Need Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy Book Three)

by Dunning, Rachel

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Just...just get me to Vikki’s place, OK? He... Just...he didn’t technically do anything.” I ponder this a second, then qualify it with, “Not tonight, at least.”

  Her!

  Skate’s fists are clenched. He’s breathing heavily. I hear the elevator ding. I turn my head...and there’s Deck. He and Skate look at each other, best friends, but suddenly seeming like worst enemies ready for a showdown. My back’s still to Deck, my hand still holding Skate away by the chest. I turn my head to face Skate. I whisper (because I don’t want to cause a scene), “Skate, please, it wasn’t him. It’s...me. It’s...both of us, actually.” And just like that, the truth of it hits me. It’s both of us...

  More silence inside the lobby while thunder crackles and rain spatters outside. I can’t look at Deck behind me. I just can’t. It hurts too much to look at you. Because of her. And because of me as well. Fear. Mind-tricks. Oh, goddamnit why does this have to be so confusing!?

  I feel the pressure of Skate’s body-weight ease itself off my hand.

  Skate says, “Deck,” and it echoes once in the large lobby.

  “Skate.” And that echoes as well.

  The concierge clears his throat (good ole Jacques.)

  Skate looks up at the man, then back at Deck, nods, then turns and puts an arm around me and eases me out the door.

  As soon as I get outside, I see another Flash! but this one much weaker, not lightning, not lightning at all. And then Flash! Flash! Flash!

  Cameras! Three reporters (or iReporters) run under the eaves and try and get through the revolving doors but I can see Jacques smiling confidently and I remember Deck telling me, This is the...safest. From the press, I mean.

  Jacques has locked the door! He must have some button for it behind the counter!

  But they’ll find me outside, I realize.

  Skate gets me into his Dodge Ram and then guns it to life (a newer model, much less mileage on the clock than his older one, but still red) and says, “We’ll pick up your cabby later. Let’s just get you home.”

  I don’t argue. As we leave, I see one more Flash! right by my window.

  It feels like a gunshot.

  -5-

  The next morning’s headlines on the gossip sites:

  Mysterious Blaze Drenched.

  Blaze Under Fire.

  Romance Blazes for Cox and Old Flame.

  Cold Shower for Declan Cox After Blaze.

  CNN Sports at least dropped it, so did Fox Sports. But the scandal sites continue to go wild.

  Randy calls and tells me my sales are “through the roof, Blaze! You might even make it into the Billboard Top 100!”

  I’d been in the DJ Top 100, but that’s nothing like the Billboard Top 100, more like the Top Ten Thousand. The music I make is a niche sound.

  “Yay, I’m so happy.” Randy does not miss the sarcasm.

  Later, Vikki suggests a girls’ day out, and I’m game. We go for manipedis and clothes shopping for several hours in the city and finally for cappuccinos back in Brooklyn, South Williamsburg.

  Café Monet (no prizes for guessing the prints on the walls inside) is a small coffee-house where the filter coffee is made by hand and Café del Mar chill-house bubbles peacefully in the background through the speakers. There are only four or five other people here. The lights are low, and it’s still gray as an England sky outside so there’s very little natural light in the coffee-scented room.

  It’s late afternoon now.

  Being in the city was crazy, and even though I’d hoped to chillax there, it seems I’m becoming New York’s latest socialite. Vikki’s used to it, her father being such a big name in the Brighton Beach nightlife scene, but I’m not. But now, back here, back “home” in Brooklyn, I’m chilling.

  It helped that Vikki’s once-upon-a-time bodyguards were with us: Vlad and Sven. Otherwise known as Terminator I and Terminator II. They’ve been tailing us all day, waiting outside while our toes were touched up and cucumbers were put on our eyelids. Vlad and Sven used to tail Vikki all the time. All the time! But since she and Skate started hooking up, their presence has been less. Skate had to go through a whole background check to be “OKed” as Vikki’s boyfriend by her father! It made me wonder if the whole “you’re being bodyguarded because of potential threats against the family” story from her dad hadn’t merely been a ploy to ensure she didn’t date losers who would hurt her. Since she’s started dating Skate seriously, Vlad and Sven have been slowly disappearing into the woodwork.

