I pull out the knives, stick them back in my pockets, and swing again. “Can’t,” I say. Can’t leave her alone. Don’t fucking want to.
She makes me feel like I’m not a robot, like I’m flesh and blood, a man, not a number, not a job . . . not a monster, not a bastard, not a zero.
TEN
* * *
ANTICIPATING
Melanie
The worst part isn’t wondering for the next two weeks if I’ll have a date for the wedding. It’s not even my compulsive checking of my texts. Or hearing mean ole Becka snicker at the office about how quiet I’ve been and speculate on whether or not I’m brokenhearted. None of that is the worst part.
It always amazes me how one day you can think you’re at the highest point of your misery, but it’s not even the beginning. Okay, so I want to look good, right? I want to look spectacular. If—not if, Melanie, when—Greyson King shows up, I want him to lose control because of me. I want that man to want me like I’m his next breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Hell, I want him to crave me like a feast. And take me like a beast.
So I get a Brazilian. I get a massage. I get pedicures and manicures and my nails are now a pretty, shiny red. I smell the best I’ve ever smelled and am so ready to be taken to bed by a man with hazel eyes, I can’t even think what I’ll do if he doesn’t show up.
He said he’d be there and the eerily soft and low determination in his words didn’t frighten me; it’s the fact that I hope he will be there because he wants the same thing I do.
But that’s not the bad part . . . the bad part is that I’m so very ready, and yet the evening before the wedding, my bridesmaid dress isn’t ready from the dry cleaners.
I’m waiting inside the small shop as they scramble to find it in their carousel, and I’m getting so nervous, I’m drumming my nails on the counter as they keep pulling out dress after dress. I shake my head. “That’s not it. That’s not the bridesmaid dress, sir, and I’m really starting to panic here. The last thing I want is to call my friend and tell her I lost my bridesmaid dress, please! It’s red. Strapless. Look for it again, please?”
“Ma’am, ma’am!” Another guy appears from the back of the carousel with my ticket in his hand. “I’m sorry but we checked and we delivered it to the wrong address.”
“Urgh. To which fucking address?!” I pull out my phone and write down the address, then track it on my phone and see it’s only a few blocks away. “Do you have the correct delivery for them so I can make an exchange?”
The man nods. “But I can get in trouble.”
“My dear sir, you’re already in trouble and I’ll make a shitload of trouble for you if you don’t just give me what’s theirs so I can go get my dress. Call them and tell them I’m on my way. Please!”
Reluctantly, he hands over a suit and a floral dress, and I grab the clothes on their plastic hangers and hurry down the street, and up several flights of stairs, where I knock on the door and say to the man who opens it, “Excuse me, there was a mistake over at Green Dry Cleaners, and I believe this belongs to you, and you have something that belongs to me, which I need desperately for tomorrow.”
He stands there holding a beer and looks me up and down like I’m some escort sent to pleasure him.
I repeat exactly what I just told him and use his damn clothes to shove between us so he stops looking at my legs.
“I don’t check this shit, my wife does, and she’s not in.”
“Please just take this in and verify if it’s yours, and check your closet or somewhere for a recently cleaned red dress. This here must look familiar to you, does it not?”
After a huge hassle with the suspicious man, I finally get my dress and breathe when I realize it’s still hung up and in plastic. Thank god.
I head back to where I had to park my car two blocks away. These little alleyways have zero parking spots and I’m skipping around puddles, taking care of my shoes, when I hear a whistle from across the alley. I stop and look up, and a man stands there, right in the middle, his stance menacing, wide. One of my eyebrows flies up, and then the other.
What the?
My heart picks up speed as a flicker of alarm flutters through me. I turn around when I hear footsteps behind me, and I see two men. A ball of anxiety knots within me as I scan the area. A dark car is parked near the end of the alley where I’m headed. I think I see one man behind the wheel, and the passenger door is slightly ajar, as though the single man before me just got out of the vehicle.
Some sixth sense in me flares awake and keeps ratcheting up my heartbeat. My dress, my shoes . . . all of a sudden nothing matters but getting out of here. I duck my head in caution and continue walking straight ahead, not even caring about the puddles anymore, only intent on gripping the hanger, which may be the only thing I can use to . . . to what? Wild animals will chase prey if they run the other way, and everything about these men screams Predators, Melanie!
Fear pulses like a live thing in me. Every step that takes me closer to the one lone man at the edge of the deserted alley gnaws away at my confidence.
I’m about to pass him when he takes a step forward and I meekly whisper, “Excuse me.”
One hand grabs my upper arm, clenching like a manacle. “You’re not excused,” he growls.
I flinch and retreat a step when I see his frightening expression, but he yanks me tighter against him, the scent of sweat and cigarettes mingling in his breath as he repeats, looking down at me with red-rimmed eyes, “I said you’re not excused, bitch.”