Tease

by Cambria Hebert

  “You ready?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  On our way out, he picked up a small stuffed stingray—a white one with brown spots—and handed it to me. Then he jogged back to the counter, laid some cash on the table, and then we left the aquarium to walk out into the night.

  The Broadway was almost entirely empty and the fountain was lit up with pink and blue lights. The sound of the water as it poured from the top sounded like a rainstorm on a sunny day.

  I held the stingray between us on the ride back to my place, keeping my cheek pressed against his back. The night air actually felt cool as it raced over my skin and pulled at my hair. But I didn’t care. I would sit here and freeze to death before I even thought about moving.

  The parking lot at my building was full, most people home for the night already, so he had to park a little farther away than usual.

  “How late is it?” I wondered when I noticed my Toyota parked nearby. “Roxie’s already home.”

  “I haven’t looked at the clock at all,” he said. “It can’t be two a.m. though.”

  “Maybe she got off early.”

  “Probably.”

  We stopped on the sidewalk at the bottom of the stairs. “Do you want to come in?” I asked him, looking up through my lashes.

  “I don’t want to move too fast and mess this up,” he said, his eyes sweeping over my face.

  “I think we should just stop worrying about moving too fast and just go at our own pace,” I said, meaning it. What were the rules for this anyway? Were there any? I mean, I spent almost four years with a guy that I felt like I was waiting for the perfect time for everything. But that time never came. Because he wasn’t the right guy.

  I wasn’t sure if Cam was the right guy, but after tonight, I was thinking he might be.

  He opened his mouth to reply, but I never heard what he said.

  Because a shrill scream pierced the night.

  It came from my apartment.

  14

  As Roxie screamed, the door to my apartment flew open, slamming against the wall with a sharp cracking sound. I hadn’t noticed until that moment that the porch light above our door was out and so was the closest street lamp nearby.

  A man in dark clothing and a ski mask rushed out of the apartment and lunged down the stairs. Roxie was still screaming, and I began to worry she was hurt.

  “Roxie!” I cried, rushing forward.

  Cam yanked me back, shoving me behind him, and then rushed forward after the man who was running across the parking lot and disappeared behind the building. Cam stopped pursuing and turned back, torn between leaving me and chasing the man.

  I rushed up the stairs into the apartment, yelling my roommate’s name, flipping on the lights as I went.

  Thankfully, they all turned on. Roxie was sitting in the living room in the middle of the path between our bedrooms. She was on the floor with her back against the wall and her knees pulled into her chest.

  “Oh my God, Roxie,” I said, falling to my knees in front of her. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  Cam rushed into the apartment behind me, his eyes locking on the both of us, then narrowing as he went from room to room searching the place for any more unwanted intruders.

  “Roxie,” I said again, trying to calm my frantic voice.

  “I’m okay,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “He didn’t do anything to me.”

  “I saw him run out of here. What happened? What are you doing home so early?”

  “I wasn’t feeling well. I have a horrible headache. I only got a couple hours of sleep last night, and I sat at that godforsaken garage half the day and they didn’t have any air-conditioning either.”

  “You’re probably overheated.”

  She nodded. “Adam sent me home. He told me I looked like shit.”

  “Wasn’t that charming of him?” I observed.

  She laughed and it turned into a sob.

  “He must have been watching the apartment, waiting for me. The porch light was out when I came home and I just figured the bulb was burnt out. When I was trying to unlock the door, I heard the crunch of glass under my feet and I realized that the bulb had been broken.”

  I made sympathetic noises as horror raced over my skin, leaving behind a fine coating of chills.

  “I turned to leave, but he was already coming up the steps. I tried to get inside and lock him out, but he shoved the door open and tackled me. I managed to kick him and run away, but he caught me again and was dragging me through the living room when I fell.”

  “Oh my God,” I said, horrified. I couldn’t help but wonder if he planned to rape her.

  A cold bottle of water appeared before Roxie and she looked up at Cam, who offered it to her. “Thank you,” she murmured and took it, taking a sip and drawing in a deep breath. “I yelled at him to please stop and to leave me alone. And it was so weird. Whenever I said it, he paused, like he was actually considering my request.”

  “And then what happened?” Cam asked.

  “He got up and ran out the front door. Then you got here.”

  I nodded. “We saw him run away.”

  “I would have caught the bastard, but I was afraid to leave you ladies alone.”

  “Thank God you showed up when you did,” Roxie said and started to cry.

  I reached over and put my arms around her. She leaned her head onto my shoulder and kept crying.

