Page 85 of Our Elliana

Elliana Pinkerton isn’t the first woman to split up with me. When my parents were excommunicated, Ruthie shunned me along with everyone else. It hasn’t been that long ago that I was rejected not only by my fiancée but by the church I’d been brought up in. The only community I’d ever known.

So, I don’t know why this hurts so much worse now that it’s Elle.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been far more intimate with her than I was with anyone else back in Utah. Maybe it’s because I felt as if the congregants of my church and town were basically standing by to judge anything and everything I might do. That creates a distance I never comprehended before.

But here, with Elliana, Tristan, and Jackson, I feel like I’ve been able to widen my horizons with zero judgment. What they’ve always given me is acceptance. Pure acceptance and support. At least until I received that awful notification from Elegance.

Attention Noah Canter,

Please be advised that your current contract with be concluded on January 15th per the request of your client. Be prepared to end your arrangement and remove yourself from the premises. If you wish, we will change your status from unavailable to available at that time.

Thank you,

Elegance Administrators

The message felt so clinical. Like something you might receive from the dentist reminding you of an upcoming cleaning appointment. Only it hadn’t been from someone innocuous like that. It’d been from Elle, the woman I’ve fallen in love with. Someone I’ve loved like no other.

When I look back on it, I think I’ve been in love with her from that first night onward.

I know that wasn’t supposed to be the deal. We, as hired contractors and escorts, are not supposed to allow romantic entanglements to get in the way of meeting our job qualifications.

This is about fulfilling services and completing the tasks necessary to receive payment in exchange for offering her the gratification my body can provide. But I’ve been foolish enough to let my feelings get involved anyway.

And now, I feel more loss than I’ve ever experienced.

I thought I’d felt heartbreak prior to now, but that has been only a dim shadow of this pain. For the past half hour since discovering that Tristan, Jackson, and I were summarily receiving the boot, I’ve been cuddled up with Three Socks in my room shutting myself away.

Until I hear raised voices.

“Elle?” hollers Jackson, and it’s his tenor that has me sitting up and vaulting off my bed. It rings with a note of alarmed urgency, enough that I scamper down those stairs with the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.

I can’t say why him speaking only her name has me feeling like there’s some emergency, but I’ve learned to follow my instincts. And my instincts shout at me to investigate whatever’s making Jackson sound like that.

Once I reach him, Tristan is right by his side, the chef’s dark eyebrows so furrowed that they look like a single straight line across his forehead. I can hear two women’s voices issuing from the cell phone Jackson’s holding, and while I can’t identify one of them, the other belongs to Elle.

The unknown woman threatens Elliana in a voice thick with menace, telling her if she doesn’t follow instructions, she’ll blow the clerk to smithereens. The clerk. Andre. This other woman is there at Blingblang.

I hear Elle call her Tanya and say that she’s the one who’s been sending her those sinister cards.

This Tanya woman is the stalker.

“Elliana,” Jackson yells again, and right after that Tristan is next to him shouting in as anxious a tone as I’ve ever heard from him.

“What the fuck is happening?”

“Elle?” I join the fray automatically, unable to stop myself. The three of us act as one as we scrutinize the screen of Tristan’s phone even if all we can make out is the unremarkable drop ceiling of Elle’s workshop.

But then, suddenly, the screen becomes a blur and there is what sounds like the pummeling of a hammer. Everything goes dark after that as the line cuts off leaving the three of us staring at each other in horror. Jackson tosses Tristan his phone back and uses his own to dial 911 as we scramble through the house.

Upon reaching the attached garage, all of us pile into my Tacoma. I’m still in my socks and some sweats emblazoned with DCFD & EMS from the department, but I don’t care. We have to reach Elle, and there’s no time to spare.

Jackson is rattling off Elle’s location along with the fact that her stalker is there with her.

“Yes, Blingblang,” he barks out at the dispatcher, his typical jocular nature replaced with exasperation as he recites Elliana’s business address.

Shouldn’t they already have that on file?

Tristan is meanwhile trying the main store number, but all I hear from his attempts is it ringing off the hook. No one is answering. After several rings, a prerecorded voicemail stating that the store is closed plays, even though it’s still technically over an hour before they should shut down.

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