Hidden

by Selena Laurence

  It was early afternoon on a Thursday and I’d come home from class to get ready for work. Nick was still at school, but he planned to come by The Grill later on, after he wrote a paper. Raoul was still at work most days, but Nick had taken to stopping by four to five nights a week and helping out. He’d lift kegs, take out trash, wash dishes, whatever was needed. He never said anything about it, and Raoul didn’t either, but I saw the smile on Raoul’s face whenever Nick walked in. The way Nick helped without making Raoul feel like he was sick or weak meant so much to Leesa and me. It had raised him to superhero status around the restaurant and entitled him to all the free food he could eat for life, which, given how much the guy ate, was an important consideration.

  When I walked into my apartment that afternoon I knew immediately that something wasn’t right. The air conditioner was on, making the place frigidly cold, and I’d turned it off before I left that morning. But, more than that, Jack wasn’t there to greet me. I felt a sliver of fear wedge its way into my heart.

  “Jack?” I called, before whistling. I heard him whimper, and the fear grew. I walked in further. “Jack? Are you here?” I called out. More whimpers, this time louder, came from the direction of my bedroom.

  I ran to the back of the apartment. “Jaaack! Here boy!” I said in my cheeriest voice.

  This time full-blown yips of distress sounded from my bedroom closet. I dove across the room and yanked up the door. There, in the closet, sat Jack, one of my long scarves around his neck, the other end tied to the hanging rod above him, the tension in the scarf so taut that he couldn’t lie down or move without strangling.

  “Oh God, Jack! Jack!” I cried as I untied the scarf from the rod and dropped down to the floor where I threw my arms around my best friend in the world.

  Poor Jack was so exhausted from the ordeal that he collapsed on my lap and whined a few times, licking my face with his soft tongue. I stayed with him just petting his thick fur and talking to him for five or ten minutes, my panic subsiding until I could start to think clearly again. And what I thought scared the hell out of me, made me scoop up all fifty pounds of Jack, and go running out of the apartment and back to my car.

  Once Jack and I were safely locked in the car, I called Nick. For so many years I’d had no one to call at a moment like this, and I hesitated for a minute before dialing his number. But then I thought about our time together and I knew how upset he’d be if I didn’t call him. He answered on the fourth ring, his voice low. “Lynds? What’s going on?”

  I bit my lip trying to maintain control. “Um, I’m really sorry to bother you,” I said, my voice shaky.

  “Shit, what’s the matter? Is it Raoul?” I could hear him moving out of the classroom, his panic coming clear through the cell phone waves.

  “No, no, it’s nothing like that. But, um, I came home from class, and there’s been someone in the apartment. I found Jack . . .”

  I hiccupped a few times before Nick said sternly, “Lyndsey, where are you right now?”

  “I’m in my car in the parking lot, it’s locked, and I’m safe.”

  “And where is Jack?”

  “He’s with me. He’s okay. He’s right here.”

  I heard Nick’s exhalation of relief. “Don’t go anywhere. Don’t unlock those doors, Lyndsey. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are the keys in the ignition?”

  “Um, no, they’re on the other seat here.”

  “Put them in the ignition . . . are you doing it?”

  “Yes,” I felt stronger now.

  “Good, leave them there. If anyone even so much as looks at you, start that car and drive to the police station down on Kaumana Drive, alright?”

  “Yes. I’ve got it. I’m okay now, I promise.” I tried to reassure him.

  “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Nick.”

  The line went dead and I sat and stroked Jack’s head where it lay on the armrest between the front seats, reminding myself to breathe, wondering why the hell anyone would break into my dinky little apartment. Four minutes and fifteen seconds later Nick came screeching into the parking lot.

  * * *

  Nick nearly flew out of his truck and I was safe in his arms within seconds. After he held me for a few moments and I let a few shuddery breaths out, he set me back, holding onto my shoulders so he could see my face.

  “Are you alright?” he asked. I nodded. “You swear?”

  “Yeah, really. Whoever did it was long gone by the time I got there. It’s just when I think about what they might have done to Jack . . .” I shivered. “They had him tied up in my closet, but it was so tight he couldn’t move without strangling.”

  Nick kissed the top of my head. “Don’t even think about it now. It’s all over and he’s fine. Aren’t you buddy?” he said, reaching down to pat Jack who had lumbered out of the open car door and was sitting quietly at Nick’s feet.

  Jack pawed at Nick’s leg then whined. Nick said, “I can tell he was scared though.” He knelt down and pet Jack, but I could see him surreptitiously feeling all over his body to make sure he was unharmed. “You’re going to be just fine, aren’t you? We’ll get you a big treat. How about some peanut butter?”

  Jack perked up at the mention of that, and his tail started wagging again.

  “Okay, I need to check the place out, Lynds, so I want you two to get in my truck and lock the doors. I’ll come get you as soon as I make sure everything’s fine inside.”

  I nodded my head. “Be careful, okay?”

  He smiled at me, and my heart squeezed tight. He was so beautiful, and so good.

