6. Georgia
Chapter 6
Georgia
" W hy the fuck are you in my apartment?" cried Quinn, struggling to breathe or even open his eyes as I poured milk into his hands.
"I thought you were hurt! Your door was open, you prick!" I cried back, blinking back the burning of pepper spray as I pushed him over and, tipped my head up and dumped what was left of the organic milk over my face.
"Why didn't you just call the cops, Clark?" Sebastian retorted angrily, rubbing at his face with a dishcloth and blinking back tears.
"I heard you groaning and thought you were hurt!" I yelled, slapping the kitchen sink when I realized the milk was gone and my eyes still burned. "Do you have anything else?"
Quinn grunted as he dug underneath his counter to pull out a large bottle of yellow soap and turned on the kitchen faucet. "This should help—just fucking hold still."
My vision was still blurry as he grabbed my arm and pulled me over to the kitchen sink. "Why do you have so much soap?" I snapped for no reason other than the fact that my eyes were burning, and I was angry and more than a little embarrassed for pepper-spraying my neighbor while he was jacking off .
"Tattoos; it's the one good for tattoos. Just shut up and lean over the sink!" Oh yes, the tattoos. The tattoos that crawled up his right arm and onto his chest. The arm that he had used to…His larger hands grabbed mine and dumped a good amount of the scentless soap onto my hands and instructed me to scrub my face and underneath my nails.
It could've been minutes or even hours before the burning began to subside, and I counted my lucky stars. I hadn't even gotten more than a slight spray-off before I had dropped the offending bright pink object.
I slipped down the kitchen cabinet and joined him on the cold tile floor as I caught my breath.
"Why wasn't your door locked?" I accused, blinking into the low lights of the apartment.
Quinn scoffed, "That seems awful victim-blamey of you, Clark."
My cheeks flushed, if they could be any redder with the pepper spray burns. Thank god that pepper spray had expired by two years and I had been too lazy to replace it.
"I'm sorry, really I am. I didn't mean to…"
Quinn looked over at her with his dark eyes, still rimmed red. "Pepper spray me in my own home while I was naked?"
I groaned and leaned my head on my knees, willing the floor to just open up and devour me then and there. A silence descended on us, the only sound was the dripping faucet behind us.
"You know Wolfe?" His voice was low and hesitant like he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to know after all. If there was any possibility, the urge to fling myself out of a window became more and more ideal.
"Can we just forget about all of this, please?" I whined, still not allowing myself to look into my old classmate's eyes and instead focusing on an art piece on his wall across from us.
Quinn laughed, a deep huff that brought goosebumps to my skin. It was at that moment I realized he was still naked, save for the blanket he had grabbed when I had barged into his room just moments ago.
"No, I don't think we can, Clark," he teased, shoving me lightly with his stupid muscled body. "Didn't peg you for a mask kink, but I guess that just goes to show we don't really know our neighbors, do we? "
At that, I looked up with narrowed eyes. "And I didn't know my very affluent ex-classmate had a paywalled sex website. I thought you just brought those women home to fuck them, very loudly, I might add, so that I could never get a good night's sleep!"
Quinn lifted his arms in mock defeat, "Wow, and a slut shamer. Really killing me, Clark."
Growling, I hoisted myself off of his very clean tile floor and realized with immediate regret that my dry clean-only cashmere sweater was soaked in milk. Like I had the money for a dry cleaning bill right now.
"It's 2024; I'm not slut shaming you, Quinn. I am noise-shaming you, though." Blinking in the soft light of the apartment, I found my discarded bag and phone I had flung when Sebastian had stood.
"Seems like you don’t mind it so much when it's on the website," he teased, standing and clutching the blanket in one hand. "Oh, what are you subscribed under? I can see which videos you viewed most."
I tossed the kitchen towel at his stupid muscled chest and pointed a finger at him. "I'm not subscribed, you ass. I just watch the previews." Jesus Christ, what an idiot , I thought as I slapped my hand over my mouth.
His dark eyebrows raised, "Oh, and a cheapskate too, huh?"
I grabbed my bag from the floor and slung it over my shoulder. "We're done; you're not dead or being murdered, so I am going back home and forgetting all about this."
I heard his laugh as I all but ran out of his posh apartment and fumbled with my keys at my door, "Thanks for the rescue!"
