Delusive

by Courtney Lane

  Jaco appeared in the hall, tapping his watch. “Elias, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we’re gonna be late for that…thing.”

  He averted his eyes as he hissed at Jaco, “Isso pode esperar até eu acabar!” Holding me in his gaze again, his mild annoyance toward Jaco’s interruption began to disappear. “You have every right to be upset. Let me try to earn you back. Have dinner with me tonight. Wherever you want to go, we will go. We can start over and go as slow or as fast as you want. Consider me the man who will do anything for you—anything you want me to.” He kissed my forehead again and haphazardly redressed. He held my head one last time, his lips met mine as he whispered, “Amo-te,” before leaving with Jaco.

  I clutched my chest, feeling my erratically beating heart. I slipped against the wall, banging the back of my head against it repeatedly until I could feel the physical pain. Staring at the ceiling, I shouted, “Fuck!”

  AFTER CLOSING, I gave Skylar a call. I couldn’t go home and face Elias’s numerous versions of apologies or take the chance he might slip into my room. I was in deep need of a familiar place. A place devoid of the needs or wants of other people. A place devoid of the thoughts and emotions, demanding my return to Elias.

  I took the battery out of my phone, removed the SIM card, and trashed it. Before leaving work, I headed to the store to purchase a new pay-as-you-go phone.

  IT WAS THE first time Skylar had ever invited me to her house. As it turned out, she didn’t live far from the place she took me and dumped me. I felt guilty for my reaction to her residence from the moment she opened the door.

  “Don’t give me that look.” She snarled in defense. “This is my aunt’s place. They are fumigating my house.”

  “You don’t have to act this way, Skylar.” I gave her a coy grin and shrugged it off to let her know it didn’t matter where she lived. “I know you live on your own, and I know what La Dentelle pays.”

  She tucked one side of her lavender hair behind her ear and expelled a large spat of air. “It pays enough for a place better than this.”

  “It does, but—”

  “Stop it. I know you’re just going to insult me.” She pulled me inside and slapped my ass for good measure.

  Rubbing the sting out of my behind, I strolled into her living room.

  Looking around her “aunt’s” house, it looked like she lived alone for a long time and the maid had quit some years ago. Many of the furnishings were worse for wear from what I could see of them. Skylar’s lingerie and many of her clothes were strewn around the downstairs area of the house. “If you need any help with the cleaning, I could do it on my day off.”

  She pointed at my face as hers soured. “You said you wouldn’t judge.”

  Clearing off the piles of unopened mail so I had a place to sit, I curled up on her dingy microsuede sectional. “Elias and I broke up.”

  She was immediately at my side, sitting next to me and clutching my hand in comfort. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

  The idea of Cabo swirled around in my mind. The voice of reason told me No. Not yet. “No,” I finally replied. Chatting about it wouldn’t have helped me get through it or rid me of the aching pit inside me that felt starved for Elias.

  Being that she had the tendency to be a little hot-headed, discussing what he did to me would only anger her. I preferred to keep her in the dark. Especially because I knew I wouldn’t be without him for long. She would always remember and be unbearable over her need to tell me how bad he was for me.

  “Party favors are on the way. Here.” She grabbed a small white packet from the table in front of us and slipped a pill from it, handing it to me. “Take this.”

  “What is this?” I held up the pale blue pill with a hole in the shape of a heart in the center.

  “It will take the pain away. At least for a little while.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not into drugs, Skylar. Never have been and never will be. This won’t cure my pain.”

  “You have all the time in the world to feel it. I wouldn’t give you anything to fuck you over. Promise.” She gave me a smile. “Besides, how bad can something with a heart in the center be?”

  “From what I’ve heard, Mollies usually have glamorous, and sometimes artistic, designs.”

  “Point taken,” she laughed. “Never mind.”

  I grabbed her wrist, halting her before she was able to put the pill back in the bag. I sat up and took the pill along with the bottle of water she gave to me.

