by Lily White
Plucking the hundred from the table, I tuck it in my wallet. “I do mind, actually. But I’m still willing to hear what you have to say tomorrow night.”
It’s impossible not to look at Adeline next. When our eyes lock, she stills, a sheen of concern coloring her cheeks.
“As I said before, it’s been a pleasure meeting you. I look forward to when we see each other again.”
The color deepens, and I want nothing more than to chase it down her body.
Standing from the table, Grant offers his hand. Our palms lock in a grip that makes him wince. He thinks he’s a tough man - tough enough to treat his wife like shit, apparently - but he won’t last a second going up against a man like me.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night, Harrison. I’ve given Adeline your information, and she’ll contact you with our home address and such.”
As if I needed it, but still, I nod my head, grab my jacket and stroll off.
In less than two days, I’ll have everything I need to win this game. There are only a few more tasks to complete before I have Adeline and her moron for a husband exactly where I need them.
Adeline
“What’s the cheapest phone you have and how quickly can service be set up? Also, is it traceable? I need something that nobody can link back to me.”
The store clerk looks at me with surprise, the pleasant expression he wore when I first walked in dissolving into suspicion that he is staring at a mad woman.
I don’t blame him. With no doubt, I look like a mad woman at the moment. Because I am mad. Fucking pissed, actually, but more terrified than anything.
After Ari left the restaurant, I had to hold myself together while Grant groaned and complained about not landing the new investor. And the entire time, all I could do was smile and nod, make little non-committal noises as if I were listening while, in truth, I was falling apart.
How I’d managed to make it through lunch was anyone’s guess, but I knew one thing: There is no way in Hell that I’ll make it through dinner at my house.
There has to be a way to get rid of Ari. Fortunately, Grant gave me his number to send him our information. Unfortunately, the conversation I need to have with him is not one I can risk my husband finding.
The store clerk clears his throat and runs a hand through his dirty blond hair. Peeking around the store as if there is somebody who might intervene and drag me out, he finds no security. The store is dead for the most part. Just me and him. The crazy lady who sounds like she’s about to commit murder and a store clerk who is desperate not to become a conspirator.
“Listen,” I say, attempting to appear calm despite the anxiety vibrating beneath my skin, “I don’t mean to sound crazy right now. I know how this must look. But my husband is slightly controlling, and I need something to use that he can’t find.”
Understanding finally dawns on him, a sleazy smile streaking across his face. “Oh, this is for...are you doing what I think you’re doing?”
What am I doing?
I really don’t know for sure.
But desperation is clinging to me like an insecure lover, and I’m acting without thinking, every instinct inside me set to autopilot.
It’s my turn to glance around, check for ears that can listen in. Not finding anybody in the cheap, pay-as-you go cell store located deep in a bad part of town, I’m not concerned that this could leak back to my highbrow husband.
“Sure,” I answer, adding a wink as if I just let him in on a dirty secret. “You must know how it is.”
His smile brightens. “I got you, girl. I know exactly what you need.”
With a new sense of camaraderie, the clerk spins to pull open a lower cabinet behind the counter, practically dancing in place as he selects three different choices. I figure he must enjoy the clandestine edge to what I’m doing, and I try to ignore his sudden vigor.
Placing the three choices on the counter, he glances at me with eyes of turquoise blue and taps a finger over each one.
“First choice, there is a no contract option, but data isn’t included unless you take the contract. Second choice, also no contract, data is included, but it costs a pretty penny for each gig you use. Third choice. Like the other two, no contract, but no data, meaning you can only text and call. However, by text, I mean words only. No naughty pictures sent to someone who isn’t your husband.”
He winks and I sigh, smiling politely because he’s far too eager to help me commit adultery.
“The third one will do. I don’t plan to send naughty photos.”
Disappointment flattens his smile. “But that’s the fun part,” he complains.
Another sigh. “While I’m sure that’s true, I only need the plain text option.” I pull cash from my wallet. “How much does it cost?”
He goes over the different price options with me, eventually giving up on the naughty photo argument and accepts payment for one month of service.
I don’t even need a full month. If I can convince Ari to walk away and stop fucking with my life, the phone will be tossed by the end of tonight, and I can forget this fucked up day happened.
The clerk is quick about setting up the phone for me, showing me the different features that I don’t care about, and I’m walking out the door within twenty minutes.
Once back in my car, I transfer Ari’s number into the new phone and fire off my first text.
What will it take for me to convince you to leave me alone and stop toying with my fucking life?
Straight. To the point. And if the asshole doesn’t figure out it’s me by the cryptic message, he’s an idiot. Unless, of course, mine isn’t the only marriage Ari is trying to destroy.
Still, for plausible deniability, I won’t include my name until he answers and admits he knows exactly who I am.
Almost immediately, little bubbles spring up to show he’s responding. They stop though. Spring up again. Stop. Over and over, until I’m about to scream. I’m expecting a paragraph for how long it goes on, but when the text finally comes through, all I get is:
Ari: I believe identifying yourself is what most people consider polite these days.