  Except today. Vikki called her dad and asked if the two terminators could accompany us. “Everyssing OK, my putchka?” her father had asked.

  “Everything is fine, papah. It’s for Blaze. She has reporters following her everywhere!”

  Vlad and Sven were sent immediately. The Flashes! were still there, but every time there was one, Vlad and Sven took up chase and the Flashes! disappeared. So I guess tomorrow’s headlines will be about two CIA-looking dudes taking up chase. Better than my face on the covers, that’s for sure!

  Vlad and Sven are also good shopping bag carriers.

  But that was all in the city. Back here, in Williamsburg, we haven’t seen a single photographer. Maybe they’re out bothering some of the “bigger names” in Park Slope or Prospect Heights.

  Fine by me.

  “How does it feel to be famous?” Vikki asks me.

  “I’m not famous. I’m Declan Cox’s... What am I actually? I’m not even his girlfriend for chrissake!” It stings to say it, to speak it out loud.

  “With all the time you’ve been out of the states, you obviously didn’t understand how horny half the population has become for the NFL’s baddest bad boy.”

  I don’t care what they call him now. He wasn’t those things when we were together. “He’s changed,” I tell her. “I don’t even recognize who he is, Vikki.”

  She makes a doubtful face, holds the cappuccino cup to her lips for a second while she examines me.

  “What!”

  She’s glaring me down suspiciously. “Has he changed? Or has the world’s perception of him changed?”

  I roll my eyes. “Vikki, don’t take his side again.”

  “Again? I wasn’t aware I ever took his side.”

  “You were the one who told me to reconsider things with him after...after...” I wave a dismissive hand. “...after that slut sent me those photos!”

  Vikki sits back. “And? He hadn’t cheated on you, so wasn’t it worth it?”

  “I wish I’d never seen that tattoo.”

  “Why, because it makes him more desirable? Is it too hard to realize that the man you thought was the scum of the earth may very well be the most loyal thing on two legs?”

  I shake my head, look down. “He slept with her, Vikki. Of all the people... And I know it was after. But...it just... It—”

  My phone starts ringing. I take it out my purse and look at the screen. A dark and sexy face appears: Laz.

  Somehow I expected him to call. We’re currently in an “off” season. We ended our last “on” season just before I came to the states this time round. Well, I ended it, technically. Before that we’d been “on” for about a month.

  I pick up the phone. “Laz.”

  “Darling, how are you?” Laz has a mixed accent, semi-refined, semi-street slang. He’s a self-made man, brought up in a rougher British neighborhood where people “don’t speak proper.”

  “I’m OK. How—how are you?”

  “I’m fine. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be in New York for a few days just after Christmas. I thought we could grab some coffee, shoot the breeze a bit. We are still friends, aren’t we?”

  We are still friends... Laz’s classic line.

  “Of course we are.” And then I think about how, despite all my hatred for what Declan did, I’m not ready to close the door on him yet. Not at all. “But, hon, if we hook up for a drink I don’t want you to get the idea—”

  “Blaz
e, come on, we’ve known each other three years now, love. There’s no bad air between us, ’ey? We hooked up, we shagged, we needed it each other, and it’s over. We’re adults, aren’t we?”

  A little crass, but fine... “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Of course. So, no worries. Besides, you know you got me interested in that American Football stuff. I catch the sports news every now and then on CNN International. And I know about you and this...what’s his name?”

  “Dec—Declan.” My voice catches.

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Just like the tattoo you got last year. Interesting...” I say nothing. “Anyway, whatever. It’s not like I didn’t screw around when you were out of town either.”

  “Huh?” Blood pools at my feet. My stomach starts flapping its wings. “You think I...cheated on you?”

  “Well, you must have. I assume you met up with him a little before August last year, fell madly in love with him and then got his name tattooed on your skin.”

  “It’s not like that, Laz.” Somehow I don’t feel I need to explain this to him. But a part of me also wants him to understand that I didn’t “cheat” on him.

  Wait, hadn’t we been off at that time? Yes, we had been! Because it was when Vikki and Skate had that kiss and the bimbo came over and the whole Sexy Movers—

  Oh, whatever. Who gives a fuck.

