The Best Friend

by K Larsen

  I push upright. "But in the thick of it, how did you know if the cost was worth the cause?"

  "I didn't," she states simply.

  "Extremely unhelpful."

  "You asked! I'm being candid with you. I did not know. I let my heart lead, which given my state of mind, probably wasn't the optimum idea. But I wouldn't trade a day of it." She tucks a crimson strand of hair behind one ear.

  "My heart wants Mike." The words are barely audible but it feels good to admit it out loud to someone. I rub my eyes, exhaustion from little sleep all week catching up with me.

  "So be with Mike. The only way to love is to hold on to it when it’s given and let go when you give it. If you’re both hanging on to it, it will strangle everyone. If you love him, Aubry, then really love him. But, let him love you too. Accept it without strings."

  "It's complicated."

  "You're making it more involute than it needs to be." She gives me a pointed look.

  I ignore her choice of word and glean its meaning through context, as I often have to do with Nora and squawk at her. "I have a moral compass goddamnit!"

  "Sure you do." Her tone is decidedly sarcastic and I don't care for it one bit.

  "Hey," I snap and give her my best defeated expression.

  "What? Remember that time you stole earrings from the mall? Or how about the time you prank called that boy threatening bodily harm and scared him so badly he called nine-one-one? Or wait! Remember when you—"

  I clamp my palm over her mouth. "I get it. My moral compass is slightly bent."

  "I'd say you point solidly in the Northwest direction."

  "You're mean."

  Her chest bounces up and down with the laughter she's trying to hold in.

  "And you're my best friend. I want you to be happy. If that's with Mike, go for it. I don't know what's holding you two back but it's incredibly vexing to witness."

  In a dream-like state, I can feel his palm on my chest and mine on his. Feel my breath, he says. And I can. Slow and steady. Rhythmic and sure. My eyes snap open and a scream rips from my lungs.

  "Shit! Stop! Please stop." The voice is deep, genuinely surprised and retreating. My flailing dies down as I squint through the dark.

  "What the ever-loving shit Mike! Taking a stalker page from Liam's playbook?"

  "Ouch. Okay. That's fair." He says rubbing his cheekbone. "You clocked me good."

  "If you're expecting a conversation before you explain how you got in and why you decided to break into my apartment in the middle of the night, then you'll be sorely disappointed." I gather my comforter against my chest and scoot until my back’s against the headboard.

  "I have a key. I didn't break in." I flip on my nightstand lamp. "Your sister gave me a copy when you were miss—in the jungle. So I could help out if needed."

  Mike perches carefully on the end of the bed. "I want you." He holds a hand up as my mouth gapes open. "And you're right. I want to preserve my name and my reputation and my fucking life. I won't apologize for that. I don't want to out myself. I don't want to face jail time. No one wants to get caught and I'm no different. But, it's torture knowing you're just fifteen minutes from me and I can't be with you. So, can we please end this goddamn charade of you letting me get just close enough before stomping away and shutting me out?"

  My tongue darts out and wets my dry lips. Mike’s eyes follow the action, his pupils dilating. God, I miss his touch.

  “Are you going to let Salve do his job or are you going to be some vigilante asshole?”

  His answer is silence, but I can’t take the defeated, dejected look he wears a second longer. I release my comforter from my grip and lean forward.

  In a swift movement, he cradles me in his arms. His nose is buried in my hair, his fingers flexing against my back. The wind slaps the screen door against the frame again and I tense in Mike’s arms.

  “I’ve got you. I will never let anything happen to you.”

  The breath rushes from my lungs. “I know,” I say. And it’s true. I believe it in my core. It’s a fact, not something to be questioned. Mike would never hurt me, yet here I am demanding that he implicates himself by doing things the right way. The law-abiding way. It’s an odd moment as my brain wars with my heart. But like Nora said, I have a choice to make and right now it seems pretty simple.

  I choose Mike.

  “I accept you.”

  Mike grins in a devious way, his eyes light up as he puts a big hand on the back of my neck and follows up with a kiss. He pulls me into him, draping his arm over my shoulders and I feel a sense of security that I’ve longed for.