  “Are you sure he didn’t hurt you?” Cam said, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

  She flinched and he pulled away. “I think so,” she said, still crying.

  “I’m calling the police,” he said and got to his feet, pulling out his cell phone.

  There was a noise by the still-open front door. Roxie screamed and Cam spun around defensively.

  “What the hell is going on?” Adam said, stepping through, his eyes going straight to Roxie huddled against the wall. “Roxie?”

  At the sound of his voice, she started sobbing even harder. His eyes grew wide and he looked at Cam for an explanation.

  “Someone broke in and attacked her.”

  Adam’s face went completely white. Then he strode across the room and reached down toward her. She let go of me and moved willingly into his arms. He picked her up off the floor as Cam spoke quietly on the phone.

  I watched Adam carry her over to the couch and sit down with her in his lap. She wasn’t a small girl. She was pretty tall, but she looked small sitting there in his lap.

  “Hey,” he murmured, trying to pull her away from his chest. She clung to him, not budging, not wanting to move. “I’m just trying to see if you’re hurt,” he told her quietly. “Let me see.”

  She let him pull her back and he looked her over. So did I. There didn’t appear to be any damage that I could see.

  “Did he rape you?” Adam asked, his voice hard.

  “No!” she said sharply, then collapsed against his chest.

  “It’s a good fucking thing. I’m going to kill him,” he said, his voice deadly calm. It was actually kind of intimidating.

  Roxie started to cry harder and Adam swore beneath his breath. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Calm down. I’m not going anywhere.”

  He continued to talk to her, trying to soothe her. I wandered around, letting them have some privacy (for some reason it seemed like I was intruding on a private moment), looking for missing items or anything broken. Everything looked exactly the same as when I left.

  Even my jar of rice was still sitting untouched on the kitchen counter.

  “Cops are on their way,” Cam told the room when he hung up his phone. He walked over and shut the front door, locking it for good measure.

  Roxie’s sobs had quieted and Adam was still cradling her in his lap. “I shouldn’t have sent you home. This wouldn’t have happened,” he said.

  “We would have had to come home sometime,” I told him.

  “You girls shouldn’t be living here alone,” Adam snapped.

/>   “It was him,” Roxie murmured.

  “Him who?” I asked, going around the couch to look at her.

  “Craig. It was Craig.”

  Adam let forth a string of cuss words that should have earned him an award. Even Cam let a couple loose as he sat in the only other chair in the room besides the couch.

  “So that was Craig that was here?” I asked, trying to make sense of it all.

  She nodded. “I think so.”

  “You think he was trying to scare you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Roxie, are you sure it was Craig? Did he say something to you?”

  She made a frustrated sound and her grip on Adam’s shirt tightened. “No, he didn’t. I don’t… I’m not sure. But who else could it have been?”

  Who indeed?

  Still, it was clear Roxie was scared. And it was clear it was Craig she was scared of.

  Adam and I exchanged a look. “Roxie,” I said, wetting my lips with my tongue and sitting on the couch beside them. “Was Craig ever…? Did he abuse you?”

  She started crying again and buried her face in Adam’s neck. His arms tightened around her.

  I would take that as a yes.

  Adam’s eyes were hard as he stared over her head at the wall.

  “Why aren’t you at the club?” Cam asked Adam.

  “Because she looked really bad when I sent her home. I was worried about her driving so I wanted to make sure she got home okay.”

  A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. I got up to answer it, but Cam waved me back as he pulled it open, his body tense. When his shoulders relaxed, I knew it was the police.

  “Police are here,” I told Roxie.

  “I don’t want to get them involved,” she said, wide-eyed.

  “Why?”

  “It’ll just make him angrier.”

  Adam’s hand clenched into a fist at Roxie’s back. “You need to talk to the cops, Rox.”

  “Ma’am.” A tall lanky officer came into the room. “We’d like to talk to you about what happened here tonight.”

  Roxie nodded and climbed off Adam’s lap. She straightened her yoga pants and T-shirt and faced the lanky cop and the stocky one coming up behind him. “I’ll tell you what I can. It all happened so fast.”

  We all listened to her repeat what happened and then repeat it again. The more she talked, she became even less sure it was Craig. She didn’t see his face, and he didn’t even yell at her (apparently he always yelled at her). I could see the fear in her eyes, but I also saw a little bit of doubt. It was the doubt that worried me most.

  The police officers were still asking her questions when Cam opened the front door and looked outside. I went across the room and glanced around the open door.

  “Are you leaving?”

