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“Sorry.”
“Ahh,” she snarled. “Fuck you and your sorry bullshit,” Janelle grunted with clamoring in the background. “I’ve been trying to reach you for two weeks. Two fucking weeks, Marissa. God, you are hands down the biggest pain in the ass, which says a lot, because it seems I attract pain in the asses into my goddamn life.”
Marissa sighed, resting back into the headboard, and rubbed her nails together.
“Ya got nothing to say?”
“I’m….”
“Stop with the sorry bullshit, I said.”
Marissa smirked. These calls were for Janelle, not her. Her ex’s wife. It would seem odd to most that the only person who gave a thread of care for Marissa would be her ex-boyfriend’s wife. They shared a past, and for a while, it was a good one. Until it wasn’t. Marissa had been content with cutting all ties two years ago. Janelle was not. Shortly after Marissa had left, Janelle reached out, overcome with emotion, crying and with a threat or two. She made Marissa promise to keep in touch. For someone like Janelle, who shared qualities with the devil, the emotion was out of character. The threats were not. And of course, Janelle wasn’t above guilting in the situation. Her final sword to the chest had been, “You owe me. I loved her like she was my own.” And she had. In what little feeling Marissa carried, it struck her, and Janelle won.
Every week, just once, she’d answer her phone.
“Ryan got the manager’s position at work, which means more money but less time at home. Looks like I’ll be playing single mom for the next few months.” She sighed. “And Mason got into the hoity-toity preschool Ryan’s mom suggested. Oh, and my dad is moving here.” Janelle groaned. “Somebody fucking shoot me.”
Marissa smiled. This was their thing. Janelle called to confirm Marissa was still alive, and then she’d bitch about Marissa not answering the calls, and then she’d vent about life. Again, these calls were for Janelle.
The knock on the door had her jumping up from her bed. Not again.
“I have to go,” she said. “Someone’s at my door.”
“What?” Janelle shouted. “It’s after eleven, don’t answer it.”
“It’s probably just a hooker looking for her client.”
Janelle gasped. “Oh, well that’s fucking reassuring.”
“Bye.” Marissa hung up with Janelle spouting something from the other line. She didn’t hear her.
The pounding on the door startled her, and she crawled off the bed, standing a few feet away and staring. This hadn’t been the first time someone knocked. She stopped counting after the third hooker mistakenly chose her door instead of the one next to her. This was different. There was an aggressive urgency. She walked to the door and opened without bothering to look and see who it was.
Well, this is a surprise.
These two were the last people she expected to see. Her gaze darted between them but remained longer on one. Her heart surged with a little excitement. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.
Caden and Kase stood in the doorway. Their expressions ranged from shocked to livid. Both men’s gazes traveled simultaneously down her body. Caden’s lingered longer on her breasts whereas Kase zoned in on her lower region, which was covered with a tiny pair of boy shorts.
There was no mistaking the similarities now. They shared the same eyes, though Caden’s seemed darker. They took up most of the doorway.
“Hi.” She smiled. “What are you guys doing here?”
Caden’s body tensed, and his jaw locked. His eyebrows furrowed into a harsh scowl, and a dark shade of red filtered up from his neck to his face. He stepped forward so fast she scrambled backward. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Why was he yelling at her? Her lips pressed down, and she tilted her head. “I’m stopping for the night.”
His eyes widened, and although she didn’t know him well enough to distinguish his mannerisms, it seemed Caden was pissed and set to lose his shit. He pointed to the floor. “Here? You picked this shithole to stay at?”
His definition had been accurate. It was a shithole. It wouldn’t have been her first choice, but for tonight it was her only option. “It was closest, and I was really tired.”
Kase snorted while lighting a cigarette. “How much fucking sleep you get so far, Fruity Pebbles?”
She jerked her gaze to Kase. “This is a nonsmoking room.”
He turned his head, utterly perplexed, and then scanned the room. “You shitting me right now, Colleen? You got fucking disease-infested sheets, cockroaches coming out for a party the minute you dim the lights, and crack whores taking mouthfuls as we speak so they can shoot up, and you’re worried about smoke?”
He had a point, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him. “Well, I don’t want to get fined.”
