Chapter 21
21
FOSTER
I end up on the streets of Prague at two in the morning.
After fucking with Chase—I add an adorable heart border to my message because he only deserves the best—I need a full reset.
Most of the times I’ve walked around this late while in Europe have centered around a bar or club or party. None of them allowed me a chance to notice the contrasts, but the city doesn’t disappoint. Shadows cast by streetlights rather than the sun are softer around the edges. The sounds that are typically masked with voices and bustling emerge.
When I get to Wenceslas Square, the foot traffic picks up, but nowhere near how it was during the day. A couple pubs remain open, and a few muffled bass beats mix together from the clubs. I dodge people spilling out of one, drunk and happy. I follow a flicker of flames to a food vendor, taking advantage of the nightlife. The fire’s behind glass while a spit rotates above it to bake trdelník . The chimney cakes spin, and the scent of caramelized sugar brings people leaving the clubs in.
I sign into Wanderer before I head toward Old Town in the off chance I can get paid for my little excursion. They announced the updated options for tours yesterday with a pop-up. I had a bite during the day. Lydia Song in Oregon wanted to see Lennon Wall. I laughed when I pieced that near-rhyme together mid-tour.
The buzz beneath my skin has somewhat settled by the time I get to the square. I’m not far from the vague destination I thought of when leaving the flat, though, so I keep going.
It only takes about ten minutes for Charles Bridge to come into view. I smile. Exactly what I wanted. Not a damn soul is on the bridge when I walk to the middle and stop. It almost feels eerie, like no one else exists.
Except someone does, and as I watch the water, my favorite Wanderer notification hits my phone.
SaintR wants to wander!
The only one I’ll willingly share my bridge with.
She requested right where I am. I accept the tour, then I lean back against the railing and show her the view.
Our tours together have only changed in how they feel. The connection between us has a heartbeat now as I let her explore the world through my eyes. But we still rarely use the messages, and I stay quiet so she can hear what she would if she were standing next to me.
Most of the time.
“Hi,” I say, panning the abandoned bridge.
A red dot appears seconds later.
SAINTR: Hey.
That’s it. I stand in the center and return to watching the water, shifting her view every so often. After a while, I finish crossing the river. She ends the tour, and I snag my earbuds out of my hoodie pocket. I slip them in as she calls. When I answer, I flip the camera from the Longhorns logo on my chest to the cobblestone street.
And I get the immaculate view of her tits. I close my eyes and exhale through my nose, fucking tormented I can’t suck those pretty pink nipples into my mouth.
“I hate you.”
“Now who’s the liar?” she rasps. “Is this better?”
I peek an eye open and groan. “Fuck you, Remi. And fuck that mouth.”
One side of that mouth hitches. It’s all I see other than part of her jaw pressed against a pillow. “Why are you giving tours in the middle of the night?”
“Why are you taking them when it’s the middle of the night in Europe?”
“One of my favorite guides signed on, so?—”
“Baby, don’t make me track down everyone in the beta program when I get back to America. Try again. Tell me which guide signed on.”
“ My favorite ,” she mouths, over-enunciating. Such a fucking tease.
I lean against a building near the bridge, in no hurry to return to the tense bubble waiting for me. “I can’t stand being still for too long. Music usually helps, but I needed to move tonight. Explore.” My head rests back on the stone facade. “Plus, Chase is mad at me, and I don’t know why. Being in the flat with him acting like I don’t exist is getting to me. It added to me wanting to be anywhere else.”
She knows the trip originated thanks to my best friend’s impulsiveness. I know I have hers, Sage, to thank for the Halloween costume.
“I’m sorry.” Her mouth downturns, and she sighs. “I requested the tour because I want to be anywhere else right now, too. And my favorite guide is also my favorite escape.”
Fuck, I like that way too much. Being her favorite, her escape—her anything. This woman took me hostage, turned me into the one seeking her out, and now I might very well become a beggar at her feet. All without letting me see her face in its entirety.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask.
She bites her lip like she’s unsure. I won’t push. I know what it’s like to have shit in your life that feels worse to talk about than dealing with it in silence. Chase dragged me onto their roof half a dozen times before I said much more than, “ I fucking hate him ,” or some variation. But after a second, her teeth slide off her lip.
“If I tell you, can we pretend I didn’t?”
“Whatever you need, Remi.” I say it before I realize I mean it.
She takes one of her sad breaths. “My mom’s an addict. She’s used most of my life. Pills almost constantly, and then she cycles to heroin or meth or whatever else she can get her hands on. Her husband’s a complete piece of shit. He’s the chief of police, and yet he…” She trails off, and an even sadder smile appears for a second before the expression falls flat. “Everyone treats him like a king when his crown’s made of deceit.”
