by Ava Lohan
Jenna’s aunt looked confused, but neither of us felt like explaining. I braced myself and followed Jenna into the shop. There was only one customer in the shop. It wasn’t Kegan. I made a face. It was Finn, pacing around the shop floor, looking like he had no idea what he was doing there. At his feet was my suitcase. Jenna looked me in the eyes, waiting for a nod, but I could only shake my head. The anger in her eyes faded slightly away.
No, it wasn’t Kegan, but Finn was definitely an asshole—Jenna was right about that.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, nailing the sharp tone I had dreamed of using if Kegan were to ever show up.
Finn turned to me and ran a hand through his short hair. “I wanted to give some flowers to a beautiful girl,” he said, his lips curling into an innocent smile. I narrowed my eyes in response. Finn turned serious. “I brought you your things,” he said, placing a blue tulip on the counter in front of an irritated Jenna.
“I don’t need them,” I responded dryly. Jenna and I’d been sharing her clothes. Luckily, we were the same size. I’d been working in the shop ever since I left Lust. Jenna’s aunt was paying me. It wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, but at the moment I was content. I was looking for something else, though.
“You should come back to Lust. The fifth floor is your home.”
“No.” I didn’t know which was worse: seeing Finn or seeing my suitcase. Finn reminded me of Kegan. So did my suitcase. Having both of them there in front of me was making me sick to my stomach, so I decided to watch Jenna as she made the bouquet.
“Do you want me to add any more flowers?” she asked with contempt.
“I don’t know, maybe. I’m trying to impress a girl.”
Jenna snorted. “Look, you’ve got red, white, yellow, and pink roses, two sunflowers, and three tulips. You’re sending a mixed message here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Every flower has a different meaning,” she explained.
They began to discuss what different flowers represented and I drifted away to my own little world as their voices continued to buzz in my head. Finn with his seductive tone, and Jenna who just couldn’t wait to get him out of the shop. If Jenna was about to blow up because of Finn, I was about to explode if I didn’t get that suitcase out of my sight. And how dare Finn say Lust was my home. Kegan’s apartment wasn’t my home. Not anymore.
I slapped my palm against my forehead and let out a deep sigh.
Finn had known everything. He’d always known. Jesus Christ. He’d gone to Kegan on the night of the accident. He was his accomplice. He could have warned me before I’d fallen head over heels for his friend. He could have explained everything the night he’d offered to drive me back to the convent. The pain in my stomach, the lingering urge to cry, the sense of apathy I felt that prevented me from enjoying life: it was all partially his fault. Now here he was, pretending to be interested in flowers just to flirt with Jenna. He’d just shown up in my new life with no intention of apologizing, otherwise it would have been the first thing he’d done. I was tempted to grab the nearest roses and throw them at him.
“Finn,” I said. He and Jenna stopped talking. “Stop being a jerk and tell me what you’re doing here. Did you really come here just to bring me my things? Great. Thanks. Now you can leave.”
He cleared his throat. “Then a nice bouquet of coral and musk roses. Yeah, that’s what I want, even if it’s a strange combination. Oh, and add a red rose, too. We’re going to need a bit of passion.”
Jenna shook her head and walked away, muttering something about assholes under her breath.
Finn pretended he hadn’t heard her and looked at me. He was done messing around. “Kegan needs you.”
I opened my mouth and widened my eyes. Had he really said what I think he just said? Yes, he had! What made it even worse was that he was looking at me like he thought it was normal.
“He killed my parents!” I screamed at him. “And you knew it!” The expression on his face didn’t change. There was no sign of disappointment or regret at my accusation. No, Finn seemed even more determined. “Damn it, Finn. You knew it. You should’ve told me.” I felt like the space behind the counter had shrunk and was beginning to suck me in. I had to get out of there. I ducked down under the counter to get back to the shop floor where I began pacing back and forth. Thankfully there were no clients there. Oh, how I would have liked to get away from there. But I couldn’t—I was working.
