Faking It
Page 44
“I’m fine, thanks, Carol,” Nate says. He sounds disinterested. I breathe easy again.
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do,” the woman pauses, and I can almost imagine her toying with her hair, “for you?”
Crud: I need to hide.
The long rows of filing shelves loom out of the darkness. I pull out my phone, lighting my way with the screen. I pass A to F, G to L, and hide myself all the way at the end of the alphabet. Coffee is still dripping down my fingers from the squashed cardboard cup as I set it on the shelf.
Breathe.
The only thought I have is what on earth Nate will think if he finds me. There’s no reason he should, but that doesn’t stop an irrational fear from growing inside me. I need something to distract my mind. Anything will do. I pull up the messaging app on my phone.
Kim: are you up?
Frankie: …
“That’s very kind, but I’m okay, thanks,” Nate says. He sounds amused. Again, that realization lights me up inside. I try and squash the feeling down, but it escapes my fingers and jumps straight back up.
“Oh, okay,” the woman says. She sounds disappointed. “I just need you to sign…” She pauses again. “Here.”
I hear the scratch of a pen.
Kim: I’m hiding in a goddamn filing cabinet. What do I do?
Frankie: I’m too hung over to deal. What the hell are you talking about?
Kim: It’s Nate. He’s outside.
Frankie: laughing face emoji.
I freeze. Did I miss something? I can’t hear anything outside. Did they leave?
Kim: Okay, call off the rescue. He’s gone.
Frankie: ...
The door handle rattles. I catch my breath.
Please be the girl, please be the girl, I think, repeating it over and over in my mind.
The handle falls silent. I let out every last scrap of air from my lungs. He’s gone.
Except – of course, he’s not. The door pushes open with a slight shuddering sound, as whoever is on the other side applies more force. I press my back against the bookshelf, and my phone arm falls limply by my thigh. Frankie is forgotten.
I close my eyes.
I’m not breathing. Someone else is. I don’t dare look up.
“Expecting someone?”
The bad news: it’s Nate’s voice. Already, after only a couple of days, I’d know it anywhere. What’s even worse: he’s right in front of me. He’s possibly just a few inches from my face. Damn, what the hell do I do? I can’t just stand here with my eyes closed –
“I –,” I stammer. “I’m just looking for –”
Nate’s spicy, masculine scent fills my nostrils. Even without speaking, I’d know who he was anywhere. I didn’t know I liked the smell of men before I smelled him. Maybe I still don’t. Maybe it’s only his that I like.
I open my eyes. Nate’s standing in front of me in a smart, tight navy three-piece suit. His waistcoat is buttoned neatly at the front, his jacket loose. He’s not wearing a tie.
Nate grins and cuts in. “Something? Or maybe …” He reaches over my shoulder and plucks a file from the shelf. “Someone?”
“Yes!” I cry out. “I’m here to get –”
He looks down at the file in his hands. “Transaction records from March 1988? What did you say you did here again?”
“I didn’t,” I reply with more conviction than I feel.
“I’d like to know,” he says with a cocky grin on his face. He sets the file back on the shelf. God, he looks so damn smug. And so damn –
“Do I have to tell you? I reply. My brain feels like a tractor stuck in deep mud. I’m trying to come up with an excuse, but I’m falling short.
His eyes glance downwards, and I cross my arms to hide my chest. “Relax,” Nate says, picking up his staff badge from the lanyard around his neck. “Can you read that? It’s a little, ah” he glances around the darkened room, “gloomy in here…”
I’m glad it is, because my cheeks are burning up. “What does it say?” I croak.
“Nate Foster,” he reads. “Head of Security.”
Oh crap. I don’t know what the heck I’m supposed to do here. I can tell the truth, and then let Nate think I’m the sappiest girl this side of the English Channel. Or I can lie, and then lose my job – and maybe more…
I licked my lips. My mouth is dried out. “I was,” I croak, improvising, “trying to find some privacy.”
Nate cocks his eyebrow. “Privacy?”
I indicate my stained top. I feel more confident now. I’ve got a line, and I’m sticking to it. “I spilled this damn coffee all over myself.”
“Uh huh,” Nate nods. He glances down, and trails his fingers down my upper arm. I swallow nervously. It feels like he’s left a wildfire burning in his wake. “So I see. Any particular reason you didn’t, you know, go to the restroom up the hall?”
Because I wanted to avoid this! I don’t scream. “I didn’t know,” I finish lamely.
Nate licks his lips. He doesn’t look convinced. “I think we both know the truth, Kim.”
Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Where is he going?
“But maybe there’s a way we can …work things out.”
“What do you have in mind?” I whisper. He’s so magnetically close. Every time he looks at me, I feel a need to press my body against his. I don’t know what’s coming over me.