I clench my jaw to avoid telling her how sorry I am. I want to tell her she deserves better, like when she talked about losing her dad. Her home.
Then I remember something she said, and I push off the wall.
“My dad was an abusive prick to me when I was a kid.” I show her the baroque architecture as I start to walk, a new destination in mind. “Other than my wrist, he also fractured my orbital socket when I was ten. Those are the injuries I was treated for anyway. I got tackled playing soccer a while ago and needed X-rays. The doctor asked if I knew I’d had four healed rib fractures because I didn’t put it on the forms.”
“That’s terrible,” she says. “What about your mom?”
I laugh once. “He never touched her. He never needed to because she was subservient. My mom was perfectly happy being submissive, which means she didn’t dare intervene on my behalf.”
My screen darkens, Remi covering her lens. I’m about to complain when she reappears—her eye, gorgeous dark lashes, and part of a sculpted brow, that is. She has devastating eyes. Mossy irises, enough sorrow deepening them to make me want to take whatever hurts her away.
I am so over my head when it comes to Remi Saint. I can barely make out shapes on the surface anymore.
“We moved from Texas before he fucked up my wrist. He was a management consultant. His firm had transferred their headquarters to New York two years earlier, and he’d been bouncing between there and Texas, more frequently at the end. He still traveled every couple days but claimed it was easier staying in the tri-state area.”
“Is that why you don’t have much of an accent?” she asks.
“I don’t have an accent at all anymore.” I switch hands with my phone. The first goes in my hoodie pocket. I’m colder than I’ll admit, but I’ll survive.
Her eyebrow lifts, a spark in her eye. “You did last night when you told me to come.”
I scrunch my face. “Fine. I have a little bit of an accent when I’m hard as hell and watching you finger-fuck yourself.”
Eyelid flutters shut. “You moved to New York,” she says, moving us along.
I wait until it opens. “We lived in a suburb at first, which is where he fucked up my hand. I’d deal with Andrew West two days on, two days off. My mom would dutifully wait for his return.” We’re getting close, so I slow my steps, taking it to a leisurely stroll. “After three years, we moved to a town not far away. A nice neighborhood, great for kids. It had a wonderful medical staff for when he broke my face.”
More sadness in her eye, maybe an apology in there too.
“He quit messing with me after I shot up at thirteen and hit back.” My lips twitch, remembering how goddamn good it felt the first time my fist connected with his jaw. “As a freshman, I tutored as an excuse to not be there when he was. I went to three houses twice a week. My favorite, Landon, was nine and only a twelve-minute bike ride.”
The bronze statues come into view, so I stop. I do the same as Remi. I cover my lens to adhere to her rule, flip the mode, and then move to show her my eye.
“Hi, Foster,” she says, and I smile and reply, “Hey, Remi.”
Then I breathe for a moment, disconnect as much as I can. “Landon’s mom pushed our session later one day. Andrew left that morning, so I almost canceled to stay home and play my guitar. But she offered extra for the inconvenience . I rode my bike over, sat at their kitchen table like I had the past six weeks, and didn’t even glance when his mom squealed at the garage door opening.”
I look skyward, hating I still feel it after everything. Betrayal fucking annihilates under the right circumstances, though. And then it leaves you constantly in fear of it happening again.
“Landon’s dad was home from a business trip. The kid mentioned once his parents weren’t married. His mom added it’s why she gave Landon her name, so Drew would finally put a ring on it one day if he wanted to carry on his legacy.”
She gasps. “No.”
“Yeah,” I say, drawing out the word. “She came back under Andrew West’s arm. He tucked Landon under the other when the kid jumped up to hug him. I sat there, watching their happy family reunion until he locked onto me. I don’t remember leaving or getting on my bike. All I recall is thinking about Landon never having so much as a bruise on him. His genuine excitement at seeing the man who beat me most of my life.” I chuckle. “It’s fucked, right? He cheated on my mom, moved both families to the same place to make it easier on himself, I guess. He lied, deceived, and all these reasons to hate him. But I was most furious he fucked me up but loved another son.”
Remi’s eyebrow draws in, her head shaking. “I’m sorry. I hate him for it too. What happened with your mom?”
I smile, half-amused and half still disbelieving. “She blinked at me for a solid minute, then calmly told me we’d talk about it when my father got home. That’s the moment I stopped having one. He showed up hours later, walked by me like I didn’t exist, and pulled my mom into their bedroom. I heard most of it, muffled, but clear enough. They came out a united force, and I was to forget everything I saw and never mention it again to anyone.”
“What? She was…”
“Subservient,” I remind her.
