by Eve Bradley
“So, how’d you end up on the side of the highway trying to get yourself killed?” He’s bolder here in his own territory.
“Um, well. I’m not really…I don’t remember much,” I say, trying to stifle away reality.
It’s the truth. I really don’t remember much other than visiting my little band of friends in Lenny’s tent that smelled like piss. He’d offered the alcohol to me as if I were someone who doesn’t enjoy a brief vacation from the chaos of my mind-- someone who needs ample convincing. Of course, he doesn’t know that I prefer drinking and drugs to sobriety. I just hadn’t allowed myself to be so reckless until tonight, because I enjoy it too much, and if I allow myself to succumb to the freedom it allows, I’d be exactly like the rest of them on the streets. And I like to think that I’m unique, in a sense.
“Fine. If you don’t want to talk, you don’t want to talk,” he raised his hands as if giving up. “But at least tell me your name. Do you have family around? I mean is there anywhere I can take you where you won’t be strung out the same way tomorrow?”
I smirk awkwardly.
“I’m Allie,” I say, taking another swig of my coffee and reaching across to shake his hand. I notice he glances down at my breasts as I lean forward over the countertop. Maybe he’s noticing that I’m not a little girl. Maybe he’s noticing my nipples skimming the soft material of his white t-shirt. Regardless, he looks into my eyes with complete indifference.
He grasps my hand firmly in his. His skin is smooth, and his hand is hard over mine, clasping me as if he might not let go.
“And no, I don’t have family around here. My family lives in Illinois, but most of them are dead,” I tell him, feeling the annoyance bubbling up in my belly. “And I don’t have anywhere to go. So it really was pointless for you to bring me here.”
“That’s really too bad,” he says, shaking my hand as if I’m a princess or some shit. Those light icy eyes are even more dominating now that he knows the truth of my situation.
I clear my throat and pull my hand away. His touch was too intimate, especially because I don’t know anything about him. If I’m not careful he’ll be expecting compensation for the coffee, and I really don’t want to give him that. A stray piece of advice about strangers and wicked men bubbles up as previous reservations slide back into my head.
“I’m Shawn. Shawn Van Doren,” he tells me.
Something about the name sounds familiar, however, I shrug and nod as if his name is nice, but nothing impressive. I turn to examine the rest of his kitchen. It’s spacious and smells like bleach. It’s too clean, and I assume he has maids to keep it in this state. I walk closer to the giant chef’s oven, and there’s a hint of leftover dinner smell, and suddenly my stomach is growling.
Shawn is leaning on the island, his hands steepled in front of his mouth, and I wonder if he’s trying to hide his expression. The clearer my mind becomes, the more of an enigma I find him to be.
“You hungry?” he asks.
“No…” I start to say, then twirl around. “I mean yes. I am. Very hungry, actually.”
Who knows when I’ll have real food again. He probably has leftovers from some five-star restaurant or something his personal chef set away for him.
I’m curious about how he can afford this house. These are the things I need to know.
“Where are the wife and kids?” I ask, sighing as he heads towards the fridge. I lean back against the island, assessing his nicely muscled backside in his loose gray sweats as he searches the shelves. I don’t see much in the fridge, which is a little disappointing.
When he rounds back, he comes to stand right in front of me. His looming figure shadows me, and it reminds me of all too many times when I’d been the bug beneath the crushing boot of my father. It triggers every instinct inside me to flee.
In one hand he carries a plastic bin of strawberries. But it’s not just that he is standing silent in front of me that causes fear to rise in my gut and pulse there with every heartbeat, it’s his cold, ruthless features. For one maddening, delusional, second I worry that this is it. Now I die. I could knee him in the junk and that could give me enough time to escape. Maybe.
But my fears subside when Shawn lifts one finger and gently pushes me aside. He crouches down to draw a bowl out of the cupboard. He pours the strawberries in over the sink, and they gather in a glittery red mound within the bowl. They’re precut, of course. What a snob.
“My free time is always occupied. It hasn’t made the whole family thing easy,” he says as he slides the bowl towards me.
