Escape (Part Three)

by Reed, Zelda

  A rush of cold air swept through the cracked window, opened by Jonah to let out the smell of Chace and me. My exposed nipples hardened and I tugged the sheet over my chest, pulling myself to a seated position.

  Jonah rolled his eyes as if to say, I’ve seen better than that.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, shoving my messy hair behind my ear.

  “I’m here to save the fucking day, what do you think?” He leaned over me, two fingers flicking Chace’s cheek. He didn’t stir. “Wake him up for me, will you?”

  I shook Chace’s shoulder, much like Jonah did to mine, but he wordlessly curled away from me. His back was exposed in the warm light of my bedroom, a smatter of faint freckles covering his skin.

  “Chace!” Jonah barked, like a father screaming for his son.

  Chace started, his entire body jumping beneath the sheet. He threw it over his head and Jonah stormed to the other side of the bed, yanking it off. He threw the excess towards me and I caught it in my lap, bunching the sheets around me like a dress.

  Chace was naked and exposed as Jonah clapped his hands in front of his face. “Get up, asshole,” he said.

  “Fuck you,” Chace muttered, spilling onto his back. He threw an arm over his face, his half-hard cock curved between his legs.

  “Chace,” I said, touching his shoulder again. “You should probably get up.”

  He peeked beneath his arm, blue eyes sparkling in the shadow of his skin. I gave him a small smile and the corner of his mouth lifted to a smirk.

  “Shit,” he said, sitting up. His cock shifted between his legs. He looked at me. “You’re naked.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “You’re naked too,” Jonah said, grabbing Chace’s pillow and throwing it over his lap. “And you’re a fucking idiot.”

  It took a moment for the full picture to appear before his eyes: the red walls surrounding him, the bed beneath his feet, Jonah with a sharp scowl etched into his face.

  “What time you did get here?” Chace said to Jonah.

  His brother narrowed his eyes. “Does it matter? You never called me.”

  Chace kicked his feet to the floor. “I was going to. Can you hand me my boxers?”

  “I’m not handing you shit,” Jonah said. “Except for this.”

  He shoved his phone in Chace’s outstretched hand. It was the size of a small tablet. Chace fixed his eyes on the screen, blinking once, then twice, before scrolling through an article.

  “What does it say?” I asked, carefully looking over Chace’s shoulder.

  Jonah snatched the phone from him.

  “It says that Jennifer – You remember her, Chace? Your crazy ex-girlfriend? – has been feeling,” Jonah glanced down at the screen, “increasingly pressured to terminate her pregnancy.” Chace dropped his head, burying his face in his hands. “What the fuck did you say to her?”

  “He didn’t say anything,” I said.

  Jonah whipped his gaze towards me. “Am I talking to you?”

  Chace looked up. “Don’t talk to her like that.”

  A humorless laugh crawled from Jonah’s throat. “What the fuck did you say?”

  “Don’t make me repeat myself,” said Chace.

  Another laugh ripped from Jonah’s stomach. “You’re unbelievable you know that? I’m here to help you, and you’re trying to police my tone?”

  “Alice has nothing to do with this.”

  Jonah’s eyes widened. “Alice has --- what? Alice has everything to do with this? Jennifer wouldn’t be so pissed if you hadn’t started fucking your assistant.”

  Chace buttoned his lips. He wouldn’t look at me as his hands curled into the edge of the mattress, shoulders slumping forward beneath the weight of the truth. He passed a hand over his face. “I don’t even remember when that started,” he said.

  Jonah glanced at me, a fire burning in his eyes, red and orange flames licking around dark blue.

  “Go take a shower,” he said, kicking Chace’s boxers to his feet. Chace shamelessly stood, unconcerned with the pillow falling on the ground, exposing his cock. Jonah looked away, stuffing his hands in his pockets as Chace dressed. “When you get out, you’re going to tell me everything, everything, you’ve said to that girl.”

