by J. A. Huss
My heart pounds faster inside my chest when he turns away from the window. I will wait here for many minutes to see if I can catch another glimpse. But no amount of seeing him from afar will suffice.
I need to make contact.
He doesn’t come back. He’s a busy man, after all. How many spare minutes does he have in his day to gaze out a window?
I turn away as well. Withdraw back into my apartment filled with custom-made furniture and the art I have created over the past four years. I take a seat on the couch, my legs off to the side, fluffing my long hair and striking my pose as I hold the remote control in my hand.
Click.
I take a picture.
I like to have a still to start things out. Maybe I can sell it later?
But then my thumb finds the right button on the remote and the red light flashes on the camera mounted on the tripod several feet away.
“Hello,” I say, looking into the lens. I start every video with a hello. It’s good manners to greet people when you first make contact. “It has been more than four years since I last saw you.”
I stop to lick my lips. Not to be seductive. He won’t see that gesture because I am framed only from waist to shoulders. But just because of the nervous feeling that overtakes me each time I do this.
“Yesterday was…” I stop to smile. “Surprising, tantalizing, and almost unbearable.”
I saw him up close yesterday. He was coming out of the coffee shop at the Fort Collins Theater, cardboard paper cup in hand, and he was whistling the way only country boys know how. Boys who had a lot of time on their hands growing up. Boys who spent their days outside trying to mimic birdsongs. Who skipped rocks across a river and picked weedy purple flowers for their mothers before they went home for dinner.
I wasn’t even following him. I was walking home after picking up some bread from Anna Amici’s, the little Italian restaurant and bakery down near Laurel Street. There was a crowd of people in my way, but once the image of Oliver Shrike is burned into your brain, it stays there. I picked him out of that crowd immediately. Maybe it was his white Shrike Bikes thermal, or the way his body moves when he walks—that long stride or the tipped-up chin—that alerted me.
But I like to think we have this connection. Some kind of string that binds us together. Signals or vibrations that are attuned to the Law of Attraction. Because he looked right at me. Saw though me, thank God, but right at me.
I stopped walking and a child bumped into me from behind, my sudden stillness catching him off guard. The world kept going, his face disappeared, reappeared briefly as he reached for the door to the old bank building, and then disappeared again as he went inside.
I sigh for the camera. “When will you see me for real again?”
I say it with longing. And I do long for that day, which—God, my heart is beating so fast—could be today. But the possibility makes me so nervous.
He will have questions and he will want answers.
“Yesterday,” I say, forcing myself back on track, “I worked, as usual. And you’ll be happy to know that it was all legitimate business. A patron came to my online gallery and wanted the original self-portrait I did that last time we were together. Is that a good sign or a bad sign? I can’t decide. I only put it up for sale three days ago. No,” I say, smiling at him in the lens. “Don’t worry. I don’t need the money. That’s not why I did it. I just…” My words trail off. “I would just like a fresh start. And I’m tired of looking back, you know? So why keep it? I don’t display it. I mean, good God!” I laugh. “My walls do not need my naked body on them. And I didn’t keep it because of modesty, either. My face is hidden. I still do them that way, as you can see. Shoulders down, only. But out with the old, right? It’s all too much. It weighs me down.”
I look at the window again, knowing that one side of my body will be cast in shadow. Makes the whole thing more dramatic. My fingertips stroke circles around my nipples, then I pinch them, making them bunch up like hard, little spikes.
The wetness pools between my legs when I picture him watching this.
Stay focused, Kat. “So that was a good start. They paid in full. I spent most of the day packing it up properly. I sold the frame too. It’s an odd size, remember? So the frame is custom. They go together like marriage partners. And then I took it down to the post office.”
I stop to think of the war I waged inside my head as I stood in line for postage, insurance, and tracking. Should I pop in to the Fort Collins Theater and get dinner? Maybe bump into him again? Or one of his people? But no, I decided no. A chance encounter is not how I want our reunion to take place.
