This Is War - Chapter 3 - Sexy Scavenger Hunt
“Ash, I seriously doubt Homeless Rutherford will be the homeless person that saves us. I mean…what are the chances he’d be using this bathroom out of all the bathrooms in the city? Besides, he’d probably just lick the door and walk away.”
I gagged and looked down at my hands that had been banging on the door. “He licks doors?!” I ran to the sink and turned on the water. “They’re out of soap!” I screamed. “How are they out of soap? I’m going to die in here!”
“Someone will let us out soon.”
But the seconds turned to minutes. And the minutes turned to hours. “Chastity!” I screamed. “We’ve been in here for five hours!”
Chastity checked her phone. “It’s literally been one minute.”
That didn’t sound right. “Are you sure?” The germs were killing me.
A second later there was a knock on the door.
“Occupied!” I yelled out of habit as I dried my hands on way too many paper towels. As if paper towels could help with the germs all over my skin. “No, wait! We’re stuck! Help us!” I started banging on the door, keeping the paper towels over my hands for protection.
“Unlock the door,” the man said from the other side.
Why is a man trying to get into the woman’s restroom?
“It is unlocked on our side,” Chastity said. “Unlock it from your side.”
“There’s no lock on this side,” he said.
Chastity and I looked at each other. That didn’t make any sense.
“Please just help us, Homeless Rutherford!” I yelled.
“Would you cut it out,” Chastity said. “That’s not Homeless Rutherford. And you’ll scare the person off. Do you want to get out of here or not?”
“Of course I want to get out!”
“Then shush! I’ll handle this.” Chastity turned back to the door. “We’ve unlocked it on our side. It must be jammed or something.”
“Ma’am, please unlock the door.”
“Excuse me?” She turned to me. “Did he just call me ma’am?”
I nodded. Knowing full well that any semblance of calm that Chastity was maintaining was about to be thrown out the window. Oh God, there are no windows in here! I gasped for air.
“I’m not a ma’am!” she yelled through the door.
“Oh. Sorry, sir.”
“What?!” she screamed. “Let me out of here right this second!”
The knob wiggled but nothing happened.
“Let us out!” She banged on the door with the side of her fist. “Or I’ll sue you to oblivion!”
“I need to pee,” someone mumbled from the other side of the door.
Honestly we were saving them. They certainly didn’t want to pee in this germ-infested hell hole.
All I could do was stare at the floor puddle and relive Incident #6 over and over again in my head.
I’d told Tanner I loved him. And then I flung myself off his yacht.
And then I flashed everyone. And then Tanner was taken.
It was like the incident that wouldn’t stop.
Was it actually four incidents in one? “Good God, my life is over!”
Chastity ignored me and kept banging on the door.
It took exactly five hours of yelling back and forth and then another five for the firemen to arrive. “It’s been ten hours!”
Chastity laughed. “It’s been thirty minutes. Stop it.”
“Ten hours!”
Chastity showed me her phone. “Nope.”
I was pretty sure her phone was broken.
“How do my tits look?” she asked, sticking out her chest. “These firefighters are gonna be so excited when they burst in and see us. Oh! Maybe you should take your towel off.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
Chastity shrugged. “Suit yourself. But don’t say I didn’t try to help you. I’m not about to break Single Girl Rule #13: Always wing woman for the girl with the longest active dry spell.”
I know she said it had only been thirty minutes. But I was definitely out of air. And severely dehydrated. And starving beyond belief. Being locked up didn’t suit me. But I did my best to sob quietly as the firemen hacked away at the hinges of the bathroom door.
The door finally fell away.
“My heroes!” Chastity said and flung herself into the arms of one of the firemen.
I burst through the open doorway. “I need soap! Stat!” I was seconds away from fainting.
The manager quickly grabbed some soap to refill the dispenser. I took it from him and did the last thing I ever expected to do…I ran back into the bathroom.
I washed my hands ten times. And by hands, I mean my hands and arms all the way up to my pits. I finally took a deep breath.
“You used all the soap,” the manager said.
What? I looked down. Sure enough, the refill for the soap dispenser was completely empty.
“And the bathroom is for customers only.”
I stared at him. We both knew that the public restroom rules at Starbucks weren’t regularly enforced. But it didn’t seem like he was backing down.
And to be fair…I had just used all his soap. And whatever Nigel had done to the door had pretty much destroyed it.
“I’d like a variety of pastries, please,” I said. “And five bottles of water.”
He raised his eyebrows. “No shoes, no shirt, no service.”
“I’m wearing shoes. And this is a fashionable dress.” I gestured to my towel. “Please, I’m starving. And I’m going to pass out from dehydration…”
He held up his hands to stop me. “Fine. But you need to come pay at the register.”