  Chace tugged on his shirt. “What if I can’t remember?”

  Jonah’s eyes flickered towards me. I ducked my head.

  “Why wouldn’t you be able to remember?”

  Chace shook his head. “Something’s going on and,” he looked at me. “We can talk about it later.”

  Jonah nodded. He opened my bedroom door, ushering Chace out with a wave of his arm. We exchanged one last glance, a small smile passed between us before Jonah slammed the door behind him.

  He waited, hand on the knob, ear pressed to the wood, listening out for Chace’s bare feet scratching against the floor, down the hall and around the corner, out of earshot.

  “You told me you were gonna tell him,” he said.

  A small lump formed in my throat. “I was – we were - after he saw the doctor but he can’t – he won’t – come out and see him.”

  Jonah threw out his arms. “So what, we’re just gonna let him remain in the dark?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to figure this out?”

  Jonah twisted up his mouth. “You’re right, that’s my job. But I’m a little concerned that you’ve forgotten how to do yours.”

  I clutched my sheet closer to my chest. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You’re his assistant first and his fuck-buddy second. Your job is to assist in getting his memory back.”

  My jaw tightened. “I’m trying.”

  Jonah spit out another laugh. “You aren’t doing anything but lying on your back while you get fucked.”

  I opened my mouth to retort, borrowing a line from Chace’s book, you can’t talk to me like that, but Jonah held up his hand. It was a signal that was native to me, wielded by Chace whenever he was tired of hearing from me, a sharp gesture that always shut me up.

  Jonah pulled his phone from his pocket and pressed it to his ear. His eyes remained fixed on mine until there was a light voice on the other end. A woman’s voice.

  “Marie,” he said, heading towards the door. “Get Jennifer Mitchel’s agent on the phone now.”

  Four

  “I don’t want to talk to him,” Jennifer said, one leg thrown over the other as she sat on the brown leather couch in the living room. She was wearing a short black dress, something reserved for dinner or a gallery opening, but there she was, overdressed and over styled for a meeting with Jonah and me.

  I was sitting across from her, in a straight back chair next to an end table. A wicker basket full of candles and dead leaves was balanced on top. A picture of fall in the middle of summer.

  “You have to talk to him,” Jonah said. “That’s why we’re all here.”

  “I’m not here because of Chace,” she said, his name cutting against her teeth.

  Jonah furrowed his eyebrows. “Then why the fuck are you here?”

  She dropped her gaze to me. “She knows why.”

  Jonah looked at me, impatiently awaiting my response.

  “I have no idea what she’s talking about.”

  He ran a sharp hand through his hair, a shock of grey at the temples. “Okay. Jennifer, please try to elaborate.”

  “I want Alice to do an interview with Cheryl Collins.”

  “Why?”

  Jennifer tilted her head to the side. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No,” Jonah sighed. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

  “I want her to set the record straight.”

  “You want to humiliate me in front of the entire world.”

  Jennifer raised an eyebrow.

  “Is that true?” Jonah asked.

  Jennifer’s eyes locked on mine, her hands folded neatly in her lap
. “I don’t have to humiliate you,” she said. “You’ve already done enough of that, by fucking my boyfriend.”

  “Ex-boyfriend,” I said.

  Her jaw twitched. “The father of my child.” She straightened her shoulders. Beat that.

  “I’m not doing it,” I said.

  Jennifer gripped the couch. “Then I’m leaving.”

  “No you’re not,” said Jonah. Jennifer stood up. “Please sit back down.”

  “Not if the two of you are just going to waste my time.”

  “I promise we won’t.”

  Jennifer took her seat, her knees pressed together as she placed her hands back in her lap.

  “You just want her to do this interview?” Jonah said.

  Jennifer nodded. “And admit she stole him away from me.”

  “I didn’t steal him,” I said. Then to Jonah, “He wasn’t cheating on her.”