  “Laz, whatever. Yeah, uhm, he means a lot to me, but it’s not like you think. But you do need to be aware of it.”

  “Blaze, I’d be a fool to get in the way of a steroid-pumping giant like him, wouldn’t I?”

  Laz is also pretty big, but he’s right, if it came to old-school Alpha Male stuff, well, I think Deck would have the upper hand. “Laz, this isn’t the Wild West!”

  He sighs. He’s always had such a...convincing...sigh. “Wadayasay, ’ey? Old time’s sake? I’d really like us to stay friends, Blaze. Before, well, you stayed single, I stayed single, so we gravitated to each other. Now it’s different. You’re taken. I can absolutely respect that, and I’m not even trying to get in the way of that. But...what we had...it meant something to me. You mean something to me. Don’t take away our friendship just because...well—I don’t even know the reason why you would do that! There just is no logical reason for it!”

  Laz Rinkton, high-class businessman. He was always a very good negotiator. “Uhm, yeah, of course. I’m being silly! Sure we can hook up for a drink...as friends. You said you’d be here after Christmas?”

  Thinking about it, I also think it would be good to see him. Just to chill, to think about something else. Simply to...chat.

  Deck and Gina, anyone?

  “Yeah, December twenty-sixth. I’ll call when I arrive.”

  He clicks off. I’m staring at my phone blankly when Vikki asks, “Who was that?” She must have been distracted while I’d spoken to him.

  “Laz Rinkton.”

  Her bronze eyes shoot open like saucers. She doesn’t immediately speak and I figure she’s catching her breath from the stun of it. Then her lips part to talk, but I shoot my hand up and cut her off. “We’re just going out for coffee! As friends!”

  She rolls her disbelieving eyes, makes a loud and highly embarrassing raspberry sound. And she grins her unbelieving grin. “There is never only ‘coffee’ amongst old flames.”

  “There is for me. I have no interest in Laz.”

  “But he has an interest in you.”

  “No, he doesn’t. He said he just wants to be friends. I need male friends in my life, don’t you think?”

  “You have male friends—Skate, Trev, Vlad.” I look over at Monster Vlad sitting in the opposite corner of Café Monet, suited up and looking about as big as a house. Six shopping bags lie blamelessly at his feet. Sven and him are playing cards in their black shades and suits. Vlad smiles my way, and it feels like that smile could fire bullets into someone’s chest.

  “Yeah, some friend Vlad is!”

  Vikki laughs. “Will you sleep with him?”

  “Huh?” I look abruptly over at Vlad again.

  “Not him! With this...” Vikki waves her hand absently. “...whatever his name is.”

  “Laz?”

  “Yes, him. Will you sleep with him!?”

  “No! Of course not.”

  “M-hmmm?” Vikki puts her coffee down, sits back.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “What?”

  “‘M-hmmm?’ That!”

  “Nothing, just sipping my coffee.”

  “No, spit it out!”

  “If this...Laz...or whatever, offered himself to you, would you take him?”

  “No, I wouldn’t!”

  “Why not?”

  Because I still love Declan. The answer slaps me fast and hard. But what I say is something else. “I...don’t know.” I look down at the table, scratch my head aimlessly.

  “M-hmmm?”

  “You’re doing it again!”

  “M-hmmm? All I’m saying is: You’re a woman, Laz is a man. Laz is attracted to you. You both might”—she leans closer, whispers—“fuck!” She sits back again. “And if you do, it doesn’t mean you don’t love Declan, or that you can never be with him again. Because you and Declan are not together. See? That’s the difference. And you weren’t with him when he, well, reduced his standards so idiotically and, y’know...”

  I know...

  The room goes suddenly silent. I hear the coffee machine sputter and wonder if the barista wiping a glass can’t hear us.

  I try and lie to Vikki, but she’s known me for five years now, as long as I’ve known Deck. The air in the room feels heavy and stale suddenly. “If it had been someone else, Vikki... If it had been anyone else... But not her. Not...her.” I’m still looking down, mumbling a little.