He pauses, as if weighing up what he’s about to say. Then, casually, in a way I’d never dream of, he pops the question. “Have dinner with me.”
My body aches to tell him yes. Before my brain catches up with what my mouth is doing, the word is at the tip of my tongue. Yes.
Somehow, I just can’t do it without feeling it would be betraying everything I in which I believe. I’m not a, a…
Slut.
I am not surrendering; especially not because a pretty boy smiled at me; especially not this pretty boy.
My mind twists and contorts like an acrobat. Just as I’m about to break, I get a surge of courage. I push Nate off of me.
“You don’t remember what you did, do you? Not any of it.”
I slip past Nate’s body. His lips are stunned into silence. I’m glad. I don’t trust myself not to give in to his silver tongue.
9
Nate
I don’t get insomnia.
I want to make this clear.
I. Do not. Get. Insomnia.
So, why the hell am I tossing and turning in bed at two in the morning? I know the answer. She’s staring me in the face. Kimberly goddamn Sawyers. Every time I close my eyes, I see those thick, pouting lips of hers reflecting back at me.
Every time I try and remind myself that she’s just a mission, that none of this is for real, my voice sounds false inside my head. What makes her different? Why is she the one who’s got under my skin?
I’ve had every type of girl. Thin, thick, blonde, brunette, whatever – never a redhead – but I don’t think that’s it. No.
It’s that Kim pulls herself away from me, when every other girl I meet throws their body at mine. She’s got that innocent vibe about her. Hell, I bet she’s a damn virgin. So, why the hell would I want a roll under the sheets with a girl who barely knows what’s supposed to go where?
I don’t know.
I just do.
“Fuck this,” I growl. I toss the duvet cover off my naked chest and throw my legs off the bed. My feet land with a thud. The carpet is cold underneath my bare toes, but I don’t care. I’m going to warm myself up.
Christ, she’s so goddamn close. Right now Kim is, what, twenty yards away from me? More than likely, less.
I wonder what she’s wearing: silk pajamas, maybe. No – perhaps ones with cartoon characters on. She doesn’t strike me as a sleeping naked kind of girl. But I want to get my hands on her anyway. I blink, and a graphic image of those thick thighs riding my cock paints itself behind my eyelids.
I groaned. I can feel my cock jumping in response.
My laptop is still on the kitchen counter where I left it. A bright white light flashes from time to time as it slumbers. I’m jealous. I wish I could do the same. It’s calling out to me. I could log on; find out what she’s wearing; watch her as she sleeps…
Nothing is secret. Naught stands between us. Not that she even knows.
All of it feels … wrong: scummy, somehow. So I do the next best thing.
I pull a half empty bottle of bourbon from the cupboard over the coffee machine. The glass is cold to the touch, and the liquid sloshes inside. I stare at it for a second.
“She’s going to put you in an early grave…” I mutter. What if this is my life now? Am I just supposed to drink myself to sleep every night? If so, then how long can I possibly last?
“Fuck that,” I growl.
I pour a hefty lug into a whiskey glass. It still contains the dregs of my last drink, but I don’t give a shit. It all tastes the same. I knock the glass back, and pour every last drop down my throat sdas if it were a shot.
It burns.
It burns so bad I’m almost tempted to cough and splutter my way back to sanity.
It doesn’t fucking matter as it doesn’t dig me out my predicament. I’ve still got Kim on the brain. She’s buried inside my mind. I can hear her voice when the dishwasher chirrups; smell her scent in the air. She’s everywhere and nowhere all at once.
“What the hell did you mean, Kiss?” I groan, resting the whiskey glass on the counter with a clunk.
Kiss. I like that.
“What did you mean, I don’t remember? I’ve never met you before.”
Is that really true? Maybe I do remember a girl like her: a redheaded girl, hair all in pigtails, eyes shaded by thick glasses. Maybe it’s a false memory: just a symptom of this disease she’s infected me with; a desire from which I can’t break free.
I know there’s only one cure; only one way to heal myself of this ache.
I know it’s not through the amber liquid in that bottle.
The only way is through her, Kim: the touch of her lips; the taste of her skin.
“But it’s two in the goddamn morning,” I hiss, slamming my palm down on the marble counter.
The impact stings, but I barely register it: just like I haven’t noticed the kiss of the cool air on my skin, shrinking my nipples to nothingness; just like I hardly notice the cold marble underneath my bare toes, as it steals the heat from my body.
The goddamn laptop is calling out to me. It’s sitting there, taunting me. I know that I could turn it on and feed the hunger inside me in seconds. I want to do it. I want to watch her.