All but screaming, I slammed the door behind me. What the fucking fuck had just happened?
I avoided Sebastian like the plague for the next two weeks. I had every step planned and ready to be executed like a well-written military plan. Bag? On my shoulder. Keys (sans pepper spray, going for brass knuckles next time)? In my hand. I found if I stared at the floor when I left the shared entryway I wouldn't even look at his apartment door, which was good. Wonderful even. Because if I didn't look at his door, I wouldn't think of his muscled body or how his tattooed forearm veins bulged as he fisted his coc—see? That's why I didn't look at the door.
Tonight, I was leaving later than usual. It was already dark out, and the wind was biting against my skin as I walked quickly down the sidewalk, the streetlamp’s yellow glow lighting my way.
Sarah had found about a dozen hours a week for me to stock the coffee shop overnight; the kid they hired wasn't out of high school yet and legally couldn't work that late. I nearly kissed my friend square on the mouth when she caught me between shifts at the bookshop heading to visit my grandmother.
So there I was, walking at 8 p.m. on a weekday back down to the coffee shop when I would usually be firmly planted in my favorite chair, watching TV or listening to an audiobook while I mindlessly scrolled social media. The keys to the cafe seemed stiff in my hand as I wrestled with the antique handle, breathing a sigh of relief as I was finally welcomed into the warm and dimly lit shop. Sarah had told me she could leave a few lights on so I didn't get murdered. She's always so thoughtful.
I clocked in and dropped my coat on the counter while I surveyed the few boxes that had been brought in from the back. It was maybe two hours of work here, three if I stretched it out and bit and dusted like Sarah had suggested. I know she was just trying to help because the place already looked spotless. Even the dark wooden countertops gleamed with furniture polish. Sighing, I slipped my earbuds in and turned on a podcast. Just some history one; true crime wasn't the best idea when one was in an old, semi-dark shop with large windows that looked out to the equally dark street.
The coffee smelled divine; even from within its airtight packaging, the imported light roast filled the whole place with its aroma. I restocked, refilled the espresso machine for tomorrow, and tossed any expired food into my tote bag.
Come on, it was 24 hours old. That cookie was just fine. If anything, I was saving the environment or something. Maybe a few quiches.
At almost two hours on the dot, I clocked out, unable to stretch out my length of work. It didn't seem right when they gave me a few hours here and there, plus free coffee. And the expired quiches, even if they didn't expressly add that into the perks on my onboarding.
Shoving a day-old gluten-free chocolate chip cookie that cost my hourly wage into my mouth, I tied off the trash and tossed it into the dumpster. I rubbed my hands together as soon as I was back inside the warmth of the shop. Jesus, it was cold out. Pulling on my jacket, I unlocked my phone, procrastinating my walk back home in the cold dark of the late October night. My car was still barely running, and I had canceled my car assistance to spare a few hundred dollars a month—I wasn't looking to add the expense of a late-night tow to my pile of unpaid bills.
My fingers hovered over the search bar while I looked behind me and out towards the windows. I gnawed at my lower lip as I finally typed in the all-too-familiar URL.
www.themaskedwolfe.com
Cupping my hand over my screen and dimming the luminance to near darkness, I was shocked to see Wolfe hadn't posted any new content except a short solo one. The preview was for the same video I had seen over two weeks ago. My eyebrows raised, but I quickly exited the browser and took a deep breath when I realized I couldn't delay that fifteen-minute walk any longer. Fifteen minutes felt a lot longer when it was under sixty degrees and dark as sin.
After locking up, I hurriedly walked down the sidewalk, passing various shops, including Hemingway's, as I made my way home. I had taken my earbuds out because I was a woman, and it was night. No matter how quaint or quiet a town was, it was no excuse to let my guard down.
It was at that exact moment that I heard the telltale sound of car tires crunching leaves on the road behind me. The sound of the car slowed, and I picked up my pace, desperately wishing that I had remembered to buy new pepper spray, brass knuckles, or whatever else I could stash in my tote bag.
I kept my eyes down and ahead as I practically jogged when the sound of a window rolling down had my heart in my throat.
"Clark? What the fuck are you doing out here?"
