by Peiri Ann
“You’ve been waking up to me for the past year. Every day you’ve woken up to my voice, went to sleep to my face. Tell me, Spirit, how many times have you fallen asleep looking at me? Or listening to me talk? I’ll wait for you to count the times.”
That was a dick move. “Don’t throw yourself in my face.”
His thumb brushed the bottom half of my jaw as he pushed his hand over the side of my neck. His touch was ecstasy. Grabbing it, he said, “Give me an opportunity to catch up with you.” He leaned in but stopped when a door opened.
“Good morning!” Janet sang from the hall.
I whipped around, moving away from Kyle. She hadn’t made it to the living room yet, so she couldn’t witness how close we were.
“God, Spirit. You’re going to make this really hard. You’re scared of yourself and Janet?” he whispered.
“Hey, Val. What are you doing here?”
“Arch,” Kyle said before I could speak. “I’m dating Valerie Harper, okay.”
She turned a shade redder than her hair and her eyes bulged as she half-yelled, “What…?”
“Oh, she’s pissed,” he murmured. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told her like that.”
I left from the kitchen to go to Janet as she stood dumbstruck in the living room. “Janet.”
“Kyle! Really?” she yelled, looking past me.
“Janet, what?” I asked her.
“What happened between you two? I thought you hated each other. How do you two go from hating each other to dating in a matter of days? She comes up on your list and now you’re dating.”
“Why are you so angry?” I asked.
“Kyle knows! Kyle, you take a vow of singledom. Stay single for more than three years, and now all of sudden here comes nice-tits and perfect-ass Val. And you’re all I’m dating Val now!” She rolled her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair. “You know what. I don’t mean to be a bitch about this. Kyle, you should have talked to me about this first. Before you started making things official. You too, Val.”
I became extremely uncomfortable. “We haven’t made anything official, Janet,” I said, earning a grunt from Kyle. I turned to him and he mouthed, “Spirit’s making another appearance.”
“I’ll let you and Kyle talk, Janet. Kyle, I’ll be waiting in your truck.”
Kyle ran to my bag, bag-napped it and ran to his room. “Okay!” he yelled after he closed the door. “I’ll meet you in the truck. We’ll go out for breakfast.”
I held my laugh, looking back at Janet.
“You guys did it, didn’t you?” she asked.
I pinched my nose and admitted, “A little.”
She huffed.
“What’s up, Janet?” She was really angry about Kyle and I and I loved Janet as my friend. I didn’t know what was wrong but I wasn’t going to let a boy come between us.
“Nothing. I’m going to talk to him. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or have to hear him bitch about me running you away.”
“Clearly it’s not nothing. We’re friends, you can tell me what’s going on.”
She pointed to herself as she said, “I crushed on Kyle. And he knew that. Now he’s with you, which means I’m not going to be with him while I have to see you two together.”
I hesitated before asking, “I thought you two were just friends?”
“And I thought he wasn’t your type?” she threw back at me.
“God, Janet. Had I known…” Had I known, last night probably still would have happened. But she doesn’t need to know that. “I wouldn’t have.”
Kyle came around the corner. “Arch, we’re going to just lay it all out on the table. I’m teaching Spirit honesty.” He looked at me. “Do you want me to tell her or do you?”
“There’s more?!” she exclaimed.
I rolled my eyes. She was going drama queen.
“Arch, Spirit has been watching me for over a year. She’s one of Cohen’s. She was sent to kill me, Mom, and everyone else.”
Pain spiked through the right side of my face as my head whipped left. It took me a second to register I’d been slapped and another second to realize it was about to happen again.
“You bitch!” Janet shouted as I backed away and Kyle kept her from getting to me.
I rubbed my cheek, fed up with getting smacked in the face.
“Um, Arch. That was unnecessary and a little exaggerated, wouldn’t you say so?”
I was baffled. I couldn’t believe she’d slapped me. “Janet, Kyle is standing in front of you… alive!”
