“Okay.” He glanced at me with incriminating eyes and rubbed his lips together. “I jailbroke your phone that night you were at my house.”
“When?” A rush of heat rose to my cheeks. “After we—” I stopped myself.
He grimaced. “After we what?”
“Ugh, never mind,” I sighed and shook my head.
“Wait. Why are you being weird?” Even in the sinking light, I could see his ebony eyes were confused. He didn’t remember.
“I’m not.” I shrugged and thanked God for the evening’s arrival. “I know when you did it.” I pictured him lying on his bed with my phone in his hand. I knew exactly when he did it. Crackers! Hah! “You’ve got a lot of nerve,” I said, acting angrier than I was. He deserved a small ration of grief for violating my privacy.
“I’m sorry, Di. I was worried and I had a bad feeling so I installed a tracing app and hid it.” He put his hands up defensively when he saw my pinched expression. “I only wanted to be able to find you if you something happened. It was just…a lot had happened and I wanted a little extra security.”
If there was anyone I trusted with my life it was Vance. We’d been partners at B&B Personal Protection Agency for five years and we’d known each other long before that. If he’d felt the need to install things on my phone, he had his reasons. He’d always have my back. I’d, of course, kindly ask him to uninstall it at a more appropriate time.
“You can tell me how pissed you are later, okay?” Vance added. “Come on. I’ll let you yell at me in the car.” He tugged on my arm and began leading the way.
“Where are you parked?” I grunted and winced while taking shallow, painful breaths. “I’m no sissy, but this hurts like hell.”
“Around the corner.” Then he stopped and scooped me up weightless into his arms.
“Vance,” I protested. “Your shoulder.”
“I’m fine. You weigh the same as a bag of groceries.”
I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest then tucked my face inward to protect it from the tiny droplets of rain that had begun to steadily fall. He smelled like leather mixed with the steely smell of his sweat.
“You tell anyone—and I mean anyone—that I let you carry me then it’s over between us. You got me? I’ll rearrange your manhood and end your stellar dating career,” I said, my languid voice muffled by his jacket.
“You got it, baby. Our little secret.” His words radiated from inside his hard chest against my ear.
“Oh my God, and don’t call me baby,” I murmured, even though deep down I liked it. “I’m not one of your little hussies.” I managed to chuckle.
Vance’s charisma, flawless physique, and dashing good looks gave him the luxury of going through women like tissues; they practically lined up at his door. If I didn’t have standards something might have happened between us a long time ago. Our chemistry was undeniable, but we kept everything strictly professional. We loved each other in our way and were only ever destined to be great friends and partners.
“I’m only teasing. You know you’re my girl.” He leaned down and put his nose to my hair. His draw of air was cool against my scalp. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said with a quiet laugh. There’d been plenty of moments throughout the day where coming out alive had been questionable, but every painful inch of my body reminded me that I was.
It took forever until we reached the car. When we finally arrived, he put me on my feet and opened the door to one of B&B’s black Range Rovers. I slid into the warm passenger seat. He hadn’t been looking for me for long. The chilled air from outside hadn’t completely invaded the interior of the car yet. It was still comfortably warm. When Vance got behind the steering wheel, he turned the engine over and slowly pulled out onto the street. Finally, I could relax. I slumped back into my seat, as much as my aching ribs would allow, and shut my eyes.
“You know where it is, right?” I said, without lifting my head.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Where’s the flash drive anyway?”
“In my bra.”
He laughed. “Only you would put information of national importance in your bra.”
“You should know as well as anyone that it’s not an easy place to get into.” I blindly waved my hand over my chest.
“Yeah,” he said through a sigh, “I know. Hey, you want me to turn some music on, or do you want it quiet?”
I normally loved the pleasant distraction of music as background noise but I wanted to hear nothing more than rain slapping the windshield. “Quiet, please,” I said. My voice had gotten raspy as I fought sleep.
