by Helena Maeve
She was so enthusiastic, so energized that Hazel didn’t have the heart to tell her that maybe she was moving too fast. What did she know, anyway? She’d thought it smart to let her first boyfriend film their most intimate moments together.
Everything that had happened since, every miserable twist and turn her life had veered down, was of her own making.
* * * *
Monday morning at the diner was all hands on deck. Hazel barely brought one table their order than another wanted the check and yet a third needed a refill. The effortless dance she and Sadie had perfected over the course of the past year benefited from the arrival of a few new additions—Emmalee and Travis, both of them local and eager to work.
Hazel had them to thank for the afternoons and evenings she’d been able to spend at the loft, but seeing them weave expertly between tables now lit a tiny, doubtful fuse at the back of her mind.
“When you’re done gawking, think you can take the good people their pancakes?” Marco bellowed through the serving window between kitchen and bar. He’d been temperamental since Hazel had first come in looking for a job, but it seemed to be getting worse as the months went by. She wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to put up with his shouting.
My fuse is really short. That’s all.
Hazel plastered a smile to her rouged lips. “Sure thing, boss.”
Marco had already moved on to his next dish, flipping burgers with one hand and stirring pancake batter for the fourth batch.
She met Sadie’s eye as she loaded up her tray. “He’s cranky again.”
“Don’t take it to heart,” Sadie advised, sotto voce. “You know what he’s like. Problems with the ex-wife, I guess.”
“Yeah.” But that didn’t mean Hazel deserved to be yelled at. She had troubles of her own. She stalked away before Sadie could rope her into another chat about flower arrangements.
The upcoming wedding was all she talked about. A week since the revelation and they’d been through everything from seating charts to appointments for cake tastings. At Sadie’s instigation, Hazel found herself jettisoning back and forth during what little free time she have to look at dresses and bouquets, check out churches and clubs. Sadie wanted the whole nine yards and she wanted it all done in record time.
Hazel pushed the thought out of her mind as she exchanged an empty tray for a full pitcher of iced tea.
“You okay, honey?” Travis was a broad-shouldered mountain of a man, but he had a voice like a songbird. “You look tired.”
“Busy weekend,” Hazel confessed, leaning against the bar. She ducked her head to check that Marco wasn’t looking before dropping all pretense of reorganizing the freshly-baked pastries in their displays.
Travis made an acquiescing sound in the back of his throat. “Know what that’s like, yes, ma’am…” He followed her example by glancing around before he dipped his voice, adding, “Listen, if you wanna go home and catch some Z’s, I’ll cover for you.”
“Oh, that’s—that’s sweet. But you don’t have to…”
“Ain’t no ‘have to’ about it. Go on. Put your feet up, get some sleep. Tell you what,” he chirruped, “you can take my graveyard shift tomorrow night.”
Hazel weighed the offer… As much as the boys seemed to enjoy having her around, they had yet to make any noise about her work schedule. Ward hadn’t brought up her job since their first throw-down. Whether he was biting his tongue for Dylan’s sake or hers, Hazel didn’t care to know.
“All right.” She sighed. “Thanks. You’re the man, Travis.”
“What’s happening?” Sadie quizzed them, bounding to Hazel’s side.
“Nothing.”
“Secrets, secrets…” Sadie elbowed her in the ribs. “See if I don’t tell that hunk of yours. She’s taken,” she added, winking at Travis.
Hazel did her best to laugh it off, cheeks warming, as Travis put up his massive palms and backed away. For such a big guy, he moved with uncanny stealth. He had mentioned serving in the US army before giving it all up for the glamour of scrubbing sticky milkshake stains off scratched vinyl and refilling ketchup bottles. Hazel pictured him as a SEAL, hacking away through South American jungle and surviving on his own merits.
He was the kind of man who would surmount any challenge, steady as a rock anyone could tie their boat to in a storm.
If she were Marco, Hazel knew who she’d hang onto in a downsize.
