Page 21 of Lucky or Knot
Whatever. I had a phone number, and my gums itched as my fangs descended, my blood pumping faster in my veins.
Mine. He was—he owed me.
The coin, damn it. The coin was mine.
I punched in the number, hit send, and waited, holding my breath.
One ring. Two. Three. And right as my heart sank, and I’d braced myself for an impersonal recorded voice telling me to leave a voicemail that I obviously wouldn’t, the call connected.
“Hello?” His voice, clear and sweet despite the tone of annoyance. It struck into my chest like a knife and rang in my ribs like a bell. “Hello? Yes?”
He sounded a bit distracted, too, maybe by whatever was making all that background noise. Not a casino, though I did hear something electronic. A store’s cash register? He’d picked me up at the club, spread his legs, cried, and stolen that coin, sneaking out like the thief he was. And then shrugged and gone shopping. I swallowed hard. I really hadn’t expected him to pick up the phone at all, but somehow the shopping pushed me over the edge.
I bared my teeth at the phone, wishing he could see. “It’s me.”
The horrified pause that followed, half-filled with a soft,startled gasp that my alpha ears couldn’t miss, thrilled me all the way down to the tips of my…claws, which had started to come out without my even noticing.
His voice shook a little, probably imperceptibly to anyone else who might be listening, as he said, “I’m sorry, I think you must have the—”
“You know exactly who I am and if you hang up my next call’s to Cunningham,” I snarled, cutting him off.
Because yeah, no. Fuck that. Rage welled up, rage so sudden and violent that my phone creaked in my grip. He thought he’d what, simply hang up? And then disappear again?
He sucked in another quick, hissing breath. I could picture him, his cheeks reddening, his long lashes fluttering, that sharp, pearly canine tooth digging into his lip in frustration.
“That would be worse for you than for me,” he said, and—he was lying again.
Shifters couldn’t necessarily hear a lie, unless we were close enough to detect the skipping of a heartbeat. But I knew. He was afraid. And not for me, because he didn’t give a fuck about me.
Another fae half-truth, then. He wanted to believe it, and so he was able to say it with a straight face.
“Maybe it would, but I don’t really give a flying fuck,” I shot back. And I had the advantage of telling the real, unvarnished truth. “At this point, it’s scorched earth,Tyler. You’ll—”
Fuck, fuck, shit, what would he what? I should’ve taken the time to think it through before I called. Drunk a cup of that coffee. Every second that I talked to him on the phone, more of my brain cells seemed to commit some kind of ritual suicide, and all I could think about was seeing him, touching him, breathing the same air as him, or I was going to crawl out of my own skin.
That was it.
“—meet me tonight,” I finished, barely missing a beat.
Not the same hotel, we were probably on wanted posters behind the desk after the way I’d left the room all pulled apart and with half the ceiling on the floor. But my buddy worked night audit at a way, way off-Strip casino hotel where no one would ever expect to find Arnold Cunningham’s pretty boy. And he could get me a room and make sure no names or credit cards were necessary.
“At the Silver Lode. Midnight. I’ll text you the room number, and you’d better fucking show. At twelve-oh-one, I’m making another phone call.”
“I can’t,” he protested, and his voice had lowered to a frantic whisper. “Ican’t. This is absurd. You don’t want to—”
“Midnight,” I repeated ruthlessly. Good. He should be squirming. A thief and a manipulator who magically whammied people without warning. He deserved it, and more. “The Silver Lode. Don’t fuck with me.”Againremained unspoken.
I gave myself the satisfaction of pulling the phone away from my ear and ending the call before he could say another word. And then, of course, I immediately regretted it, staring down at the flashing screen and wondering if I should’ve let him, what, argue with me? Make excuses? Could he enchant me again over the phone somehow? I couldn’t imagine that he’d be able to hit me with his fae magic at a distance, but giving him the opportunity to prove me wrong would probably have been a terrible idea.
Still. Even though I’d cut him off, I couldn’t seem to resettle in my own skin. And now I had, fuck, fourteen hours until the time I’d set.
Why had I chosen midnight? Because it sounded cool? Yeah, basically. Jesus Christ alive, I needed help.
Instead, I poured the coffee and texted the scheduler at the club, letting her know I’d be coming in for a mid shift if thatworked. I got an enthusiastic thumbs up before I’d even drunk half my cup. No one really wanted to work the less lucrative afternoon and early evening on a January Thursday. No one who didn’t desperately need a distraction, anyway.
Not that any of it worked. I spent the rest of the day unable to focus on anything but counting down the minutes until midnight. Showering, getting my stage clothes together, packing my gym bag, driving to the club…all of it faded into a background for my obsessive speculations about what I’d say to him, what he might say to me, what possible explanation he could give, what he might be doing in the meantime while I danced and smiled and rubbed glitter all over my pecs.
On one of my breaks, I texted my friend at the Silver Lode and got confirmation that I’d have a room waiting for me.