A similar disbelief swims in her gaze.
“But me? I kicked the living shit out of him until—here’s the best part—my mom pulled a knife on me.”
Remi whispers, “What the fuck?”
“She claimed it was to protect both of us, scared I’d kill him. I might have. We’ll never know. He threatened me more, but I held all the power. I could tell his second family about the first. So, they shipped me back to Texas, and he gives me money to live off every month and pays for school to keep me away. I feel like a piece of shit for it, but it got me away from them. Once I graduate and have my future set, I’ll fuck up his life in every way I can.”
“I understand it,” she says. “I’d probably do the same, honestly.”
“No one’s hurting right now because of it. My mom’s happy, her depressing version of it anyway. She even willingly divorced the bastard five years ago so he could marry the other chick. Which means his new wife got what she wanted, making her and the kid happy.”
Remi laughs once, and then I laugh too. It’s all so absurd. My mom freely went from wife to mistress, becoming another fake bank memo when he sends her money out of the accounts he shares with his now wife. Everyone’s either delusional or ignorant, and both are better than the fucking reality. Sometimes I wonder if I’m not doing the kid a solid by letting him grow up in bliss before he feels the same damaging betrayal I did.
I glance up ahead to check the bronze statues aren’t on a timer, lucking out when the light catches as they move. But I look down, and Remi has her brow lowered again.
“Fuck, I made you sadder.” I walk the last of the way to the Kafka Museum.
“No. I hate that it happened to you, but I like that you told me.” She pauses. “I might even be less sad because of you.”
I stop at our destination. “Not enough. I’m shooting for barely sad. And what I’m about to show you will either hit the mark or backfire horrendously, and you’ll be all the way sad again.”
Her eye narrows, and I think I can read her with only one by now. But I want something else for this.
“I want to see your mouth again.”
More of a squint before the lens pulls away, and then I see her pouty lips and soft jaw. “Are you going to tell me why?”
“No.” No one’s around, so I take out my earbuds, letting her hear the trickle of water. “But I’ll show you.”
I switch to front-facing mode. She sucks in a sharp breath, her mouth falling open at the fountain of two guys pissing. Their hips move, along with their dicks, and the pool’s shaped like the Czech Republic.
“Well?” I ask. “I hope this isn’t the type of fountain your dad would send you, but it’s one I would.”
“Foster, this is…” She breaks into a pure smile and laughs, and I’m unnerved by the way it melds with my soul but settled all the same. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but it almost feels a little like home.”
“Not a sentence probably spoken about the Piss Sculpture before.” I circle the fountain, giving her a full view of what these dudes have to offer. “What was your favorite fountain he sent?”
“Hmm. He photographed raptors in Pennsylvania not long before he died. He sent a video from a park in the small town he stayed in. Three tiers of chipped concrete, but he focused on the etched designs and explained why he found the fountain beautiful. I watched it so many times, listening to his voice and the melody of the water. There was distant music, too. He said there was a band competition?—”
“Are you talking about Pleasant Park?” I ask, lips turning up. “Benches on three sides of the fountain and trees everywhere?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t remember until you said it. How did you know?”
“I went there last summer. They host a battle of the bands called Sound Clash. A lot of agents circle around, so I wanted to get a feel for what it was like. The stages are on the east end, but dead center of the park is the fountain.”
Her smile softens. “Now that I know, maybe I’ll go.”
“You should. It’s wasted college kids, shitty riffs, and pure magic. Once I have a band, I want to enter. A lot of managers find opening acts there, too.” Then I add, “When we go, I’ll show you your dad’s fountain, and we’ll watch the bands.”
“Oh,” she says, the brat back in her tone. “You think we’re going together? Who said I want to share my dad’s fountain with you?”
I smirk as I round the fountain once more. “No one yet. But you’re about to.”
She bites her lip like she might not but then releases it. “I think I’d like you taking me to Sound Clash.”
Walking to the sign posted near the fountain, I focus on the number. “If you text it, they’ll write your message in the water.”
Her phone moves, telling me she’s sending one, so I tap out and write my own. Neither of us asks what the other texts, and I’m fucking grateful she doesn’t, so I won’t have to lie.
I’d more than like taking her. I’d more than like a lot of things when it comes to her. And I’m already thinking how I can make every single one of them happen.
It should worry me how sideways she’s turned me. How my direction suddenly seems pointed straight toward her. I’m not one to let others have access to the organ in my chest in the way she’s demanding. I let it beat for music and experiences. People don’t take enough care to not crush something as delicate as a heart. I know this, and yet, not only has she taken part of it, but right now, the thud of mine sure is starting to sound a lot like Remi .