by Adore Ian
Her eyes narrow in surprise. She didn’t expect me to interrogate anyone who came looking for Marrin.
Surprise, Blondie.
“My husband, Gavin. Mar also texted him your address. I can prove it if you want. Please,” her voice cracks, “tell me she’s here and that she’s okay?”
I size them up, unsure what to do.
“Listen, kid. You’re going to open this fucking door and let me in, or I’m going to break it down. Either way I’m coming in. It’s your choice.”
Blondie is dead serious.
I look from her to Mr. Tall, Dark, and Scary. “How do I know you’re not the reason Marrin called me in the first place?”
She hesitates. “How much did she tell you?”
“Enough,” I lie.
“But not enough to know I’m not a threat.”
The words aren’t meant to hurt, but they do.
Something must show on my face because she adds, “Let me in and I promise I’ll tell you as much as I can.”
I know they’re not here to harm Marrin. The concern on Alice’s face was enough to let me know the moment I looked her in the eyes. I shut the door and unhook the chain. Then I open it and step back, keeping myself between them and the hallway that leads to the bedroom.
Gavin closes the door before scanning every inch of my apartment.
“Where is she?” Alice demands.
“Sleeping. And I’d like to keep it that way.” I point to the concrete floors and high industrial ceiling that allow everything to echo.
She lowers her voice. “Who are you to Marrin?”
“I’m her b—friend. I’m her friend. A good friend.”
“Thank you for helping her. Did you see anything? A vehicle, a person, something out of place on the street when you picked her up?”
“No. It was deserted. But…” I drop the baton on the counter, a movement Gavin notes. I rake my fingers through my hair. “She was scared. Like, scared scared. She barely said anything and I… think she was hiding behind the bar. She didn’t want to get her car either. When I suggested it, she kind of freaked out.”
“Is she injured?”
I shake my head. “Not that I’ve seen. She’d obviously been crying when I picked her up, but I couldn’t see any defensive wounds or signs of a struggle or anything. She was wearing a jacket, though. And when I got her back here, she changed in the bathroom.”
Alice’s white skin pales as her eyes widen in the most horrifying way.
I quickly add, “She hasn’t acted as if she’s been hurt like that or as if she has bruises where I can’t see—and I’ve asked as many times as I politely can. She’s just rattled.”
Gavin and Alice exchange a look.
I want to ask if someone is stalking Marrin. It’s the only conclusion I can think of that fits.
The bedroom door unlocks with a click.
I turn around. Marrin takes a few hesitant steps, recognition and relief flood her face, and then she’s running to Alice. The two embrace and Marrin starts to sob.
And I mean sob.
The sound is horrible and gut wrenching and it breaks my fucking heart. I want to make it stop, I’d do anything to make it stop.
“Shh, it’s okay,” Alice coos. “It’s okay. I’m so sorry my phone was off.” The look on her face is fierce and protective, it reminds me of a mother bear.
Jealousy slithers up my chest that it’s not my arms Marrin trusts to cry in.
I know it’s a stupid, selfish way to feel, so I push it away.
Now I feel like an interloper. Like an intruder in a private family moment. It reminds me of what it was like growing up when I’d watch my friends interact with their parents. Vicky’s mom and dad were always so loving and supportive. I was lucky if my parents offered a combined five words to me by the time I went to bed.
Gavin watches me. “Are her things in your room?”
It’s then I realize Marrin isn’t staying. Maybe I should protest or ask her to stay—but what would be the point? She clearly wants—needs—to be with her family. If I ask her to stay, I’ll only be opening myself up to a humiliating rejection.
I nod and go get Marrin’s stuff.
I don’t realize Mr. SEAL Team Six has followed me until I turn to leave my bedroom and find him taking up the entire doorway.
