The Thrill of It (No Regrets Book 2) Page 9

  “Oops,” I say when I see the message is in draft mode. “Looks like you forgot to send it. Guess that was a Freudian slip.”

  Then I walk out before I say something I will regret for the rest of my life, even though the word is forming in my throat, on my tongue, on my lips. But I can’t, I won’t, I refuse to give that word voice, even if she’s acting like one right now.

  16

  Harley

  I stare at the window in the door, unable to move, even though he’s long gone.

  I close my eyes briefly, wondering if this is the end of my penance, if this is how I finally escape my past. If this is the moment when I am finally good again with the universe, when I have paid back all that I have done. Maybe this is my final amends.

  Losing him. Losing Trey.

  But was I really that bad?

  Yes.

  The answer is always yes.

  I will always pay for what I did because I sold myself. I can try to hedge it, I can sugarcoat it by calling myself an escort, by having laid down limits, but in the end, I did what I did. I chose what I chose. And unlike the girls my mother features in her articles, I wasn’t forced, I wasn’t coerced. I willingly walked men like dogs, dirty-talked to them, and told them lies about lingerie. Then I took the money and laughed with my pimp.

  My man.

  My Cam.

  I collapse in a cross-legged heap on the dirty, faded yellow linoleum floor of this apartment building, and I clutch the bag Cam sent me, a life preserver in the shitstorm of my day, my life. I hold it tightly and reread the note, lingering on the last lines.

  Who takes care of you?

  That’s right. Who does?

  Has there ever been any question? Has there ever been any other answer but Cam? He is the only person who has ever been there for me. Who doesn’t cringe or sneer or judge my past. Who doesn’t leave. Cam accepts me for who I am and loves me for me. And he doesn’t even try to fuck me—or fuck with me. He is the only person I can rely on. When my world spins wildly into the sewer, he alone can pluck me out.

  He is the choice in my life. I chose him once; I can choose him again. Joanne has urged me to take ownership of my actions, so I damn well will take ownership of this one.

  Of this choice I’m making that is mine and mine alone.

  I reach into the bag, open the box, and gasp when I see a long, flowy dress the color of champagne. It’s gorgeous, and it’s nothing a whore would wear.

  I run my tired hands over the dress—it is the only thing beautiful in my ugly life. I can’t rely on my mother. I am wrung dry from her, worn out and tattered from her cruel words. Nor can I lean on Trey—he proved that. I thought I was falling in love, but he walked out without even giving me a chance to explain.

  I rest my cheek against the soft chiffon. This. This is all I can depend on.

  Power. Control. Manipulation.

  Because there is no such thing as love. Love is a fiction, a fable, an ode spun by poets and drunks, a fantastical tale told across one thousand and one nights. It’s the genie in the bottle, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the lie designed to seduce you.

  My almost-now-ex-boyfriend doesn’t love me, my father never did, and the woman who raised me didn’t want a daughter. She wanted a sister, a confidante, a friend.

  And she wound up with a whore.

  This is who I am.

  I discard my soft side, my loving side, my vulnerable side. With my chin held high and dress in hand, I march up the stairs.

  I am and always will be a working girl.

  “Where’s Trey? What happened?” Kristen asks when I unlock the door to the apartment. She’s draped over Jordan, and they’re watching a Mark Wahlberg flick on her laptop. She’s compromising, and it’s fascinating seeing what a boy and girl do as they come together. Fascinating like a science experiment I’m observing through a microscope. Because that’s all this closeness, this kind of compromise, will ever be to me. Something to take note of from a distance, to jot down on lined paper. But not a way to live. “Trey was supposed to come up thirty minutes ago. Did he get lost in the basement?”

  I shake my head. “He left,” I say in a dead voice, then I head to my room and flop face-first on my bed. I could cry, I could curl up in a ball, I could bang my fists into the bedspread until they turn red.

  But there’s nothing left in me. I have been drained of emotions, and maybe I never even had any in the first place. Maybe I’m missing the gene that allows you to feel for real.