  32

  Mike

  My cock is thick with morning wood and she doesn’t miss it. I don’t feel her weight on the bed at all. Her mouth is on my thigh. Fingers run up my shaft, then back down, in slow, deliberate movements. She fists my dick, running a hand from the head to the base. I feel her tongue lick where her fingers just grazed and gasp. My fingers weave into her hair and tug. I strain to remain in control of my body but I can’t. The bed shifts beneath me and then her mouth is on me. That elusive bitch of a sensation builds. Before I explode, I push her head away and sit up. Pushing her on to her back I start at her neck, working my way to her mouth.

  “Good morning,” she breathes on a little laugh.

  “It’s about to be,” I say clearing the scratchy sleep from my throat.

  I nibble her bottom lip before making my journey south. I stop and savor all the peaks and valleys of her body. Her breasts, her nipples, the underside of those beautiful boobs right down to her navel. Nipping at the tiny belly under her belly button I push her legs farther apart to accommodate me. Aubry’s body is one of my favorite things. The responsiveness of it. The softness and the sounds she makes. I spread her wide with my fingers and lick up her center. Her hips buck and she squirms when I nibble on her clit. I push my mouth harder against her, suctioning her swollen bud and suck hard. Her hands fly to my head. Fingers tangling in messy curls, fisting my hair almost to the point of discomfort.

  “Don’t stop,” she pants. Her back arches, the muscles in her thighs bunch—taut. I keep my pace because she’s close. When her legs go straight and rigid and she grunts I ease my pace and favor her clit with gentle laps, bringing her down slowly.

  Crawling up the bed over her, she wraps her legs around my waist and squeezes my hips to hers. Her lips crash into mine. I plunge my tongue deep. She kisses me with a certain passion I haven’t experienced before. Our kiss goes from morning passion to savage and feral. Her moan ignites me with choking desire. I thrust my cock against her wetness, savoring the feel before plunging inside. She half gasps, half grunts her pleasure, while clawing at my shoulder blades. My heart pounds, pectorals bunch, as I match her hips in furious rhythm. Her kiss is like fire. Her touch—a drug. I careen over the precipice into the abyss of my orgasm.

  After collapsing on top of her, Aubry’s body goes slack beneath mine. I prop myself up on elbows. Her face is flushed, eyes blinking away the remaining moments of passion. She grins as I lean down and kiss her.

  I pull out and roll off her on to my back and ask, “Hungry?”

  She turns on to her side, facing me and traces random patterns on my chest. “Yup.”

  “What do you feel like?”

  “I haven’t gone grocery shopping in a while so our choices are pretty limited,” she says.

  “I can run out and grab something. You can make coffee.”

  “In that case, I want an everything bagel, toasted with heaps of veggie cream cheese.” She bends over me and lightly kisses me.

  “Gobs of cream cheese it is.” I follow her lead, easing my way out of bed while searching for my discarded boxers and other useful items, like pants and a shirt.

  On my way out the door, Aubry’s in the kitchen, filling the coffee pot with water. I watch her for a moment. Her movements graceful. The way her tee shirt lifts, showing those toned upper thighs, when she reaches for two mugs. The way
the sun streaming through the kitchen window hits her black hair, giving her a blue-tinted halo.

  “You going?” she asks, catching me watching her.

  I chuckle at the way she bites her bottom lip, self-conscious to find my eyes glued to her. “Yup. Just appreciating my conquest first.”

  Her gaze narrows. “Conquest?”

  I let the laugh bubble up and out as I walk out.

  I step out of Aubry’s apartment light on my feet. Feeling like a million bucks. With that just-got-laid-I’m-on-top-of-the-world pep in my step, I float the almost mile to the end of her road to the bakery she loves so much, secure in the fact that this guy, got the girl. Finally. But life’s a funny thing. Sometimes when you think you finally have it all, that your world is in order, the Earth tilts on its axis and throws everything out of rotation. I am mildly irritated at the café, because the line is already out the door when I arrive, but there is no way I am going to not get Aubry her request. I am disappointed when they are out of everything bagels, but know that as long as heaps of veggie cream cheese are on her toasted bagel, she’ll enjoy whatever the flavor is. I am downright euphoric at the thought of a steaming mug of coffee and my favorite girl waiting for my return. Emotions are tricky things. They are fleeting at times and lingering others. But I wasn’t prepared for the gamut to run so extreme.

