Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  I knew this. I knew Marley was engaged: another doctor, someone much older than her. In the official picture that the Fate Tribune ran last year, he looked old enough to be her father.

  “He did,” she goes on quietly, causing me to smirk. “And that’s what’s just sad, Carla. I think the bar’s just really low.”

  My stomach feels as if it’s being folded into a square.

  “You’re right. You’re right,” she says, reluctantly. “I just have to trust the plan, you know? The universe’s plan. Or my eventuality, or fate, or whatever. Har, har. Yes, I know,” she says, and it sounds like she’s smiling. “Something’s coming for me. And if not—I’m coming by myself.” She laughs. “Oh my goodness, speaking of—”

  And that’s my cue to go: the realization that she’s probably about to tell her friend about me and my music. I hurry into my work room, where I was heading when I heard her laugh and veered off-course.

  There I sink into a wing-backed chair and hold my head in the dark. I haven’t seen her since the night I acted like a fucking idiot, but I’ve been lingering outside the door that leads into her space. Like some kind of stalker. I’m surprised how much this depresses me. With everything else I’ve got going…

  I don’t remember closing my eyes, but I must have, because when I wake up, my phone tells me it’s 2:03 a.m.

  I blink around the room, stifled by a thick feeling of dread. The feeling that I’m somewhere wrong. That someone needs me. It’s such a powerful sensation, tears prickle the corners of my eyes.

  I go quietly down the stairs and to the house’s front door—past the closet, which I finally cleaned up—onto the porch, where I lean against the rail and tell myself, don’t do it, man.

  I can’t stop myself from dialing, though. I lean against one of the house’s columns and stare out at the dark-draped lawn.

  “Hey there, buddy. How’s it going?” Damnit if my PI doesn’t answer in a Mr. Nice guy tone, even though I’ve called in the middle of the goddamn night.

  I rub my forehead. “Going fine, Hugh.”

  “What can I help you with, Gabe?”

  I grit my teeth, irrationally angry that I have to spell it out. Angry that I’m asking in the first place. “How’s she doing?” I ask darkly.

  “Have you been getting—”

  “Yes, I got the pictures. Thank you.”

  Hugh is silent for a half second. Then in careful tones, he says, “She’s fine. Just fine.”

  “Yeah?” My eyes sting as I grit my teeth and lock my jaw.

  “Doing just fine. Absolutely okay. Watched a couple hours at a distance today—and just fine.”

  My eyes well up. I squeeze them shut. “Okay.” The coolness of the night fills my head and chest. I hear myself say, “That’s all. Thank you, Hugh.”

  He says, “Any time, friend.”

  Marley

  My phone buzzes, and I push up off my elbows, where I’ve been leaning over the bathroom sink, waiting to wash this collagen-enhancing mud mask off my face.

  I’ve got a text from Kat. ‘ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE?!!’

  I blink my eyes, which feel a little dry in my immobilized, green face. I bend my neck so I can get a better view of my phone, and feel the mask crack as I smile. ‘Ha. Almost. Still good with 7:30?’

  ‘Bet your face. Still good with Charlie’s >> Moonbeams >> Hospitality?’

  ‘Haha, IDK, guess we’ll see… I’m kinda tired for all of that.’

  ‘Put on your spurs, cowgirl’

  I roll my eyes and start to wash my face. Charlie’s is Fate’s best restaurant—seafood and steak—and Moonbeams is the go-to bar for normal people. Hospitality is the dive bar, where all the men are wearing dirty boots and all the female regulars are garden tools. I’d have to be drunk right off my ass to go to Hospitality. I don’t plan to get drunk.

  As I dress, I tell myself to cheer up—and I really try to. I’m not sick or dying, and I have a safe, comfortable life. There’s nothing tragic about the passage of another year. On the contrary, I should view it as a blessing. One year closer to what I want, right?

  It’s my birthday, and I can dress how I want, so I pull on mermaid scale leggings and top them with a long, cream sweater. My hair is bugging me, so I pull it up in a loose bun. Why not be comfortable?

  Finally, I pull the strap of my small, leather purse over my chest diagonally, hop onto my bike, and head off toward Charlie’s on Main. I could have driven the two blocks or gotten a ride from Kat or Lainey, but riding my bike is insurance against drinking too much. I’ve had a tiring week at work, and I don’t want to feel like shit all weekend.

