Chapter 30 - Nico
THIRTY
Nico
I’ll admit that it takes me a sec to go after Annie.
I do leave that damn room almost immediately after her, but it’s to get away from my worst fuckin’ nightmare—stares and whispers and a barrage of questions and glances at my crotch. I go to my own room to wage my own war in my own damn head. The arguments on both sides are equally loud.
This is exactly what you were fuckin’ worried about, and it’s only been eight days. Complicated, guarded, cryptic, mysterious Annie Li, who you thought you could trust.
There is no fuckin’ way Annie told anyone about you. Annie, who gave you all of herself. Who you gave all of your own damn self because you knew she’d guard it with her life. Fierce, loyal, protective Annie Li. Ali. My Annie Li. Annie “Whom I Love” Li.
I glance around my room. Housekeeping has been here twice, and the previous hurricane of this room, gold dress and heels and my new shirt and everything, is now perfect. Too perfect. The dress and shirt are side by side in the closet, shoes neatly arranged just underneath.
I hate it.
A flurry of images flashes through my mind.
Annie with the gold dress banded around her waist, hair cascading across the sheets, open, smiling, glowing, vulnerable and covered in me.
Annie with some kid’s snot on her arm. Annie verbally bodying Tom.
Annie physically bodying Tom. Annie protecting her sister, eyes flashing, hair everywhere. Annie defending… me.
Annie against the world. Annie, with no one on her team.
Except for maybe three people.
May.
Izzy Flores.
And me.
We’re the only ones who fuckin’ earned it.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I’ve gotta go chase Annie. I’ve gotta fight for her. I promised.
Maybe we’ll figure it out.
I pull out my phone and call her. It goes straight to voicemail. “Annie, honey. Where are you? Please call me,” I say. I send her a text with the same thing, stare at my phone, then hear the blood rush into my ears.
Undeliverable.
Fuck.
I jump off my bed and run to the elevator, and when the doors open… lo-and-behold. I step on anyway because I’m still feelin’ like I gotta murder this motherfucker.
“Nico,” says Tom.
“Don’t say my fuckin’ name,” I warn him.
He huffs a laugh. “It’s like that, then?”
I whirl around and face him with a newfound understanding of a “crime of passion.” I’ve got him on size, and I use it to get in his face. “Fuck you very, very much, man. I hope to never see you again.”
He lifts a snide fuckin’ eyebrow. “So you believe the crazy bitch, too.”
An oof, as Tom inexplicably finds himself strong-armed against the wall of the elevator. “Stop with the ‘crazy’ adjective use, asshole, because she was always right about you.”
He shakes his head. “I’d say I can’t wait for her to destroy your life, too, but I know you’re just her flavor of the week. She’s probably gone and left your ass already, anyway,” he sneers.
In saying this, he’s voiced my greatest fear. The elevator doors open to Annie’s floor, and I find myself being pulled to leave and find her and forget about this asshole for the rest of my life. So I step off.
“Lose my number,” I tell him, with barely suppressed rage. “And while you’re at it, lose May’s and Annie’s.”
He laughs, sharp and cutting, like what I said was fuckin’ hilarious. “I don’t have Annie’s number, anyway. Like she would ever, ever talk to me in any capacity about anything.”
Something about this makes me pause. Did Charlie tell him? No, from what I saw last night, Charlie would never speak to this asshole either.
I slap a hand on the door to keep it from closing. “How did you know about the porn thing, Tom?”
He laughs again, and it takes everything in me not to wipe the smug look off his face. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I think it’s pretty cool. You’re clearly making bank.”
“How did you know, Tom?”
“I’m on that porn site a lot,” he shrugs, like it’s a totally normal thing for someone with a fiancée to say. “You’re pretty popular. I see your content pop up all the time, and I recognize that weird duck tattoo you have.”
Everything inside me goes still while the ground shifts beneath me. Panic prickles at the edge of my vision.
I turn and stride away without another word.
She was telling the truth.
After forever, I bang on her door. “Annie.”
Nothing.
“Annie,” I yell, banging even harder.
I’m such a fuckin’ asshole.
I press my ear to the door. It’s silent.
“FUCK,” I scream at the ceiling.
I stride back to the elevator.
You stupid, stupid motherfuckin’ asshole. Of course she was tellin’ the fuckin’ truth.
I take the elevator to the roof, where I find the wedding planner.
“Where is Annie?” I all but yell at her.
“Whoa, dude, back up,” she says, frowning at me.
I take several deep breaths in a row. “I fuckin’ apologize. Have you seen Annie? May’s twin?”
She shakes her head. “She texted me a while ago and said the wedding was off. She asked me to take care of closing it down. But I haven’t seen her.”
I turn on my heel and go back to the elevator, adrenaline punching through my veins.