“So I was thinking,” Sadie powered on as though they’d never aborted the wedding talk. “How do you feel about yellow roses?”
“Ambivalent?”
Restocking napkins into the stainless steel dispensers Marco had used since the early eighties didn’t require her full attention. Tongue firmly jammed in the corner of her mouth, Hazel glanced over Sadie’s shoulder while she prattled on about roses. Travis wasn’t easy to ignore, especially in an apron.
He was still watching her, and not without interest.
He was watching her like a man trying to remember where he’d seen her face before.
Hazel looked away hastily. Sadie’s nattering served as a distraction.
She gave it another half hour for the morning rush to peter to a steady trickle of newcomers before ducking out. She didn’t bother changing, just grabbed her bag out of the locker room and hustled through the back door into the dank alley behind the diner. From there, it was a quick jaunt to the sidewalk and the thick pedestrian swarm.
Lurching and juddering with every stop, the bus dropped her off within half a block of her apartment. In the daytime, the ghetto she called home looked almost middle class. Children played on the sidewalk beside mothers pushing strollers back and forth to lull the younger generation to sleep, and elderly residents shambled out for groceries. The roaming packs of local, mostly wannabe thugs were probably still in bed.
A pang of tenderness lodged in Hazel’s chest. These were her people. This was where she belonged. Next time she was in the car with Ward and they had time to kill, she’d invite him up, show him around. He couldn’t think worse of her if he saw how she lived than he had the first time they’d met.
Sunlight edged around the flat rooftops to splash at her feet, chasing her shadow as Hazel crossed the street. Her optimism clung like the sweet agony of a good spanking long after the paddle was set aside. It lasted until she made her way into the apartment and switched on her laptop.
Her last check, at midnight last night, had yielded a big fat nothing.
While the coffee maker gurgled noisily in the kitchen, Hazel refreshed the browser. She told herself she had zero expectations—three weeks in, she’d bombarded webmaster and hosting company with as many emails as she could. Short of tipping off Anonymous or hiring a lawyer she couldn’t afford, she had run out of options.
Her inbox loaded first, with a couple of new messages. One was from Sadie, with a link to the virtual wedding planning book she’d made for herself. The other was from Hazel’s sister-in-law, the subject line reading only ‘Reunion’.
She shut off the audio before autoplay could kill what was left of her good mood, and clicked the forums she’d been haunting for nearly twenty days. That page featured new messages, too.
As she scanned the lines of text, Hazel covered her mouth with a hand.
Right there, stark in black-on-white with very few graphic embellishments, were her home address and full name, exposed for the whole world to see.
Chapter Three
Hazel sat in front of the computer until the coffeemaker had finished percolating. Then she sat a little longer, unmoving on the couch. Eventually, she raised her gaze to the front door of her apartment. It was locked, two of the three chains secured. This wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where one could leave doors open and trust that nothing would be stolen.
This wasn’t Dunby.
Someone must have traced the messages she’d left on the forum. Or else hacked her computer. Either way, they knew where she lived and they wanted to share it with the
world.
With a sudden burst of energy, Hazel slammed the laptop shut and grabbed her handbag. She didn’t know what she was doing until she was scrolling through her contacts, from D’s to M’s—to S’s. She thought of Sadie, back at the diner, and the rock on her ring finger.
She couldn’t ruin that. Sadie was planning for the happiest day of her life. She didn’t need to worry about trolls and stalkers.
A hotel, then. It was the logical option and there were a few on the outskirts of LA, ready to accommodate truck drivers, wannabe starlets and assorted runaways. Hazel could check in under a false name, pay in advance. No one need ever know she’d left her apartment until the dust settled.
And if it doesn’t?
Hazel eyed the stack of bills on the coffee table, the invoices yet to be paid. She was in no position to waste money, even on a cheap motel with moldy bathrooms and complimentary bed bugs.
She had one other option. By no means ideal, it would save up on gas money, too.
The loft was closer to the diner than her apartment, and there was always parking available in the street outside. Hazel stared at the phone in her hands for a long beat.
