by Kira Graham
“What answers, Rose? The guy was a freak.”
“Obviously, honey, but my questions revolve more around the fact that he wasn’t the freak in the driver’s seat. Listen, it’s pretty obvious to me that Cameron Black wasn’t the one stalking you—”
“I am telling you, this is about Adonis, not me. Someone was stalking Adonis, and then they kidnapped me and tried to kill me,” she insists, her voice hushed because it’s something she hates arguing about with her man.
I tend to want to agree with Cleo, except for one thing—motive. In my line of work, I have to act as theorist and detective at the same time, and what I ask myself a lot is why people do things. As far as I can see, Black had no reason to stalk anyone, which brings me back to the questions that I just don’t have any answers to. Who was pulling his strings and driving that freak train, and, more importantly, why did Black go along with it? He must have known that he couldn’t succeed, and he also must have known that taking Cleo would start up a whole storm of questions once people saw that hospital footage. He didn’t even attempt to do anything about the cameras, which is weird because whoever was in Adonis’s apartment that first time was very careful to erase all the security footage and cover their tracks. See? It doesn’t fit.
“It doesn’t make any sense, Cleo. That’s all I’m saying.”
“And I’m saying that you need to let this go. It’s going to drive you crazy to try to understand just why Black did what he did. Maybe he was nuts. Maybe he was part of a team. We just don’t know. All I know is that it’s over, and I haven’t had to think about this in months. Black is dead, and thankfully, no one else has crawled out of the woodwork since.”
I know that. Dammit. I’ve considered that, and also considered every angle of this thing, and all I keep coming back to is more questions. No, nothing has happened, and if I were as easygoing as Cleo, then I would also assume that that means that Black was the culprit. I have a gut feeling, though, and something tells me that whoever is really behind this is lying low in order to lull us into a false sense of security.
But there’s no reason to scare Cleo right now, not when you consider that she has a four-man team of security personnel guarding her at all times, thanks to Adonis and his paranoia. God, I love that man.
“You’re right,” I grumble, shuddering when something from my stomach attempts to come up with the glug of wine I just swallowed.
What? I just got fired. I deserve a day of self-pity and booze in which to drown my sorrows.
“I always am. Hey, have you talked to Tee recently? I’ve tried calling her, but she keeps ignoring my calls and sending them to voicemail. What’s up with that?”
“I called once or twice this morning and got the same thing. Maybe try asking Sin or Alex? She’s always hanging out with those two,” I point out with a frown.
Hey, now that I think about it, it does seem like those three have been avoiding us.
“Nope. I called Sin at work, and she told me to fuck off and mind my own business. And Alex just won’t speak to me after I posted those STD pamphlets on her Facebook page. It was a joke!” Cleo pouts, making me giggle.
“Honey, a joke is when you prank call someone, or order a dozen pizzas and have them delivered to their office or apartment. A joke doesn’t usually involve announcing to her entire friends list that she has a sexually transmitted disease,” I point out, feeling only slightly guilty that I did the same thing a few months ago, using a false account that a hacker friend of mine helped me create.
No one knows about that one, though, so it doesn’t count. I think. I’m not sure anymore, to be honest—all I know is that it’s super fun to see Alex rampaging around, unable to figure out who Hugh Suckah is. Get it?
“But it’s hilarious on account of the fact that Alex is such a whore,” Cleo whines, her long-suffering attitude reminding me of the time she poured glue all over me while I was sleeping.
I was five at the time, so she must have been six or seven, and when Mom went crazy and Dad started crying, she explained that I was sleepwalking and that she just wanted to help me out. I learned later, after having to shave off all my hair and soak in the tub for four hours, that Cleo had watched a scary movie and had convinced herself that I was a demon.
She’s not all wrong—not with Mom being our egg donor and all—but don’t tell her.
“Alex is not a whore. She’s sexually liberated.”
“Which Mom says means that she’s a hellfire whore,” Cleo says slowly, her certainty in Mom’s assessment causing a snort of wine to clean out my sinuses.