“She also loves me, Arch, and I’m into her. If you hurt her, I’m going to hurt you,” Kyle put in. “So you need to calm down.” He slowly dropped his arms. She stood, angrily eyeing me. “Spirit and I are going to establish a relationship once she gets this honesty thing down pat.”
“Kyle, I’m standing here, you asshole. I don’t have honesty issues.”
“Spirit, relax. I’m trying to keep Janet calm so she doesn’t keep trying to attack.”
Janet thumped Kyle in the head. “I’m standing here too.”
“Okay.” He backed away from her, rubbing his head. “Arch, I didn’t think you’d flip out about me being with Spirit. You know you and I weren’t going anywhere, you’re like a sister to me. And you’ve felt the same way since we were kids. What changed?”
“You’ve always been more than just a friend to me, Kyle. Before Reagan, Emily, Amelia, Gen, fucking Francis, Monee, Samantha, Sydney, goddamn Penelope, Lori, Leanne—.”
Kyle threw up his hand. “Okay Arch, shut up.”
“I’ve always been there for you as a friend and waiting for you to see me. To see I’ve been there while those girls kept walking in and out your life. I stayed! Always stayed! And here you’re going to jump into another one so she can pick you up and drop you like the rest.” I’m invisible to these two. “You still don’t see me?”
Kyle rubbed his hand over his face. It was clear he didn’t feel the same way she did. But as she angrily glowered at him and resisted looking in my direction, I felt like the worst friend. I couldn’t hurt her any more than I wanted to hurt him.
“Arch—”
“I’ll let you two talk.” I cut Kyle off. They’d been together much longer than I’d been in the picture and they needed some time to work it out. I was totally accepting if he wanted to have her instead of me. Janet was beautiful and she was an amazing friend. She deserved someone equally amazing. “I’m going to go.”
“Wait, Spirit. Can you give me a minute to talk to Arch?”
I looked at Janet. Her eyes were welling with tears and I could see she didn’t want me there. I backed away from them to the door. Kyle silently begged me to stay, with those soft green eyes in a calm squint.
I widened mine a bit with a quick hitch of my brows, saying he needed to take this moment with Janet and I was going to walk away.
His right brow quickly rose and fell, saying Really? as he watched me grab the knob.
I confirmed by turning around and leaving.
“Valerie, we’ve worked with you. We can’t keep you any longer,” Claudia said in a strong tone.
“Okay,” I said, ready to hang up. This was them officially firing me. I assumed they knew none of the people I told them I killed over the last two months were actually dead. And honestly, I was ready for them to let me go. The fact still remained that I was incapable of completing my assignment… and I had come to terms with it.
“You did well while you could; thank you. As a warning, make sure you watch your back. They aren’t going to let you just walk away.”
“Thank you.” I hung up.
The only reason I had reenrolled in school was for Kyle. Now that the assignment was over, I dropped out. Told my dean that was it for me. He was disappointed but I doubted after I left his office he would remember my name. I informed my landlord I’d be moving out so if anyone did come looking for me, he wouldn’t know anything but could tell whoever came asking that I ha
d left.
My phone buzzed in my pocket as I left my landlord’s loft.
Janet: Are you coming back to Kyle’s house when you finish? Can you come back and talk him out of taking this assignment with Purcell?
Me: Janet, Kyle is an adult.
Janet: No, Kyle is a child in an adult’s body. He has too much on his plate to take that assignment.
Me: What assignment?
Janet: Melor.
Me: WHAT?!
Janet: Long story…
Me: Keep it 160 characters or less.
Janet: Just come back.
“Kyle, I’m sorry. And thank you.”
“Nixon, don’t talk to me for the rest of our lives. Between you and Janet, I don’t know who I’m more disappointed in.”
“What happened with Janet?”
I glanced over at him, sitting in my passenger seat. We were on our way to Purcell. I’d sworn to myself I wasn’t going to set foot back in that building. The only reason I was on my way there was to look out for my family and knock another person from Valerie Harper’s kill her list. “Don’t worry about it,” I told him.