Look, I’m a big buy—a tad over six foot, muscularly built but not overly bulky. But Gavin… Gavin is a beast. I’m surprised he even fits through the damn door. He’s well over six foot with close-cropped dark hair and muscles everywhere. Not to mention that this close, I can see a vicious scar that runs down the far edge of his face and down his neck where it disappears beneath the collar of his jacket. It cuts through his tanned skin like a lightning bolt across a cloudy sky.
I hand him Marrin’s things.
“You did good, kid,” he says.
I’m pretty sure he’s not talking about my ability to pack a bag. I opt not to say anything and follow him into the living room. Alice and Marrin have already left.
He pauses. “One suggestion. The martial arts magnets on your fridge tipped me off that you’re at least a good enough fighter to compete. You might consider taking those down next time you let in a couple of strangers.”
“I knew who you were the entire time.”
Approval flashes across Gavin’s face, then he’s gone.
I lock the door and stand in the middle of my empty apartment. I glance at the fridge where a magnet advertising I was a finalist in a karate competition sits next to a magnet advertising my first place win in a Muay Thai competition. They’re both small and hard to read from this distance. I have no idea how he saw them.
The magnets hold up a picture of me standing between Vicky’s parents holding a trophy I’d won at one of the events. They’re beaming like I’m their son, but clearly they’re not my parents.
I wonder if he noticed that, too.
I go to bed.
It smells like Marrin and now everything hurts. Okay, that was kind of dramatic, but it’s how I feel. I know I’m throwing a pity party, I just really wanted her to stay the night. A voice in my head says Marrin doesn’t think of me the same way I think of her.
Why does that thought hurt so much?
True, she did ask me to come get her tonight and that’s a win. But I wonder who else she asked before she settled on me.
I turn over, feeling stupid for having wanted to call her earlier to tell her about my petty victory over my mother. I’m glad I didn’t. If I had, this moment would only be more humiliating.
Wait, what am I doing? Marrin and I have come a long way. Plus, she’s sleeping with me, not Alice. Blondie might be her family, but I’m her… What am I, her lover? I’m not her boyfriend. Not officially. But we did go on a real date, one she asked me to.
I close my eyes and decide I’m being a Negative Nancy. Mar texted me to come get her. She trusted me to keep her safe. She even admitted why she hates Thanksgiving. Two months ago, that never would’ve happened.
I’ll see her tomorrow and we’ll figure it out.
15
Marrin
I stay with Alice and Gavin for the rest of the holiday weekend and spend most of my time working at the 13th Floor. My dance numbers for the Femme Fatale show are done, but the whole production isn’t quite finished. A few sneak peek performances for the show will premier in December, but the entire production won’t debut until New Year’s Eve.
It’s not until Sunday night that I finally go back to my apartment. I take the stairs two at a time and make quick work of getting inside. I haven’t spoken to Damian except to say I was fine and staying in the city.
I let myself get too close to him. If he knew I had a stalker and why, he’d never look at me the same.
He and I come from different worlds. He’s from a world of luxury mansions and designer shoes, I’m from a world where people struggle to decide whether to pay the rent or feed their kids. It’s a place that molded and made
me, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But what happened two years ago still haunts me, mars me—
God, the irony of my nickname is not lost on me.
Now I’m good at keeping my scars hidden, but that wasn’t always the case. Sophomore year I accidentally put a guy in the hospital when he tried to dance with me at a party. I’m still mortified when I think about it. I overreacted to the nth degree. I’m lucky I only got mandatory therapy and not jail time.
The thought of Damian looking at me the way everyone at that party looked at me—the way the university disciplinary committee had looked at me when the head of the academic accessibility department explained my situation without violating my privacy…
Words like mortifying and humiliating aren’t strong enough to describe it. What I saw in the disciplinary committee’s eyes was worse than pity. In that moment, I fit every stereotype of the poor kid who gets a college scholarship. I almost wished they’d given me a harsher punishment because at least then I’d have felt as if I’d been treated like the rest of the student body. Like I was normal.
So yeah, if Damian looked at me that way, it would destroy me. I like the way he looks at me now. I love it actually.
