met on the beach and then I took her into a nearby alley and fucked her against a wall. Again, with the promise of more to come. A promise of a deep connection.
And then the third one is going on and on about how I followed her around Mallory Square telling her how beautiful she was and how my whole life needed to come to a complete stop so she could get on this ride and take it with me.
I promised her a life on the ocean. Sailing around the world on my yacht.
And all three of these encounters all have one thing in common.
That was when I met Emma.
This is why my heart aches and my stomach sinks.
Emma.
She’s not hurt. She’s not in trouble. She’s not tied up in some mob boss’ basement as punishment for some long-forgotten transgression.
She did this.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - EMMA
It’s hard to listen to this. I mean, the whole thing is hard. The realization that I’m partly responsible for drugging and abducting a man and then holding him captive in the basement of our lake house. The whole boat ride over here from his place.
I thought he was dead like sixteen different times. And I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I was so worried and I wanted to go back thirty minutes and change things. Never let him pull into the driveway. Never tell him to send the butler home. Never respond to Mila’s texts.
Because this night—this stupid ice-cream cone date—this was the Jesse I wanted all those years ago.
And he’s different now. I tried telling that to the other girls, but they had settled into this plot and were in it to win it.
But as soon as he woke up he asked about me. Then threatened them.
If you hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you.
Like we were a thing. Like I was his. Like he… cared.
I’m so fucking stupid.
Because he didn’t care.
All their stories of him are just like mine.
The way he pursued them. The way he convinced them that they were special. The way he promised them things.
He said those things to me too. So all these new feelings tonight are just bullshit. Just lies. Just… stupid.
He never cared about me back then and he doesn’t care about me now.
Really doesn’t care about me now. Because he has to know I did this to him.
The door I’m leaning against suddenly opens and I back off as the girls rush through and close it behind them. Mila points to the stairs and we follow her up into the large kitchen.
They rip off their ski masks as we enter, their faces all flushed and hot.
“So he shut up pretty quick, don’t you think?” Natalie says, then gets a coffee cup out of the cupboard and places it under the coffee maker, presses the button and the machine stars whirring to life.
She just makes a cup of coffee like this is no big deal.
“Now what?” Hannah says. She leans against the counter and pulls out her phone, stares at the screen, then smiles and starts texting.
“We should leave him here,” Mila says.
“What?” I say. “For how long?”
“Well, I have to run Stephanie to ballet in the morning. And Donny has a baseball game. So I could probably get back here around one-ish? But we have to be quick because tomorrow night is the new-recruit dinner and I’m in charge this time.” She looks at me like this all makes perfect sense.
Let’s just leave the abducted billionaire in the basement overnight and then after I finish mom-ing tomorrow, we’ll pick this back up and finish it.
Hannah bursts out laughing.
We all look at her.
“Sorry! But Devin just sent me a chemistry joke.”
Natalie takes a sip of her coffee, then says, “OK. Well, I’ve got two dates tonight so I�
��m good with leaving him overnight.”
“What?” I say. “Like what is happening right now? And how do you have two dates tonight? It’s nearly two AM!”
She shrugs. “Well, the first one is just a quick look-see. The second one is sex and breakfast. And they both live within two blocks of me. God, I love it when it works out like that.”
“You guys!” I say. “We just abducted a man and he’s tied up in our basement!”
“He’s not going anywhere, Emma,” Hannah says, fingers furiously tapping away at her screen as she smiles.
“We cannot just leave him here.”
“Well, what do you wanna do?” Mila asks. “It’s a long drive home and I have to be up by nine to drop Stephanie at ballet.”
“Who cares about fucking ballet?” I say.
“First of all,” she says, using her mom voice on me as she holds up a finger, “Stephanie has worked her ass off this year and tomorrow are the auditions for the summer production of Alice in Wonderland. She really wants to be the caterpillar’s face. And second, fuck this guy! He deserves this!”
“He so does,” Hannah mumbles, still texting.
Natalie sets her coffee cup down and grabs her purse off the counter. “Yeah, let’s go. I have to change before I meet up with date number one. You wanna ride with me, Ems?”
“No,” I say. “We’re not leaving him down there. He doesn’t even have water.”
“He doesn’t deserve water, Emma,” Hannah says. “He’s a dick. A total dick.”
Mila says, “We’ll just come back tomorrow, drug him up again, and then drop him off back at his place tomorrow night like this never happened. He has no idea who we are.”
“Hello!” I say. “I bought him at the auction. He knows I’m involved!”
“He thinks you were kidnapped,” Natalie says. “Plus, he’s super disoriented right now. Maybe we should drug him tonight too?”
“No,” I say. “No more drugs.”
“OK, it’s settled then,” Mila says. “Let’s go. Emma, how are you getting home? I’d offer to take you, but your place is totally out of my way and I really need to catch some z’s before Stephanie’s audition.”