“Come on, Kyle. Tell me what’s up. We haven’t talked one-on-one in a while.”
“So? Stop guilt-tripping me into stuff.”
“Okay, what happened with Janet?”
I caved. “We’re supposed to be friends. Been friends since I was six and she was four. All of a sudden she’s pissed because I told her I was dating Spirit.”
“Valerie Harper?”
“Yes.”
“She hates Valerie Harper?”
“No, her and Spirit are friends. Arch is in love with me. She told me it’s always been more than friendship for her. I never knew that.”
“So you have to choose between fucking Valerie Harper and loving Janet?”
“No, and I’m not just having sex with Valerie Harper. I may, however, have to make a choice between the two. I don’t know. But Janet’s just Janet. I can’t see myself being anything more with her. But I don’t want to lose her friendship.” Janet’s been my ace forever, and I hated the thought of us no longer being friends. But if she wanted something more, I couldn’t give that to her.
“What’s so special about Valerie Harper?”
I took in the thought of being with Spirit. She was quickly growing on me. She made me feel things I’d never felt with anyone else. The way she clutched me as she slept, her own protectiveness of me. Her kiss—she kissed me like I was the last person in the world that would have the pleasure of feeling her. The thoughts and feelings that stayed constant in her eyes when she looked at me. She was almost perfect. There were one or two flaws, but I could work with them. “Everything,” I told Nixon. I actually liked that I liked Spirit. Even as she was a mystery to me, I enjoyed figuring her out, learning about her, putting together her scrambled puzzle. I’d never wanted to work this hard for a girl in my life. But I felt if I could just crack her open, get her to tear down those stone cold walls, she’d be perfect. I could possibly help her become the person she so destined to be…happy, free, and stable.
“But you can’t choose a girl over friendship,” Nixon said.
I grumbled. “Right.”
“How does Valerie Harper feel?”
“That’s the trip. Spirit and Janet are best friends too.”
His hand slapped his thigh. “Well how’d you pull that one off? If you weren’t so gung-ho on monogamy, that would make an awesome opportunity to experiment in the polygamy field. And the plus is, you all can stay friends. Because you—”
“Shut up.”
“Kyle,” he whined. “I haven’t met Valerie Harper yet, but knowing the kind of girls you’re into, she has to be a babe. So you can dump her and I’ll pick her up while you stick with Janet.”
I wrinkled my nose, disgusted by his request for Spirit. “Why wouldn’t you want Arch?”
“Arch is uh… honest and “As” aren’t my thing.”
I was just entertaining this idiot and he was pissing me off. And my concern at that moment shouldn’t have been Valerie Harper or Arch. It should’ve been Melor and Purcell and figuring out what our first move should be.
My phone buzzed in the cup holder.
I grabbed it, attacked by a slight thrill I managed to contain. “Hey, Spirit.”
“I’m at your house, Shultz. You’re going after Melor? I thought you were done.”
“Looks like you don’t know me as well as you thought.”
“Can you come home?”
“Home?” I smiled at her reference.
“Can you come back to your house? Not my home.”
“Spirit, it’s fine, you can claim it. But remember when I told you I was going to help? This is a part of that. Now, let Daddy do his job. I’ll be home in a few hours and we’ll grab a bite and be back home for a rerun of last night.”
“Between wanting to laugh at you and run away from Janet because she has this I want to kill you look sewn into her eyes, I’m going to drop both of you. And don’t say Daddy.”
Oh yeah… the dead parents thing. “Sorry, Spirit. Kick Janet out. You stay. I’ll make it up to her later.”
Something loud sounded in the background. “Oh no, now I’m definitely about to leave. Why does Rick have a key to your door? Oh no, he’s coming over. Stop Rick, don’t! Eww. Get away!” she yelled to him away from the phone. “God, you stink. We aren’t even friends, why are you bothering me?”