  “You lie so easily,” said Jennifer. “I would love to see you crack on national television.”

  “That’s enough,” Jonah barked. Then to me, “You say my brother wasn’t cheating on her?”

  “He wasn’t.”

  “But he thinks --” Jonah cleared his throat. “The two of you are together now?”

  A small knot twisted in the base of my stomach. “Yes.”

  Jonah took the seat next to me. “We can spin this into a positive.”

  My eyes flickered to Jennifer. She glanced between the two of us with her signature smug smile.

  “I don’t want to spin anything,” I said. “I’m not doing it.”

  “You have a sister don’t you?” Jennifer said.

  I whipped my head towards her. “What?”

  “Your sister. She has two kids living in that shitty apartment of yours in Hell’s Kitchen?” I narrowed my eyes. “Oh yes. You think I didn’t do any research on you? The second I saw you were Chace’s assistant I knew there was something off with you. You and your sister are cut from the same cloth.”

  My hands gripped the bottom of my chair. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Jennifer tightened her mouth. “Don’t fucking talk to me like that,” she snapped. “Your sister fucked a governor. A man with grandchildren who plans to run for president in the election after next.”

  I pulled my tongue between my teeth, training my face not to react. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Jennifer smiled. “One phone call. That’s all I need to make before your sister’s trash is thrown into the street. How do you think she would handle that? The world knowing she was fucking for cash and got knocked up?”

  I couldn’t look at Jennifer’s smirk without my nails scratching the wood of the chair, itching to reach across the coffee table and claw out her eyes. I didn’t mind her throwing my name in the mud but she would not come after my sister.

  “How long do we have to make a decision?” Jonah said.

  “Twenty-four hours. And that’s being generous.”

  Jonah nodded and stood. I remained frozen in my chair, watching the rug sink under Jennifer’s weight as she followed Jonah to the threshold of the room. Evie was on the other side, waiting to lead her to the front door.

  Chace was most likely standing on the second floor landing, watching Jennifer grab the knob, her blonde hair pulled into a perfect bun, one last look thrown over her shoulder. She wouldn’t speak to him but she had no problem flashing a sour smile, one that read: I have all the cards and you have jack shit, how’s it feel?

  The second the door closed behind her, Jonah took her seat on the couch. “We’re going to say yes,” he said.

  “Isn’t there anything you can do to stop her?”

  “Stop Jennifer?” Jonah shook his head. “I’m afraid we have to play by her rules.”

  A stretch of silence swallowed us up, Jonah watching me with his hands clasped between his knees, my fingers pressed against one another in an effort to keep my hands from trembling. Jennifer was wielding the knife and she had me where it hurt the most. My sister. My niece and nephew. My family.

  “I don’t want the world knowing who I am,” I said, a frown playing at the corners of my mouth.

  Jonah shrugged. “It’s a little too late for that.”

  ***

  That night Chace wrapped his arms around me as I stood at the bathroom sink, his lips dragging across my shoulder, dancing along the curve of my neck until he was kissing the spot below my ear. A small flutter of light flew from my stomach to my throat, but I swallowed it before pushing him away.

  His eyes burned into my back as I stepped into my room, my shoulders slumped as I ran a hand through my hair.

  “Are you still upset about what you have to do?” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Of course I’m still upset. I don’t want to do it.”

  Chace shrugged. “Then don’t.”

  “I won’t let her drag my sister into this mess,” I said. “I made it, so I have to live with it.”

  Chace wrapped his hand around my wrist. He pulled me between his legs, both arms around my waist as he pressed his chin into my stomach. It was a strange feeling, like the heel of a foot against your torso, but it dragged a smile from me as our eyes met.

  “We made it,.”

  “Maybe,” I said, dragging my fingers through his hair. “But she isn’t trying to slit your throat. Metaphorically.”