As we pulled onto the first main road outside the hospital, I opened my eyes. Vance was checking the rear view mirrors.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think so. Don’t worry. Get some rest. We should be there in about twenty minutes.”
“Okay.” I closed my eyes and drifted off.
…
Startled, I awoke and was thrust forward, the seat belt giving a mighty yank across my neck and chest.
“What the f—” I said. An unexpected ripple of pain tore through my body.
“Wake up! We got company,” Vance said.
I perked up and glanced over my left shoulder, taking a moment to briefly rub sleep from my vision and to absorb the pain. A large, black vehicle with tinted windows was on our bumper.
“Did they just hit us?” I asked.
“Damn right they did. If they fuck up this car, I’m going to rearrange some faces. Cavanaugh’ll never let me hear the end of it.”
“How in the hell did they find us?”
“Maybe they put something on your phone, too. They want that stick in your bra. Bad. But they’re not going to get it. Hold on.”
He jerked the wheel to the right, and we started spinning. Vance was a tactical driving expert, so if we were spinning, he meant for us to be spinning. It didn’t make it any less terrifying, however.
The raindrops on the windshield were illuminated by the other car’s headlights as we continued through our swirling vortex of blurry lights. Millions of them danced in my eyes, blinding me. I clutched the side of the door as the tires screeched and slid to a stop. Thank God my stomach was empty otherwise I would have lost the contents right then and there.
The second moment of impact was more jarring than the first. Crunching metal and the tinkling of shattering glass on the asphalt rang in my ears. I was dazed but I looked over in time to see Vance getting out of the car grabbing for his gun.
“Wait!” I shouted. “Don’t go!”
I reached for him, but he was already gone.
Coming spring of 2015
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Copyright © 2015 by Emerson Shaw. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form by any means.
Fair Play
A prequel novella to Word Play
by Amalie Silver
Chapter One
Michael
August 18, 2006
Seattle, WA
“Mark my words, Jack. One day I’ll write a memoir of all the crazy shit that goes down in this business, starting with all the clichés of a writer,” I said, lifting my glass to cheer him.
“Like the fact that we all have a drinking problem, Mike?” Jack chided, clinking his whiskey glass to mine. Everyone at the table dipped their heads in shame and looked around the room, pretending they didn’t hear him.
Except for me.
“That, my friend, would only be considered a cliché if it weren’t true. But we’re all drunks—every last one of us. How else are we supposed to cope with the criticism?”
“Right, Mike,” Martin began, usi
ng his voice for the first time since we arrived—probably for the first time in over a month. “You haven’t had a drop to drink in the four years we’ve lived together. Don’t pretend like you’re an alcoholic.”
I chuckled. “True, but just wait until I’m successful—when I have those one-and two-star ratings stockpiling. I bet you my first ten grand I’ll be bathing in vodka.”
The four of us finished graduate school the month before, and it was the first time we’d been able to see each other since then. This conference had been planned since the previous semester, but we couldn’t buy our way in. Only a select few—chosen by our Lit professor—were allowed to partake in the four extra tickets he was granted. It was the four of us: Duncan, Jack, Martin, and me—Michael Rourke.
“So how is this going to go down tomorrow?” Duncan asked, changing the subject.
I shrugged. “Beats me. I guess it’s supposed to be like a tradeshow. There will be tables set up with editors, publishers, and agents. At least, that’s what I heard. We’re all in the same boat here, Dunc. None of us have ever been to one of these before.”
“Speak for yourself, Mike,” Jack cut in, smearing back his greasy black hair from his receding hairline with his hand. “Have you forgotten who I am?”
A wave of sighs and subtle eye rolls moved around the table as Jack continued his yammering gloat. “I have an agent already, remember? It’s been nine months since I signed my publishing contract with Phantom House. It was at last year’s National Conference here in Seattle where my Prident agent discovered me.”
