The cop followed us to the side of the road. Thomas killed the engine and we waited in heavy silence.
I exhaled and dropped my head against the leather headrest.
“Worst date ever.”
He didn’t look at me. He said nothing.
A flashlight hit the passenger window, nearly blinding me.
“Step out of the car. Both of you, step out of the car right now.”
Thomas rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Fucking fantastic.”
While he pulled himself together, I let the seat belt loose and pushed the door open. I hadn’t gotten a foot into the overflowing gutter water when the officer grabbed my arm and dragged me onto the sidewalk. Another cruiser drew up behind the first.
On the other side of the car, Thomas pushed the cop’s hands away.
“Don’t touch me. Do you know who I am?”
“Do you know whose car this is?” the officer asked in a tone that suggested the officer knew exactly whose car this was. He smirked and Thomas wilted.
“Thomas?” I looked at him and he no longer looked like Clark Kent. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t say anything,” he warned.
“Don’t say anything about
what
?” The cop squeezed my arm and pulled me away from the open door. The second officer ducked inside and shone his flashlight along the floor.
“I don’t know what’s going on. Do you want to see my license?” I held up my hands, like they do in the movies, but it only made being dragged away from the car more awkward. My officer clicked his flashlight and shined it right in my eyes. I jerked my head away.
“Have you been drinking?”
“A couple glasses of wine.” The light made my eyes water. And since it seemed like it needed to be pointed out, I added, “I wasn’t driving.”
“I can explain,” Thomas said smoothly. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what it looks like Mr. Tennyson. You’re under arrest for car theft. And solicitation.”
Car theft.
Solicitation.
Wait.
Solicitation
?
“Thomas!”
Panic choked my voice, but before I could say another word the two officers flanking me pulled me over the curb and put me into the hood of the car. My cheek hit the curve of the racing stripe and sent a crackling pain all along my cheekbone. I made a weak noise of pain but that didn’t encourage them go any gentler as they yanked one wrist behind me, then the other.
The officer slid his boot between my heels and spread my legs as far as my skirt would allow. Handcuffs closed over both wrists. Then they patted me down. No one went out of bounds, but their hands made me feel sick to my stomach.
They were not, I noticed, as rough with Thomas who remained pretty and business-like, standing in the rain, uncuffed, and not bent over the hood of a car suggestively.
“Thomas tell them I am not a prostitute. Tell them right now!”
He glanced at me but didn’t answer. As they pulled him away from the car, I heard him start explaining about how his boss knew he had the car. It wasn’t stolen. He had permission. He had the key code. If they’d just call his boss, he’d clear it all up.
“Mr. Tennyson,” they said, “who do you think called us?”
“I’m not a prostitute,” I begged. I swore. “This is insane. Please! I can prove it if you just listen to me
please
…”
The officer ignored me and squeezed the cuffs around my wrist bones one last time before letting go. Just in case the short chubby prostitute wanted to make a run for it.
For a moment the rain soaked into my back and my hair. I stayed very still, the warmth of the car’s engine bleeding away beneath me until it was a very cold, very hard lump holding me up. My face hurt, threads of pain radiated from the point where my cheek rested. I felt exposed and vulnerable with my feet spread and my hands impossibly twisted against the small of my back.
Everything I’d remembered about this position evaporated. There was no Josh. No rope. No pleasure. This was not safe. I was not protected. I did not like this.
I did not want this.
“I’m not a prostitute,” I repeated, but they weren’t even listening. God, of course they weren’t. Someone spoke into a radio. Another swore about over-privileged little assholes. One of them begged a cigarette off his partner.
“Please listen to me.” I sounded so terribly small. I hated how crazy and desperate I sounded. Absolutely hated how easily it was for all of them to throw me away. Thomas didn’t even say goodbye as they marched him off. Not even a nod or a wave or a final, slow-mo glance back at the girl he had to leave behind.
“I’m a graphic designer,” I babbled into the hood, which only made me sound a little drunk. “I like Star Trek. I read fucking Jane Austen for fun. I am
not
a prostitute. I’m not. I’m not. Look at me! I’m…just a
girl.
”
They read Thomas his rights, opened a door, dunked his head and pushed him inside. When they finally read me mine, it was to the curve of my backside heavy with laughter and amusement and inevitability. Of course you’re under arrest. You’re a prostitute. You know the drill.