Because I think I love him.
Which is so not where I wanted this whole friends-with-benefits thing to go. I’m a goddamn cliché.
Being able to depend on Damian to pick me up the other night makes my lady parts all tingly. But it’s also simultaneously horrifying. If he knew who Frank was, what Frank had done, what had been done to me…
I suppress a shudder.
After I’d made it to Alice and Gavin’s place in the city, Gavin had asked Kiley to log onto the security cameras at the Braxton. The place isn’t wired up like Alice’s other businesses, so all the camera at the back door caught was black and white footage of the corner of what appeared to be a truck and a hooded man banging on the door.
I have no doubt it was Frank. Even Alice said it looked like him. But the grainy footage isn’t enough to prove he violated the restraining order.
Alice is having Kiley install better cameras (and more of them) at the Braxton before the end of the week. Cameras won’t stop Frank, they’ll just help provide evidence that he broke the law. It’s better than nothing.
I lay in my bed, wrapping Damian’s blanket around me. It still smells like him and something about that soothes me. Damian soothes me. I’ve never felt so safe as when I fell asleep in his arms.
I sound like a lovesick schoolgirl. But it’s true.
Feeling safe is a privilege most people don’t realize they have.
Seeing how close Frank was to me on the security footage scares me when I think about it. If I hadn’t gotten the door shut when I did, he’d have gotten inside. I don’t want to think about what might’ve happened then.
Phantom pain arcs across my lower abdomen and I curl into a ball.
Then, because I’m weak and pathetic and very likely a masochist, I grab my phone and text Damian.
Marrin: Hey, I’m back. Just got into bed.
Damian: Glad you’re back. Hope everything is okay.
Marrin: It is.
Marrin: Thanks for coming to get me the other night. I don’t want to talk about it, but it means a lot.
It takes him a moment to respond.
Damian: You’re welcome. I’ll always come for you, Mar. I won’t ask about what happened, but I want you to know you can trust me.
Marrin: Thanks. Night.
Damian: Goodnight.
The first Wednesday in December is the last official day of class and I trudge up the stairs to my apartment completely exhausted. I handed in my last research paper today and cannot be more excited to have tomorrow off. The day after classes end is always reserved as a reading day before finals start.
The Monday after Thanksgiving, Damian and I had dinner. He came over around six and we made tacos. I’d thought it might be awkward or that he might bring up what happened, but he didn’t. We didn’t kiss or anything, but the evening was perfect nonetheless. He even gifted me a pillow for my couch. It’s big and white and reads “I have standards” in cursive beneath a black silhouette of a standard poodle. I laughed when I saw it because, in true Damian fashion, he snuck it onto my couch when I was in the bathroom and didn’t say anything until I noticed it.
The days after were filled with final papers and prep for exams. Both Damian and I were hella busy. We found time to meet at each other’s apartments for coffee breaks, and a few stress relieving, kinky sexual encounters. But mostly we’ve just been texting.
When I get to my apartment, there are a few fliers and notices from management clipped to my door. I grab them before heading inside. I drop my purse and the papers on the counter. I’m walking away when a flash of neon yellow catches my eye.
There’s a letter hidden in the stack of notices.
It’s alarmingly bright, alarmingly yellow.
A sickly kind of heat washes over me, prickling my skin with sweat, as I pull out the card.
“Welcome Home” is written across the front in big, bright letters. Inside it’s signed with the letter F.
I don’t remember stuffing it inside my purse.
I don’t remember leaving my apartment or getting into my car.
All I know is that I’ve just parked in front of the 13th Floor’s high-rise. I cross the street. It’s freezing out. I know it’s freezing out, but I’m too numb to feel it.
I stumble past the fake receptionist and head for the staff-only elevator. Once inside, I punch in my passcode then the button for the fourteenth floor where the offices are located.
