A Sweet, Sexy Collection 1: 5 Insta-love, New Adult, Steamy Romance Novellas (Sweet, Sexy Shorts)
Page 5
Lucas
“It’s been three days,” I say to Joy’s father. We are sitting at the diner, a mug of coffee in front of each of us, though neither drinks. “I’m telling you, something’s wrong.”
“You spoke to her Friday night, right? It’s only Monday morning. And you said she was going to a bar. Maybe she drank all weekend. The girl’s young. As much as I like you, she hasn’t had much fun since her mother died. I’m glad she’s finally able to let loose.”
My fist hits the table, rattling the salt and pepper shakers. “She’s your daughter. You know she’s not like that. I spoke to her a few times. She said she was busy with studying. Going out drinking, that was a spur-of-the-moment thing. It’s not her. She was supposed to let me know when she got home safe. There’s no way she would have ignored me this long.”
Joy’s father, whom I now know to be named Mike, looks at me with the expression you wear when having to admit to a child that their precious pet was never returning. “Have you considered that maybe she isn’t texting you back because she met someone else at that night out?” He holds out his hand as I lurch forward with a thousand indignant remarks lined up across my tongue. “I get it. She wouldn’t betray you. Even I admit she isn’t the type, and I don’t say that just because she’s my daughter. You’re only the third boyfriend she’s ever had, and the first two were years ago in high school. The first lasted a week. The second nearly a year, but they were both in this competitive math thing together, and I know for a fact that they spent most of their time together talking numbers. So this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to give her a call. See what’s up. But I think it’s in the middle of the night over there right—“
“It’s only six,” I jump across him. “There’s no reason she shouldn’t be awake. Or answering calls.”
“Then I’ll be right back,” he says and points at his cellphone. “I got a plan for long-distance calls on the restaurant landline.” He lifts up with the slow grunt of a man not in any sort of hurry. Meanwhile, my feet are thumping the tiles at a thousands beats a minute, a million possibilities of what may have happened to Joy flashing across my mind’s eye.
Perhaps Mike is right. She met someone at this night out with her classmates. Maybe even someone already in her class that she has exchanged furtive glances with but never had the chance to speak to until that night. They would have more in common than her hometown crush whom she has only met twice.
If that’s the case, there’s a chance that she would be waiting until she had the perfect words for me, to explain how and why she had broken our promise. She might, even at this moment, be typing out a message only to erase it again as she waited for the right words to migrate from her heart to her fingertips. Or, perhaps, she has plunged into this new love, reaching depths that have obscured all others from her senses; she isn’t avoiding me, but has forgotten about my existence altogether.
Even as this thought raises bile in my throat, it’s the best outcome. It would mean that she’s not only alive, but well and happy. Without me, but still shining brightly. In contrast to the other possibilities. The ones given vivid life by memories of crime shows featuring detectives lifting the sheets from young women’s faces in a gray-lit morgue. I can’t help but imagine a pill dissolving in her drink, dropped into her martini while she was away in the bathroom. Her lifeless body ravaged, disposed of in the morning. Her heartbeat stilled.
Or perhaps she was in a car accident. A drunk driver might have swiped her off her bicycle, speeding away from the scene before he could be identified or charged. There might be red tape involved with such an international crime, which would explain the reason that her own father has yet to be notified. Her face replaces that of the generic actress in my memory. Her features stony. Her lips never to break into a smile again.
In order to distract myself, I turn to the television in the ceiling corner. It’s a boxy relic from the eighties with a picture the same resolution of faded photographs. The morning news plays, the host mute but closed-captioned subtitles speaking for him. The story shifts from a political scandal in D.C. to international news stories, the first of which features the riots spreading across Paris. They started weeks ago and featured in many of my phone calls with Joy. I was afraid that it was too dangerous in the city, that she might get caught up in the violence on her way to and from school. She was thankful for my concern, no matter how misplaced it was.
The scrolling text at the bottom of the screen tells of a riotous push from the protesters that began on Friday and ran through the weekend, only ebbing as the workweek began anew. The shot cuts from the news hosts to a compilation of videos showing the devastation in the streets.
The darkness of city night erupts with fires from gutted cars. Protesters in orange vests slam their fists against police riot shields. Shouts and screams and horns honking. Rifles firing. The aftereffects of a rubber bullet: severe bruising and fractured ribs.
The scenes have been edited together, playing in a hectic stream. I watch as a crowd is dispersed with tear gas. As the police, who now are being called out for excessive force, shoot their rubber rounds into the already fleeing protesters. The cameraman is running too. One of the crowd, not a professional. Through the shaky footage, the desperation comes through even the ancient screen in this diner thousands of miles away.
“She’s not picking up,” Mike says. He’s hallway back to my booth when he points at the screen. “That’s—”
One of the running protesters, a stolen police baton swinging in his clenched fist, leaps away from a post box. Without hesitation, he swings at the figure who popped out unexpectedly, hammering the back of her skull. As she falls, the camera catches her shocked face.
Her name is a terrified whisper on my lips. “Joy.”