My mind went somewhere else. I didn’t listen. I closed my eyes and tried to conjure up Josh. My Josh. The Josh he was before Halloween. I thought about his hands, his smile, the way he alphabetized his spice rack. But every image slipped away before I could lose myself in them. Before they could comfort me or save me. He didn’t belong here.
He didn’t belong to me.
And a guilty part of me was very grateful he’d never have to see me like this.
Handcuffs. They were heavier than I’d imagined, and cold. The officer hadn’t cuffed me tightly, but there wasn’t enough space between the widest part of my thumb and pinky finger to slide out. When I’d imagined handcuffs before, I’d imagined the pink fuzzy kind. Cute and playful. These were, of course, neither. I wondered if Josh had a pair like it, if he enjoyed their unforgiving nature.
I had to stop thinking about him or I was going to lose it.
My skirt dripped raindrops onto the floor beneath me and my hair stuck in knotted cords along my shoulders. My clothes clung uncomfortably to my body but I couldn’t seem to conjure up the strength to do anything about it. I rested my hands on my thighs, the hard metal chain between my wrists swaying cold against my knees.
The room they abandoned me in was small, a little dirty, and smelled like the guy they’d held in there before me. Aside from the wooden bench I slumped against, the room was empty.
And quiet.
I closed my eyes. It had been at least thirty minutes since I’d called Julie to come get me and I’d barely been able to hold back the tears as I explained what had happened. She promised she was on her way and told me not to be afraid. She’d said, “Don’t freak out. Tomorrow this will all be very, very funny. You’ll see.”
I kind of doubted that.
Footsteps broke the silence, nearly running down the hall towards my prison. I lifted my head as they slowed and stopped just outside the door.
Julie. Finally.
The door whined open and
he
filled the space between me and the rest of the world. A blue-eyed giant.
Everything about him screamed fury and violence except his eyes. Those…those were cold and featureless. Dark abysses that let nothing in or out. I’d never seen them so carefully controlled and that was somehow scarier than the anger he held in his clenched jaw and fisted hands.
He very nearly vibrated with the energy he tried to swallow down.
Of course she’d betrayed me. I should have seen this coming. I shouldn’t have been surprised. My heart slid numbly into my toes and I tried very hard to lock down my shame. I did not want him to see me like this. I would have given anything in the whole world to not have him see me like this.
Josh traced his gaze up my sodden body looking for answers he’d never find. For a moment his control slipped and I could see some other, darker emotion twisting behind his beautiful eyes and my whole body shivered.
Then he shook his head slowly, like he couldn’t believe what a sloppy, broken, messed up animal I’d become.
I looked at the ceiling before he reached my eyes.
Josh closed the door behind him and stepped slowly across the room until he stood in front of me, toe-to-toe. I stared fiercely into the air vent, unwilling to acknowledge him. The vent hadn’t been cleaned in a while. Someone should really do something about that. Who knew what horrible things were growing in the sweaty dust up there?
The world’s most uncomfortable silence stretched. On and on and on.
He exhaled first, a tiny note of amusement released the tension and nearly melted my insides.
“Nice handcuffs.”
I rolled my eyes at the air vent.
“You’re hilarious.”
Josh lowered himself into a crouch and, without asking, took my hands in his. His skin felt dry and warm against mine and I hadn’t even realized how cold I was until his touch eased some life into my numb fingers. I tried not to watch as he turned them palm up and then retrieved a key from his pocket.
I scoffed. “You do not carry around your own handcuff keys.”
He grinned, briefly easing his thinly stretched displeasure. “I asked your arresting officer if I could remove them for him. I didn’t think he would let me, but he said something strange. He said, ‘
wow, she really has a thing for guys into restraints
.’ And then he handed it over.”
“Weird,” I mumbled and watched him insert the key into one wrist and twist until the latch released and the metal unhinged. I wasn’t surprised that Thomas had told everyone the titillating but ultimately underwhelming truth about our date. It explained the officers’ amusement when they decided to abandon me in this room still handcuffed to myself even though I was no longer under arrest once it became clear I was not actually a prostitute.
I should have been more embarrassed about his tattling on me, but I was too exhausted to care. So they thought I liked being tied up. Considering they’d thought I was a prostitute to begin with,
a little kinky
seemed pretty classy in comparison.