Asshole.
You know who this is. How do I get rid of you?
I can imagine him laughing wherever he is, those seductive grey eyes glimmering with pure evil. That cruel mouth tugging up at the corners with every promise of making my life Hell.
Ari: Let’s pretend I do know who this is. Why in the world would you want to get rid of me? I seem to remember you enjoying our time together very much, even if it was cut short when you ran away.
The hard part is he’s right. Although I will never admit that to him, I can’t deny the way my body responds to him. Every night, I’ve dreamed about what went on in that mausoleum, and even today at lunch I struggled to not stare at him, my body reacting with the memory of what his hands feel like, his tongue...his teeth.
But it doesn’t matter if I’m drawn to him. I’m a married woman. It might not be the perfect marriage, but it’s what I need. After getting burned so many times when I was younger, I learned that my choices and decisions aren’t always what is best for me.
I didn’t enjoy anything. Which is why I never want to see you again.
He answers within seconds.
Ari: Well, in that case, you’re not who I think you are. I mistook you for a woman who left my hand a sticky mess after she came all over it. So, either tell me your name, or send me a nice picture so I can know who I’m talking to.
A growl crawls up my throat. What is it with guys and pictures? And why does he keep slapping me down by mentioning how he made me feel?
I wouldn’t send you a picture, even if I could, which I can’t, because my phone plan doesn’t allow it.
More little bubbles bounce, the message coming through so direct with accusation that I drop the phone in my lap and scrub my hands over my face.
Ari: Burner phone. Very smart, Adeline. It’s almost like you know what you’re doing. I as
sume you’ve had plenty of experience running around behind other people’s backs. Which only means the game has just changed.
Tears sting my eyes, my frustration so bone deep that it hurts to move, to stay still. My muscles are locked in my shoulders and neck, my head pounding with each pulse of my heart.
I snatch the phone from my lap and tap out a message in all caps.
WHAT GAME?! AND CHANGED HOW?
Lifting my head to look out through the windshield, I lock eyes with the sales clerk inside the store. He winks. Gives me a thumbs up. Completely enjoying the moment while I can’t stop thinking that my marriage is as good as gone.
The phone pings, the message dragging a razor down my spine for how horrible Ari’s response is.
Ari: Before you admitted to knowing how to hide your tracks, I was going to go easy on you. But now that I see you’re just as devious as me, I’ve decided to raise the stakes. Meet me tonight, and we’ll talk about your unfortunate issue. Otherwise, you can expect to see a lot of me in the coming weeks.
Furious thumbs fly over the tiny screen, my teeth locking together tighter with every click and tap.
I can’t. Grant will be home and wonder where I am.
Is it possible to hear laughter through a text? I don’t have to hear Ari speaking to know the tone of his voice, the dark whisper of sound as if his mouth is against my ear teasing me with the destruction I know he wants.
Ari: I suggest you remove the leash your husband has attached to your collar. And beyond that, I suggest you stop lying. We both know Grant works late into the evening. He loves bragging to me about it. I’ll see you at the mausoleum at six. Don’t be late.
No. Any place but there. For whatever reason I can’t bear the thought of defiling my parents’ resting place more than I already have. The cemetery will always carry the stain of Ari now, but I still won’t add to it.
Meet me at my house instead. 6741 Golden Dawn Road.
Several minutes pass in tense, deafening silence before the final pings come through.
Ari: Interesting choice.
Another text.
Ari: See you there.
. . .
A few hours later, I find myself wandering an empty house. Without the furniture and rugs, the curtains and instruments, without the life that once existed here, it feels like walking through a skeleton that has desiccated down to nothing over time.
Ghosts haunt this structure. My mother’s after she passed at home from an illness that nobody could fight. My father’s after his sorrow for losing his wife pushed him to a decision that would leave me alone.
I was orphaned at sixteen, left to remain in a home that spoke of sorrow and death, in a place where shadows stood over me at night.
Despite all that, I survived. Barely. I became reckless and rebellious, meandered a slow path of self-destruction that somehow, some way, didn’t take my life.
Perhaps it was simple luck that kept me alive. We don’t all make it, though. I had friends that died from stupid things, mostly drugs and alcohol, or action without thought.
When we’re young, some of us can choose to believe that life is an endless journey, that youth in all its stupidity has a way of sheltering us from the truth of our own mortality.
I never had that belief, not with the disorders I suffered, and certainly not after losing both my parents, but my friends did. Some of them lived to tell the tale, but not all.
Not Jason. Although, with his issues, I’m not surprised. Nobody in my circle knew what happened to him. He simply disappeared one night, the same night we’d fought, and I’d refused to speak to him again. Maybe it had something to do with that, but I hope not.
To this day I wonder about the people I once knew who drove off into the night never to be heard from again.
Three, to be exact.
But maybe that’s another consequence of youth: friendships can be so fleeting. People come into your life for a handful of months and then are gone again as if they were never there to begin with.
For those reasons, I hate this house, and it’s why I chose it for this meeting. It’s already defiled by blood and pain, regret and nightmares. There is nothing Ari can do to make it worse.
