Revenge #4

REVENGE

The ear-splitting fire alarm makes me want to scream. I’m standing at the foot of Dylan's bed, naked, and the sound is so loud that I’m paralyzed.

Dylan comes running up from the lower part of the loft to check on me. His bare chest is heaving and he looks worried about me. His hair isn’t wet, so the alarm must have started before he could get in the shower.

I start moving and signal with my hands that I’m fine. We both pull on our clothes. Barely dressed, we bolt down the spiral staircase.

My ears feel like they’re bleeding. 

I’m going to kill my coworker Nick for setting this thing off. I was just on the phone with him, and he was trying to get me out of here. There’s
no way
this alarm is a coincidence. Nick owns this loft, and he seems to have all sorts of remote access to it.

We tumble out the front door. Dylan leans back against the blue door as it closes. My ears are ringing. The alarm is still loud, but dampened by the brick walls of the former firehall.

“Do you smell smoke?” he asks.

I inhale the evening air. It’s twilight. The air smells of typical LA air.

“Nope. False alarm?” I glance down at the square lump in my blouse pocket, where I’ve tucked my phone.

Guiltily, I consider telling him everything I know.

How would it sound to Dylan if I told him my coworker owns this loft he’s renting? And that Nick set off the fire alarm, just to mess up our evening?
It would sound cray cray.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Dylan asks softly.

I look up at his gorgeous brown eyes, fringed in thick dark eyelashes. He’s looking down at me with concern, mixed with anger. He had that same look Sunday night, after I got attacked in the old house. Like he’d destroy anything or anyone who tried to hurt me.

“Totally fine,” I say cheerfully.

His hands graze my chest. He’s unbuttoning my blouse.

“Again?” I say, laughing shyly. “Outside, between two buildings?”

“I’m game if you are.” His lips curl up in a sexy grin.

I look down to see he’s actually
fixing
my blouse, not undressing me. In my rush to run out, I did up all the buttons wrong.

He didn’t do much better, with his shirt on inside-out.

“Nice styling, Mr. Dylan Wolf.” I reach up and tug the white tag at his collar.

He pulls away from me to strip off the shirt. I admire his lean muscles as he reaches up. I don’t know if my eyes are playing tricks on me, but his stomach muscles seem to stand out more right after we’ve had sex.

He gets his shirt back on and pulls out his phone.

“Just calling the rental agency,” he says. “I tried the override code they gave me, but it didn’t work.”

He holds the phone to his ear and turns away from me. After a pause, he answers some questions with short answers. He sounds annoyed. That bad temper of his is flaring up, and I feel sorry for anyone caught up in it.

Dylan turns back to me, tilting the mouthpiece away.

“Jess, we’re going to miss that dinner reservation. Do you mind taking a rain check? We can go tomorrow night. I’ll make it earlier and pick you up from work.”

“Sure. But I don’t mind hanging out here…”

He holds a finger up toward me, putting me on pause. He responds to the person on the phone with sarcasm, “Sure. I love the sound of the alarm. I’ll just stay here all night and wait for the service tech. No, take your time.
Really.
”

I point to the door behind him. “Just need to get my bag.”

He growls into the phone, “Yes, the alarm is still ringing. Here, listen.” He goes back inside, then comes out with my bag.

He keeps yelling into the phone and not paying attention to what he’s doing. He dumps my bag on the ground.

A white envelope falls out onto the gravel. The envelope is plain, except for the Morris Music logo in the corner. Two thousand dollars in cash spills out.

I suck in air so fast I nearly choke.

Dylan raises one dark eyebrow and gives me a quizzical look. I crouch down and stuff the money back quickly and without explanation.

He tilts his head to the side, like I’m the cutest thing, spilling money all over the place. Then he goes back to yelling into the phone.

I turn and start to walk away. He grabs my arm and pulls me back, shoving me against the wall. He kisses me angrily. His mouth is hot, and heavy against my lips.

He pulls away, leaving me breathless.

He nods for me to leave now. “So, I’ll pick you up tomorrow. Five-thirty.”

“Perfect.”

Walking away, I can feel Dylan’s eyes on me. I try to keep my walk ladylike, and not like the stride of a tomboy from a farm. My body is still numb from that kiss.

I hate to leave, but I’m excited about tomorrow.

We’ll have dinner tomorrow.

If I don’t die waiting.

I catch a bus home, smiling the whole way.

My roommates are both in the house, making pizza. I’m famished. I haven’t eaten since lunch, and I definitely burned off a few calories in Dylan’s bed.

“Jessica!” Amanda yells when I enter the kitchen. She’s got her bleached blonde hair up in a ponytail, and her blue eyes are bright. “Your cheeks are rosy. OMG. Jessica was having sex!”

I grab a handful of grated cheese to stuff into my mouth. “Shut up.”

Riley tosses her long dark hair over her shoulder and gives me a knowing look.

“Hey.” I nod her way.

“Sex, huh? My little sister is all grown up,” Riley says. There’s an edge to her voice that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

For the last few days, Riley has been acting like everything’s fine between us. It’s not.

Her golden brown eyes sweep up and down my body.

“I hope you’re being
safe
,” Riley says. Her big-sister tone feels like a knife twisting in my guts.

“No, of course not,” I snap at her. “I plan to buy pregnancy test kits by the caseload. Like Nan used to do for you.”

Riley’s eyes narrow. “Not cool.”

I narrow my eyes right back at her. “It wasn’t cool when you slept with my teacher.”