  Within an hour, I was completely mellowed out. I had never felt so calm. Like nothing mattered and there wasn’t any rush to do…anything. The more I mellowed, the more visitors Skylar had. My body felt heavy and desired to meld with the floor. Everything in motion around me moved at a calculated pace.

  “Come over here!” I heard Skylar shout.

  Her voice surrounded me, making it difficult to determine exactly where she was. “Skylar? Where are you?”

  “Right here, silly.” Someone braced my shoulders and led me around.

  I flopped down and thankfully, there was cushion underneath me to cradle my fall. Next to me, I focused on a familiar face. “Brent.” I smiled.

  “Hanley.” He smiled back. “Never thought I’d see you again.” He took a hold of a small joint and inhaled, holding his breath for a moment. As his breath unfurled, a long stream of smoke skirted around him. He handed it to me.

  “Nope,” I declined his offer. One drug I shouldn’t have taken, was one drug plenty.

  He attempted to kiss me. Pressing my hands against his chest, I shoved him back, hard.

  “You’re not his girl anymore, right? Why don’t we go into a room alone?”

  Skylar’s breath was at my ear as she asked, “Never realized how attractive he is, have you?’ She sat down on top of me, practically straddling my lap. “Imagine the look on your ex-assholes face when you walk around with him on your arm.”

  I leaned back, feeling like I was covered in a long, fuzzy blanket. “You’re either really stupid or don’t remember what he did to your boyfriend.” I grabbed her thighs, holding them firmly. She bristled and looked down at my hands on her legs. A slow simper spread across her face as she began to grow more at ease.

  She sat fully astride my lap and pushed my hair behind my shoulders. Leaning to the side of my face, she whispered in my ear, “Brent has a gun. Let that asshole screw with him and find out about it.” She placed a kiss on my lips that shocked me and was too short for me to reciprocate.

  The weight on my lap disappeared, leaving me free again.

  TWENTY

  SKYLAR AND I HAD the day off from work the next day and decided to take a walk around her neighborhood. Having brought nothing to wear, I had to raid her closet. Nothing fit me properly other than an upper-thigh-length skirt and a black band T-shirt with a cut-out neck that was unseasonal.

  After lunch at a hole in the wall restaurant, she convinced me to tag along during her visit to the tattoo parlor next door. She decided to fill what little ink-free space she had left on her right arm.

  Skylar flipped through the graphics book at the tattoo shop as she leaned across the glass display case. “You should get your nipple pierced.”

  I looked across the way at my reflection in the mirrors lining the wall behind the cases. The bags underneath my eyes showed every bit of the exhaustion I felt internally. I pulled my large shades down from my hair—styled in a sloppy high bun—to settle across my eyes. “Why do I look so tired? I could’ve sworn all I did was sleep last night.” Closing my wool coat to hug me tightly, I reached in my pocket and took out my new phone. As I thumbed through my sad list of contacts, I realized I had forgotten to check up on my father or give him my new number.

  The instant I began to do just that, Skylar swooped in and stole my phone.

  “You’re twenty-seven, not sixteen. You do not need to call in every goddamn day and let him know where you are.” She leaned across the counter and rested her chin between her
clenched fists, gulping back whatever threatened to expel from her mouth. “I’m coming down from whatever Brent gave me.”

  Remembering how she and Brent disappeared together at one point during the night last night, I wondered what happened to the guy she was seeing. “Skylar…what happened to Robin?”

  “Coma,” she whispered. “Elias. Bastard. I hate him. If that wasn’t enough, he hurt another one of my friends, too. He had to move the hell out of town, I heard. He was beaten up pretty badly. That fuckhead is violent as hell. He needs anger-management therapy ASAP.”

  “Who was the other friend?”

  She glimpsed at my reflection in the mirror. “The guy who accidentally pushed you at the party a while back. The one you claimed I abandoned you in, when you abandoned me.”

  I fingered the glass cabinet as I digested the information. She affirmed my belief in what Elias really did. “How do you know Elias other than going to school together? And why did you crash the party with Robin?”