  When I push through her front door and step through the threshold, terror grips me.

  “Aubry?” I call out only to be met with silence of such epic proportions that my blood turns icy. I push further into the apartment, set the breakfast bag on the counter and call out her name again. I get nothing. I check the bathroom. No Aubry. Her bedroom. No Aubry. I stalk back into the kitchen and halt. The coffee pot is shattered on the floor right next to a pool of blood.

  My body goes rigid. “Aubry!” I call out, again, knowing I won’t get an answer but needing one so badly. Aubry’s absence leaves a gigantic vacuum. I never realized until this moment how much she’d filled this apartment. With silence engulfing me I give into the terror that squeezes my heart. Aubry’s abductor stood where I stand now. I shiver. What did she think as he primed himself to kidnap her?

  The quiet is shattered by the vibrating phone in my back pocket. I yank my phone out, unlock the screen and read the text from a 000 number.

  You’re next.

  33

  Aubry

  No. No. No.

  The single thought I allow myself is that, No. As my fingers gingerly gravitate to the tacky mess of hair and skin on the side of my head, I keep my eyes squeezed shut because this is not my truth. I won’t allow it.

  My head pulsates, throbbing pain knits tightly behind my eyeballs.

  I am in my kitchen. I’m switching on the radio. Dusty Springfield is playing. That song, what’s the name of it, “I Only Want to be with You.” I’m thinking how perfect it is. How perfectly it describes me and Mike. Right down to the line about asking someone to dance. I’m thinking of his face that night at the birthday party. The way his eyes twinkled under the outdoor lights. That sexy smirk he tossed my way right before he extended his hand and asked me to dance. I’m reliving the butterflies-in-my-belly sensation all over again as I recall the way he whipped me around the dance floor like an expert. How surprised I was that he knew how to dance—really dance. I’m smiling so hard my cheeks have begun to ache as I feel the song playing and sing along, dancing across the kitchen floor, coffee pot full of water for the machine, in hand. I can’t wait to sip my coffee and nestle against Mike in the warm streak of the sun coming through the window.

  I turn around and there’s a man.

  Not Mike.

  I scream as instinct takes over. I hurl the coffee pot at him. He tries to duck but doesn’t quite make it out of the way in time and the pot shatters on the side of his head. Nearly instantaneously blood begins to trickle down his face and drip to floor. I’m legit mad at my galley style kitchen for not giving me ample room to sidestep him before it dawns on me that my anger is delaying me. I charge, arms crossed over my chest, elbows out, hoping I can check him, hockey style, out of the way if I hit hard enough. He spins off balance, hip crunching on the countertop as I pass. My head snaps back, hard and fast as he catches and yanks my ponytail. I open my mouth to scream. I ball my fingers into fists. My heart thuds in my chest and then a searing white pain crackles, like lightning across my vision.

  I don’t dare open my eyes. I can’t accept this reality and if I can just keep them closed long enough I can wait this nightmare out. I know I can open them to Mike’s face, safe and sound in my apartment. I will not accept this truth. I won’t.

  Glacial liquid hits my face making me gasp and sputter in shock.

  “Wake up.” The voice is hostile, gritty. It’s also unfamiliar. I curl up on myself. Knees held tight to my chest. Forehead tucked into knees. I do not open my eyes. Another dousing of water dumped on me gets my teeth chattering. “Wake. The Fuck. Up, Fighter.”

  My eyes roll as a pain shoots straight through my temple and embeds itself behind my ear. I try to focus, needing to see at least one of them if I’m going to identify them when—if—I get out of this mess. Jackknifing up, I scurry in the opposite direction of the offending voice while still blinking. The man standing before me isn’t the man from before. It’s not Small Man either. I look him over, scowling.