“Cleo, don’t be such a freaking prude. And I should kick Mom’s ass for being so judgmental.”
“Oh, Mom wasn’t being judgmental. She was bragging to Mrs. Delaney at church that her daughters aren’t all stuck-up old spinsters like hers, though God knows why Mom thinks that about the Delaney girls. I saw Velvet coming out of that sex club on Seventh Street the other—”
“Wait! You were at a sex club?” I screech, laughing so hard that I’m forced to admit to half of the gas bomb that leaves my ass. But only half.
The other half, which smells like dead skunk, is not me. It just can’t be.
Silence.
“Cleo!”
“I was only there for like twenty minutes until Adonis got his freaking nuts caught in the ropes. Damn spoilsport!”
“You went to a sex club. With Adonis! And he got his nuts caught in the ropes?” I wheeze, laughing so hard that this time I can’t deny the smell.
No matter how much I want to.
“I just wanted to see what it was about. Damn load of crap if you ask me. There were women there wearing collars and half-corsets, and don’t even get me started on how Adonis whined when we saw a fully naked woman up on stage. You’d have sworn that I’d told him to sleep with her, the way he carried on,” she huffs, giggling along with me because we all know her man.
He gets hives if another woman so much as looks at him, and once, about three weeks ago, he dragged Cleo into the security room of his office and made her watch some footage of one of his clients coming on to him while he refused her advances and then kicked her out. Of both his office and whatever business her company was doing with his.
I shit you not.
Cleo somehow managed to get a copy of that footage, and while her favorite part is when he screams, “The only woman on Earth is my Cleo!” and slaps at his client’s roving hand, my favorite part is when he starts sniffling and runs into the bathroom like his ass is on fire. When he comes out minutes later, his three-thousand-dollar suit dripping and full of soapsuds, it’s so hilarious that even Dad laughed when he saw it.
The man is nuts.
“You know he can’t stand looking at other women. He gave Tee a freaking three-hour lecture about having seen her nipples a few months ago.”
“They’re just nipples! I saw Zeus getting out of the shower the one time I broke into his apartment, and I saw more than just nipples, but you don’t see me freaking out.”
Oh, God!
“You saw his dick?” I scream, curiosity eating me alive.
Until I warn myself that obsession and stalking are no longer a part of my personality. They aren’t! I’m normal now. Totally normal. I don’t want to know what Zeus’s balls look like, or if he’s pierced like Adonis. The man is not for me. I’ve taken a leaf out of Cleo’s past lectures and am choosing a guy who is normal, boring, and nowhere near the Hart gene pool. No Harts for me. Ever again.
“I don’t know if you can call that thing a dick, Rosetta. You know I told you how hung Adonis is—”
“Please, not again. That’s two hours of my life that I won’t ever get back,” I moan, trying to stop my obsessive brain from latching on to what happened this morning.
I don’t like Zeus. I don’t. For God’s sake, his name is Zeus! What would we name our kids—no! Nope. Not going there, Rosetta. This is how you ended up in love with a man you didn’t know, and got your heart br
oken—not to mention getting a whole boatload of non-refundable wedding stuff added to your credit card bill, I tell myself, shoring up my resistance with an iron will.
“Oh, shut your face. You know it was engrossing. And anyway, you always crotch-gaze Adonis now, and I find it really entertaining when he blushes and tries to tuck his junk.”
She’s right about that, which is all kinds of wrong, because the man’s likely to make himself sterile soon if I don’t get control of my eyes.
“It’s not funny. I like Addy. And he’s difficult to talk to when his face is turning purple from pain.”
“Well, it serves him right for being such a prude.”
“Come on! You know you love the fact that he’s so in love with you that he doesn’t look at other women,” I muse, listening to her giggle before she snorts and then turns serious.
“I do, but Rosetta, it’s really hard to keep it a secret—even though I have to, because I know that if he ever found out that I saw his brother naked, he’d castrate poor Zeus. And the thing is, Zeus didn’t even know that I was there,” she breathes, her voice filled with awe.
