Chapter Fourteen
Jackson
Jesus fucking Christ. If Phoenix doesn’t give me some sort of answer about what the holy fuck is going on… I’m going to completely lose my shit. Just watch me.
“Out? What are you… Phoenix? What’s going on? I know Rodriguez was in the room with us and I heard everything she said. What’s… Where’s Rodriguez? What did you do, Phoenix?”
Ugh! Jesus. Why isn’t he answering me? I really kind of fucking want to know what the hell is going on in that room outside this goddamn fucking box.
Phoenix’s voice sounds… off, as he replies, “Just…a little. More. Time. Babe. Patience, m’kay?”
Patience? Really? Sure, I’ll just show a little fucking patience as I wait for him to give me a goddamn clue as to what the fucking hell is going on.
And babe? That’s…new.
He’s slipped a ‘sweetheart’ or two at me before now. But “babe”? That’s… How do I feel about him calling me babe? For that matter, why do I feel perfectly okay with him calling me sweetheart?
I don’t have a vast well of people in my past that would’ve landed in pet-name-calling territory and those that might’ve… Yeah, none of them are guys. The various fellow males in my life, if you could consider me having any sort of relationship with them, was of the bro-I-go-to-school-with or bro-I-work-with level of friendship. I’d definitely never been around a guy who voiced any sort of sentiment for me that might go past simple fondness for another dude.
Until now…until Phoenix…I probably would’ve thought it was weird. Having another man casually call me babe and sweetheart. But when he does it…I think I like it. At least, I certainly don’t hate it. Or even want him to stop doing it.
But all of that’s gonna have to be something I unpack later. Much later. For now...
Fuck, I for sure thought my days of not being able to see shit were over after Phoenix had untied the blindfold from around my eyes. But goddamn it, whatever’s going down between Phoenix and Rodriguez is going down somewhere past the left side of my box. There aren’t any decent gaps or holes for me to look through on that side of the box. And no matter how I try to twist or turn my head, I can’t get a good angle to see anything important out of the one good-sized hole on the front of my box.
A diluted-iced-tea-brown wall, with layers and layers of spray paint marring its surface, which is about all I can see as I’m straining to see anything through the hole, tells me jack shit. I mean, it does tell me that we’re no longer in the cement crumbling-fortress of the former industrial factory that had been my prison for these past several weeks. But it doesn’t give a very good clue as to where we are now or what the heck is going on immediately outside my box.
I’m not prepared for the appearance of Phoenix’s flushed face directly in front of the small, rectangular, broken opening in the box and I instinctively flinch away. But I quickly scooch back, reaching with my hand out of the box, wanting to make contact with Phoenix, who is looking sweaty and rumpled in addition to the vibrant pink staining his cheeks.
“What…”
“Shh.” Phoenix doesn’t let me get the rest of my question out. Instead, he hushes me while grabbing onto my hand, bringing it to his face, and pressing his heated cheek against it. “We’re going to have to move quickly now, okay?” I open my mouth to spill forth all the questions that are burbling away inside me, but Phoenix still doesn’t let me get a word out, quickly adding, “I need you to listen to me and just do what I say. Alright? Can you do that for me, sweetheart? We don’t have time for questions or to talk about it. I just need you to do what I say, when I say it.”
If I have any particular skill with any one thing, it’s following instructions without asking questions. So, I nod my understanding and wait for whatever his first instruction is going to be.
“Thank you.”
Despite him saying that whatever came next, we’d have to do it quickly, Phoenix’s eyes flutter closed and he’s silent for several moments, continuing to rest his cheek in the cradle of my hand.
I’m not about to hurry him along, even though I probably should. Instead, I take this moment, while I’m no longer blindfolded and the light is adequate enough in this room, to see him and take in all the details of his face.
It’s almost too much for my poor brain to comprehend that someone like Phoenix Wilding is here, right in front of me. Literally, close enough to touch.
Besides being the sort of ridiculously attractive that most of us only get to see on the cover of a magazine–objectively, even I can recognize Phoenix’s physical beauty–he and his family are perhaps some of the wealthiest people in the country. Something only someone who’s been living under a rock and avoiding all forms of media wouldn’t be aware of. Before I even met him, I knew who Phoenix Wilding is. During my brief stint as a bag boy at a grocery store, there were numerous times where I saw Phoenix’s image smiling or smirking or glowering out at me from the cover of some magazine or other.
And now, here he is. In the same room as me, companions against the whims of the kidnappers in control of us, and...calling me babe? Calling me sweetheart? It really doesn’t compute.
I have to wonder, as I watch the flicker of his eyes behind his eyelids, what sort of thoughts are flitting through his brain? Is he thinking of me or everything that’s happened to him? Is he coming up with a plan right this moment, while his pulse causes the delicate skin at the base of his throat to tremble?
And why...why...when his deep rich brown eyes open and look right at me...does none of that other stuff matter, as long as he’s looking at me. As long as it’s him and I, together.
Phoenix’s tongue sweeps out, moistening his full lips. And I don’t even know why, but I have the urge to drag my thumb over and run it along that damp flesh. What would his lips feel like against the tip of my finger? I wouldn’t even need to move my thumb over that far, only an inch or so, and it would be right there, touching, rubbing, and caressing, exploring just how his mouth feels, damp under a sheen of saliva.
I manage to curb the impulse. Barely, just barely. Just as well, though, as Phoenix finally begins to lay out what we’re doing next and what he needs from me.
“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do,” he says. His fingers wrap around the bottom edge of the broken board that had left the hole we’re looking at each other through. “This portion of the box looks like it’s the weakest. Between the two of us—you pushing and me pulling on it—we should be able to make this hole bigger. Big enough for you to squeeze your way out.”
“Phoenix, no. That’ll never—"
“It has to.” Phoenix’s voice is firm and determined as he interrupts my protest. “It has to, sweetheart,” he repeats, a little softer this time. Pleading. It’s clear he needs me to believe him, to believe in this plan he’s come up with. “We need to get you out of this box. Now. Not later. Not soon. Now.”
I’ve explored pretty much every inch and corner of this goddamn box with my fingers over the past several weeks. But I can’t say I’ve tried to break out of it before now. Why would I have? I knew what was outside this box—multiple morally dubious kidnappers, armed with guns and who knows what else. My value as a hostage was pretty non-existent and I hadn’t wanted to test their willingness to get rid of me if I’d caused them any trouble. I have my doubts that creating a hole big enough for me to wriggle my way through will be as easy as Phoenix is presenting it, but what the hell. Might as well give it a go. Especially as the urgency bleeding through in his voice is pretty fucking convincing.
“Okay,” I tell him. “Give me a sec to get in position. I’m gonna lay on my back and place my feet against this board. I’ll push on it with my legs and you start pulling as soon as it looks like it’s coming loose.”
“We’ve got this, babe. You’ll see. This board first, and then we’ll work on the board next to it, then the next, and the next...as many as we need to so we can get you out. But...but we do need to hurry.”
He’s trying to sound confident and up-beat, really, he is. But his reminder that he doesn’t want this taking too long feels like a grim promise that failure to get me freed will probably lead to some bad things for both of us.