Page 48 of Never Bound

HIM

Turned out the garden was remarkably peaceful and relaxing when I wasn’t working in it. That was my main observation as I reclined that night on the cushions of the sand-colored chaise in the outdoor “room” Louisa had introduced me to, staring down at the phone. The night, alas, was no clearer than last night had been.

It was Saturday, but it felt like Sunday. The fence was done, the housekeeper’s list for me was only eight items long, and none of them involved grievous bodily injury. Plus, I’d gotten todrive. So aside from the fact that I’d heard nothing from Erica about Maeve’s whereabouts, I felt very lucky indeed.

It kind of scared me. Because fallacy or no fallacy, it was hard to shake the notion that lucky didn’t last.

That morning, I’d decided not to risk drawing more attention to myself by going downstairs. As odd as the housekeeper clearly found it to see me up earlier than her, especially on a day when I explicitly didn’t have to be, it would be odder still if she’d spotted me stumbling downstairs at 6:45 a.m. Instead, the first thing I did was hide the new phone in a different, better spot, one I was sure nobody knew about—only to go retrieve it half an hour later, against my better judgment. After all, carrying it around was exactly how I’d gotten into trouble before, and that had only led to a three-day-long argument. I suspected the next time wouldn’t go half so well.

I put the phone down and picked up the book of Roman comedies Louisa had given me. I’d been keenly interested once she’d told me more about them, but I was also secretly afraid they’d all read like Shakespeare. However, in a modern translation, the language was simple enough for even a foreigner to understand.

But there was something missing, and it didn’t take long for me to put the book down again to stare at the phone, reminding myself of all the reasons why it was a bad idea to send Louisa a message, even though she was only upstairs and I didn’t have a goddamn thing to say except that I missed her. Of course if ours was anything resembling a normal relationship, that wouldn’t matter.

But it wasn’t. And it did.

Before I could decide, the phone vibrated.

Shewas callingme.

I snatched up the phone and answered, “Hey,” greeted only by silence. “Lou?”

The line remained silent, but from behind me came uneven, delirious laughter. Male laughter. And a second later, the phone was snatched right out of my unwary hand.

Fuck.No shit, luck didn’t last.

“Is that what you’re calling her now?”

I rose from the chaise slowly, keeping my eyes fixed on Corey, who snapped the phone shut, weighing it in his hand like some delicious morsel he was contemplating taking a bite of.

“I know she’s not callingyouanything, except ‘here, boy.’ Or maybe she just whistles.”

Corey laughed loudly and merrily at his joke. This was his birthday gift to himself, it seemed. Coming here solely to torment the one person who had been in his crosshairs for weeks—and evidently, it wasn’t Louisa.

The walking, talking thorn in my side wasted no time at all rubbing my stupidity and carelessness in my face, snatching up the Plautus book from where it lay on the chaise, holding it upside down by the spine. His face bore a bloated, rosy glow even in the rapidly dimming light. His wavy dark hair was disheveled; his polo shirt and once-crisp twill shorts wrinkled and dusty as if he’d fallen on the sidewalk somewhere along the way and picked himself up. He wasn’t entirely steady on his feet. But he was steady enough.

Enough to make my heart start pounding a fast, eerie, familiar rhythm. I should walk away. I should find Louisa. I should find the housekeeper. I should—but it was already too late, surely. Corey had the book and the phone with its brand-new call record. That was more than enough evidence for anybody who had a mind to condemn us. What was I going to do, fight him for it? I’d never beenallowedto fight unless someone was betting on the outcome.

“Did she give you this?” he demanded, stifling a hiccup. “Aw, a toy for her faithful German shepherd? Does she read to you over the phone? Oh, wait. Youcanread. One of your little party tricks. Sure worked on my fucking boss.” He lurched closer, half of his face coming into the weak moonlight. “But a dog wearing clothes isn’t a fucking person, slave. Some of us haven’t forgotten who—sorry,what—you really are.”

Corey was drunk, but he was also lucid. The worst possible combination. Especially in free men who hated slaves who were smarter than them. A lot of whom, for some reason, tended to have violent streaks.

“He’s allowed to have it.” The door to the kitchen swung open and to my amazement, Louisa—dim moonlight crowning her face in a way a less skeptical person might have called holy—walked over. She pointed to the phone in Corey’s hand. “Daddy gave it to him.”

“Oh, so it was Daddy he nicknamed ‘Marie Curie?’” he jeered. “The one who asked him to ‘come over and give him a hand behind the dry riverbed?’ Jesus, you’re even more of a ditz than I thought if you think I’m gonna buy that.”

Well, God bless her for trying.

“What are you doing here, Corey? Really?” Wordlessly, she slipped her shaking hand into mine. It was the bravest and stupidest and most all-around surreal thing she could have possibly done. And I squeezed it back. “You’re drunk, and you’re not wanted.”

Corey looked her up and down. He had been her friend, but it seemed clear to both of us that his problem no longer even had much to do with her. He had zeroed in on a new obsession.

“Wanted?” He laughed again. “Wanted? Who iswanted, then? Him?” He jabbed his finger wildly at the air. He was confused, genuinely.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice quiet but steady. “Him. Go home, Corey.”

Something about us together, again, helped me find my voice. “With all due respect, man, haven’t you humiliated yourself enough?”

“What happened to ‘sir?’ Oh.” Corey chuckled harshly. “Oh. I guess since you’re fucking her and I’m not, you think ‘sir’ is too good for me?”

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