by Ford, Hannah
“Is this restaurant amazing?”
He shrugged. “According to Zagat. Although they didn’t mention the cute girls at the bar.” He winked at me. Okay, he was definitely flirting. I started to tell him that I didn’t want any of his cake, because even though he was perfectly nice, my mind was somewhere else.
On Liam.
Screw Liam, I thought. He’d left me, he’d walked away like it was nothing, leaving me here by myself.
I felt like rebelling, felt like doing something I knew Liam wouldn’t approve of, knowing he wasn’t here to spank me or take me over his knee or bring me down to his basement lair and use his belt on me.
So I got bold.
“I don’t share chocolate with people unless I’ve known them for more than five minutes,” I said.
The guy nodded, as if his was fair, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, set the timer, and put it down on the bar.
“That’s fair,” he said. “But I don’t share chocolate with people unless I know their names.”
“Emery,” I said.
“Emery,” he repeated, and it reminded me of the way Liam had said my name that first night, and I felt my throat clench and my chest ache with missing him. “I’m Robbie.”
It was a nice, all-American name. Robbie. Robert.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said.
“Nice to meet you to.”
We sat there making small talk about the casino and how much he’d been winning (nothing). He was happy enough to talk about himself, which suited me fine, since the last thing I wanted to do was talk about my life and what a mess it was.
“It’s been five minutes,” he said, pointing at the timer he’d set. He indicated the chair next to him and motioned for the bartender to bring another spoon.
She brought it, and I moved to the chair next to him.
I took a bite of the dessert, the chocolate exploding on my tongue. It was rich. Almost too rich, too sweet.
“Delicious,” Robbie said, and I suddenly felt… wrong. The way he was looking at me, it was…it made me uncomfortable. It made me feel like I was cheating on Liam, which I knew was ridiculous.
I took another bite of the dessert, waiting to see if this one was any better, but it wasn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I said, pretending to check my phone. “I need to be somewhere.”
“Okay,” Robbie said, eating the last bit of ice cream from the bottom of the bowl. It was stupid of me, but something about it seemed a little selfish. He was used to getting things handed to him, this Robbie. “Can I get your number?”
I was thrown off, and I didn’t know what to do.
“Umm…I don’t…” I groped around in my head for an excuse, but I’d already told him I didn’t have a boyfriend. So when he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen and a business card, turning over to the blank side and holding it out to me, I scribbled my number.
He entered it into his phone. “Most people would say this is an extra step,” he said. “Making you write it down when I can just put it in my phone. But I like to make sure I have your number in two places. That way I won’t ever lose it, even if something happens to my phone.” He winked at me, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, wondering how many other women he’d used that line on.
“I’ll see you later,” I said.
“Bye, Emery.” I could feel his eyes boring into my back as I walked out of the bar.
The cool air of the concourse rushed over me and hit my cheeks. I’d felt claustrophobic in the wine bar, and I’d drank my glass of wine way too fast. I also hadn’t paid for it, I realized as soon as I’d walked out.
But there was no way I was going back.
I turned around, half-expecting to see the bartender chasing after me, demanding I pay. But no one was there.
I began walking toward the elevator bank that would take me back up to my room, but the thought of being back in that room by myself still held no appeal. I didn’t want to go back upstairs until I was pretty sure I’d fall right asleep, until I was sure that I was tired enough that I wouldn’t lay in bed, tossing and turning, thoughts of Liam and what he was doing torturing my brain.
It should have been easy – I was on West Coast time now, which meant that my body’s internal clock was three hours later than the actual time – but I didn’t feel sleepy at all.
The wine should have made me sleepy, but all it had done was make me feel a little wired and buzzy. I walked around the casino for a while, taking laps and trying to work the alcohol out of my system.
Finally, after my third trip around the shopping concourse, I wandered into a bookstore. It was the kind of bookstore I loved. Good selection, but not too big, and without tons of aisles filled with things that weren’t books, like puzzles and toys.
I slid down the aisles, looking for something to read.
Definitely not romance. Definitely not thrillers, nothing too dark or twisty that was going to make me feel even worse than I did.
I found myself in women’s fiction, my eyes zeroing in on books with brightly covered spines, with bonus points if they had a title that made it clear that they were about getting over a break-up.
I’d just found one that looked promising, about a girl who was dumped and spent a year finding herself overseas, and I was sitting on the floor, wondering if I should read the last page to see if she ended up with a new Parisian love – if so, it was going back on the shelf, because I was in no mood for a book that showed me that I needed another man to get over one – when my phone rang.
It took me a second to realize it was mine, since I hadn’t had access to my phone for a while.
It took me so long that a little girl looking in literary fiction with her mother put her hands over her ears and whined, “Mommy, why won’t that big girl answer her phonnneee?”
Her mother glanced at me, and shook her head. “Because some people don’t know courtesy, honey. Remember what they taught you in school about courtesy?”
