by Lexie Ray
“It’s that…you know my friend Nick? My neighbor from across the hall?”
“Of course.” Greg crossed his legs almost impatiently. I resisted smacking myself in the forehead. Of course Greg knew Nick. Greg had been asking about Nick this whole time — what he did, who he spent time with, what his relationship with me was all about. It was a stupid way to start this conversation.
“I…take a look at this.” I dug my phone out of my purse and opened up the article Faith had sent me. “This news broke today, apparently. That Nick wasn’t who he said he was this whole time we knew each other.” I held the phone out to Greg, but he waved his hand.
“I already saw it on the news,” he said. “Sorry you’re feeling bad about it.”
Feeling bad was an understatement. “I’m actually pretty devastated,” I said, blinking at Greg, confused. That light in his green eyes, the one that had enchanted me in the hallway two weeks ago, was gone. They were flat and murky. I didn’t feel at ease in his presence at all.
Greg shrugged. “People are complicated,” he said. “Not everyone is always how they seem. Most of the time, they’re only looking out for their own interests.”
I looked around the room — anything I could do to keep from looking at this man I loved, this man who had all of a sudden become a stranger to me. There wasn’t a trace of his personal belongings in this room. He was completely ready to pick up his bags and leave.
“You weren’t going to meet me later, were you?” I asked quietly. It was too neat, too nice, too tidy. I was being played for a fool.
“I was,” he insisted. “I just had to check out of the hotel. My employer’s been footing the bill this entire time and said that my time was up.”
“You don’t check out of a hotel at 8 o’clock in the evening,” I told him, making my stand. I didn’t want to be lied to anymore.
“Fine.” Greg uncrossed his legs and stood up. “I wasn’t going to meet up with you later tonight. I was going to simply disappear and save us both the dramatics.”
“So your phone…”
“In the rubbish,” he said, jerking his thumb behind him, toward the bathroom. “Didn’t need it anymore.”
“How could you just disappear?” I asked, my voice a harsh whisper. “Didn’t this mean anything to you?”
“I came to Miami for one purpose, and one purpose only,” he said, shrugging. “You were something peripheral. That was all.”
“Are you that focused on housing development?” I asked. How had my perfect relationship devolved into this? I felt like I was in a waking nightmare.
“It was never about housing or apartments, or anything even remotely related to development,” Greg said. “It was always about Nick — well, look at me, talking like a local. It was always Mr. Mason to me.”
My heart skipped a beat — or five — and I clutched my purse to me. Greg didn’t need to see the article because he’d seen the news about Nick or Nicholas Mason or whoever he was. He’d been asking all those questions because he wasn’t curious about my friend — he was curious about Nicholas Mason, needing information about him. He was even from New York City…
“You’re not who you say you are, either,” I said.
“Afraid not, darling,” he said, not even bothering to turn on the charm that had attracted me from the beginning. “And now that Mason’s back in New York, I don’t have to be anything anymore. I hope you won’t hold it against me. It was always just about business.”
“Business,” I repeated, numb. “Nick was your business.”
“You’re a bright one,” Greg said. “Even if your hair does make you look like a floozy.”
I blinked. “A floozy. Wow.”
“I call it like I see it,” Greg said, shrugging but unapologetic. “And now that business is done, I’m expected back in New York. I am part of Mason’s security detail, and should probably be at his side at all times.”
My head was reeling. Could I get off this ride anytime soon? Like now?
“Tell you what,” Greg said, moving around the room, zipping up his suitcase, throwing his garment bag over his arm. “To make it up to you, the room’s booked up through tomorrow. Stay here. Use the bubbly tub you like so much. Wash all of this off of you and go forward a smarter girl.”
Smarter. That was right. I needed to be a lot smarter. There was no Prince Charming. I was stupid to think there would be someone out there for me.
I wanted to fire off some snippy retort, try to make Greg feel even a fraction of what I was feeling in this moment, but I knew it would be futile. He was a reptile, something that crawled along on the ground on its belly, and I would never be able to penetrate its scales.