“When you entered into Kyle’s life, you entered into mine. We’ll have a bigamist relationship, and I’m sleeping in the middle. Get used to it, babe. Now, go get me a beer and turn down the sheets.”
“Oh God, no.” Wind rushed in the phone and a door slammed. “Kyle, I want out.”
“Too late, Spirit, you already signed the contract.”
“Seriously, I can’t, Kyle. You and Janet. I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want you to hurt her. I don’t want you to hurt. I mean, I saw it in your eyes when you realized she was hurt. Maybe one day you might… test the waters, and you all end up sleeping together and fall in love but because you all don’t want to hurt me while this whole love triangle is going on and you’re cheating and I’m just sitting around wondering with who and the entire time it’s her…” she rambled on and on.
I pulled into Purcell’s garage with the phone to my ear, checked in, parked, cut the truck off, mouthed to Nixon, “Hold on,” and she was still rambling. I thought we were talking about Janet, but somehow the conversation shifted to her talking about my mom finding out that I’ve committed suicide, and I was unsure where it was I lost her. I couldn’t recall what led to this.
“Baby, wait… do you mind if I say that?”
She went silent.
“Hello?” I waited. “Take that as a yes, you mind.”
She said nothing.
“Spirit!”
“Sorry, the phone was on mute. My cheek hit the button.”
“Turn the backlight off. You just freaked me out for four seconds. That was the quickest I’ve ever experienced panic then calm in my life. I’ll never call you baby again.”
She laughed and I forgot what I wanted to say. That was the perfect laugh. I’d never heard her laugh before. It was a happy laugh, not an annoying giggle or one of those titters when women try to hide their laugh because they think it’s embarrassing, and she definitely couldn’t have brought her hand to her mouth. She had to be in my room, sitting on my bed, phone in one hand and holding her stomach or clutching the bed with the other as she laughed out loud, maybe open-mouthed smiling with all her straight teeth showing.
I pulled her from it. “Hey, Spirit. I gotta go. But stay. We’ll work out Janet and anything else you need me to address.”
“Okay. I’m locked in your room to keep away from your psycho friends. Don’t get assassinated.”
“Yeah, hopefully, it’s not a setup.” I hung up and got out of the truck. My own words struck me in a cold spot. This better not be a set
up.
Nixon and I approached the door to enter Purcell’s building.
“Voice and eye recognition required for entry,” the robotic voice requested.
“You’d think someone would be here to meet us. We can’t get in,” I said.
“Try it. See if it works. I bet it works.”
I took Nixon’s advice and stated my name and leaned in for my eyes to be scanned.
And to my surprise it stated, “Eye and voice recognition accepted. Welcome, agent Kyle Shultz.”
“I am not an agent here,” I said, walking through the door that opened on its own.
Yep, his bed smelled good too. I got up from a nap I didn’t know I’d fallen asleep for. There was no TV in his room, just a dock for his phone on the nightstands. The entire room was painted beige. I guessed it was calming. I hadn’t realized colors had such an effect on your mood. Each room in here was painted a different color.
I snooped through his room looking for my bag. He nabbed it earlier and I was sure he had hidden it in here somewhere.
“Val,” Janet knocked on the door. She still sounded pissed. “Val, can I come in?”
I walked to the door. “Janet, if I let you in and you try to attack me, I am going to use my skills to whoop your ass.”
“What skills?”
“Janet, I am a highly trained assassin. I know how to kick ass. If you hit me again, I will not hesitate to kick yours.”
“Val, open this damn door. I don’t want to fight you.” She paused. “I just want to talk.” She sounded calmer.
I cracked open the door. She stood there with her hands at her sides. She had the same sad face she’d had since I left this morning. I felt bad, but I wasn’t going to put up with anyone slapping and yelling at me.
She motioned toward the door. “Well?”
I opened it, stepping aside so she could come in.
“Don’t hold his door open like this is your house and you’re doing me a favor by letting me in.”
“Janet, I promise you. I had no idea you were into Kyle. I’m not going to fight you over a boy. If you want him, you can have him.”