  A deep chuckle rises from him. “Gregor said you were aptly nicknamed.”

  A chill runs the length of my spine. The other one. Yuri. I keep my lips pressed firmly together. I’m not in the same room as before. It’s bright in here. Unpainted drywall. A boarded-up window. Old wide pine plank floors. This is a house.

  “Look all you want, Fighter, you won’t find any clues as to where you are.” He stands in the center of the room, looking twice his size from my spot on the floor. “We don’t do loose ends. Consider this … what do you call it? Death care?” His accent is thick and hard to decipher. He shakes his head and snorts. “No. Hospice. Yes, hospice. Your last stop before death. These walls, this room will be the place you transition from this world, to another.” He nods, a sharp movement that looks almost comical juxtaposed to his fat neck. I focus on my breaths. In and out. Slow and consistent while he smirks at me, grabs his junk and makes a lewd gesture on a roaring laugh.

  “You’ve cost us though. Police snooping. Alexei being watched. Questions being asked. It’s bad for business. It’s not all your fault though, we’re securing your boyfriend right now, so we can appropriately punish you both before your ending.”

  My skin ripples with fear steeped in anger. Not Mike too. This can’t be how it ends.

  “Up.” Yuri barks, “We take you to room now.”

  I press against the wall behind me as he approaches. Another man steps into the room. A huge man with a nasty smile. Everything about him screams sinister intentions and it makes me want to disappear into the drywall.

  “Don’t make me need him,” Yuri snorts. I stand, bracing myself with palms pressed firmly against the wall to quell the onslaught of vertigo. “Good girl.”

  Like a lamb to slaughter I’m tugged along while they’re yapping in Russian. But I have a secret. I am the violence, the sickness, and the rage they think they possess. I will not go down without a battle. So many enemies and so many vendettas that it fills up my soul. I catalog every detail of the house as we go. Twelve windows, twenty steps to the foyer from the stairwell, every third step—squeaky floorboard. I’m stuck in this game with its own set of fucked up rules but as long as the sun burns, I’m determined to win.

  34

  Mike

  The silence between me and Liam is deafening. I’ve never seen him so calm when angry. My stomach rolls with nerves as he pinches the bridge of his nose and stares at the ceiling.

  “How the fuck—No, why the fuck did you ever get involved in this?” I open my mouth to speak. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. I don’t. How could you?” He spits the words at me.

&
nbsp; “Liam, man, I know ok. I know. But right now, I need your help. They have Aubry.”

  He glares at me. “Police are all over the docks lately so they aren’t going there. What the hell am I going to tell Nora?”

  “Nothing. You tell her nothing. I’m going to fix this. I just need to find them,” I grit out.

  Liam balls his hands into fists, then relaxes them. “I’m only helping you for Aubry. This secret you’ve kept…” his thought loses steam. Then again, Liam’s never been one to discuss emotions willingly. I need to move, let off the pent-up energy tearing around inside me. Aubry’s in danger. Liam and I might never be friends again. My world is spinning wildly. Chaos wreaks havoc on my system. I’m not prepared to lose everything in one fell swoop. My hands tremble as anxiety pulses through me. I need to do something.

  “You’re my best friend. I consider you family, man. You know that. It killed me to keep it from you but, come on Liam, we all have secrets.”

  He slides his sunglasses on before jamming his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. We do, but you knew mine. Let’s go. I want to pull all the property records, see what jumps out.”

  Liam’s anger radiates off him and into his driving. He insisted on taking his car, citing that mine was probably being watched. I hate that I’ve involved him but I had no other option. I grab the handle above the door as he takes a corner at warp speed. The twenty-minute drive to his storage unit has only taken ten. He whips into a parking spot and kills the engine.

  “Let’s go.” His clipped tone makes me hate myself more than I already do.

  Inside he pulls boxes and makes two stacks. “You start there. Look for anything within a hundred miles of us. They couldn’t have gotten much farther than that yet.”