Josh freed my hand slowly, deliberately, a sort of careful ritual I couldn’t tear my eyes away from. His thumb slid across the skin at the inside of my wrist where the metal had pressed for the last hour.
I could have pulled my hand away, but I didn’t. I let him set me loose even though every brief contact our skin made obliterated tiny pieces of me. I never thought I’d touch him again,
ever
, and here he was at my very worst moment, touching me. The humiliation was almost more than I could take.
The vent kicked on and growled a burst of cool, dirty air into the room. My wet skin broke out into goose bumps and sent shivers racing up my arms. I swallowed, squeezed my eyes shut, and when I opened them again he was looking at me. Dots of light seeped into dark eyes, through the shadows smudged beneath them. He looked tired. He looked older than he had been when I’d curled in his arms last. We existed years and miles apart, even if I could feel his touch it seemed more like a memory than a real thing. Any second he’d vanish.
Josh returned his attention to my hands. With the second wrist he spent a gorgeous stretch of time running his thumb across the joint between metal and bone. The steel heated in his hands, turned deliberately this way and that, and for a billion seconds we didn’t make a sound but for the tinkling of metal against metal like glass. When he finally slid the key in and turned, I felt the lock give way in my spine. I inhaled sharply and he froze and we held onto the moment for as long as we dared.
Everything in my chest ached.
“You’re going to tell me how you ended up in a stolen car,” he said finally, his voice almost even but for a very slight vibration I heard only because I knew his voice so very well. Where I felt this moment caressing up my spine, he felt it
everywhere
.
Despite the way my heart throbbed with him this close, I couldn’t control the antagonistic cruelty in my voice. As much as I wanted to crawl into his arms and be comforted by the strength of him, I also wanted to hit him. Over and over again. I wanted to destroy him with my bare hands.
I smirked and lifted my shoulders just enough to impersonate a shrug. “He really, really wanted to go on a date with me?”
He scowled.
“This isn’t funny.”
“And none of your business.”
“I received a frantic phone call from Julie at midnight because your date got you
arrested
. I’m making it my business.”
“Technically, I wasn’t arrested.” I dropped my head back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling again. There was no way this was going to end well. “The handcuffs may have been a punishment for getting mouthy with the officers once it became clear I was not, in fact, a prostitute. But I was never actually arrested.”
He snorted softly, anger flaring for a brief bright moment before he tamped it back down. I could feel the tension in his shoulders, his every ounce of self-control keeping his anger in check. It shouldn’t have, but I took a vicious, selfish pleasure in his anger. It meant he cared even when he didn’t want to.
Josh stared at the handcuffs in his hands. They chinked against each other, cold and isolating. Just like us.
“And why,” he murmured, “
exactly
, did they want to arrest you for prostitution?”
“Apparently my date has an addiction to high end escorts which he likes to pick up in his boss’s very expensive sports cars. When his boss decided to put an end to the habit, he reported his car stolen. As it turned out, however, my date had recently grown tired of shelling out the money for kinky escorts and went looking for a cheaper, legal version.” I motioned to myself with a game show host flourish. “Perhaps not as exciting as a $400 an hour submissive anal sex expert, but absolutely worth the price of a steak and two glasses of mid-range wine.”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed the lump of raw emotion.
“Submissive,” he said, though he said it with the same tone of voice one might say
tomato salad
or
large coffee
. “You were playing at being his submissive. How did you meet this man, Kat?”
I squeezed my hands until my nails dug into my palms and felt like they’d break through skin.
Playing
, like what he wanted was somehow more grown-up and serious than what I wanted.
I didn’t answer him and instead stared at the ceiling with violent disinterest.
His nostrils flared. “Katrina.”
Katrina.
Guess I’m in trouble now
.
Josh looked up at me like he wanted to shake me. He looked at me the way Brian looked at me and I hated him for it. I did not answer him. I never, ever needed to answer to him again. He’d chosen someone else and thrown it in my face with careless cruelty and he’d just have to live with the consequences of that choice.
“Answer my goddamn questions, Kat,” Josh growled. “I’m not playing games with you.”
His displeasure sparked something inside of me, like I’d done this to him on purpose, and suddenly laughter, bright and obnoxious, exploded in my chest. I clasped my hands over my mouth but I couldn’t stuff it back in. It felt carbonated, made me giddy and stupid and light headed. My laughter echoed off the blank walls.
