Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Sophia
I’ve been sitting on this couch for so long that my ass has gone numb.
I’ve been too afraid to move a single muscle in my body.
I’m not sure if Eric’s fucking with me or if he got into an accident, or.
..literally any other option that could be a possibility, which is probably about five million different things.
I pour myself a glass of room temperature champagne and take a sip of it, finally letting myself lean back against the couch for the first time since Eric left, and I can feel pins and needles in my ass that tell me all I had to do was shift a little and I could have avoided this whole tingly nightmare.
When I reach the halfway point on my glass of champagne, I notice some guy walking up to the VIP section who definitely is not supposed to be here. Eric bought out all of the tables for god knows how long, and this guy is not only not Eric, he’s not even dressed the right way to be up here.
The guy is wearing a relaxed cotton long sleeved shirt and a pair of light wash jeans, and his hair is mussed. So I’m probably dealing with some kind of drunk creep who got past security. Great.
“Sophia?” The guy asks as he gets closer, and I don’t answer. “Dav— Eric asked me to come and get you. He got a little held up with something.” He takes a few steps closer to me, extending his hand. “My name is Colt. I’m a friend of his.”
I recognize the name from the weeks I’ve spent talking to Eric about his life and his friends; but anyone could find out who runs in his circles, so I’m not taking his word at face value. I tentatively take the guy’s hand, giving it a shake. “If you actually know Eric, does he have any tattoos?”
“One,” he tells me, patting the space over his left pec. “A set of lips. I’m assuming yours, Noelle.”
I bite back the smile that fights to creep across my face, but I can’t do anything to stop the flaming crimson that spreads over my cheeks in a blush. He told his friends about me when he came home. He wasn’t lying when he said he thought about me.
I toss back the rest of my champagne and reach under the couch for my little leather bag, plucking the bottle of perfume from the table and stuffing it into the open compartment before slinging the purse over my shoulder.
“Alright,” I nod, “let’s go.”
·
Eric’s apartment is huge and...almost completely empty. There’s a small, undecorated sideboard at the entrance of the penthouse that his friend dropped his keys onto when we walked in, and I followed with my bag, realizing after the fact that I probably should have kept it with me.
There’s a large couch at the center of what looks to be the living room, seated in front of a massive TV which is mounted to the wall, and behind the couch sits a foosball table that looks like it was probably a custom job; because of course it was.
His kitchen leaves just as much to be desired as far as that cozy, homey feeling goes.
A large island makes up the only sitting space, white marble inlaid with dark wood cabinets and silver hardware which match the rest of the kitchen surfaces and the steel appliances.
A few leather-topped stools line the outer side of the island.
There’s not so much as a bowl of fruit on the counters to signify that someone actually lives here; so either he’s away a lot, he has people cleaning his house all of the time for him, or he never actually moved into this place.
He kept his hotel room an absolute mess, and I would expect to see that reflected in his home.
I follow Eric’s friend into his bedroom, which is – you guessed it – all but bare.
A massive, tall bed sits at the center of the far wall, draped in probably thirteen pillows and a fluffy black duvet, the mattress itself resting on a contemporary dark wood frame sandwiched on either side by a pair of glossy black nightstands.
A matching dresser rests at the opposite end of the room, the only sign of life in this whole place being the clothes haphazardly thrown on top of it, some hanging off of the corner.
A single armchair, upholstered in black leather, sits in the corner of the room.
“He’s not much of a decorator, is he?” I ask the guy – Colt, as I pull open one of his nightstand drawers.
It’s very Eric in this drawer; a few loose pills of varying shape and color, a couple of baggies of off-white powder, and a box of condoms sit housed with several miniature bottles of alcohol and a travel sized bottle of mouthwash.
“He’s never here,” he tells me. “This is just where he showers and sleeps sometimes.”
Bingo, called it.
His friend pulls the dirty clothes off of the dresser, stuffing them into a hamper that sits next to it, and I chuckle to myself. This one must be the dad.
I move to the other side of the bed while his friend goes through the dresser drawers, pulling the top drawer of the nightstand open. Inside of it sit three bundles of neatly-wrapped rope, a set of leather restraints, and a magic wand, complete with wall adapter.