  Seconds later, I hear my door creak open.

  “Hey,” Kristen says in a soft voice. She pads over to my bed, sits down, and pets my hair. “You okay?”

  “I wouldn’t really use that word to describe what I’m feeling right now,” I say in a muffled voice into the bedspread.

  “What’s going on? Want to tell me?”

  I flip over, stare up at Kristen, and shrug. “Where to start? Imagine your worst-case scenario. Double that. Multiply it by ten. And add a thousand.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” She squeezes my arm. “What happened? Tell me what happened. I want to know.”

  “You go watch your movie. I’ll be fine.”

  “No. Jordan can wait. You’re more important. I don’t even like this movie.” Then she calls out to Jordan, telling him to finish it on his own. He shouts back a victorious yes, and I hear the volume rise again on the film.

  “Talk to me,” she says. “You let me in the other night when you told me. Now I’m in. Let me help you.”

  I choke up because her words might be the kindest ones I’ve ever heard. Then I choke back the tears and tell her about my shitty day. When I’m done, she gives me the biggest hug a girl could get.

  I may not know love, but I am starting to grasp the concept of friendship.

  This is the only thing I know to be true.

  17

  Harley

  Slut is a dirty word.

  Slut is a loaded word.

  Slut is for microscopic miniskirts and tramp stamps and tottering red plastic high heels. Slut is for ripped T-shirts sliding down shoulders, for shots drunk off of bellies, for names written on bathroom stalls.

  Slut is for loose girls. For easy girls. And it is only for girls.

  That’s why I hate the word. As I shower and shampoo my hair, I think about how I want to eradicate it from the English language. I want to handcuff it, lock it up, and exile it. As I turn off the water and grab a towel, I think about a billion Sharpies blotting slut from every dictionary that ever existed in any language.

  Just the word itself sounds dirty. Even if it meant “kitten” or “unicorn,” it would still sound like a guttural insult.

  As I open my makeup bag, I picture a counterrevolution—I imagine girls taking back that word, co-opting it, owning it, declaring it theirs. Oh, Sally! You’re such a funny slut!

  But, see, there’s nothing tramp-stampy or bathroom-wall-worthy about the dress Cam bought me, the event I’m going to, or the way I look when I am Layla. I blow-dry my hair, apply my makeup, and zip up the champagne dress. I am classy, I am a prize, I am worthwhile.

  The only slutty thing I’ve ever done was mess around with Trey.

  And he’s history.

  Grabbing the tattoo concealer I picked up this morning from the makeup counter at a nearby department store, I cover up the red ribbon on my shoulder.

  Erasing my mom, erasing Trey. I am back to me.

  Kristen barricades the doorway. She presses her palms on each side of the frame, feet out wide, forming an X.

  “I can’t let you go,” she tells me.

  “Kristen, I’m fine.”

  “This isn’t you. You told me you were done with that.”

  “Well, I’m done with being done. I’m back. And I have a job to do, so I really need to go,” I tell her in a firm, clear voice.

  “Harley,” she says, sounding wistful as she shakes her head once. “Tell me how I can help you.”

  “I don’
t need help.”

  “I don’t know what to do, but I know this isn’t what you want.”

  “Actually,” I correct, “it is what I want. It’s the way for me. And if you don’t move, I’m going to be late for a very important fake date that will net me a few thousand dollars for rent,” I add, figuring that will convince Kristen to move.

  She doesn’t.

  I sigh heavily. “Kristen, I appreciate this. I truly do. You’re trying to stage an intervention or something, and I grant you mega BFF points for that. But this is my choice, and I am fine with it, and I really need to go because there is a car waiting for me.”

  She sags finally and relinquishes her post, holding her arm out in a defeated gesture.

  “Thank you.”

  “Wait. Tell me where you’re going. Just in case something goes wrong.”

  “What? You think Mr. Stewart is going to shank me?”

