8.
Friday afternoon felt like moving underwater. Jessica was in her three-hour biology lab. I was alone, sitting on the floor of the living room, waiting for a deadline I couldn't meet.
Every creak of the floorboards outside in the hallway, every car door slamming in the street below, sent a spike of pure adrenaline straight into my heart.
Then came the pounding. Frantic fists hammering against the flimsy wood of the apartment door.
I scrambled backward, my heart leaping into my throat, pressing myself against the wall near the kitchenette. My breath came in short, panicked gasps. They're here, I thought. They found me.
"Sloane!"
The voice was muffled, cracking with panic. Fucking Tyler was banging on my door.
I crept toward the door, my legs feeling like lead, and peered through the peephole. Tyler was standing alone in the hallway, looking over his shoulder, his face slick with sweat. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. He looked destroyed.
I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open just enough to see him.
He didn't wait for an invitation. He pushed his way inside, slamming the door shut behind him and locking it with a trembling hand. He leaned his back against the wood, sliding down until he hit the floor, burying his face in his hands.
"I tried," he sobbed, the sound muffled by his palms. "Sloane, I swear to god I tried everything."
I stood over him, feeling nothing but a cold, hard detachment. I looked at the broad shoulders I used to find comfort in, the muscular arms that had failed to defend me, and I felt nothing but contempt.
"Tried what, Tyler?" I asked, my voice flat.
He looked up at me, his eyes red-rimmed and frantic.
"I went to the police," he babbled, the words spilling out in a panicked rush.
"I went to the station. But they said...
they said unless I confessed to illegal gambling and gave them names, they couldn't just offer protection based on a threat.
And if I confess, I lose everything anyway. "
He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, a pathetic gesture.
"I called my parents," he continued. "I begged them. But my dad just got laid off. They don't even have a thousand dollars, let alone forty. I went to the bank, Sloane. I tried to get a personal loan. The loan officer literally laughed in my face when they pulled my credit."
"Did you talk to Coach?" I asked, knowing the answer, knowing his cowardice.
"Are you insane?" Tyler snapped, a flash of defensive anger cutting through the panic. "If I tell Coach I owe a bookie forty grand, he pulls my scholarship today. I'm off the team. I'm off campus. I have nothing."
"You already have nothing, Tyler," I said quietly. "And now they're going to take me and make me pay for it."
Tyler flinched as if I had hit him. He dropped his head back between his knees, sobbing openly now. The sound was ugly and grating.
"No," he whimpered. "No, they aren't."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
Tyler slowly lifted his head. His face was streaked with tears, his eyes wild and desperate.
"I found a way," he whispered. "I fixed it."
"Fixed it how?"
"I went to the richest man I knew," Tyler said, his voice trembling. "I went to Mr. Davies' office downtown this morning. I begged him, Sloane. I got on my knees in his office and I begged him to bail me out."
Richard Davies.
The memory of his cold, appraising eyes in the hallway of his home flashed in my mind, so sharp and clear it was almost blinding. He saw how fucking desperate I was, long before Tyler royally fucked things up.
"You went to Richard Davies?" I breathed. "For forty thousand dollars?"
Tyler nodded frantically. "He said yes. He said he has the cash. We can pay them off tonight. The debt is clear."
The relief should have been instantaneous. The crushing weight of the bookie's threat should have vanished. But looking at Tyler's face, seeing the sick, guilty terror still lingering in his eyes, I knew it wasn't that simple.
"What's the catch, Tyler?" I asked. "Men like Richard Davies don't hand out forty grand to second-string safeties out of the goodness of their hearts. What does he want?"
Tyler couldn't look at me. He stared at the cheap linoleum floor of my kitchen.
"He ... he said he remembered you from the party," Tyler stammered, the words tumbling over each other. "He said he would pay the money tonight. But ..."
He stopped. He couldn’t say anything more.
"But what?" I demanded.
"He wants one hour with you," Tyler sobbed, burying his face in his hands again. "In his penthouse downtown. That's the price."
The room spun around me. I staggered—I actually staggered—backwards until my hips hit the edge of the kitchen counter. I gripped the laminate edge to keep from falling.
Forty thousand dollars for an hour?
A thousand dollars for a blowjob in a pool house had felt like a lot, and also an insult. But this ... this … well, I wasn’t quite sure what it was. A flattering valuation? A show of contempt for Tyler? A rich old man proving a point?
I remembered an old movie I saw year ago. Maybe I should hold out for a million.
"It's just an hour, Sloane," Tyler pleaded, looking up at me, desperation making him cruel. "One hour, and we're safe. We never have to see him again. He calls the guy, pays off my debt, and just like that, it's over and done. We’re good again. Life goes on."
Just like that.
He was full of shit.
Whatever was left of my feelings for him rotted into pure and toxic disgust. "You sold me," I said.
Tyler shrunk away from me, as if he were terrified of the look on my face. "There's one more thing," he said. "Richard said ... he said he won't do anything behind my back."
I froze. "What does that mean?"
"He said I have to be in the room," Tyler choked out, fresh tears spilling over his cheeks. "He said if he's buying my debt, I have to sit in a chair and watch."
The air left my lungs completely.
I didn’t understand why Richard Davies cared at all—maybe he was bored—but one thing was clear, he wasn’t only interested in fucking me.
Maybe he didn’t even want to fuck me at all.
It felt like this was between him and Tyler, like he wanted to destroy a younger, stronger man, and I was the way and means.
But what did it matter?
What choice did I have?
Still, I told myself, at least I wasn't going to a motel in the valley with thugs. I was going to a penthouse. To a man who owned two-million-dollar paintings. A man who seemed to have unlimited power.
I looked down at Tyler, cowering on my kitchen floor, weeping over his own weakness. And then I thought of Richard Davies' icy, dominant gaze.
"What time do we have to be there?" I asked.