  When I reach the door of Charlie’s, someone opens from the inside. I don’t even stop to wonder who it is, just step inside and jump out of my skin when the place roars “surprise!”

  I let out a little scream as heads pop up from behind booths, the restaurant’s open-concept dining area going from near-empty to near-full in the span of a second. Kat is right here at the forefront, giving me a thumbs-up sign and grinning in a way that says, “forgive me, please.”

  “You hussy!” I punch her.

  “You love me.” Kat hugs me, and Lainey puts some kind of headband on my head. Turns out, it’s sparkling stars attached to two springs that stick up like horns. “Happy birthday, love!”

  Damn, but it’s a total whirlwind. Almost everyone I know is here—except for Mom, who probably declined the invitation due to her need for nonstop oxygen and her hatred of basically everyone. In attendance are Grandma Ellis, Zach, his good friend Clint, two of my favorite high school teachers, all the doctors from the clinic and some of the nurses, Miss Shorter (and her hand-carved crane cane), my old piano teacher, a friend I mentored in cheer when I was a senior and she was a freshman, the now-grown-up Holley children whom I babysat for three years while their parents launched and ran this very restaurant, and Staci, Laurel, and Bitty, three other high school friends I haven’t had a chance to reconnect with yet.

  Word of my birthday spreads through the whole place, and within minutes, everyone is twirling on the tiny dance floor, playing old songs on the adorable jukebox, and ordering me celebratory drinks.

  Two and a half hours, three beers, two Bloody Marys, and four pineapple shrimp kabobs later, I stumble out into the chilly night, flanked by Kat and Lainey, trailed by Staci and Laurel, and head down the street to Moonbeams.

  “I said I wouldn’t drink, you hussies…”

  Lainey smiles, looking giggly from her own lemon martinis. “It’s your birthday. Get that stick out of your behind.”

  I chortle. “You said ‘behind.’”

  “Do you prefer ass?” She slaps mine.

  “Lainey!”

  “Even drunk, Marley is the tightest ass among us,” Laurel says. “And by tightest I mean most uptight, although she does have a nice ass. I say we skip Moonbeams and take her out to Hospitality.”

  “I second that,” says Staci. “Poker night there. I bet the five of us could rock that shit.”

  I grumble, but I’m quickly overruled, but who really cares? Kat pledges to take me home and be the DD for the rest of us. What’s one night of stupid drunkenness?

  We take the highway to the town’s outskirts, to the nondescript white building on the edge of the woods, and park in a tree-fringed lot crammed with mostly good ole boy trucks. As Kat parks her Volvo, I can hear the booming country music.

  “C’mon, you guys. Let’s go back to Moonbeams.” In the time it took to ride here, I sobered up a little. “I hate loud music.”

  “I’ll make them turn it down,” Staci insists. “My cousin’s in the DJ booth tonight.”

  Oh God. Annnnd this is everything I hate about my hometown. Honky-tonk and boots and dancing. I’m not country—like, at all. I’m a city girl, so this is going to suck. I look around, though, and my friends seem delighted that they dragged me here. I find I just can’t say “no way.” I’m fifteen again, and Kat has dragged me to a field party on Ba
ker Road. Lainey’s got a joint she stole from her cousin.

  “C’mon,” Kat insists.

  Like I always used to, I think what can it hurt?

  Eight

  Gabe

  The literary world is like a small town. So eventually, they heard. My editor. The pub house veep of marketing. A couple of my author friends. And finally, inevitably, Page Six.

  My agent, Roy, had kept it quiet since everything went down, around the end of April. I can’t blame him for this. Word leaked from the other camp, Roy thinks. In any case, they know now. Everybody in my circle.

  I got a big basket of soup, crackers, and cookies from the publishing house on Wednesday. Yesterday, a box of cheese and sausage from my editor, Amelia. I couldn’t stomach the cards, so I stuffed them in the drawer of my adopted desk, up in the green room.

  Now it’s Saturday night, or more accurately, one o’clock Sunday morning. I’ve been up here for hours now, pounding out a dozen words an hour, jerking off, and pacing the room, which has started feeling like prison. What else do I have to do but slice the cards open and behold all the awkwardness, the pity?