Amanda yells at us, “No fighting in the house!”

Riley ignores Amanda. “That’s in the past,” she spits at me.

“I’m still waiting for that apology,” I say coolly.

“For what?”

“Um, hello? For being a disaster and ruining my life.”

Riley rolls her eyes. Her voice heavy with sarcasm, she says, “Oh, sweet, perfect Jessica. I’m so sorry I ruined your perfect life and tried to show you that you could think for yourself.”

Amanda tries to ask me for more details about Dylan, but I can’t hear her.

I’ve just noticed the shirt Riley’s wearing. It’s a pale blue V-neck with I LOVE PARIS on the front.

“That’s my fucking shirt,” I growl at her. “You took it when you ditched me and Nan.”

She widens her brown eyes, pretending to be innocent. “This old thing?”

“You’re a psycho. And I don’t even care. That shirt wouldn’t fit me anyway. You can keep it.”

“You have broad shoulders. That’s why it won’t fit you.” Riley sticks out her chest.

Amanda yells, “Stop it you two! Act like family.”

“I can’t help how I feel,” I tell her. Being around my half-sister makes me feel like I’m twelve again.

Amanda tries to change the topic. “Is Dylan a good kisser?”

“Yes,” I admit.

Riley frowns, like she’s disgusted.

Amanda keeps asking questions, getting more and more personal. I wouldn’t usually share so many details, but it’s pissing off Riley, so I keep going.

Finally, Riley gets so annoyed that she leaves the room.

Good.

Amanda pinches my arm. “Jess. You have to make a peace offering,” she hisses.

“What are you talking about?”

“Do something nice for Riley, so she knows you love her.”

“But I
don’t
love her.”

Amanda’s eyes glisten with tears. “She’s your sister. You
have
to love her.”

“I have total control over who I love.”

“No, you don’t,” she says. “We don’t get to decide.”

I snort and switch the topic back to Dylan.

Later, when Amanda and I are sitting on the couch eating, I have to smile. Dylan bought pizza for us earlier tonight, and we didn’t even touch it.

I wonder if he’s sitting in the loft now, eating pizza and thinking of me.

At work, I drop my bag next to my work chair with a thud.

“Well?” I say, giving Nick what I hope is a serious glare.

He doesn’t look up from his computer. His multiple face piercings are picking up the blue light from the screen.

“I may have overreacted,” he says.

I slam my palms on the desk. “YOU THINK?”

His eyes flick up to meet mine, without his face moving.

“The false alarm was my doing,” he says.

“Yes, I figured that out. What made you do that? It worked, by the way. Dylan sent me home while he waited for the alarm company.” I plunk myself down in my chair heavily. “So,
thanks a lot
for that.”

Nick rolls his chair a few feet to the side and pulls something out of a cardboard box. It’s a soup can-sized metal thing with metal connectors.

“I went by the firehall and removed the transmitter,” he says. “I don’t have my so-called
spycams
running in the rental unit anymore. If you don’t believe me, you can check inside the stereo speakers. That’s where the cameras are hidden. They’re small, but you’ll know them when you see them. Just lift off the fabric covering and pull them out. I only ask that you don’t do something stupid like step on them, because they’re not cheap.”

“Excuse me? Did you say your—” I make air quotes with my fingers “—
so-called spycams
? Because they sure seemed to me like
for-real
spycams.” I look around me at the dusty boxes. “Why did I even come in today?”

Nicks eyebrows come together in concern for a microsecond. “What do you mean? You weren’t going to come in?”

“This job sucks. I have a college degree. Sure, it’s not from a fancy college, but I can do better than this.” I get up from my chair and kick a dusty cardboard box. “This job can kiss my ass.”

“You seem upset.”

I kick the box again. This job really sucks. My roommate situation sucks. Riley tried to pick a fight with me this morning over the chore schedule. She was completely in the wrong, but Amanda took her side. Three is a bad number for roommates, because it’s always two against one.

I swear at the box and kick it a couple more times, until the seams give way and the contents sag out.

“Tantrum?” Nick asks.

Hell.
I may be twenty-two, but I feel like having a tantrum. Just today. I’ll be mature again after I’m done with this box.

I kick the box across the concrete floor, calling it every bad name I want to call Riley. Plus some nastiness about Nick. The box falls apart completely, scattering its contents across the floor.

My tantrum is interrupted by the ding of the elevator.

Nick has called the elevator. He stands with his arms crossed, his body looking thin in his head-to-toe black outfit.

“How many sugar cubes do you need in your coffee?” he asks. “Ten?”

“No!” I put my hands on my hips, then move the back of my hand up to my forehead. I’m breathing heavily and starting to sweat. “Yes,” I say begrudgingly. “Ten sugar cubes. And five cream.”

Without another word, he steps onto the elevator and disappears.

Feeling very foolish, I get down on my hands and knees to pick up the items I’ve scattered.

This is a box that Nick processed. I remember this box from yesterday, because he took it away from me. It had a lot of photos, and I was disappointed, because I wanted to look at them while I did the scans. He joked around that I didn’t have the clearance level to access this box. He must not have recognized this box when I started abusing it, or maybe he knew that teasing me about my clearance level would have earned him a punch in the nose.

As I stack the papers and file folders together, I glance through the candid photos. These pictures aren’t that old. Maybe seven years or so, by the look of the clothes. I find a picture of a young Nick, back when he had half as many piercings. He’s standing next to the Vice President of Morris Music, and she’s got her arm around him.