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He tried to wrap his arm around me and lead me back to my room, but I shrugged out of the embrace. “You didn’t see me, Trevor. Whoever might ask, you didn’t see me.” I started back down the hallway and then paused to look back at him. “Get out of this shit, Trev. You deserve better. If you stay in the industry, you’re going to end up dead. You’re a good kid and a better friend. Live your life for yourself, not your family.”
Without thinking, I pushed the elevator button that would lead to the private rooftop pool. Trevor came toward me, a sad look on his face. “At least let me go with you, Jinx. You don’t look like you need to be alone right now.” His eyes noticed the button I’d pushed. “Anyway, the pool is closed right now. Nobody’s supposed to be up there. Let’s hang out in my room. As usual, nobody’s there. You’ll be safe from whatever you’re hiding from.”
The doors slid open. “You didn’t see me, Trevor.” I stepped inside and held my breath until the door closed, leaving Trevor on the outside, looking confused and scared. At the last minute, through the crack of the closing door, I saw him reach for his cell. Perfect, with my luck he would call Landon and tell him. Landon…the one person I couldn’t face.
When the elevator doors opened again, I was on the rooftop. I stepped off but a security guard immediately blocked my path and said, “Sorry, son. This area is closed for the evening. It opens again in the morning at nine. You’ll need to come back then.”
Sadly, I’d done this hundreds of times in the past, just for different reasons. I reached for my wallet and pulled out five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, shrugged and then added another five, making it a thousand-dollar bribe. “Any chance it’s time for your break? My boyfriend just broke up with me and I need a place to hide out and pull myself together. The paparazzi is everywhere, cameras flashing, and I can’t afford to let them see my face looking like this. Come on, a fifteen-minute break wouldn’t kill you, would it?” I tucked the money into his front pocket. “Fifteen minutes is all I’ll need. We hadn’t been together that long, so I should be able to purge him from my body pretty quickly.”
Lies, lies, and more lies. Landon would never be purged from my soul, much less my body.
The security guard patted his top pocket and said, “Fifteen minutes, kid. If I get caught, I’ll lose my job. I’ve got three kids and another one on the way. Don’t break anything, okay?” He looked at me sheepishly. “I wouldn’t even consider this, but like I said, three littles and one on the way. A grand would help my household a lot.” He glanced at his watch. “Exactly fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes.”
I watched as he stepped onto the elevator and the doors slid closed.
Fuck, what kind of stupid plan was in my head? Fifteen fucking years wouldn’t fix my problem, much less fifteen minutes. Looking around, I knew I’d chosen the worst possible hiding spot.
A dark voice inside my head laughed and reminded me that I’d pushed the rooftop button because a part of me, the terrified part—the part afraid of trying to live the rest of my life without Landon—had chosen the rooftop because I’d pictured myself climbing over that tall glass that surrounded the rooftop and jumping to my death. In a few short seconds, I’d imagined how it would feel to soar through the air…finally free for the first time in my life.
I walked over to the partition. It wasn’t glass, but some kind of super-enforced clear plastic. Ten feet above the rock wall ledge. Ten feet. The dark voice reminded me that there would be plenty of beach towels in the cabana cleverly labeled ‘towels.’ I frowned, wondering how tying beach towels together would help me climb the ten-foot wall. It wouldn’t.
Two minutes had passed, and I hadn’t done a damn thing to help my situation. Tears still flowed. I guessed those fuckers weren’t going to quit. I squinted as I noticed what looked to be a ladder built into the wall locked behind the cabana bar. I looked at it and realized it led a level above the pool area. My cell buzzed in my back pocket. Again. I’d already received one text that I hadn’t bothered to look at. There wasn’t a damn person on this earth that I wanted to talk to. Not one fucking person.
Slowly, I walked toward the cabana, jumped over the bar, and stared at the ladder right in front of me. Refusing to think about what I was considering, I reached for the ladder and started climbing. When I reached the upper level, I saw the air conditioning units and some other shit I didn’t have a clue what purpose they served. I also saw that there wasn’t any barrier over the edge of the building. Goddamn, they made it easy on a person, didn’t they?