  “No,” he said. “She’s just trying to get me to submit to a relationship I haven’t wanted for months.” His lips caught in the fabric of my blouse. “My memory’s a little foggy, but I remember the moment I realized I didn’t love her anymore.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes. We were getting ready for her friend’s wedding --”

  “Hannah’s wedding?”

  He nodded.

  “That was two months ago.”

  “I know,” he said. “She came out the bathroom and she looked beautiful – pink dress, hair curled to one side – she looked like the girl I’d been dreaming of my whole life.” Chace rested his palms flat against my back, reassuringly, planting a small kiss to my stomach. “And as I was standing there, I looked at her and thought, this is the moment you propose to her. It’s now or never and like a snap in the dark, I realized, she was beautiful, I loved looking at her, but I didn’t love her.”

  I tried to imagine the two of us, standing in front of all of those people at the wedding, exchanging vows and taken with one another and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t see myself tearing up as she walked down the aisle,” he stopped for a moment. “Instead there was a feeling of dread. I thought, shit, I can’t be stuck with her anymore but I was just too much of a pussy to say anything, until she found my phone.”

  “MatchU,” I said.

  He nodded. “I deleted that app. I don’t remember doing it, but it’s gone.”

  Chace pressed his forehead against my stomach and I felt the truth well up in my throat. I wanted to tell him everything, starting with the two of us and MatchU. If he didn’t remember deleting it he surely didn’t remember the party, beads of sweat forming beneath his mask as he met me on the third floor. But I didn’t want to disrupt his memory.

  Slowly but surely it would all flood back to him and I didn’t want to rush his realization.

  I didn’t want to give him up yet.

  Five

  Chace and I were having breakfast in the kitchen when Evie came back from her run. Dripping with sweat she stormed into the room, both hands on her hips as she said, “That’s it, I’m running around the house until all these assholes leave.”

  “What happened?” I asked, ripping off a piece of Chace’s bacon. He grinned at me, bumping his shoulder into mine.

  “They chased me,” she said, throwing open the refrigerator door. “I refused to answer their stupid questions and they ran me down.”

  “That’s why I refuse to go outside,” Chace said.

  Evie g
rabbed a bottle of water and took a long sip. “You know what, scratch everything I just said, I refuse to let them turn me into you.”

  Chace stretched out his arm and poked Evie’s stomach. “You’d benefit from my fast metabolism.”

  She smacked the back of his head, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Are you calling me fat?”

  “And what if I am?”

  From behind Evie looped her arm around Chace’s neck, tugging his head towards her chest until she had him in a choke hold. Chace threw himself back but Evie stood her ground, planting her feet on the wooden floor, her laughter dropping on the top of his head.

  “Take it back,” she said.

  Chace grinned. “No.”

  She tightened her arm and a choked laughter floated from Chace’s throat.

  “Now,” she said, his hair dancing across her mouth.

  The two of them laughed loud enough to fill the kitchen, the most joy the estate had seen in days. I allowed myself to smile at them, leaning my chin on the palm of my hand as my elbows rested against the island, watching the two of them act like unburdened children.

  It didn’t last long. Chace tugged on her arm and Evie let up, ruffling his hair in the process. She took another sip of her water as a pair of feet clamored down the stairs.

  “Upstairs,” Jonah said, red in the face. “All of you.”

  We followed Jonah up the stairs and around the corner, where chaos rung through Mr. Evans’s room. Bonnie was standing by his bed, her husband’s frail hand in hers as she stared down at him, long streaks of tears covering her cheeks. The nurses from before – the ones who lent me a pair of scrubs – rushed around her, pulling contraptions from beneath the bed, checking his vital signs, flipping through charts.

  The EKG machine, hooked near the window, released a sharp, unrelenting beep.

  “He’s crashing,” one of the nurses said, slapping on a pair of latex gloves.

  We were all frozen near the door, Evie and Chace in front of Jonah and me.

  “I’m calling Tyler,” Jonah said, heading down the hall with his phone in hand.