I followed him back out of the restroom and past Chastity flirting with the firemen. She’d somehow convinced one of them to take his shirt off. I really didn’t know how she could be flirting at a time like this.
I paid for all my food and water with a credit card, because I couldn’t fathom touching anything else dirty like loose change.
And then I sat down at a table and ate one pastry after another.
Luckily everyone was more focused on the firefighters than on me.
Because I definitely had food all over my face.
I took another big bite as I looked over at Chastity and all the firemen.
One of them was still trying to figure out what had happened to the door. Stupid Nigel.
I downed a water bottle and slowly started to feel like myself again.
I looked down at the rest of the pastries and bottles of water.
Had I ordered too much food? I was pretty sure I’d just panic-eaten three pastries.
But I had no idea how to know for sure. I was almost positive I had blacked out. I downed another bottle of water.
The firemen finally left and Chastity walked back over to me.
“Stress eating?” she asked and lifted up a pastry.
“We almost died.”
She laughed. “The ceiling had those push-up tiles. We could have been in the vents within minutes.”
“Then why didn’t we do that?!”
“Because I wanted to see some firemen.”
I glared at her.
“We’re fine. You’re fine. God, how many water bottles did you just pound? You’re going to have to go to the bathroom again.”
“Never.”
She laughed.
But damn it. She was right. I already had to pee. I crossed my legs under the table. “How long do you think Nigel is going to be?”
“I don’t know…he probably knew we’d escape fairly quickly. He should be back any minute now.”
But the minutes actually did turn to hours. We waited and waited and waited for Nigel. Until I had to use the horrifying restroom again. I refused to close the door and just made Chastity stand guard.
We waited until the hipsters all left. And the manager told us they were closing. And then we waited outside for another hour. Until my fifth water bottle kicked in and we had no choice but to head back to our apartments.
“God, I can’t believe my luck,” I said as we waited for our Uber. “What are the odds that Tanner would get taken like two seconds after finally confessing his love to me?”
“Whoa whoa whoa. Hold everything! Tanner said he loves you?”
“Yeah.”
“And did you say it back?”
“I actually said it first. But I don’t think it counts.”
She stared at me.
“The punch was spiked and it kind of tumbled out. And then I jumped ship.” As I said it, a horrible thought came to me. “Oh my God. Do you think I freaked him out by telling him that I loved him? And then he ran?”
“That depends.” She yanked on my towel.
“Chastity!” I screamed and tried to grab it, but it was too late. The Uber had just pulled up. And the driver had definitely seen my boobs.
“What?”
“You can’t just pull my towel down on the sidewalk!”
“Well I had to check to see if you were topless under there. And good news, you are. Which means Tanner didn’t run.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Guys don’t run away from naked boobs. It’s literally impossible for them to do.”
“Are you sure?”
Chastity nodded. “I could have taken my top off and kept the firefighters here all day, but I didn’t want the city to burn down in their absence. And the Uber driver is just sitting there staring at us.”
“Hmmm…I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I am! Did Tanner say anything else before he was taken?”
“Uh… He said that he’d known I was special from the moment I started stalking him. And that he liked when I hit him with a door and laughed in his face. And that he loved me. Oh! And that he was done running.”
“I really wish you had told me that sooner. I know exactly what’s happening.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. He’s sending you on a sexy scavenger hunt.”
“You getting in?” asked the Uber driver.
“Hold on,” said Chastity. “We’re discussing something very important here.”
He looked annoyed, but then she flashed him. After that he seemed more than happy to stick around.
“I really don’t follow your logic here,” I said.
“He said he loves you stalking him. And then mentioned running. All the hints are there.”
“Okay…so where do we start?”
“Well I bet Nigel was in on it. Which means the hunt was supposed to begin in that bathroom.”
“Right. That explains how Nigel locked us in. He must have rigged it ahead of time.”
“Exactly. Which means…” Chastity’s eyes lit up. “Oh my God! The firefighters were part of it! We were probably supposed to suck their cocks to earn our second clue.”
“What?! Why would Tanner want us to do that?”
“Uh…because it’s a sexy scavenger hunt. What else would we do with a bunch of hunky firefighters?”
“I don’t know. Thank them kindly for their service to New York City?”
“Oh damn, you think we were supposed to let them gangbang us?”
“What?! No! I said we should have thanked them.”
“Right. With a gangbang.”
“No. I didn’t say anything about a gangbang.”
Chastity laughed. “You’re not making any sense. It’s fine though. It’s been a long day. Let’s get home and rest a bit, and then we can decide how far we wanna go with the firemen in the morning.”
“I’m not gonna sleep with any firefighters.”
“So just blowjobs then? Works for me!”