  “I don’t think so. I think it only affects you because you know who she is. She isn’t a friend, but you know her. It hurts more when you know someone your man slept with. It’s not just ‘some girl.’ It’s a girl you know. It stings more, brings it home more. The point I’m making is: Laz wants to get into your pants. All you’d have to do to get him there is open your legs—”

  “Vikki!”

  “I talk straight. You know me. But you wouldn’t have to do any work to get him there. He’s doing all the work. Well, this Tatiana is like Laz, opening her legs, thrusting herself onto Declan. Man and woman. And can you blame him for it? Hell...” Vikki looks up, smirks a little. “I have to say that it was a hell of a good move he pulled. Give her what she wants, get a little action in for himself, and then have her fall down the chute because of her own betrayal. Is there any better poetic justice?”

  “It scared me.”

  “Hmmm? What do you mean?”

  “When he was with her, he said he planned it, planned the whole thing—to sleep with her, and then to send her husband the tapes. It scared me. It showed me an evil side to him that I’d never seen before.”

  “Oh, please! We all have that in ourselves! Maybe it’s good that you see that about him. You can’t put him up on a pedestal, just like he shouldn’t put you up on a pedestal. You’re human and he’s human. Humans aren’t romance novels! Those novels are all full of bullshit! If you thought he was some sort of god, you’d hit your head. Humans are ugly things, we’re evil, we hurt each other. The point is: Is he more good than bad? And, I have to say, touché. I mean, using her own game against her—yeah, the dude is bad, but isn’t what he did just oh so good? What is she up to these days?”

  I shrug. “Dunno, But apparently she doesn’t live in Brooklyn Heights.”

  “Maybe she’s on welfare.”

  “Or screwing some other dude to climb up the corporate ladder.”

  “See? You’re putting it in perspective again. So he screwed a slut. Show me some guy who hasn’t! Men are stupid, they think with their cocks. That’s what’s wrong with all of them. The real question is if their hearts are big enough to compensate for the idiotic actions they’re likely to take because of said
penis-brains. You think this Laz is any better?”

  “I never said that.”

  “It’s a hypothetical question. Is he?”

  I hesitate a second. “N—no. I know Laz isn’t better. There’s no future with Laz. I don’t love Laz, not even a little. Never have.”

  “But you screwed him.”

  I sigh out. “You’re making me feel...icky.”

  “Why? You’re human. Humans have sex. Ethical humans have sex with one person at a time—cultural differences aside. So you slept with this Laz for, what, fun?”

  I shrug.

  “I’m asking you, Blaze. What was the reason you decided to sleep with him?”

  Because I was lonely...

  “Blaze?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I asked you a question.”

  “I know you did. And I’m embarrassed—ashamed—to answer it.”

  “Because you think what you did is different to what anyone else does in this world? Let me answer it for you.” She lowers her voice again, leans closer again. “You fucked him because you needed to be fucked, Blaze. You needed to feel like someone loved you, and you used the physical sensation to make believe it was the emotional one. Am I far off?”

  I shake my head.

  She sits back.

  “If I were being blunt, could I say you used him, perhaps?”

  I swallow. “I didn’t use him. He knew what he was getting himself into.”

  She breaks out into a cackle of laughter. “Blaze, you’re such a prude! You used this Laz probably no more than he used you. It’s semantics—using, having sex, fucking, whatever. It’s a different word for the same thing: Men and women getting together in the absence of love. All I’m saying is you can’t be so judgmental when it comes to Declan, when you’ve done the same shit.”

  “Not exactly the same shit.”

  “But not as far from it as you previously considered, right?”

  “Maybe.” I look up at her. “OK, fine, I see your point. So what do you suggest I do?”

  “I don’t suggest anything, lest I be accused of ‘taking sides.’ I just suggest you...don’t overreact. What I do suggest is that you don’t wait. You’ve waited for four years, honey. And as you can see, Deck-Man is in demand in the world. If he’s declaring his love for you on his skin and jumping on you in his apartment, I wouldn’t sit and think you’ll have him in a year or two. Because if you don’t jump back, or let yourself be jumped on, there’ll be more garbage you’ll have to deal with in the future. Hey, maybe he’ll do this Tatiana again because he’s bored.”