by Tara Wylde
“I didn’t say anything about computers,” I tell him darkly. “And even if I had, Ella wouldn’t have cared. She’s an even better computer geek than I am. She majored in computer sciences. MIT. In addition to normal computer stuff, she also told me she was a pretty good hacker.”
Funny, that was one of those things I’d forgotten. We’d talked about so many things. Now I recall the pretty blush that had warmed her skin, and how she’d nearly tripped over her tongue in her haste to assure me that she’d never created a super virus or hacked into anything that would give the government pause.
Right after that, she’d slipped her hand into my swimming trunks and stroked my dick, at which point my ability to carry on a conversation had fled. That’s probably why I’d forgotten about that part of the conversation until right now. The pleasure of her touch had blown my synapses and caused me to lose my memory of what had just transpired.
“No shit?” Daryl whistles appreciatively. “Guess she really is your soul mate. She as good as you?”
“Better.” I slant him a look and decide to divulge something I’ve never told him. “Back when I first met her, your people were head hunting her.”
“My people?” Daryl’s eyes narrow into dangerous slits and I suddenly realize how my words probably sound to him. Having grown up on the outskirts of Natchez, Mississippi, Daryl is sensitive when it comes to comments about race. Since it rarely comes up between us, I sometimes forget that about him.
“The FBI,” I hurriedly clarify.
Now shock widens Daryl’s eyes and brightens his entire expression. “You’re fucking with me.”
I shake my head. “Them and a few other three-letter agencies. That’s why I thought I couldn’t find her. That once she’d agreed to work for the government, that she’d been put into some sort of deep undercover.” The idea had been central to more than a few of the nighttime fantasies I’d indulged in over the years.
I move to stand by the window and stare out it at the city beyond. Ella is somewhere on the other side of the glass and, unlike the last time, when I waited too long to start searching for her this time I’m going to find her, come hell or high water, before the sun set on this day.
“It’s Wednesday, man. She probably took off because she remembered she has to work today. Some of us don’t have the luxury of staying at home, making computer games and calling it work. Some of us have to punch a clock.”
Daryl is the only person who dares call the software I designed and sold to the military ‘games’.
“I thought of that and called Jerry at Abutilon. That’s her boss. After he got done trying to find out whether I’d decided to invest, he told me today is Ella’s scheduled day off. If I’m going to catch her there, I’ll have to wait to tomorrow.” There’s no way in hell I’m waiting that long. I’ve spent the past seven years occupying a lonely bed, dreaming of Ella. Now that I’ve found her, I have no intention of sleeping alone ever again.
Daryl’s head snaps up and his gaze clashes with mine. “Did you say Abutilon?” His voice is void of intonation.
“Yeah? What about it?”
“Your computer genius of a girlfriend works for Abutilon?” He’s gone completely stone faced, which always makes me uncomfortable. I don’t get how a guy who loves life and laughing as much as Daryl does can go from being one of the most expressive guys I know to looking like his face would crack if he so much as thinks about smiling. Always makes me wonder exactly what happens to recruits while they’re at Quantico.
I nod.
“And it’s a call center?”
“Yeah. They have—” I think about it a minute, trying to recall yesterday’s conversation. It’s not easy since I was more interested in Ella than in the actual company. “I think a total of six different branches. In addition to Chicago, they have a branch in Columbus and New York City, but I can’t remember the other places. The manager said they handle a variety of different services for different companies. Including cold sales call, some collection work, and straight up promotional stuff. It was pretty diverse, though it all revolved around making calls. I’m glad I don’t work there. It’s a depressing place.”
Daryl drags his cell phone out of his pocket. “Sorry, man. I’d like to stick around, help you solve the mystery of your elusive girlfriend, but I’ve got to check something out right away.”
The words are barely out of his mouth before the door slams closed behind him.
I stare at my side of the door and try to wrap my brain around what just happened. First Ella takes off and now my best friend, a guy who is practically a picture-perfect definition of unflappable. Based on recent events, I have to assume that there’s something wrong with me.
I tuck my nose inside the collar of my shirt, trying to determine if I smell of BO or something equally as noxious which is driving the most important people in my life away. My cell phone springs to life before I form a conclusion.
I glance at the screen. It’s not a number I recognize. Sighing, I press the answer button and brace myself for a sales call.
“Hello,” I say in a sharp tone.
“Jason?” It’s Ella. My heart kicks into overdrive. Her reaching out to me, that’s a good sign, right? It means I didn’t do anything so incredibly stupid that it drove her away forever.
There’s absolutely no way I’m going to give her a chance to tell me that it’s over forever. Before she even has a chance to take a breath and launch into an explanation for why she called, I start talking. I barely think about my words before they tumble out of my mouth. I don’t care that I’m all but begging her to give me a chance. There’s no way I’m going to let her tell me it’s over.
“Ella, what happened? Why did you take off like that? If I did something wrong, just tell me and I’ll fi-”
“Jason, shut up.”
Her tone more than her words that silences me. Under the annoyance in her voice, I hear a great deal of strain. Something is seriously wrong. My muscles tense and my mind whirls, looking for a solution to a problem I know nothing about. Talk about jumping the gun.
