Desperately Devastated (Addicted To You, Book Nine) (5 page)

But I refused to even entertain that idea. Brooklyn was just a mosquito, a pain in the ass. She wasn’t worth thinking about.

Finally, I heard Carter saying that they’d done good work and he was going to head back to his room.

I stood up and walked to the bathroom door.

“Do you think Dr. Klaxton is going to like what we did?” she asked him.

“I think he’s going to like what you did,” Carter said.

I shook my head, gritting my teeth. This dude was trying to smooth talk her.

There was some mumbling that I couldn’t make out, and then I heard the hotel door open and close. I let one or two seconds go by before leaving the bathroom, and then I threw the door open and came out.

Lindsay was checking her phone for some reason. She glanced up at me. “Sorry you had to stay in the bathroom for so long, Justin.”

I had so much adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream—I felt like a twitchy cokehead or something. I stood in the center of the room, just staring at her. “You already texting with that guy again?”

“I just need to make sure he got the final slide set that I sent over.”

“Oh, that’s all.”

“Why are you angry?” she said, as her phone buzzed again. She began typing away a response.

Another surge of anger poured through me. “Why am I angry? Are you seriously going to act like I have no reason to be annoyed right now?”

Lindsay put her phone aside and came towards me with a smile. “Come on, the bathroom’s not so bad. It’s practically as big as my entire dorm room.”

As her hands went around my shoulders and slid behind my neck, I stepped back and pulled out of her grasp. “Don’t try and play me.”

Her smile instantly disappeared and her eyes became wounded. “I’m not playing you, Justin.”

“I heard the way he talked to you.”

“What? What did he even say?”

“It was the
way
he said it.”

She turned away from me, shaking her head. “I knew it was a mistake to let you come. You promised you weren’t going to do this. You promised.”

“So I’m supposed to pretend it’s cool with me if you flirt with another dude while you make me hide in a bathroom like some chump?”

“I can’t take this. I can’t. I’m working hard, I’m stressed—“

“You can’t take it? Oh, well, then—let me make things easier for you, Lindsay.”

I grabbed my jacket and quickly made my way to the door, threw it open and walked out into the hallway.

I wanted to punch my fist through the wall, but somehow—barely—I kept my calm and continued walking.

“Justin!” I heard her call out.

I didn’t turn around, and instead took a quick turn into the stairwell, rather than waiting at the elevator. Once inside the stairwell, I ran down the stairs as fast as possible.

She wasn’t going to be able to follow me. I didn’t want to listen to her excuses or her accusations. I didn’t want to hear how this was all somehow my fault when I knew that I had every right to be pissed.

Was it possible I’d just been played by her all along?

No.

Maybe, though. Maybe you were just wrong about her. Maybe she’s not as
innocent as you thought she was.

I hit the street and started walking with a purpose. I needed to get to the nearest bar.

***

After my third beer, I was feeling better.

Well, better wasn’t the right word. Maybe I just stopped giving a fuck.

I left the first bar and made my way outside and started walking again, determined to find something quick and easy to eat. I was hungry but I wanted to keep drinking.

There was a hot dog stand on the corner of one street and I bought three hot dogs.

I paid the guy and stood right next to his stand, eating them. They were good, smothered in ketchup and mustard. I chowed them down in a matter of minutes and turned back, handing him another ten-dollar bill. I held up three fingers.

The guy nodded, smiling. “You have big appetite,” he said, in heavily accented English.

“That I do,” I replied. I pulled out my phone, then remembered that I’d turned it off so as not to even worry about whether or not Lindsay was trying to call me.

If she was calling me, I didn’t want to impulsively answer out of weakness. If she didn’t try and contact me, I would be furious and want to call or text her to tell her off.

Either way, the phone was a no-no right then.

I put it away and took my three freshly made hot dogs and ate them almost as quick as the first three.