  “I have no idea! But it would just make me feel better if, God forbid, something happens to you.”

  “Fine,” I relent. “I’ll be at the Parker New York.”

  Then she wraps me in a hug. “I love you, Harley. I do. I know this is your choice, and I don’t like it, but I’m still your friend and I won’t stop being your friend even if I disagree, okay? You need to know that. I will be by your side.”

  The back of my eyes sting and I hold back the tears that threaten to ruin my perfectly applied mascara. “Don’t make me cry,” I whisper, and squeeze her back. “Oh, and that was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. So thank you for being a friend.”

  Her friendship is the closest thing I’ve ever felt to some kind of love.

  Inside the air-conditioned town car, it’s as if I’m in a capsule, transporting me in its secure, hermetically sealed spaceship to a better planet. One where these messy things called feelings no longer prick me like porcupine quills. On the planet I’m rocketing to, we strip ourselves of emotions. We are stronger, safer, better like that.

  I make my way to Cam.

  Seeing him is like a hit, an inhalation, a relief. A faint drifting off to someplace else, where no sounds permeate my ears, where no sights invade my vision, where I take a drink of something blue and sugary a waiter brings me, and nothing in this heartless city—no boys, no blackmail, no mom, no naked men in halls, no affairs I didn’t want to know about, no secrets, no empty spaces—can ever touch me.

  Dressed in black pants and a bright purple shirt, he’s holding a worn paperback, and his grin is so wide it’s like a neon sign of Vegas waiting in the lobby for me.

  A sign that beckons me.

  18

  Cam

  That Helen Fielding can write. Man, she can write her ass off. No matter how many times I devour one of her tales, they never fail to suck me in.

  And distract me.

  Because tonight I’m waiting for my girl.

  When I check my watch, I see it’s nearly time for her to arrive.

  Excellent.

  I close the book, and wait in the lobby of the hotel.

  As if on cue, she walks in a few minutes later. On the dot. God bless punctuality. Harley has it in spades, and that’s one more reason why I know she’s going places.

  As she heads to me, I shake my head in admiration, emitting a low whistle. I drink her in from top to bottom and back again, with an appreciative gaze that I’m sure is operating at full wattage.

  Because hallelujah. I do indeed appreciate the way she looks and the way it’s going to make us both richer.

  I fucking love money.

  I love what it does for me.

  I love what it affords.

  Power, protection, a shield from the shit of the world.

  I grin as she reaches me.

  “Perfection, Layla,” I say, then plant a delicious kiss on her cheek, trying to give her some of my bionic powers. She’s tough, but she can be tougher, and hell, that’s what I can give her.

  “Mmm,” I say, taking a step back for another view, damn pleased already with how tonight is going to go. I’ve got my star back, and there is nothing I like more than having the best working for me. “I knew this dress would accentuate all the assets Mr. Stewart likes in a girlfriend.”

  She cuts to the chase. “Speaking of, anything I need to know about the job?”

  I give her the details. “He loves elephants. Okay? Elephants are his passion, and he is a huge supporter of Save Orphaned Elephants. He’s being honored as one of the gold-level givers. He has the head table, and you’re his girlfriend. Anyone asks what you do, you’re a model. That’s all you need to say. You’re a model, you’re crazy for him, and you care so very deeply for the plight of the orphaned elephant,” I say, placing a hand on my heart, batting my lashes.

  Her lips curve up in a conspiratorial grin. “I can do that.”

  I flash a big-ass smile right back at her. “I’ll be kicking it at the bar on the second floor. Nothing is going to go wrong, but just think of me as your buffer if you need me.” I slap the paperback against my other palm. “Now, you do your thing, I’ll do my thing. Because I just got to the good part in Bridget Jones’s Diary, and I’m dying to see how it all plays out.”

  She arches a brow. “You’re reading chick lit?”