“Fiiiine! Tell me,” I gripe, grinning when she squeals.
“It was huge, Rosetta, like…I don’t know how he walks around with that thing strapped to his pelvis. He could just use it as a freaking kickstand.”
“No way.”
“Waaaay. And he isn’t pierced, but I don’t think he needs it. Neither does Adonis, but Z—he’s like so hung that he’d have to have a fucking crowbar as a piercing,” she assures me, laughing when I choke on my wine and start coughing as wine spews out of my nose.
Oh, Lord in heaven. You do not want to know, Rosetta! You don’t. Zeus isn’t for you. You don’t like him. You just don’t.
Which is the honest truth, I swear. He’s all straight-laced, and he’s always grumbling about a lawyer breaking the law, as if I’m too stupid to realize that what I’m doing is illegal. Of course I realize. I just don’t care.
And he eats radishes—and likes them. Which is weird and makes him gross, I tell myself, gnawing at my fingernail in a nervous habit that has me chewing the thing down to the nub before I can stop myself. Dammit. Now I’ll have to get my nails done, which I hate because the chick always tries to talk to me, as if I want to have a conversation with someone named Clover.
What kind of freaking name is that?
“Whatever. I don’t care.”
“You should! You totally—oops. No, I wasn’t…but I wasn’t going to…dammit, Hart, would you stop freaking listening in on my conversations like a creepy-ass creeper? Don’t you roll your eyes at me unless you want to wake up with them missing. I wasn’t going to tell her!” Cleo screams, so loudly that I have to hold the phone an arm’s length away to avoid bursting an eardrum.
I hear muttering on the other end, and then rustling, and so I check my watch to make sure that I’m not wrong. Nope. It’s three in the afternoon, which means that Adonis left work early again. So that he can spend time with Cleo. And that’s great, it really is, but now I’m going to have to text-listen to Zeus whine about how much work he had to do because Adonis always drops it all on him if he cuts out early. Not that I blame the man, especially after I saw the way that Ares puts together a deal. That guy really doesn’t understand how to be a corporate shark, is all I’m saying.
“Stop being condescending! I said I wasn’t going to tell her, and I won’t. Even if she deserves to know. Oh, shut your face!” Silence. “You don’t have to say anything, Hart—your expression says it for you, and right now, it’s saying, ‘You’re a secret whore.’ What? No, dammit, I didn’t mean for it to sound that way. Stop laughing!”
By now, I’m laughing, too, because this is how nearly all of our conversations end up going. I talk to Cleo, Adonis mysteriously arrives—I suspect that he’s bugged her phone, but I won’t tell her because she’d regret killing him about five seconds after doing it—and I end up listening to her argue, while he patiently smiles at her and makes bedroom eyes. Once, I listened to them fucking for like two hours. It was gross and disgusting, and I haven’t ever heard anyone say “I love you” that much in my life. Not since I got trapped in the attic last summer and had to hear Mom and Dad having an afternoon quickie.
My dad sure is an emotional guy. Gross!
“Cleo—”
“And you know what else? She deserves to know after what that rat bastard Chilli did to her. No, I don’t know what he did to her, but I can assume that it was bad after what she did to his car—”
“Cleo!” I scream, trying to cut her off because that is our little secret.
I wasn’t even the one who slashed his tires—that was Alex. Though…it was my knife. Dammit. She promised.
“You are a total secret whore, and I mean that in every way!”
“Rosetta, that’s not nice.”
“What isn’t nice is that you just told Adonis—”
“I won’t tell him! He deserved it,” Adonis yells, making me grin and love the fact that people like me more.
However…
“Tell me what?” I ask, my brain suddenly focused entirely on the fact that someone has secrets that I don’t know.
I need them all! I love secrets. They’re like eating chocolate, but without the calories.
“Are you still talking into that damn recorder?” Cleo huffs, making me smile and side-eye the thing.
Honestly, at this point, it’s just second nature. That life story isn’t going to write itself, ya know.