  Nothing.

  That’s the answer.

  I’ve been writing—attempting to write—in the dark, with the blinds to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows open, so I can watch the road. For her—okay? For her. And what would you do? Pay her no attention? Anyone would be…thrown off, if they were living in the same digs as their ex. That’s what I tell myself. And I’m not only living here. As of now, I’m hiding here. Soon, word will get out. Someone from Fate will Google me, and I’ll be forced to face the music.

  The requiem.

  I take the letter opener I found in the kitchen and stick the tip into one of the envelopes. Then I jerk it rightward, and I love that fucking sound: of paper tearing.

  Shrrpppp!

  I work the card out gently, finding that it’s got a dog on it. Some kind of watercolor-looking dog. Is that a basset hound? Because that’s random. Cora, curled up on the rug, lifts her head, as if she read my thoughts. I open the card, and sharp light cuts through black outside. My gaze jerks to the window. Headlights. Fuck.

  I turn my phone’s light off, then set the card down. I doubt she’d look up here, but if she did, I don’t want my face spotlighted. Christ.

  The light flashes a few times: someone getting out and walking through the headlights’ beams. I hear laughter. Squealing.

  I walk over to the window, peer down.

  My eyes find Marley like they’d behold my own body after a long sleep: I’m both surprised and not. I see her swaying silhouette, and I can tell she’s drunk. I search the silhouette beside her, and I’m pleased to see it’s short and slender: Lainey. Got to be. Marley is taller. Curvier. More. I watch as she shoves her friend, and Lainey falls against the car.

  Suddenly, I need to hear their words, like bits of dialogue. My writing is so blocked, I feel like I’m frozen in a glacier. Maybe their words will thaw me.

  I open the window gently. Silently.

  “So there’s your boyyyyyyy!” Marley’s loud, drunk voice is like an arrow through the night. She doubles over, laughing.

  “Shut the fuck up, yellow belly!”

  “Yellow belly!” Marley cackles. “What’s…a…bellow—yellow belly?”

  Lainey falls against her, draping her arms around Marley. They two of them are howling like a couple coyotes.

  “Shut up, loud ass!”

  “So’s your mom!” Lainey throws her head back. Marley leans against her.

  I can’t hear what Marley says, but Lainey screeches, “Not that, noooo! You know I hate it,” she slurs.

  Marley laughs. “You can’t drive home…okay, amigo?”

  “That’s what Kat is for!”

  Marley shoves off Lainey, totters through the grass. “I got this, hussy. Peace out!”

  She flashes what looks to be a peace sign as she falls backward, over the bushes that line the walkway to my door.

  Marley

  I’m pulling my keys from my purse, clomping up the stairs toward my door, when something streaks over the treeline.

  “Oh my God!” A shooting star!

  I watch it burn out, grinning a big, sloppy grin. My gaze falls down to my purse. What was I doing…? Whoa, I’m kind of dizzy!

  The next thing I know, I’m grasping for the hand-rail as I wobble backwards. I yelp as the stairs pummel my head and shoulder, ribs, and cheek, before I slam into the dirt.

  GOD!

  I’m on my back. When I try to draw a breath, my chest feels frozen. I gasp, and make an awful whooping sound as I drag air into my lungs. My eyes shut. When I pull them open, everything looks wobbly.

  I push up on one elbow, noting dim pain in my head, my knee, my ribs.

  My dumb, drunk ass fell down the stairs! I start to laugh and whimper instead.

  Oh, God. My breath hitches on a pained sob. I might die here like those poor souls who choke to death on gum in lonely houses.

  I push myself up, so I’m sitting, and pain shoots through my head. “Oh, hell.” I lean over, resting one still-shaky arm on my knee.

  Something scuffs behind me. “Marley?”

  I swing my gaze around to find Gabe crouching down beside me.

  “What the fuck just happened?” He sounds pissed off.

  I blink up at him with bleary eyes, but I can’t see him in the dark. “I fell down,” I say thickly.

  “Down the stairs?”

  I give a soft laugh. “Yeah.”