“Yeah, I knew,” he confirmed. “I didn’t say anything because Kegan is my friend, and I’m sorry you found out the way you did. Would it have really changed anything if I’d told you when you asked me about his locked room? Would it have been worth betraying my best friend?”
I kept walking back and forth. Back and forth. I didn’t know if I should try to calm down or start yelling, but I was leaning toward the latter. “Go to hell,” I screamed.
“Be honest, would it really have changed things? Would you be with him now?”
I could feel his eyes on my back and Jenna’s on my face. My friend shook her head so slightly I almost missed it. She didn’t know what to do either. It was a conversation that I had to face. There was no avoiding it now. Would it have changed anything? No. I would have still run away, but maybe my heart would’ve still been intact. Or almost intact.
“You should’ve told me the night you offered to take me back to the convent. Telling me he would destroy me was too vague.”
“He’s my friend,” Finn repeated. “Doesn’t it bother you to know that he’s been doing nothing but fucking his brains out since you left?”
The pain, the memories, and the emotions I’d felt when I’d seen him on that huge bed all came back to me at once.
“As far as I’m concerned, he can have all the fun he wants with Tereza,” I said, maintaining my harsh tone.
“He fired her.”
Whoa. Finn had surprised me, but I wasn’t going to show it. Fortunately, my back was turned. Why did this news make me happy? I shouldn’t have given a damn. Then how come I felt like jumping up and down? No, I had to resist the urge. I couldn’t allow myself to feel that way.
“Kegan killed my parents.” Absolutely livid, I turned to face Finn. I had to say it out loud. I had to repeat it as many times as it took. It was the only thing I had the right to think about. Not about Tereza. Not about Kegan in bed with God knows who. I had to think about my parents and nothing else.
“He killed them.”
“No,” Finn said firmly, startling me. “Your father had a heart attack. He would’ve swerved into the other lane even if Kegan hadn’t been there.”
“He… he...” I tried to yell, but my voice only managed a whisper. I fought back tears.
Finn continued defending Kegan and telling me the accident would have happened anyway. “Actually, if Kegan had been in the right lane, your dad might have hit him instead. Did you ever think of that?”
I didn’t want to listen to him anymore, but I didn’t have the strength to stop him. Damn him: he was rubbing salt in the wound. I couldn’t get a single word in. But I had to stay strong and remember what Kegan had done. There was no doubt in my mind about what had happened. Kegan felt guilty because he was. Had I ever thought about Kegan getting hit? No, I hadn’t. And I refused to do it now. Even Jenna believed that the accident was inevitable anyway, that Kegan wasn’t to blame. Jenna believed in fate. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. My head was clouded by doubt. All I knew was that my parents had died that night and Kegan had been there. I also knew that had the accident never happened, the two of us would have never met. All of these thoughts hurt my head. I had always blamed myself for the accident. I was the one who'd called them to pick me up. It was Kegan’s fault. It was my fault. It was my dad’s heart attack. And, if Jenna was right, it was fate.
“He needs you,” Finn repeated, this time pleading. “You managed to change him before, but now he’s worse than ever. The beast is back, and I ca
n’t see him like this anymore. He asked me to bring you your things, so, here I am.”
“And now it’s time you go,” said Jenna. She went back behind the counter to finish Finn’s bouquet. “Here’s your flowers for your lady. Goodbye.”
Finn stood motionless in the middle of the shop. Then he turned toward me, and my eyes caught a glimpse of what he had in his hands, bringing me to tears. The yellow bracelet. That asshole brought the bracelet that Kegan had given me. He put it on the counter. “Christmas is in six days,” he said.
Like I didn’t know. How could I have missed the Christmas spirit that filled the New York City streets? It just made everything even more depressing. With customers pre-ordering their holiday arrangements left and right, how could I have possibly forgotten that Christmas was coming up? And it was no longer just about the birth of Jesus, not since Kegan had told me it was his birthday, too. A woman came in and walked up to the counter. Smiling and acting like nothing was happening required superhuman effort. I just had to pretend that Finn and my suitcase weren’t there. I wanted to forget this day had ever happened. But my eyes kept getting drawn back to the bracelet, as if it were calling my name.
