by McLean, Jay
One day…
“It was nice meeting you both,” I manage to say, waving quickly before the doors close between us. I throw the trash down the chute and choose to take the stairs back. When I make it to my door, I push down on the handle and nothing. “Shit.” I check my pockets for my keys, but they’re not there. I try the door again, because what else can I do? Nothing has changed.
Nothing.
Has.
Changed.
The panic rises again, and I gasp for air. Knees weak, I drop to the floor, my back to the door, and pull out my phone. No calls. No messages. I try calling Brent again. It goes to voicemail. I try calling Nate. It doesn’t even ring. Tears blur my vision as I flip the phone closed. No longer my lifeline, it has no purpose. Not here. Not now. I’m alone, and I’m over it, and maybe I’m overreacting, but it’s one thing after another, and I’m drained. Physically and emotionally. And everything has turned to nothing. For the second time in minutes, I give up on myself, go numb. The nothingness begins again, until…
Until Kyler Parker: “Hey…” The first time I’d met Kyler, I’d been prepared. I knew what he looked like, where he would be, what to say, how to dress. I was told all those things by people whose job it was to know people. Still, the first time I saw him in person, my pulse picked up just a tad. There was a stirring in my veins that I’d only felt once before. With Nate. And maybe it was an uncontrollable physical attraction, or maybe it was the way he looked at me, so similar to the way Nate used to. There was a level of curiosity mixed with fascination, and it reawakened something deep inside me. Right now, I don’t feel any of those things. I just feel... nothing.
Ky’s shoes are fresh, barely worn, as if he’d bought them purely for whatever he’d just done. I look up at him, my mind a daze. His brow bunches when he takes in my expression, and he squats down in front of me. “You okay?”
I shake my head. It’s all I can do.
“What’s going on?” His voice is so warm, like the blankets I’d crave on cold nights in that cement hell or the open air.
It takes a moment to find my voice. “I locked myself out.”
He peers at the elevator a moment before meeting my eyes again. “Is the maintenance guy out?”
“The what?”
Ky’s eyes squint with his laughter, and my chest aches at his mocking. “How long have you been sitting here?”
I shrug. “An hour. Not sure.”
He stares as if trying to see through me. “And this is why you’re crying?”
Wiping at my eyes, I tell him, “I didn’t know there was a maintenance guy.” I don’t know a lot about normal living in the real world, I don’t tell him. I stand up, feeling a thousand different versions of ruined. “And please don’t laugh at me.” I cross my arms, focus on his shoes, and admit out loud, “I already feel stupid enough.”
He stands, too, his words as pitiful as his stance. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you—”
“Where is he?” I cut in.
“Who?”
“The guy who’s going to let me back into my apartment.”
Ky pulls out his phone, taps it a few times, then holds it to his ear.
I check my phone—still nothing.
Ky’s talking now, giving the details of my apartment, and all I can do is stand there, watching him, feeling foolish and somewhat mesmerized by the way he watches me back. A moment later, a man I’ve never seen before approaches with a giant wad of keys in his hand. He unlocks my door—something I’m sure should be more complicated than it is. “Enjoy,” he says, winking at us before walking away.
“Madison,” Ky says, waiting for me to look at him before adding, “I’m sorry if I made you feel stupid.”
There’s a sincerity in his tone that makes me question what the hell I’m doing here, with him, to him. “It’s fine, Ky.” I force a smile. “Good night.” Without looking back, I go into my apartment and close the door behind me. Then I lean against it, cursing myself for my inability to hold it together. My phone rings in my hand, and I take my time checking it.
Sara.
It’s Nate, and he’s too damn late. I shuffle my feet toward the bedroom, shove the phone in the nightstand, and grab all the covers off the bed. Then I go back to the living room, make a blanket fort on the floor and coat my world in darkness. I fall asleep, exhausted from doing nothing all day, and when I wake up, it’s to my phone ringing. Moaning, I get up to retrieve it.
Five missed calls from Sara.
One text.
Sara: If you don’t answer in the next two minutes, I’m going to kick down your door. At least let me know if you’re okay.
He calls again while I’m reading the text, but I reject it to type out a reply.
Madison: I locked myself out today.
Sara: Did you call the maintenance guy?
Madison: I didn’t know to do that.
Sara: So how did you get in?
Madison: Ky.
Sara: ?
Madison: He called the guy.
Sara: Did you let him into your apartment?
Madison: No. He just unlocked the door and left.
Sara: I meant Ky.
Madison: No. Should I have?
Sara: I have no idea.
Madison: I hate this.
Sara: Me too.
Chapter 25
Madison: He kissed me.
“What’s going on?” Tiny’s voice seems distant even though he’s sitting right beside me.
“What do you mean?” I mutter, my focus drifting back to the message Bailey had sent over a half-hour ago. I didn’t know how to respond then. I still don’t.
“You’ve been looking at your phone without actually doing anything with it. Everything good?”
“He kissed her,” I mumble, the words hard to think, let alone speak aloud.