Chapter 12
Joy
The ceiling is white, blocked by figures hovering over me, speaking in tongues I can almost grasp. French. Yes, that’s it. But these are not vocabulary words I have studied for use in the kitchen. These are beyond my skill and understanding, the tone behind them serious and hurried.
My blinks must be terribly slow, for each time I open my eyes again a new scene greets me. Now it is blinding lights, steady voices, and a mask being pressed firmly against my face.
Another blink and I wish I had not woken. In the blackness I didn’t need to breathe, didn’t need to be aware of the tube clogging my throat, of the incessant noise of machines, of the—what feels like—hundreds of needles protruding from the insides of my elbows. I scrunch my eyes, shedding tears as I beg to fall back behind the protective veil of unconsciousness. I am still not sure where I am, but I know it is not a place I wish to remain.
When I wake again, I am alone. The room is comfortable but blurry. I am not wearing glasses or contact lenses. In fact, I am wearing little but a thin robe. My heart no longer beats in my head with painful thrusts of blood. I am weak, unable to reach for the button to call the nurse. Water. My throat is dry as paper. Do they not know I am dehydrated? Are they going to leave me here to die like this?
Then I notice the IV, the bags of fluid hanging from a rack in the ceiling. I try to remember where I am, but no telltale hints present themselves. No notes left on flowers. No personal items to speak of at all. Which means no visitors.
How long have I been here? A night? A week? I search for my phone, but it’s nowhere, though I do see my fingers. They are cut short, red nail polish starting only halfway up the nail. When did I paint them last? How long does it take for nails to grow out this long? Who cut them?
I don’t know, but I do know that it means I have been here longer than I previously guessed. More than a week at least. So long and still no visitors. I cry. Where are my parents? I need my mother—no. She’s dead. This memory brings with it a fresh stream of tears.
A terrible heat rises from my stomach. Bile mixed with dark sadness. Something is deeply wrong, but I cannot put my finger on it. I’ve betrayed them both: coming to Pari
s without Lucas; and attending a pastry school, which is as good as guaranteeing that I won’t take over the diner from dad. Of course they wouldn’t come for me. As the panic rises inside, I will myself not to vomit, and with the long breaths comes a fitful sleep filled with screams as I dream that Lucas and my father have left me here to die alone.
Chapter 13
Lucas
By the end of the newscast, Mike and I have already made plans. He pays for us both to take the same flight that night. We land in Paris late the next day. Before even checking into our hotel, we speak to a bilingual private investigator. He’s already received his initial deposit from Mike before we flew, but he has bad news: he’s called every one of the thirty-nine public hospitals in Paris, and Joy is not checked into any of them. He recommends asking the police to put out a bulletin for an unidentified American woman. Mike provides him with the picture from the diner, the one that made me fall in love with her. It’s a couple of years old, but it’s clear and she hasn’t changed much.
Mike returns to the hotel. He has heart problems and needs to take his medication. I get directions to the nearest hospital.
Over the next two weeks, Mike and I visit every public hospital in the metropolitan area just to double check. Our private investigator turns up after that first week with Joy’s wallet. It was emptied of cash before being dropped in a post box. He got it from slipping money under the table to a postal worker who says it was in the unclaimed box. With the protests involving postal workers, they had a terrible backlog, which meant they hadn’t gotten the chance to forward it to Joy’s address in the U.S.
Now we know that Joy is probably a Jane Doe in the system, but which system? We keep hoping to find her in a hospital, but we have already tried them all. The investigator says that it’s doubtful she would have been taken to a private clinic, but I check anyway, ticking off sections of a map in my hotel room each night. After updating my map, I replay the news coverage, watching for any clues I might have missed. Then I drink half a bottle of cheap French whiskey, and fall asleep while scrolling through my photos of Joy.
My days are spent translating hospital forms. Eyes straining under fluorescent lights for sixteen hours at a time. I hear couples on honeymoon in the cafes where I load up on caffeine. Always getting my coffee to go. Always on the move to the next clinic.
When our detective advises us to begin looking up morgues, I stop communicating with him. If he is recommending this, he has given up. He is of no help to me anymore. I will do it on my own.
When possible, I stop by the sight where the video was taken. Rub fingers along the post box Joy hid behind during the protests that dissolved into riots. I’ve already investigated every alley she might have taken from her apartment to this point. Not that I expected to find anything, but I did it anyway, when I needed a break from the blank faces meeting me over every reception desk in every hospital.
Her school puts me in touch with her host family. When they turn out to be useless, I arrange a meeting with the girl who invited her to go out drinking. As far as anyone is aware, she was the last one to speak with Joy. She is pleasant but not helpful in the least:
“We agreed to meet at the Verge at nine,” Chloe answers. She holds herself with confidence, unashamed of her purple-streaked hair and multiple piercings. I imagine that she would normally resist any sort of confrontation of this sort, but she is as apologetic as I am tired. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I tried to call her so many times. At first my calls to her just rang and rang. But when I tried again after she didn’t show up for school, it said the phone was out of service. I’m guessing it got lost after everything went down.”
I thank her for her time and celebrate my one-month mark in Paris by buying whisky actually made in Scotland. I drink it all that night and spend the following day hating myself and the city.