Finn waited for the woman to leave before speaking again. “You should come. Kegan usually charges more than usual during the holidays. He doesn’t say so, but he just wants to be left alone. But they book him anyway.”
I didn’t say anything. Finally, Finn took the flowers off the counter and got ready to go. Halfway to the door he turned on his heels. “I almost forgot—these are for you,” he said as he handed the bouquet to a shocked Jenna. He took one last clear look at me and left. There was no need to say anything more. The message was clear: come.
I spent the next few hours with my head caught in a flurry of thoughts, and they all had one name: Kegan. The beast is back. He’d hurt me more than anyone ever had before. He’d never been honest with me. All he'd ever done was lie to me to keep his secret hidden. I just want to protect what’s mine. And you’re mine. He’d called it protection, but lying was a more appropriate term. He’d entered my life to ruin it, make it better, then destroy it altogether.
“I can’t believe that asshole made me waste time on this bouquet.” Once we were alone, all Jenna could do was talk about Finn and those damn flowers.
“Uh...” I muttered, not sure what to say.
“I should have told him off to his face! Why’d I just stand there?”
“Uh…”
“God, why didn’t I say anything?” I knew she was trying to distract me, but there was more behind Jenna’s musings: Finn’s move had paid off and now she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Sure, she had carefully pulled the bouquet apart and put all the flowers away, but Jenna was still mulling over it. Finn had won. This is exactly what he’d wanted.
“He’s a professional seducer and an idiot. Stop thinking about him.”
Absentmindedly twisting the bracelet between my fingers, I suddenly looked down and realized what I was doing. I let the bracelet fall to the ground. A couple of rhinestones had fallen off and the color had faded, most likely because I’d never taken it off, not even in the shower. That bracelet wasn’t even worth ten dollars, but Kegan had paid two hundred for it. He’d said things were only as valuable as we thought they were. I sighed and rested my forehead against my arm.
I watched as Jenna closed the shop and her aunt left for the day. Then it was our turn to go home. I had to decide what to do with the suitcase. After a few seconds of hesitation, I picked the bracelet up off the ground and took the suitcase up to our apartment.
This had to end. I had to get Kegan out of my head. I opened the suitcase and started throwing my clothes on the couch. With every dress that I took out of the suitcase, I pretended I was erasing a memory I had with Kegan. Unfortunately, getting rid of him wouldn’t be quite that easy. To truly rid my mind of him, I’d have to go back in time to the day I’d met him in the confessional and avoid going to the church. Why hadn’t I gone with Sara like I usually did ?
“Damn it,” I yelled out.
Jenna watched me without saying anything. I’d almost finished emptying my suitcase when I found a strange bag. It was green. I didn’t recognize it. Jenna was still observing my every move.
“What is that?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I responded, my voice weak. I just wanted to throw it on top of the rest of my clothes without even looking inside it. I was afraid it was some kind of trap. I couldn’t handle any more pain after these months of agony.
“If you don’t open it, then I will.”
Jenna’s ultimatum left me with no choice. I wanted to get it all over with. I quickly grabbed the sack and dumped out its contents: a gold minidress, a note, and a check for one million and one hundred thousand dollars. “God,” I said, shaking my head in amazement. A million dollars. And I would have just thrown it away if it hadn’t been for Jenna.
“I think I’m going to faint,” she said, falling onto the pile of clothes on the couch. “A million dollars?!”
“I don’t need it. We don’t need it,” I said, trying to put a damper on her excitement.
Jenna tore off her outfit and slipped on the gold dress. She couldn’t stop repeating the amount in disbelief. I was furious. I didn’t want that money. I never had.
I took out the note and slid down to the floor next to where Jenna was standing. All the tears I had been holding back suddenly got the best of me and began streaming down my cheeks, soaking the note in my hands. Jenna took it from me to read it out loud. This is my favorite.