Of course she fuckin’ took care of things for May. OF COURSE SHE DIDN’T TELL TOM ABOUT YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKIN’ ASSHOLE.
I get to the bridal suite, the scene of my worst fuckin’ nightmare, but I could give two shits about who sees me right now. I bang on the door. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone in there? HEL—”
Izzy Flores opens the door with an equally panicked look in her eyes.
“Where’s Annie?” we both shout in tandem.
I peer behind her. The room is empty. “I don’t know,” I pant. “She’s not with me. My calls and texts aren’t going through to her.”
She gives me an inscrutable look. “I just got a text from her a minute ago that says, ‘I’m okay.’ I want to make sure she’s really okay.”
Something heavy settles behind my ribs. I’m out. I’m on the other side of the force field. “Where else have you checked?” I grit out.
“Her room and this room.”
“I checked the roof. She’s not there.”
We lock eyes, some sort of understanding passing between us. “Bar,” we say in tandem.
We move back towards the elevator. May’s fine, Izzy tells me. Well, not fine, but fine considering. She’s safe. It makes me worry about Annie even more.
“So,” she says, with an eyebrow raised. “Sex work, huh?”
I blow out a breath. Shrug.
“Where do you have your content?”
“Harlot.”
“Nice. What kind of stuff do you post?”
The tips of my ears burn up. “Uh…”
“Nico,” she says.
Her tone makes me look over.
“I’m sort of an escort. I get paid a disgusting amount of money to work for and occasionally have sex with people. I am not the person to be embarrassed in front of,” she tells me, matter-of-factly.
I blink.
What the fuck? I give Isabel Flores—fellow Mathletes champion, chess team co-president, and the third-ranked student of our high school class, right behind me and Annie—the full force of my attention.
She gives me a totally unbothered smile. Owning it.
My mouth hangs open and only briefly closes to form the word, “Wow.”
“Yep.”
“I…” Well, I guess there really is no reason to be embarrassed. “I cook,” I admit. “I cook naked, and I explain the food science behind everything I make.”
The grin that spreads across her face is slow and understanding. “No way.” She looks me up and down. “You’re the NakedReactions guy.”
I blink again. “Yes.”
She laughs and laughs. “I watch your videos with Annie and some friends.”
I blink again. “Are you part of that geriatric girl gang?”
“Yes!” She chuckles. “Betty and Fernanda. No way. That’s so awesome. Annie never told me.”
My chest hollows out. Of course, Annie didn’t even tell her best friend, who knows both NakedReactions and Nico Giannuzzi, that they were the same person. I bang my head against the wall of the elevator. “Fuck,” I mutter.
“Oh boy,” she says cheerfully, unaware of my internal struggle. “You definitely have nothing to be embarrassed about.”
When we get downstairs, I scan the room, not seeing her. My pulse climbs. I approach the bartender with all the grace of an angry rhinoceros. “Was there a gorgeous Asian woman here? All tatted up? Arms and chest and legs and shit?” Alongside some of my hickeys.
He eyes me. “Yeah.”
Every muscle in my body pulls tight, including my tongue. Izzy takes over and slams her hands on the bar. “What did she do? What happened? Did she look okay? Where did she go?”
The bartender shrugs. “She got a martini. I always remember orders.” He tilts his head and looks up towards the ceiling. “She was crying. Pretty hysterically actually.”
My pulse falters, skipping several beats.
“She was crying so hard that I was gonna go talk to her, but…”
“But what?!” I roar.
“Whoa, dude, chill—”
“If one more fuckin’ person tells me to chill, I’m gonna fuckin’ break something. What happened?”
He frowns. “I was gonna go over to her, but she got herself together pretty quickly.”
“And then?” Izzy shrieks.
The bartender looks at me with something that looks like fear. “She…”
“Dude,” I warn, the murder very evident in my voice.
“She went to talk to some guy. And then… they left together,” he finally says warily, like an apology.
It hits like a vacuum imploding. The air gets sucked out of the room, and everything collapses inward. Then I float—weightless, gutted, a single molecule drifting without a charge.
I don’t remember sitting, but suddenly I’m on a barstool.
“Annie,” Izzy yells. I look up. She’s on her phone, pacing. I lunge, but Izzy blocks me with her arm. She’s surprisingly strong. “Annie, I’m with Nico. We’re so worried about you. Where are you? Are you okay?”
Do not attack the small woman for her phone, I’m chanting in my head.
Izzy’s eyes flick to me before she turns away. “Okay,” she says. “Okay.”
I can no longer stand it. “Okay, what? Annie,” I yell towards the phone. “Baby. Honey—”
Izzy paces across the room with the phone. “Yeah,” she says. “Did you—okay. Okay.”