“What, you’re not going to feed me?” I blurt.
It was a joke, a joke! But his eyes flash. He covers it up well, but he forces a smile. If it had a sound, it would be like metal scraping on metal. It looks physically exhausting to grimace like that.
“Listen, Allie,” he begins.
“I know, I know,” I pop a strawberry into my mouth. “I won’t stay long. I’ll be out of your hair in the morning.”
He swallows, and for a second I think I see a twitching muscle in his jaw. He leans his head back and exhales.
“Are you finished?” he asks me. There’s something in his tone as if he’s testing me somehow.
I nod, feeling like if I say anything else, I’d be on Santa’s naughty list. Or his. And I don’t know if I could deal with all of that. I just wish I could make him see the humor in my situation. A girl out wandering on the highway saved by a rich sexy man? Oh god, this is like the start to one of those pathetic pornos. Maybe it is.
“You can take my bed, all right? I’ll sleep down here,” he motions across the open layout of the home.
Diagonal from us, there is a shadowed space I suspect to be the living room. I’m guessing it’s all white and gray too. In fact, I’d guess that everything in the home matched. Definitely a type-A personality; because, well, it doesn’t take a psych major to diagnose that.
He leads me upstairs to what must be his room. I’m clinging to the bowl of strawberries as if it’ll keep me safe.
“Anita will be here in the morning with groceries,” he says as if this is one of the most normal things.
He’s so blasé. But now that I’m sober-er, his deep voice and words are comforting and I almost feel bad about taking his bed away from him. But this is a very close almost. Ultimately what consumes me the most is the idea of sinking into the platform bed mattress, being under a heavy pile of warm comforters, and pretending that even if it’s just for a night that this is my home. I desperately want to imagine that these are my luxuries. That I am safe.
“Night, Allie,” Shawn says.
As he leaves, I give him a thankful smile. But just as the door closes on his cruelly handsome face, I think I hear him mutter: “Little brat.”
Two
The Offer
Mornings suck. They’ve always sucked as long as I’ve known them. But if it’s any consolation, the scent of clean sheets with a hint of men’s cologne is what I wake up to. That and the feeling that I’m in a cocoon. I lift myself up out of the cozy nest I’d made and walk to the window. My skin prickles with goosebumps.
The window overlooks a hillside of perfectly manicured grass, a swanky pool with tables and chairs, and artfully constructed topiaries. The house has a panoramic view of LA. At least that’s where I think I am. I guess I can’t be sure.
Here, it feels like I’m above the rest of the world and the sick reality I’d known no longer exists. Now I’m nervous, and my stomach is rumbling; whether for food or stress, I cannot be sure.
I listen at the door, holding my breath. But there’s nothing. Not a peep. Didn’t he say his maid, Anita, would be here this morning? How early is it? I glance around and notice a sleek black clock on the wall marking us at 6:15 am. He’s probably not awake yet.
So, I stumble as delicately as I can down the stairs. I’m not going to poke around, no. I’ll just look a little. Honestly, I’ve never been in a house like this. Why not soak in the fine a
rchitecture and expensive detail? He’s been so nice to me I don’t even think about searching for a stash of cash and slipping out. Because, let’s be honest, I have done that before. I don’t think he’d want me here if he knew that, so I’ll just leave that tidbit out of my personal history. That is if he asks again.
I amble into the kitchen. It’s pristine white and lit with fresh morning sunlight. The marble counters glisten and it feels like maybe I’ve died and gone to heaven. Because only places like this home could be reserved for words like heaven. And if this is heaven and I’ve succeeded to weasel my way in, maybe I won’t have to go back to tent-city: my own personal hell. Still, the idea of never seeing the faces of the lonely souls in the camp gives me a strange discomfort. Lenny and Jack were definitely high up on my list, but it is Lorna who I think of now and miss her random outbursts and involuntary twitches.
I walk over to the fridge and before I can open it, the glass doors that lead out onto the back lawn open. In strides a half-naked man.
