Page 22 of Brash for It
She does as she’s told, then seems to catch herself and bristle.“I’m not— I mean, thank you, but you don’t have to?—”
“I know what I have to do.”I hang the dress on the back of the bedroom door and step aside while she slips into the bathroom to put it on.I listen to her zipping, the little curses when the fabric sticks.I hear the toothbrush package rip, the water run, the bristles scrub.Stupid how good that sounds.
She comes out pulled together—hair combed back, dress skimming her hips like a decision she made on purpose.My shirt and boxers are folded into a neat square she set on the chair.She glances at the bed, then me, a question she doesn’t ask hovering between us.
“You slept,” I say.
She blinks.“I did.”
“Good.”I grab my keys and my cut.The leather falls over my shoulders like a version of myself I don’t have to explain.“Let’s go get whatever’s left of your life.”
She slips on her shoes—ridiculous and mean—and wobbles.I offer a hand without comment.She takes it and rights herself.She doesn’t let go until we’re at the door.
Outside, the day is already brewing something hot.Crickets are warming up their vocals in the pines.The bike sits in a triangle of shade like it slept.Kristen eyes it with a mix of fear and trust I don’t deserve but I’m going to take anyway.
“You good?”
She nods, jaw firming.“I’m good.”
We ride.
Back at the gate, daylight makes everything look more ordinary and reality more cruel.The keypad blinks a fresh code’s steady little heartbeat.The hedges are trimmed within an inch of their lives.You can smell salt if you breathe deep and money if you don’t.
Kristen dismounts, legs unsteady but mind straight.She walks to the call box like it’s a podium.She presses the button.It rings.And rings.And rings.
Nothing.
She presses again.Same nothing.She tries the old code because hope is dumb and stubborn.Red light.
Her chin starts to shake.She clamps her teeth to trap it.I take the panel of the call box between thumb and forefinger and press the button with the same patience I use on a stuck bolt.When the line clicks, I’m ready.
A woman answers this time.Brisk.“Yes?”
“Resident services?”My voice goes flat and official, the tone that makes people assume I belong.“We’re here for a tenant pickup.Miss Mayers.Need the gate opened.”
Silence.Then, “Miss Mayers is not authorized?—”
“She’s authorized to get the clothes on her back and the identification documentation that is her right and her personal property,” I explain, still even.“You want to tell your HOA how you made a woman stand on the street because a rich boy changed a code and forgot to cancel the dry cleaning?Or you want to buzz us through so we can be gone in ten?”
The pause tells me someone is deciding which problem is smaller.The gate clicks and hums.It slides open with the same lazy confidence as always.
Kristen’s eyes hold in tears until they spill over—just a little, one line down each cheek.She swipes it away with the back of her hand and steps through before the iron decides it changed its mind.I roll the bike in behind her; the gate closes at my back like a mouth.
Her house—his house—sits exactly where it did yesterday, glass and steel and white that hurts to look at in late August.The drive’s empty where the Porsche would be.There’s another car inside the garage that has the bay doors open.I don’t care what it is.
She fumbles the front door key from her bag.The lock turns.The alarm panel starts its little countdown.She freezes.
“Code?”she whispers.
“Try your birthday,” I say, because men like him think aesthetics is a synonym for love.
She taps.The panel chirps.The system disarms with a smug little beep-beep.She laughs once, a sound that’s half a sob.“Of course another reminder he has power over me.”
Inside is air-conditioned and odorless.The kind of clean that says a woman not named Kristen wipes the counters continually.Kristen’s gaze skims the foyer and I can see her deciding how much sentimental value to assign to nothing.She moves like we rehearsed it—closet for a duffel, dresser for underwear and jeans and soft things that don’t make her look like a parlor ornament.I stay in the foyer because this isn’t a raid and I don’t need to see where she kept her mascara.
“Bathroom bag,” I call.“Don’t forget chargers.”
A light goes on down the hall.Footsteps that don’t belong to either of us.I angle my body and my hearing at the sound.A man in a polo and a haircut from a magazine steps to the edge of the living room, eyes widening when he sees me.“What the hell?”
