Sixteen
I ce was cranky when I joined him to offer help, and it reminded me of what he was like back when he was using. In fact, it was unnervingly like when he was on drugs.
“Brother, what can I do to help?”
He glared at me over the screen he was in front of.
“Oh, now you show up. Now you bother to come and offer help, just when I’m nearly done. How fucking helpful of you.” Jesus, tell me you’re not using again, bro.
“Sorry, got sent out to do some DIY.”
He quirked a snarky brow at me.
“Yeah, I know, your girlfriend comes first, right?”
What the fuck?!
“I get that you’re pissed and tired, but don’t do that. I was helping out the club, like we’re all doing. Now give me something to do.”
He glanced pointedly at his empty mug.
“Wouldn’t say no to a coffee.”
“You probably should, man. You look like shit. Did you even eat?”
He flipped me off. “Lissa came by and made me eat something, yeah.” TMI, man.
“ Charming . I’m sorry I asked.”
He groaned, rubbing his eyes with both palms.
“Jesus. Yeah, that sounded bad, but sadly that’s not what I meant. She brought food for me, and she tried to tell me to lay off the coffee. I’ll be honest with you, this shit was easier when I was using. I can’t get as many hours out of the day like this.”
“Staying clean is more important than anything, brother. Is that uh… is that Elise’s phone?”
Ice kicked the chair out opposite him, which meant I couldn’t see the screens, but whatever. I sat down, and reached for the phone, but he dragged it out of reach.
“Pretty sure she wouldn’t want you in her shit, man, no matter whether you’re fucking or not.”
I fucking wish. “We’re not. Stop saying crap like that, before you cause another shitstorm on top of the ones we already have.”
He was twirling her phone in his hand, a sly look on his face.
“I know everything about her now, man. I know what she likes and dislikes. What she reads. What she watches. Everything .”
I reached for the phone again and he dodged me.
“Nice try, fucker. You should ask her about her Google history, that’s all I’m saying.”
What the fuck did that even mean? Still, pushing him for answers would be playing along, and I wasn’t in the mood to feed his desire to fuck with me.
“You found out who sent the messages and called her?”
His face turned serious and he slammed the phone down on the desk.
“Nope. I mean, he sent more of that twisted shit, even while I was working on it, but no. It’s a burner, and it’s blocked from any of my tracking apps, so he could be in this fucking room right now and I’d be none the wiser. Some of the messages though… they sound like it’s someone who knows her from back home, or even school or college. This person doesn’t know where she is right now, so that says it’s probably not someone here, right?”
I leaned on my elbows.
“Or they’re trying to throw us off the scent, by pretending that’s the case.”
He grimaced. “Yeah, or it’s that. Tell me something, bro. Why the fuck did Stitch tell me to snoop through your phone too? Does he think I have nothing better to do all day, than waste time looking into people who definitely aren’t killers? I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Thank you.”
He slid my own phone back to me.
“For what? I may have snooped a little, just out of curiosity.” I returned his grin.
“Thank you for not thinking it’s me doing this.”
“To Elise?”
“To Chrissy and the others.”
Ice looked completely flummoxed, leaning back in his chair to rub at his eyes again. They looked red and glassy from all the staring at screens he did all day.
“Why the fuck would anyone think this is you? It’s not your style. Sure, you might fuck chicks and end up online doing it, but all that shit’s consensual. I can see that from the looks on their faces, even when I try not to fucking look at all.”
Who knew that in my time of need, Ice would be my fucking ally? I’d never seen that coming, because until recently he’d hated me without an obvious reason. Thank fuck he’d stopped hating me, because right now it seemed like everyone else might end up doing just that.
Elise
H as-Been didn’t return to me at all. Ice stopped by with a nice shiny new phone for me, as in one that he’d set up for me with all of my data from my other phone, but with a new number, and some app on it, in case somehow the sicko could still message me.
I appreciated having a phone back, but as I scrolled through and found my bookmarked porn videos of Has-Been, I realised that I’d made a terrible mistake by flagging them at all. There was no way Ice wouldn’t know that I’d looked at them, and worse, that I’d saved them.
At least I could use them to get off though, right? Nope. The links were dead, like the videos had been removed, but the paths still existed. Did Ice take them from me? Was that really his right to do that?
I tried finding the videos again, but tonight there was no sign of any videos on that site with Has-Been in them, and if there were any, they weren’t coming up for any of my keywords.
I tried to focus on my book, and another bottle of wine I was more than halfway through, in my newly secure bedroom, but when my phone buzzed with a message alert, I nearly screamed. Not again. Please not again.
I reluctantly looked at the phone, but it wasn’t an unknown number this time. It was stored in the phone as ‘H’.
H : Just checking in to make sure you’re okay and not afraid anymore. It’s Has, by the way. I have a burner so I can message you. Ice arranged it, but please don’t let Stitch find out.
Oh my god. Has-Been had been given this number, and he had a phone he could message me with? And Ice knew?
Me : How do I know it’s really you?
I mean, a girl has to be careful, right? A photo image loaded, and it was Has-Been, offering me a thumbs up, and a wide grin. He wasn’t wearing his cut. In fact, he was topless, and it was better than the porn videos of him, because he was sitting there like that right now, and messaging me. It was real. It was for me.
H : Is that enough proof or do you wanna ask me something only I would know? Ask me where I touched you, babe. Ask me how many times I’ve kissed those sweet lips of yours. Ask me what I said when you begged me to fuck you.
Oh my god, oh my god! He was flirting and it was making me wriggle my hips, and squeeze my legs together, because that throbbing was back. That desperate need for him that normally happened when we were in the same room.
H : Babe? Fuck… it is you, right? Stitch, if this is you, get fucked. I’m just a fucking man, okay?
I giggled, and sent him a photo right back, with a finger pressed over my lips in a shhh pose.
H : Thank fuck for that. He’ll cut my dick off, babe, and I really want to introduce you to it first. I think you’ll like it.
I already knew I would, because I’d seen it, hadn’t I? I’d seen him using it on multiple women, and even though I instantly hated every last one of those bitches, I knew what he looked like from every angle, naked and beautiful. I was so horny already and he’d barely messaged me.
Me : Send me another pic. I want to see more of you.
He was quiet for a moment, then sent me a line of shocked emojis, followed by another message.
H : You asking for a dick pic, babe? I don’t think we’re there yet. First time you see it, I wanna be teaching you how to touch it for me.
Another wave of squirmy heated desire made me wriggle. How was he doing this to me? And why? He kept saying he shouldn’t and now he was blatantly hitting on me. Wasn’t he? Was I imagining it?