It needs to be tightly controlled.
“And then I went home and cooked linguini with shrimp for dinner.” I stare into the camera. “I wonder what you did. What does your day look like? Who do you talk to regularly?” A sudden stab of jealousy courses through my blood. All those people who get to hear his voice, see his face, be near him, if only to talk about receipts, or web security, or whatever.
They are all so much nearer than me.
My body slumps, just slightly. Shoulders rounded in defeat. Head down, hands clasped together in my lap. “I want to see you again,” I whisper.
And then I straighten up and look at the camera.
“Well, I guess I need to get to work. Maybe today will be the day?”
I click the button on the remote and the flashing red light disappears.
The phone in the kitchen rings. I smile, knowing who that is, and then unfold my legs and stand up, grabbing the robe draped over the chair and putting it on. I tie the sash as I walk to the kitchen and pick up the phone on the third ring, just before it hits voicemail.
“Hey,” I say into the receiver.
“Oh, my God. I’m so tired. I was up all night working on this stupid mid-term project. I have this huge presentation this afternoon and my partner was late for every single meeting we had. She’s so lazy. Why do I have to always get stuck with the unmotivated ones, Katya? Why do people even come to college if they don’t want to give a hundred percent? Coffee? I really need some.”
My sister makes me smile. She’s dramatic and serious. Brilliant and tenacious. And her life has been nothing like mine. “Sure,” I say. “Starbucks in the student center?”
A knock at my door makes me jump.
“I’m here.” She laughs. “We can go across the street to the theater coffee shop. We never get to go there.”
I think about that for a minute.
“Are you gonna let me in? Or will I have to stand out here until one of your uptight neighbors calls security?”
“Yes,” I say, snapping out of the panic. “One sec.”
I rush over to the door and pull it open. My sister is there, dark blonde hair spilling out from under a thick wool hat, her hands tucked inside her coat pockets, backpack over one shoulder.
I step aside to let her in and she rushes past me. “Come on, let’s go. They have that new cinnamon-flavor drink. Have you tried it yet?” She’s still talking into her phone for a few words before she remembers to end the call.
“I just got up,” I say, looking both ways in the hallway real fast before closing the door. “Can you give me twenty minutes?”
“Sis,” she whines. “I have class in thirty. We won’t have time.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting you to show up here so early.”
“I know but I neeeeeed coffee. Just throw on jeans and a hoodie. You can come right back home in twenty minutes.” She tugs on my hand. “Come on. Come on, come on, come on.”
I want to gulp down the fear inside me at the thought of going into the theater coffee shop, but Lily is very in my face right now. “OK, just give me a sec.”
I rush off down the hallway and throw on some light-wash jeans, a gray blouse with a ruffled hem, and a belted pink jacket to pull me together.
My feet slip into a comfortable pair of gray felt clogs and I grab my purse off the nightstand as I make my way back int
o the living room.
Lily is standing over my camera tripod, looking very much like she’s trying to find the right button to play back the footage I just took.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, my God,” she says, jumping back. “Sorry. It’s just you never show me any of your work. Did you just…” She looks at the camera. “You know…”
“Take pictures?” I say, walking over and removing the camera from the tripod and taking it into the kitchen so I can lock it inside the safe. “Yes. But if you think I’m showing you, you’re out of your mind.”
“I can see them all online, you know. I have seen them all online.”
“I know,” I say, shutting the safe. “But those are all finished. You know I don’t like to share the raw images.”
Lily stares at me for a long second. Like she’s seriously thinking things through. I can practically see her mind whirling. “If you got it, flaunt it,” she says. “Just embrace it, sis. I mean, how many women can say they make money with their bodies and it doesn’t involve sex?”
“I flaunt it quite enough, thank you,” I say, motioning her towards the door. “And there’s no way you’ll make your class if we stop at the theater for coffee. So I’ll walk you back on campus and we’ll grab one from the street vendor.”