On the other end of the phone line, Ella takes a deep, bracing breath. My shoulders tense, waiting to hear the worse.
“Look,” she says, “I have something I need to tell you, and I can’t do it over the phone, though God knows I wish I could. Come to Brooks Easy Living Building. I’m in apartment 6C on the third floor. And I need you to get here as quickly as you can.”
“What is this about? Are you in some kind of trouble? An accident, maybe?” A picture of her sitting in the emergency room, covered in blood because she’d been, I don’t know, mugged or hit by a car, flashes through my imagination. I nearly drop the phone. “Are you okay?”
As soon as the question falls from my mouth, I hold my breath, both dreading and needing her answer.
“I’m fine. I just need to talk to you. Get here as quickly as you can. Before I chicken out.”
She doesn’t wait for my response before disconnecting the phone.
23
Jason
Making my way across town and finding the Brooks Easy Living Building was easy enough, as was riding the elevator up three flights and walking down the narrow hallway to the door marked with a chipped brass plate that reads 6C.
Another, slightly less chipped brass plate beneath the number reads Beyers. Maybe Ella just moved to this apartment and the landlord hasn’t gotten around to changing her name.
What isn’t easy is lifting my hand to knock on the cheap door. Ever since Ella called and told me she needed my help, well before that really, one horrible situation after another has been playing through my mind. It doesn’t help that it’s fueled by an overactive imagination which occasionally likes to mix reality with a little dash of horror.
As desperately as my need is to see Ella, to assure myself that’s she’s okay and in one piece, I’m equally terrified of what I’ll find on the other side of this door.
Bracing my shoulders, I lift m
y hand. My fingers curl into a ball. I take one more deep, steadying breath and rap on the pseudo-wood.
Stepping back, I position myself so that my face is visible through the peep hole and try not to look overly worried.
I don’t have to wait long. A few seconds after the echo of my knock fades, I hear the faint slap of feet against linoleum followed by the rattle of locks. The door opens in, revealing Ella’s pale face.
She looks like she just got out of the shower. Her damp hair soaks the over-sized plain maroon T-shirt she’s wearing. Fresh comb marks still show against her scalp, though the ends have started to dry and curl. The combination of pale skin and the dark shadows beneath them make her eyes look huge, too big for her delicate face.
One hand clutches the edge of the door. The other holds an enormous, gray, short-haired cat to her chest.
A tidal wave of relief crashes over me, nearly buckling my knees. She’s upright and mobile. So far so good.
“Jason.” Ella maintains her grip on the edge of the door but steps back, making room for me to come in. “You made it.”
I obey her silent invitation and cross the threshold into her apartment. “Whenever you call,” I tell her, “I’ll always come running. No matter what.”
Even as I say the words, I wonder if she fully understands just how true they are.
While Ella closes the door and relocks the deadbolt and fastens the security chain, I use the time to study my surroundings.
The place reminds me a lot of the apartment I shared with Daryl and two other guys my junior and senior years of college. Of course, we didn’t have a cat, and instead of childish pictures of unicorns, and butterflies, the art hanging on our refrigerator had been photos of bikini clad women. The pile of shattered ceramic on the floor is similar though. I don’t even want to think about how many dishes we managed to break.
There’s no door between the living room and kitchen. So I study that room as well. Even though the furniture looks like it was purchased at a thrift store or found on the sidewalk, the way it’s arranged gives the impression that Ella has made an effort to make the place as comfortable as possible.
What I don’t see is any sign that Ella has been attacked. Temper spikes through me. Since discovering she’s been missing, I’ve been going out of my mind with worry, scared that I’d done something wrong, that I’d frightened her into leaving me, and that in her haste she was attacked, or worse.
As grateful as I am that she’s not harmed, that she reached out to me, that relief does nothing to counterbalance the fact that she took off without a word and, when she did decide to contact me, she didn’t bother telling me what had happened, just demanded that I drop everything and rush right over here to see her.
I slowly turn to stare at her. “What do you think you’re playing at?” My voice sounds remarkably composed given how furious I am right now.
Her hold on the cat tightens. Her brow furrows. Right now she looks more like the twenty-one-year-old I met in Florida than she did yesterday or this morning. “Playing at?”
“Oh, don’t look so surprised.” Temper leaks into my words. “First you lead me on this morning, then you what? Pretended to be sick just you could run away. Then what happened? You thought about everything you were missing out on and decided that you wanted to see just how much control you had on me? Decided to snap your fingers and see if I’d come running? Well, guess what sweetheart, I’m here. So, now what? What’s the next step in this little game you’ve decided to play?”
Ella’s mouth opens and closes a few times. Her eyes widen and fill with tears. Her fingers grip the cat’s fur, causing the animal to squirm in protest. She bends and places him on the floor. When she straightens, her jaw is set and her eyes are clear and dry.
“You have every right to be angry,” she says in carefully measured words, her tone revealing nothing about what’s going on inside her head or her heart right now.
“You’re fucking right I do.”
She raises a brow, as surprised by the fact that I swore, something I rarely do, as I am. Good. Maybe it will help her understand how badly she scared me…and give her an inkling of what she means to me.
