Page 45 of Resist Me Not
“I love your choice of ink, doctor, ever since I first saw a peek of it,” Trey says, tracing his fingers up and down my spine over my tattoo.
“I forget it’s there sometimes,” I admit. “I got it when I was accepted into med school. It’s supposed to be a symbol ofstrength. My job is the foundation of everything I am, everything I want to be and do with my life, and I can never let myself be broken by it.”
“That’s beautiful. Poetic. Elegant.” Trey continues to massage me but pauses to press his lips to the small of my back. “Just like you.”
His words warm me all over again, like we never left the bath. “No one has ever called me those things before.”
“Not even beautiful? Travesty.”
I chuckle but start to wonder something and peer back at Trey. “Is that why you like me? Because you think I’m beautiful.”
“Inside and out,” he says. I must look a little spooked by the wording, because he adds, “That does not mean I plan to open you up, Walker. Well, in one way, many,manymore times, I hope.” He drags his hands down over the mounds of my ass.
I hope for that too. Then, before I even realize the words are leaving me, and with Zappy silently judging me from the bedside table, I say, “Trey, the detective on Curtis’s case called me before you got here.”
His hands still. “Thank you for admitting that to me. What did he say?”
I tell him. I tell him everything. And Trey calmly coaches me on what to say tomorrow.
I take it all in a little numbly, because if I actually protect Trey, it’ll be the second time I actively choose to not turn in a serial killer. It’ll fully make me complicit. I could say I was compelled before, that I feared for my life, but tomorrow, Trey will already be out of town. I’ll be safe. Free to let my conscience guide me instead.
But I don’t think I want to.
The mood that had been leading to a round two is a little ruined after that, so instead of staying in the bedroom, we get dressed in comfortable clothes—which is weird, seeing Trey insweats and a T-shirt—and watch a movie, almost like a normal date. And not someAmerican Psycho,Seven, orZodiacflick. We actually throw onMiss Congeniality. It’s a good comfort movie! And it’s just as much a comfort the way Trey cuddles me while we watch it.
I’m a little annoyed how tired I am once the movie is over, because when Trey brings me to bed again, I pass out almost immediately, and he has to leave for the airport too early the next morning for any carnal activities then. I sleep so good with him beside me though. Too good. Almost as if I didn’t have so much weighing on me.
The next morning, I’m back in sweats waiting for Trey to get out of the shower so we can say goodbye—until next time. I’m trying to pick something out to wear before I take my shower after him and accidentally knock his wallet off the top of the dresser.
It lands open face down, so it’s impossible to not see inside it when I pick it up. The usual ID and credit cards are there, but something else catches my eye.
He has one of the photos of me he took in the park that day. I had to beg Curtis to carry a photo of me, and he only did it reluctantly, thinking it was lame. Trey did it all on his own.
I take the picture out to study it more closely. It’s actually a really good photo of me, and it makes me smile that he’d want to carry it around. It makes me smile… until I notice that the man he murdered is in the background.
I sit on the bed to keep my knees from going weak. It’s not evidence exactly, but it is a pretty sobering reminder. Then, since I’m holding the picture, I see that there is another one of me behind it. I take that one out too. I know this photo but Trey didn’t take it.
Bryan did.
This is the photo Curtis carried in his wallet. It’s snipped so Curtis is cut out of it now, but I know it’s the same photo. I have copies, and this was the only one I printed of this size.
Thisis evidence. Isn’t it? It’s proof Trey had a hold of Curtis’s wallet at some point.
I hear the shower turn off and quickly try to put everything back the way it was with Trey’s wallet on the dresser. I have to stay calm. I have to stay focused. I have to think this through. My future, my life is on the line, with multiple winding pathways, each going a direction I can’t predict. Is Trey enough as he is to keep me on the path with him, even knowing he kills people, whether they deserve it or not?
I’m not sure anymore what I’m going to do when I see the detective, but for now, I don’t put the snipped photo of me that used to belong to Curtis back in Trey’s wallet.
I slip it into the pocket of my sweats.
Chapter thirteen
TREY
“Hello, Mother. It is so good to see you,” I say as I pull her in for a hug.
My mother, Lois Fisher, is a striking woman. A fifty-year-old who looks ten years younger and far too fresh-faced to have an almost thirty-year-old son. A bit of my jawline and narrow nose resemble hers, but she has an auburn tint to her shoulder-length hair, no grays—whether natural or with color touch-ups, I would never ask—and hazel eyes.
Since she is off from work today, she is wearing a stylish blouse and jeans. She is always put together, even on days when she doesn’t need to leave the house. Once, when I was still young, I asked her why, and she told me it made her feel the most likeherself, that to don her “armor” helped her better face the day. I suppose that is why I am always put together too.
