Chapter 8

Chapter 8 

I start toward them, but something feels off. My instincts kick in, uneasy, so I slip out of sight, grab the newspaper from the receptionist’s desk, and use it to shield my face. 

What is setting off my alarms? 

I can’t place it at first until I notice Helen laughing too much. 

She looks like she’s just come from work, still in that same skimpy skirt, stiletto heels, and barely appropriate blouse, the kind that always reveals just a little too much. She works as a receptionist at a big law firm, and men are always drawn to her, practically falling at her feet, yet somehow she always ends up with the short end of the stick. 

Was she flirting with Josh? 

I haven’t introduced them yet. Helen knows I’m seeing someone, I even showed her a picture, but they’ve never met face to face. Not until now. 

And the worst part? 

My stomach sinks. Josh laughs, catches the hand Helen throws at him in her laughter and doesn’t let go. 

I let it sink in. Then I step outside to wait.

There’s probably some innocent explanation for this. I’m probably just overthinking. 

I stand outside, my purse clenched in my hand, trying to breathe in, release the tension coiled in my shoulders. 

After nearly twenty minutes—during which he’s probably still chatting with Helen—he calls me. 

I am already past patient, already crossed through annoyed, and moving toward pissed. I stare at my phone, his name flashing, and wonder why I’m even going out with this guy. 

Aside from the fact that he was busy flirting right in the lobby of my building, we agreed to meet at eight, and now it’s already thirty minutes past. 

Should I even answer? I take another breath, exhaling hard, and pick up just before it goes to voicemail. 

“Hello.” My voice is glacier sharp. 

“Where are you?” he asks. I squint. 

“What do you mean, where am I?” 

“I’ve been waiting for you in your lobby for almost forty minutes.” 

He’s annoyed. I’m annoyed. I want to hang up. “Waiting?” I say. “What happened to calling me when you got here?” 

“Really? Are you being for real right now? We made plans, and I waited. I thought you’d come down, but you’re not even in your apartment.” 

I pause. “You went to my apartment?” 

“Yeah, with your roommate, Helen.” 

I hear the sounds of cupboards shifting in the background and realization settles in. 

He is in my apartment. With Helen. I don’t know what’s happening anymore. 

“I’m downstairs,” I say, my voice going soft, awkward. “Waiting outside.” 

“For real?” He says something I can’t quite hear, then I catch the sound of the door closing. “I’m coming down.” 

I have nothing to say because I don’t know what’s going on. Has he been waiting in the lobby, run into Helen, and started chatting with her to pass the time until I got downstairs? Did I really just walk right past and wait outside, oblivious? 

That would be mortifying. 

But I couldn’t have dreamed up the fact that he was flirting. Could I? Because it looked like flirting to me. 

He stayed on the line until he was outside. I saw him burst through the door, glance into the darkness, and ask breathlessly, “Where are you?”

“Here.”

When he looked to the left, where I stood against the building with the phone still pressed to my ear and an awkward smile tugging at my lips, he grinned and shook his head.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes!” He looked at his phone like he’d just realized the call was still active, ended it, shoved it into his pocket, and walked up to me. “Aren’t you cold? Why did you wait outside? Didn’t you see me in the lobby?”

“Yeah, I saw you.” My voice dropped, the way it always does when I feel a confrontation coming. “Saw you flirting with Helen.”

He stared at me, silent and I realized it was true.

“Look, it was harmless. Your friend’s funny.” He said it like that explained everything.

“She’s also drop-dead gorgeous.” I narrowed my eyes.

“Hey, you’re drop-dead gorgeous.”

I rolled my eyes. “How do you come to pick your girlfriend up and end up flirting with her roommate?”

“I didn’t know she was your roommate. And it was harmless. Didn’t mean anything. I was just passing the time.”

“The fact that you think that’s okay says a lot about you,” I said, sidestepping him and walking back to the building.

“Wait—wait.” He grabs my arm. I’m not wearing the jacket I said I would, and his grip stings my bare skin.