Josh stared at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Adorable. You’re not playing games with me? Like I’m fucking twelve.” I planted my hands on either side of my hips on the bench and stared at him. Stared right into him. “I’m over you. Get out.”
Josh shot to his feet. “You don’t want to be treated like a child, Kat? Then don’t act like one. You want me to treat you like you’re all grown-up? Do something to deserve it.”
“I strive to be a condescending asshole like you, Josh, but I just can’t seem to live up to the legend.”
The way he looked at me at that moment, like he didn’t recognize me, like I was something so beneath him, it made me want to start screaming at the top of my lungs and never stop. He shook his head slowly. He didn’t care how much I hated him.
“You just can’t seem to shut your mouth, can you?” Josh started pacing, unable to look at me for more than a few seconds before turning and stalking away. “You’ve got to have the last, sarcastic word. Whatever it takes to make yourself sound clever and above it all so no one thinks you give a shit about anything.”
I waved him off. “Oh,
spare
me.”
He spun around and pointed at the door as if he’d like to put his fist through it. “What the fuck is
wrong
with you? Adults don’t get themselves arrested for prostitution, Kat! They don’t get into a car with a stranger who wants to get off hurting them! They don’t end up in a police station in the middle of the fucking night!”
“Wow.” I swallowed. “Congratulations. Brian would be so proud of you right now. You’re finally just like him, the brother he always wanted. Well you’re not
my
brother. Or my father. Or
anyone,
Josh. And I just can’t seem to care what you think of me.”
Josh faltered, the fight draining out of him like an exhale. He stared, briefly, lost and distraught, then fled to the far side of the room with his whole body stretched like a rubber band about to break.
He pressed his empty hand against his mouth, then ran it back through his hair.
I didn’t know there could be something worse than losing Josh forever, but it turned out having him speak to me the way Brian did pretty much killed me. It wiped out everything he’d ever said to me before this moment and made my memories of him fraudulent.
It meant everything we’d done together was a mistake. Every touch. Every look. Every moan. A small part of me had clung to the hope that it had meant something, even if it was an impossible something.
I was so, so stupid.
His words made my heart collapse, turn to ash, and blow away. But I didn’t want him to know I couldn’t feel it beating anymore, so I bit the inside of my cheek.
I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.
“I hate you,” I told the dirty air vent. “I really hate you. Go home, Josh. Go back to your girlfriend. I bet she’s worried by now. You shouldn’t leave her for other women in the middle of the night.”
I regretted those words almost immediately. I didn’t even know for sure if they were true. Maybe not always. Maybe just for a minute. Maybe just a little. I should never have brought Michelle into that room with us. I knew it made me sound like a spiteful, heartbroken little girl.
Which I was. I really was.
A tremor went through his body and for a moment he seemed smaller than he’d been when he came in, like I’d just carved out a piece of him and set it on fire. He dropped his hand to his side and stood there staring at the smudged wall, not breathing or blinking.
“Fine.” He exhaled, not looking at me, barely breathing, turning to stone right before my eyes. “Hate me. But you’re still being held in a police station until someone retrieves you. So let’s go.”
“Screw that. Put the handcuffs back on me. I’ll stay in the drunk tank until morning.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Call me that again,” I warned, “and I’ll give them something to arrest me for.”
“Kat.” He looked like he might begin yelling again, but instead he just shook his head. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“No,” he murmured. “You didn’t.”
He didn’t wait for me to say anything else meant to cut him to pieces. Josh crossed the room without so much as a glance down at me, yanked the door open, and walked out.
We both knew that once upon a time I would have called him first. I would have called him in tears begging him to save me and he’d have come running and anything that got in his way would have met a fiery end. Later when I was safe and sound, that’s when he’d lecture and yell and make me promise never to scare him again.
But I hadn’t called him. Not this time. Things were different. This was what it felt like to stand at the end of a story and look over the edge.
I waited on my bench for another second as his steps receded, slower than they’d first come. I hadn’t called him, but he’d come running anyway.
Regret squeezed my heart and I
beggedprayedbargained
for him to turn around and come back. I knew he wouldn’t, but my ridiculous, childish heart wouldn’t let go of the small hope that he might.
After enough silence proved he was done, I stood and followed him out.