Chapter 11 #2
I refuse to cower to his attempt at strong-arming me with demands.
I’m not scared of this guy. He’s got nothing on me, but I worry about Sosie and how an encounter gone sour could fuck things up for the two of us.
I tuck her phone back into my pocket, and ask, “Is Sosie here? I’d like to personally give it to her. ”
“That’s not a good idea,” he says with his hand still held out. “I’ll take it.”
I stare at him through the opening between two large iron bars. Something’s off and raising red flags too fast for me to grab my armor. “We’ve never met, so how do you know my name?”
“I make sure to know who’s invading my peace and threatening my family.” What the hell? What does that mean? I shake my head as confusion rattles my game plan. His words don’t just smack of arrogance; they’re meant as a warning. A warning to me or for me?
“Sir . . .” I take a breath to compose myself from glaring at him.
His antagonism is winning, and I can’t let him.
“I’m not a threat to your family, Mr. Stansbury.
” I catch a shift of light in the upper left window in my periphery, and it pulls my attention in that direction.
The curtains sway like someone was watching, and now they’re hiding from sight.
Dread sets in. Have I been fooled? Played by Sosie?
No. She wouldn’t do that. I may not know her well, but I know her well enough to know she didn’t only reveal her body to me last night.
She revealed her soul. That look in her eyes when I was inside her showed me we were something more than one night.
The pounding of my heart reaches my ears as it begins to feel like the opportunity to see her is slipping through my fingers.
I take a step closer and lower my voice.
“I come with good intentions.” I keep the desperation out of my tone, but it’s racing in my veins, trying to hold on to anything that keeps me connected to the best night of my life. This can’t be all there is for us. No.
His silence is unsettling, the empty palm still waiting to be filled. I shift, my gaze volleying twice between the window and the man standing in front of me. “If she’s home,” I say, my words staggering. “I’d, um, like to speak with her.”
Shoving his hand through an opening in the gate, he demands, “Give. Me. The phone.” The words are as cold as the weather, leaving no room for misunderstanding. Warming up to the guy isn’t an option. He’s closed off that opportunity.
My hands fist, but I keep them at my sides. “Please, Mr. Stansbury—”
“I’m going to call the police if you don’t give me the phone.” Silence burrows between us as we stare at each other.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. He doesn’t blink, but I do in hopes of appealing to his humanity, if there is any. “Your daughter means a lot to me—”
“Don’t talk about my daughter. Don’t contact her. Don’t come to my home. Do you understand, Mr. Matthews? If you so much as look in her direction, I’ll destroy you. NYU will be a failed memory. Your scholarships will be wiped from your accounts. That mother of yours—”
“I’m not a threat to you or your family, Mr. Stansbury. With all due respect, I care about your daughter—”
“You don’t know my daughter. You might think you care, but Sosie is careless.
You’re just another guy she spent time with to piss me off.
” The sharp blade of his words pierces my heart.
“She loves to play these games, and you fell for it. I feel sorry for you, Mr. Matthews . . .” Sorry for me?
He feels bad for me, looking down from the marble pedestal that he’s built on the backs of others like me?
Fuck that. I slam my hand against the gate, rattling it. “Fuck you.”
“Temper. Temper, Mr. Matthews,” he says, under a stilted chuckle. “We’re filming you.”
“Film me all you want. I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m here because—”
“You came here to return her phone. So return it and go.”
Hope bleeds from my chest as I finally realize who I’m dealing with—the rich, the powerful, the elite of this city.
I have no weapons left to fight this battle.
Maybe he’s right, and I did foolishly fall for his daughter.
Maybe I’m just another guy who fell for Sosie, though that connection still feels damn real to me.
With nothing to say that will change the trajectory of this conversation, I reason through why it’s wise to turn the phone over to him.
But my heart just can’t seem to get on board with that decision.
“What do you want?” he asks. “Money?” He digs into the interior pocket of his jacket and pulls out his wallet. Too stunned by the insult, I scoff. “I’ll give you a reward for returning it.”
I stare at the hundred-dollar bill he’s holding through the slats and then drag my gaze back to his. Disappointment, even shame, and a lot of frustration still flurries in my veins, but I keep my voice calm. “I don’t want your money. I want—”
“I don’t care what you want, you little bastard!” he shouts. “You think I’d let my daughter date someone like you? You are sorely mistaken, so give me the damn phone. Now.”
I grab the gate with my full strength, pulling myself mere inches from his face. “Don’t you ever fucking demean me,” I warn through gritted teeth. “I’ve worked too fucking hard to get where I am.”
“You haven’t paid for a thing,” he says as if he has me all figured out. He doesn’t know jack shit about me. I’m still paying for the turbulent choices of my parents.
Tugging it like I can loosen the hinges, toss it aside, and rush the door to find Sosie crowd my thoughts.
