Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
DASH
I’m nervous as I check my phone and then my watch for the millionth time.
I sent Brooklyn a few texts last night after I got home but I never heard back from her.
I kept telling myself she probably fell asleep and forgot to check her phone.
But something in my gut felt wrong and that’s the thing I always trust.
“Park here,” I tell my driver as he pulls up to the curb of her building. “I’ll be down shortly.”
I check my watch again and see it’s just before six o’clock.
From what Brooklyn told me, she has to get up really early to be at school on time.
She should be leaving for work soon and I thought I’d surprise her by giving her a lift.
I’m in a T-shirt with jogging pants and a baseball hat, since my plan is to go home and get ready for work after I drop her off.
When I get to her building I see there’s no lock on the door and that irritates me.
Anyone can just walk in? There’s no security guard and there isn’t any kind of security on the elevator either.
I balance the bag of fresh-baked pastries and coffee in one hand as I push the button for her floor and wait.
I’m nervous and excited as I ride up, and I have to stop myself from bouncing on my toes. I don’t want to spill anything.
The elevator chimes and I walk to her door and take a deep breath. I knock softly and after a second, the door opens wide.
“Hey, Buttercup.” I smile at Brooklyn, but she doesn’t return it. I know something is wrong the second I see her face and I step inside. “What’s wrong?” She doesn’t try to stop me as I set the box of food and containers of coffee on the table by the door.
I turn to reach for her and that’s when she takes a step back. Like she’s finally realized I’m here. “You need to leave.”
Her voice is soft and I don’t know if it’s because she doesn’t want to wake up her roommate or because she’s upset. Her eyes are red and puffy and she doesn’t look like she got a wink of sleep.
“Brooklyn, what’s wrong? Please tell me what happened. Have you been crying?”
“Look, I don’t want to do this right now. I’m going to be late for work.” She tries to step around me and I block her path.
“Do what?” I hold my hands up and she backs off like I’m on fire. “Brooklyn.” This time my voice is stern and her eyes snap up to meet mine. “What is going on?”
“What’s going on?” Her voice rises and now she takes a step towards me in anger. “What’s going on? I should be asking you that after your night out on the town.”
I see the light in the hallway behind her turn on and I’m guessing her roommate is awake.
“Brooklyn, what are you talking about? I went out with you last night. We went to the renaissance festival and I brought you home.”
“Oh yeah, and what about after that? I guess since I wasn’t putting out someone else needed to.”
I blink at her a few times as my brain tries to process what she’s saying. “What the fuck?”
“What’s he doing here?”
“It’s fine, Blair. I’m handling it,” Brooklyn says as she opens the door behind me. “He was just leaving.”
“No, he wasn’t,” I say, maybe a little too loud, but I’m getting pissed. “Someone tell me what the fuck is going on. When I dropped you off last night it was the single greatest day of my life. But then I get home and you ghost me.”
“Asshole,” Blair says under her breath as she rolls her eyes. “Just like the last time I met you.”
I look at her in disbelief because I’ve never met her roommate until this moment. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are, but this is between Brooklyn and me.”
“You seriously have no idea you went on a date with her?” Brooklyn says as her eyes narrow on me. “How many women do you go out with at one time? Jesus.”
“I went out on a lot of dates before I met you, and I don’t remember most of them.” I look at Blair and shrug. “Sorry again, but if we went out I have no idea.”
“Seriously?” Suddenly there’s a softness to Brooklyn’s voice and I latch on to it.
“Yeah, I mean, I was on that app for a couple of months and usually agreed to anyone who asked to go out. I wanted to give it a chance, but normally the second I meet someone I can tell if it’s going to work out.
I’d usually just play on my phone and eat dinner until they left or walked out on me.
” I sigh. “I know this doesn’t make me sound like a great guy, but you know me, Brooklyn.
We had our date. Did I do any of that to you? ”
She hesitates for a second and then shakes her head. “No, you didn’t ignore me.” Then as if remembering something, she gets mad all over again. “But that doesn’t explain where you were last night.”