  I climbed into his truck as he jogged off up the stairs to my apartment. A few minutes later he came back, and I opened up the truck door. He grabbed me around the waist, swung me out, and kissed me on the lips. “Everything’s fine inside, I don’t think they even took anything, and I found out how they got in. That window over the shower’s been jimmied open.”

  “But that window’s two stories off the ground!” I sputtered as he set me down on the pavement again.

  “Yep, and the fuckers put a ladder right up underneath it, it’s still sitting there. I’ve got to go take it down and see if I can figure out where it came from, maybe a neighboring building.”

  I suddenly felt terribly unmoored. “But they didn’t take anything?”

  “Not that I can see. My guess is they tied up Jack so that they could start moving stuff out but they got interrupted. Look we can call the cops, I doubt there’s anything they can do if there’s not stolen property to report. My truck got broken into over the summer and I talked a long time with the officer who took the report. Unless they’ve got a bunch of stuff to report missing, there’s nothing they can do.”

  I remembered cops. Their looks of pity and then the way they’d walk off into the night, leaving me with Chris. Over and over again, no matter how many times the neighbors reported the fights. I remembered the female cop they’d sent the last time. “We could arrest him, but we’d only be able to hold him overnight . . . you could get a restraining order, but it’s only a piece of paper, doesn’t usually stop anyone.”

  Then I remembered looking over her shoulder at her partner who was patting Chris on the back. “That was one hell of a run you had in that game last night, son. Fifty yards. Whoowhee!”

  “No, no cops,” I said, swallowing down the bile that rose in my throat. “If they can’t do anything, what’s the point?”

  “Are you sure? I mean, I don’t want you to feel like you can’t call them if you want, I’m just warning you it’s probably not a fix-it.”

  I forced a smile. “No, really, no cops. Let’s just go in. I’ve got to get ready for work.”

  “You sure you’re up for it?”

  “Yeah, I don’t really want to sit in the apartment and be freaked out all night.”

  “Okay, I’ll drive you over there, then I’ve got some things to do and I’ll come back la
ter and help out and drive you home.”

  We went inside and while Nick and Jack took a nap on the sofa together I went and grabbed some work clothes and headed to the shower. I was in the bathroom, stripped down, just about to step into the heating water when I opened the medicine cabinet to grab a new bar of soap.

  I recognized his handwriting immediately. It was like three years washed away and I was standing in our tiny bathroom in Illinois, bruises in different stages of healing lining my thighs and back. And there was a note from him taped to the inside of the medicine cabinet. I reached out, my hand shaking, and pulled it down. The paper was from a pad I kept in my kitchen, the ink from my favorite purple fountain pen that I used to write in my journal. The handwriting was all sharp, angular strokes, a hybrid between printing and cursive, the loops of letters strong and utilitarian. My skin crawled at the thought that his hands had touched the same paper I was. Finally I forced my eyes to focus and read the simple message.

  I’ve missed you.

  Nick

  I could see Lyndsey was struggling with something as we drove to The Grill. The break in had shaken her up, and I couldn’t blame her, having found Jack that way. She was really attached to him and even though she operated as this totally independent entity so much of the time, I knew that she had a really soft heart under all that forced self-reliance. Jack was the one thing she’d ever allowed herself to become attached to. I was hoping that I’d get to join his ranks, but tonight she’d shut down on me again.

  I reached over and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. “Hey. How are you doing?”

  She looked over at me and smiled weakly. “I’m fine. A little tired. The stress you know.”

  “I understand. Listen, I’ve got a few things I need to get done, but I called Gabe and he and Kelly and Ian are going to come in and work the bar, hang out, whatever. I didn’t want to pile more on you earlier, but I called Leesa while you were in the shower and Raoul didn’t take the chemo treatment yesterday to well, so he’s at home with the nurse.”

  She sighed and laid her head back against the seat. “I hate this,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I responded with the only thing I could. It was the worst, but there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it, and life went on. School didn’t stop, the bar didn’t close, people went to the beach and had sex and fell in love. At least that’s what was happening with me. I hoped it was happening with Lyndsey too. But that’s all it was at this point, a hope.

  After I dropped her at The Grill, I went to the hardware store. Three hours later I had her apartment buckled down as tightly as I could get it. There were alarms on every window and door of the place, along with internal security bars in the sliding windows. I’d also replaced the locks on her front door and added a dead bolt to her bedroom so she could lock herself in at night. I stopped off and bought a week-long pass to the local doggy daycare place, too, so that if she wanted to she could take Jack over there instead of leaving him at home.

  By the time I got back to The Grill it was after 10:00 p.m. I’d never written my paper, but I figured I’d get up early the next morning and hammer it out before class. Right then all I wanted was to make sure my girl was doing well, and have Gabe pour me a beer. It’d been a long day.

  “Dude!” Gabe called out as I approached the bar. “Did you get the shit locked down?”

  “Yeah, man. I mean if someone really wanted to I guess they could smash out a window, but they’re going to set off one of the alarms. I really don’t think anyone’s getting back in there, and when she’s there, I intend to be there with her, so problem solved.”

  “Shit, are you going to leave me without the other half of the rent, you asshole?”

  “Not until she asks me to move in, which I’m not expecting anytime soon, so you’re good. Just don’t mess with my shit.”