In my head I saw him prancing around the room, proudly displaying his colorful feathers. But I’d read his book—a book he swore would make him famous—and to me those feathers were one-dimensional and black and white at best. He was scheduled to release in two weeks. I hoped he wouldn’t ask me for an endorsement.
“Now that is worth drinking to.” I raised my glass again, trying to get him to stop. “We all have celebrating to do here tonight! To the graduating class of 2006! May we all write bestsellers, make our millions, get shagged three times a day for our intelligence, and may our livers fight our inevitable cirrhosis!”
“Hear, hear!” Martin shouted over the crowd, causing a few patron’s heads to turn our way.
The four of us were part of a small clique of literary minds who lived in the same dorm. Some people thought us to be egotistical, elite, and snobbish, but I kind of thought we were all just a bunch of geeks who all had the same passion for words. Not like Dead Poets Society where we’d all stood on our desks and spouted poetry. But we simply enjoyed mulling over the classics and debated what we thought all the Greats were really trying to say.
Jack Moorhouse ran the show. He also ran his mouth, claiming he would be the next great literary genius of a new generation. I don’t doubt that he believed he would be, but he was the kind of guy who felt that using big words and complex phrases was what would win him that prize.
My belief was that the reader didn’t want to have to use a dictionary for every sentence, but that they wanted to be taken on a journey that showed them a life other than their own. We’re fiction writers. If we always got caught up in the thesaurus, our characters’ voices wouldn’t feel real. No one uses words like nidificate or sesquipedalian.
But I was a nobody; my opinion didn’t mean shit. I didn’t have an agent or a contract with one of the Big Five. Maybe Jack was right: people did crave more literary fiction.
Dunc was the tall, skinny friend who never got laid. We gave him a bit of shit for it, but in the end, the man was a saint. Literally. He was set to start seminary school in the fall.
And Martin was the trademarked poet of our club. The only time we could really get him to speak was if we made him drink. Otherwise he’d usually sit silent, scribbling away in his spiral notebook, wearing bright fluorescent yellow tennis shoes.
And me? Well, I’m twenty-three and just got my degree in Journalism at Virginia Tech, and even though I didn’t get the seven internships I applied for—and was still waiting to hear back from one more—I still had a relatively good outlook on my future. Hell, if writing mystery novels wouldn’t pay my bills, I could always blog about the weather.
I just took one day at a time. I moved back in with my mother for the time being, but as soon as I got an agent and my first advance from a publisher, I’d be able to get a small one-bedroom somewhere and live from paycheck to paycheck until I made it big.
“I forgot to tell you!” Dunc opened his satchel and placed a rectangular screen on the table that looked much like a small television or computer.
“What‘s that?” I asked.
“This, my friends, is what they call a Kindle. It’s in beta testing right now. This puppy is going to be sold for four-hundred bucks on Amazonia’s website in a few months. People can read entire books on this thing! And it’s going to revolutionize the business as we know it. I’m really excited,” Duncan said.
“I doubt it.” Jack rolled his eyes. “It’s another electronic hunk of junk that will be useless in less than a year. You can quote me. People are going to stick to hard copies, because there’s comfort in consistency. It’s like how everyone is saying we need to open a Faceplace account because it’s the future of the business,” he scoffed, waving his hand in dismissal.
“No, no, no,” Duncan slurred, obviously reaching his tipping point, where we’d have to covertly pull his beer mug from the table. “I’m telling you, the future is vampires!”
We laughed, having heard that speech before. Duncan was convinced that the formula to writing a bestseller was to carefully entwine an Anne Rice novel with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where a mortal fell in love with a vampire.
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to write a romance, Duncan?”
Duncan shriveled into his embarrassment, knowing what we all thought about that genre.
“Again, you’re wrong there, Dunc,” Jack spat. “You might get an agent with your idea, but the masses will never buy a book about teenaged vampires.”
“It’s all in how you…” I trailed off, losing my train of thought when Jack tapped the shoulder of a woman sitting at the table next to us.
