“Don’t you think that’s a little paranoid?” This from Nate, who wouldn’t know self-doubt if it sat on his fucking face and shoved its balls in his mouth.
“Maybe, but then if someone disappeared from your life under those circumstances, then reappeared with some nonsense story with more loose ends than a plate of Nonna’s spaghetti, you’d probably be paranoid too.”
“What do you mean?” Dillon again. I knew this would pique his interest. One mention of mystery, intrigue or a problem to solve, and he would be right there.
“Well she started explaining her disappearance and some of what she was saying—well, quite a lot, actually—just didn’t add up. The story was that the family went on their European holiday, and a couple weeks into it, the father wigged out, revealing that he’d known about our relationship for a while—had possibly even been tracking her movements and/or was having her followed by a PI, and as a result, upped and moved them to Missouri. He apparently confiscated her tech, shut down her email account, the full psycho dad routine.”
I looked around at the guys then. They were all staring at me in rapt attention.
“All well and good. Well, not well and good. Totally shit, but you know what I mean. But then here’s where it gets really weird. She was just about to turn eighteen, and had already been accepted to Colombia. Basically, she was one step away from being free. Why then didn’t she contact me? Even if it was a few years later? We were already planning her escape. Why didn’t she go through with it? When I pushed her for clarity, she lost her shit in the middle of the café, and stormed out, much to the amusement of the entire roomful of people listening in.” I could see from the way that Dillon’s emerald eyes shone with promise that I’d captured his imagination.
“That’s it? That’s all she said?” I nodded.
“Yeah, call me cynical, but I’d put good money on the fact that she’s hiding something. That story has more holes in it than a wheel of the Swiss cheese you Yanks like to dump over everything. Like you say, it just doesn’t ring true. And we all know defensiveness is a sure sign of guilt at worst, hiding something, at best. Want me to pull some strings and see what I can find out?”
“Pull some strings” was Dillon’s polite euphemism for a whole bunch of stuff, legal and otherwise, that to the untrained eye would probably be described as hacking.
I considered his question slowly for a while. It wasn’t the first time it had come up —he’d offered to try to help find her numerous times over the years, but I’d always declined. This time I was more tempted than I previously had been, but in the end, came to the same conclusion as always: if she’d wanted to tell me whatever ‘it’ was, she had had ample opportunity today, and still chose not to.
Likewise, if she’d wanted me to know where she was, and what she was doing, she could have contacted me at some point in the past twelve years. She knew I was going to Yale, my mom still lived in the same house we’d lived in when I was a kid, and Mom’s landline number and my cell number had not changed in that time. Hell, unlike her, my name hadn’t changed, either. A quick Google search lead right to my social media profiles, a raft of articles about BR&ND, and the company website. Unlike Mel’s, my life was pretty much an open book.
“Nah man, thanks for the offer, but her shit is exactly that: hers. If she’d wanted me to know, I already would.”
“Fair enough, but the offer’s always there if you change your mind, okay?”
“Yeah, got it. Thanks man. I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem. It would be my pleasure.” So British. They can’t even let you thank them without turning it back on you.
“Yeah I know, but I can’t do it. My having you do your morally questionable digging on her would make me no better than her psychotic father. That’s not a club I want to be a member of.”
Beck
At Confession the following morning, after the best night’s sleep I’d had in I couldn’t remember how long, I sat up tall on the edge of Raine’s couch, brimming with energy, and pretending to ignore the stench of weed and sex permeating the air.
To say that the other guys didn’t share my energy and enthusiasm was an understatement of Goliathan proportions. In fact, Raine was actually asleep. If the smells were anything to go by, he had had a big night. And morning. I shook his foot roughly, causing him to jerk upright, as though someone had just rammed a hot poker up his butt. It was worth bearing the smells, just to watch him startle awake, and then try to act like he’d never been asleep. His unintentional physical comedy could rival the Marx brothers or Laurel and Hardy.
“Guys, do I really need to explain to you why it’s important that we nail this Beyner pitch, now more so than ever?” I was going to have to be the one to lead the charge.
“Nope. We already know that it has everything to do with the fact that you desperately want to nail Melissa Reid.” I shot Nate the filthiest of dirty looks.
“I didn’t sa—”
“Come on Beck. Do you think you need to say anything? We already knew that she was the love of your life, but even if we hadn’t, the look on your face on Monday when you thought nobody else was watching, said it all. Newsflash: after the way you behaved when we stepped off the elevator, we were all watching.”
Great. My one remaining hope was that Melissa’s boss Martin hadn’t noticed, but if what Nate was saying was true, that seemed unlikely. Nate was right in his assessment, too. Melissa occupied my every waking thought, and probably those when I was asleep. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anyone, except…her. I was so screwed.
“I’ve seen you play poker, and you’re a gun, but yesterday you had zero game face. You’ve still got it bad for her.” I opened my mouth to again try to refute his claim, but before I could assemble the words, he’d already shot me down in flames.
“No point denying it. Nobody in this room, or who was in the room yesterday would believe you anyway. In fact just for fun, let’s try this. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t think about her all last night.”
I looked his way, focusing on his light but unusually vibrant hazel irises. I could see why women lost their shit for his eyes—they really were remarkable. I couldn’t tell him anything, because the truth was he was right. I’d lain in bed, hard as rock, running over every detail of the past thirty-six hours. I had woken up this morning extra hard, and with balls so blue I thought they’d split clean open. Then I’d jerked off in the shower to images of Mel’s face, butt, tits, mouth and pussy like a lovesick fucking teenager.
“Right.” Nate was triumphant.
“So then the question becomes how the fuck we’re going to play this so that we come out on top. No pun intended. Nobody is coming anywhere, except you in your dreams. Understand?”
I disregarded the second part of his statement and focused on the business end of things.
“What do you mean, how we’re going to play this? We’re going to run it like we always do. We’re gonna pull out all the stops to make them wonder how they ever managed without us in their lives, and to ensure they never want to be without us again, that’s how.”