  “Elias and me, we were friends—without benefits—once.” She shrugged. “I heard rumors about Robin doing some shady shit while working for Elias. I knew what would happen at the party if I brought him, and it did.”

  “And you wanted me to see it,” I muttered.

  “Robin had no fucking idea everyone knew how he was screwing up the job. Poor him.”

  “And what job was that?”

  “I dunno,” she said coyly with a shrug. “Just knew he was stealing money.”

  “I overheard what you and Elias talked about. Was it about Cabo?”

  Her alabaster skin turned an even paler shade. From the look on her face, it meant something severe enough to scare her. “Did he tell you to say that, or are you saying that because you’re being nosy?”

  Confused, I turned around to directly regard her, but she wouldn’t return my gaze.

  A bald man covered in colorful tattoos from head to toe appeared from out of the backroom. “Can I help you ladies?”

  Skylar shook her head as though coming out of a dream. “Not here and not now,” she said to me. She plastered a seductive smile on her face and stood up tall with her breasts pointing toward the man. “I need a tat filled in and my friend here wants—”

  “Nothing,” I finished her statement. “She’s only here for moral support.”

  “Oh, come on,” Skylar goaded me. “Get your nipple pierced. Believe me, you will thank me later.”

  Shaking my head, I took a seat on the worn black leather couch at the front of the parlor.

  “You just want to be alone so you can sneak and call your father to check in.”

  “You have a tattoo to get, don’t you?” I queried with condescension.

  Skylar leaned in the stout bald man’s ear and whispered a few inaudible things that made him nod with a sick grin on his face.

  “Right this way.” He led her to the back.

  The sounds I heard shortly after they disappeared in the back room weren’t those of someone being tattooed.

  I tried to keep my judgment at bay, but it was difficult. I wished she wouldn’t have felt the need to use sex all the time; she didn’t need to give that part of herself up in exchange for what she wanted. She was a beautiful woman who could’ve said things in a seductive way to have everything she desired. It saddened me that beneath the tough exterior, Skylar might have been a little insecure about herself. No one who wasn’t would’ve used sex as payment. She was worth so much more.

  To prevent going into the backroom and breaking up Skylar’s idea of a cash exchange, I dialed my father and waited. When the call went unanswered, I sent him a text to let him know I had a new phone and that I was the one who had called him.

  “Hi.”

  Startled, I looked up at the gentleman who recently entered and decided to greet me. With his dark hair, dark eyes, and visible tats from neck to hand, he was cute in a typical bad-boy way. While he looked back at me with eyes that fell beyond friendly interest, I couldn’t exchange the same.

  “I’m waiting on my friend,” I told him quickly and stared down at my phone on my lap.

  He sat next to me, leaving too little room for comfort. “Mateus,” he intoned. “Thought I’d introduce myself.”

  “Okay…” I tried to give him a smile despite my annoyance and scooted a few inches away from him on the couch. “I recently broke up with someone and I’m still reeling from that. I’m not interested. I’m sure you’re really nice, but no.”

  His expressionless face stared at me for a few seconds too long. He stood up from the couch and sat on the stool next to the glass display case containing various body jewelry. “Very good answer, Hanley.”

  Alerted, I gawked at him. He nodded to the door, bringing my attention to Elias’s car—the Nova—parked directly in front of the parlor.

  I stood quickly, and my head spun at the sudden loss of equilibrium. I didn’t take the Z/28 and had no idea how he could’ve found me. Then, I remembered Jaco mentioning a man named Mateus who also worked for Elias. It could’ve been a coincidence, but as I quickly learned, there was no such thing when it came to Elias. “Have you…been following me, whoever you are?” I asked.

  “I have been…for a long time.” He marched toward the entrance door and opened it for me.

  I shifted my weight back and forth, delaying the inevitable. “Why haven’t I seen you around?”

