by Ella James
I jog the whole way to the Tri Gam house, pulling all my leg muscles and making my chest over-tight. When I reach the top of the stairs, I find Milasy holding the brick.
TEN
Kellan
The breeziness of the afternoon is gone. The night is heavy and still. It’s neither cold nor hot, but tension warms me as I stand on the balcony outside the windowed room, watching the treetops as they sway.
All I can think about is Cleo.
Tomorrow, I will bring her here.
It hasn’t been like this before. Not the urgency. Everything is different now. I am different now.
Cleo is a relapse. Bringing Cleo here is letting go. No more logic. No more restraint. Finished. The word swells to fill my head. I let it have me—giving myself over as I shut my eyes and touch the cement railing.
Moments later, the phone rings. I pull it from my pocket and blink at the name I knew would flash across my screen: PACE.
I never answer on the first ring, even though I always know when he’ll be calling. I want Pace to feel that I am difficult to contact—always one ring out of reach. It’s important: the control. Not just because I enjoy control, but because Pace is so closely aligned with Robert.
I bring the phone to my ear and let the static fill my head while I wait for him to speak.
“Kellan?”
“Pace.”
An ocean breeze whips over his phone’s receiver, muffling his question: “How’s it going, man?”
I let my gaze fall through the pines, landing on the gushing river below. It’s narrow here—not even the width of a tennis court—so the water is fast-moving.
Pace gets my point and clears his throat. “Got some teddy bears coming your way. Double nickel and penny. You ready for ’em?”
“Always.”
“They’re good bears.” He pauses, as if thinking. As if we haven’t had this conversation thirty times before. He adds, “Made in America.”
I roll my eyes. Pace and his love of talking in code. I can only assume that ‘Made in America’ means the weed he’s bringing me from California is higher quality than what he usually sends.
“Sounds good. I’ll be ready.”
This is where I’d choose to end the conversation, but my cousin never can just let things be. Pace is an awkward motherfucker. Coming up on fifty, he’s a beach bum with nothing to his name except a lot of good intentions. I like Pace well enough—as kids, we called him Uncle Pace—but these phone chats can get tedious.
“You doing okay?” he asks after a silence.
I shut my eyes. “Fine.” The word is sharp.
“Really?” he asks.
Fucking Pace.
“Just checking, dude,” he says defensively. “Robert has been sniffing my ass crack, wanting to know if you’ve decided anything.”
“I don’t want to talk about this, Pace.”
“I know, but—”
“Fuck him,” I growl.
“You just... you can’t say that, man. Robert is—”
“Who do you work with, him or me?”
It’s a simple question with a complex answer. I’m not being fair to Pace. Not that I really give a fuck. He’s not being fair to me, either.
I hear him breathing. Biding time as he tries to figure out how to broach forbidden subjects. I hear the phone brush the scruff of his beard, followed by his low voice saying, “Whitney called him. She said she hasn’t been able to get up with you.”
Whitney. Of course.
My fingers rearrange themselves around my phone. “I haven’t noticed any missed calls from her,” I lie. Whitney has been calling weekly for three months.
“You’ve got everyone all stirred up,” Pace says in his low-but-nasally voice. “Man, I’m worried too. Don’t get all butt hurt, but we all have the same horse in the race. We’re a motherfucking family.” In a low voice, he says: “No one wants to see you wind up like Lyon.”
The mention of my brother makes my eyeballs ache. Pressure builds inside my head. I suck a deep breath back and clutch the phone. “Don’t go there, Pace. Ever. You have a problem with Robert, deal with it. He’s your burden—not mine.”
I hear a shuffling sound: Pace’s flip-flops on that little deck that hangs over the beach. He puffs some smoke out; I can hear his breath. “I just want to help you, man.”
“You can’t, so stop trying.”
I want to punch him in the teeth. I want to roar at him. I can’t believe he mentioned Ly. Instead, I say, “Till one-one, then.”
The shipment will arrive at the old toy warehouse on Fifty-First Street on the eleventh of September. That’s what he meant by “teddy bears” and his made-up drug trafficking code, “double nickel and a penny,” as code for the eleventh.
“Next week,” he says finally. He sounds defeated.
I still feel enraged.
I slide the phone into my pocket and stalk down to the basement. I tear into the punching bag that dangles from the ceiling, and imagine that it’s Pace’s pug-dog face. It turns into my father’s face, and then Ly’s. Which is almost indistinguishable from mine.
I’m tired of fighting. I’m so tired of fighting me.
I wait until the darkest part of night to go to Nessa’s house.
Cleo
September 9, 2014
R.~
Okay. Deep breath. So…I did something I probably shouldn’t have done. Please don’t be too mad at me.
It was stupid. It was a breach of trust. I know. But I was desperate. After all that time, you just stopped writing me, and I was worried. At this point, I’m pretty sure this letter is irrelevant completely, or you really are an icy cold stunna, in which case you don’t care that I’m worried past the point of logic. (I’m not sure which scenario I’d prefer…probably the ‘stunna’ option).