Mike has no choice but to return. His restaurant needs him, and the investigator has him convinced that there’s no happy ending waiting at the end of this road. We get into a fight before he leaves for the airport. Screaming our heads off in the hotel lobby:
“You’re just going to give up? Just like that? For your only daughter?” I am still slightly drunk from the night before. It provides me the rage to follow him down in the elevator. To step into his space and speak so close that flecks of saliva hit him on the cheek with my accusations.
“Lucas, I understand—“
“No, you obviously don’t. Joy’s here somewhere. Alone and scared. She needs her father more than ever and he’s just leaving her.”
Mike’s voice is resigned. “I think you’d better sleep off those fumes. I’ve paid for your room tonight, but that’s it. I can’t afford to keep this up any longer. Joy wouldn’t want me to lose the diner.”
“How can you have any idea what Joy would want?” I shove him, but regret it immediately. I cannot apologize though. Not through the rage. Rage that has been bottling up after every day ended in failure. Rage that has finally found a vent.
Mike drops his bags. His face does not change, but something inside of him has snapped. He is larger than me, but what I imagined to be all fat has been covering muscles earned during a youth playing some sort of contact sport. By the way he tackles me to the floor, I can only assume football. He raises a fist as though to hit me in the face. His jaw quivers with anticipation. Then, it all drains out of him. He slumps, each muscle slackening until his face is buried in my chest, choking back sobs.
“I have nothing left. Don’t you see that? I’ve lost my wife. My daughter. Everything is gone and I can’t keep hoping. Hope is killing me.”
The security that has showed up sidles closer at this time. They have been told our situation by the staff and are gentle as they direct us into an empty conference room. After ten minutes, Mike regains enough composure to check the time.
“My flight leaves in a few hours.” He holds out his hand. “You’re a good lad. Had a fair few good laughs at the way you said you were going to marry my Joy that day. The way she snuck up on you,” he coughs here as he laughs, but it ends with a long sigh. “Don’t come back to the diner, alright? I just, I can’t see you without thinking of all this.” He looks around the room. “I had my honeymoon in this hotel. Did I ever tell you that?”
“No,” I say. Soft. The rage gone like a winter’s breath.
“Another lifetime ago.”
The next day, I pack my backpack and check out, venturing out onto the streets with no idea of where I might sleep when the moon rises again. But I am not leaving. I’m not done searching.
I’m walking through a park, thinking of which bench will be the most comfortable to lay my head on when I get the call. It’s the nurse I spoke to at the very first public hospital I visited. A patient has just been transferred to her ward. A patient who has just woken from a month-long coma. They thought she was French until she finally opened her mouth and an American accent, slurred by a dry tongue, came spilling out.
Before the nurse can say anymore, I am crossing the Seine, eyes locked on the skyline that holds my Joy somewhere in its angles.
Chapter 14
Joy
I am struggling against the male nurses when Lucas explodes through the door. The medical staff is trying to tell me that I am unfit to stand on my own, that I need more rest, but all I can think about is getting to a phone.
Lucas barrels through the sea of light blue scrubs and enfolds me in his arms. He is the first thing I have smelled that doesn’t stink of antiseptic, but I am not happy with what I find in its place: the sting of whiskey and old sweat. He has not been taking care of himself, and it’s so easy to blame myself. Then I remember where I am. Where we are.
“You’re here,” I say, knowing later I’m going to regret that these are the first words I say to him. That they should have been more profound. That I sound like a defenseless little girl, but truthfully I don’t care. Right now I am a defenseless girl. And Lucas is my savior. ”You came.”
The nurses who retreated to the edge of the room are now backing out the door. Leaving us to our reunion, but not before one pipes up to say that he’ll return in a few minutes. Lucas waits until the door closes. Then he sits on the bed and pulls me into his lap.
A thousand emotions swirl about, mixing with questions to form an amalgam that gums up my whole thought process. Instead of asking how Lucas found me or where I even am, everything just comes out in a gush of tears and heaving and, most embarrassingly, an ample amount of snot. Despite how horrendous I must look, smell, and sound with all of my wailing, Lucas only holds me tighter, rubbing circles around my back and whispering about how much he loves me.
“You’re fine now,” he says. “You’re not alone anymore. You’re never going to be alone again.”
“Alone? When was I alone?” I had a dream that I had red nails half grown out, but it must have been a dream. My nails are short and a fresh, natural pink.
Lucas is rubbing my hand, his fingers gliding over my knuckles again and again. “When do you think the accident happened?”
“You just got here, so I guess a day or two, since that’s about how long it would take you to fly here.” I look to the door. “Where’s dad? He must have come here with you, right?”
“Joy,” he says softly. “We’ve been looking for you for thirty-three days.”
“Thirty-three?”
“And I just found you today.” All of a sudden, I notice how tired Lucas looks. I’ve been so selfish this whole time, only thinking of how this is the first time he has ever seen me without make-up. He’s lost weight too. His shoulders are sharper under his flannel. Eyes and cheeks sunken. “Not for lack of trying.”