Only a few minutes remain before he’ll be knocking on the door, and I use them to wander from room to room, memories assaulting me of nights spent alone, of waking up in weird places, of dreams that I was conscious of while having them.
Stepping up to the French doors in the kitchen, I lean a shoulder against the glass, allowing the side of my head to rest on the cool surface as I scan the shadows outside. It’s not entirely dark, but the large trees provide enough shade to block out the last burst of color beaming out from the setting sun, and I can just imagine that the dance of shadow and light are the ghosts of memories just out of reach.
I close my eyes from emotional exhaustion, my blood pressure at a dangerous high because I feel like I’m free falling through my life, one mistake leading to a moment when my marriage is at risk, the life I created for myself to balance the chaos is now threatened.
A quiet scream volleys from my throat when a sharp knock rattles the glass, my eyes flying open to see Ari standing on the other side, his hair and clothing blending perfectly into the darkness while his silver-grey eyes catch mine. He grins, just the slightest crook at the corners of his mouth. I wonder if he ever fully smiles.
A flicker of memory...
Staring at him, I have the weirdest sensation that we’ve been here before. Obviously, it’s impossible, but still, the feeling is there, like a dream just out of reach, the effects of it lingering.
But then anger slams down, and I wrench the door open, the cool evening air rushing in, carrying his scent with it. My knees weaken to breathe it in. He smells like a fantasy come to life.
His voice is a deep purr of sound, soft like velvet. “I thought you were asleep.”
Mine, however, is a streak of fury that slices through the spell he can so easily weave.
“How long were you standing there? And why are you standing there? The front door is on the other side of the house.”
Clearly amused, he leans a shoulder against the doorjamb. “You should pay better attention to your surroundings.”
Another flicker of memory...
My eyes snap to his, the collision of our gazes sending a shudder down my body that I try to ignore. Grant is a beautiful man, but standard and boring compared to Ari.
While Grant represents power, responsibility, precision and reliability, the space around Ari whispers of danger, of secrets, of hidden agendas and desires that are so utterly wrong they’re not spoken about by respectable people.
“Why would you say that to me?”
He searches my face, his expression so enigmatic that it drives me insane. He isn’t someone you can glance at and know what they’re thinking. I envy that mystery, find myself wishing to unravel it to discover all there is to know.
But then, that has always been my problem. I’m not controlled enough to leave well enough alone.
Before Grant, I was Poor Little Adeline, the girl who always ran in the wrong direction, who never made decisions that were good for her.
I was wild then.
And maybe the mistake I made with this man in the cemetery was a momentary backlash against how Grant continues to tame me. A step backward that needs to be corrected now.
Moving closer, Ari’s cheek brushes mine as he lowers his voice and whispers against my ear. “Twice now, I’ve been able to sneak up on you. The cemetery and here. Why do you never see the person standing right in front of you?”
I back off, placing enough distance between us that he can slip inside and shut the door behind him. He leans against it and crosses his arms over his chest, the bulge of his biceps fighting against the sleeves.
Still in black on black, he’s lost the suit jacket, but wears the pants that do little to disguise his strong thighs, and a button up shirt that showcases the breadth of
his shoulders and chest that taper down to a toned waist.
Mimicking his posture, I reach for the rage I was feeling earlier, scrabble for it because, in the end, this man threatens the balance in my life. He threatens everything I’ve fought to achieve.
“Whatever. You’re the one who keeps sneaking up on me. If anything, that makes you a stalker and has no bearing on what I’m paying attention to or not.”
His lips curl, but beyond that he doesn’t react.
“Let’s get to the point of why we’re here. I want you gone. What happened between us won’t happen again, so I’d appreciate you leaving both Grant and me alone.”
“So eager,” he teases, the tone of his voice a sexual pulse blended with sensual cruelty. “But then, I think you’ve always been that way, even if you’re trying to hide it now.”
“You know nothing about me.”
Another twitch of a set of lips that promise exquisite pain.
“I know you’re allowing your husband to treat you like a dog. How often does he snap his fingers in your face, Adeline? Do you fetch his newspaper and slippers each time he demands it?”
It was a slap to the face, a vein of truth that untangles inside me to hear another person mention it. I was already struggling with Grant’s treatment, but to hear Ari point it out only drives the simmering doubt inside me to a boil.
“I would have thought you’d be stronger than to allow a man to dictate what you do.”
My eyes meet his, wide and defiant. “It’s none of your damn business. How do I get rid of you?”
“You don’t,” he answers without a second’s hesitation, his arms uncrossing as he slips his hands into his pockets.
“Then why are we here?”
An intractable mask in place, he answers, “Good question. Why are you here? I’m on pins and needles to find out.”
Frustration strangles me as I recall that he’d asked me the question before. I’d walked right into this mess, and all I could do was flail around, making it worse with every word spoken.
“I’m here because you said I had to meet with you since the game has changed.” Mocking his text with a bitter falsetto to my voice, I narrow my eyes when he grins.