Page 44 of Faithless
“You don’t dictate what I do here, Torr. You came to back me up, remember? That doesn’t mean you boss me around. If I have a chance to talk to someone with no interruptions, no eavesdropping, I’m going to take it.”
I couldn’t stop the next words that came out. “And a ride on a cock, too. To protect the guy and your cover. Awesome. Great plan, Rori.”
She reeled back with a surprised huff of breath. “Are you jealous, Torrance Knight?”
The large, airy suite suddenly felt cramped and cluttered. I needed space. I needed to lift heavy shit until I collapsed. And I really needed Rori to stop fucking looking at me like that.
“Pick which bedroom you want,” I told her, turning away and heading for the massive bathroom. “I’m hitting the gym.”
16
RORI
Torr and I didn’t talk much the rest of that day or the next. The tension between us was beyond awkward. He seemed pissed off at me, and every moment of being in the same room together felt like navigating a minefield.
I picked the smallest bedroom to sleep in, and he chose the one farthest away from mine. Every time I tried to make casual conversation while in the suite together, he’d ignore me or answer with a grunt.
After spending our first night in the suite, I let him know there would be a gladiator fight that evening and that it would be smart for us to attend. He mumbled out something like, “Okay,” chugged the rest of his coffee, and left for the gym.
I decided to give him space and not push him. Whether he was angry at me specifically, or the fact that this glamorous resort openly profited off of enslaved people, he needed to get it out of his system so he could focus. It was jarring, seeing Torr so frazzled. I knew he had a lot of pent-up aggression, but he usually seemed in control of it. Working out was his outlet, but now he acted dependent on it, like a drug.
While he did that, I spent too much time sitting and thinking. Because I had to keep up the guise of being from Blakeworth, I spent a good chunk of my day in the makeup chair, both for my daytime and nighttime looks.
The maid assigned to help me with makeup and clothes was a young woman named Paige. She had bright red hair pulled back in a long French braid and lots of freckles dotting over her pale skin. Her vivid green eyes were shrewd as she skillfully contoured my face and applied a new set of fake lashes and colored contacts.
For my evening look to attend the fight, I chose a dark pink eye color, bordering on purple, and Paige picked out a dress and makeup colors to coordinate. Like most of the resort staff, with the exception of Nella, she was quiet and agreeable. I wondered how much of that was the persona she put on for her job and how much was actually her.
“How long have you been doing makeup?” I asked, eyes closed under the soft brush sweeping over my skin.
Paige hesitated before she answered. “Since I was five, maybe six.” The brush fell away, and I felt a fingertip gently dab at my eyelids. “The daughter of the family my parents worked for always threw away old makeup pallets in favor of buying new ones. Some of the colors were never touched, and they were so pigmented. My sisters and I would pick them out of the trash and practice on each other.” Her finger pulled away and I opened my eyes to find her looking at me with a worried expression. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean any offense, I just ramble too much. I swear the makeup was thrown away, I never stole it.”
“Hey, it’s okay.” I held up a hand and smiled. “I believe you, and I like hearing you talk. It’s why I asked the question. And besides,” I lowered my hand and returned to looking vacantly straight ahead, “listening to you keeps me out of my own head.”
Paige wiped her hands on a small towelette and picked up another makeup brush. “That’s kind of you, ma’am. Most of the guests prefer us not to speak unless absolutely necessary.”
“Sounds boring as fuck.”
She laughed softly and returned to painting my face. “You don’t speak like other guests either. Both in your accent and the words you use. It’s refreshing, if I may say.”
“You may say anything you want,” I told her. “I mean that. Don’t worry about offending me or talking too much. I’m used to people speaking their minds with crass words.”
A pang of homesickness hit me. I missed my loud, rough-necked family. Everyone said foul words and didn’t pull any punches when expressing their opinions, but they were always genuine. The love and loyalty back home was real.
Here? Everything was too fucking fake.
Once I settled into the suite yesterday, I dug out my phone and walked laps around the place, trying to get a signal. I got nothing, and that was probably by design. The resort probably couldn’t be kept a secret if guests could freely send texts and photos. I didn’t know when I’d be able to make a quick call simply to let everyone know I was alive, and that just made my homesickness worse. Now with Torr giving me the cold shoulder, I felt even more alone in this place. A single word of encouragement from my mom or any of my dads would have put a little pep in my step.
At least I had Paige to talk to.
“Do you come from a big family?” I asked.
“Not really,” she said. “Just me, my sister, and my two parents.”
“Did your mom and dad both work for a rich family?”
Paige hesitated and I popped an eye open, watching her hand hover nervously over a selection of lipsticks. “I don’t…exactly have a father,” she mumbled, avoiding my gaze.
“Two mothers?” I guessed.