  “It’s part of my job to be invisible. Mr. Cari never travels without backup protection. This time is special.” He pointed his chin to the open door. “After you, Miss Harper.”

  From over my shoulder, I glimpsed down the hall toward the closed door.

  “Don’t worry about her,” he assured me. “I’ll take good care of her.”

  “Don’t…hurt her,” I requested, my voice suddenly becoming hoarse.

  He gave me a nod. “I’m not in the business of putting my hands on women, as per Mr. Cari’s orders. I’ll make sure she gets home safely after she’s done fucking the guy in the back.”

  My hesitant steps led me out of the parlor. I leaned against the glass window of the building, keeping my space from the man who looked much better than he did the last time we met. Not a single thing was out of place. From his white dress shirt, sans tie, open at the collar, to his black slacks and one-button Italian wool sports coat. Elias still made me weak from his mere presence.

  His eyes settled over my attire long enough to make me uncomfortable.

  Putting my hands in my pockets, I manipulated my coat to cover my body a little more.

  “I thought you were sent enough clothes to keep you from resorting to borrowing from Skylar.”

  “I’m not wearing panties, either, just like Skylar never does, are you going to punish me about that, too?”

  His eyes flickered, a skewed smile deepened one dimple. “Not unless your idea of punishment is the way I fuck you.”

  A sudden chill worked up my spine making me shudder. “Why are you here?”

  “I hate being ignored,” he addressed me with a coldness that made me shiver again. “I’ve tried it your way, a way I wasn’t comfortable with, but was easily done considering the state you left me in. Now that I’m back to the man I was made to be, and you stood me up, we’re going to do things in a way I’m used to. Believe me, the changes are retroactive. You’ll soon find out exactly what I mean.”

  “I never agreed to meet with you,” I countered.

  His contemptuous smile remained steady. “Take off your sunglasses. I can’t continue to speak with you unless I can see your eyes.”

  Mindlessly, his command was followed. I looked down at my sunglasses in my hands, loathing the way he easily persuaded me.

  “Busy night last night?” he asked, dryly amused by the lack of sleep shown in the dark circles underneath my eyes.

  “I got rid of my phone, Elias, and I thought I got rid of you.”

  His smile tempered as his eyes glimmered despite turning a darker hue. “You want the impossible, Ha
nley.”

  I folded my arms across my chest, keeping my chin high and my shoulders broad. “I’m not going to go with you just because you bat your pretty green eyes at me and show off your dimples. You…hurt…me.”

  “I know,” he said softly as he stepped closer to me.

  I held up my hands, shaking my head. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  He slipped a phone—not belonging to him—from his back pocket and tossed it to me.

  After catching it in both hands, I eyed the black screen covered in some sort of residue. When I touched the screen, the dark, crusty red film flaked, indicating it might have been blood. I glanced at him, noting the driving gloves on his hands.

  With a smirk, he began to remove them. “Play the video, querida.”

  I slid my hands across the touch screen to open the menu and was faced with a freeze frame picture. Brent’s face was splayed across the screen. Someone’s hands were in his hair, pulling his head back, forcing his head in position. I caught sight of a swelling eye and a busted lip.

  The play arrow was dead center, waiting to be pressed. With trembling hands, I hit play and was faced with the brutal pistol whipping of a man who dared to touch me last night.

  I dropped the phone to the ground and took several steps backward.

  “I took it very easy on him. The more I’m without you, the harder it is to keep the line from disappearing and making me go over the edge and ending the existence of any man who would dare to touch something of mine. My associate, Mateus, who is standing behind you, was at the party last night and witnessed your reckless behavior. I’m not sure what that was about, but either way…maybe we should both forgive and forget.”

  Mateus picked up the pieces of the phone and disappeared back inside the parlor.

  With smooth as silk movements, Elias stepped backward and opened the passenger side door of his car for me.

  I hesitated.

  “I’m not above making a phone call to Mateus and breaking a rule amongst the people who work for me. Don’t push me any further. Come with me.”