  “Hey, you leave it at my mercy, you take your chances.” He paused for a minute, handing me a cold mug of beer. When he started talking again, he sounded serious, which was pretty unusual for Gabe.

  “So, you think this is it? I mean is she, I don’t know, the one? Or whatever.”

  I rubbed my hand through my hair and thought about how to say it. “I don’t know. I mean, I still don’t always trust my judgment, but I know that she’s pretty much all I think about. She’s the first person I want to see when I wake up and the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep. Sometimes though, she seems so sad, I don’t know if I make her happy the way she does me.”

  Gabe lifted his chin slightly and looked past me over my shoulder. I turned my head to see Lyndsey approaching, Kelly walking with her while they laughed. She smiled when she saw me, but while a lot of people wouldn’t have noticed, I could see that the smile didn’t come from her heart. I’d seen the genuine smiles before, and this one was different.

  “She looks pretty damn happy to me,” Gabe muttered under his breath.

  “I sure hope so,” I answered, before I stood up, turning to take Lyndsey in my arms.

  Chapter 12

  Lyndsey

  After I got Chris’s welcome home message, I was frantic. I knew I had to do something, and most of all, I had to get away . . . fast. How the hell he’d found me after all this time, I’d never know, but he couldn’t find out anything other than where I was. I needed to get as far away from Hilo, Hawaii as I could.

  When I got home and Nick came upstairs with me, he stopped me before I put my key in the door.

  “Wait,” he said, taking the keychain out of my hand and pressing a different key into it.

  “What’s this?”

  “The new key for your new lock. Just open it up, Goldilocks, there’re more surprises inside.”

  I opened the door and the first thing I saw was a huge bouquet of tropical flowers. I loved that Nick never did things the expected way. He’d give me flowers, but like the orchid that first night, they were never roses or carnations or anything ordinary. This particular bouquet was full of purples and oranges, my favorite colors.

  “They’re so pretty, Nick. Thank you!” I gushed, throwing my arms around his neck and kissing the spot under his earlobe. “And you changed the locks in the front door? That’s really nice of you.”

  “As much as I like your gratitude, you haven’t seen it all yet.” He led me to the windows where he proceeded to show me these little sensors that connected wirelessly to an alarm plugged into the wall outlet in my living room. If the window was opened the sensors set off the alarm.

  “And the alarm has a battery backup, so even if the power was cut for a few days that alarm would still work. I also added security bars in the sliding windows in your bedroom and the bathroom.”

  Finally, he showed me the dead bolt he’d put on my bedroom door. “I hope you never use it to keep me out, but you know it’s a risk I’ll take,” he said in a low voice as he stood behind me and reached around to palm my breast through my shirt where we stood in the entrance to my bedroom.

  I melted into his big, hard, warm chest. I wanted to go to bed with him and forget anything outside this room existed.

  “You’re a bad boy, Nick Carlisle.”

  “Yeah? You think I’m bad when I do this?” He ran his fingers down from my breast to the juncture of my thighs. I swallowed, my breathing increasing.

  “And maybe,” he growled as he lowered his head to my neck and began to kiss me. “You think I’m bad when I do this?” He stroked his finger harder along the sweet spot between my legs and I moaned.

  “Mmm. I definitely think you’re bad news, mister.” My breath caught as he slipped that finger under the edge of my shorts and worked his way toward the ache that I’d developed in the last two minutes. “But, luckily, I like bad boys.”

  “That is lucky, because I’m about to do very bad things to you.”

  “Okay.” I sighed as my head fell back and he began licking up the side of my neck while his one hand palmed my breast and the other found its way under my panties and in
to my core.

  I was already so wet, as he slipped in and out of me I could feel the tension building. “Nick? Nick.”

  “Mmmhmm.”

  “Bed, please. I want you inside me.”

  “You got it, baby.”

  * * *

  When he finally plunged into me a few minutes later, I thought I might never recover. My heart was burning like I’d run a marathon, and I gulped for air as he worked his way in and out of me over and over.

  “God, Lyndsey. I don’t want to hurt you, but fuck, it’s like I can’t do it hard enough,” he panted above me.

  I rolled my head from side to side, overwhelmed by the need. “Do it. Do it however you need. It feels so good, just don’t stop.”

  With permission now, he pounded into me harder and harder. His hand was on top of my head to keep it from smacking into the headboard, and he leaned his forehead on mine. I could hear his ragged breathing all around me. I ran my hands up and down his back finally digging my fingernails in hard, making him groan. I wrapped my legs around his waist and shifted the angle. He slowed his rhythm and I could feel myself on the edge.

  I opened my eyes for a moment and looked at his beautiful face above me. This moment in time was the nearest thing to perfection I’d ever experienced. I’d always feared what would happen when Nick found out the truth about the things I’d done, and now my past had come back with a vengeance. I couldn’t let him get tangled in the mess that would always be my life, not when he was working so hard to start fresh after Afghanistan. The last thing he needed was to be tied to a woman with the kind of baggage I had, and I cared about him too much to let him be, but I wanted him to have something to remember me by. I wanted to give him something as special as what he’d given me.