“Who? That Neilson guy?” he asks, pulling into the same fast-food joint I’d taken Bailey the night before.
“No.” I shake my head. “Why do you say Neilson?”
“No reason.” He glances at me, then pretends to focus on the menu board as if he doesn’t know what they serve. He comes here every day, orders the same thing every time.
“You think they’re—”
“I don’t know,” he says, strumming the steering wheel. “I might get some dessert.”
I rub the back of my neck, the tension building there. “How the fuck can you even think about eating after what we just did?”
He shrugs. “I have to eat every three hours, or I get cranky. You know this.”
Sighing, I look back at my phone. “You think Bai and Neilson are—”
“Ignore me. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
I lean my head against the headrest, look at the roof of the cab while Tiny pushes forward and places his order through the window. Once he’s done, I say, “She told me they weren’t fuckin’.”
“Well, they might not be fuckin’, but there’s something there. At least from him.” He’s silent a beat, and I can feel his judgmental eyes on the side of my face.
I roll my head, look directly at him. “What?”
His eyes narrow. “When the fuck did she tell you this?”
I keep my mouth shut. I already know what he’s going to say.
“Jesus Christ, don’t do this to yourself.” And there it is. “Not again.”
“This Parker guy kissed her,” I repeat, as if he didn’t hear me the first time.
“So you’ve said,” Tiny states. “So what the hell are you gonna do about it?”
I look at the message again. “Take me to that car rental place.”
“No,” he deadpans, unwrapping his burger as he creeps back onto the road.
“Fine.” I open the door. “I’ll walk.”
He hits the brakes. “Get back in the fuckin’ car!” he shouts, his words muffled by the burger between his teeth. He grabs at my sleeve and pulls me back into the vehicle. “You’re crazy! You know t
hat, right?”
No shit.
With a groan, he flicks on the blinker and does a sharp turn. Then he motions to the back seat. “What do you want me to do with the evidence?”
* * *
“So, he kissed you?”
Pacing the space of the kitchen, I nod into the phone even though Brent can’t see it. “Yep.”
“And?” He draws out the word longer than necessary.
“And I freaked, squealed, and shut the door in his face.”
Brent chuckles, light and airy, and it reminds me of when Ky did the same.
“Don’t laugh at me.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. I picture him on the couch in the “evidence room” of the house, a coffee in one hand, getting ready for a long night of going through file after file just like he’d done when I was living there with him after I’d earned their trust enough to get me out of that hotel room. “It’s… cute.”
“Cute?”
“Yeah, Bailey. You’re cute.”
I scoff. “Thanks.”
“How was your day otherwise?” he asks. “I’m sorry I missed your call. I was in a meeting with the Philly Bureau trying to… never mind. It’s not important.” I hear some rustling of papers, as if he’s set them down somewhere so he can focus all his attention on me. “So, he brought over pizza and what? Tell me everything.”
I almost tell him about locking myself out, about my pathetic meltdown that had me crying in an empty hallway all alone. But he’s been working all day, and I can feel the strain in his voice, the mental exhaustion this case is causing him. “There’s not much to tell,” I lie. Then fake a laugh for his sake. “Nothing to report here, Boss.”
A hum fills the phone, deep and almost guttural. “Hey,” he says, his voice kicking up in volume. “You want me to come pick you up? Get you out of that apartment for a while?”
My eyes widen, the idea of leaving making my pulse spike… but then a text comes through.
And my deceiving heart soars.
Sara: Bedroom window. Five minutes.
Madison: ?
Sara: Feel like being a little insane with me?
“Bailey?” Brent asks, and I hold the phone to my ear again.
“Huh?”
“Did you want me to come get you?”
“No,” I say, already making my way to the bedroom. “I think I’m just going to call it a night.”
Chapter 26
“What the hell are you doing?” Bailey whispers, blocking my path.
I adjust my balance—one foot through the open window, the other on the fire escape—and scan her from head to toe. She’s in short shorts and a tank top. “I’m going to find something for you to wear,” I tell her, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“You can’t come in here!” Now she’s whisper-yelling.
I rear back so I can look in her eyes. “You got a visitor?”
“No.” She’s quick to shake her head. “But you shouldn’t be—”
“You’re not going out dressed like that. It’s cold,” I cut in.
Her arms cross. “I’m not going out at all.”
Gently, I place my hand on her hip and guide her a step to the side so I can climb all the way in. She doesn’t stop me, not even when I make my way to what I assume is her closet.
“I can pick out my own clothes, you know,” she says to my back.
With a shrug, I reply, “But you don’t know what we’re doing.” I run my hand along the clothes hanging on the rack, taking them in one by one. I stop on a white dress with black print—not at all suitable for tonight’s planned activities—but fuck, what I wouldn’t give to see her in it. “You pick these out yourself?”
“Yes.” Her response is soft, quiet, and if she wasn’t standing right behind me, there’s no way I would have heard it.