“Exactly,” Blair chimes in.
“What’s going on?” I hear two women behind me in the hallway walk through the open door of the apartment like they live here too.
“Oh, did someone get breakfast?” one of them says as the other scowls at me.
“What the hell is he doing here?”
“He is trying to figure out what the fuck is going on and why my girlfriend is mad at me!” I shout, because I’m getting really tired of everyone thinking I’m the bad guy.
“They told me you were still making dates on the dating app last night and you agreed to go out with them,” Brooklyn says as tears form in her eyes.
“What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t agree to go out with anyone. I deleted the app after our first date, Brooklyn.” When she looks away from me, it breaks my heart. “I swear, you’ve got to believe me. Why would I lie?”
“To sleep with women?” one of them says with a mouth full of pastry.
“I brought those for Brooklyn,” I tell her, but she doesn’t look sorry.
“Cherry, stop eating. We’re supposed to be mad.”
“If you could taste how good this was, you wouldn’t tell me to stop, Harlow.”
The one named Harlow rolls her eyes and something about that is familiar.
“Do I know you?” I ask her, and she lets out a humorless laugh.
“You know all of us, Thanos,” Cherry says as she takes another bite. “Brooklyn here was the last one of us to go out with you and apparently you actually talked to her.”
“Thanos?” I shake my head because this is all getting jumbled up. “Okay, cards on the table, someone tell me what in the actual fuck is happening right now.”
“You went out with all of us on the dating app over the last few months,” Blair says as she walks up and grabs one of the coffees.
“After we found out our sweet little Brooklyn was going out with you, we knew it was too good to be true. So the three of us set up a fake account and you asked us out last night. We had plans to meet at ten o’clock at the restaurant you took all of us to. ”
“That’s impossible,” I deny, and Brooklyn still won’t look at me. “Ask my driver, ask my security guys. Fuck, I’ll pull up my cameras, hang on.” I pull out my phone and go to my camera feed. It takes a second for it to load but finally it comes up. “See!”
The girls move in close around my phone and they all stare at it.
“Look at the time stamp. I walked in my house ten minutes after I dropped Brooklyn off, and I didn’t leave again until this morning.” I speed up the time until they see me exit and they all lean back and look at one another.
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t agree to go out with our fake profile. Just that you didn’t go,” Harlow says.
“I deleted the app and the profile. Here’s the email confirming it.”
Brooklyn glances at it and then looks up at me. “Why would someone pretend to be you? That doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know why anyone would want to be me—” I stop as the thought hits me. “Fuck.”
“What?” Brooklyn asks.
“Josh,” I tell her, and she cocks her head to the side.
“Your cousin?”
I nod my head. I told Brooklyn a little about him the other night when we were talking about our families and stuff. “I don’t know what the hell he’s up to, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”
I see some of the hurt leave her eyes and I think there’s a stirring of hope.
“I’m going to get to the bottom of this, but please, you’ve got to believe me.
I don’t want to be with anyone but you, Brooklyn.
I’ve never felt this way in my whole damn life, and I wouldn’t do anything to screw it up.
I’m sorry that I went on dates with your friends, and no offense to them, but it meant nothing to me. ”
“None taken,” Cherry says with a mouth full of food.
“Yeah, you weren’t any kind of prize for us, but we’re hoping things are different for our girl.”
“This is just a lot to take in,” Brooklyn says, but when I take her hand in mine she doesn’t pull away.
“I came here to bring you breakfast and give you a lift to work. Come with me and we can talk some more. Trust me, Buttercup.”
She looks up at me when I call her the nickname and I see the edge of her lips curl like she’s fighting a smile. She nods and for the first time since last night, relief fills me.
“Ladies, enjoy breakfast on me.” I nod to them as I grab Brooklyn’s bag and get her out of there before she can change her mind. The women shout goodbye to her as the door closes and I hurry her out of the building and outside as fast as I can.