I wanted to snark back that maybe she should think about herself when it came to courtesy, since calling someone “that big girl” wasn’t a nice thing to say to someone when they were a size twelve, which was actually smaller than the average size of the American woman, which was a size fourteen, although obviously much bigger than the modelized ideal that was presented to us in fashion magazines. Ugh.
I silenced my phone and answered it.
Maddie.
“Hello,” I said. My voice sounded cautious, even though inside I wanted to scream for her, wanted to tell her I was sorry for everything, that I was so glad she was calling me back. Everything stopped as I waited for her to say something, waited to see how she was going to respond.
“Hi, Emery! Oh my God, Emery, I cannot believe I missed your call. I was at this guest speaker lecture that I had to go to for my econ class, and the speaker said all phones had to be turned off, and then someone went around and actually checked, and I was all, ‘I need to keep my phone on because there might be an important call coming through’ but they didn’t care, they said ‘what kind of important call’ and I said ‘that’s personal” you know, because obviously I couldn’t tell them what was going on with you, and even if I could, there was no way I was going to say it in front of – oh my God, Em, why are you crying? Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” I said, and I was half-crying, half-laughing, and I didn’t even realize it because the feeling of Maddie not being mad at me, and actually being happy to hear from me made everything else fade away.
The rude woman gave me another dirty look, then hustled her kid away.
“I think I’m making a scene,” I said, laughing as I rooted through my purse for something to wipe my nose with.
“Where are you?”
“In Vegas.”
“Vegas?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s a long story, but the bottom line is that I’m coming home.”
“Home home?”
“
Yes.”
“When?” Maddie’s voice was breathless and hopeful.
“Tomorrow morning. Can you… I mean, I hate to ask you this, but can you pick me up at the airport?”
“Yes! Yes! Of course. Emery, I’m so sorry I lied to you, I just… I couldn’t not call the police. And I didn’t lie to you in the moment, it wasn’t until I got home and I was thinking about it, and I couldn’t not call them. If anything ever happened to you, God, Em, I don’t know what I would do, it would have… I would have blamed myself for not doing something.” She was choking up on the last words, and now we were both crying, but it was in relief and somehow, happiness.
It felt good to know that despite everything that had happened, despite the betrayal from my father and the loss of Liam, I could still feel happiness.
“I can’t wait to tell you everything,” I said. “You’re not going to believe it.”
“So is… is Liam…”
“It’s over,” I said. “He’s gone.”
“I’m sorry, Em,” she said, but I could tell she wasn’t sorry he was gone, at least not in the sense that he was now out of my life. She was sorry that I was upset, but not sorry that Liam was gone. I didn’t blame her.
“Yeah, well…” My heart clenched thinking about him, and just like that, the sadness and longing came rushing back. My eyes filled with tears again, this time for him, and I hated that, so I swiped at my eyes angrily with the back of my hand.
“I can’t wait for you to come home,” Maddie said. “You can stay with me for a while, okay? Until we figure out what’s going on with your apartment. We can call and find out if you can get back in. Actually, no, I think you should find a new place. I can help you. That cute complex Justina lived in last year has openings, maybe we could even think about living together? Apartment shopping!” Maddie was always trying to get me to move in with her, something I’d resisted because I didn’t want her to know about my nightmares. It was one thing to have sleepovers, or do it for a little while, but I liked living alone because it didn’t invite questions.
But my nightmares had been better lately.
Because of Liam.
My hands curled into fists and I pushed them against my thighs, hard. I could still feel his hands on me, could still feel his mouth on mine.
“Emery? You there?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’m here, sorry.”
“I know it’s a lot,” Maddie said, and her voice got softer. She’d been trying to put a good spin on things, to make it out like going apartment shopping was fun, and ignore the reason I had to do that was because my apartment had been broken into and when I went back home I would basically have nowhere else to stay. “But we’ll get through it.” I loved her so much.
“Thanks,” I said.
“So where are you staying tonight?”
I gave her the name of the casino.
“Ooh, fancy.”
“It’s not, really. Like, parts of it are, but parts of it are just really depressing.”
“Well, I can’t wait to hear all about how you got there.” She hesitated, and I knew she was thinking about whether or not she was going to push me for information now, or if it was too much, and she should wait until I was back in New York, back at school. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“And he’s really gone?”
“Yes. He left for California.”
“Okay. And you have your phone now?”
“Yes.”
“For good?”
“Yes.”
“Because I’m going to text you, and if I don’t hear back, I’m going to get nervous.”
“And do what?” I asked. “Call the police again?”
“No,” she said. “The FBI. Or Homeland Security.”
I giggled. “I don’t think Homeland Security would be interested.”
She laughed. “You don’t know my powers of persuasion. You’re a national treasure.”
I smiled, missing her so bad my chest hurt. “I’ll talk to you later, then?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll email you my flight information.”
“See you tomorrow, Em. I can’t wait.”