I nearly tripped on the crack in the sidewalk at the sound of Sebastian Quinn's deep voice coming from a black sports car. Of course he would have a fucking sports car.
"Walking, Quinn, did the pepper spray cause long-term blindness?" I shot back as I straightened with as much dignity as I could muster.
"Jesus Christ, get in the car,” he retorted. “I'll take you home." I could hear the eye roll that accompanied his words.
I shook my head, readjusting my bag on my shoulder. "Nope, I'm good. The night air is good for my health." I winced at the stupid words that just kept flowing from my mouth.
"Clark, for Christ's sake, just get in. You still have almost ten minutes left if you walk it. This wind is insane." He wasn’t lying, even though it was early fall, tonight felt especially chilly for the season and the wind was biting.
I finally stopped next to the car that had been tailing me for what felt like the last mile and peeked inside at its very warm-looking interior, complete with black leather seats.
For a moment, I considered it, but I shook my head. "Thanks for the offer, but I'm good, I promise."
Sebastian's face looked incredulously at me before shrugging and rolling up the window, leaving me on my "healthy walk" in the now forty-eight-degree temperature.
On the way back, I scoured my brain trying to remember why he hadn’t gotten along in school, besides that he was ridiculously wealthy and on the lacrosse team. I hated remembering my time in high school while I made my way past a quiet stretch of houses and businesses deep into the coastal city I called home. Small towns and their people usually weren't super welcoming to outsiders. So when I enrolled at the beginning of my high school career, freshly plucked from New York and the rat’s nest my dad called an apartment, quiet as a mouse and with only a handful of hand-me-down uniforms from the local charity shop, I wasn't exactly vying for prom queen. I was taller than some of the girls but shit at sports, so it just made my gangly long legs and arms useless and out of sorts with the petite, beautiful girls that seemed to populate Perrington Prep solely. Sebastian always had a beautiful girl on his arm and was the rare combination of class clown and jock that just seemed to make friends with everyone. His sister was barely in middle school, but I always saw him driving her around at the time in some flashy car.
It was he and I who were neck and neck in our academics. The way he looked at me, like he couldn't figure out how a neglected orphan from Long Island was beating him for valedictorian at his prestigious prep school still made my blood boil. It's not like he had knocked my books out of my hands or doused me in pig's blood at prom; it was just the edge of barely concealed resentment that he had whenever he looked at me. The way his dark eyes looked me up and down like I wasn't even worth the cruel barb he could think of. Like he had been studying me. And then not to even remember my name at the end of the school year? That was icing on the cake.
Before I knew it, the welcoming light of my loft building was ahead of me, and none too soon before I couldn't feel my fingers.
"Eleven minutes, Clark," came a deep voice in the parking lot to my left. I jumped, my hand coming to cover my mouth as I barely contained a scream. "And you aren't even paying attention. I could've been a psycho murderer."
I stood incredulous at the 6'4 man dangling his car keys while leaning against the hood of his car. "What the fuck, Quinn? Were you just sitting there waiting for me to get home to scare me out of my wits?" My heart was still beating wildly in my chest as I finally found my voice and stomped towards the stairs.
"I mean, at least you weren't naked!" he yelled, to my mortification. I looked around, but of course there was no one out at 10:30 p.m. on a Tuesday. His crooked smile beamed as he walked past me and opened the door to the loft building, the warmer air hitting me.
I all but growled as I walked past him, turning my body so my arm didn't so much as graze his. Shaking my head as I went to unlock my front door with fumbling cold hands, I paused when I realized he was still behind me.
"What, Quinn?" I snapped as I dropped my keys, my frozen fingers uncooperative in their task of simply getting me inside. My trick of ignoring my next-door neighbor was failing horribly.
When I looked up I realized he wasn't smiling this time but looking serious as he glanced up the stairwell to see if anyone else was listening.
"Listen, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about it. About the Wolfe thing?" He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "All jokes aside, I would really rather it not be public knowledge."
I relaxed a bit but rolled my eyes. "I figured with the whole mask thing," I whisper-hissed as I finally unlocked my front door with a satisfying click. "Secret’s safe with me. Trust me, I don't want anyone to know that I know if you catch my drift."
I barely caught a glimpse of his relieved face when I shut the door behind me, hoping that would be the last time I had to deal with Sebastian Quinn.