Page 22 of Wasted Lust

“I’d like to hold your hand and take a walk afterward. Do you like to look at the stars?”

She hesitates. I know she does. There is a small observatory on the roof of her house. It took me weeks to figure out what that little dome-shaped structure was up there. I thought it was hiding an air conditioner. Like a camouflaged utility room. But one night a while back, the dome slid open and I took pictures and sent them to a friend to see if he had any ideas what she might be doing.

A small observatory, he replied. To house a telescope.

Anyone who builds that on the roof of their house has a love for stars.

“No,” she lies. “I’m sorry, you can keep your photo—”

But she stops mid-sentence when I reach inside my pocket and pull it back out. “How about a show of good faith then,” I say, holding it out to her. “You take it now. And the dress.” I shake the garment bag again. “And I’ll come back and pick you up in thirty minutes when you’re ready.”

She stares at the photograph as I hold it up.

“I have years and years of pictures of him, Sasha.” Her eyes dart up to mine. “An entire history, actually. We’ve had people on him for more than a decade.” I see the disbelief in her eyes. More than a decade is longer than he’s been missing, so I play the last card I can right now, and give her the truth. “I knew him, Sasha. I knew him growing up. We were almost friends once.”

“You’re lying.” But it’s a whisper. And her words are the lie, not mine. She knows this.

“I’m not,” I tell her. “I have pictures of us together to prove it. But I want this night.” I gently grasp her hand and push the photograph towards it. “Take it inside. Come out with me tonight and forget about him. Let your mind open up to me. Leave everything behind for a few hours and I’ll show you what life in the real world can be like. You’re hiding, Sasha. You’ve locked yourself away in this prison of your own making, and it’s killing you. I can see it in your eyes. You live in the past when the present is all around you. Let me take it away for one night and I promise, I will fill in all those blank years for you in the morning. And when that’s over, I’ll ask you again if you’d like to help me. If you say no, I’ll pack up and leave.”

She takes the photograph and I give her the time she needs to look it over. I let her yearn for him. I let her imagine all the answers to all her questions. I let her soak it up and wish for more.

And then she nods. “OK. One night out with you and in the morning I want answers. But I’m telling you right now, Jax”—hearing her say my name without the formal Agent in front makes me smile immediately—”I’m not interested in you.” She nods down at the picture. “I’m not interested in him that way either. I just—” She stops and lets out a long sigh. It’s filled with emotion. Sadness and loneliness and maybe even regret. “I just need to know more.”

“I understand.” And I do. I need to know more as well. I have followed the lives of Company kids since I was a kid myself. I’m obsessed with them. With her, specifically. Everything I’ve done for the past four months is proof of how bad I have it. “But Sasha,” I say with an edge to my voice, forcing her to focus her attention on me, “leave that photograph at home when you step outside.”

She swallows hard and nods. And then she takes the dress from my hand, disappears inside, and closes the door with a soft click.

I grab the bag of food and walk across the street and up the path that leads to the apartments where I’ve been living for the past few months. Madrid is just pulling up in the parking lot with the car we hired. I walk towards her and hand her the bag of Indian food just as she steps out of the car.

“We’ve got it wired,” she says, taking the food and inhaling the aroma of her favorite Indian dish. She walks off to her own car, sighing a little as she peeks into the bag and says, “Yum.”

I go upstairs and change into my black Armani wool suit paired with a crisp white shirt and a dark-gray striped tie. I comb my dark-blond hair back and then put on a pair of cufflinks that will catch Sasha’s eye.

It’s been a long while since I’ve been interested in a girl. And even though I know I’m not supposed to be interested in Sasha Cherlin… I am.

I’m interested. And that kiss on the stairs at her school was just a tease.

I need more from her. It kills me to have to dangle Nick Tate in front of her face to get it. But I’m a man who gets what I want, no matter what it takes.

I walk over to the couch and take a seat near the lamp. My eyes never leave the image of Nick in my hand. He looks like my Nick from years gone by, except he has a tattoo on his upper arm. He’s wearing a white t-shirt that hugs the well-defined muscles of his chest in a way that leaves little to the imagination. My heart is suddenly heavy with sadness.

I stare into his brown eyes. I can’t see them well—the picture is mostly of his upper body, with the frayed edge of some faded jeans giving me a hint of his waist. But I don’t need to see them in this picture to imagine them.

But dear God, I want more.

My eyes wander to the front door, beyond which is an evening with Jax. Going out with him tonight is not a big deal. Not when I can get more images of Nick and answers to my questions about what he’s been doing. I’ve imagined all kinds of scenarios after he went off with Matias, the drug lord from Honduras who traded the lives of me, James, and Harper for Nick.

He traded himself so we could get away and start a new life far removed from the people who raised us into killers.

So he said, anyway.

I think he did it to get away from me. I’ve always felt that way. He never wanted me to be his promise. He never wanted me. He only wanted to use me.

I don’t want that to be true. I want to see him again. I want him to see the woman I became and fall to his knees with regrets. Profess his love. Apologize and beg me to forgive him.

Such a stupid childhood dream.

I set the photograph down on the end table and stand up to get the dress and take it upstairs. I hang the garment bag on the hook in my bathroom and unzip it.