After that, I wandered until I found yet another bar to help me continue dulling the pain. The next place I found was the proper setting for me. It wasn’t a tourist trap or a place for hipsters—it was a real neighborhood type joint. It was the kind of place I would have gone if I lived around there.

The lighting was dim, there was a pool table, a few old barflies sitting at the bar looking like a stiff breeze might knock them off their stools.

Nearby, a group of four girls with lots of makeup, poofy hairdos and exposed cleavage were drinking shots and talking in loud voices.

They started checking me out the second I walked in, but I pretended not to notice. Of course, I didn’t mind them checking me out—after the way Lindsay had treated me back at the hotel, a little ego boost felt nice.

I sat down at the bar and ordered a pitcher of beer.

“How many glasses for the pitcher?” the female bartender asked.

“Just one.”

She gave me a look, as if to say, are you going to be trouble for me tonight?

I smiled. “Pretty please?”

She laughed. “Just don’t make them carry you out of here on a stretcher.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“I’ll take him home with me,” one of the cleavage chicks called out from nearby.

Everyone laughed at that, including me. But I made a point not to start up any conversations. That wasn’t what this was all about.

A minute later, there was a nice cold pitcher of beer in front of me and I’d poured myself a frothy cup. Moments after that, I’d drank down the contents. It hit my stomach and the warmth in my throat felt good.

The world had lost some of its focus, the edges were kind of fuzzy now.

I thought about Lindsay, the FBI guys, Quarry, Brooklyn—none of it made a dent. This brought a calm, peaceful smile to my face.

My plan was working. Now the only trick was to keep the numb, peaceful feeling going for as long as humanly possible.

Yes, at some point I would pay the price—at some time in the not too distant future, I was going to have to face reality. But that time wasn’t now.

I poured another glass of beer. “Cheers,” I said to the bartender, who flashed me another cautious look.

Down the hatch it went.

LINDSAY

I kept waiting for Justin to come back, to text me or call me to let me know where he was or that he was okay. But he never did.

The slides weren’t ready until two in the morning. Carter and I had been texting, on the phone, and then emailing slide sets back and forth for hours until he’d finally said we could stop for the night.

I should have been exhausted when it was over. It had been a crazy day, one that had included a plane flight and tons of emotional highs and lows.

But I wasn’t tired. In fact, I felt wired.

There was no way I was going to be able to sleep, so instead I took a long shower, hoping the hot water would take some of the tension out of my body. But it didn’t help.

I dried myself with one of the fluffy, expensive-looking towels that was hanging in the bathroom, then pulled on a tank top and a pair of pajama pants and climbed into bed.

The sheets felt soft and smooth, and the blanket was a luxurious shade of royal blue. The mattress was one of those ones you could adjust to make as firm or as soft as you wanted. I set it to a middle setting, then grabbed my phone off the side table and texted Justin.

Just let me know you’re okay.

I lay there for a moment, listening to the sound of the cars rushing by outside.

Even at this hour, New York was loud. There were voices and cab horns and a million other sounds.

And even though I was here in this city filled with people, I felt alone and homesick. I was longing for my dorm room, longing for the bed that had scratchy sheets because they were the only kind that would fit an extra-long mattress, the pillow whose feathers were always poking me in the cheek, the comforter whose lining was torn.

I turned over and spread myself out across the bed. It was so big that I couldn’t reach both sides, but it helped me somehow to feel not as alone, like if I wasn’t all scrunched up on one side of the bed that it meant nothing was missing.

But of course something was missing.

Or rather,
someone
was missing.

Justin still hadn’t texted me back.

So I texted him yet again.

He wasn’t replying, though. It was enough to drive me crazy, so I turned on the TV and began to play a game with myself. I set my phone facedown on the bed, and tried to see how long I could go without checking to see if he’d texted.

The most I lasted was four minutes.

When he still hadn’t texted me by four in the morning, I started to wonder if maybe I should call the police. He was out, in New York City, at four in the morning, doing God knows what.

Surely he would have at least texted me to let me know he was okay? A thrill ran through me ass I imagined myself dialing 911. The police would show up, their hats emblazoned with the NYPD logo.