“That’s no fun,” she says, slightly whiny. I open the door and we both walk through. “The whole point was cinnamon, Katya.”
“We’ll get cinnamon the next time you show up, providing that you have more time. You know the line over at the theater will be out the door at this time of day.”
I don’t really expect a fight from her. And I don’t get one. Lily is not too confrontational. Her opinions are as strong as anyone’s, but she’s rarely up for a fight. Especially when she knows I’m right.
So we twine our arms together and walk the three blocks down to campus, stopping at the corner of Laurel and College for a coffee.
“Did you hear about the zombie biker thing this weekend?” Lily asks, once we get our coffee and we’re headed towards her class in the Clark Building.
“Now why would I ever care about that?” I say, faking a smile as I take a sip of my drink.
“Oh, please. I know all about your sordid history, Katya.”
I almost choke. “What?”
“The tattoos?” She gives me a sideways glance from the corner of her eye. “Come on. You were into a guy like that once for sure. I never saw him, but I remember you sneaking out of the house after you thought I was asleep every time a motorcycle came near. And now that you’re back… well, why not hook up again? He’s still here, right?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I never had a biker boy. And no, that guy is not still here. He graduated a long time ago and moved away, just like everyone else.”
“Bummer,” Lily says. “Well, this is me.” She motions to the Clark Building. “Wish me luck on that presentation. If that stupid Brittany messes me up, I will kick her ass.”
“You will not.” I laugh. “I can’t even picture that in my wildest dreams.”
“I won’t, but I’ll want to.” And then she turns, waving over her shoulder, and disappears into a crowd of college kids as they all climb the stairs and enter the building.
I finish my coffee as I walk back the way we came. I won’t be able to put her off the Fort Collins Theater for much longer. It’s a very popular place with the students. It’s a restaurant, coffee shop, and theater. They have live events every once in a while, but mostly it plays those artsy indie films that always end up with awards only pretentious people know about. And this week, it’s a haunted house for Halloween.
But I won’t have to confront that place today and that’s the only thing that matters.
I will be taking the alley back to my building, unwilling to chance another trip down College in full view of Oliver’s office window. I want to look up there so bad as I cross the street, but it’s windy, so I duck my head into it and keep on track, turning left into the alley that will hide me for three blocks.
When I get back into my apartment, I take my clothes off again, tie the silky tea-green robe around my body, and get the camera from the safe.
I don’t edit it. I wasn’t recording the audio and I know my face was not in the frame, so why bother. There’s really nothing on there but his words on my breasts.
It’s enough. It’s always been enough.
I open my laptop, pull up the website, Hook-Me-Up, and log in.
No messages flash from my little mailbox icon in the upper right corner, but that’s not surprising. My profile is private.
What does take me by surprise are the little red “like” hearts and the one-new-view alert on each of my three previously uploaded videos.
Someone watched them.
And they left me a video response in the closed comments.
Chapter Three - OLIVER
“Your fucking sister, man. You need to rein her in.” Corporate says those last few words with staccato emphasis, like he’s on edge.
“Which one?” I sigh. Fucking sisters. And then I press send on the video I just made, sitting back in my chair, enthralled with the idea that Katya Kalashova will be watching it very soon.
“Ariel,” West says, throwing up his arms and then walking across the room to slump down on the couch placed against the far wall. “How in the hell does she insert herself into my life like she’s been there forever? Did you know she and Tori are suddenly BFFs?”
“Hmmm,” I say.
“Right? No good, right?”
Weston Conrad might look a little panicked. But… well, I can’t blame him. My sisters are what most people would call… wild. Even Belle, who is the tame one, has a very unusual dark side.
“Are you gonna try to tell me this has nothing to do with what went down a couple weeks ago? Because if so, I’ll save you the trouble. I don’t buy it. Victoria is obsessed, man. Fucking obsessed.”