  “Get back inside,” he said gently. “No, I’m not leaving.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “You have a broom? I’ll sweep up this glass from the busted bulb.”

  I went into the kitchen to get the dust pan and brush and gave it to him. “I can do that in the morning.”

  “I don’t want you to get cut.”

  I leaned in the door frame and watched him sweep up the glass from the light of the kitchen and living room. My eyes scanned the parking lot as he worked, looking for shadows within shadows, looking for anything that might indicate if someone was out there… watching.

  Once the glass was cleaned up, he tossed it away and placed the dustpan back in the kitchen. I was still standing in the door, staring outside. “Come away from there.” He spoke quietly, taking my hand and pulling me away from the darkness.

  He closed the door behind me and grazed his knuckles down the side of my face. “Don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not.” My eyes went to Roxie talking to the police. What if they couldn’t prove it was Craig? Would they just leave him out there so he could come back?

  “We’d like to take your statements,” the stocky officer said as he came up behind Cam and me.

  By the time we both gave our statement and Roxie finished answering questions, it was really late and I was exhausted. Roxie was pale, had dark circles under her eyes, and when she lifted her water to her lips, her hands shook.

  “You should go to bed,” I told her, handing her a bottle of Motrin to go with her water.

  “I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep.”

  “I’m staying tonight,” Cam told her. “You girls won’t be alone.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m staying too,” Adam announced.

  Roxie and I both turned to look at him. “You’re going to sleep here tonight?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I’ll take the couch.” He glanced at Roxie. “Just in case anyone needs anything.”

  Roxie visibly relaxed at Adam’s announcement, so I figured it was a good idea. I found a couple extra blankets and Roxie gave him a pillow off her bed. Cam and I said goodnight as Adam was using his phone to check in at the club.

  After I washed my face and brushed my teeth, I went into the bedroom to change. I tossed my dirty clothes in my laundry basket and pulled on a pair of striped boxers and a purple tank top. Cam was in the bathroom, and I waited for him by going to my vanity and picking up my brush, running it over my hair and smiling at the glimpse of the reflection of the bracelet Cam gave me.

  Tonight had been so wonderful. Not even all the bad stuff that happened since we got home could take away all the giddiness I felt about my first official date with Cam.

  After all the tangles in my hair were gone and it was shining around my shoulders, I set down the brush.

  Something caught my eye.

  There on the vanity near my brush, propped in front of the mirror, was my sea glass barrette.

  The one that was stolen earlier today.

  My stomach churned and my palms became slick with nervous sweat.

  I knew then the reason nothing, besides Roxie, was disturbed tonight when someone broke into this house.

  They weren’t here to steal anything.

  They came to leave something behind.

  15

  The next couple days went by in a blur. I walked around on autopilot, going to work, making snow cones, dancing (let’s face it, I would never be a great stripper), and serving drinks at the Mad Hatter. In between all that, Roxie and I obsessively checked the locks on the door and stared out into the shadows of the parking lot at night.

  I questioned Roxie again about the man who muscled his way into our home, and she seemed very convinced it was Craig. Both of us were waiting on pins and needles to hear what the police would tell us after they paid him a visit.

  Shouldn’t they have done that by now?

  Shouldn’t we have heard something?

  Did it really matter? Because the more I thought, the more I obsessed, the more I began to think that it wasn’t Craig. I was beginning to think that Roxie’s visitor was meant for me.

  But that seemed crazy, so crazy that I hadn’t confided my fears to anyone. Why would someone come after me? I was a broke college student who spent all her time working. Sure, I had friends, but no one I really hung out with. My roommate had been the only person I spent time with outside of school, and she moved to another state last month to get a job with her shiny new bachelor’s degree.

  It was the reason I was so happy to have met Roxie. She seemed like good friend material. And Cam… Cam was perfect boyfriend material. Not that we were official or anything. We hadn’t really had time to have the “talk.” Plus, it was all still pretty new. There was no reason to rush things. Yeah, okay, some people might say we rushed things already by having sex so fast, but the way I see it is I’m twenty-one years old, a woman. I go to school, work two jobs, and take care of myself. Cam makes me feel things I never have before. My body practically purrs whenever he’s near. His touch scrambles my thoughts and turns me into Jell-O. I might not love him (not yet anyway), but I was old enough
to make my own decisions.

  I was beyond thrilled when my shift at the snow cone cart was finished and I could go home. I spent most of the day zoning about the barrette and searching the crowds for faces that I might recognize or for a stranger who seemed intrigued by me.