I thought back to all the times I had tried in vain to guess which dress he liked best. I couldn’t stop crying. I curled up into a ball and held my knees tight, hiding my face. I couldn’t stand to see the clothes, the suitcase, the check, or anything else. Everything hurt. Kegan made me hurt everywhere. I could feel him in my head, in my liver, in every vital organ. He was as present in that room as Jenna was.
“You should go,” Jenna said as she slid down to the floor beside me and rested her head on mine.
I felt so guilty. It felt like Hell. Kegan and I were trapped in our own personal Hell, trapped inside our bodies and by our guilt. Kegan was tormented by the accident, and I was tortured by him and by my feelings for him. It felt like a nightmare, but at least you could wake up from a nightmare. This was impossible to escape from.
“Some things are just meant to be. But we always have a choice. We can choose to go with the flow, or we can choose to go against it.”
I thought about what Jenna said. If she was right—if destiny really did exist—then I was choosing to fight against mine. But I could still choose. I could stop fighting and give in to what I felt. I could go to Kegan. Jenna tried to console me. Now, there was only one question on my mind: what choice would I make?
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I want Kegan Anderson.”
The girl at the selection desk gave me a strange look. “One million dollars.”
I was dumbfounded. One million dollars for Christmas Eve? Finn had told me that Kegan raised his prices around the holidays to discourage his clientele, but I still had trouble believing my ears. We stared each other down. Me in the gold minidress and her in her Christmas dress.
“Do you have it or not?” she asked, looking bored. It was clear she was counting the seconds until I turned around and left or asked for a cheaper employee.
But what she didn’t know was that, for the first time in my life, I could afford the owner of Lust. I pulled out my checkbook and signed the first check right in front of her eyes.
She stared at me in a daze with the check in her hand. “Room 405, the private room,” she said, suddenly snapping out of it. She was just about to pick up the phone to notify Kegan when Finn showed up behind the desk and took it out of her hand.
“Don’t worry, Claire, I’ll take care of it. I’ll notify him personally.” He smiled slyly and led me to the elevator. “I knew you’d come,” he
said as soon as the doors were closed. He pressed the button for the fourth floor.
We didn’t say a word the whole time. My heart felt like it would beat through my chest. I was about to see Kegan again. I had no idea how he’d react. It’d been months since we’d seen each other last. Months of silence and longing. I didn’t know how I would feel either. Would he run to me and tell me he loved me? Would he tell me to leave? He hadn’t tried to contact me the whole time. Not a single phone call or message. I too had tried to avoid any form of contact. I’d deleted his phone number, despite knowing it by heart. I’d even transferred all the pictures from my phone onto Jenna’s computer so I wouldn’t be tempted to look at them all the time. But maybe, over these months, he’d decided that I would never be enough for him. That he could have more than one woman at a time. Clients lining up out the door for his services, like when I’d first arrived at Lust, and now again after I was gone.
Finn whistled a Christmas tune.
I gave him a dirty look. He was so relaxed. How could he be so sure that this wasn’t going to be a huge fiasco? Finn himself had claimed that Kegan had turned back into the beast.
“So, he’s back to his old self?” I asked in a nervous voice.
“Yeah. He’s impossible to deal with. All he thinks about is money.” Finn adjusted his Santa hat. It looked ridiculous with his elegant suit. I could have never imagined there would be so much Christmas spirit at Lust.
“We can’t even say your name around him. When I told him I was going to see you, I thought he might fire me. I say might because I know he never actually would,” he said smiling.
I froze. “But…” My expression conveyed my perplexity to Finn. The suitcase, the check, the bracelet… the dress and the note. It had all given me hope that Kegan had been trying to get me back. If not, what was I doing at Lust? “My things—”
“It was me,” Finn interrupted. “He just wanted to send you the check. I was supposed to throw the bracelet away.”
The elevator doors opened to the fourth floor. I stood motionless, tempted to smash his face in.