Her hair was dark and curly, but with her back was turned to mine I couldn’t see her face. She reached for Jack’s hand and shook it, but again, with the background jabber and laughter, I couldn’t hear their correspondence.
“See!” Jack piped up. “Monica here says that she would never buy a book about teenaged vampires. I rest my case.”
Duncan’s shoulders slumped in defeat and he went back to drowning in his Sam Adams.
“It’s okay, Dunc. Maybe you could try a different kind of vampire. Like one that sparkles in the sun instead of turns to ashes,” I spitballed, “and his glow is what makes him irresistible to women.”
He cocked his head to the side and puckered his mouth. “That’s dumb.”
“I’m just getting your creative juices flowing!” I laughed, and the rest of the table joined me—all except for Jack, who was still speaking to Monica. She and her friend looked bothered by his interruption, but I hoped that within a minute or two Jack would get the hint.
The server came around and we all ordered another round. Unfortunately, Jack had turned his chair to face the ladies, and had all but invited himself to sit at their table.
I shook my head. “Jack! Leave them alone. Can’t you see they aren’t interested?”
The one with straight, dark red hair giggled, and Monica turned around to face me. “Is this yours? Because you need to put him on a leash.”
I laughed, pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose. “He bites. Be careful.”
The one with the straight auburn hair laughed again, something with which I wasn’t familiar. Most of my one-liners that led to lucky nights had all been theories tested and proven; women had rarely found the real me charming. But I’d say I had the perfect mix of cynicism and wit. Then again, those two character traits weren’t
exactly what most women in real life found titillating. Only heroines in novels—or bookworms—seemed to fall for it. Then again, chicks in novels are usually written to be an ideal of some kind.
I hadn’t really figured out what I would’ve defined as my ideal. My life hadn’t exactly aligned with the stars in the romance department. When you’re a writer, you don’t have much time for anything else. I’d killed four plants in the last four years; all of them met a watery and tragic end.
It’s no wonder relationships weren’t exactly a priority for me. I had enough swarming in my head with my fictional characters to be bothered.
We drank all night, none of us concerned with our inevitable hangovers the next day. And we listened to Jack brag most of the time, until Martin passed out on top of the table and Duncan started reciting Bible verses.
The ladies at the table next to us had left an hour earlier, and Jack and I were the only two men awake and coherent, besides the bartender.
“I’m telling you, Mike,” Jack slurred, “this is the beginning for me. My world is a blank canvas, and people are going to remember the name Jackson Moorhouse.”
I chuckled, my eyes fighting to stay open. “So you say, Jack. So you say.”
“You gotta admit, I’m better than all you guys. Duncan is, and always will be, nothing. And if Martin gets a pub deal, I’m going to throw in the towel and resign. God knows what’s become of the industry if anyone signs him.”
“You’re such an asshole,” I laughed. “You really need to reel in your ego, man. It’s getting out of control.”
“Nothing wrong with having a healthy self-esteem.” He shrugged, downing the last of his beer.
“You’re way beyond self-esteem. You are the perfect definition of self-admiration. Amour-propre, my friend. Your wakeup call is going to be brutal.”
“And what? You think Michael Rourke is going to offer anything to the literary gods? Give me a break. From what I can tell, you have nothing to offer but the size of your dick. Your talent is hallucinatory at best. Defunct. Illusory. Void.”
“Okay. You can put away your thesaurus now, jackass. Not to mention how disturbing it is to know you’ve gauged the size of my dick. Spending a little too much time in the dorm showers again, hmm?” I cringed and continued. “You and I both know that you don’t have what it takes, and that your self-love and misplaced vanity is nothing but your own subconscious reassurance that you’re not going to fail.” I took a breath, and dipped my chin to lower my voice. “And if I ever hear you talk that way about me or these fine gentlemen ever again, you’re going down, Jack. Understood?”
Little Moments Page 26
