Chapter Twenty-Eight

Trey

I pack up books, and I peer out the window. I load up my sketchbooks. And I wait for a knock.

I jam my clothes into suitcases, and I’m sure a rock will come crashing through my window.

I hear a strange noise in the hallway late one night, and I check the peephole, convinced that Mr. Stewart’s steely gray eyes will stare back at me. But then, I’m betting he’s the kind of man who doesn’t need to do his own dirty work. He probably has a heavy.

Maybe I’m losing my mind, but everywhere I go in the city for the next few days, I feel the hair on my neck stand on end. I watch behind me, scan in front of me, check in doorways, but nothing happens. No one leaps from an alley and jams a pillowcase on my head. No one with a pockmarked face and a broad barrel chest shanks me for taking Mr. Stewart’s supposed girlfriend.

“Why do you think you’re about to be shanked everywhere you go?” Michele asks during my session.

“I can’t believe you just said shanked.”

“I am familiar with popular lingo,” she says, and she doesn’t break my gaze. “So, please answer the question. Where is this fear coming from?”

“Are you saying I’m paranoid?”

She sighs heavily, and I think I might have exasperated Michele for the first time. “No, Trey. I simply want to understand why you’re worked up about this.”

I throw my arms out wide. “Because he’s a fucking dude who hired an escort. Because he’s loaded. Because he happened to be on the same fucking plane when I married Harley, and rather than tuck his tail between his legs, he got up in my face and made damn sure I knew he knew I married the girl I took from him!”

She grins when I say married, shaking her head, still amused that we did it. And we officially did it, too, filing for a marriage license when we returned.

“And so you think, naturally, that he’s going to shank you?”

I push my hands roughly through my hair. “I don’t know. Yes. No. It seems plausible.”

“And what happens then when you move to San Diego? He’s from California, right?”

I nod.

“So, will he hunt you down there?”

I roll my eyes. “Seriously?”

She leans forward in her chair, her hands on her knees. “I am being serious. If you truly think your life is in danger, we need to talk about appropriate cautionary steps. And if this is your fear talking, we need to figure out how to face it.”

“No. I need to run the fuck away from it,” I say.

Because rational talk doesn’t help me. My heart ticks faster, speeding up. I am a jack in the box that someone’s been winding and winding, ready to pop.

I walk with Harley everywhere. I don’t let her go anyplace alone. After I see Michele, I go to Harley’s to help her pack, since we’re leaving in a week.

School is still on break, but she emailed her English major advisor and was told that transferring to a school in San Diego would work fine. She can graduate from here; she just needs to maintain her GPA for the last year and a half, and have her classes approved. Sort of like a year and a half abroad, only abroad is across the country.

After we make it through her summer clothes, she tries again to reassure me. “Trey, it’s been a week now, and nothing happened. I think we’re fine. I think it was just some sort of manly pride on the plane. He probably recognized me, made the comment and then forgot about it,” Harley says, as she zips up a large purple duffel bag. We decided to only take clothes, books and the things we couldn’t leave behind after I sublet my studio in seconds.

“Well, guys like that, I don’t trust,” I say, as my phone buzzes in my back pocket. “We just need to lie low for a little longer.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re ridiculous. Besides, it’s not you or me—” she starts to say, then she stops and shakes her head. I grab my phone to see my parents calling.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she whispers, but she looks worried. “Just answer your call.”

“Hey,” I say into the phone.

“Good evening,” my mother says. “We have a surprise for you. For your move to San Diego. Can you come over tonight?”

“Sure. I’m just helping Harley pack, and then I’ll stop by.”

When I hang up, I tell her that I need to go see them. “But stay here.”

“I will. I’m going to keep packing, and hang with Kristen. Call me later,” she says, and gives me a kiss before I leave.

Twenty minutes later, my mom slides a small white box across the kitchen table to me. There’s a gold bow on the box. I glance from her to my dad. “A gift?”

“I said we had a surprise for you,” my mom says, and for the first time in years, she seems excited, even delighted.

I untie the bow, and open the top of the white box. Inside is a key on a ring with a key fob. Shivers of excitement run through me. My parents did this?

“What is this for?” I ask, though I think I know the answer.

“There’s a new Honda waiting for you at Harley’s grandparents’ house. If you’re going to live in California, you’re going to need a car,” my dad says, and he leans over to give me a hug.

“Thanks, Dad,” I say. Then I stand up, and hug my mom too. “This is amazing. Seriously. This is just so cool. I was going to get us a used car or something. But this is incredible.”

“Now you’re going to have to learn how to drive,” my dad says, pointing out the obvious.

I wave a hand in the air. “I’m sure driving is a piece of cake.”

After more chatting and another round of thank yous, I head out for the night. I press the elevator button for the lobby, then tap the panel twice, as if I’m saying goodbye to my past, to my sins. This elevator used to be the center of my sex-addicted world, and I’d ride it up and down to meet my women, see my women and seduce my women.

Now, as I shoot down the building, I no longer feel the gravitational pull that this contraption exerted on my life. It’s just an elevator, and this is one of the last times I’ll ride in it.

“Goodbye, elevator,” I say as I reach the lobby.

The doors slide open and as I walk across the marble lobby, I see her.

Walking through the open door.

Bundled up in the cold.

A knit cap covering her brown hair.

And her hand in someone else’s hand.

Someone who has eyes like mine.

Green eyes, with gold flecks. Like I’m looking into a mirror.

I stumble against the wall, grabbing onto it so I don’t slump down on the floor because my heart has stopped.

Sloan notices me, and a smile crests across her face. “Trey! How are you?”

My mouth is open, and I try to say something. But my brain is made of tar, and my tongue is coated in glue.

“I haven’t seen you in a few years,” she adds. “How are you?”

“Fine,” I croak out, staring at the little boy next to her.

“How is your art? Are you still drawing? Designing tattoos?”

I nod.

“You were always so talented. And you’ll be pleased to know, I landed a gallery show. You know how I was pursuing my painting career.”

“Right,” I say.

The boy tugs on her hand.

“Oh! Excuse my manners. Trey, this is my son, Teddy. Teddy, this is Trey.”

I open my mouth again and try to say hi, but I’m in that nightmare where you scream and make no sound. Or maybe I’m in the nightmare where you learn you fathered a kid a few years ago, and you’re even more of a fuck-up than you already thought you were.

“Hi,” Teddy says, and the sound of his voice rips through me.

Not because he sounds like me, because he’s fucking two or three or something. But because he has more guts than I do right now. Because I can’t handle seeing his mom.

“He’s artistic, too,” Sloan says in a knowing whisper. “It runs in the family. Anyway, we have a lot of catching up to do. I just moved back into the building a few months ago, and it would be nice to see you again.”