  I waggle the paperback, pretending to swat her arm with it. “Don’t be dissing my books. It’s just a damn good story. Get your pretty ass upstairs. He’s waiting at the hotel bar, then you’ll go up to the ballroom together. Arm in arm, baby. Arm in arm. You stay by his side all night long and make us proud, baby doll. Now, no more cheek kisses from me, because I don’t want you smelling like me—I want you smelling like a beautiful model who loves elephants.”

  She parks a hand on her hip. “Tonight, that’s who I am.”

  Yes. That is definitely who she is. My chameleon. My girl. My star.

  As she heads upstairs, I watch her go.

  A strange sensation sweeps into my chest.

  Out of nowhere.

  A worry.

  A fear.

  But there is no place for that in my life. No place for fear. I’ve got what I’ve missed.

  Even so, I keep my eyes on her till she’s gone, then I return to the book, hoping this odd spate of nerves passes quickly.

  Because fuck nerves.

  19

  Harley

  At five-eight, I tower over the squat and balding Mr. Stewart, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s hooked his hand possessively around my waist, and he taps my hip bone now and then, as if this is our long-standing little lovers’ gesture. We are at the front of the ballroom near the stage, and we don’t have to mingle because everyone wants to mingle with us—the guest of honor and his model girlfriend. Black-tie waiters circle and offer sparkling drinks in champagne flutes. I politely decline. Mr. Stewart does as well, then returns his attention to a portly businessman next to him who’s discussing a recent news story about elephants. I nod thoughtfully as they chat, squeezing Mr. Stewart’s arm now and then, batting my eyes, and gazing adoringly at him like a proud girlfriend. I am giving it more than 110 percent, and Cam will be thrilled with my report card, since Mr. Stewart is clearly besotted.

  “It’s terribly sad, isn’t it?” the portly man says.

  “That’s why we want to earn as much as we possibly can to save the African elephant from extinction,” my date says. “It’s so sad how close they are to being wiped out. It’s genocide of the species, and all for their tusks to be made into useless little trinkets and statues.” He turns to me. “Don’t you agree, my sweetheart?”

  I nod wholeheartedly, bringing my hand to my heart. “I don’t want to live in a world where I have to say to my kids someday, ‘This is where the wild things were.’ I want to say, ‘This is where the wild things are.’”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” the businessman says, and wipes a small tear from his eye.

  Someone clinks a fork against a glass, and the sea of glamorously attired men and women in tuxes and evening gowns
turns to the stage.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” a woman in a modest black dress says after clearing her throat. “We are so grateful for all of you, and we hope you are having a wonderful time. Before we sit down to eat, we want to extend a heartfelt thank you to one of our most generous supporters, Mr. Stewart.”

  The crowd claps, and the chandeliers cast a warm glow around the cavernous ballroom as all eyes turn to the man next to me. He takes a quick bow, waves, and then slips his hand around my waist again. I plant an adoring kiss on his cheek.

  He looks at me and smiles, a wide, happy, gooey smile that tells me I’ve earned that big-ass tip, since he believes so thoroughly in the illusion I’ve created for him. I am his girlfriend. For tonight, I am absolutely his girlfriend.

  20

  Trey

  When I reach the sixth floor, I race out of the elevator and down the hall, praying Michelle is still here. I tried calling her once, but it’s Friday night, so who the hell knows if she’s still working.

  I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours brooding and drawing, walking around the city, trying to figure out where I belong.

  And where I want to be.

  Where I want my future to be.

  I can get lost in this city. Lost in my head. And lost in my fears.

  I did all that.

  And now I need to move forward.

  But I need Michelle to do that.

  I need the one person who’s on the level, who gives it to me straight, before I find Harley.

  I yank open the door to her office suite.

  “Trey,” she says in surprise. A black purse is slung over her arm, and she’s dressed in a pencil skirt and a sleeveless top. Weird—she’s not wearing her shrink uniform, and it’s jarring for me to see her like this, as if I ran into a teacher at the mall, outside of her natural habitat. “What can I do for you? I’m just on my way to the theater.”