It’s not Shawn. This man is ripped from head to toe, has diamond-cut cheeks, a sensual pout, and carries himself with bad-boy swagger. His short hair is sopping wet, and water dribbles down his face. He looks like the type of guy you’d see in Calvin Klein underwear ads. The type who classy girls cry into their handkerchiefs for. I notice his cheeks and shoulders are mildly sunburned, and when I look up into his eyes, he’s scowling.
“Who are you?” he looks at me coldly, holding a towel between his palms, wide eyes daring me to answer. A slight Russian accent tilts his words.
“I-I’m, uh. I’m,” I stammer, hating that I can’t keep my shit together in front of these men. It’s not that I’m nervous, I just feel awkward that he’s half-naked and I’m not. “Allison. Allie.” I try to play it cool once I spit out my name, and lay my hand on Shawn’s sweat pants and bob my head.
“Okay then,” he shuts the doors slowly behind him and then turns back to observe me.
God, the nerve of him. He’s clearly checking me out. I stare boldly up at him, pretending my best to be innocent, but I still want him to know that I see what he’s doing.
“You’re getting water on the floor,” I comment.
He waves a hand at the growing pool as if he can’t be bothered with it.
“You’re Shawn’s…?” he waits for me to finish the sentence as he pats his scalp with the towel.
He must have been swimming laps in the Bahama blue pool. He seems like someone who’d get up early to work on his physique, priding himself merely on how many girls he could get into bed sheerly by flaunting his godly musculature.
“Guest?” I supply unhelpfully. “We met last night.”
“At like a club or...?” he walks around the marble island and continues rubbing the back of his neck and his chest. He’s really trying to grate me here.
The man’s nipples are hardened into little nubs on his puffed pectorals. He’s nearly angelic in the clean morning light. He’s used to intimidating girls, is my guess. He probably snaps his fingers and their clothes fall off. Like the petals of a flower. I bet he thinks he could bend me over that countertop and fuck the daylights out of me on a whim.
His seriousness cracks and a smirk draws at the corner of his shapely mouth.
“No, definitely not,” he appraises me further and then tosses the towel aside.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I say.
Knife to the gut. Do I not look like someone who would go to clubs?
“Nothing, girl,” he snickers, his nose wrinkling and eyes creasing at the corners, cracking that life-is-pain slash suffer-fest severity from before. The way he says girl gets to me, I won’t lie. It slices through a whole year of hating life and hits me right where the old me used to exist.
The old me that liked flirting and looked at the world with rose-colored glasses.
“You don’t know me. You think you can just barge in here like you own the place? Who even are you?” I cross my arms over my chest to obscure his view.
“Shawn’s roommate,” he says, gliding a tongue over his top teeth and tilting his head. “Alexi Lebedev.”
I almost comment that I think Shawn would have warned me there would be other people in the house, but I can’t even hold onto that thought. I have no idea who Shawn is. The last name, though, is familiar. Van Doren. It’s got a ring to that sparks déjà vu. I smack my lips together and give him a fake smile.
“I would say it’s nice to meet you, but I don’t make a habit of being nice to men who look like assholes.”
My old self is giggling like a madwoman. My old self is taunting him in his half-naked, godlike state. Before the incident, during college days, I was able to enjoy the opposite sex. I was always in possession of a boyfriend then, and part of me misses those days. It’s like this man standing in front of me spirals me back through a time-loop back to who I used to be, and this realization is like a punch to the gut. Why? Because it’s painful to be reminded of what you used to be. Especially when you loved and lost that part of you.
The girl standing before him now is more like a messy baby than a grown-ass adult.
He’s indifferent. He doesn’t even bother to react, and after a moment, he turns and goes to the cupboards.
So this is where Shawn was hiding the goods. The cupboards are chock full of snacks. Snacks that make my mouth water and my stomach feel even more concave. My eyes trip over Oreos, pirouette, pretzels, Cheetos, crackers, cereal, and nearly every processed snack item I’ve ever seen at a local Walmart.
“You want some?” he asks, his shoulder movements bunching up the muscles as he moves to grab what he wants. He doesn’t even look at me.
