Page 50 of Never Say Yes To A Stranger

Wow, I officially need to go back to sleep. It’s too early to be awake. Two forty-eight in the morning apparently makes a person delirious.

Another heavy step and then shuffling feet. Beau must really be feeling the fall because he sounds like he’s literally dragging himself up, step by step, using only his front teeth. If anyone can do it, he can.

“Beau?” I shift out of bed and stand up. He probably needs help. I know he doesn’t want pity, but I also don’t need him to go end over end down the stairs and break his neck. “Beau, I’m coming to help you, and I don’t want to—oh my holy fucking asses!”

The lights flick on, and I blink hard into it. I must be hallucinating. This isn’t real. I’m dreaming all this, and at any second, I’m going to realize that, and then I’ll be doing that groggy, nasty thing where you know you’re dreaming, but you still can’t wake up. Like the pee thing. You know it’s not rational to have to pee every six seconds, and it can’t be that hard to find a bathroom, but then you force yourself awake and realize you’ve probably had to pee for hours.

This can’t be real because Beau—Beau is standing in front of Aiden, and Aiden’s arm is locked around his neck. They’re back to chest, and there’s agunpressed to Beau’s temple.

My having a breakdown is going to help no one, but that’s immediately what I want to do. I want to turn into a liquified, blubbering, sobbing, screaming mess. I want to race for my phone and call the cops. I want to open the window and get out onto the roof. No, I’d like to open the window andtossAiden out onto the roof and then call the cops.

But I don’t move because I want Beau to be safe. Why him? Why not me? I’m the one Aiden wants. I’m the one who deserves to be taken captive. Beau didn’t do anything in this. He just wanted to keep me safe. He wanted to help me.

He looks so fucking utterly calm that I nearly burst into tears just because he’s not afraid. Doesn’t he care about living at all?

Yes, he does.

His eyes track very slowly to my face, and I can see what an effort it’s taking as he forces himself to be casual. He doesn’t wantmeto get hurt, which is why he hasn’t twitched. He’s giving Aiden what he wants to protectme.

“We’re going to play a game,” Aiden says coldly from behind Beau. I can barely see him since Beau is so massive. I just see hands and a gun, and they look strangely disembodied.

“Is it guess what time it is?” Beau asks gruffly. “Because let me tell you, it’s obvious that it’s dick o’clock.”

“Shut up!” Aiden always did have a high voice, but it sounds so absurd next to Beau’s deep tenor. Why does Aiden sound like he’s the one in distress? He sounds annoyed. He sounds worked up.

Fuck. God. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I force myself to suck in some air and concentrate on Beau’s beautiful, stony, and perfectly calm face to keep myself from freaking out.

“This is the game.” Another octave. I wish I could see Aiden’s face. That way, I can judge how desperate he is. Everyone knows the most dangerous people are the ones with nothing to lose. “You’re going to confess to everything. I know your little boyfriend here’s been tracking me. You told him everything, and he thinks he can nail me for this. Well, wrong. You’re going down for it, Sam. You were always going to take the blame for this. So you’ll turn yourself in, and I’ll go somewhere that won’t extradite me, and everyone will live happily ever after.” The gun pressesharder into Beau’s temple, and I can see the way the barrel digs into his skin. It makes me want to scream, to lunge at Aiden, to knock the weapon away.

“Alright.” I put up my hands. Can Aiden even see them? Because I can’t see his face. I can’t fucking see his face, and I need to. Beau’s eyes close. Then they open slowly like he’s silently begging me not to do this. “Alright, Aiden, that’s what we’ll do. I’ll go with you. You just have to let him go.” There’s no way I’m using Beau’s name. Aiden might already know it, but he also might not. He might be grasping at straws here. Afraid of his own shadow, running scared. He’s blaming me because that’s the most logical thing.

“I don’t think so. I’m not letting him go anywhere. I’m going to stay right here, with a gun pressed to this fucker’s head, and you’re going to go to the police and turn yourself in. Once I know you’ve been arrested—you do get a phone call, so make sure it’s to me—I’ll let him go.”

“And what if she refuses?” Beau cuts in smoothly. He’s so eerily calm, though I know it’s not real. I can see the tiny tremble run through his body. And it’s not fear. It’s adrenaline.

“Then I open that window and throw you out face first.”

Aiden’s savage retort makes Beau laugh. Not a little chuckle but a big belly laugh that can potentially set the gun straight off. I still want to surge forward, but the tiniest shake of Beau’s head keeps me where I am. If I charge at Aiden, I could make him accidentally squeeze the trigger. I have to remember that Beau is trained for situations like this. That’s why he’s so calm.

He’s waiting for an opening. For the right moment.

“Where the roof’s concerned, you’d have to get in line, dude. I’ve already been there, done that. I survived.”

“Shut up! Don’t you call me dude.”

Beau once demanded the same thing of me, and there he is, using that word now. It feels like he’s doing it for me, to reassure me somehow.

“Okay, dude. Go ahead. Throw me over the roof. I’ve been craving round two all week. Come to think of it, you probably greased the shingles the first time. It was a real adrenaline rush, I can tell you that much.”

“Kind of like Russian Roulette?” The disembodied hand presses the gun so hard into Beau’s temple that I see the flesh start to wrinkle and dimple. “Hmm? How about we give it a try, asshole? I have to tell you, though, this thing is fully loaded. The odds aren’t in your favor.”

“No, I suppose not.”

Beau’s too calm. He is so unflappable, but if I know one thing about Aiden, it’s that he’s not. He wasn’t ever moody in our relationship, and maybe I can’t judge what was real and what wasn’t given that it was all a lie, but whenever he got angry, he’d get so angry that he couldn’t breathe, and whenever something upset him, he’d be basically inconsolable.

I can’t see his face, but my heart contracts to the size of a hard little stone when my eyes shoot to his hand—the one holding the gun. It might not look like it’s connected to a body, but it is. Those knuckles are white, and the palm is probably clammy. Aiden isn’t the kind of person who bluffs about anything. He’s a great liar, but the truth behind the lies? That’s always perfectly sincere, even if it’s perfectly wrong. The safety is off on that gun. It’s real. One slip of a sweaty, nervous hand, one trigger, and Beau’s life could be over.

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