“You think you’re better than me. You’re not.
This fortress gives you a false sense of security.
These bars might keep me and my kind out, but your daughter will find her way back to me despite what you want. ”
His head jerks on his neck before he growls, “Watch yourself, son.”
“Don’t threaten me.” I tighten my grip to keep myself from barging my way through this gate. “Sosie—”
“Sosie,” he yells before taking a breath.
The sides of his mouth pull upward as he nods like the final nail was hammered into my coffin.
He did win this round. He fucking got what he wanted—a reaction to use as ammunition against me.
“You overestimate my daughter. Sosie will do as she’s told like she’s doing right now by staying in her room. ”
My gaze flicks to the window again, and I swear I catch a flash of her before the curtain falls back in place. I stop, struggling to keep my heart from dropping to the pit of my stomach. I look back at him, releasing my fists from around the iron as defeat sinks in.
My gut told me she was near. I could feel her presence stretching the lengths between us. I can’t look at him. Seeing the victory in his eyes will reveal a side of myself I don’t want to let loose. I drop my head as truth conquers the last shred of hope I held for us and hand him the phone.
“I suggest you move on with your life,” he says, his voice too calm, too the opposite of the tornado I’m feeling inside.
“Find someone else to entertain you because it’s not going to be a Stansbury.
” He turns, giving me a cold shoulder as he walks away, but when he reaches the first step, he glances back.
“Good night, Mr. Matthews.” Such a simple pleasantry after dealing the final blow to protect what he claims is his.
She’s not.
She was mine last night, and I have no doubt she will be again.
My heart thumps against my rib cage as panic rises. “No.” No good night. No goodbye. Hours aren’t enough. I need days, months, and years. I need to see her. There’s no good without a Spark in it.
If she wants me gone, she needs to tell me herself. I need her to look me in the eyes and tell me last night meant nothing. She won’t be able to, just like I can’t.
No love is lost when I shout to his back. “That’s it?” With my hands thrown out from my sides. “Fucking coward.” The door slams shut behind him. I grumble, “Had to threaten me to get me out of her life. Asshole.”
Stepping back feels like stumbling into an abyss.
I don’t know when I fell for this girl, but I’m drowning in the deep end.
I walk down the block, my feet as numb as that fucking organ in my chest where only echoes of heartbeats are heard.
Grabbing hold of the fence in front of her window, I yell, “Sosie?”
It’s a bad movie gesture, a last desperate attempt at making a difference. For her? For me? No, for us. I know it. Does she?
When the curtains don’t move, I silently wish to see her sneaking a peek again, but she doesn’t. There’s only a shadow that drifts from one side to the other. It makes me sick to give up, but she’s there and not coming to save me.
“Hey?” Anger takes over as it rages in that hollow cavern of mine, needing her to acknowledge I exist. I exist in her world as much as mine.
“It’s me. Sosie? Come on. We’re not just one night.
You know that.” Can she hear me? The anger starts to resolve as I try to appeal to what we have, what we share—that connection that keeps me standing here in the freezing cold.
“We’re bigger than this, babe. We’re meant for more.
” Throwing my hands on the top of my head, I step back but keep my eyes locked on that upstairs window.
“Don’t let the world decide who you are.
Not your dad. Not anyone. Sosie, please. ”
I stand in one place, hoping for anything she’ll give me.
“Hey, Spark?” I laugh without an ounce of humor.
“One sign. That’s all I need, and I’ll keep fighting for you.
I’ll fight for another night and do it all over again tomorrow.
” The shadow disappears, and hope fills my chest at the same time as the cold of our unfinished business seeps in.
Lowering my head, I close my eyes and whisper, “One sign. Please.” I look up, letting my shoulders fall and my guard down, open for what comes next.
I’m not the praying type, but I pray her heart hears mine.
“That’s all I’m asking for. One more chance. ”
Four months later . . .
“Keats Matthews. Bachelor of Science with a focus in finance.”
I walk across the stage, shaking hands with the dean of the department.
I also shake Professor Johns’s hand since he’d suffered through all my texts over the past year.
He’s stayed firmly in my corner since day one.
I hope I’ve made him proud. He grins, and when we shake hands, he pats my arm. “Well-earned, Keats.”
“Thanks.” I take my diploma to the other side of the stage and stop for the university photographer. This is the only photo I’ll have from my graduation since no one showed up to take one. Who else is there anyway? My mom? I never expected her to show even though I had hand-delivered an invitation.
When I return to walk down the long aisle to my seat, I look up at the theater filled with family and friends of the graduates.
I glance to the right, and my eyes lock with the one person who doesn’t feel real all these months later.
It was only one night, and I’ll never forget it.
Neither will my heart because she took it with her.
I stop dead in my tracks but mistakenly blink, and the dream is over.