He stops me, head lowered. Then he raises it, eyes meeting mine. “Let’s not pretend that that is what this is about,” he says.

“What?” I tug at my arm, but he doesn’t let go.

“You know what I mean. So I flirted with her—big deal. It’s not like you were serious anyway.”

“What?” My voice thins as I sense his aggression. He laughs.

“Stop acting innocent. You asked me out, remember? And when I said yes, when I accepted to see you as more than the bookworm girl, it became too much for you.”

“You’re hurting me,” I mutter, wincing. His fingers dig in deep, and fear starts to rise in my chest. It’s not lonely here, there are people passing by, and I could get help if I needed it, but my heart is racing.

He looks down and lets go. I rub the spot as he begins to apologize. “I’m sorry, I just really want this to work, but this is the third excuse you’ve come up with this week to blow me off.”

He wants to backtrack, but I’ve already seen through him. “What was that about bookworm girl?”

“Hey, I mean it in the nicest way.”

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.” My arm still aches, and that glint in his eyes has scared me. I need to cut this in the bud. Memories of the terror we lived through some years back resurface, and all I want is to get inside that building.

“You don’t mean that,” he says, smiling. When I try to move, he grabs me again. “Hey! You can’t just say whatever you want and walk away!”

He jerks me toward him, and his voice takes on a mean, hard edge. I thought Joshua was kind, nice, but right now, I can’t see any part of him that is.

“Let’s just calm the fuck down for a minute, okay?” He sees me shrinking and wincing from his grip and lets go, but then crowds me against the wall. “So yeah, I initially thought you were just a boring bookworm until I got to know you. Now I’m hooked. I promise, I don’t cheat. I’m loyal. What you saw in the lobby was just playing. Guys do it all the time, just for fun. Just to brag about. It’s nothing serious. I was just caught up in the fact that a beauty like her was talking to me. I won’t hurt you.”

“Let me go, Josh,” I say, my voice still too small to get the point across. If it was Elena, she would knee him in the balls and spit on him while he howled in pain. But I’m not Elena. I don’t even have the courage to yell. I’m too afraid it’ll make things worse.

“Hey!” Out of the blue, someone shouts. When Josh turns to look, he’s met with a burst of pepper spray right in his eyes. He screams and staggers back, giving me the chance to escape. I see Helen standing there, grinning. She grabs my arm and says, “Run for it.”

We both bolt while Josh is still crying in pain, rushing up the stairs. Helen is laughing; I’m gasping, and then we slam the door to our apartment and lock it tight.

“Helen,” I say breathlessly, “thanks. How did you know to come help me?”

She’s breathing hard too, holding her waist to catch her breath. “You know how my type is always… well, rotten?”

I nod because I’ve never met anyone with such bad taste in my life. Flaming red hair, ocean blue eyes, a mouth that’s always red and sexy and a body that’s well maintained and worshipped, it’s a wonder why Helen always seems to date mostly broke and dangerous men. One time it was a drug dealer, the next time it was an armed robber who does kidnapping on the side. She always seems to pick the most rotten men in the world.

“Well, immediately I met your man, I was attracted to him. It took me a while to remember he’s your man ’cause I’ve got a lot going on and I only saw his pictures once, but once I did, baby, I told him straight no.”

“He made moves on you?”

“Baby, moves? This man literally asked me to take him upstairs. And when I figured out who he was, I cut it off—told him to call you fast. “ she pulled in a breath, talking almost as fast as my sister 

“And as he walked away, I just thought—since I’m usually attracted to crazy, messed-up guys… maybe this motherfucker was one of them, too. You know?” She sighs, shaking her head.

“So I ran down after him, and boy, was I glad I brought my pepper spray. What a piece of shit.”

“Yeah,” I nod absently as I fall into the couch. I’ve done it again. For the sixth time I’ve failed at finding love and this time is worse. “I think I’m going to quit dating for a while,” I tell Helen as I close my eyes. It’s for the best.