“With Ariel?”
“No, you dumbass. With my parents.”
“What? Why?”
“They called me up the other day, said they were coming for a visit and they want to meet Ethan. Said they might never get another grandchild, so they’re all in for this adoption thing. Tori threw a fucking fit.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck is right. Your dirty parents, blah, blah, blah. Buying children, blah, blah, blah. Over my dead body. Etc., etc., etc.”
“Well, why doesn’t she tell you what she really thinks?” I laugh, rubbing my hand down my face.
West shoots me a look that makes it very clear he does not find this funny. “So now we’re in Fort Collins. Staying at your sister’s house, Oliver.”
“For how long?”
“Until my parents back off, she said.”
“How long’s that?”
“I dunno,” he snaps. “Do I look like I know how long I’m going to be held hostage in Shrikeville? You need to tell Ariel to talk her down for me, OK? You need to ask her to—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, holding up my hands. “I’m not getting involved in your bullshit. Fuck that. I don’t even like you.”
“Scared?” West says, unsmiling.
“Uh, yeah. Dude, I don’t fuck with my sister’s plans. We get along because I keep my mouth shut and let her do whatever the hell she wants.”
“Well, that certainly worked with Cindy,” he says, half laughing. “Mysterious swooped right into your territory and took over.”
I sneer at him. “Like I could stop that after the fact.”
“Look,” West says. “Do you really want Tori hanging out with Ariel? Can you even imagine the trouble they will cause? I mean, I get you know what your sister’s capable of, but you have no clue how crazy Victoria Arias can be.”
“I have an idea,” I say. “Maybe we weren’t close after that shit went down in college, but Pax filled me in about the two of you. If she does something crazy—”
“She will, Oliver. They are pla
nning something, I just know it. And you’re the only one who can figure out what it is so we can put a stop to it. Do you understand that? I mean, can’t you talk to her? Just a quick, ‘Hey, did you know Victoria is kinda psycho? Maybe you should send her packing and save this town some trouble?’”
“Right.” I laugh. “I say that to Ariel and she becomes even more interested. I don’t think you know her very well. Cindy is the calm sister in this family. Belle is a hard-ass like you’ve never seen before. She took lessons from my Uncle Ford. Who, by the way, is Five’s father, just to give you an idea of what that means. And Jasmine spends her days tattooing bikers with my batshit-crazy uncles. We just better hope Ariel doesn’t get them all together because things will go down.”
“This is all your fault.”
“My fault?” I laugh. “Victoria is the instigator in this whole mess. Don’t pass this off on me.”
“Pass what off?”
Corporate and I both whirl around to find Tori and Ariel standing at the top of the stairwell.
“Yeah,” Ariel says. They both step forward into my office. “What are you talking about?”
“Just how long you guys are gonna be in town,” I say, directing that statement to Victoria.
She hates me. But I don’t take it personally. I think she hates everyone but Weston and the new kid they’re adopting.
“As long as necessary,” she replies, narrowing her eyes. “If Weston’s parents, and I use that word to be polite, think they’re going to get their claws into my child, they’ve got another thing coming.”
“They just want to meet him, Tori. For fuck’s sake.”
“Why?”
“Why?” West asks. “Because I’m adopting him. We’re getting married. They’re my parents. They love me.”
I wait for an explosion from Tori. I do kind of agree with her on this. The Conrads are suspicious as hell. I’ve tried to look into their past, but it’s nothing but photographs in the society pages of the Boston Globe and board meetings on the long list of charities they fund.
Everyone has dirt. So when you can’t find it easily, red flags abound.
“I know they love you,” Tori says, playing it cool. Her beautiful face—and there’s no denying this woman’s beauty—lights up with a smile as she walks over to her man and entwines their arms together. “But I don’t love them. I don’t trust them, or like them, or want anything to do with them.” She blinks her violet eyes innocently as she gazes up at West. “Sweetie.”