“What’s the secret? Oh, come on—tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Like that time you convinced me to tell you about what happened at the Mexican restaurant?”
“That wasn’t my fault! It just slipped out.”
Much like her poop did, after she ate nearly three meals, all spicy, before realizing that something was wrong with the guacamole. How is it my fault that she pooped her pants?
“I did not. It was supposed to be a toot, Rosetta. Just a simple little fart,” she whines, causing me to shake as I try to hold in my laughter.
She’s super sensitive about this, mostly because I told everyone—but come on, it was hilarious. I had to go meet her at the restaurant after she apparently grabbed her ass, ran to the bathroom, and then proceeded to murder all the completely innocent porcelain in sight. And I was the one who ended up bringing her clean pants, fresh underwear, and enough wet wipes to clean Panama. Or, in Cleo’s case, one bathroom floor. Jesus, I can still remember the smell.
“Whatever. I said I was sorry. And that was the one and only time that I ever told a secret—”
“You told Alex about the wax getting stuck to my labia, and about the carrot getting stuck in my nose.”
“I had to go to the hospital and force the doctor to release you. They wanted to admit you for a psych eval!” I yell, nearly wheezing when she huffs and curses, muttering something to Adonis that elicits a bark of laughter.
“Stupid assholes. I told them that I was trying to avoid eating Mom’s food! If they’d understood just what that meant, they’d have totally understood why I did it.”
“Cleo, baby, you had seven baby carrots in there. How you made them fit…”
“Desperation. But that still doesn’t absolve you, Rosetta. You’re like a secret thief. No! You’re like Robin Hood. You steal secrets straight from me and then spread them to the masses, the way Alex spreads her legs,” she accuses.
“Oh my God, how many times do I have to tell you that she isn’t promiscuous?”
And she isn’t. Not really. Well, I mean…dammit, it’s not as if she does any guy she sees, okay? Besides, how many is too many? I’d bet that Adonis has slept with more people than Alex has, and Cleo only calls him a pig.
“You’ll never convince me, but that’s not the point! I said that I am not telling you what I know—and don’t bother going to Tee or Sin about it, either, because I haven’t told them. I haven’t told anyone,” she brags, making
me grind my teeth because this is unheard of.
Cleo keeping a secret is like saying that Superman isn’t a danger to Lois Lane. I’d bet that if that guy lost control for just one second—
“Stop it with the recorder!” Cleo yells, making me blush because this time, I didn’t even touch it.
Darn it. I may have a problem here if I’m just randomly talking to myself now.
“Fine. I put it down,” I lie, turning it on and holding it to the earpiece in case she says something incriminating.
Proof is half the battle, people, and if I have to give up my job now, then everyone is in Rosetta’s court of life, and I aim to win.
“I’m silently rolling my eyes right now because I totally do not believe you, you lying…liar.”
“Burn!” I murmur sarcastically. “Come ooooon! I tell you everything.”
“Against my will,” she mutters, giggling when I curse because we all know that that’s not true.
Cleo loves stories, and she’d do just about anything short of prostitution to hear a good one, although, if truth be told, I’m not all that sure that she’d draw the line even there.
“Cleo.”
“Fine! Fine. Stop it, Hart—I said I won’t tell her, but the pact doesn’t stipulate that I can’t give her hints. Let me see…oh! This is a good one. Someone likes you—ouch! Dammit, I didn’t say anything. Stop pouting. Stop it! I don’t—dammit, I’m sorry I broke the circle of trust!” she screams, sounding panicked because Adonis has learned a few things from Dad, and he’s no doubt making that lip tremble. “Rosetta, I gotta go.”
“No, wait. Dammit,” I huff when I hear the line go dead, letting my phone fall to the couch before I do something stupid like throw it at the wall.
Dang it. Now I’m going to obsess over yet another thing I don’t know. Stupid Cleo.
My phone vibrates seconds later, and I answer it without checking the screen, assuming that Cleo has somehow stopped Adonis’s meltdown and is ready to share.