“It’s okay. I like it when I make people happy through cupcakes.” She looks at Chad and Ben. “Not those nerds, though.”
They glare at her and she places a hand on her hip and glares right back. She developed an animosity toward them on my behalf after she heard them call me Plain Jane. She has a weirdly cute sense of justice, which is different from Knox’s warped one.
When I learned her identity and that she’s actually known Knox, Daniel, and the other partners for years, I contemplated asking her to convince Knox about taking the girl’s case. However, that would mean sharing too much information with someone I just met. Besides, I don’t want anyone to know about what Knox and I have.
It’s our dirty little secret.
“Go ahead, try them.” She pulls up a chair and watches me expectantly with eyes so colorful, they look a little freaky. She has rare heterochromia that creates a mash-up of green, blue, and gray in her irises, as if she’s a mythical creature from the folklore tales Babushka used to read to me.
I take a bite from the dainty-looking cupcake. “Vanilla again?”
“Hey! Vanilla is the best flavor.”
“It’s pretty standard.”
“Uh, excuse you. It’s versatile.”
I smile at that as I continue eating.
“What are you smiling at? It really is the best.”
“You’re one of the minority who think that.” She’s also one of the few people who’s willingly gotten close to me, not caring about my appearance or how asocial I actually am.
Gwen snatches one of the cupcakes she brought and starts eating. A strand of her auburn hair falls to her forehead and she unsuccessfully tries to blow it back.
“Shouldn’t you be working?” I ask.
“Nah, I finished reading through the docs Nate gave me. Besides, he has a meeting with the other partners about an important case Knox is taking on, so he can’t give me any new tasks or make my life hell for being half a minute late.”
I lean forward in my seat. “Wait. Did you say an important case?”
“Yeah.” She licks her fingers, then nearly butts her head with mine when she slides her chair closer. “The offender is Matt Bell. You know, that famous producer? His daughter is suing him for sexual assault and demanding compensation, and Knox has accepted the case. Which is weird, because I’m pretty sure I heard Dan say he rejected it. But maybe he saw the case from a different perspective and changed his mind.”
My fingers tighten around the cupcake, and I’d smash it if I weren’t aware that Gwen would kill me for it.
Did she just say Knox accepted the case? The same case he said I needed to convince him to take on?
“This case is getting so much media attention,” Gwen continues. “It’s going to be wild.”
“Really?” I don’t have to ask her what I actually want to know, which is if Knox is up for this. Gwen is talkative by nature and tells me anything with simple nudges.
“Absolutely! But if anyone can do it, it’s Knox. Though everyone is skeptical that he’s taking a civil law case, but it’s probably going to happen at the same time as the criminal one and he’s done that before. Dad watched that one personally and was especially proud of how Knox drove both the prosecutor and the opposing counsel insane. So, I’m totally sure he can nail this as well.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“He’s a strategist, you know.”
“A strategist?”
“Yeah, like at first, it looks as if he’s going to lose, but he’s really plotting several deadly blows. And when he actually delivers them? It’s game over.”
I believe her. I do. As a matter of fact, I think he used that tactic on me.
A fire burns inside me and it takes everything in me to continue listening to Gwen talking about a horror movie she watched last night. It takes everything in me not to unleash that fire on him.
On the man who’s been manipulating me all along.
The asshole.
By the time Gwen leaves, I’m fuming. No, I’m about to let all the destructive energy consume me.
I can’t even concentrate on the system I’ve been carefully building for days. The codes keep blurring in front of my vision no matter how much I take deep breaths and clean my glasses.
My phone vibrates and I retrieve it with a jerk. I know who it is before I even check. The only two people who know this number are the clinic where Babushka stays and the asshole who unapologetically exchanged numbers with me after that first time in the supply room.
Knox: In five minutes, I’m going to fuck you.
I’m so tempted to send him a middle finger emoji, but I think better of it.
I’m going to do it in person.
12
KNOX
There’s been tension in my bloodstream for days. Maybe even weeks.
Since the day I fucked Anastasia and she disappeared on me, leaving only her virgin blood and a black butterfly behind.
Back then, I resisted the urge to find her, because fuck that. I don’t chase girls. They always fall into my lap and bombard my phone with calls.
But during those weeks, I couldn’t touch any of those girls and Dan started sending stupid messages in the group chat we have with our friends in England. Two of whom are Ronan and Aiden, my brothers-in-law.
Daniel: Breaking news from the Empire State. Knox’s dick is broken.
Aiden: Now, this is interesting. Tell us more.
Daniel: He hasn’t shagged for weeks.
Aiden: Bit weird that you even know of his shagging schedule, Sterling, but okay.
Daniel: That’s not the point here, fucker. It’s that he. Hasn’t. Shagged.
Cole: Agreed. Kind of a record for Van Doren.
Ronan: Did someone mention my dear brother-in-law?
Daniel: The one whose dick is broken, yes.
Ronan: I take back the dear part and also the brother-in-law part. I know no one whose dick is broken.
Aiden: Should we start to pretend he doesn’t exist in public, Astor?
Ronan: Eventually.
Cole: What’s the exact story, Dan?
Daniel: Nothing specific, just the fact that he refuses to shag. Real question, should I take him to the doctor? Trick him into it maybe? Because he needs his dick checked.
Aiden: Or you need to be less obsessed with his dick, maybe.
Daniel: You shut up. Any suggestions?
Ronan: Hookers, a solution as old as time and just as efficient. No doctors are needed, Danny boy.
Cole: Does Teal know you’re talking about hookers?
Ronan: For her brother, not me, and fuck you, Cole.
Ronan: Un-fuck you. Don’t bring it up to Teal.
Cole: Screenshot shared as we speak.
Ronan: You fucking bastard…
Daniel: Hey, motherfuckers. This is about Knox and his broken dick.
Aiden: He’s probably fucking someone behind your back.
Daniel: What? Why would he do that?
Aiden: Let me take a wild guess. Your unhealthy obsession with his dick, maybe?
Ronan: Or maybe Knox just lost his balls.
Cole: RIP.
Knox: I’m right fucking here in case you forgot, arseholes.
Aiden: Even fucking better.
Needless to say, it’s become a running joke in that fucking group chat that I’m contemplating muting until someone else becomes the joke. The most likely candidate—Ron.
Point is, this whole mess is because of Anastasia.
Deep in the back of my mind, I recognize that this is headed to the unhealthy obsession level, that I shouldn’t allow myself to be sucked into such a bottomless pit.
Which is why I have to fuck her out of my system, once and for all. That’s the plan, anyway, when I walk into the supply room.
But I’m greeted with light.
There’s never light when I take her against the wall and wrench one orgasm after the other from her. Anastasia hates it, I realize—the light. She’s more comfortable in the darkness, like me, where we can be ourselves without thinking about our identities, where we are, or the consequences.
It’s on now, the supply room’s white neon light, and it highlights the dullness of the space. The unorganized piles of papers lying around that should be in the archives.