Page 57 of Deceit

My face contorts into what feels to be betrayal and unaltered anger. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Sing my feelings out? Write a poem? Graffiti a wall or buy a billboard?

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Nah—“ Kyson shakes his head. “—I’m not.”

My damn phone vibrates again, and using the excuse to stop having this conversation, I pull it from my jeans.

Emmy.

Immediately I answer it and stride away from Kyson. “Where the fuck are you?”

“Out,” she deadpans flatly before continuing with, “I found a lead. I need you to—“

“I needyouto come back so that we’re all together and not pulling another rescue mission like you did with Marty.”

Silence responds back to me, and I can already see the look on her face. Her cheeks are flushed, those beautiful honey-browns are narrowed in on the nearest object, and she has a strong urge to strangle me.

She can—anytime—as long as it’s on my dick.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head over it,” she finally replies with malice dipped in her sweet tone. “It won’t be much more time now.”

“For what?”

“Your lead,” she repeats. “Willy Wonka, not the guy from the chocolate factory. He’s the only man that still works or worked with that Bubba asshole. You can find him in Brentwood.”

“I feel like I’m on repeat with you all the time, Em. I tell you to do one thing, and you do the opposite.”

“Uh, you told me to go home.”

“This isn’t a negotiation. This is my hunt, and I call the fucking shots.”

“Sounds like a personal problem, psycho.” I hear an unsteady exhale leave her lips, and her voice drops. “Look, I gotta run.”

“Emmy, fucking listen to me…I need—“ She hangs up, the loud and irritating silence filling in the rest of what I wanted to say.

I need you to be safe.

I need you here.

I need you.

Period.

I hovered over the send button on my phone for over five minutes before deciding to go out with Alexander. After a few more horrible and corny lines through numerous text messages, I let down my guard and even cracked a smile.

If anything, he kept my mind off Bishop and the mystery blonde over the last few days.

So when he swung by to pick me up in his white Aston Martin and told me we were going to the movies, I thought he was kidding.

“You were serious?” I marvel as he parks between a minivan and a little coupe with a gazillion bumper stickers on the back.

“Yeah,” he replies confidently, throwing his car into gear and turning it off. “You don’t like movies?”

Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I went to a movie.

“No, I do. I just…” My cheeks flush because my thoughts don’t fit him at all.

His rich demeanor made me place him in a box. One that didn’t involve sticky floors and chairs that hide their stains in the dark.

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