“But I have my own reasons for what I’ve done. Good reasons.”
“Uh huh.”
Ella stares at me for a moment and seems to be considering something. “Wait one second,” she finally says. She doesn’t wait for me to respond before pushing past me and going into the living room.
Still seething, I turn to watch her.
She steps around a corner, moving out of my sight for a split second. When she reappears, she’s holding a small, flat item. She hands it to me.
It’s a simple silver frame, the kind you can get from Wal-Mart for just a couple of bucks. The photo inside is a pretty little girl, with pigtails on either side of her head, a heart-shaped face, and a gap-toothed smile that looks like it shines brighter than the sun. She’s lying on her belly across a swing, staring straight at the camera with very familiar eyes.
I don’t need to ask whose child she is. The smile is unfamiliar, but the eyes are one hundred percent Ella’s.
Blood roars in my ears. I hand the photo back to Ella, my hand shaking slightly. “You have a little girl.”
Ella takes the photo from me. She stares down at it, but her mouth doesn’t soften into a smile the way most parents do when they talk about their kids. Unshed tears shine in her eyes.
“I do,” she confirms, even though she doesn’t have to. “Her name is Kelsey. She loves cats, horses, stars, and science fiction. She laughs all the time.”
“Sounds like a great kid,” I mutter, still trying to process the fact that Ella is a mom. Since she hasn’t said anything and there’s not a single masculine touch in this apartment, I’m assuming she’s a single mother. But a kid! That’s a big deal. And one I haven’t planned for.
Ella sniffs. Her grip on the picture frame tightens until she’s holding onto it like she’s drowning and it’s her lifeline. “She is. But—“
I really don’t like the sound of that ‘but’.
“She’s not doing so well,” Ella continues. “She was born with a severe heart condition. The doctors didn’t think she’d live, but she beat the odds. But her heart still isn’t good. It gets checked out twice a year and each time, it’s a little worse.”
Pain lances through me. No one should have to go through life with an iffy heart, especially not a kid, and certainly not Ella’s kid.
“And seven months ago, she developed diabetes. The doctors think it’s a result of her heart condition.”
Dear God is all I can think. I bow my head and wonder how the world can be so unfair.
“Jason.” Ella touches my arm and I look up into her eyes. They’re shining strangely. “In three months, Kelsey turns seven years old.”
It takes a moment for the words to sink in and a second longer for my brain to do the quick math.
“Wait a minute,” I say, my mind grappling for an answer that it’s not ready to accept. “Are you saying that…” I can’t bring myself to say the words.
I take a deep breath and try again. “Is—” I gesture to the photo in Ella’s hands. “Is she, Kelsey…” once again the words won’t come.
“Yes,” Ella says solemnly. “She’s yours. That’s what I needed to tell you, before I lost my nerve.”
24
Jason
Three hours. That’s how long it takes to get my head screwed on straight and come to terms with the bomb Ella dropped in my lap.
Three hours of walking an endless circle around and around a small park that I found about a quarter mile from Ella’s apartment. I’m surprised no one called the cops because of my suspicious behavior. Maybe the reason they didn’t was because I wasn’t paying attention to any of the kids, or maybe it’s because life in this neighborhood is already hard and no one has the energy to pay much attention to people who are behaving strangely.
I ponder this as I knock
on Ella’s door for the second time today. It doesn’t matter what the answer is, I realize. The fact that no one cared what I was doing is all the proof I need to know that I don’t want my daughter to be raised in this particular environment. I haven’t even met her yet, I know next to nothing about her, but I do know that I want her to be raised in a safe environment, somewhere she’ll flourish.
In addition to making me question the current state of humanity, the past three hours helped me decide that I want Ella and her…no our, daughter to be in my life. Forever.
The door swings open and Ella stares up at me. A sense of déjà vu slams into me. Except for pulling her hair into a low ponytail and balancing a pair of wire rimmed glasses on her cute little nose, she looks the same as when I left. She even has the same damn cat balanced on her hip.
Ella blinks red rimmed eyes at me. The cat stares with thoughtful yellow ones. I get the uncomfortable sense that it’s judging me to see if I’m someone it wants associating with its women. I shudder to think what it will do if it decides I’m not worthy.
I redirect my attention from the cat to Ella. Nervous energy batters the interior of my stomach lining. It’s one thing to know I want Ella and Kelsey to be in my life; telling Ella is an entirely different matter. I don’t know what to say.
“What’s its name?” I stuff my hands into my pockets.
Ella’s eyes narrow. “What?”
“Your cat. What’s its name?”
She looks down at the cat, who is slowly rubbing its head back and forth against her rib cage. Her eyes widen, like she’s forgotten she’s holding it.
“It’s Kelsey’s cat,” she says, her voice low and thick, like her throat is sore and swollen. “She found him taped in a box and rescued him. They’ve been inseparable ever since. She named him Mal, after this sci-fi show she’s obsessed with.”
“Firefly,” I say with a smile. “It’s my favorite show.” I wait a beat before hesitantly asking. “Does Kelsey like sci-fi?”