“Yeah,” I let the word slip out more passionately than I’d wanted.
He gathers the utensils, bowls, milk, and slides me the box of captain crunch.
“I haven’t had this since I was like, five,” I say, salivating. “I’m surprised you eat this stuff.”
Alexi’s smirk is so arrogant it’s sickening. He knows he looks good.
“I think it’s good to indulge here and there. Shawn doesn’t agree. He eats all that…organic, no-GMO, cardboard shit.”
“Oh, Shawn. Come on,” I snicker. “I guess it evens out if you’re spending so much time on fitness.”
Alexi shrugs and hops up on the island. He hunches over his bowl and shovels the sugary crunchies into his mouth.
“I’ve been doing this for years. I’m fine doing my thing. No diets for me,” he stirs his bowl, speaking to me as if I’m suddenly his confidante. “Here. I’ll show you.”
His Russian accent is thick. He’s got to be first generation. I am confused when he pulls his phone off the counter into his hand and opens Instagram. He holds the phone towards me slightly, but I have to lean towards him a little, reiki style. Our skin exchanges heat but doesn’t touch.
I can’t really focus on his Instagram because I take my first bite of cereal and practically moan. Fuck me. It’s so good. It’s like going a year without an orgasm, every tingle and taste is new. I mean, are there tears in my eyes? When did I last have this? I’ve been surviving off of day-old subway sandwiches and dumpster chip crumbs. This is the holy grail of cereals. The sugar makes me want to dance.
This shirtless guy is showing me his Instagram, and all I can do is moan over food.
“C-ool,” I say through a mouthful of cereal.
“Cool? You think this is just cool?” he asks me, brows lifting off into peaks; offended.
But then I really look. Ah. So he is a model. Not only a model, but an underwear model. He’s posed in all sorts of artsy photos. He promotes top brands like Calvin Klein, Armani, and Versace. I don’t really know much about it, but I’d say he’s high fashion. There’s one of him that’s black and white where he’s arched back, muscles strained as if he’s about to screw the sky. The viewer is gifted a generous view of his package contained in gray boxer briefs. Another photo he’s posing with naked girls, his body shielding
their tits.
“Um, yeah,” I nod as I try to slow my chewing. “You’re really good. I think.”
If meeting a random ass guy in the kitchen isn’t enough, there’s another one striding through another set of doors.
Okay, I take it back. He’s the bad boy. I’m 99% sure he’s slow-mo walking towards us. He’s wearing a brown leather jacket with a white t-shirt underneath, dark wash jeans, and sunglasses. His chocolate hair is cut short on the sides and longer on top, and he sports a cropped beard. He walks with his hands in his coat pockets and the air around him is a cloud of smoke and cologne. He smells like bad decisions.
“Why are you teasing her Alexi?” he says and flips his sunglasses up to sit on his lush garden of hair.
“Excuse me?” I balk.
“She says it’s just cool,” he gestures wildly with his phone, holding his bowl close. “Cool, just cool. Can’t believe it.”
Alexi peers down into his phone and ignores me further, captivated by his own photos. Or comments on how hot he is. Either way, I see the bud of a playful and deceptive smirk twisting his clean-shaven features.
“Sorry. My name is Rhett Clark,” the man says. “You are?”
“Leaving,” I say through my last frantic bite. “I don’t think Shawn meant for me to be around to meet the whole fam…so,” I set the bowl on the table and try to slide past both Rhett and Alexi, these two imposing male figures that I should probably be afraid of. “Shawn?”
My voice rings throughout the house.
“Shawn Van Doren?” my voice echoes.
“He was…out. He’ll be back soon,” Rhett clears his throat. “Is there something you need? I’m sure we can take care of it?”
Okay, this is getting creepy. Not that they’re especially creepy, just the fact that I’m in some random dude’s house flanked by two men, alone, is what starts the flutter of panic in my belly.
I’ve always been lucky on the streets. I haven’t made good choices, but I’ve always come out on the other end of dangerous situations unscathed. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone with him. Maybe they’re serial killers. I let out a shudder of a breath, and I see them exchange looks.