“So, how did you meet Eric?” I brave asking as I push the drawer shut.
“Ah, I met him almost twenty years ago in an online forum about muscle cars, actually,” he laughs.
“He was adamant that he was going to get a nineteen-seventy-three Firebird as his first car and paint it fire engine red. Then he went and bought a godawful hatchback instead and sold it less than a year later.” Colt lets out a breath, setting a neatly-folded pile of clothes onto the bed next to me.
“Alright, these should be acceptable. I’ll leave my phone number for you on the refrigerator, just in case, but Davis should be back soon. Will you be alright here by yourself?”
I nod. “Thanks, Colt. It was...really weird to meet you.”
“Yes,” he says with a smile, “it certainly was. You have a good night, Sophia.”
I wait for him to leave the room before I peel off my outfit, making sure to stuff each piece into the same hamper that Eric’s friend put his clothes into, then I slip into the fresh outfit laid out for me, pulling the drawstring of the shorts tight to keep them from falling off of my hips.
Bringing the collar of the too-big t-shirt to my nose, I breathe deeply, inhaling Eric’s scent clung to the fabric.
I dive onto Eric’s bed and reach for a remote, clicking on the power to the TV mounted above the dresser as I settle back into his mound of pillows.
Immediately, the room fills from all directions with the sounds of loud, exaggerated moaning, the TV lighting up with what looks like some amateur, homemade porn clip.
“Oh my god,” I howl, laughing hard enough that tears well up at the outer corners of my eyes as I scramble to press the button to get to a streaming service instead. “Of course you watch your porn in fucking surround sound, you little freak.”
Scrolling through the Netflix menu, I pull up an action movie with a catchy thumbnail and adjust the pillows behind me for maximum comfort before plopping my head back down onto the pile.
Halfway through my third movie choice – this time, a comedy – Eric finally steps into the room, kicking his boots off at the door and shoving them over toward the dresser, leaving clumps of mud in their wake.
He’s only wearing jeans, his shirt draped over his shoulder, and his hair is out of place, with several pieces dangling in his face.
His sculpted body is covered in a layer of sweat and grime that definitely was not there before he left the club.
“Sorry I kept you waiting, Sugar,” he says way too casually, brushing his hair out of his face, which falls right back to where it was. “Colt get you settled in okay?”
“Yeah, he— Eric…”
Jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of a door at the side of the room, he tells me, “I’m gonna grab a quick shower. You make yourself at home, I’ll be out in just a sec.”
I scramble off of the bed with panic flooding my veins, following him as he walks into his bathroom.
It’s a gigantic room, bigger than my living room, with three sinks at one side and a separate walled-off area that looks like a closet, which I’m pretty sure houses the toilet.
The rest of the room is taken up by an absolutely massive walk-in shower that I swear my entire bedroom could fit inside of, only separated from the rest of the space by a half wall of slick stone tile.
Eric pulls open the big, silver ram’s head buckle on his belt and slides his jeans and underwear off as he turns the knob to start the shower, sending water pouring down from the ceiling.
He steps inside, visibly relieved by the contact of the warm water hitting his skin.
I don’t think I’ve ever really noticed all of the scars on his body before; a few smaller ones here or there between his stomach and his back, and one larger one just near his right shoulder blade that looks like it must have been serious enough to need to be stitched up.
“What did you do,” I breathe, watching the water create a steady stream of muck rinsing away from his body like dirt being power washed off of the side of a building.
It swirls around the light tile on the floor, making a trail from his body and down into the drain, washing away the evidence of whatever it is that he’s done.
“I handled it,” he answers plainly.
He cups his hands, collecting a pool of water in his palms, and he scrubs the water over his face before pushing his hair back, letting the rain from the ceiling soak into his thick raven strands.
With my blood pulsing through my veins like painful shards of ice and my heart at a fucking stand-still in my chest, I step into the shower with him, his clothes clinging to my body like a second skin as the water runs over me, and I cup his face in my hands, forcing him to look down at me.
“Eric. Did you kill him?”
“He put his hands on you,” he drawls, his large hands resting on my hips, “of course I did.”