“Have a good life, then,” Greg said, opening the door and stepping out of it without so much as looking back at me.
I wished I could have feigned disinterest, pretended he wasn’t hurting me as badly as he actually was. But some masochistic nugget inside of me didn’t even allow me to blink. It wanted this moment burned on my retinas, scarred inside my brain. It wanted me to remember that the man I thought was Prince Charming was a liar, a fraud, a complete scam, and he didn’t care about me even an ounce. He’d shown absolutely zero regret for lying to me, for leading me on, for using me to get to Nick.
I felt so alone. I couldn’t even reach out to Nick to tell him everything that had happened. I didn’t know how to get in touch with him anymore — or even if I wanted to.
I didn’t know anything anymore. I laid down on the bed — the same bed where I’d made love to a man I thought I loved — and closed my eyes, willing everything away.
Chapter 10
Prince Charming didn’t wear a crown. He wore a mask — several masks — so that when he got tired of being one person, he could easily transform into another, leaving his old reality behind.
You were on a white horse, galloping and galloping but never getting anywhere. Prince Charming sprouted up out of the ground like a flower, his many faces forming the petals around the pollen center.
The white horse transformed into a private jet, a stretch limousine, a penthouse suite. Prince Charming was rich and handsome until you got down to the very last mask. The very last mask was the last barrier in between you and him. Beneath the mask was a lizard king, a deceiver, a monster. Once you got past the last mask, you could never go back. You could never pretend you didn’t know anymore. You had to keep going, had to plunge onward with your life, had to pledge your soul to your monstrous Prince Charming.
That monstrous Prince Charming was just two big eyes, one green, one blue, and a bottomless hole for a mouth, gaping in the middle of his face. He ate and ate and was still hungry all the time. He ate everything around him, things you could see and things you couldn’t — your heart, your dreams. Your fingers, your hopes. Your throat, your soul.
And even when Prince Charming was done with all of that eating, even when you were nothing but a memory in the story of humankind, and even after that, he would shriek for more — a hysterical and ugly baby bird, shrieking for more of something he didn’t even understand.
He would shriek and shriek, and even in your nothingness you would try to take him to your breast, try to hold him and comfort him, even when you had nothing left because of him. Because you still loved him, you loved the idea of him even though you understood what was beneath that last mask. Even after being consumed by that very same idea.
You loved him as he shrieked. You loved even the shriek, its shrillness, its piercing cry, the way it made you open your eyes — the eyes he had already eaten long ago…
I opened my eyes to the obnoxious ringing of my cell phone. I’d changed the ringtone as a joke, and the end result was somewhere between a siren and a foghorn. It really was horrible, but I couldn’t even smile. I felt exhausted, not like myself, as if I’d been sent through a string of rapids in a river without so much as a boat.
I peered at my phone, then sat up quickly. It was four in the morning, and I’d
just missed the twelfth call from Faith. Sol had called eight times, and Parker had given it a try twice.
Blinking, I examined my surroundings. I wasn’t in my apartment. It was a hotel room.
Then, with a roar in my ears, it all came rushing back to me. Nick. Greg. Prince Charming. The whole stupid thing. I was in the love nest Greg and I had shared for two solid weeks. I couldn’t think of anywhere I wanted to be less.
Why had I fallen asleep here? I pushed myself up off the bed and swept my hands along my body. I still felt tired, even though I’d practically had a good night’s sleep in this room of lies. I felt dirty, most of all, and I had to resist a very urgent desire to shower, clothes and all, in the room’s plush bathroom. There were too many memories in here — bad ones, now.
How could I have been so stupid? I rushed out of the room, my eyes burning with tears of embarrassment. I should’ve slapped Greg across his lying face. I shouldn’t have let him go so passively. He’d led me on so thoroughly. I’d been like a sheep taken to slaughter, obedient until the very moment the knife found my neck.
The hotel staff manning the lobby at this hour were consummate professionals. I don’t know how many sobbing girls with magenta hair fled the hotel at 4 in the morning. Enough so that they knew to give me a sympathetic glance and go back to politely ignoring my mess of a life.