This wasn’t her. She didn’t need help.
Or, if she did, she didn’t ask for help.
I’ll pay them back. She wasn’t rich, but she didn’t accumulate debt if she could help it.
This turn of events called for an exception. She didn’t have much choice. The last time her address made it onto the World Wide Web, she’d woken up to a cardboard effigy with its head separated from its body in her mailbox.
“Well, well. Someone’s missing me already?” Ward greeted as he picked up her call. His voice was a sing-song, an echo of the dangerous man Hazel had met weeks back.
Startled by the similarity, she couldn’t find her voice at first.
“Hazel? You there? Hellooo…”
“Yeah, sorry.” Hazel scored her thumbnail into a bit of loose plaster around the living room window. “You at work?”
“Making the world a better place, one bailout at the time.”
He might have been a snake, but at least he knew her truth.
As a nominal service to Dylan in the early days of his relationship with Hazel, Ward had run a background check on her. He claimed it was nothing more than a Google search, but as far as she knew, the only hits that bore both her name and likeness were social media accounts, maybe a few tagged photos. The most incriminating evidence out there usually referred to her by lurid slurs.
Until now.
However he’d dug out her secret, it meant that Hazel didn’t have to explain what she’d done or why she was hung up on not having cameras anywhere near when they fooled around together.
“Hazel?”
The sound of her name on his lips was nearly enough to prompt a confession.
“I was thinking I’d take you up on that offer,” she blurted out. “The drawer in Dylan’s dresser. If that’s okay?”
Silence stretched on the other end of the line. Then Ward sighed.
“If you’re doing this because you feel pressured—”
“Oh, bite me.”
Ward laughed, a sharp and thrilling sound, enough to trigger a small, tepid smile of Hazel’s very own. When she was with him and Dylan all sorts of strange, absurd scenarios were suddenly made possible. She supposed it was like that for Sadie, when she was with Frank. Some people were compelled to put a name on that sentiment. Not Hazel. She had learned her lesson long ago.
“So…would you be okay with that?” she pressed, trying to conceal her desperation beneath upbeat eagerness.
“Very okay.”
“Good.”
“Will I—will we see you tonight?” Ward asked, tripping over his words.
Hazel bit her bottom lip. She had traded in her morning shift, but she was still due to work from lunch to ten p.m. “Sure,” she told Ward. “I’ll see you at the loft.” She would figure something out.
Perhaps Travis would agree to take her other shift, too. Perhaps he wouldn’t mind.
She thought of his intense, measuring gaze and suppressed a shiver. She would ask Sadie.
* * * *
The apartment was silent when Hazel pushed past the heavy metal door and stepped over the threshold. Un-oiled hinges gave a protesting screech. She winced with the blast of sound.
“Hello?”
No answer came from the depths of the loft. As best she could tell, the boys weren’t home yet. Discomfort accompanied the thought. She hadn’t mastered the art of feeling as though she belonged in their home yet. Knowing she was here only temporarily, until the other shoe dropped, meant she hadn’t put too much thought into how she fit with Dylan and Ward.
The soles of her rundown sneakers stuck to the buffed floorboards. Was there a more fitting metaphor? Hazel wrinkled her nose and put her shoulder into closing and locking the front door.
“Ah, there you are.”
She spun around, recognizing the voice halfway through a gasp. “Dylan! Fuck.”
“Sorry… Didn’t mean to scare you.” He put up his hands in a placating gesture as he approached. “I saw the car.”
“So you left your door open? You’re just asking to be burglarized…” A fact of life where she lived, but maybe not a guarantee on Aulden Way. The once derelict warehouses and factories that flanked the wide street now sold for seven figures as development opportunities for the yuppie crowd. Hard-edged, metal-and-mortar lofts were in high demand these days.
Dylan pecked her lightly on the lips. “I’ve got you to protect me, don’t I?”
It was the sort of innocuous tease that would’ve elicited a chuckle and an eye roll on a good day. This was not a good day.