“When was the last time you saw Mr. Brown?” they’d ask me.

“A few hours ago,” I’d say. “But he hasn’t been in touch. It’s very strange for him not to at least check in with me.”

Of course, that last part was a lie. Justin wasn’t good about checking in with me.

But I couldn’t tell them that. I’d have to make it out like this was rare behavior for him, otherwise they’d think he was out gallivanting around the city.

I pulled the blanket closer around me.

Of course I wasn’t going to call the police. And of course Justin was out gallivanting around the city.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight in an effort to keep from crying and hopefully maybe fall asleep. Why did things have to be like this? There were hundreds of boys at my school, hundreds of nice boys from good families who were studying interesting things – philosophy, accounting, psychology, marketing, computer science. Why wasn’t I interested in any of them? Forget having a relationship, I’d settle for an unrequited crush.

But none of those boys interested me. All I could think about was Justin. His lips, his touch, the way his eyes burned so bright whenever he thought another guy was touching me. How could he be so fiercely protective like that, and then leave me here like this, alone, not knowing where he was or what he was doing?

Thoughts started to enter my mind, the same thoughts that had plagued me on the subway the other day. That maybe we were just too different. That maybe our lifestyles just weren’t compatible. And if it was this way now, how would it be when I was in med school? Or when I was an intern or a resident? I’d be working insane hours, spending lots of time with the people in my program. There was a reason doctors tended to date other doctors. It wasn’t because they all had their love of medicine in common. It was because they hardly saw anyone else.

I used to think that when you were in love with someone, nothing else really mattered. But now I was starting to feel like maybe that wasn’t true. The thought was horrible and depressing, and so I turned off the TV and closed my eyes again, telling myself I couldn’t open them until I fell asleep or my alarm went off.

A few moments later, I fell into a restless sleep.

JUSTIN

The pitcher was gone.

I’d started on another beer, but my mood was going south. The numbness had been replaced by a dark, gloominess—tinged with bitter resentment.

Should’ve knocked that Carter dude out fucking cold when I had the chance,
I thought, staring down at my beer as I sat on the stool.

The bar had gotten more crowded and the crazy chicks had left after trying and failing to engage me in conversation.

I wanted to turn on my phone but I also knew it was a bad idea. Nothing good could possibly come from checking my phone. There would either be a message from Brooklyn explaining how she was telling the world about our baby, or something nasty from Quarry demanding I come back to the gym right away. Maybe there would be something from my friends from the government, threatening to put me in jail if I didn’t cooperate immediately.

But I also wanted to know if Lindsay had tried to contact me. In my drunken state, I’d lost my willpower to resist her. As I watched the other people around me drinking, laughing, talking, I couldn’t help but feel that there was nothing there for me.

The nights of being happy to spend my hours alone in a bar, looking for the next easy girl to take home, were over. Lindsay had ruined all of that for me, and I had to admit it.

I turned on my cell phone, determined to call her no matter what. Even if she hadn’t texted or called me first—I had to tell her how stupid I’d been.

I’d let my pride get in the way once again. It was as though I was determined to sabotage every good thing in my life.

When I turned the phone on, the first thing I saw was voicemail from an unknown number.

Maybe she called and left a message from the hotel room, I thought, knowing full well she hadn’t.

I clicked on the voicemail and listened to it, pressing the phone against my left ear and holding my free hand tightly over my right ear to block out all of the bar noise.

“Justin, this is Agent Driscoll. Please contact me as soon as possible. If you’ve been watching the news, then you’re aware of what’s happened to James Ashbrook. We need to discuss this with you immediately, Justin. Immediately.” Agent Driscoll left his cell phone number and then the message ended.

I sat there, my already slowing brain working as fast as it could under the circumstances. For a few seconds, I scrambled to remember who James Ashbrook was, and then I suddenly recalled. Jimbo. James Ashbrook was Jimbo’s real name.