Page 36 of Triple Trouble

First thing in the morning, I’d confirm the appointments, and then tidy up around the shop and bring the guys drinks while they worked. Not coffee, obviously, because they needed to keep their hands steady, but hot chocolates, sodas and frappes.

At the end of a Wednesday shift, Xavier gave me an unmarked envelope.

“What’s this?” I asked as I pried one corner up. He’d fastened the flap, and I couldn’t see what was inside without tearing it.

“A little something for helping us out,” he said.

When I tore it open, I found a thick wad of fifty-dollar notes.

My hands trembled. I didn’t know how many hours I’d worked or what the hourly rate should have been, but this was far too much.

“There must be hundreds of dollars here. I can’t take it.”

Xavier refused to take it back from me.

“It’s yours. We don’t want you working for free. If you feel uncomfortable spending it, put it towards your next tattoo,” he said with a wink.

I stared at the envelope. This was the first time I’d ever received money for something I’d done — as a volunteer, I didn’t get paid.

“What wouldyouspend it on?” I asked.

“A holiday,” he said. “You could go on one when all this is over. Or buy a new dress just because you like it.”

When all this is over.

His words made me wonder how this could ever be over — if Nathan would always be out there, would I have to hide forever? He was only twenty-eight, and whether I inherited my mom’s breast cancer or not, there was every chance he would outlive me.

I didn’t say all this to Xavier though, because I didn’t want him to know how conflicted I felt, nor did I want him to think I was ungrateful. Instead, I said, “Thank you,” and tucked the money in my bag.

But when I got upstairs, the thought still niggled at me. WhatcouldI do about my situation? I felt powerless to change anything, and while I was glad I had somewhere safe to hide, I didn’t want to stay here forever. I’d spent so much time not being able to do the things that I wanted to do when I was with Nathan — the idea of living in captivity wasn’t an appealing one, even if it was with three of the sexiest men I’d ever met.

I sat on my bed, started up my laptop and searched for Nathan on the internet every way I could think of: his full name, his name and date of birth, his phone number, and his employer. He was a mechanic, so there was a fair amount of data about his job, including employment profiles and his employer’s website, but all that information was strictly professional. None of it told me his current state of mind or whereabouts.

His social media accounts weren’t much more helpful. His profile photo was him kissing my cheek last year at his friend’s wedding, implying that we weren’t only still in a relationship; we were also blissfully happy.

He’d discouraged me from posting anything about my life on the internet, and it looked like he saw his own posts in the same light: the last one I had access to was uploaded in early 2022, and it was an uncaptioned photograph of his motorbike. The same sport bike that he rode every Sunday and that, for most of our relationship, I’d believed he loved more than me.

Feeling discouraged, I ventured into the list of people he followed to see if they shared more information than he did. There were the expected celebrities and models, but among them I found his friends and family: he had a distant relationship with his friends, so I wasn’t expecting to find many insights about him on any of their profiles, and I didn’t.

His family wasn’t much more informative. Like me, he barely knew his dad, and that was something we’d bonded over in the early stages of our relationship. I’d met his siblings a few times — they lived in other states and had families, so they’d mostly posted photos of their children.

I’d never been to his mom’s house even though she lived nearby. I’d only met her twice, at restaurants Nathan had chosen, and she seemed far more confused than I would have expected someone of her age to be. When Nathan mentioned her upcoming doctor’s appointment, she’d looked at him with a childlike expression, as though this was the first she’d heard of it.

“It’s not that fucking hard,” Nathan had snapped, and the venom in his voice had shocked me. Sure, forgetting an appointment wasn’t a good sign, but this was hismother, and she was confused, but lovely. Seeing him treat her that way made me feel deeply uncomfortable, and later, when I lay in the darkness beside him in our apartment, I wondered if that was how he would treat me too if I married him.

She was in her mid-sixties, so I wasn’t expecting her to post anything. Sure enough, she’d shared other people’s photographs but revealed nothing about her own life.

I closed my laptop, unable to face any more memories for now, and went into the kitchen to get a glass of orange juice. Jackson was on the couch, which surprised me — I hadn’t heard him come in. He was sitting quietly, sketching something on a thick pad, and smiled when he saw me.

“Emma!” he said, and the happiness in his voice made me relax, and let go of some of the tension I’d been holding in my shoulders.

“What are you working on?” I asked, as I poured myself a glass of juice.

“A few tattoo ideas.” Jackson angled the pad so I could see it over his shoulder. “What do you think?”

I took the book and flipped through the pages. The drawings were complex collages of unconnected images that blended together seamlessly: music scores curling around roses, tigers snarling behind leaves, women’s eyes gazing seductively through holes in brick walls.

“I’m getting into symbolism in a big way,” he explained, as I frowned at one of the sketches. It was a book with pages that were falling into fire that was being breathed by a green dragon.

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