But OKAY. I placed this stupid call to BTM and said you’d told me you would be out of the country for a few months. I said I had been writing you through them, but I didn’t think my letters had been reaching you.
“What address do you have for him?” I asked them. “Is it in America or England? Because I think you’re sending my letters to the wrong place.”
That was the ruse: That I at least knew what country you were in, and they didn’t.
The girl on the phone seemed young, almost as young as me, and I tried to sound really casual and friendly so she’d tell me the address she had for you.
“Who?” she said. She was clearly confused.
I said, “Robert. The person I’ve been writing to? How can you not know his name?”
I was sort of a bitch, and she totally fell for it.
She was all like, “Oh yeah, right. Robert…D. Yep, that’s your guy.”
She asked for my address and said, “I’m not sure I can do this,” and I was all like, “Trust me, you can. C’mon, Lainey,” (that was her name) “this isn’t the secret service!”
I laughed like a phony bitch, and today I got a print-out with your information on it.
Robert D. The last address she had on you was a P.O. Box in Alabama. Are you KIDDING me?
You live in Alabama, and I haven’t met you yet?!
Please tell me you just think I’m annoying. That’s okay with me. Tell me now that you’ve grown out of our correspondence. Maybe you’re engaged, or with the Peace Corps. The Marines. That would be so hot. Everybody likes a sexy man in uniform, and I know you’re a sexy man.
See? I’m flirting shamelessly.
Just reply to me.
Did you know my name is Autumn Cleopatra Whatley? What do you think? You know a fucking Cleopatra. C’mon and tell me that that isn’t cool as hell.
Actually…tell me more than that. I need your advice.
I’ve gotten into some trouble with the head of my sorority, and I’m unofficially kicked out. I’m going to keep on serving in my role as an officer, because the president wants to keep this hush-hush, but I’m not allowed to stay at the house or do anything fun.
<
br /> I’m in trouble because I AM trouble. I regularly do something most people wouldn’t approve of. Something I started doing for money (which I needed and also wanted) and have kept up because it’s exciting, and adds some light to my boring little world.
And why does my world need light? Because I’m kind of gray at heart. I used to think I was exciting and original – nothing gray about me - but as I’ve gotten older I realize I’m just one of billions of people here on planet Earth, and I feel like a boat without an anchor.
I guess I’m kind of lonely. I can hear you gagging. First world problems, right? I know.
I’ve met a new guy, and he’s going to help my first world problems go away. I can feel it. He leads this ridiculous double life. I’m about to live with him for three weeks, because we made this deal.
Would you like to write me there? Please?
I’ll mark his address as the return, because I don’t trust my sorority president not to go through all my mail now that she’s mad at me.
I want to end this letter with something profound. Because I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing, and I feel the need to make some sense of things.
And you know what, Robert D., the wood chopper?
I don’t have a thing to say. I don’t know the first thing that’s profound. My younger sister, who is deaf and goes to a deaf high school, is sleeping with her teaching assistant. My youngest sister’s grave doesn’t even have fake flowers by it, because people steal those. (I know, you warned me not to try that anyway, but my mom did, and they get stolen every time). I just broke up with a guy who used to call me “bebe” like for real (think baby but more like beh-beh) and believed me every time I faked it during sex.
TMI?
I know. That’s my other middle name.
When I get upset, I get a little crazy. It can be a good thing and a bad thing, but it’s more bad than good I guess.
Just so you know, I’m considering going to this little town’s post office and figuring out where you really live. I need information. I’m in knots, and not the good kind.
-Shamelessly Sloth.
P.S. If I don’t hear from you this time, I won’t write again. I swear. And I’ll probably only hunt you down if a series of terrible events occurs in my life, and I need an anchor. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
Just reply, please!
ELEVEN
Kellan
I’m up before the sun, pacing the balcony outside the glass-walled room. Gulping chilly air into my lungs.
My knuckles are bruised from my assault on the punching bag. My body screams for sleep. Now I’m drinking coffee—black and hot.
After a while outside, listening to the river slosh below, watching the pines tip in the breeze, I pull on some basketball shorts and go down to the basement. Fifty minutes on the treadmill, and it doesn’t tame my hunger. I do my weight routine for longer than my usual, making sure that by the time I’m done, all my muscles are shredded. Then I make myself two waffles and choke down every bite.
I wander back up to the room: her room. I take a small, black remote out of the night stand drawer and press the button that makes the middle part of the indented ceiling retract. I take the canopy off the bed and lower the harness down to the mattress. I caress the ropes and smooth the sheets and rub my cock as I imagine Cleo lying right here, her wrists and ankles bound to the four ends of my X-bar, her wet, pink pussy ripe and ready for me.
When I realize I’m going to stay hard until I see her, I sink down on the edge of the mattress and stroke myself off, remembering the way her pussy clenched around my cock on the floor at the library.
When I’m done, I put the harness and spreader away and leave the room with my pulse hammering in my ears.
I need to shower and get dressed. Focus. I’ve got things to do this morning.