I rub the fabric of the dress between my fingers, focus on the pattern: outlines of fall leaves.
She slaps my hand off the garment and stands between it and me. “I was just looking,” I mumble. But I wasn’t. I was getting lost in my head again, trapped in the memories.
“I don’t like you going through my stuff.” It’s not an order or even a request. It’s just a thought she needed to verbalize.
My eyes narrow. “You got something to hide?”
At my words, her hand instinctively circles her wrist, covering the bracelet I got her. “Don’t we all, Nathaniel?” she murmurs, looking up at me. Her eyes are clear, full of strength and determination. “Isn’t that why you’re climbing through the window instead of knocking on the door?”
Silence passes while we stare at each other, neither willing to back down. I didn’t come here to play games, to mindfuck her or be mindfucked, and so when her hands settle on my stomach, I allow her to push me out of her closet.
“Maybe you should leave,” she says, her eyes still on mine.
That’s not going to happen. At least not without her. And so I break our little standoff to go through her dresser drawers. I find a black pair of jeans and go in search of a black sweatshirt. When I can’t find what I’m looking for, I unzip mine and remove it, hand them both to her. “Get dressed.”
Sighing, she eyes the clothes now in her grasp. “At some point, you’re going to have to stop telling me what to do.”
“Yeah?” I say, turning my back and heading for the window. “At some point, you’re gonna have to stop listening.”
It feels like an eternity passes before Bailey appears, stepping out from her apartment complex dressed in all black. Leaning against the rental across the road, I give myself a moment to just watch her from afar. Strange as it sounds, I’d never really looked at her like this. From a distance. The majority of the time we were together, she was within arm’s reach.
It’s almost eleven now, and the world around us is lit up by artificial lights. Bailey looks up, her eyes searching. She reaches into her back pocket and takes out her phone. A moment later, the burner in my hand buzzes. I pull the brim of my cap down low on my brow and check the text.
Madison: Where are you?
Biting my lip, I respond:
Sara: You’re so fucking beautiful, it pains me.
She doesn’t reply right away, and when I look up at her, she’s just standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring down at her phone as if shocked by what she’s seeing, what she’s reading. Surely, she has to know that I think this of her. That everything good in my life has come from her and her alone.
I give a short, sharp whistle, and her focus moves to me. She’s quick to cross the road, and I open her door to get her inside before anyone sees us together. When I get behind the wheel, she asks, “New car?”
“Just a rental.”
Nodding, she half turns to me. “What are we doing, Nate?”
I smirk. “We’re going on a mission.”
Chapter 27
The area Nate’s driving through seems familiar, but so are a lot of places in this area. When you live on the streets for as long as I did, you get aquatinted with your surroundings but never stay long enough to get comfortable with them. “Where are we?” I ask, looking out the window, watching the tree-lined streets pass by in a whoosh.
“I’ve just got to take care of something real quick, then we can go for a drive.” I face him, and he throws—what he tries to portray—a lazy smile my way. “Or you can drive if you want…” He has one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his lap. He’s leaning to one side, his body slumped. To anyone else, he’d look almost relaxed, but they don’t see the things I do: the tension in his arms, in his jaw, his eyes. I’d see it on the nights he’d come home late, when he’d silently crawl into bed and hold me as if he’d been waiting the entire day for that one moment. And when I’d ask if everything was okay, he wouldn’t answer in words; he’d simply capture my mouth with his and drown his troubles somewhere amidst our touch, our love. But then it would be over, and I’d pretend to be
asleep while he stayed awake, his mind working, his fingers twitching against my stomach as his world continued to spin and spin until it was out of control. He’d move slowly, quietly, hoping not to wake me, and go to the bathroom. The water would run… right after the cap of the pills he kept close would pop.
He never mentioned it.
And so I didn’t either.
Now, Nate pulls into a driveway lined by more trees, and I recognize it immediately—where we are. Even though I’d been crying and screaming his name the last time I was here, I remember the trees, remember the way the branches swayed, casting a light show beneath the starlit sky. We pass a clearing; I assume where his house once stood, now nothing but literal piles of ash.
“My mom loved this land,” Nate says, and I look at him, give him my full attention. He runs the pad of his thumb across his bottom lip, his gaze focused on what’s ahead. “That’s why we bought it.” He glances at me quickly, then looks away. “She wanted the opposite of New York—”
“You’re from New York?” I cut in.
He nods. “You didn’t know that?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head.
“You ever been?”
“No,” I repeat.
“I’d offer to take you, but…” But I’m me, and he’s him, and that’ll never happen. “She wanted animals,” he says, a slight smile tugging on his lips. “Lots of them. She practically wanted to run a shelter. Kind of absurd, but my mom…” He chuckles. “She was kind of absurd. At least with her plans. Her fantasies.” He stops the car in the middle of another clearing with nothing but darkness surrounding us. Then he cuts the engine but doesn’t make a move to get out. “My dad once told me that she and I—we were cut from the same cloth. We lived a life full of unfulfilled fantasies.”