I bit into his shoulder as he fucked me, in the middle of the kitchen. Where anyone could walk in.
I would never be able to think about the kitchen counter in the same way ever again.
“You fucking bitch, I have a right mind to take my daily worry for you off my schedule,” Emily greeted the second I’d picked up the phone.
I’d been avoiding her calls. Sending texts to let her know I was alive but otherwise completely ghosting her.
She’d wanted updates on the story. And I couldn’t lie to her, or myself anymore. I wasn’t sure if there even was a story anymore. Well, that was a lie, of course there was a story, there was always a story. And this was exactly the story I came for—a national motorcycle club involved in a war with an international criminal. But it was the story I hadn’t come for, the one I wasn’t going to publish, the one I was living.
“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. Being around these people, getting closer to Macy, it only proved how important relationships, friendships were. Things I’d been pushing away for years.
“Of course you’re fucking sorry,” she snapped. I heard the click of her heels against the floor. I guessed she was pacing in her office instead of running through New York. “But I don’t care, I’ve not finished with my script.”
“Your script?” I repeated, smiling.
“Yes, I was going to say all sorts of things about you being selfish, a bad friend and things, but I can’t be bothered now.”
I laughed.
There was an audible pause. “You’re laughing,” she commented. “What’s happened? Did the bikers give you a lobotomy? Have you gone native?”
I bit my lip. Had I?
She didn’t give me time to answer. “Whatever, you need to tell me how the story is going, and you need to tell me when you’re going to get out of there and fly up here.”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“You not on a deadline?” she asked. “For the story?”
I was not a planner like Emily. But for my stories, I always had deadlines. Obviously I’d had ones other people decided for me while on contract with news companies, but when I was writing more flexible stories, I always had deadlines. To help my schedule but also to make sure I didn’t get too close, too attached to the story.
“Yeah,” I replied, my voice more a sigh more than anything else. “Every moment here gets me closer to the deadline. Or damnation. I’m not sure which will come first.”
“Oh my god,” Emily breathed, not sounds overtly concerned with my melancholy tone. “That’s it. That’s the perfect title for the book. ‘Deadline to Damnation.’”
Nope. Not concerned.
“Emily, I’m not writing a fucking book, that’s final,” I snapped.
“Sure you’re not,” she replied with faux agreement.
I rolled my eyes. Then something in me moved. Something I didn’t have control over. “I can’t write the book. Because this isn’t just any story. This is my story.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Emily demanded. Are you some secret outlaw biker?”
“No, but Liam is,” I whispered.
All I got was the distant street sounds of New York coming from her office window.
Emily’s version of silence.
And I filled my silence.
With my story.
The fourth time I’d told it.
It didn’t get easier.
“So yeah,” I said when I was done. She hadn’t interrupted once, that’s when I knew she was really listening. “That’s where I’m at.”
More street sounds. I expected Emily to recover quickly, say a lot, even just a string of curse words.
But nothing.
“Emily?”
“I’ve got to go,” she said, voice odd. “I’ve got a meeting.”
I flinched back as if I’d been hit. I’d just told my friend some of the most damaging things that had ever happened and she had a meeting?”
“Um, okay I’ll—” But there was nothing. She’d hung up.
I stared at the phone for a long time after that.
“Caroline?” Blake said sometime later, jerking me out of my stupor. I was meant to be writing. I had other freelance jobs to keep up my income, mostly opinion pieces, columns, some interviews for online blogs.
I had deadlines.
So I was meant to be working on those.
Meant to be doing anything but focusing on the fact that my best friend had all but abandoned me in my time of need. I’d heard nothing from her. Nothing. And it had been almost twelve hours.
“What?” I asked, hoping he really wasn’t going to ask me to help a woman who’d gotten a kitchen utensil stuck up her…you know. It happened. I recommend he call a nurse. The longer I stayed here, the more the men forgot what I was. Especially after the Russian fiasco. I was no longer a rat. I was the resident woman who apparently men came to to get help with things stuck up their latest fuck’s vagina.
“We’ve got kind of a situation at the gate, we’re gonna need you.”