But something is holding me back. Watching her secretly still feels wrong; alcohol did nothing to change that feeling. It’s bad enough that Kim has no idea she’s just a pawn in a game of secrets and lies. I feel guilty enough that Paragon –
“Don’t lie, Nate,” I mutter. The sound of my voice bounces off the walls, and echoes back to me. It’s harsh and accusing. “Paragon had nothing to do with it. You put her in this situation.”
Somehow, that doesn’t change a damn thing. She’s over there, and I’m in here.
There is nothing I can do about it.
Or … is there?
I lick my lips. Can I do this?
I know, even before I ask the question, the decision is already made. If I don’t, then it’s the whiskey that will kiss me to sleep.
I don’t want that.
I want Kim.
I’m going to get what I want.
I’m going to get my Kiss.
Now that I have a goal, my feet move without me having to think about it. I don’t bother shrugging on a robe – hell, the thought doesn’t even cross my mind. Adding more time before it’s just me and my girl is a risk I’m not willing to take.
I bang on her front door. It’s 2 AM, but I don’t care.
Nothing happens.
I know she’s in there. My Kim isn’t a party girl. She’s not the kind to paint the town red. That’s not what I want – at least, not anymore. Not since Kim walked into my life, and wouldn’t leave.
I bang again, harder this time. The whole doorframe shakes.
Part of me wonders if I’m scaring the crap out of her, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. I don’t know what she thinks I did to her, but I know I didn’t do it. I can’t let her think the worst of me any longer.
If it was any other girl who caught my eye? I wouldn’t give a shit.
But Kim isn’t just any other girl.
“Excuse me!” A voice shouts from further down the corridor. It’s a British accent – cold, and crisp. I barely detect a trace of sleep in his voice.
“You, sir: would you please keep quiet?” He says. “Some of us have jobs to attend later.”
I turn my head and search out the source of the voice. It’s a man – a portly man – wearing a dressing gown that barely conceals his belly. He’s older than me, with tinges of gray hair beginning to lick at his temples like the first tiny spark from flint that sets off a wildfire. I shoot him a hard look. I see him swallow.
“This is important,” I grunt.
He pulls the dressing gown tighter across his body and clears his throat. “Well, yes, I quite imagine it is. But, listen here, I don’t know where you come from, but –”
“I’m sorry?” I reply, clenching my jaw shut.
I see his throat close up once again. The gears are turning in his mind. I know what he’s thinking. This is a nice part of town – one of the nicest. This is not the kind of place people get hurt.
Then again …
I know what he sees when he looks at me. I’ve got six inches on him, and the last time his body saw the inside of a gym was probably before I was born. If it came to a fight …
“Give me five minutes,” I say. “I promise that then I’ll shut the hell up.”
He licks his lips, and his eyes flash from side to side. “Five minutes, then,” he preens. “But no more, else I’ll –”
My eyes narrow. You’ll what?
"– Call the concierge,” he whimpers, visibly shrinking.
Riiight.
I turn away. I’ve let him have his pride. It’s fine by me. I didn’t need to take it. I didn’t want it. He’s not worth my time.
I hear a rattle as Kim’s front door unlocks. She pulls it open, just a crack. The second she sees my face, she squeaks and the door slams shut.
“Nate?” Kim says with a voice still crackly from sleep. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I needed to talk to you.”
I hear a click to my left as my one-time adversary disappears into his apartment, tail between his legs.
“It’s two in the morning…” Kim says. She sounds more confused than worried. It’s like she doesn’t know why a man would turn up at her door at this time of the morning. I want her to let me show her.
I grip hold of either side of the doorway, and my shoulders bulge. I’d bet any money she’s looking at me through the peephole. “Open the door, Kim.”
“Nate, this is crazy. Come back –”
“No,” I growl. “I’m not waiting. I don’t know what the hell you think I did, Kim, but I didn’t do it, all right? So come out here and look me in the eye, and tell me if you think I’m lying.”
I am, I don’t say, just not about that.
There’s a long pause. I imagine what the graying man is doing right now. He’s probably listening with his ear glued to a water glass pressed against his front door. I don’t give a crap.
“Nate…”
“Do it, Kim.”
Kim does as I tell her. Her door clicks open again and I have to hide a smile. I was right. She’s wearing goddamn Minnie Mouse pajamas.
Her hair is messy, like pine needles carried on the breeze, and she’s craning her neck so I don’t see her head on. I bet she’s worried about morning breath. That’s cute.
“What are you d
oing here?”
“Let me take you out,” I say.
Kim goes crimson. She’s still avoiding my gaze. It’s like she’s worried that if she looks at me, I’ll trick her into doing something she would rather not. That’s crazy – she’s the drug, not me.