Page 55 of Bullet
He relaxed then. “Okay. Good. I’ll call my dad and let him know. Do you mind if we leave here sooner rather than later? I need to change and take a shower and stuff.”
“Of course. I’ll just go pick out something to wear and we can leave.”
“Cool, but uh…” He pointed at me. “I’ll need that for the trip.”
“Obviously.” I then grabbed the shirt and pulled it off, revealing my naked body underneath. I handed it over with a sly grin. “Here you go.”
Harry sat in stunned silence for a minute, then stood up out of the chair. “Okay.” He lifted me up out of the chair and flung me over his back, before carrying me back to the bedroom.
So, we didn’t leave for another couple of hours.
When we were finally done gallivanting, I took a quick shower of my own before donning one of Laura’s pink day dresses that was hanging in my closet for dinner, then we left and made our way back to Harry’s. He plugged his phone up to charge in his living room and left me there while he went to take a shower and change, and eventually, both cats found me to get some cuddles.
We quietly listened to music and waited for Harry until his phone suddenly started to buzz with notifications on the table next to me. It was just one at first and I ignored it, but then there was another and another and another. Purely to make sure there wasn’t an emergency, I looked over at the phone, and it appeared to be someone from Harry’s work named Seth. I couldn’t see all of the messages, but he appeared to be asking about the books at Harry’s job, and cutting a check.
Whatever it was about that moment, it all came slamming back into me. For at least four hours, I’d been operating as if Harry reallywasmy boyfriend. He had dinner with my roommate, we had an amazing night together, I made him coffee and breakfast, because that was what I felt like I should do as a good girlfriend, and when I whined about not wanting to be apart from Harry today, it was for no reason other than the fact that I truly didn’t want that.
But none of this was supposed to be real. I was supposed to be looking for a way to destroy him…
And this was it. The books, the money, his new promotion. I saw the way people treated him once he became VP. His job was the window to truly crush him and take everything from him.
It needed to happen, and it needed to happen today. I was falling in love with Harry, drowning, and I needed to get out.
“Hey.” I jumped sky-high at the sudden sound of his voice, jolting both cats. “Whoa, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“That’s okay. Your phone has been going crazy,” I said. I looked up at him, but he was wearing a light blue button-up shirt, with a white t-shirt underneath, and navy slacks. He looked so good, and I couldn’t focus my attention there, so I averted my gaze back to the cats.
Harry picked up his phone and scrolled through it a little before grumbling, “Shit.”
“What?” I asked.
“They need me to stop by the bar and sign off on this check for the expansion.” He looked down at me. “I’m sorry, but do you mind running with me there?”
A golden opportunity. “No, not at all.”
“Okay then, we’ll leave straight from there for dinner.”
He finished getting ready, then we packed up and took his bike to Hoppa’s Taphouse. The regulars were already starting to file in for the day, as it was late afternoon, so Harry took me around back and used a key to walk us through the back door. There was only one member of the club back there, and he was sitting at a table looking over some paperwork. When he looked up and saw me, his head tilted, then he smiled.
“Celia, right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
He stood up and walked over. “Seth, nice to meet you.”
“What’s going on?” Harry asked.
“Nicky wants the check cut, but had to make an emergency run with Bucky, so I need you to sign off on it.”
“Okay. I have dinner at my dad’s in an hour, so let’s hurry,” Harry said. He kissed me on my cheek, said, “I’ll be right back,” and walked over toward some filing cabinets with Seth.
They stood with their back to me, talking quietly so as not to have me overhear what they were discussing, but what they weren’t worried about were the books that were open on the table. One of them specifically, looked like a book for reconciling cash in and cash out. I looked over at Harry, and there was a little bit of resistance in my head. Once I did this, there was no going back.
But that was what I wanted.
I sneakily picked up the pencil and flipped the book backward until I got to the months before Harry took over VP. I erased some of the numbers, just the second digit or third digit, something unnoticeable and replaced the numbers with smaller ones. Numbers that looked similar were my target, changing 9s to 8s, 3s to 2s, anywhere I could, then I flipped back to today and changed a number from an 8 to a 3 by erasing the sides of the 8. I set the pencil down and stepped back from the table to where I’d been and started flicking through my phone.
Finally, Harry and Seth walked back to the table and they both started looking through the book. My heart started to pound, afraid that they were going to notice my change, but neither of them seemed to. Harry wrote out a check, for fifty-thousand dollars I spied, and then signed it, Seth signed it, and then he packed it into an envelope.
