CHAPTER 43

Past

THE MORNING AFTER Simon’s late-night visit, I slept in. Screaming for forty-five minutes at an empty hall is, apparently, my cocktail for a good night’s sleep. I don’t know what it says about my neighbors that no one once pounded on the walls or screamed at me to shut up. I guess the soundproofing really does work. Either that, or they’ve gotten used to a litany of ridiculous noises from my apartment.

I finally fell asleep curled against the door, wrapped in a comforter, my neck at an odd angle that I’d spend the next twelve hours paying for. I assumed, when I did finally drift off, that the unlocking of my door in the morning would wake me. It didn’t. Mainly because it didn’t happen.

When my mind did crawl from sleep, I blinked in the lit room, then rolled my neck, wincing at the ache. I stretched out my legs and pushed slowly up, the comforter falling off me. Plodding over to my phone, I checked the time. Ten fifteen. Late again. I glanced down, approved the cami and matching panties, and grabbed a bottled water from the fridge. Drank half, rinsing out my mouth, spit, then finished off the bottle. Took a leisurely tour of my cam setup, flipping switches, turning on my laptop, cameras, and lights, then flopped on the bed and logged in. Smiled lazily into the camera.

“Morning, boys.”

The morning crowd is always a pleasure. A mix of foreign souls up late, work-from-home dads, and at-their-desk addicts. I greeted the regulars, had a dozen ten-minute flings, and took a break just after noon, a thousand bucks richer.

I was sitting at the round table, a bowl of Jenny Craig oatmeal half-eaten, when I noticed the door. I paused, carefully setting down the spoon and standing, taking a few slow steps in its direction, my journey still too fast to accept reality. When I reached the door, I slid to my knees and stared at the crack, at the gold glint of the dead bolt, still flipped. I closed my eyes and went back through my early morning conversation with Simon. Tried to place where, in that conversation, we’d discussed his unlocking me this morning. Tried to remember if I had told him not to unlock me. Came up blank on all counts.

I have to go to Oklahoma City. I won’t be back till late tomorrow night.

Had he meant right then? That he was leaving right then? He had walked away from his place, toward the elevator. Hadn’t returned, at least not in the forty-five minutes I’d spent screaming for him. It was Saturday morning, meaning… he’d be back Sunday night? I glanced toward the window, at the small hole in the cardboard. Remembered pressing against the cardboard, my nails scratching against its surface, poking and picking until the hole had emerged. Remembered pressing my eye to the hole, searching for his car on the street below. Remembered alternating between running from the peephole to the window, anxious for a glance of him, a continuation of our conversation. Now, in the morning’s normality, I see my craziness. The complete lack of sense in my actions. What was I so panicked about? What had I hoped to accomplish by screaming? I couldn’t exactly, while swallowing the forgotten scoop of oatmeal, recall what the huge deal had been. He’d wanted me to give his pill delivery to his sister. That had been the gist of the entire interaction. Not a huge request. But… I’d said no. Can’t really remember why. Spite, probably. And he’d walked away. Which left us… where? And why in holy hell hadn’t he unlocked my door? Or had her do it? I felt a rise of panic at the thought that I was locked in, a push of claustrophobia. What if something happens? What if there is an emergency? A hundred things that could happen at any given night yet right then they seemed terrifyingly possible. I breathed in, then out, in, then out, and carefully walked back to my seat at the table.

I won’t be back till late tomorrow night. At one, my bowl was washed, teeth were brushed and flossed, the door was still locked. I should have been back online; my clients would wonder. But I couldn’t. I sat, I stared, I contemplated.

The main question was whether Chelsea had the key. That was what it all boiled down to. Either Chelsea had the key, or I was locked in until Simon returned. And if Chelsea had the key, why hadn’t she unlocked the door? The bitch. Goes to show that, in four years of undisturbed precedent, she’d be the one to fuck it up.

I moved my waiting game to the door. Leaned against it, my eye to the peephole. Considered calling Jeremy, but I didn’t really know what to say. I hated, more than anything, hearing “I told you so.” And that’s what he’d do. He’d bitch and moan about how, for a year, he’d been telling me that this was a horrible idea. How I shouldn’t put my livelihood in a druggie’s hands. How I should give him a copy of the key in case of emergencies. How he should lock me in instead of Simon, if I insisted on the ridiculous precaution to begin with.

But I didn’t want Jeremy locking me in. For one, because it’d set the wrong tone to our relationship, one where I was no longer the dominant but instead the submissive, him literally holding the key to my freedom. Fuck that. The second piece to that puzzle is what happens when I struggle. When I claw at the door and beg for release, the breaking of my soul when the darkness drags it under and suffocates its life. I didn’t want him to see me like that. I didn’t want his cell to ring at three a.m. with a psychotic, bloodthirsty girlfriend on the other end. I didn’t want that image to stick, grow roots, and overtake anything good that we’d built. And it would. His becoming my keeper would be the first rock in an avalanche of disaster.

I heard a door shut and pressed my eye closer to the peephole. Saw the blonde wander down the hall and stop in front of my door. Stared into her face when she lifted up her hand and knocked.

CHAPTER 44

Past

SHE HAD PRETTY eyes. Go figure. Simon’s sister, with her painted nails stretched out for my boyfriend, had pretty eyes.

Well, so do I. So there. I narrowed my pretty eyes and wondered what to do. A person knocks, you answer. This girl knocks.… Answering seemed too passive, too subservient. I wished I could yank open the door and tackle her.

She knocked a second time. Leaned forward and licked her lips. Opened her mouth and spoke loudly, as if I wasn’t right there, as if she needed to call out through an apartment’s worth of space. “I know you’re in there.”

Of course she knows I’m here. What a dumb waste of five words.

“It’s Chelsea, Simon’s sister?” This girl should really just not speak at all. She didn’t seem to understand the point of meaningful communication.

“What?” I couldn’t help myself. The response fell out of me, half fueled by my desire to end the entire interaction.

“Has Jeremy come by yet?”

An incredibly rude question. Her casual use of his name, like she had ownership of it. The complete lack of mention of my door being locked, her idiot brother the cause.

“Yes.”

“He has?” She glanced at her watch, then up at my door. “Shit. I thought he came in the afternoon.”

“It varies. He came about an hour or so ago.” There are times when I am really and truly brilliant. I’d like to think, at that moment, that this was one of those times. This lie… it was going to be my crowning achievement of the week. I almost rubbed my hands in glee. Instead, I cooled my jets long enough to assume an irritated tone. “I couldn’t open the fuckin’ door, so he left.” The curse was the punctuation of my sentence, the underlined exclamation that said you messed up in gigantic capital letters. I would have patted myself on the back if it didn’t interrupt my view.