I can’t catch my breath. It’s like all the air has been sucked out of the building. The motion of the elevator makes me dizzy. I rise through the floors, but it feels like my blood didn’t get the memo and stays in the lobby. I grab the wall.
A bell dings and the doors open. A brightly lit hallway stretches before me.
I take one step then another. The building sways.
An attractive man, wearing an earpiece like an FBI agent, strides toward me. He’s tall and muscular, a sleeve of Polynesian tattoos down one arm.
“Marrin?” He lurches for me, bronze-brown skin blurring into the blue of his shirt, as the hallway tilts like in the movie Inception.
The lights go out. Then turn back on. I’m on the floor, Kiley crouched over me, finger on his earpiece.
“...fainted near the elevator...”
His voice is rich and deep and so, so far away—
“...find Alice… meet us in her office...”
—which is weird because he’s right next to me.
“...bring the doc…”
It’s not until he lifts me into his arms that I realize the power didn’t go out, I did.
“Ki, what happened?” I try to swallow, my mouth is so dry.
“Hey, kiddo.” He smiles. “What do you remember?”
I close my eyes, too dizzy to answer.
A door clicks and then he’s laying me down on the leather sofa in Alice’s office. He moves away and comes back with a bottled water and the jar of chocolates Alice keeps on her desk. “Take a sip of this for me.”
I don’t argue as he helps me take a drink. I spill more than I swallow, but Kiley catches most of it with a paper towel.
“Eat this,” he says. And again I don’t fight when he feeds a few chocolates to me. My arms feel leaden and my fingers are numb.
Three chocolates in, I say, “I fainted, didn’t I?”
“Yep.”
I groan. I’ve been a situational fainter since childhood. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. I try to sit up, but Kiley stops me. “It’s not my blood sugar or hydra”—Alice bursts into the room—“tion.”
“What happened?” Alice demands.
Kiley wisely moves out of the way so Alice can crouch beside me. Gavin and Addison, the concierge doctor Alice keeps on staff, enter the room.
Alice helps me s
it up. “I’m fine.” I eye Addison. “I’m not sick.” She ignores me because I’m not her boss. I frown at Alice. “I said I’m fine.”
“You fainted in the damn hallway. That’s not fine. The only reason you didn’t bust your head open is because Kiley saw you stumble into the elevator on the security monitors.”
I give Kiley a look that says, Thanks for ratting on me. He throws one back that says, You’re welcome, kiddo.
Addison starts going through her doctor bag and I throw a look of last resort at Gavin.
His eyes dart to Alice. “Mar, you look like shit.”
“You’re not exactly a vision either, Frankenstein,” I say.
He grins and I can tell he’s trying not to laugh. I’ve been calling him Frankenstein since we met. It’s not a joke about the scar that runs down the edge of his face. He’s legit huge like the Frankenstein monster. It wasn’t until our fourth or fifth meeting that I actually noticed his scar and spent fifteen minutes explaining how it had nothing to do with me calling him Frankenstein. When I was done begging for forgiveness, he laughed and told me his nickname in the military had been Frankenstein and that he’d gotten it long before the scar.
“What happened?” Gavin asks.
I pull the envelope from my purse and hand it to Alice.
She goes very still then rips out the card. “Fuck.” She storms to her desk. “FUCK.”
Both Gavin and Kiley stand like they’re expecting the Russian mafia to storm the building.
Alice punches a button on her desk phone, it rings on speaker until her secretary answers. “Get the owner of Marrin’s apartment complex on the phone, tell him I want the security footage of her building for the last month sent to Kiley by the end of the hour or we’re hacking the system. I want the employee work schedules and time cards, too, as well as the logs for the door codes. I want to know who was in the building and when. Then contact that private security firm we’ve used before, and get my lawyer on the phone, I want to see her immediately.” She hangs up and leans over her desk, fuming.
Gavin moves toward her.
“Who the fuck,” Alice growls, “do I have to pay off to get Frank thrown in prison?”