Gently but firmly, Hazel pulled back. “Okay if I grab a shower? I came straight from work.” She hated herself for lying, but dulled the self-flagellation with the certitude that it was better than the truth.
Dylan nodded. “Sure… Want me to wash your back?” His cheeks dimpled handsomely when he smiled, something boyish and faintly endearing in his expression. It was hard to reconcile this version of Dylan with the man who seemed to take such pleasure in bending her over his knee.
A curl of delight arced through Hazel. “I’m good,” she murmured. “But if you wanted to leave out the collar…”
She hadn’t worn it since the night of his return from Shanghai. The same night that she took the leap and decided to embrace whatever this strange, convoluted tug of attraction turned out to be. It had been Ward’s idea. He liked obvious markers of his control over her. Dylan had obliged him. They were exceptionally good at matching and refining each other’s ideas.
Hazel rose up on tiptoes and brushed her lips to Dylan’s. “Ward told you I’m spending the night?”
Ward had no idea that was the case.
“Glad to hear it,” Dylan purred. He tightened his hold around her waist when she made to retreat, the muscles in his forearms drawn into sharp relief as he pressed her close. “I’ll get dinner going.”
“Awesome.” She trembled when released and didn’t know if it was to do with Dylan’s touch or her lingering remorse.
The bedroom door allowed for some measure of breathing room, though Hazel left it slightly ajar. It was Dylan’s room, after all. She could hardly bar him from entering. The bathroom door had a lock.
Hazel toyed with the thought of turning it. Don’t be ridiculous, she mouthed to her reflection in the wide mirror above the sink.
Hefting her backpack to the floor, she undressed hastily and stepped beneath the spray. The loft had all the amenities of a luxury hotel room without the risk of being interrupted by housekeeping. It still struck Hazel as somehow unfair to indulge. She tried not to linger too much under the ceiling-mounted showerhead, no matter how welcome the warm water felt on her tired shoulders.
Once the steam dissipated some and only a few rivulets of condensation still clung to the mirror, Hazel saw herself clearly. She had pinned up
her hair before she’d come, so her neck was bare and easy to grab a hold of. Beads of water pooled in the oblique slant of her collarbones and clung to her breasts. She examined herself with a critical eye. She’d never qualified as big-chested. Her hips were too wide, her waist too straight—she looked more pear-shaped than hourglass. Short of thrusting herself into girdles and corsets, she had little hope of molding her figure into anything more acceptable.
Enough. For some reason, Dylan and Ward seemed to like her. The bites and bruises on her body were proof. She didn’t need to wonder why.
As promised, Dylan had left the leather collar on the chocolate bed spread. It was a narrow band, soft on the inside and beautifully crafted so as to leave little risk of chafing. An O-ring dangled from the front. Hazel remembered its icy weight against her chest the first time she’d worn it.
She returned the collar to the bed while she dried herself, biding time before she made her next move. Barely two weeks had passed since she’d hooked up with Ward and Dylan—together. Did she really want to start scattering parts of herself throughout their home?
What choice did she have?
The front door opened with a scrape of metal on metal.
“There better be alcohol in that decanter, Dylan, or I swear to God…” Ward’s threats seldom carried any promise of violence. This one rang loudly down the hall and into Dylan’s bedroom.
Hazel’s pulse kicked like a wild beast.
If Dylan replied, Hazel didn’t hear it. She was too busy emptying the contents of her backpack into the dresser drawer and patting everything down. She’d brought socks and clean underwear, her best-fitting pairs of jeans. A few shirts. She knew where to find a laundromat once that small stock needed washing. At this rate, she wouldn’t need to return to her apartment for another month.
It was an ambitious estimate.
Fumbling, she kicked the backpack—laptop and all—under the bed and snatched up the collar. She considered sauntering out in her birthday suit, something the boys seemed to appreciate, then thought better of it. Despite her frenzy, she’d had the forethought to pack one other item of clothing.