She clicked off, and I took in a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if it was the wine or the conversation I’d had with Maddie, but suddenly, I felt exhausted.
I stood up and grabbed a couple of books so I could have them in the room with me just in case – Harry Potter, which I’d never read but always wanted to, and the chick lit book I’d been reading the back of. As I moved through the aisles, I caught sight of that guy Robbie from the wine bar. He was crouched in the political science section, reading the back of a book, his brow furrowed.
He looked up, as if he could sense me looking at him, and he gave me a nod and a wink.
I gave him a quick wave, then hurried up to the cash register, impressed with his selection of books, and wondering if I’d written him off too quickly.
* * *
When I got to the elevator bank in the hotel, the one that would lead me up to the second floor, Robbie was there, waiting for an elevator, too.
Robbie.
“Wow,” he said, as he reached out and pushed the button. “We keep running into each other. Seems like fate.” He winked.
“Or maybe you’re stalking me,” I said playfully, my confidence buoyed after my call with Maddie.
“Maybe you’re stalking me,” he shot back.
“And why would I be doing that?”
He shrugged. “Maybe you fell in love with my chocolate dessert.”
“If I wanted that, I could just go back to the wine bar.”
The elevator doors stepped in and he shrugged. “Then I got nothing.” He reached into his bookstore bag and pulled out the book he’d bought, a biography of some obscure political figure from the 1800s that I hadn’t even heard of. “Maybe you wanted to steal my book?”
“Why?” I said. “Do you think I might have trouble sleeping?”
“Touché,” he said and laughed. “What did you buy then? Something scintillating no doubt?”
He grabbed my bag and pulled out the books before I could stop him. “Harry Potter, classic.” He nodded. “And a women’s fiction, no doubt cause of your break-up.”
The doors dinged on the second floor. “This is me,” I said, and stepped out.
Robbie stepped out after me, and for some reason, a shiver of fear slid up my spine.
Stop, I told myself. He probably has a room on this floor, too. It was Liam who’d done this to me. He’d made me suspicious of everyone, made me think that a guy getting off an elevator or asking me for my number in a restaurant was the kind of thing that was out of the ordinary.
And who could blame me after what Liam had done to me, picking me up and throwing me into the back of a van?
“You know there are better ways to get over someone than by reading a book,” Robbie said as we walked down the hall.
“This is my room,” I said as we reached the door. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Did you hear me?”
I was searching through my purse now, fumbling for my key card. “Yes, I heard you.” Where was the damn key? Maddie was always yelling at me to clean out my purse, to not carry so much stuff around with me, and as I groped past bottles of ibuprofen and a half-eaten candy bar, a pack of tissues and a half-used chapstick, I was cursing myself for not listening to her.
My hands tightened on the key card.
“Then what did I say?” Robbie demanded, and his voice was sinister now, his cool rich boy façade completely gone.
“You said there are better ways to get over someone than by reading a book.” My response was automatic, mostly because I was afraid of what he would do to me if I didn’t get the answer right, and he thought that maybe I wasn’t listening to him after all.
“That’s right.” He pushed up against me, pushing me against the door, and I went to scream, but he placed his forear
m against my throat, almost arm barring me. I took in a shuddering breath, and gasped for air. “So what do you say?” he said. “You want me to do the things he did to you? Tie you down and make you beg?”
My eyes widened in fear. He knew about the things I’d done with Liam. But how? Was he one of the men who was blackmailing my father?
I reached up and grasped his arm, clawing at it, trying to pull him off my throat. “Please,” I gasped.
“Yes, that’s good,” he said, grinning. “Please please fuck me, isn’t that what you say to him?” He laughed, and I could smell the beer and the chocolate on his breath, the smell sickeningly sweet.
He put his face right up to mine. “Listen,” he said. “And listen good. You tell him to back the fuck off, do you understand?”
He loosened his arm a tiny bit so that I could speak. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said honestly. “I thought he’d paid the ransom, he told me –“
“You know what the fuck I’m talking about,” he said, his eyes crazy, his pupils dilating wildly. “Tell Liam to back the fuck off. And let him know we’re not fucking around.” He let me go then, and as he did, the collar of his polo shirt moved just a tiny bit.
Right above his collarbone was a tattoo.
Black letters in a sparse font.
When I saw what it spelled, I gasped.
STARLIGHT.
The same word that had been airbrushed on my apartment wall when it had been broken into.
6
EMERY
Liam.
He was all I could think about as Robbie turned and walked quickly back toward the elevator. I rushed into my room and closed the door behind me, locking both the deadbolt and the chain lock.
My legs were spaghetti and my hand shook as I rooted through the things Liam had left me. My other phone was there, the one that Liam had gotten for me, the one that could only call his number.
I called it, closing my eyes, praying that he would answer, but not knowing if there would be cell service if he were on a flight to California, not sure if he was completely done with me, not sure why I was even calling him and not the police.