The final insult to the injury I’d endured was the valet returning my car to me.
“Twenty dollars, please,” he said coolly, holding out his hand.
Of course Greg hadn’t taken care of it. Greg only took care of himself — and Nicholas Mason, apparently. It was all up to me. I had to take care of myself…and I didn’t have a single dollar to my name tonight. I hadn’t thought to get any cash because I hadn’t needed any for such a long time.
“Do you, um, take credit cards?” I asked, removing the plastic from my wallet and wincing through my tears.
“No,” he said, all business, then softened a little. “But if you know someone staying here, you could charge it to the room.”
I hiccupped a sob. “Do that, please. Room 1012. Thank you. I’d really appreciate it.”
“Don’t stay with him, if he does this to you,” the valet offered helpfully as he guided me into my own car. I’d never felt sloppier in my crappy car, or more out of place. I didn’t belong here. I didn’t belong anywhere.
“Thanks, I won’t,” I said quickly, wiping my face so I could see the road in front of me. Tears blinding my view were the least of my worries.
I had to physically make myself turn the car toward my apartment. It was all I could do to keep myself from getting on the interstate and just fleeing. I was done with Miami, done with all of the turmoil in my life. I didn’t have to be with anyone. I could just be by myself. But I wanted a fresh start, nothing to hold me back. I’d break the lease in my apartment, sell the car, buy a plane ticket to anywhere but here.
I needed to go back to my apartment first. My stupid, stupid apartment and my idiotic life.
I didn’t want to climb the stairs to go to my apartment and couldn’t make myself. Instead, I parked the car and got out, sinking down to sit miserably on the curb, by myself. It was still such a long time until morning, and this was the most silent part of the night. Even the wind had stilled, and the palm fronds draped motionless from the trees.
Where had I gone wrong? I hadn’t put my trust in any sort of romantic relationship for so long, holding out hope for the man I actually wanted to be with. But just when I thought I’d found Prince Charming, he’d turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Even thinking the words Prince Charming turned my stomach. If and when I got up to my apartment, the first thing I’d do was rip out the pages of that stupid notebook of requirements and burn them, one by one.
I only had one requirement of any romantic attachments, for now on: leave me the fuck alone. I didn’t want to be with anyone anymore. Not one person.
“Christ!” I yelped when my phone started to shriek again. How did I think that would be funny in any sense of the word? What was wrong with me? I hated everything about myself — the DJ gig at the club was a stupid joke, and the Corn Queen thing was an embarrassment. Why had I been doing these things to myself, allowing myself to be so freaking shameful?
I looked down at my phone’s display. Faith again. What was she doing up so late? No doubt she wanted to get the scoop on Nick from me, even if I didn’t have a scoop to give. I just didn’t care anymore. He could be a poor musician or a rich hotel heir or God descended from the heavens himself. I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was be somewhere else and leave all this stupidity behind.
“Hey,” I said, my voice sounding different to my own ears. I thought back on my dream — the monstrous Prince Charming eating everything, my voice included — and shuddered.
“Jennet!” Faith shouted. “Where the fuck have you been?”
I ducked my head at her burst of anger. “I was asleep,” I said. “Sorry.”
“I was scared,” she said, lowering her voice a little. “I said I was going to call you back if I didn’t hear from you. I didn’t hear from you and I didn’t hear from you, and you never answered my calls. I had everyone calling you — Sol, Parker.”
“I saw,” I said tiredly. I felt like I was in a bubble and everything outside of that bubble only barely made sense, and was just barely tolerable. Faith sounded far away, and her voice was just in my ear, so close.
“Then what happened with you?” Faith demanded. “I was scared to death, Jennet, scared that you’d done something — that something had happened. That, I don’t know. That you’d been stolen. You’re never unavailable. If you miss my call, you at least text. You’ve never just ignored everyone.”