I shower quickly, and dress in khakis and a plaid button-up: the preppy shit that helps me blend in on campus. Then I walk into the bedroom I’ve been using, pluck a brass key off the duvet, lift up the Native American blanket that hangs on one wall of my room, and step to the mahogany door hidden behind it. I slide the key into its custom keyhole. My feet feel heavy as I turn the doorknob and step inside my sanctuary.
The room is small: no bigger than a half-bath. The wall I face as I step in is smooth and beige. Cashmere, the paint was called. Built-in bookshelves indent the tiny wall on my right. I had them built because I wanted to like something about this space, but I could never place a book on them.
The wall on my left is not a wall but stacked cabinets and a small counter. The four-foot slab of granite is black, with tiny veins of gold. The cabinets above the counter are dark and glossy, stretching to the ceiling. They contain my arsenal of secrets.
I run my hands over the cold granite. As always, I try not to look into the mirror, but my eyes betray me. As I meet my own gaze, the far-off echo of a hopeful spark strikes in my chest. I look into the eyes and wait to see the face transform. The mouth should smile—a dimpled smile. The eyes should crinkle. The face should relax, the way mine only ever does if I’ve had a good, long hit and held it in my lungs for several seconds.
If you never met him, you would never understand the way this face could look. My mouth tugs down into a deep and dimpled frown, and I wrench my gaze up to the cabinets.
I pull a door open.
“You fucking with me, Drake?”
“No sir.”
“Well... fuck. I can’t believe that. I just can’t believe that you... You’re sure? You sure you’re sure? You got more than one person telling you this, and it’s not a mistake? It’s not your—being paranoid because of... ?”
I shake my head. “I’m sure, coach.”
“I’m gonna keep this to myself. I want to see you both next fall.”
I can hear the words, echoing off lockers. I don’t know why my mind chose to regurgitate them now.
I shake my head.
My gaze rises to my right hand, and I use it to pull the first canister out. I set it on the countertop and get a second, third, and fourth.
I sweep my eyes over the array. The things inside this cabinet are as essential as they are horrible.
I take one of them in my hand and feel the smooth, slick plastic under my fingers. I take the top off and empty its contents onto the granite.
I sift through them. They whisper as I push them around. There are guidelines for this, but I always tweak them. Fuck the rules. Where I am, they don’t apply.
I gather the ones I need into a pile, then put the cap back on. I store the container back inside the cabinet and repeat the process eleven more times.
Then I close the cabinet doors, leaving most of their contents untouched. Those things I will need later, if it gets that far.
Three more minutes in the small room, one long gulp of soothing water and a splash on my hot face, and I’m back in my bedroom.
I rub a hand through my hair, run my fingers over my brows, where want of sleep already tugs at me. Then I hurry down the stairs.
I’ve got an eighth of an ounce in a vacuum-sealed bag under the sink. I toss that into my messenger bag, grab the books and notebooks I need, and let a deep breath out as I shut the door behind me.
Next time I’m here, I won’t be alone. If I play my cards right, I might never be alone again.
Cleo
Three sharp raps jerk me out of sleep. I shoot up, slamming my forehead against the underside of the study table that dominates my little library room.
It’s the same room I was in with Kellan Walsh, so the first thing I think about after my eyes focus on the green cinderblock wall and my palms flatten out on the rough, industrial carpet, is the feeling of him driving into me. For a heart-racing second, I’m immobilized. Lust is the brightest color mixing on my mind’s easel.
Fear becomes brighter. On the other side of the door, I envision furious police, a snarling drug dog, my mother’s devastated face, a gossipy library monitor
who somehow saw Kellan and me fucking like animals on a hidden camera...
I scramble out from under the table and straighten with a wince. I’m dizzier than a kid at a carnival, and my mouth is painfully dry. My hands shake as I try to right my twisted leggings, tug down my rumpled Smuffins shirt, and straighten the big, black shawl that’s doubled as my blanket. I’m not wearing a bra.
I grit my teeth as The Man knocks again. “Just a second, please!”
My Vera Bradley overnight bag sits, unzipped and barfing up my favorite outfits, on the padded bench where Kellan had me in his lap last night. Beside it is my book bag, crammed with my laptop, day planner, and text books. I wrangle with the overnight bag until it’s zipped, tug the shawl away from my body with a prayer that my nipples aren’t hard, and drag my tangled hair into the rubber band around my wrist. I take a shallow breath and pull the door open.
When I see Kellan, my stomach somersaults. He’s wearing a blue and white gingham button-up with a pair of straight-front khakis that look like they were made for his trim hips and long, strong legs. His blond hair looks a little messy and a lot soft. His stubble-shadowed jaw and the gorgeous planes of his face remind me why he has his way with so many girls.
But it’s his eyes that drop an anchor to my soul. Something about the way they fix on my face. There’s concern there, born not of alarm but interest. It makes his gaze soft.
For an intoxicating moment, I wonder what it would be like to be cared for by him. But that fades as I remind myself I’m being unrealistic. Fantasizing. I have the desire to be cared for in this silly, over-the-top, romance novel sort of way... But the guy standing in front of me wants a sex deal. If there’s a real person somewhere underneath his sharp clothes and Spartan body, I’ll never know it.