  Gabe shifts closer, close enough that I can smell him, see the outline of his frown. “Well—are you okay?”

  “I’m okay.” I wobble to my feet and grab onto the stair rail. God, I’m dizzy. Really dizzy.

  I look up the stairs.

  “Why don’t you let me help you up?” I feel his hand on my elbow and try to step away. Except my knee gives out. As I grab for the stair rail, Gabe scoops me up, carrying me in front of him like a husband carrying his bride over the threshold.

  I blink up at him. Shove him. “Let me go!”

  “You can’t even stand up on the ground, Marley. You want to fall again?”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  Sparkly tingles fizzle through me as I feel his lips against my hair. “You smell like a bar.”

  “The most good-smelling bar,” I say in a drunk half-sigh, even as I try to wriggle free. He ascends a few more steps before I grab his shirt collar and tug. “I’ll have you know…I’ve been walking for…thirty-three…well, something.” I giggle. “Thirty years or more, I’ve been walking. Put me down, you big dickface!”

  I swat him and feel his chest shake. Futhermucker laughing at me… I’m set on my feet, but Gabe won’t move his arm; it’s trapping me against him.

  I turn around to face him, my ass brushing the arm that’s still wrapped around my hips. He looks like he’s smirking, so I shove him in the forehead. “Pork-chop stealer. You can go now.”

  “Yeah? I’ve got permission?”

  “Yes, you pompus dickface.”

  I hear Gabe chuckle—and I feel it, too. He feels so warm against me. Warmer than the chilly air. He’s like a pillow. I blink at his face and pet his shoulder as I try to comprehend this moment.

  “This is not the way it’s meant to be.”

  He smiles a little, and I flick one of his stupid curls.

  “I don’t need you or want you around.”

  He laughs again, and I can feel his hand holding my hip. “Maybe I deserve that.”

  “Trust me, you do. Let go of me, and watch this.”

  I climb the next two stairs, proud of how I keep my balance even though the world is spinning. Then I feel his arms come back around me from behind. I smell his smell-good man stuff—stupid man stuff—and I want him. My vagina wants his penis. He’s so solid, tall, and warm, and Gabey.

  “You can let me go!” I feel him right behind me. God, I want to feel him hard behind me, and that’s not, not good!
r />   “Let me pick you up, Mar. I’d feel like shit if you fell back down.”

  “Oh,” I cry as he lifts me. “You’d feel like shit. Well then! That would be a motherfucking shame!”

  I attempt to roll my eyes, but they fall shut instead. As Gabe carries me up the last few stairs, I feel like I’m sailing through space. And maybe time as well. His body against mine is pleasantly familiar. The moment he gets to the top, he sets me on my feet, keeping his arms around me like a cage.

  “Do you have your keys?” I feel his breath on my temple. It smells like mint.

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you find them, hero? Heh. It makes me laugh to call you hero. What I really mean…is like, zero…”

  I feel his chest expand as he inhales. I watch as he lifts my purse, still hanging diagonally across my chest, and delves inside. I make a grab for it.

  “Don’t snoopy…snoopy.” God, I’m fucking funny when I’m drunk.

  I can feel him watch me as I fumble in my purse. “Oh no! They’re not here!” I look down the stairs—so many stairs. “Ah, hell. I think I had them…when I fell.” My words sound slurred. I laugh again, because I’m stupid. Drunk and stupid.

  “I’ll check underneath the stairs.” Gabe starts to help me sit, but then he scoops me back up, tossing me over his shoulder as he descends the stairs.

  “Whoa—you’re like Godzilla here…” I giggle.

  “What?”

  “Big steps, boom…boom.”

  He sets me on the bottom step, then disappears behind the staircase. I can see his back as he bends over, sifting through the grass.

  “The famous Gabriel McKellan,” I boom.

  He leans around the stairs, looking confused. I kinda like the way his curls are sticking up.

  I laugh. “Oh, carry on. I like to see you bending over.” When he looks again at me, I give him my best smirk. “It’s 2017, babe. Time for you to be objectified. And you whoa—I mean, you know what, Gabe? You know what? I really like the way your ass looks in those shorts. Are those even shorts?” I pull my phone out, struggling with the flashlight as he comes back around in front of me, holding my keys.