“You know, maybe that’s my problem,” I said, white hot anger rising in my chest suddenly, threatening to overtake me. I felt sick, like I’d throw up, because of how angry I was. “Maybe I am too available. Maybe I need to ignore everyone just as much as they ignore me so then maybe they can understand.”
“Jennet, sweetie, I know you’re upset,” Faith said, all the anger gone from her voice. “But you’re not making sense. Are you okay? Where are you? I ran by your apartment earlier, but you weren’t there. I checked the snack shop and the club, and Sol told me you’d left. I didn’t know where else to look.”
“I was with Greg,” I said dully. “At his hotel.”
“Gotcha,” Faith said. “I don’t have his number, or else I would’ve checked. I wasn’t sure which hotel he was staying at, either. I’d started down a list, calling a bunch of places, but I thought that might be sort of psychotic. You’re a grown woman. If you didn’t want to talk to anyone, I should’ve respected that. I’m sorry for calling you so many times. You obviously need space. I feel good knowing you have Greg with you, though.”
“We’re not together anymore,” I said.
“What happened?” Faith exclaimed. “Okay, don’t answer that. Where are you now?”
“Sitting in the parking lot at the apartment building,” I said.
“I’m coming over,” she said.
“Don’t,” I said, putting my forehead on my knee. “That’s a stupid idea. Everything is stupid. You have to be at work in a matter of hours. I’m fine, really.”
“It’s too late,” Faith said. “I’m already on my way. I’m going to take you out.”
“For liquor or for coffee?”
“For anything you want or need,” she said. “Just hang tight, okay?”
I’d turned myself into a damsel in distress, all over a stupid Prince Charming who’d actually ended up being a toad. Why did I do this to myself? I thought I’d learned from my past, but I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.
I looked up at a flash of light, and saw Faith rolling up in the new car Adam had helped her purchase. It made me ache on the inside, knowing I’d never have that with another person. How could I trust anyone after what had just happened with Greg?
“Get in,” she called, rolling the window down. “You look like a hobo just sitting there.”
I snorted, and smiled. Trust Faith to try to jolt me out of my funk by insulting me. Anyone else would’ve tried to coddle me, and that wasn’t what I needed right now.
“Your coffee and/or alcoholic beverages aren’t just going to drink themselves,” she said. “Get your ass in this car immediately.”
“You’re so pushy,” I complained, but did as she asked. “Mm. Still has that new car smell.”
“Wish I could bottle it,” she said. “In just a few weeks I’m sure it will smell like McDonald’s and wet towels and shit.”
God, I loved this woman. We weren’t talking about the stuff she was here to talk about, that I wanted to do everything to avoid talking about. It was like we were two normal friends, hanging out at 4 in the morning. If I pretended hard enough, it was like nothing was wrong — even if everything was.
“Let’s run away and be lesbians together,” I proposed, out of nowhere. “You’re the perfect match for me.”
“I think we would both miss the penis, honestly,” Faith said, patting my knee fondly and putting the car into gear.
“Stupid penis.”
“So, what is it?” she asked, rolling to the parking lot entrance. “Shot of tequila or shot of espresso?”
“Espresso,” I sighed. “I don’t want you getting lit before you go to work.”
“I could call in sick,” she offered. “I can do anything you need, Jennet, I’m serious. I don’t feel like I’ve been there for you lately. I know we have different schedules, and it’s hard to stay in touch now that Luke and I live with Adam. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, okay?”
“I know you care about me,” I said. “I’m sorry I’m being a drama queen.”
“You’re not being a drama queen,” Faith said forcefully. “You’ve just had some awfully dramatic things transpire today. That’s all. Don’t apologize for anything. Everything was out of your control.”
“It was my fault with Greg,” I insisted. “I thought he was the one. I really did, Faith. I thought he was Prince Charming. I was really into him. It’s stupid, but I loved him. I should’ve known everything was happening too fast. It was all too fast. He was using me to get to Nick. He knew Nick when Nick was a millionaire. Something about being a part of the security team. He said he was didn’t need me anymore now that Nick was back in New York, whatever that means.”